qeltar

It's impossible to argue reasonably with someone who thinks her security is the only thing that matters. Someone who honestly believes that even the *slightest* chance of arms being on a boat justifies throwing international law in the toilet and murdering civilians is simply not rational. She admits that there were other ways this could have been handled, but still thinks the action was justified, even though people were killed for no reason. That's immoral. If romy ever wonders why her nation is despised, she need look no further than her own posts. When you publicly declare your needs, wants and concerns to be more important than everyone else's, you get hated. Simple as that. It has taken a lo t to get me to be very negative towards Israel but the country and its people have managed to accomplish that over the last decade or so. The reason the people who defend Israel in this case are called "Israeli apologists" is because there is no reasonable, logical justification for what Israel did. Not one single valid argument has been made so far as to why Israel could not have handled this in a way that prevented bloodshed. What the IDF did here is the equivalent of seeing a guy walking up to your doorstep that you don't know, and when you call out to him to stop and he refuses, putting a bullet between his eyes while not even trying to find any reasonable, decent way of handling the situation. No, it's worse -- it's like shooting him on a public sidewalk because he *might* walk up to your doorstep. There was no justification for what happened here. Willingness to sacrifice one's own rights for the sake of "security" is the sign of a coward. Willingness to sacrifice others' rights for the sake of "security" is the sign of a tyrant. Unfortunately, it appears the Israelis are becoming both.

So in your mind the mere act of refusing to give in to Israeli demands -- while in international waters, note -- justifies a death sentence being imposed on those who refuse, with the Israeli military acting as judge, jury and executioner? That's pretty sad. This is the single biggest PR blunder in Israeli history. Not only do they come across looking like the bad guys -- which is basically because they are, in this case -- they have put the entire Gaza operation in jeopardy, risked relations with their most important Muslim ally, alienated the US just as Netanyahu was about to come visit, and greatly increased the chances of a new major war in the region. World support for Israel is dropping to new lows, Hamas, Turkey and Iran are all emboldened, and the IDF look like a bunch of idiotic thugs incapable of doing anything without messing it up. If you think this is handling a situation well, I'd hate to see what you consider to be handling a situation poorly!

You're forgetting you're saying that right now, when you know all that you do, what the ship contained, what it's specific intents were, etc. Wrong, sorry. What I said was based on both the law and on intelligent handling of these sorts of situations. Not on what the ship contained. I have said from the start that it didn't matter what the ship contained. *You* were trying to justify Israel's actions based on what you, or they, *thought* it contained. It was wrong for them to storm the ship, period. Whether or not it had any contraband on it. A reasonable person, faced with a situation with many unknowns, would use caution and wait until they knew more, only taking aggressive action as a last resort when it became absolutely necessary. You are standing here with a straight face instead arguing that since the IDF had a "lack of knowledge", they were justified in carrying out a military assault on a civilian ship? The mind boggles. If you think something else should have been done, saying you would have done the same thing means you knew it was a bad idea but would do it anyway? Or you think one of the most renowned military and intelligence organizations in the world couldn't figure out how to properly handle a protest ship? Again: Boggle. Well, glad we *finally* got that "they had no choice" bullcrap out of the way. :) Well, if the people in charge of your military are unable to keep their emotions in check in order to make sound decisions, then maybe they should step down and go plant beets on a kibbutz. As a US taxpayer and therefore involuntary shareholder of the IDF, I'm a bit fed up with this sort of guns-a-blazin' incompetence. They should have never boarded the ship. It wasn't a tough decision at all. That's why everyone around the world is baffled at the sheer, utter stupidify of what Israel did. When I turn on talk radio and hear a guy like Michael Savage, who is a rabidly pro-Israel and anti-Muslim Jewish right-winger, and even *he* is flabbergasted at the sheer idiocy of what Israel did, that says something. (I was quite surprised.) No need, you're doing a fine job. ;) Because you think Israel is above the law, and your security is more important than the security or even lives of anyone else. Gotcha. We're supposed to consider the Israelis the good guys, while you sit here saying that it was acceptable to kill a dozen people and wound dozens more only based on a *suspicion* that guns were on the ship. Amazing. I don't care if Moses himself is resurrected and put in charge. When there's an incident involving two parties, you do NOT put one of those parties in charge of the investigation. Hell, even my 9-year-old understand *that*.

