gian

See the funny part here is that israel is the party that has ignored international law for the last 75 years. We’re doing some weird history reversal here by saying that it’s the Palestinians fault for not following it.

I think that here both parts had always ignored international’s laws, so maybe we must begin to think that to solve the problem we must held accountable both parts (and I am not discussing who is guilty).

If israel had followed international law there would have never been retaliation from Gaza.

Against someone who political program and reason to exist is to destroy you ? How ?

The “few ten thousands” were elected from the millions of people.

Yes, Hamas got 44,45% of the votes in 2006. But 43,5% of Palestinians in Gaza weren‘t even alive then. Most people, that live in Gaza today, didn‘t vote Hamas in 2006.

This is how a democracy work. Who get more votes is mandated to run the government.
Now, I could discuss that the 43.5% who do not voted for Hamas (and I am making the assumption that they voted for someone who really want peace) are paying a price for someone else decision but in the end, even if it sad, the voice of the population decided to follow a certain path

Yes, they are not killing them intentionally, they are collateral damages (awful but sad reality).

This was a collateral damage?

Military speaking, yes.

If the IDF was trying to intentionally kill civilians, let’s say that from a military point of view they are a joke.

Israel can‘t risk getting that much bad publicity. And why would they want to kill every Palestinian?

I am not the one saying it. I am the one saying that if they want to kill the civilian to have free land, then they are failing to do so and they look like a joke.

Maybe, but it is also pretty dumb to not fulfill the with of Hamas and let them kill Israel civilian unpunished.

I think it is possible to fight Hamas without committing war crimes.

How ? Some example ?

Well maybe, just maybe, if they try to be a good neighbor, Israel could begin to consider it.

What is the Palestinian civilian supposed to do to be a good neighbor? And why has Israel a right to determine if Palestine is allowed to be a state.

For example, the 43.5% that do not voted Hamas could help the IDF to find the Hamas fighter and weapon storages.

and help IDF to find the fighters to eradicate only Hamas fighters.

I am 100% sure there are Palestinians, that do that. There is collaboration in every war. But why would they do that? Why would they help a force, that tries to murder them against a force, that „only“ oppresses them?

Maybe becasue the one that “only” oppresses them are the ones that are using them as human shields…

I am not aware that the Israel constitution has the extermination of Gaza in it

I knew you would come up with that. I never said that. Stop arguing against things you make up. I was saying, that the IDF is currently murdering them, not that it is written in their constitution.

And I am saying that if you want to stop the murdering you must have both side to agree, in this situation. It is not like that if IDF stops then Hamas will stop too.

The charter of Hamas is neither the constitution of Gaza, nor Palestine. Saying that is like saying the election program of the democratic party is the constitution of the US, because Joe Biden is the president.

Fine. Let say that to have peace talks you need to have both side with a compatible political program. I don’t see a peaceful solution if one side has a political program to destroy the other.

Partially. Palestinian elected Hamas, so as far as I am concerned Hamas is the Legitimate Representation of Palestinians. All the rest is a consequence

And I disagree. Is it now acceptable to commit war crimes?

No, but at the same time you cannot cry if your actions make you a target of a war crime. It is awful and not acceptable but this do not absolves you from your responsabilities.

Now stating facts made me an awful human… nice.

You didn‘t just „state facts“. You stated facts and then advocated for ethnic cleansing.

What IDF is doing is not remotely a ethnic cleansing or a genocide, that’s a genocide. So maybe we could start to call the things with their name.

what an awful thing to say in these times…

Yes. Saying millions of people should be murdered, because of the actions of a few tenthousands is a awful thing to say. It was awful in the past and luckily still is awful today.

The “few ten thousands” were elected from the millions of people. Is it awful that this happen ? Of course. Is it unexpected ? No.

I only noted that there is a possible solution to minimize the civilian deaths that could be implemented without Israel’s intervention.

Could be a solution to save lifes if we manage to feed all those people and provide medical help, yes. But it also blames a neutral third party instead of the party, that causes the suffering by blocking aid and bombing areas, they declared to be safe for civilians.

Israel has no way to block aids coming through Egypt.

Why EU don’t pursue this option ?

Because Egypt already has taken in a lot of Palestinians and demanding they take even more wouldn‘t be smart on a diplomatic level.

As far as I know, the border between Egypt and Gaza is closed.

But the problem here is that you people think that it is ok for Hamas to explicity target civilians

Literally nobody here, besides you, thinks its okay to target civilians.

Well, I have not yet read anything that condemn what Hamas did on October the 7th

while is wrong when Israel kill a civilian as a collateral damage.

So you are trying to tell me, that Israel didn‘t kill a single civilian intentionally?

