Well the **** has started to hit the fan.. BBC coverage Of course this is now going to turn bad VERY quickly. From the way i see it, the Muslim world will see Israel as the aggressor and the US better condem this quickly and give Israel a slap on the wrist or they'll get dragged into the **** as well! One thing that the US dont need right now is more problems in the ME. If Iran gets involved then the gulf will become a killing field as Iran has Anti-ship missiles, and lots of them. SS-N-22 Sunburn Anti Ship
I have very little sympathy for either Israel or Hamas, as both have been antagonising each other constantly. Israel building more in the occupied territories, and Hamas firing rockets into Israel. Who I do feel sympathy for are the poor innocent civilians, as always they are the one's who suffer. This is not going to be resolved overnight as neither side are willing to back down, Hamas could help their cause by a cessation of rocket launches and Israel by opening up trade links and movin out of the occupied territories but that won't happen. The fact that the US and to a lesser extent the UK have not condemned Israels over reaction, will be seen as a green light for Israel to continue their bombardment of Gazza killing anyone in the vicinity. Just how long will Israel be able to play the victim card, it's a bit worn out now.
The thing is the UK has caused enough problems in Israel to have a say on how it should be run. Personally I don't think Israel’s reaction is major overkill, I mean they have a territory that claims to be it's own state with it's own army/police which not only hates Israel (well Hamas more so, but then Fatar is more interested in steeling aid money), but is openly firing rockets at civilians; so why wouldn't Israel enforce a border. The fact that the militants are hiding behind civilians can’t be used against Israel. Of course the other side is: the borders just prevent Palestinian’s from getting work in Israel (mainly Jerusalem), which is leading to huge unemployment, a reliance on aid which is few and far between, and future fuelling the problems. I was over in Israel last month and got to meet Arabs (Muslims), Jews, as well as Christian Arab and Jews. From what the people I met had to say, I can't see any way to resolve the problems, it's not a case of just stopping attacks or even opening borders that wouldn't be enough for either side.
It is not as simple as that. Israel has no more claim on territory there than the Palestinians do, and if you'll check history (always good) you'll note that Israel too was born in the fires of terrorism. It's 1977 Prime Minister, Menahem Begin, was a former terrorist. In July 2006, Israelis, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former members of Irgun attended a 60th anniversary celebration of the King David Hotel bombing of 1946, which killed UK citizens. The price of being the Good Guy is that you have to be the Good Guy. You do not get the same range of options that the Bad Guys have. This means that you cannot bomb civilians, even in the process of bombing terrorists. The fact that the terrorists are putting the civilians at risk by hiding amongst them is a poor excuse. Bad Guys cheat --it is their way. Good guys don't get to, because it is not theirs. It would be a start. Most people on both sides are getting tired of seeing their loved ones killed in an endless, and in perspective of their personal losses, pointless conflict. Culturally Jews and Arabs have more similarities than differences --they should be able to get along. But tribal rivaly always happens in perceived competition for the same resources or territory. They way to get them to co-operate is to make them realise that co-operation benefits both sides more than competition. The US needs to take a hands-off apporach to Israel, and you'll see that the Middle East does the same with Palestine. It is amazing how people will learn to get along once you take away their weapons.
Yeer that is true, things may have been different if we had properly set borders and given over control in the right way in the beginning of the 20th century, rather than just leaving them to themselves once things started to get nasty. The thing is though that the Jews see themselves living in the land as an answer to prophecy dating back thousands of years. They have the oldest claim in terms that they have settled there for thousands of years. (There are ruins going back 2-3000 years easy). Though of course in the (many) years between most being scattered across the world and many returning, other settlers have moved into the land, which have since lived there for many generations. What surprised me was how small a country it was, all that fighting over such a small piece of land, I mean it really is a small dot compared to the rest of the Middle East. I think a good start would be to open the borders to Palestine places such as Bethlehem, I can't see them opening up Gaza any time soon. The problem is, is that the Palestine’s want parts of Jerusalem, which would be to big a security risk for Israel to ever allow, and would put Telavive airport within range of attacks, which would happen for what ever reason.