That penalty isn't for doing N:1 floors, it is for doing them when the combat levels of the players are very different. When you do N:1, it bases the difficulty on the combat level of the lowest level player. This means that four 138s and one level 3 could get together, do a 5:1, and blast through it because the dungeon would ignore the 138s and only put in monsters based on the level 3. To prevent this from being abused, Jagex put in a special "unbalanced combat level penalty" and that's what you're seeing there. It doesn't come up on teams where everyone is of a comparable level.

Because security comes first. A non-response. The alternative I suggested would not have been any more of a security risk than what they did. In fact, it would have been *less* of a security risk. This point has been made numerous times. You keep responding with "security comes first" when the actions taken have *reduced* Israel's security. By the way, if security trumps everything else, why not just bomb Gaza to smithereens? Oh sure, a million and a half people will die, but hey, security comes first, and Israel is more important than anyone else. Right? Then they could have and should have acted when they did enter Israeli waters. What did you think was going to happen -- they would stand on the deck of the ship and toss AK-47s three miles onto shore? Actually, if anyone at the IDF had half a brain, they would have handled this in such a way that nobody here would even know about it. That's false. Period. They had many choices. They could have just blocked the ship from landing. They could have disabled the ship and towed it to Ashdod. There were many other options, so saying they "didn't have a choice" is dishonest. Every time you say it, you reduce your credibility further. LOL. Are you kidding? Military people around the entire world, even ones that support Israel, are standing in slack-jawed amazement at how badly the IDF messed this up. The entire operation was a disaster from the word go. To claim that those who know about security would have done this shows that you don't know anything about security. Here's a guy who does: "Perfect example of how NOT to do a raid. ... It demonstrated--to Israel's surprise--a fairly high level of tactical incompetence. The IDF, somewhat like the French Army of 1940, has been living off of its past victories for too long. The IDF today isn't the Haganah of the 1930s, the Stern Gang of the 1940s or the IDF of 48, 56 or 67. ... What they could have done--let the ships in. Show the world how caring, etc. Israel is. Don't give the Free Gaza movement the PR victory; take it from them by escorting the ships in, providing Israeli "volunteers" to help unload. Have plenty of international media there for the show." You're still talking in circles.. it was illegal but they had the right to do it... they shouldn't have done it but you'd have done it anywyay. :rolleyes: Yes, an investigative team filled with nice unbiased Israelis like yourself couldn't possibly be biased. LOL. Another good point I heard today: the Israelis call the people on the boats "terrorists", yet those people could have easily killed the Israeli soldiers and didn't. Meanwhile, Israel could have avoided this entire conflict but instead killed a bunch of people for no valid reason. Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy again?

For items, it doesn't matter. To maximize profit, assuming a 1 in 18 item drop rate, base time of 7 minutes per chest not including KC, 9 kills per chest, 3 minutes for banking and 10 seconds per tunnel monster kill, the best killcount is 3.

SPOT ON. I really don't know what else to say. I completely agree Romy. Well, maybe *you* can try to answer the questions that she refuses to. How is not a bald-faced lie to claim that the IDF "had no other choice", when everyone here knows full well that as long as the ship didn't land, nothing could happen with any alleged weapons on the boat? Yep. And the IDF escalated it further to outright slaughter. And that may help them in the short run. In the long run, it guarantees their ruin. The US won't come down harshly on Israel because the US is Israel's [bleep]. That's the sad truth of the matter. Mostly thanks to the pro-Israel lobby, and the fundamentalist nutjobs that pervade every level of our society. They like Jews and they hate Muslims and the rest is window-dressing. But if Israel goes too far, they might just kill the golden goose -- and then they will have REAL problems, unlike hysterical imagined "security threats" from protest ships.

