Israel vs. Gaza round 99

[Correction]

Why? It's just gonna spark people trying to get me upset over this topic lol.

God forbid you actually open a discussion with original thoughts, rather than let MEMRI and 'a friend of a friend's facebook' do your scare tactics for you.

[Aurara]

Scare tactics? ok

Edit: I'm not sure what you guys who are so critical of Israel want anymore. Anything Israel does is demonized and shown as an evil entity who kill Palestinians.

[Correction]

Scare tactics? ok

When you intentionally leave out your thoughts on a video or someone else's remarks when you post them we only have that without the context. Why would you post Hamas propaganda aimed at children? Why would you post about an IDF reservist who writes about how terrifying it is to live under the Iron Dome? If you make us guess, don't get pissed off when you don't like how the guesses turn out.

Anything Israel does is demonized and shown as an evil entity who kill Palestinians.

Or just put words in our mouths, that works too. Anything but engage with what people have actually said and meant. I mean, you want to be taken seriously, right?

[Aurara]

K, I'll give my opinion, since you want to know. I am very distressed with what is going on in Israel/Gaza. I'm upset that people on both sides are dying, that children are being killed on both sides, that people have to live their lives day to day in fear of rockets(again, from BOTH sides). I don't think you guys understand that Israel HAS to defend itself. It is an incredibly small country surrounded by Arab states(like it is really really small), all of which have tried to destroy Israel multiple times. In both the times Israel was attacked, it fought back and won(with the help of the U.S. because had we not helped Israel would have been eradicated). Israel even GAVE BACK the Sinai peninsula to Egypt(which, if you didn't know the Sinai peninsula had/has oil reserves). Israel just wants to exist peacefully as a Jewish state, except that it cannot because the Arab nations/Muslims in that region do not recognize Israel's right to exist. I'm distressed that that is the primary issue, and that Israel has tried time and time again to offer peace to the Arab nations, and time and time again they have refused and said no to every single peace treaty. Even if Israel withdrew from settlements, the rockets would not stop from the terrorists, because they do not want Israel to exist as a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in existence, is that so much to ask for?

Or just put words in our mouths, that works too. Anything but engage with what people have actually said and meant. I mean, you want to be taken seriously, right?

I wasnt putting words in your mouth, I was saying what the general media outlook on the situation is whenever Israel fights back.


Edit: If you think I'm at all mad, that is not the case at all. I just care passionately about this topic is all.

[notorious bum]

While many trace the Israeli assault on Gaza to the series of events that began with the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three teenage Israelis in the occupied West Bank, we look at how the crisis’ immediate cause has been all but ignored. In a recent article for The New York Times, "How the West Chose War in Gaza," Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at International Crisis Group, argues the roots of the current violence lie in Israeli, U.S. and European efforts to undermine the Palestinian unity government, which Hamas joined earlier this year. Isolated by its opposition to the Assad regime in Syria and a rift with the military government in Egypt, Hamas reconciled with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in the hopes a unity deal could help ease the crippling blockade of Gaza and help pay the salaries of thousands of its civil servants. But the United States and European Union helped Israel maintain the blockade of Gaza while denying payments to the Hamas employees. "Plan A for Hamas out of the predicament it and Gaza found themselves in was reconciliation," Thrall says. "That was thwarted — so Plan B is the crisis we’re dealing with today."

"Behind the scenes, the U.S. did act to ensure that true reconciliation did not take place." http://owl.li/zs0ZW

[Correction]

Even if Israel withdrew from settlements

They haven't tried this and the current political climate disallows it, so conjecture on what the palestinian, larger arab and international response to them abandoning illegal settlements is iffy at best. Israel is not simply defending itself, it is defending an indefensible blockade of a very small and marginalized group of people as well as the continued disenfranchisement of families with a legitimate claim to the land they owned since before the six day war. That you keep returning to their actions as one purely driven by self defense tells me you have blinders on. Palestinians have every right to defend their land too, unjustly taken as it often is.