On digg I see many people going on about how the Palestinians voted for Hamas but the problem was more Fatah (teh other faction) was hideously corrupt and Hamas was not. For me the main issue is Gaza and the west bank should never have existed, the palestinian state needs to be a one united body of land not divided
You're right, Arthur James Balfour has a lot to answer for. If the modern state of Israel was never created we wouldn't have this problem. I don't care if one religious group lay claim to a land or not, by creating an artificial state and displacing a native people it was never going to be good.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7804001.stm Looks like Bush found one last thing to screw up before he stands down... Inflame a already bad situation! horay!
The reality is that the Palestinians have been living there since the year dot themselves. A nice illustration of this was given by a UK journalist, visiting a Palestinian at his home. The house was a real flashback to Biblical times: clay rendered walls, wooden flat roof, stables below the living-room on the first floor. "How long have you lived here?" the journalist asked the Palestinian. "What, my family? In this house? Since about 700 A.D." Yet further up the road were some Jewish settlers, fresh from New York who wanted him to move, please, so that they could claim their rightful land... What? And Hamas can't do security? If it is partly their city and their airport, their attitudes towards it will change... QFT. But the West had some debts to pay for sitting on its hands during Hitler's genocide of the Jewish population. There was this brutalised population that needed a new home now, and nobody wanted them in their back yard, plain and simple. So the Jews were made Somebody Else's Problem. Yeah, can't wait until he's gone. Bush is the ultimate WMD.
I'm generally strongly against Israeli actions, and even now I dislike the proportion to which they seem to be prosecuting this little mini-conflict. However, that said, I don't see that they really had much option this time around. Hamas are signing their own death warrent by attacking Israel. They're the extremist nutters who want to die fighting of course, but that means fighting has to happen to kill them all, so the slightly more sane people who actually want peace can get into power. Basically, Hamas have shown themselves to be a serious obstacle to peace. So they need to be killed. Israel is doing this, for a good reason in this case too. Let them continue. The civilians suffering in gaza is a shame, but what's new in the world of Gazans? At least with Hamas gone they might stand a chance of a better sort of peace in the next 20 years.
Damn. I was wondering when the higher ups would make a decision. This broke out a couple days ago and I have been waiting to hear what we would do ever since. Obama/Bush or whoever is running the show needs to handle this very very carefully or everything will start to hit the fan.
How? It's not like it was any better before hamas. As I see it Israel is just using Hamas as a excuse to expand their territory, just like they did with every other excuse they could think off over the last few decades. Due to history especially the Israelis should know better than attacking others just because they think different.
There are three flaws with this argument. First, the terrorists rocketing Israel are not necessarily Hamas. Could be the Hez, could be Islamic Jihad, could be any bunch of assorted "Gaza militants" as they are generally referred to. To assume that Hamas is ultimately responsible for these attacks is to assume that they could effectively stop them. I'm not so sure that they could. Hamas is not necessarily as coherent a bunch of people as you think. Second, I'm sure that even in Hamas there are plenty of extremist nutters who want to die fighting --who love nothing more than to provoke Israel in an all-out war. But the question you need to ask yourself now is: if that is what they want, do you really want to give it to them? Because: Third, in killing civilians to get to the terrorists, Israel is not solving the problem; it is making it worse. The Palestinian civilians are not going to look at their smoking ruins and dead bodies of family members and say: "Well, those militants did provoke Israel into this. It's all their fault, really". Quite the contrary. They can't control the militants any more than they can control Israel, but they will engage in a spot of correspondent inference: the most likely consequences of an action will be interpreted as its intent: Israel wants to kill us all. This line of reasoning is particularly likely against the backdrop of months of punishing blockades and embargos. So basically, this bombardment is not just killing militants; it is creating a whole new generation of them. And Hamas knows this, which is why they want this all-out war, and why Israel should not give it to them. But the reason that Israel does give it to them in spades is because (as with all transactional relationships) it also wants an all-out war. All this *****-footing about, it is reasoning, is getting it nowhere. Whereas just carpet bombing the place can have three different results: The terrorists are killed, the rocket attacks stop = Win. The terrorists are killed, and the civilians run for the hills of surrounding Arab nations in order not to be. They become refugees, the Gaza strip is abandoned and ready for the new Israeli settlers = Win. The terrorists are killed, and most of the civilians are killed. See above = Win. Sure, there will be outcry and disapproval of the rest of the world, and even the US may not be best friends anymore once Barack Obama is in charge. But who cares? What did they ever do to ensure Israel's security? And Israel's got nukes, so that ends all arguments right there.
