So because things are so unequal, one should simply lob bombs at civilians? This makes it better or more equal?
Obama said it himself - No nation in the world would accept routine indiscriminate attacks on its people - why exclude the Palestinians? Thus the resistance.
No one is denying that the situation for the Palestinians is horrendous. Their treatment is despicable. However the Government body supposed to be protecting and defending them is lobbing bombs at civilians and then crying foul when Israel hits back hard. Unless of course you think it is more acceptable if Israel used similar weapons and lobbed them over the fence at Palestinian civilians at a similar rate that Hamas send their missiles over into Israel?
The same Government cannot protect them from serial Israeli assaults on the strip, (casualties far, far exceeding the single digit Israeli casualties) rockets or no rockets, feed them, educate them, provide adequate water, housing, economic potential or offer medical facilities and treatment - ALL the product of the occupation. Additionally, Israel is the serial ceasefire offender. When talks fail time and again given the fundamental injustices and obscene pre-conditions insisted on, when attempts at gaining statehood are regularly blocked and vetoed, when hungry, hopeless and traumatized, you expect the Palestinians and their government to offer no resistance whatsoever? The rocket attacks are essentially the only form of resistance available, and will continue until the occupation ends. Israel in fact carries the responsibility for these rocket attacks. They can end the occupation tomorrow if they choose and thus end the rocket attacks that upset you so much.
Yes, Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. However, how are they doing that by firing missiles at civilians? This is self defense is it? Israel also has the right to defend itself against people firing missiles at its civilian population. Your argument goes both ways strawdog.
How should they defend themselves? Send drones to target IDF personell? Send their war planes and tanks into Israel to target the military? They cannot even officially appeal to International bodies against Israeli injustices given their non-state status. I am sure you would rather they just sit there meekly and slowly
starve to death?
Hamas will never sign a peace deal which would allow Israel to continue to exist. If it signs it, it won't keep it. And it has no control over its far right military wing to ensure that such a peace agreement is kept.
That notion is of course your opinion only - and the standard echo from the Western media. Given that Israel does not talk to HAMAS in principle, ensures that this is an
entirely untested scenario and thus your point above is null. HAMAS have said time and again, the border of 1967 is the starting point that will open the door to many possibilities, including the
eventual recognition of Israel. Meanwhile Israel keeps building new settlements on these areas to exactly render such option practically impossible. Who has the agenda and who holds the cards?
And Israel will never sign a peace deal with Hamas because it is Hamas. Hamas wants power over all the Palestinians and will kill to do it.
Just a gentle reminder that HAMAS is democratically elected, and even so - the sooner the occupation ends, the sooner the power grip HAMAS has will evaporate - no?
Oh I'm sorry, I forgot that only Israel's actions are meant to be criticised here. The point was that the Palestinians are literally caught between a rock and a hard place. Hamas fires missiles into Israel and does so from populated Palestinian areas.
Another gentle reminder, Gaza is the most densely populated area on the planet - where should they fire their missiles from?
Certainly, Israel should refrain from bombing those areas in retaliation, but Hamas also knows that Israel is as known for self restraint as Hamas is known for restraint and diplomacy.
Israel is not interested in restraint. It`s pursuing a clear policy of
collective punishment in Gaza (and the West Bank). Just this recent attack eventuated in the deaths of around 140 people including 30 plus children.
You know, there's a saying about taking the higher moral ground... Unfortunately Hamas fail to do so and the result is that they deliberately target civilians and Israel is just as bad. In my opinion, both sides are as bad as each other.
No. Simply put, one side has the overarching potential to correct the situation that would immediately result in ZERO rocket attacks on Israeli citizens. Simply end the occupation. You need to ask yourself why that has not and is not occurring. Although given the global outrager at the recent Israeli assault, there may well now be hope of that.
Of course. The crimes are acceptable or more to the point, should be overlooked, if the side you think is right does them. That argument of yours also applies both ways.
War crimes are never acceptable, including those proven, but never adressed, to be committed by Israel during operation Cast Lead. Ask yourself - who is oppressed and who is the opressor?
If Hamas wanted to deal, they would have stopped the thousands of missiles fired at civilians long ago. High road...
No. There was a real possibility for a long term ceasefire before this latest Israeli assault. The rockets are not even remotely the issue. As I have noted - an immediate way to end these are by ending the occupation. The problem is Israel refuses to consider the borders of 1967 as a viable point for negotiations.
"Operation Pillar of Defence, Israel’s latest war, began just as Hamas was cobbling together an agreement for a long-term ceasefire. Its military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, was assassinated only hours after he reviewed the draft proposal. Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, could have had a ceasefire – probably on more favourable terms – without the deaths of more than 160 Palestinians and five Israelis, but then they would have missed a chance to test their new missile defence shield, Iron Dome, whose performance was Israel’s main success in the war. They would also have missed a chance to remind the people of Gaza of their weakness in the face of Israeli military might. The destruction in Gaza was less extensive than it had been in Operation Cast Lead, but on this occasion too the aim, as Gilad Sharon, Ariel’s son, put it in theJerusalem Post, was to send out ‘a Tarzan-like cry that lets the entire jungle know in no uncertain terms just who won, and just who was defeated’."