I don't see how this can be used as an argument in Israel's favor when they're claiming that they had weapons. It is known that this group seeks civil disobedience, nothing more, nothing less. Israel didn't stop all of their previous attempts, and in fact let many of them by. They only stopped their boats during the Gaza War, and the June after. Yes. So? How is this a counter-argument? The point I made is that these flotillas had been stopped before, and the people on the ship had not reacted violently. I believe there were also other ships the Israelis boarded, again with no violence. Now I've already said I don't think the Israelis had any right boarding any ships in international waters. But the "freedom flotilla" people *helped establish a pattern that led the Israelis to believe they could safely board the ship*. To do so and then attack them, even with improvised weapons, means they bear at least some of the responsibility for this mess. Irrelevant to the point here. It was the same government they let board ships before. Then why did people on the ship risk the lives of these people by attacking armed soldiers? Maybe they are as idiotic as whoever is running the IDF? Then why did they attack the Israeli soldiers? Boarding a ship is not "deadly violence". Your arguments are just as ridiculous as Romy's, only from the other side. She thinks the mere presence of a ship that "might" have weapons on it is a deadly threat that justifies anything up to and including murder, and you seem to think Israeli soldiers landing on the deck of a ship are a deadly threat that justifies "non-violent activists" assaulting them with metal pipes. You are both utterly blinded by bias. Then you haven't bothered to look. There are numerous ways in which the situations are completely different. If you can't be bothered to educate yourself on this issue, I'm not wasting my time doing it.

I'm already wasting far too much time on this discussion, and I'm not going to get drawn into some massive side-discussion that rehashes all of Middle Eastern history. I've had such debates with people since probably before you were born, and I've learned that with some people, debating these issues is pointless. If you showed yourself to be in a rational, moderate position, then maybe it would be worthwhile. As soon as you started with the mindless Israel bashing, quoting Israel hatred websites and comparing the country to apartheid South Africa, you ceased being worth the time investment. Your "trusted source" being a Palestinian activist. LOL. Are you for real? I have -- and you have been found wanting. As anyone can see here, I am no Israeli apologist. But you are as messed up in the other direction as the Israeli yesmen are.

I never said it was their right, I said a search was obligatory, and who ever took the decision's judgement was not based on international laws, but on safety. You're talking in circles. By insisting that the Israelis' concerns for "safety" trump international law, you *are* saying they have the right to act like pirates and thugs (which is what they were yesterday). How exactly, when the passangers start attacking :S? Do I really have to spell this out for you? They didn't have to board the ship. They could have simply prevented it from landing until they agreed to be searched. That's it. Problem solved. But they didn't really want a peaceful solution, did they? And you don't care, because in your mind all that matters is Israel doing what Israel wants. Because security breaches are not an option. This was not required for security reasons. There were other alternatives, and you know it. I'm not going to argue who understands better what forign assistance means to Israel. Israel had violated international laws, and I don't say that in pride. But it really is petty that Israel is condemned for that on such a large scale. Not because these laws are worthless, but because breaking those, bottom line, changed nothing. It's "petty" for people to insist that Israel act in an ethical and responsible manner? Amazing. If you aren't better than the other guys, why the hell are we sending you billions of dollars every year? The IDF couldn't have known or even guessed that, and security as a priority comes first. There isn't always time to think about the political side of things. The IDF couldn't have guessed that storming a Turkish ship full of civilians and killing a bunch of them wouldn't lead to a massive PR and diplomatic disaster? I could have told them that. So could anyone with an IQ above double digits. Gosh. I always thought the IDF leaders were pretty smart. If Israel's military is run by utter and complete morons, then I guess it's time we stop funding them. It's not about their rights, it's about what their actions trigger. So nobody has any rights except Israelis? I have lost a *lot* of respect for you and your country over the last 24 hours.

Sorry, but this is actually an argument in the Israelis' favor. If they had done this before, and they had no reason to expect violence then that played in to the decision to board the ship. Any subsequent violent attack that was as you admit unprecedented could be used as justification for the military retaliation that followed.

Sorry, but that is utter nonsense. They did not have any right to send any warnings, nor to board the ships. The IDF is "alerted" about everything. Doesn't give them the right to act like pirates and thugs. I don't give a damn what the reason was. Whatever it was, it was done for their own aims, and that doesn't justify the decision. If you had any objectivity at all, you'd understand that. And my response is the same as well: you continue to defend criminal behavior using bogus justifications that any reasonable person knows to be false. Do you not agree that a search was obligatory? Do you not agree that a search could have been conducted without storming a ship and killing people? For crying out loud. :rolleyes: And I'm well aware of that, being an Israeli citizen. Then why do you keep defending it? As someone who has been providing that assistance -- voluntarily and involuntarily -- for over 30 years, I'd dispute that claim. And as someone who has, I'm pissed off. And a lot of people like me are pissed off as well. We don't want our money to be used for criminal activities. And if we stop sending it, you're going to have MUCH bigger problems than some noisemakers on a ship. The action taken yesterday has hurt Israel's security FAR more than leaving the ships alone. I find it unfathomable that anyone can't see that. Among other things, Egypt has now lifted its part of the blockade. So, nice going there. So now you're implying that the Six Day War was *also* Israel's fault? Another attempt to rewrite history. Not that I'm surprised at this point, given your already demonstrated hatred of Israel and lack of understsanding of the issues. No, it isn't -- learn some history. There is no single bogeyman that is to blame for the current mess, and the more you try to pin it on the Israelis or the British (conveniently enough, never the Palestinians), the more ridiculous you sound. Prove it. Israel, and probably Jews in general.

