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Bomb explodes at Jerusalem bus stop; 25 wounded

Gardener said:
and the first terrorist attack, too.

Calling terrorism militancy is an accepted p.c. sleight of hand these days, but there are many ways to be militant that do not involve attempts to murder innocent people en masse.
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I think you have a point.
 
Gardener said:
and the first terrorist attack, too.

Calling terrorism militancy is an accepted p.c. sleight of hand these days, but there are many ways to be militant that do not involve attempts to murder innocent people en masse.
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Militants - Nongovernment actors who use violence to achieve their political goals.
Terrorists - Any militants whom we don't like.
 
Kandahar said:
Militants - Nongovernment actors who use violence to achieve their political goals.
Terrorists - Any militants whom we don't like.
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You should look up the definition of "twaddle" while you are at it.
 
Kandahar said:
If Netanyahu was smart, he wouldn't respond with military action in the West Bank. Sadly, I doubt he's that smart.
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I strongly disagree. Inaction would lead to a further erosion in deterrence and an increase in the frequency and magnitude of terrorist activity.

Hamas has likely calculated that Israel's domestic political challenges (internal infighting in Israel's government, weak coalition, corruption trials, worries about external regional developments, etc.) makes a strong Israeli response less likely. Hence, by those calculations Hamas believes that the cost-benefit calculus is a little more favorable. It is exploiting what it sees as an opportunity. In general, as long as a would-be aggressor believes that its target cannot or will not respond sufficiently strongly--even if the target can or would respond strongly--it won't be deterred from carrying out acts of aggression.

Hamas' calculations appear to be evolving along those lines. The recent attacks (barrage of rockets and now the bombing in Jerusalem) are efforts to probe Israel's response to a variety of terrorist attacks. While a Cast Lead-scale operation is not needed, Israel needs to respond with enough force to fundamentally alter Hamas' current calculations in order to re-establish deterence. Otherwise, Hamas will incrementally ratchet up its attacks, and down the road another military operation on the scale of Cast Lead (or even larger if Hamas gains access to more destructive weaponry) would be required. That would be bad for Israel and for Gaza's residents who are trapped in a territory controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization. Re-establishing deterrence would be in the mutual benefit of Israel's people and Gaza's residents.
 
dontworrybehappy said:
...except thread bans, for some reason. Those are out for the world to see.
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Moderator's Warning:
There's a glitch in the software that makes it impossible to keep members who have been thread-banned out of the threads from which they have been banned. Sometimes members don't regularly read their PMs. Hence, a thread-banned member might continue to post in the thread, wind up being infracted for doing so, and then plead to have the infraction overturned on grounds that he/she didn't see the PM by the time he/she had posted. Therefore, to avoid that issue, PMs and public notice are given.
 
Gardener said:
You should look up the definition of "twaddle" while you are at it.
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Let's not pretend that it isn't true, or that the term "terrorist" is more honest. It only gets applied to groups that are the enemies of the US government. Rebels against Gaddafi? Brave freedom fighters. KLA violence against Serbs? Collateral damage in the struggle for democracy. Hamas attacks on Israelis? Evil terrorists!!!11

There are atrocities from MANY militant groups. So spare us the "militant is just a PC term for terrorists" twaddle.
 
The guy I am seeing is going to Israel, and this is making me nervous for him....
 
Kandahar said:
Let's not pretend that it isn't true, or that the term "terrorist" is more honest. It only gets applied to groups that are the enemies of the US government. Rebels against Gaddafi? Brave freedom fighters. KLA violence against Serbs? Collateral damage in the struggle for democracy. Hamas attacks on Israelis? Evil terrorists!!!11

There are atrocities from MANY militant groups. So spare us the "militant is just a PC term for terrorists" twaddle.
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You are just playing the extreme relativism game. I find this sort of convenient relativism very sophomoric.

Terrorism has a meaning, and unlike your silly claims, the meaning is not dependent upon who is committing violence, but upon the nature and target of the violence. If a group attacks a military target, they are engaged in guerilla warfare. If they attack civilians because they are civilians, they are engaging in terrorism.