Yes, they are not killing them intentionally, they are collateral damages (awful but sad reality). If the IDF was trying to intentionally kill civilians, let’s say that from a military point of view they are a joke.

collateral damage that is what Hamas wants as they openly stated. Read something about Mosab Hassan Yousef if you don’t belive me.

Its pretty dumb of Israel to fulfill the wish of Hamas, don‘t you think?

Maybe, but it is also pretty dumb to not fulfill the with of Hamas and let them kill Israel civilian unpunished.

Again: Nobody here is defending Hamas. You are the only one arguing in favor of killing civilians.

I am the one arguing that if the civilian make a choice then they pay the price.

No, they are not worth to die but in the end the only option for them to be safe is to collaborate with Israel in eradicating Hamas and become an affidable interlocutor for peace talks.

And how is this supposed to happen, if Israel doesn‘t even recognize Palestine?

Well maybe, just maybe, if they try to be a good neighbor, Israel could begin to consider it. Obviously it is not something that could happen in a day, but it is something that can happen only if both side collaborate.

Do you expect the Palestinians to sign a petition asking nicely to not murder them?

No, I expect that the civilians do not vote for Hamas and help IDF to find the fighters to eradicate only Hamas fighters.

I could understand why Israel has some qualms to make an accord with someone that has in its charter the objective to destroy them.

I could understand why Palestinians may have some qualms to make an accord with someone that is murdering them.

I am not aware that the Israel constitution has the extermination of Gaza in it, but it is true the opposite.

And again: Palestinians =/= Hamas, Legitimate Representation of Palestinians =/= Hamas, starving Child in Gaza =/= Hamas

Partially. Palestinian elected Hamas, so as far as I am concerned Hamas is the Legitimate Representation of Palestinians. All the rest is a consequence

What you reported are anecdotal facts. Things you observed. Objective facts and data are what we need to improve. The fact that you see people not using the bike lane is not relevant.

Have you tried to actually count how many people use the bike path and how many not?

No. In my town we had people paid to do it. Both normal people and police officers. So, with your permission, I would take it for true unless you can prove me wrong. Then I can concede that there could be some inaccuracy in the count, but I don’t really think that it could be more than some rounding error.

Do you understand that from someone driving a car, you clearly see a cyclist on the road, while you may dismiss and not even register one on the bike path?

Then this someone is not paying attention to his surrounding and it is in the wrong, whatever vehicle he is driving. You don’t dismiss a cyclist only because he is on a bike path and you are not, because you never know what could happen to him, even just a hole in the lane or a mechanical problem, so you need to constantly keep an eye on him until you overtake him. Sorry if I know what I am doing while driving.

Is the one you talk about a bike path at all? Or maybe is it a mixed use path (so one that cyclist don’t have to use)?

Nope, physically separated bike path. They are on the side of the road but there is a small curb between the car lane and the bike lane.

When I’m riding a bicycle I will always use a bike path, if it is usable; you know, I want to stay alive. I may choose not to use it when mixed because I think it is more dangerous for me and the pedestrians on it. Or if a bike path surface is broken and I would risk falling.

And when I drive a car I always respect the laws, so what is the point ? That we both respect the rules ?

Practice:

The 3 points you mention as practice are not practice at all. They are theory, they are laws that are usually not respected.

Then enforce them. The laws are already here. No need for new laws that you cannot/don’t want enforce. Because we all (as Italians) know that they will not be enforced.

Obviously if you reduce speed you reduce the possibillity of a fatality. Following this way of thinking, if you reduce the speed to 10 Km/h you reduce even more the crashes and fatalities. Even better, remove the cars, 0 crashes (not sure about 0 fatalities btw).

30 km/h is only the maximum speed allowed. And it is a compromise that wold allow for a huge reduction of crash damage, while not reducing travel time by much. Because the average speed in cities is, let’s remember that, more in the 10-20 km/h range. So, speeding between red lights does not save anyone’s time, just increase the danger.

I would agree with you if we take this approach and applied it considering the situation street by street (the town know how main crash and fatalities happen in each of them, if a crash is not reported then there is not a fatality and no harm), not if we blindly apply it for political reasons, on both sides. I concede that there could be some initially unreported accident, but in the end if an accident cause a fatality (or harm in any way) it would be reported.

we are taking for granted that it is always the car the guilty side

it’s not a question of who is guilty, it is a question of where the danger comes from. And it doesn’t come from pedestrians or cyclicsts (see my previous post), it comes from cars.

Following your logic, if I sucker punch you and I break my hand, you are the danger. No, I don’t buy it.