Compare the Fatah run west-bank and Hamas run Gaza. I highly doubt Israel will expand their territory into Gaza, the place is too much of a hellhole. They'll probably (immorally) continue to do that in the west bank, but I doubt they will in gaza. They're atacking Gaza because Hamas are firing dozens of rockets at their citizenry every day ffs, not because arabs are a different colour. Then in that case, barring any successfull outside intervention, the gazans will all eventually die. Put simply, gaza should give up fighting. Entirely. If they fight, they're valid targets. Just because Israel fighting back creates more militants in Gaza doesn't mean Israel should ignore rocket attacks on it's territory. If that means that every last person in Gaza becomes a militant when Israel fights back, then Israel is just going to have to kill every last person in Gaza. A good solution? No. But it's a solution. Israel isn't the only side who can take the high road here, it has an easier job of it, but since Israel clearly won't take the high road (being a morally corrupt facist state an' all) the palestinians pretty much either have to, or face eventual extermination. This is the choice Palestinians have, and since Hamas seem to do a good job of making the non-violent course of action possible, I'm content to see them systematically dismantled.
I think the dynamic is reciprocal. Hamas and assorted militants want to provoke Israel into an all-out war, so that they can get the Arab nations on side, undermine Israel's standing with the rest of the world and because, basically, fighting is the only thing they know how to do. It's not as if they are a real political party that knows how to govern or something, you know. Israel wanted to provoke Hamas and assorted militants into provoking an all-out war because frankly, just killing everybody seems like an easier solution and it is easier to justify this under a pretext of self-defense. It is not as if Israel is actually looking for a diplomatic solution. Hamas doesn't acknowledge Israel, but Israel would just as rather that Palestine did not exist. They agree to disagree, and now they agree on how to resolve that disagreement. The fight is on.
You are right in that guilt played a major factor, but the whole process started following the First World War and was exasperated following the Second World War. It is sad that, a brutalised population (or more fittingly religious group), Jews were killed by the thousands and eventually millions. However they were not a nation and had no divine right to a land, especially at the expense of a native population. I just can't see this latest episode ending without tears, and the repercussions will ripple world wide.
Well that's simple then. If it's a straight out fight the palestinians can be eradicated and the whole annoying mess can end. This is why Hamas piss me off. They're fighting with absolutely no hope of a military solution to their problem. Hamas don't have 1000th of the force they need to succesfully combat the IDF. Even as a ploy to bring all the surrounding Arab states into the fight, with the ones that actually got involved there'd be little chance of Arab success (I'm assuming Egypt & Saudi Arabia would stay out of any fight, given their western stance these days). They can not achieve anything. So they're being irrational. Given that, they might as well be killed, since they're just standing in the way of progress. Hence my limited support for the current Israeli offensive, get rid of Hamas and you don't solve any problems - but you do get rid of an obstacle to solving some of them.
True, but so is Israel. It is fighting Hydra. It may manage to kill most of the current Hamas militants, but in the process is creating thousands of new recruits amongst the Palestinian civilians (and amongst those of other disenfranchised/alienated/generally ****ed up Arab/Asian states --Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Lybia...). It may manage to kill most Palestinian civilians as well, but then it will mark itself on every terrorist score card for the next century or so, and have to turn itself into a bunkered paranoid police state to just survive. Cold War? Patriot Act and the War on Terror™? You ain't seen nothing yet. This is so utterly self-defeating. We've been down this road since millennia. We all know where it ends. Someone's got to be the wiser man and blink. And since Israel is the top dog in this conflict, unfortunately it has to be Israel.
Everyone knows if you cut off enough hydra heads it eventually dies since it can't cope with the extra bloodflow needed. [Instert link to OotS comic I can't find]
my thoughts exactly. the western world needs to stop messing about with other countries and peoples and let them work their issues out for themselves. and all the continuing support of israel is making the situation even worse. i'm not saying i support the palestinians, i'm just saying that as a westerner it is none of my goddamned business. i can't help thinking of console fanboys when i see the support that israel gets. "i bought this console with my hard earned money, and no matter how much it sucks i'll still defend it on the interwebs" seems so similar to "we created this country, and no matter how bad an idea it turned out to be, we'll support it anyways". just without the death.