As to my original point, however, just because you make up your own meanings, that does not make such meanings valid. Here are some various definitions for the word "Militant"


define:militant - Google Search

Now, you may wish to conflate that with terrorism in order to rationalize and normalize terrorism, but why you would do that is anybody's guess.
 
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A 59 year old woman had died from her wounds and there are 3 more injured who are fighting for their lives out of a total of 40 wounded civilians.
 
donsutherland1 said:
I strongly disagree. Inaction would lead to a further erosion in deterrence and an increase in the frequency and magnitude of terrorist activity.
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What is the purpose of this kind of attack? It can't be a coincidence that it occurred just as reconciliation talks are beginning between Hamas and Fatah, and just as the Arab Spring has reached Gaza. The people who ordered this attack (probably Hamas, but maybe one of Palestine's smaller terrorist groups) know perfectly well that they aren't going to bring down the State of Israel by blowing up a bus here and there.

The purpose of this attack is to invite an Israeli response. That's the sole goal of it. Why give them what they want?

donsutherland1 said:
Hamas has likely calculated that Israel's domestic political challenges (internal infighting in Israel's government, weak coalition, corruption trials, worries about external regional developments, etc.) makes a strong Israeli response less likely. Hence, by those calculations Hamas believes that the cost-benefit calculus is a little more favorable. It is exploiting what it sees as an opportunity. In general, as long as a would-be aggressor believes that its target cannot or will not respond sufficiently strongly--even if the target can or would respond strongly--it won't be deterred from carrying out acts of aggression.
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The "cost/benefit calculus" to which you refer doesn't make any sense if they aren't expecting an Israeli response, because there *is* no benefit to Hamas. A bus full of dead Jews doesn't get them anything material. Give Hamas a little more credit than that. They're violent, but they're just as adept in realpolitik as anyone in the Middle East.

donsutherland1 said:
Hamas' calculations appear to be evolving along those lines. The recent attacks (barrage of rockets and now the bombing in Jerusalem) are efforts to probe Israel's response to a variety of terrorist attacks. While a Cast Lead-scale operation is not needed, Israel needs to respond with enough force to fundamentally alter Hamas' current calculations in order to re-establish deterence. Otherwise, Hamas will incrementally ratchet up its attacks, and down the road another military operation on the scale of Cast Lead (or even larger if Hamas gains access to more destructive weaponry) would be required. That would be bad for Israel and for Gaza's residents who are trapped in a territory controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization. Re-establishing deterrence would be in the mutual benefit of Israel's people and Gaza's residents.
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What you've completely overlooked is the fact that Gazans are taking to the streets in protest of Hamas' rule, and/or in demand that they reconcile with the Fatah. This is the biggest challenge to their authority in several years. Now is hardly the time to be "probing Israel's response to a variety of terrorist attacks" unless they WANT to get a strong response.
 
liblady said:
yeah, i realize that now.......:doh

i was infracted very recently so i'm sensitive. poor me!
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I know how it feels, a certain mod is using me for his personal bop bag.
m219391534.jpg
 
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donsutherland1 said:
I strongly disagree. Inaction would lead to a further erosion in deterrence and an increase in the frequency and magnitude of terrorist activity.

Hamas has likely calculated that Israel's domestic political challenges (internal infighting in Israel's government, weak coalition, corruption trials, worries about external regional developments, etc.) makes a strong Israeli response less likely. Hence, by those calculations Hamas believes that the cost-benefit calculus is a little more favorable. It is exploiting what it sees as an opportunity. In general, as long as a would-be aggressor believes that its target cannot or will not respond sufficiently strongly--even if the target can or would respond strongly--it won't be deterred from carrying out acts of aggression.