If you as a pedestrian or a cyclist keep a dangerous behavior on the road (crossing where you should not, taking over when you should not and so on) then you are the danger, not the car. I don’t accept the fact that if I am driving my car following the laws then you as a pedestrian can do whatever you want, even dangerous thing, and I am the danger and must pay for your idiocy. I am fine to be held accountable for what I am doing on the road but not for what you are doing.

Stop signs exist because of cars. Traffic light exist because of cars. Car insurance exist because of cars.

True, and it is being expected to be respected from every user of the road, not only the cars. Please explain to me why if you as a pedestrian cross an intersection while having the red light then the car that hit you (or not) is the danger. Just because the car is bigger ?

By international law only israel has committed a war crime as it condones resistance against occupation by any means necessary.

By international laws, also fighting without an uniform is a crime.
By international laws, you must not use human shields. The Geneva convention also stipulate that if you don’t apply it with me, you have no right to ask to be applied to you.

So, we are still sure that only one side is committing a war crime ? If not, why not ask also to the other side to respect the international laws.

And if we decide this is not a war but an act of terrorism, why we should ask to the victim side (in this specific occasion) to respect a law that do not apply to the situation and let the offending side to do what it want ? Only because they are playing dirty ?

Also the israeli blockade on Palestine is one of the most flagrant violations of humanitarian law and already “sanctions” Palestinians.

Gaza has a border with Egypt and, as far as I know, Israel cannot do anything to close this border (aside attacking Egypt of course). So, at the minimum, we should also punish Egypt for blocking the Palestinians.

I agree. But the problem is to understand who is committing a war crime. In this situation, by the international laws, both side are committing a war crime, technically. So, who we should hit with the sanctions ?

You’re an awful fucking human being.

Now stating facts made me an awful human… nice. Or maybe the fact that I belive that a person (or a population) should be held responsible for their choices… what an awful thing to say in these times…

Yes all those children left behind are “fair game” if Egypt opens the border.

The question is: why the children should left behind if Egypt opens the border ? Are their parents so awful to left their children behind as they are fleeing ? Why a mother should left her children behind when she has an oppotunity to save herself and her children ?

But they won’t open the border, so they shouldn’t be fair game right? Because there’s still people there.

No, they are not fair game, as every civilian is not fair game, in a war. I only noted that there is a possible solution to minimize the civilian deaths that could be implemented without Israel’s intervention. Why EU don’t pursue this option ?

But the problem here is that you people think that it is ok for Hamas to explicity target civilians while is wrong when Israel kill a civilian as a collateral damage. A collateral damage that is what Hamas wants as they openly stated. Read something about Mosab Hassan Yousef if you don’t belive me.

You want to act like because Egypt doesn’t want them that makes them all fucking worthy to die

No, they are not worth to die but in the end the only option for them to be safe is to collaborate with Israel in eradicating Hamas and become an affidable interlocutor for peace talks.
I could understand why Israel has some qualms to make an accord with someone that has in its charter the objective to destroy them.

True but it did take a lot less civilian casualties.

And so ? Are the civilians from Ukraine less worth than the civilians from Gaza ? What is the number at which the EU should do something then ?

In principle I agree with you, in practice what you are suggesting is just a nice dream.

I said it is a dream for a number of hard facts:

• the 1988 Hamas charter include, openly, the obliteration of Israel as one of the objective of Hamas. The 2017 revision seems to be a little mess in this regard and there are some mixed opinion. Please note that the 1988 version was never explicitly revoked.
• from the beginning of 2005 (February the 21th to be exact) Israel left Gaza, not sure what it means Gaza is occupied (if we refer to Palestine, people should read some history books)
• in 2006 Hamas wins the elections so, if we accept the result, it seems that most of the civilians, who probably know what Hamas is/want, agree with them. To me this look like a free choice from the population and, like every choice, it has consequences.
• a two state solution (which incidentally was the solution proposed in 1947) was on the table a number of times and more often than not it was the Palestinians that rejected it. it is true however that also in Israel there were some opposition.

It seems to me that, at least partially, the blame could be splitted…

Make Gaza a state, support it, so that the people living there can have a good live and Hams becomes less of a Problem.

And then ? Are you that naive to think that if Gaza will become a state, Hamas will change ? They already show that they don’t care even about their own civilians, what make you think that it will ever change ? It is from 2005 that they can run their “state” and what are the results ?

BTW, ending the suffering of the innocent palestinian civilians is easy: just ask Egypt to open their border and let the refugees in (like Poland did with the Ukranian for example) and help them (EU could also help Egypt to take care of them eventually). This way who remain in Gaza is fair game and the innocent civilians are safe. Oh yes, Egypt do not want Palestinians, like every other muslim country, so maybe they know what the facts are.