When they were informed, after 10 years in the military courts, that their Palestinian lawyer was not eligible to contest the case in Israel's supreme court - because he carried West Bank identity papers - they found an Israeli firm willing to take it on. When they were told to provide a land survey, they hired (at a cost of $70,000) an Israeli surveyor, and sent him to consult maps and documents in the imperial archives of London and Istanbul. When they were asked to bring witnesses in support of their claim to have farmed the land for three generations, they hired a bus to take more than 30 Palestinian villagers to the military court near Ramallah. "We had to wait five hours outside the court under the sun," remembers Amal Nassar. "And then, after five hours, a soldier come out, they say, 'We don't want witnesses, go home.'

[Mazmaz]

So these are interesting.

http://palestinder.tumblr.com/

[archibaldcrane]

Even if Israel withdrew from settlements, the rockets would not stop from the terrorists, because they do not want Israel to exist as a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in existence, is that so much to ask for?

Think about this - the only place rockets are firing from is the place where Israel has been basically maintaining an open-air prison camp for the past 5 decades. Egypt isn't firing rockets into Israel. Jordan isn't firing rockets into Israel. Lebannon isn't firing rockets into Israel. Syria isn't firing rockets into Israel. The only people doing this are those who have a direct, obvious, clear ongoing grievance with Israel - the people whose land was illegally captured during wartime, whose homes are routinely destroyed, whose land is further colonized, who are living under a severe embargo, who have no hope and no future because of Israel.

I'm not saying that Egypt, Syria, Lebannon, and Jordan LOVE Israel - but Israel isn't having to defend itself from those places, because Israel isn't constantly fucking with the people who live there. Bringing up a war in 1967 as the reason why Israel has to keep Palestinians in such a hopeless state of existence is ridiculous. In the US we might as well talk about dastardly Japanese and Nazis if we're going to talk about ancient history. The shit treatment that Israel subjects the Palestinians to is the #1 obvious injustice to point to when talking about "the problems with Israel". Remove that and you have a whole different dynamic, for which there would be little controversy.

[quannum]

Some toddler slapped my shin, I broke his arms and punched his teeth in, I have a right to defend myself.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Edit: If you think I'm at all mad, that is not the case at all. I just care passionately about this topic is all.

this is the internet. if you care, you're mad.


also, i want everyone in the middle east to either stop killing each other or hurry up and get it over with so i can claim the depopulated wasteland as my own.

[kuronosan]

Some toddler slapped my shin, I broke his arms and punched his teeth in, I have a right to defend myself.

This right here. Disproportionate response does not a defense case make.

[Aurara]

So what do you propose Israel do then? You seem to have all the answers.

Edit: Bane it wont ever get resolved so you're gonna be waiting a long time

[quannum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...Resolution_242

[archibaldcrane]

Withdraw the settlements, end the blockade, encourage massive multinational humanitarian aid (both from Arab states and Westerners) and UN support to hold free and fair elections, and keep that Iron Dome hand strong just in case.

[Correction]

So what do you propose Israel do then? You seem to have all the answers.

Stopping all settlement activity and ending the blockade would go a long way towards building credit with palestinians. Hamas can continue to exploit that but when they can't reinforce their numbers because oh my god Palestinians quality of life is improving and they don't have to choose between 3 ways of dying (terrorism, Israeli shelling or the blockade) then they can actually believe in their right to self determination.

There's two competing narratives in Israel right now. One is that of the Jews, who claim the land because whatever, but in any case they're there now and they're not about to be dislodged. Making this narrative problematic is the blindness to the Palestinian narrative, which is they were there, then they were displaced, and now they're under a much worse siege than anybody living in Tel Aviv can claim, no matter what John Kerry is willing to say to appease AIPAC. Both narratives can only be reconciled after a lasting cease fire and honest and open negotiations, both of which are undermined time and again because shit, extremists might actually lose power; better announce the construction of more settlements, worsen the blockade in Gaza and provoke a reaction out of Hamas!