Hamas' calculations appear to be evolving along those lines. The recent attacks (barrage of rockets and now the bombing in Jerusalem) are efforts to probe Israel's response to a variety of terrorist attacks. While a Cast Lead-scale operation is not needed, Israel needs to respond with enough force to fundamentally alter Hamas' current calculations in order to re-establish deterence. Otherwise, Hamas will incrementally ratchet up its attacks, and down the road another military operation on the scale of Cast Lead (or even larger if Hamas gains access to more destructive weaponry) would be required. That would be bad for Israel and for Gaza's residents who are trapped in a territory controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization. Re-establishing deterrence would be in the mutual benefit of Israel's people and Gaza's residents.
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Being hit by rockets are good for the Gaza residents? Or for the Israelis resident within the range of the "retaliatory" strike back by the Palestinians? :shock:
 
Gardener said:
You are just playing the extreme relativism game. I find this sort of convenient relativism very sophomoric.

Terrorism has a meaning, and unlike your silly claims, the meaning is not dependent upon who is committing violence, but upon the nature and target of the violence. If a group attacks a military target, they are engaged in guerilla warfare. If they attack civilians because they are civilians, they are engaging in terrorism.

As to my original point, however, just because you make up your own meanings, that does not make such meanings valid. Here are some various definitions for the word "Militant"


define:militant - Google Search

Now, you may wish to conflate that with terrorism in order to rationalize and normalize terrorism, but why you would do that is anybody's guess.
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Saying it's done by "militants" doesn't lessen the impact of the killings. People who try to categorise the killings as "innocent" vs "collateral damage" are the ones trying to rationalise away the killings. America drops bombs that has killed thousand of innocents - to you that's war and collateral damage, to the family of those people, what's the difference between getting killed in their village VS in a bus to work? Why wouldn't they think Americans are the terrorists? At the end of the day, labels like terrorists are meant to classify the "good guy" VS the "bad guy" to some people, once you see through it, they mean nothing.
 
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Gardener said:
In the case of Arab Palestinians, I would say as long as they have the world eating out of the palm of their hands like they are.
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if the world is eating out of the palm of their hands like you say then why did they stand by and watch silently during operation cast lead while Palestinian children were being killed? the world knew this was happening, they saw it every day while it was going on.

1,385 Palestinians were killed, 762 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. of these, 318 were minors under age 18. More than 5,300 Palestinians were wounded, of them over 350 seriously. three Israeli civilians and one member of the Israeli security forces were killed and dozens were wounded. nine soldiers were killed within the Gaza Strip, four by friendly fire. more than 100 soldiers were wounded, one critically and 20 moderately to seriously.
 
liblady said:
i can't remember a time like this........yemen, egypt, israel, (well, always israel), libya, iraq, syria, afghanistan, lebanon...........bahrain.
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Get your helmet on your going to be drafted..you maam will save the world:)
 
Serenity said:
if the world is eating out of the palm of their hands like you say then why did they stand by and watch silently during operation cast lead while Palestinian children were being killed? the world knew this was happening, they saw it every day while it was going on.

1,385 Palestinians were killed, 762 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. of these, 318 were minors under age 18. More than 5,300 Palestinians were wounded, of them over 350 seriously. three Israeli civilians and one member of the Israeli security forces were killed and dozens were wounded. nine soldiers were killed within the Gaza Strip, four by friendly fire. more than 100 soldiers were wounded, one critically and 20 moderately to seriously.
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Tit for tat ands body counts accomplish nothing along with finger pointing, both sides have their bones in closet and more so on the Palistenean side currently. As long as the Palisteans insist on pulling the bull by the tail it will get the horn, but we all know this isn't necessary. Palisteans are pawns in the larger scheme of things, you need some one to blame..blame Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran and a few others. I get this feeling things are ready to pop and a house cleaning coming.
 
nonpareil said:
Saying it's done by "militants" doesn't lessen the impact of the killings. People who try to categorise the killings as "innocent" vs "collateral damage" are the ones trying to rationalise away the killings. America drops bombs that has killed thousand of innocents - to you that's war and collateral damage, to the family of those people, what's the difference between getting killed in their village VS in a bus to work? Why wouldn't they think Americans are the terrorists? At the end of the day, labels like terrorists are meant to classify the "good guy" VS the "bad guy" to some people, once you see through it, they mean nothing.
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Then according to you people shouldn't throw the label murderer either at people who deliberately kill innocent people, and instead we should treat them the same as we do with people who accidently cause the deaths of other people. For example, a person who crashed into another person's car and killed him in a road accident will be called the same as a person who sneaks into a person's house and murders him with multiple knife stabs as he's sleeping.

