What should Israel do?

[Loren Pechtel]

will make life miserable for the Palestinians until they go.

Is that why Israel gives the Palestinians billions in aid each and every year? Who supplies their power, who supplies them medical assistance, food and other goods? On the other hand, Who supplies Hamas?

And note that the lights stay on despite the fact that the power bill hasn't been paid in ages.

And they're whining about the fact that something like 20% of Gaza is currently blacked out--never mind it was a Hamas rocket that caused that. Hamas likes it's people to suffer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You mean like this guy?

“If I were ruling, we would have reconciled [with Israel] long ago,” he says. “Israel cannot kill all the Palestinians and Palestinians cannot kill all the Israelis. So we have to have dialogue and make peace.”

He's not the one calling the shots on the Palestinian side.

An apparent artillery round plunged through the wall and exploded in the bedroom, turning furniture into rubble, tangling clothes across the floor, and throwing a woman's rhinestone-studded shoe atop bits of debris. A light fixture was torn from the ceiling, curtains hung in shreds, and a child's pink backpack lay amid the debris.

That doesn't sound like an artillery round. Such light damage normally means it was an errant Hamas rocket.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Sorry, which side were you talking about again?

Hamas putting a bunch of civilians on military targets doesn't mean Israel is aiming at civilians.

Ahh, ok. Now I understand. As long as you aren't *aiming* at them, it's ok.

 

[Derec]

 

[arkirk]

Yup! That's why the IDF today blew up a geriatric hospital, and did a sewage plant a few days earlier and an electric power facilitiy. Because they are precise terrorists, they are careful. You don't seem to understand this type of activity needs to be eliminated. If they are precise, then they knew they were killing civilians. Why you place your faith in these gung ho video game war players with modern weapons is beyond me.

 

[Jayjay]

The proximity to the Suez Canal has nothing to do with how the world sees Israel.

He's willing to commit violence in the pursuit of survival.

That's something Natanyahu has common with Hamas.

It is pointless to keep parroting the Netanyahu idea that "Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish State," In the end, power structures such as his will collapse and Netanyahu is actually a gross liability to the future existence of Israel as anything but a failed state. It will have failed because it did not attempt to be a legitimate state...ever in its entire existence. It appears bent on accumulating more liabilities against itself every day. I would love to see peace in the area and I know the Arab factions may well be seeking revenge for the atrocities heaped on the Palestinian people. It will take perhaps a generation or so for this to die down even after Israel either relents or collapses. It is up to the Israelis to make the moves that will insure some kind of future for themselves in the area. Netanyahu is simply not the right kind of leadership that will ever broker peace.

The only peace you would get is the peace of death. It would die down because there would be no Jews left, not because the Arabs were reasonable.

If by "death" you mean moved back to Europe, you'd be right. You are imagining a hypothetical holocaust scenario, which would never happen because A) Israel is well-capable of defending its 1967 borders even if it withraws from West Bank, and B) even if it wasn't, all the Jews would probably find safety in US and Europe. This hypothetical worst case scenario in no way justifies actual, ongoing oppression of Palestinians who are imprisoned in a ghetto and have nowhere else to go.

 

[untermensche]

That's simply a fucking lie.

Your whole position is just one lie on top of another.

You are a supporter of oppression. Despicable.

Of course, attack me because you can't attack the facts.

You have no facts. You live in a dream world where the ethnic cleansing done by the Israelis in 1948 is some glorious independence.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hamas putting a bunch of civilians on military targets doesn't mean Israel is aiming at civilians.

Ahh, ok. Now I understand. As long as you aren't *aiming* at them, it's ok.

It has to do with intent.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If by "death" you mean moved back to Europe, you'd be right. You are imagining a hypothetical holocaust scenario, which would never happen because A) Israel is well-capable of defending its 1967 borders even if it withraws from West Bank, and B) even if it wasn't, all the Jews would probably find safety in US and Europe. This hypothetical worst case scenario in no way justifies actual, ongoing oppression of Palestinians who are imprisoned in a ghetto and have nowhere else to go.

So you want to ethnically cleanse Israel?

And given the increasing level of antisemitism we are currently seeing in Europe that probably wouldn't be safe for long.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of course, attack me because you can't attack the facts.

You have no facts. You live in a dream world where the ethnic cleansing done by the Israelis in 1948 is some glorious independence.

There is a big difference between closing your borders and ethnic cleansing.

 

[untermensche]

You have no facts. You live in a dream world where the ethnic cleansing done by the Israelis in 1948 is some glorious independence.

There is a big difference between closing your borders and ethnic cleansing.

True. But what the Israelis did was ethnic cleansing. It's well documented. They threw over 700,000 Palestinians out or refused to let them return to their homes. Which is no different. Even if Israel set up borders those homes were still Palestinian homes and they had every right under international law to return to them.

And every settlement is continual ethnic cleansing. An attempt to make sure Arabs don't live on the land. The settlements are racist enclaves.

 

[Sabine Grant]

TFT Moderation Team.

 

[Sabine Grant]

TFT Moderation.

 

[Derec]

So what is the opinion of the anti-Israel posters on the many tunnels Hamas dug into Israel and which it uses to infiltrate into Israeli territory?
Note especially that these tunnels must have been dug over a lengthy period of time and that they take a lot of cement to reinforce, which Gazans claim they desperately need for "civilian" projects.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is a big difference between closing your borders and ethnic cleansing.

