The good news is that this is a literal battle over turf between two people who claim indigenity, it can be solved once ego and outside parties get out of the way. The better news is that in Israel and the west bank Jews and Arabs get along better than two average Americans ever would, violence only becomes a problem when resistance and defense enters the equation. The solution is to remove outside influence, especially the Arab league which makes it hard for the Palestinians to accept any deal without causing a billion people, like say in the Tunisia shot, to vicariously loose face when the bills in Ramalla are paid mostly by foreign aid and grassroots Muslim charities.
The whole damned thing seems like rabble-rousing at its finest. Worst of all, on both sides of the fence, is that people still accept the âthey killed one of ours, so we gotta kill at least one of theirs!â nonsense, which I think but do not know, is likely exacerbated by outsiders, as @dobby mentions above. Itâs sad to think that such devout people would so willingly overlook the teachings they so strongly follow.
More than 1,000 people have now died in battles between Israeli forces and Hamas, most of them civilians
No, dude, when one side has tanks, frigates, F-16s & Apache helicopters & the other side doesnât, it is a massacre.
The meme of âa plague on both their houses, theyâve been hating each other for thousands of yearsâ is also lame. The problem is Israel, which is Occupying the West Bank, & since 2006, blockading Gaza. Hamas hasnât accepted the Egypt-Israel ceasefire because they want Israel to stop the siege, release the prisoners that were re-arrested, & let Palestinians in Gaza export & import goods, & travel freely beyond Gazaâs borders.
Oh, & before you say Hamas started it by killing the three Israeli teenagers, well, no they didnât.
If Israel operated under the same rules of engagement as Hamas apparently does, there would be half a million dead in Gaza by now.
Israel has been âoccupyingâ these areas because her neighbors declared war on her. Three times. And they lost. Every time.
Notice how all the countries who waged war against Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973 are distancing themselves from Hamas? Itâs not a coincidence.
The Occupation is still illegal. That is against international law (the Geneva conventions), & Israelâs assault on Gaza is a war crime
Thousands of Israelis oppose the assault on Gaza & oppose the OccupationâŚ
Thatâs a sling, not a sling-shot. A sling-shot uses elastic straps and shoots small projectiles. A sling is a pouch at the center of two ~3â ropes and throws a fist-sized rock. The user swings the rock around their head and then releases one of the ropes. So think of major league fastball made of cement. Itâs a deadly weapon.
Iâm confused by this sign:
Does that mean that they are against people who are anti-Palestinian?
Palestinians are wrong kind of semitists.
âIf Israel operated under the same rules of engagement as Hamas apparently does, there would be half a million dead in Gaza by now.â
Interestingly, when a civilian is killed, their family doesnât care what ârules of engagementâ led to the death. They care that their son or mom or whatever is dead.
Results matter far more than intentions. If a military doctrine is causing you to kill thousands of civilians, it doesnât really matter what ethical or legal framework justifies it, nor does it matter if youâre officially waging war against Satan himself. From a purely humanitarian perspective it is obviously wrong.
This video is from 2008, but itâs still relevant:
Compared to Israel, yes. Hamas isnât bombing unarmed civilians. Itâs sheet metal rockets have caused little damage to Israel & no deaths (one Israeli was killed by mortar fire.) Human Rights Watch calls the rocket fire in Israel a war crime. So they should answer for that, just as Israel should. I wouldnât want to live under a Hamas regime, just like I wouldnât want to live under a Shas regime or an American evangelical regime.
Yeah, antisemitism is defined these days as being insufficiently supportive of Israel.
Deleted a comment which looked like it had some copy-pasted talking-point type stuff in:
Donât do that, please.
In Tel Aviv, Israeli rightists chant
Hereâs a list of blogs on Palestine-Israel:
http://electronicintifada.net/
http://www.juancole.com/
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/
http://mondoweiss.net/
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/
There are three sides involved in this conflict - Israel, Hamas and the Civilian Palestinians in Gazza. You might thing that Hamas represents the palestinian interests by opposing the Israeli occupation. If that were the case, however, they would have accepted Israelâs cease fire when this whole mess started, and hundreds of innocent lives would have been saved. Then they could sit down, with the help of Egypt and president Abbas, and work on their terms.
But Hamas is a terrorist group, that cynically uses the death of civilians as an excuse to continue fighting, since thatâs their only reason to exist - to kill Israelis. They murder Palestinians who oppose them, they donât allow freedom of speech, they use schools and hospitals as rocket launching bases and ammunition warehouses.
The Hamas keeps on firing rockets on Israelâs civilian population. No country would allow that, none. There are border-crossing borders made with the sole intention of killing and kidnapping civilians from Israel. Israelâs sole mission is to save Israeli civilian lives, which is what any country would and should do for its citizens. Thatâs why Gazza is under blockade, because itâs being run by terrorists.