Admit it, there is no logic to your claims here that there is no difference between terrorism and an accidental cause of death during war. It's merely because of a radical political agenda that you choose to promote such illogical claims to begin with.
 
liblady said:
i can't remember a time like this........yemen, egypt, israel, (well, always israel), libya, iraq, syria, afghanistan, lebanon...........bahrain.
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That's why I wonder if it is a cascading effect or conspiracy. Who would benefit from chaos all over the ME? al Qaeda, Islamic Brotherhood?
 
StillBallin75 said:
Right, I was just correcting J-mac who seemed to be a bit confused about the wording in the article.
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I was confused about nothing SB. See the semantic game of naming a particular city, rather than speak about the entirety of the attacks which have been unceasing for some Israeli children's entire lives, and which Israel recently has been retaliating for, to which the truth of the story should be that some palestinian who was in country set this bomb not killing military targets as the Israelis targeted, but rather set it for maximum innocent lives to be killed. However, what do we get from the MSM? Oh, its the first attack, as if the narrative is that the Israelis are just over there attacking a peaceful people indiscriminately. It is pure BS!


j-mac
 
j-mac said:
I was confused about nothing SB. See the semantic game of naming a particular city, rather than speak about the entirety of the attacks which have been unceasing for some Israeli children's entire lives, and which Israel recently has been retaliating for, to which the truth of the story should be that some palestinian who was in country set this bomb not killing military targets as the Israelis targeted, but rather set it for maximum innocent lives to be killed. However, what do we get from the MSM? Oh, its the first attack, as if the narrative is that the Israelis are just over there attacking a peaceful people indiscriminately. It is pure BS!


j-mac
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The article clearly states it was the first attack on Jerusalem in a few years. The article is about the attack in Jerusalem, why would they write an article covering the entire history of terrorist attacks in Israel when they're covering just one event? Or do you think every article about terrorism in Israel should come with a comprehensive history?
 
spud_meister said:
The article clearly states it was the first attack on Jerusalem in a few years.
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the article is biased.

why would they write an article covering the entire history of terrorist attacks in Israel when they're covering just one event?
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context, isn't that what you libs scream every time you get busted?

Or do you think every article about terrorism in Israel should come with a comprehensive history?
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Comprehensive history? nah, but it would be helpful not to paint Israel as the chief instigator in a story where their own citizens got slaughtered needlessly.


j-mac
 
j-mac said:
the article is biased.
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Yes, it is, but not because it mentions this is the first attack in a few years, that's just an odd fact.

context, isn't that what you libs scream every time you get busted?
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:roll:

Comprehensive history? nah, but it would be helpful not to paint Israel as the chief instigator in a story where their own citizens got slaughtered needlessly.


j-mac
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What in the phrase "in what appeared to be the first militant attack in the city in several years." paints Israel as the instogator?
 
spud_meister said:
Yes, it is, but not because it mentions this is the first attack in a few years, that's just an odd fact.
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Ok, what do you see it biases to be?

:roll:
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roll your eyes all you want, fact is fact.

What in the phrase "in what appeared to be the first militant attack in the city in several years." paints Israel as the instogator?
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That in itself is just the first sign....but you know that already and are employing a rather transparent tactic....It should be named the "Wha....? Nooooo...." tactic. A fallacy. now if you really want to talk about the despicable act that some Palestinian carried out on innocents then by all means, but at least find a fair article to start from.


j-mac
 
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