True. But what the Israelis did was ethnic cleansing. It's well documented. They threw over 700,000 Palestinians out or refused to let them return to their homes. Which is no different. Even if Israel set up borders those homes were still Palestinian homes and they had every right under international law to return to them.

And every settlement is continual ethnic cleansing. An attempt to make sure Arabs don't live on the land. The settlements are racist enclaves.

20% of the population of Israel is Arab. That's hardly ethnic cleansing.

0% of the population of Gaza/West Bank is Jewish--because they actually did ethnically cleanse.

 

[laughing dog]

So what is the opinion of the anti-Israel posters on the many tunnels Hamas dug into Israel and which it uses to infiltrate into Israeli territory?
Note especially that these tunnels must have been dug over a lengthy period of time and that they take a lot of cement to reinforce, which Gazans claim they desperately need for "civilian" projects.

No one here is arguing that Hamas is innocent or harmless.
Unless you are arguing that the tunnels used all the cement, you really don't have a point, especially since it is a logical error (or bigotry) to equate "Gazan" with "Hamas terrorist" .

 

[laughing dog]

0% of the population of Gaza/West Bank is Jewish--because they actually did ethnically cleanse.

Are you seriously claiming the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not Jewish?

 

[tupac chopra]

So what is the opinion of the anti-Israel posters on the many tunnels Hamas dug into Israel and which it uses to infiltrate into Israeli territory?
Note especially that these tunnels must have been dug over a lengthy period of time and that they take a lot of cement to reinforce, which Gazans claim they desperately need for "civilian" projects.

Presumably when you get abused you bend over and ask for more? You don't resist you lie back and take it?

Who started this whole thing? Some Europeans and Americans decided they would carve out some land and plant people in there who had no relevant association with the place and scant genetic association. The whole idea was one big fuck-up, and it's not going to get better for Israel, unless they put their stupid religious based racism aside.
Soon, as America comes under more pressure Israel will become a scapegoat. Fuckwits like Bibi are not needed.

Israel needs to put their fucked up ideas that come from some Iron age culture that worshiped a warmongering racist paranoid god aside. They are just human beings like the rest of us.

 

[arkirk]

So what is the opinion of the anti-Israel posters on the many tunnels Hamas dug into Israel and which it uses to infiltrate into Israeli territory?
Note especially that these tunnels must have been dug over a lengthy period of time and that they take a lot of cement to reinforce, which Gazans claim they desperately need for "civilian" projects.

If Gaza is "Israel" your first sentence might be right. These tunnels are mostly between Egypt and Gaza or Gaza and Gaza. You should pay a little more attention to the news on these matters. Cement they would have could only come in through the tunnels as cement is blockaded from Gaza by the IDF. Body counts keep rising...now over 500 humans dead, many of these women and children...and over 3,000 injured. Looks like an attack on a civilian population to me...a definite war crime...regardless of what Hamas does.

American cynicism against Palestinians is based on a pro Israel propaganda media in the U.S. Civilian protests in Israel proper (if there can be said to be such a thing) against this military incursion into Gaza are met with violent attacks from mobs the cops let beat and stone the protesters. Israel isn't much on freedom of speech, it appears. That is somewhat different from the U.S. where the police do the beating.

This war is accompanied by a full on propaganda machine. People are being murdered over there and all we hear about is Hamas rockets. If your neighborhood was shelled as Gaza neighborhoods are being shelled, I am sure that there would be nobody who would not support some sort of resistance. This is especially true if your home is always on the chopping block...always a possible target on any day at any time with any size high explosive weapon. When you object at having to live like that, you are labeled a Hamas supporter. Where do you think Hamas gets its recruits?

 

[arkirk]

In other words, you know the settlements and the supposed occupation are not the cause.

And you're falling for the liberal fallacy that good talk can always bring peace.

I feel Israel's entire existence has been based on military conquest and violence. Will they ever be smart and brave enough to stop depending on force to impose their will on the area? The succession of conquests in Palestine is longer than all our arms. What happens to people when they enter the territory? They become vicious and unscrupulous or....they end up like Rachel Corrie...just another blade of grass under the Israeli lawnmower. That is a sign of incipient fanatical religion.

They're not dumb enough to commit suicide.

Israel is actively expanding its settlements in the West Bank. That's an undeniable fact! They are doing it by evicting by force Palestinians from THEIR LAND. This also is happening to the Bedoins in the Negev in what is called Israel. It is such a tiny piece of land so locked in conflict...all these many years. No! Loren, perhaps words are not enough. I know they aren't stopping the conflict today, but I also know they do, when the chronicle events support war crimes trials for the likes of Netanyahu. You see, I can't afford to buy the Gazans fighter jets, drones, and other military hardware that would be needed by them to settle things YOUR WAY. I can still object to it and see the wrong in it. I am honestly sorry you do not seem to have that mental capacity. Somehow you must persist in branding a whole people evil.

Yes, Loren, they are NOT DUMB ENOUGH TO COMMIT SUICIDE BUT THAT DOES NOT PRECLUDE THEM COMMITTING MURDER IN THEIR PARANOIA.