This is false as a matter of fact, regardless of whether or not one believes Israel has the right to impose a blockade on Gaza. They had other options. They chose a violent military confrontation. The rational approach would have been to wait until they were out of international waters and then demand inspection of the goods as they were being offloaded. This assault was unjustified and *irrational*. So is claiming they "had no other choice" when you know full well that they did. This is a really unfortunate position for an Israel supporter to hold, for at least two reasons. First, you are using *exactly* the same rationalizations that the enemies of Israel use. It's identical. They also claim that they are doing what they have to do, whether it's immoral/illegal or not, and they don't care what the world thinks. Two groups using "end justifies the means" rationales means endless war until one or the other is wiped out. That's what you are, in effect, endorsing with such an attitude. Second, you claim Israel cannot afford to limit its actions based on what is moral or legal, but it really cannot afford *not* to. For all of its bravado, Israel is not even remotely independent -- it is very highly dependent on foreign aid. It is also very dependent on foreign *good will* and a public sentiment that they are the "good guys" in the region. They are destroying this. Never forget that Israel came into being largely as a result of sympathy (and guilt) after the Holocaust. That's many years gone by now, and the current actions of the Israelis are eroding much of the generally sympathetic views that many in the West had in the past towards the rights of Jews to have a soveriegn nation. If Israel continues to try to "go it alone", if they defy the world and claim they have the right to do whatever they want and ignore international law, Israel will cease to exist, probably within our lifetimes.

Yes, you have a steady supply of conveniently one-sided propagandistic "answers". That they are all either over-simplified or flat out lies doesn't seem to bother you in the slightest. :rolleyes: Free hint: Israel initially took over the Gaza strip in one of the many wars that the "innocent persecuted Arabs" were using to try to destroy it. You've portrayed the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians as being entirely one-sided. Same thing. That's not true either. Maybe some day you'll learn that platitudes and pat answers don't cut it when dealing with complex conflict situations. The reason I asked is that the quote doesn't appear to be sourced from anywhere reputable. It is just passed from one anti-Israel site to another, and spread around further on the Internet by ignoramuses who use the quote for their own agendas without realizing that there's a very good chance it is completely fabricated. You spout pure hate rhetoric unapologetically -- you're the most anti-Israel person I've come across on the net in years. This is a red herring. You are conveniently ignoring who initiated hostilities and looking only at the response. Israel had no business boarding those ships. Period. Full stop. It was illegal and unethical. The people who responded with baseball bats and so forth? Of course they shouldn't have done so in theory, but we don't know what exactly transpired before that point. The "you should have known what would happen" argument applies to the *Israelis* here. Not the people on the ship. The protestors were attacked and had the right to defend themselves. It wasn't just "not smart", it was illegal. And the fault rests mainly on those who provoked the incident for NO VALID REASON. If they were really worried about guns being on the ship, they could have simply prevented the ship from unloading. That's not what this was about. They had no legal justification to stop the ships. Amazing how people who want to reflexively defend Israel can so conveniently skip the Israelis instigating the entire thing and only focus on what the "bad guys" did. You can be damned sure that if the roles were reversed, and some Palestinians had illegally boarded an Israeli ship, the same people now complaining about baseball bats would be talking ONLY about the boarding being illegal, and praising the Israelis for their "heroic" behavior in the face of "piracy". The bias is transparently obvious. Most Westerners like Jews more than Muslims, and that's all this comes down to. And what will really happen: 4) The US will step in, and give away another boatload of taxpayer cash to Turkey to get them to drop this.

There's a comprehensive guide on my site with loads of details. Or skip straight to the combat technique page.

No way to know for sure. It seems to go up and down in cycles. I recommended buying it heavily when it was in the 110-130 range and have been selling it off since it got into the 150 area.

