You don’t seem to understand what a cease-fire is. It means both sides agree to stop shooting each other so you can have some chance of negotiating a lasting peace. If you don’t want to stop shooting the other side because you are oppressed, then don’t sign the agreement in the first place. I’m not defending Israel’s history WRT to its treatment of Palestinians, but you don’t sign a cease-fire and then start shooting rockets at the other side and expect the world to rally to your cause. I agree that the Israelis need to leave the Palestinians alone and give them a chance to live as a peaceful nation (the US actually recognizing the State of Palestine would be a good step too), but it’s hard to do that when the Palestinians sign a cease-fire and then break it.
^^But in order to be fair, if you slap me open-handed across the face, I don’t have to beat you senseless with a baseball bat to “defend myself”. Israel figuratively does that. That’s what most people are complaining about.
^ The rockets are still coming. Israel needs to keep going after these terrorists until it stops, either by eliminating all of them or their supplies, or by ceasefire. Remember Hamas rejected an Egyptian proposal to end this. This is 100% on them now. They want violence and Israel will act to end the threat to their people. Using your example its like I continuely slapped you in the face every 5 minutes, despite some minor response from you. Eventually you’ll have to bring out the bat. Also, before the bat came out Hamas was offered an agreement to stop slapping Israel and everyone could chill out. They responded by slapping even more vigorously.
The Hamas rocket fire has been non-stop since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005. Usually, Israel will respond with a targeted air-strike or two; however, this recent escalation has seen Hamas firing rockets that can reach major civilian population centers such as Tel Aviv and, most importantly, has unveiled a tunnel system within Gaza that can lead to terrorists infiltrating Israeli land. Israel has no option at this point but to destroy the tunnel system (which is why they launched the ground invasion) as well as do their best to destroy all of Hamas’s long-range rockets.
are you serious, killing innocent folks is like slapping someone across the face???
wtf is isreal supposed to do when their citizens are brutaly murdered???
Also remember that the new regime in Egypt isn’t too cuddly with Hamas so resupplying rockets into Gaza won’t be easy. Israel does have a chance at largely hacksawing Hamas capability.
+1 on point
Damn it. Read Ender’s Game. The only way to be sure you’ll receive no more slaps is to completely eliminate your adversary.
Ha, ha…thanks. It was meant to be light hearted. 
This thread is superb, apart from the ridiculous one upmanship and point scoring that geo and Browntown seem insistent on carrying out.
Anyone who knows a bit about this conflict or has been to that reigon will realize how ridiculous it is to take a side and defend it vigorously. Indeed it makes you look like a tit.
Just to address some garbage first
This third world country is commited to democracy, freedom of speech and liberty (ugh I hate that word now) and while it has an incredible number of problems including poverty, illiteracy, female foeticide and corruption the difference is it is in control of it’s own destiny.
It is not suppressed by another nation who treat civilians as scum, people are not killing each other in effort to exert their power over another ethnic / linguistic and religious group. Indeed people are now looking at education, building schools and hospitals, engaging our old foe Pakistan, opening up movt of labor with China. It is a country that is picking itself up and building inch by fucking inch and brick by fucking brick. If you cannot see the difference b/w this and the gaza strip then may I politely suggest that this thread may not be for you.
Perhaps. You could be right but I believe human conflicts are incredibly complex and have their own uncountable number of layers that it would be innacurate to draw trajectories. For example, I could just say England never targeted civilians in Ireland during the existance of the IRA (I have no idea if this is accurate but you get the gist)
Your second point was spot on, it is impossible to be pro Israeli or pro Palestenian in this conflict. I agree, my only complaint was the mild cuff around the ear that Israel seem to have gotten, it and I hope we can agree is absolute bullshit. They need to be stopped ASAP.
Absolutely, well said.
Greenman, if Mexico started shooting rockets into Texas and some US citizens died, the US would probably annihilate Mexico.
^ Truth.
Also because no one wants to explain the other side of the fence maybe i’ll do it. For starters this picture is not entirely accurate becuase quite a bit of the land is not habitable but it gives a great overall picture. This is the injustice that the Palestenians have had to face. They never touched the jews during WW so why did they have their homeland taken?
Not with our current President.
As for people saying the people of Palestine deserve this or Hamas broke the agreement, again that is a slightly one sided view.
All Hamas has been asking for is an end to the blockade, they also wanted Qatar to negotiate the deal. Typically, the israelis refused and asked Egypt to do it. Hamas never got the one demand they wanted - a lift on the blockade.
And really while firing rockets is indefensible can we keep a straight face when we point fingers? The israelis turned up one day, kicked them out of their favorite lazy boy chair, and kicked them out into the dog house. They then built a fence and told them if they got too close to it they would shoot them dead. They refuse to lift a blockade that could make living conditions better in that dog house at least tolerable. It’s been 4 generations since the palestinians have not had a country or anything resembling it. Is it any wonder they turn to Hamas who use them as human shields because they promise that come what may they will get their homeland back? Hamas are scum but Israel is fostering the environment that is allowing them to thrive and western media will probably portray it as islamic infidels or some such garbage. While radical islamism is a huge problem that is not the case here.
Give Palestiniens what is rightfully theirs. 100 + countries in the UN moved to do so, I don’t need to tell you which country blocked it.
Shit isildurr, the Greeks owned that land from about 0-500. And the Turks from 1500 to about 1881. So why do you look at 1946? You realise that state was a British and French construct, carved out of the Ottoman Empire as a war prize??? Palestine is a place, not a people. That’s step one to getting past this common misunderstanding of the situation. And why the hell would any rational government open its borders to a nation that is currently firing rockets at it??? The blockade is for Israeli security. If they stopped the rocket attacks, that may be a precondition to consider lifting a blockade. But only a fool would open his country up to greater attack by allowing Gaza access to more weapons.
Two wrongs don’t make a right
too many things going on in the world at the moment.
Rebels in Ukraine have just downed two Ukrainian fighter jets (SU25). It seems they are getting pretty good feel in firing BUK missiles. At least no ‘mistakes’ now. Steep learning curve for them.
To add to my above post for clarity: Palestians are people… I didn’t mean to construe as such. And of course they have all the human rights that anyone should enjoy. But in terms of an inherent claim to the region, that’s dubious. The Israelis are not in the homeland of the Palestinians, rather they are all Palestinians. Israeli settlement issues aside (and I don’t agree with Israel on that), the current arrangement is fair and equitable. What needs to happen is for Hamas and co to accept that and build a peaceful two state solution. Remember Hamas wants it all. Which is completely unreasonable given that Arab Palestinians don’t have any more claim to much of Israeli as the Israelis do. This idea that Palestine was a unified Arab state and then the UN dropped all these Jews in and kick everyone out of their homes is not a fair analysis of the history. The land needed to be split up after the British occupation and it was done so according to where the two opposing factions lived.
In my view Israel will eventually become so isolated because of its brutalisation of the Palestinian people that it will be held to account under international law. Australia’s unwavering support for Israel places it on the wrong side of history. It is high time Australia realised that pursuing an ethical and honest approach to the conflict is in the interests of Palestinians and Israelis.