Israel, Palestine and Iran

[bickster]

12 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Netanyahu and Israel funded Hamas

Do you mean Israel allowed the transfer of money to Gaza from Qatar? About half of which went to Hamas?

Or is there some link where Netanyahu directly funded Hamas himself or with Israeli Government funds.

The two things are VERY different.

[Jareth]

13 minutes ago, bickster said:

Do you mean Israel allowed the transfer of money to Gaza from Qatar? About half of which went to Hamas?

Or is there some link where Netanyahu directly funded Hamas himself or with Israeli Government funds.

The two things are VERY different.

Ok - point taken. Israel who spend an awful lot of time, blockading things like aid, decided not to block money and actively pursued as a strategy the redirection of money to Hamas. They funded Hamas, by allowing Hamas to be funded - their executive decision, not anyone else's. If that's wrong - I'll happily refine it again.

[Jareth]

Here's Netanyahu's words again - reposted from previous post, a transcription of Baroness Warsi on QT.

"anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the bolstering of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas, this is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza, from the Palestinians in the West Bank." 

[Jareth]

It's a bit different from Oh we sent aid - our bad.

[magnkarl]

Most of Hamas' funding doesn't go into Gaza though, it goes into their many shell companies, they own whole blocks of flats in Turkey and have invested a reported 500 million dollars in real estate around the world. In order to prevent this the EU sent in piping to give the population water, installed it and got water flowing, as soon as Hamas could they ripped this up and converted it into rockets.

Hamas is as good for Palestine as Benny is for Israel.

[omariqy]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

Most of Hamas' funding doesn't go into Gaza though, it goes into their many shell companies, they own whole blocks of flats in Turkey and have invested a reported 500 million dollars in real estate around the world. In order to prevent this the EU sent in piping to give the population water, installed it and got water flowing, as soon as Hamas could they ripped this up and converted it into rockets.

Hamas is as good for Palestine as Benny is for Israel.

Genuinely would love to see the source on this. Likewise if you could quote that video you mentioned. Like I said I’m interested in hearing all sides of the argument etc 

[magnkarl]

45 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Genuinely would love to see the source on this. Likewise if you could quote that video you mentioned. Like I said I’m interested in hearing all sides of the argument etc 

Inside the gleaming developments that made Hamas a $1bn terror group

Hamas in Turkey: Money Laundering, Turkish Passports, Government Collusion and Terror Bank Accounts

Quote

On May 24, according to the US Treasury Department, the United States imposed sanctions on a Hamas finance official as well as a network of financial facilitators and companies that generated revenue for the terror group.

The sanctions target Hamas's Investment Office, which holds assets estimated to be worth more than $500 million. This includes companies operating in Turkey, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates, again according to a statement issued by the US Treasury Department.

Hamas has generated vast sums of revenue through its secret investment portfolio while destabilizing Gaza, which is facing harsh living and economic conditions. Hamas maintains a violent agenda that harms both Israelis and Palestinians. The United States is committed to denying Hamas the ability to generate and move funds and to holding Hamas accountable for its role in promoting and carrying out violence in the region.

Here's your video of Hamas\PIJ presence in Jenin. I've hidden it as it is graphic.

Spoiler

 

EU funded water pipelines despite Hamas boast it could turn them into rockets

Quote

European Union is continuing aid to Palestinians amid growing fears over how it is being used

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by magnkarl

[omariqy]

47 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Inside the gleaming developments that made Hamas a $1bn terror group

Hamas in Turkey: Money Laundering, Turkish Passports, Government Collusion and Terror Bank Accounts

Here's your video of Hamas\PIJ presence in Jenin. I've hidden it as it is graphic.

  Hide contents

 

EU funded water pipelines despite Hamas boast it could turn them into rockets

 

Thanks will have a read when I’m back from work.

Btw this is what I was referring to earlier re the soldier reading out the calendar 

 

[meregreen]

Then why are Hamas gunmen exchanging gunfire there. 

[bickster]

On 18/10/2023 at 07:29, Awol said:

The main headquarters of Hamas in Gaza is dug in under the Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza - the biggest medical centre in the city. This is public information. Hamas works from structures protected under IHL for a reason… 

FAO @omariqy

Note the date of this post I'm quoting. It is way before the hospital came under attack. Al-Shifa has been known to have Hamas HQ underneath it for a very long time.

[omariqy]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

FAO @omariqy

Note the date of this post I'm quoting. It is way before the hospital came under attack. Al-Shifa has been known to have Hamas HQ underneath it for a very long time.

Thanks Bickster. Yes I have seen that numerous times. These articles are well timed in that respect

 

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231114-israel-hamas-war-al-shifa-hospital-becomes-focus-of-conflicting-narratives

 

Quote

Israel-Hamas war: Al Shifa Hospital becomes focus of conflicting narratives

Fighting has reached the gates of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza: Israeli ground troops have almost fully encircled the medical buildings which it says sit above Hamas’s underground headquarters in Gaza City. Hamas and hospital staff deny the claims and say Israeli forces have trapped patients and civilians inside in dire conditions. 

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231114-al-shifa-has-become-a-mass-grave-gaza-hospital-director-tells-france-24

Quote

‘Al Shifa has become a mass grave,’ Gaza hospital director tells FRANCE 24

Health officials in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip say all hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are now out of service as Israel presses its offensive against the Islamist militant group. FRANCE 24 spoke to the head of Al Shifa hospital about the desperate situation at Gaza’s largest medical facility, which has become a focal point of the five-week-old war.