Or maybe people will discover the inconvenient truth that it is in the open: that Hamas want their civilians to be killed by IDF so they can cry that IDF is bad and need to be stopped. (they already said it) After all it is the perfect strategy for Hamas: let us to kill all the innocent civilians we want and then hide behind ours when the enemy, inevitably, hit back. Do you think it is a good idea to allow this ?

Yes. The “Cyclists don’t use cycle lanes” line also comes right from the angry right list of grievances

Yes, sometimes this is true. Sometime it is a cold observation of the facts.

If there’s a cycle lane and people aren’t using it, it’s self-evidently not good enough. And this is hardly surprising when most cycle lanes are cheap afterthoughts that increase danger and inconvenience

Again, sometimes this is true. I agree with you about the new “cycle lanes” done in Milano where basically they just painted some lines on the roads and hope they were respected (btw forgetting anything about where they put them). Sometimes even a convenient physically separated cycle lane is left unused just because.

The problem with your comment is that you have a lot of opinions, and they all may sound reasonable, but the facts and data give away a different story, and it is hard and takes time to demonstrate that most of what you state is, to say it kindly , false

And the problem with your answer is that you get the only thing I openly say it is an opinion (based on my experience anyway) to dismiss all the other points like an opinion where instead I offered some observed facts

So I’ll take only one of your statements and answer that, and won’t waste more time for the rest.

Speed itself is a factor, not the main one, which in my opinion is inattentiveness.

Theory:

Impact energy grows with the square of the speed. An impact at 50 km/h carries almost 3 times the energy of an impact at 30 km/h. (source: kinetic energy)
    probability of death for a pedestrian when hit by a vehicle at 50 km/h is 70%, when hit at 30 km/h is 10% (source)
Stopping distance at 50 km/h (23 m) doubles in respect to 30 km/h (12 m) (source)

Practice:

• the road laws say that while driving, you must only drive and you must pay attention to the road
• the road laws say that need to maintain a speed appropriate to the circumstances
• the road laws say that the pedestrian must follow some rules (do not cross with red light, use the crosswalk and few others)

Obviously if you reduce speed you reduce the possibillity of a fatality. Following this way of thinking, if you reduce the speed to 10 Km/h you reduce even more the crashes and fatalities. Even better, remove the cars, 0 crashes (not sure about 0 fatalities btw).

So, maybe, instead of making new rules, why we cannot start to think to enforce the ones that already exist, on all the users of a road ? After all the Italian road laws are written with the idea that if you follow them then there should not be problems (if not in out of control situations like a failure or similar things).

So my point, in the end, is that concentrating only on the speed, again in my opinion, we are just looking at the most easily factor to “punish” just becasue we are taking for granted that it is always the car the guilty side, in part because all the data normally say “a pedestrian was hit by a car going to 60 Km/h” or “a cyclist was crushed by a lorry turnig right” but they don’t say that the pedestrian was trying to cross a road there the limit is 70 Km/h outside the crosswalk or traffic light and that the cyclist was trying to overtake on the right the turning lorry.

Then it is true that there are some criminals that drive way too fast for place and situation and they are objectively a danger to everyone and everything around them, but I suppose that we cannot continually make new rules following the expectional case and not the norm.

The reform is focused on increasing penality for the types of collisions that have a large echo in the media, such as when the person responsible was under the influence of alcohol or drugs,

This would be nice if only the law add some more mandatory controls. You can put all the rules and laws you want but if you don’t enforce them they are useless since actually you get caught just by sheer bad luck.
And people who already respect the law don’t need more severe penalties to continue to respect the same law.

but in reality it risks increasing the main factor in road mortalities: speed.

Disagree. Speed itself is a factor, not the main one, which in my opinion is inattentiveness.
As long as someone drive looking at the phone or paying attention to everything else except the road, the problem is not the speed but the fact that he is not aware of his surrounding.
Of course there are exceptions: someone who drive at 100 Km/h in a city street in the middle of the day is extremely dengeous and in the case of a crash there is a high probability of fatalities.

In fact the reform will limit mayors’ ability to create new cycle routes or

Cycle routes are nice but cyclists need to start to using them. In my town the current mayor had someone to check how much the cycle routes wanted by the previous one (with the usual groups of people asking for them) are used. Well, it turn out that on a week basis (one with nice weather) only 7% of the cyclists that ran through roads where a dedicate cycle route where present used it. So again, why build one when it is not used ?

car-free ‘school streets’,

It make no sense to close a road to the cars just because there is a school. It is ok to close while the children enter and when they exit, but in the meantime ?

or to keep polluting cars out of city centres.