You undermine your opponent's ability to use propaganda by not actually feeding into it, and that begins with the goddamn settlements in the West Bank and the relentless blockade of Gaza. You say 'they hate Israel' but then don't pause to consider why that is the case. It's not 'haters gonna hate' or whatever insane reason gets pushed out by Bibi&Co. Address the grievances of your opponents if you actually have the power to do so, and you find your opponents begin to wither, not unlike when the IRA splintered and petered out in the 80s and 90s. Guess who has more actual political and military power in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Guess who actually has the resources to improve everybody's lives, not just of those who keep voting in extreme, bloodthirsty fringe elements into the Knesset. It'd be nice for a change if 'self defense' in the context of the conflict referred to actual, rational self defense, not the constant slaughter of hundreds of civilians that gets hand waved by psychopaths here in the US.

[Kuya]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...iend-need-kill

Tomer Siyonov, 22, a friend of the dead soldier, who finished his own compulsory army service two months ago, drew deeply on a cigarette as the eulogies were delivered. "Hamas killed my friend; we need to kill them – not just the Hamas militants but all the people in Gaza," he said.

"What else should we do? Lose more friends? We don't have a choice – if we don't fight to the end, they will kill us."

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Edelweiss]

Stopping all settlement activity and ending the blockade would go a long way towards building credit with palestinians. Hamas can continue to exploit that but when they can't reinforce their numbers because oh my god Palestinians quality of life is improving and they don't have to choose between 3 ways of dying (terrorism, Israeli shelling or the blockade) then they can actually believe in their right to self determination.

There's two competing narratives in Israel right now. One is that of the Jews, who claim the land because whatever, but in any case they're there now and they're not about to be dislodged. Making this narrative problematic is the blindness to the Palestinian narrative, which is they were there, then they were displaced, and now they're under a much worse siege than anybody living in Tel Aviv can claim, no matter what John Kerry is willing to say to appease AIPAC. Both narratives can only be reconciled after a lasting cease fire and honest and open negotiations, both of which are undermined time and again because shit, extremists might actually lose power; better announce the construction of more settlements, worsen the blockade in Gaza and provoke a reaction out of Hamas!

You undermine your opponent's ability to use propaganda by not actually feeding into it, and that begins with the goddamn settlements in the West Bank and the relentless blockade of Gaza. You say 'they hate Israel' but then don't pause to consider why that is the case. It's not 'haters gonna hate' or whatever insane reason gets pushed out by Bibi&Co. Address the grievances of your opponents if you actually have the power to do so, and you find your opponents begin to wither, not unlike when the IRA splintered and petered out in the 80s and 90s. Guess who has more actual political and military power in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Guess who actually has the resources to improve everybody's lives, not just of those who keep voting in extreme, bloodthirsty fringe elements into the Knesset. It'd be nice for a change if 'self defense' in the context of the conflict referred to actual, rational self defense, not the constant slaughter of hundreds of civilians that gets hand waved by psychopaths here in the US.

You know, this post was unnecessary, but good on you for being willing to indulge him. He completely ignored being told repeatedly that Israel keeps fucking perpetuating this against a diminutive threat and oppressed, marginalized people.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...iend-need-kill

Tomer Siyonov, 22, a friend of the dead soldier, who finished his own compulsory army service two months ago, drew deeply on a cigarette as the eulogies were delivered. "Hamas killed my friend; we need to kill them – not just the Hamas militants but all the people in Gaza," he said.

"What else should we do? Lose more friends? We don't have a choice – if we don't fight to the end, they will kill us."

Are you fucking kidding me?

Well at least he called them people, instead of referring to them in a sub-human manner. Progress!

[Waraji]

Are you fucking kidding me?

How better to end these unjust killings, than with more killing! It's okay since they're not on their side.

[Qalbert]

uhh you guys, they aren't wrong, if they kill all the people they want to kill then they won't be killing them anymore

[BaneTheBrawler]

like i said, they need to either kiss and make up or hurry up and kill each other off