Transnistria, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine. Not really peaceful.

> Try doing that as an Israeli civilian in a bomb shelter, hearing Hezbollah/Hamas rockets explode in your city.

As an Israeli civilian I say: if you hear rockets explode you chose a wrong city to live at.

You have to understand that Gaza is kind of concentration camp and significant portion of Gaza population are arabs forcefully displaced from villages in Gaza-Ashdod-BeerSheba triangle. Do you expect them to just agree with "facts on the ground" and do nothing?

If it's acceptable for them, who am I to judge?

Election after election they vote for the party (Likud) that does consider Hamas a viable partner, transfers them hundreds of millions USD in cash and refuses to support any alternative government in Gaza.

Your comment revealed the complete breakdown of these necessary elements.

As someone who has enormous sympathy for the suffering of the Jewish people, and Israel as a response to that, I do hope that there are very few of you in Israel.

Otherwise, Israel will disintegrate, and you will discover that when you demonstrate smug selfish indifference to rockets hitting your fellow citizens, those same rockets will eventually hit you too.

You do understand, that Israel was established by people, who didn't suffer in Holocaust, but still demanded retribution from Arabs, who weren't responsible for Holocaust, right?

A lot of Holocaust survivors were afraid to admit it until 90-ties for the reason they were considered sub-humans by fellow Israelis.

> sense of common identity

Please, be kind and explain to me, what common identity can be between me, secular son of Ashkenazi Jew, and minister Deri, Moroccan Arab of Jewish religion, who considers my father as good as dead since he married my non-jewish mother?

The US is home to 350,000,000 people. If you gather the craziest of these in one small place, you'll have enough force to storm a (poorly defended) Capitol.

The US always had various fringe, a-social and anti-social groups. Still, Americans do largely share a sense of identity, especially against a common external threat. To judge by some of the comments here, perhaps to a greater extent than Israeli society currently does.

"In the fighting, 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed while on the Israeli side 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56249927

"It is among just four countries that have never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a landmark international accord meant to stop the spread of nuclear arms." https://apnews.com/article/secret-israel-nuclear-constructio...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/1/15/israel-evicting-pal...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-intelli...

Did Israel use white phosphorus on civilian targets in gaza?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2009/01/israel-used-w...

Doesn't seem "outright false" to me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_munitions

Key quote:

The Chemical Weapons Convention, sometimes invoked in discussions of WP usage, is meant to prohibit weapons that are "dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare" (Article II, Definitions, 9, "Purposes not Prohibited" c.). The convention defines a "toxic chemical" as a substance "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals" (CWC, II). An annex lists chemicals that are restricted under the convention, and WP is not listed in the Schedules of chemical weapons or precursors.

The fact that an American intelligence analyst once during the Gulf War miscategorized WP as a "chemical weapon" when Saddam Hussein used it doesn't change its listing under international law.

So, yes, the claim is false.

> No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application that does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.

> If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the convention legitimate use.

> If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that, of course, is prohibited, because the way the convention is structured or applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.

~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Dropping white phosphorus during the daytime (when the illumination features of WP aren't needed) on a school in a dense urban environment is pretty clearly the case where it's considered to be a chemical weapon.

The annex lists chemicals understood to be chemical weapons under the convention, but it doesn't purport to be a complete list, only a set of some examples.

Also, even Amnesty International mentions that the purpose wasn't "illumination" — which would be ridiculous — the purpose was camouflage (which is apparently a typical use case).

Camouflage isn't a valid use of chemical weapons on a dense population when the arguments are taken as a whole. Even Mustard Gas works as a camouflage, it'd mean the whole convention is pretty much unenforceable.

Edit: the entire Gaza War started with Hamas firing rockets packed with incendiary chemicals into dense Israeli urban environments. I would say many things about Hamas, but I would not say that Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israel. I suppose if you believe Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israelis, you may certainly believe Israel has done the same. But I think your definition of chemical weapons is significantly broader than international law. AFAIK neither side has done this.

Here's a better complete overview of the topic: https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/25/rain-fire/israels-unla...

Edit in response to your edit: It's not the incindiary part of WP that's an issue, it's the chemical toxicity to humans and animals. Hamas has not used anything approaching chemical weapons by any definition against Israel, despite your attempt to deflect.

Hamas rockets have in fact been filled with white phosphorus, literally exactly the same substance you're talking about, and fired at Israeli cities, intentionally, in attempts to kill Israeli civilians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_o...

I assume you've been misinformed, or only presented with information from a specific side. But literally both Hamas and Israel have used white phosphorous. That's not a matter of debate, it's just a fact.

International law doesn't consider WP a chemical weapon, which is why no one claims Hamas has used chemical weapons against Israel. It's also why your claim that Israel used chemical weapons against Hamas is incorrect.

One of the citations from that line on the wiki page has

> Haim Yelin, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, added: "Everyone criticized Israel for the weapons it's been using, but we must realize that the other side is using illegal weapons."

So, yes, people including Israelis claim that the use of WP is a chemical weapon and illegal.

You get how taking unexploded munitions and sending them back over is a different thing than using them originally in the first place, no?

I admit to being a bit suspicious that this quote claims anything about "chemical weapons." What the international community has criticized Hamas for, as per the wiki page, is indiscriminately firing rockets at civilian areas — which is illegal. They used white phosphorus in the rockets as well, but even prior to that, as per the wiki page they were filling rockets with TNT and explosive fertilizers, which use their chemical properties (of explosion) to kill people too. So if chemical properties of lighting on fire count as "chemical weapons" (they don't though), I think the chemical properties of TNT would suffice as well.

As per numerous [1] articles [2] and sources [3] the international community does not even consider Israel to have ever revealed owning chemical weapons (although it is suspected that they do); if white phosphorus was considered a chemical weapon, there would be no question: Israel has publicly used it, and publicly admitted to using and owning it [4]. Your claim is just incorrect.

Edit: even the Human Rights Watch article you linked disagrees with you! It criticizes Israel's use of white phosphorous because it violates international law on indiscriminate weapons use — the same laws Hamas broke with its rocket attacks — and specifically says that white phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon. Quote:

White phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon and is not banned per se. But like all weapons its use is restricted by the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: it must be used in a manner that adequately distinguishes between combatants and civilians, and it may never target the latter.

I think this is the end of the discussion. Even the sources you have tried to provide contradict your claim that Israel used "chemical weapons" on Gazans.

1:https://theconversation.com/is-it-time-for-israel-to-reveal-...

2: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/10/exclusive-does-israel-h...

3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_d...

4: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22310544

You and others are obsessively focused on any collateral damage caused by Israel which is trying to defend its citizens against deliberate rocket attacks launched by terrorists from civilian population. Meanwhile, you ignore far more egregious violations by the enemies of Israel, like Syria.

You use hyperbolic and unjustified language to condemn Israel for using weapons nobody considers "chemical weapons".

This is bias, pure and simple. Some of you have been brainwashed to obsessively hate Israel. Others were Antisemitic to begin with. Either way, you are now prejudiced.

~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Yes, people consider WP a chemical weapon. It's been cited several times from several different sources from authorities on the matter.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-intelli...

I also condemn in the strongest terms the US's use of WP in urban areas which I also consider a war crime (and several others do as well).

As far as Syria or any other, why do you think I accept their chemical weapon use? But just because someone else is using chemical weapons doesn't give Israel a pass.