Doctors Without Borders and other Hospital Staff have continuously claimed that they have seen no evidence of Hamas in the hospital. Now whether that means there is anything going underground then I don’t know. I’d hazard a guess and say it’s entirely plausible and more than probable. Regardless as weve seen time and time again Israel has deliberately targeting civilians, journalists and their families throughout this last month and over the last however many years. Nothing justifies that imo. I always think whether they would do the same if Hamas were hiding under an Israeli hospital. As we’ve seen Israel and the US lie time and time again. Hamas are no friends of the Palestinians so you have to rely on eye witness testimony in the main. That is until independent verification happens. 

[bickster]

@omariqy This article is from 2014 in Tablet, it references other comments by journalists pre-2010 even. There is more in the article than this extract. Note the emboldened bit. The Israelis built the bunker under the hospital in 1983

Quote

The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk.

So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa Hospital as a command post making headlines? In part, it’s because the location is so un-secret that Hamas regularly meets with reporters there. On July 15, for example, William Booth of the Washington Post wrote that the hospital “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Back in 2006, PBS even aired a documentary showing how gunmen roam the halls of the hospital, intimidate the staff, and deny them access to protected locations within the building—where the camera crew was obviously prohibited from filming. Yet the confirmation that Hamas is using Gaza City’s biggest hospital as its de facto headquarters was made in the last sentence of the eighth paragraph of Booth’s story—which would appear to be the kind of rookie mistake that is known in journalistic parlance as “burying the lede.”

But Booth is no rookie—he’s an experienced foreign reporter, which means that he buried the lede on purpose. Why? Well, one reason might be that the “security sources” quoted whenever the location of the Hamas command bunker is mentioned—which, as evidenced by this 2009 article by the excellent and highly experienced foreign correspondent Steven Erlanger of the New York Times, happens every time there’s a war in Gaza—are obviously Israelis, not members of Hamas. It might be hard to believe the Israelis, the simple logic might run, since they obviously have an investment in arguing that Hamas is using hospitals and schools as human shields.

The Israelis are so sure about the location of the Hamas bunker, however, not because they are trying to score propaganda points, or because it has been repeatedly mentioned in passing by Western reporters—but because they built it. Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital—which is one among several reasons why Israeli security sources are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2 of the Hospital, which reporters are obviously prohibited from entering.

Hamas obviously has no interest in having a photo-layout of one of its command bunkers beneath Shifa Hospital splashed on the front pages of newspapers. After all, such pictures would show that the organization uses the sick and wounded of Gaza as human shields while launching missiles against Israeli civilians. What Hamas wants is for reporters to use very different pictures from Shifa—namely, photos of Palestinians killed and wounded by Israelis, which make Palestinians look like innocent victims of wanton Israeli brutality.[...]

 

[omariqy]

14 minutes ago, bickster said:

@omariqy This article is from 2014 in Tablet, it references other comments by journalists pre-2010 even. There is more in the article than this extract. Note the emboldened bit. The Israelis built the bunker under the hospital in 1983

 

Thanks I’ll have read but I got accused of quoting biased media and tablet magazine is definitely in that camp. I’ll reserve judgement till I have read it. 

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Thanks I’ll have read but I got accused of quoting biased media and tablet magazine is definitely in that camp. I’ll reserve judgement till I have read it. 

Sure its biased. Do you think they've been setting this up for in excess of a decade to bomb Al-Shifa hospital?

Scepticism is fine, it should be the default position but this is something that has been in the public domain for a very long time. That's why I posted it, the bias of the publication isn't that relevant here, just that the knowledge has been out there for a considerable time. Those journalists and doctors on the ground denying it, are doing that for a reason

[chrisp65]

Anybody on here feeling the Israel response is still proportionate in any way? Or that they can ever permanently dismantle Hamas?

Support for the ethnic cleansing appears to be beginning to weaken now internationally as the lack of a plan becomes more obvious even to the most strident political supporter of the bombing to date.

 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Anybody on here feeling the Israel response is still proportionate in any way?

Nope

[omariqy]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

Sure its biased. Do you think they've been setting this up for in excess of a decade to bomb Al-Shifa hospital?

Scepticism is fine, it should be the default position but this is something that has been in the public domain for a very long time. That's why I posted it, the bias of the publication isn't that relevant here, just that the knowledge has been out there for a considerable time. Those journalists and doctors on the ground denying it, are doing that for a reason

No of course I understand and like I’ve said I’m fully aware of Hamas and how they work.

 

[El Segundo]

7 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Really? Finally a good old AS trope.

Your video shows someone being targeted by a drone in an area where Hezbollah have been launching ordinance at Israel\Syria in the last 5 weeks. What is it you are trying to say here?

 

Really? And finally a good old AS accusation trope.

So let me get it straight, it's ok to dismiss sources as pro-Hamas or Pro-Iran, and that's not anti-Arab or anti-Islamic or anti-anything?.

On the other hand casting doubt on sources for alleged Israeli connections is anti-Semitic? Even though the poster specifies Israel, not the Jewish people as a whole?

Just checking like, cos it seems somewhat hypocritical to me, not to mention unfounded.     

[ender4]

This sentence in the quote made me laugh…Why would you want to live in Blackpool when you could be in Gaza!

Quote

Blackpool family who fled Gaza fear for those left behind.

A British family who fled Gaza with only a small suitcase between six of them have said they do not know what the future now holds and they fear for the lives of those left behind.

Emad Abuaassi and his wife Stephanie moved to Gaza from Blackpool a year ago...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-67407151

Edited November 14, 2023 by ender4

[Keyblade]

8 hours ago, omariqy said:

This is what we are up against in terms of propaganda 

 

 

This is actually quite funny. Her Arabic is atrocious and she can't quite nail the English Arabic accent either without her real accent bleeding through.