Yes. And that good. Until the mayor of a city don’t understand that a) smog don’t stop at the city border and b) the city exist in a complex system any decision to close down the city to the cars could be really stupid. I agree that some areas would be better without cars (old town for example) but we were at the point that the decisions were all just PR stunts.

Yeah, Milano is closed to the most polluting cars… which are in the bordering towns across the street trying to park somewhere because there is no fucking way to enter city outside the rush hours without using a car if you have not a couple (or even more) more hours to waste using a train. Oh yes, also put all the exchange parking with the subway or other public transportation inside the closed area, just to have fun. Sound like an intelligent decision ?

It also restrict the possibilities to deploy speed traps.

which is also good, as they are now used to just make money and do nothing to make the roads more secure.
Don’t get me wrong, speed traps are good where there is a documented problem with crashes and fatalities or in sensible zone but honestly when they become a thing that make for the bigger part of a city balance, maybe something is wrong.
This change is a direct consequence of the fact that we have a lot of examples of speed traps deployed without any logic behind, just to make money.

Campaigners held demonstrations in dozens of Italian cities last week, calling for the reform to be scrapped and re-written in consultation with bereaved families.

The same campaigners should held demonstrations calling for more reliable and available public transports (especially outside the rush hours), the cyclists to be punished when they don’t use a present cycles route or do not follow the roads laws, for having more city police out in the street at every time (come on, Milano has only 2 patrol out in the night for all the city) to look out for people infringing the laws.

Maybe more than a new crime it should be an aggravating circumstance. Beating someone for some petty reason and beating someone for political/religoius reasons are different in gravity.

No, Biden should send the US army as he has the ability to do so.

US does not care about Ukraine, they only antogonize Russia. Then yeah, given what we have seen on the battlefield, if NATO will go boot on the ground Russia probably will have some serious problem (not that now they have not).

But he is too weak to stand up to Putin, especially in an election year, so compromise is necessary.

Maybe from a US point of view, but here we are discussing Europe.
It is about time that Europe (and EU) begin to be what we say we are.

I think that here Macron is damn right. Russia must not win this war because any concession we do to Russia now will be seen as “we can do whatever we want because in the end they fold”.
Putin tried to take Ukraine exactly because EU and US did nothing when he took Crimea (if not talking).

And this whatever the US say.

Yeah, and they would use them if they had foreign armies pushing into their territory.

I think that here the problem is not to invade Russia, but that Russia need to left Ukraine.

That isn’t realistic, and Russia has nuclear weapons too.

And so ? Should we let them to do whatever they want just because “we have nukes” ? I

The point is not to build (or reshape) a city to have enough room for cars, but to build (or reshape) a city so that you don’t need to have (or to use so often) a car for the day by day.

But yes, you can. Our cities are basically build this way, the only problem is that they are build with much lower number of cars in mind.

We also have restricted access to the center of the city (the infamous Area C and Area B) even stricter but so far they are not working that well simply because they created them but not added the necessary alternatives (public transportation first and foremost).

Where I lived when I was younger, to be able to have a neighborhood that is not that dependent on cars (back at the time it was not, everything you need was at a 5 minute walk) they basically levelled the neighborhood and rebuild it, and it was relatively new (post WWII), a thing that is not an option in older area (center).

The way of your city (or of Milano) are also appliable only to big cities where everything you need is present, where I currently live I need a car for a number of reasons, because my small town has not all what I can need, for example the only way to go to the train station I use is by car since it is too distant to walk to (or I can choose the other one and hope to use less than 1.5 hours for a 20 minute train travel), and there is not a public transportation system.

Maybe I am naive but I think that people would discard the car (or use it a lot less) if for the day by day they have an alternative, so when I said it would be easier I should have added the missing implicit (for me) part “in the short term”.
You want I don’t own/use a car in 5 years from now ? Fine, where are the construction sites for the railroads and the other public transportation system I will need to use ? Because I can stop using the car in a month, but you cannot build a railroad in a month.

Only thing is that electrifying vehicles is a little easier than rebuilding a city (or part of it). And it don’t need to be a really old part, even a 60/70 years old city zone is relatively hard to convert. Not to speak of even older zones.

But yes, newly build zone of city should be designed with this in mind.

Britain stole what is now Israel from Palestine in 1948. Palestine is older. There’s a strong argument that all of Israel is still Palestine, seeing as Palestine never agreed to it.

Yes, Palestine is older. What you fail to notice is that Palestine is younger than the first Jews in the region. As I alread said, Palestine was the name given to the region by the Roman Empire after they conquered the area and they defeated the Jews, and was a derogatory name.