Right. The Palestinians are poor, helpless folks, and everything they do is only because of the apartheid-loving Jews who are oppressing them. :rolleyes: This ignorant attitude allows Israel-haters like yourself to excuse anything the Palis do, while castigating anything Israel does, and then pretend the situation is one-sided. Never mind *how* Israel happened to come into control of Gaza, or other little inconvenient realities. And yes, you *have* indirectly expressed support for Hamas, simply by virtue of attempting to portray this situation as only being Israel's fault, and ignoring everything Hamas has done to lead up to the current mess in Gaza. My father's favorite sarcastic comment comes to mind: "Don't confuse me with facts -- I've made up my mind." The sad thing is that you're probably very young. But brainwashing can be broken in time -- I was once almost as much a mindless pro-Israel person as you are anti-Israel.

~Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 30 November 1973 Source for this quote?

Of course you don't. You only care about what reinforces your preconceived hatred of Israel. According to the BBC, over 8,000 rocket attacks have been made against Israel by the Palestinians in just the last decade.1 The Arabs have been trying to destroy Israel for far longer. That you can sit there with a straight face and actually claim that Palestinians only "react to Israeli aggression" shows that you are brainwashed beyond belief. I do find it amusing that earlier you condemned those who compare Israel to the Nazis. Guess what? Hamas does that in the very charter you don't care about. LOL I'm not wasting any more time on someone who is obviously not even interested in looking at both sides of a very complicated issue, and who engages in multiple logical fallacies in each post. As always, for some people, certainty is more important than accuracy or fairness. 1http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7818022.stm

You either do not understand or do not wish to acknowledge that there are many, MANY Palestinians who do *not* want peace and are *not* interested in negotiating peace with Israel, and that includes the current Gaza government. You also continue to use one-sided apologist phrases like "reacting with violence in some cases to Israeli aggression", as if that's all the Palestinians have done. It's flat-out false. The Palestinians have been responsible for an ENORMOUS amount of aggression and are AT LEAST as responsible for the current mess as the Israelis are. Hamas's charter calls for the utter destruction of Israel. Do you really not know this? Thinking that a side in a conflict is right because they are more poor is a fallacy. Based on that "logic", Al Qaeda is right and Western society should be destroyed. And if you continue to use the term "apartheid", I'll be forced to accept that I've overestimated both your reasonableness and intelligence. (Thinking something is true because you found a famous person who thinks it is true is ALSO a fallacy. For example, I could quote de Klerk saying just the opposite -- then what?)

Gladly. But I doubt he'd take my call. There are also people who think the Israelis are the same as the Nazis. Doesn't make that right either. Arabs in Israel are able to vote in elections, and are integrated into society in pretty much every way. To even compare Israel to apartheid shows that the person saying it is either a moron or just a Jew-hater (in Tutu's case, probably a bit of both.)

Yes, people like yourself always say this in general terms. But in practice, it's always about Israel. Don't kid yourself -- the Saudis are far worse and we give them hugs and kisses on a regular basis. Oh, this is complete [cabbage]. If you really think the Palestinians bear no responsibility for their predicaments, you are severely brainwashed. Nicely oversimplified. Because again, you only look at one side of the issue, conveniently ignoring the reasons why this doesn't happen due to the Palestinians.

1. I haven't seen any objective evidence that such was on the ship. With what did they attack the soldiers then? From what I can see, improvised weapons. A better question would be: if the place was a floating armory, why is it 10 of them got killed and no Israelis? Then you might want to stop defending it. It has nothing to do with what pisses off Turkey. It has everything to do with RESPECTING INTERNATIONAL LAW. Israel cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be the good guys, and then act like bad guys. It won't fly. EVERY country thinks it is justified in doing whatever it convinces itself has to be done. If they all do whatever they want, we end up with anarchy and world wars.

This would be another good example of the sort of inflammatory rhetoric that makes people think it is more than the Israeli government you disagree with. To even suggest that Israel is in any way comparable to apartheid-era South Africa is insulting and, frankly, idiotic. Compare the way Israel treats minorities to how they are treated in say, Saudi Arabia.

And Israel is its own worst enemy when it gives anti-Semites reason to scream. romy, I don't give a flying fig what has transpired in the past, or what they "suspected", or even what they found. They had no right to do this, and if they want people to think they are morally/ethically superior to their enemies, they need to ACT LIKE IT.