What should Israel do?

[Loren Pechtel]

Don't start to pretend you meant "Islamic Jihad isn't just one organization, it's many different organizations". You did not know there was any organization with that name, and now you know.

No, you're wrong.

The person I was addressing has a habit of lumping all Muslims into the same group.

He can't see the difference between the nation of Egypt attacking Israel and Palestinians resisting oppression.

The acts are different, the force behind it is the same.

It's like you are saying that British attacks on the Nazis were a different war than American attacks on the Nazis.

 

[untermensche]

No, you're wrong.

The person I was addressing has a habit of lumping all Muslims into the same group.

He can't see the difference between the nation of Egypt attacking Israel and Palestinians resisting oppression.

The acts are different, the force behind it is the same.

It's like you are saying that British attacks on the Nazis were a different war than American attacks on the Nazis.

No. It's like saying the War in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement was the same thing.

 

[arkirk]

The acts are different, the force behind it is the same.

It's like you are saying that British attacks on the Nazis were a different war than American attacks on the Nazis.

No. It's like saying the War in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement was the same thing.

And that force is aggression born of the notion that ONLY VIOLENCE CAN SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. In reality only understanding can solve this problem. If you understand how people become radicalized toward violence you can at least steer your way clear of the type of action that is so destructive.

I keep hearing Loren and Angelo harping on how we cannot expect a fair solution to the situation. That is just plain a defeatist attitude, and it licenses not caring about your fellow human beings to the point where one can sit idly by while they are murdered. The formula is always the same...just point to some heinous thing one side has done and keep harping on it reminding us that "those people are hopelessly violent, hopelessly corrupt, and dedicated to the destruction of Israel."

Such approach lacks insight into the what is common to all men and women on the planet. It lacks imagination. It lacks the will and intention to bring improvement to human relations. It is so clearly aimed at demoralizing us and making us accept the unacceptable. Their argument is static and goes nowhere except more violence. It characterizes a whole race of people (Arabs) as innately violent and incapable of change. We must resist this type of anti-humanist thinking because it will not bear fruit...unless you happen to like the grapes of wrath. The premises they base their arguments on are not universal truths. Not all Arabs are corrupt, violent and unable to change. Always attacking these peoples' characters in this way discards any chance of reconciliation with them...and keeps the war factories and the grave diggers busy. We need to abandon this archaic and frankly almost biblical notion. It smacks of predestination and magical thinking and gives no hope of human beings ever being rational.

 

[Barbarian]

That's not my habit.

I hate to break it to you but this is nothing but ignorant bigotry.

Trying to understand why someone disagrees with you would have been better, but labeling them as not worthy of arguing with is certainly easier.

Certainly, if you can explain how quoting ten words from a holy book demonstates the indivisibility of almost a quarter of the world's population spread across multiple cultures and continents, then I'd like to hear it.

It doesn't. I quoted those words as one example, and I quoted them from a work of this guy, who was a Muslim himself (and lecturer in a number of Islamic universities), and who used those words to support exactly the point I made, that Muslims are first and foremost Muslims and only secondarily citizens of any given state. I base my claim upon a great shitload of facts, some of them personal experiences with Muslims and yet others being personal experiences with repressed cultures similar to the Muslim one. But I'm offended by your assumption that I would be so stupid as to base such a general condemnation on merely two verses of a book, so I'm not really going to explain this any further.

 

[Togo]

That's not my habit.

I hate to break it to you but this is nothing but ignorant bigotry.

Trying to understand why someone disagrees with you would have been better, but labeling them as not worthy of arguing with is certainly easier.

Certainly, if you can explain how quoting ten words from a holy book demonstates the indivisibility of almost a quarter of the world's population spread across multiple cultures and continents, then I'd like to hear it.

It doesn't. I quoted those words as one example, and I quoted them from a work of this guy, who was a Muslim himself (and lecturer in a number of Islamic universities), and who used those words to support exactly the point I made, that Muslims are first and foremost Muslims and only secondarily citizens of any given state. I base my claim upon a great shitload of facts, some of them personal experiences with Muslims and yet others being personal experiences with repressed cultures similar to the Muslim one.

Ok, so you do actually have reasons, but you're not intending to present any of them on this thread. Do you understand how two people, one of whom has a great pile of excellent reasons they're not going to share, and one of whom has no reasons beyond a hatred for a particular religion, look identical on a website?

Do you further understand that it's unreasonable to expect people to agree with you if they don't have access to your reasoning?

But I'm offended by your assumption that I would be so stupid as to base such a general condemnation on merely two verses of a book, so I'm not really going to explain this any further.

Then maybe you should consider a point recently made:

Trying to understand why someone disagrees with you would have been better, but labeling them as not worthy of arguing with is certainly easier.

And ask yourself which you're doing?

 

[untermensche]

It doesn't. I quoted those words as one example, and I quoted them from a work of this guy, who was a Muslim himself (and lecturer in a number of Islamic universities), and who used those words to support exactly the point I made, that Muslims are first and foremost Muslims and only secondarily citizens of any given state. I base my claim upon a great shitload of facts, some of them personal experiences with Muslims and yet others being personal experiences with repressed cultures similar to the Muslim one. But I'm offended by your assumption that I would be so stupid as to base such a general condemnation on merely two verses of a book, so I'm not really going to explain this any further.

I guess you've never heard the term "God, family, country". It's a popular Christian phrase in the US.

In other words these people claim to be loyal to god first, their family second, and their country third.

Yes it's true, they're more loyal to an invisible imaginary friend than their family, but the point is their loyalties are exactly the same as these Muslims.

But even though they claim loyalty to their god first they are not more loyal to French Christians than they are to their own country.

So these claims of loyalties here and loyalties there are worthless.

When push comes to shove people put their home and family above any religion.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The acts are different, the force behind it is the same.

It's like you are saying that British attacks on the Nazis were a different war than American attacks on the Nazis.

No. It's like saying the War in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement was the same thing.

A significant number of prominent Dixiecrats went on record claiming EXACTLY that. In fact I have seen it claimed in the old news reports that Martin Luther King was a communist and a Vietcong collaborator, that the NAACP took its marching orders from Moscow and that the desegregation movement was just a ploy by the Kremlin to destabilize America from within.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It doesn't. I quoted those words as one example, and I quoted them from a work of this guy, who was a Muslim himself (and lecturer in a number of Islamic universities), and who used those words to support exactly the point I made, that Muslims are first and foremost Muslims and only secondarily citizens of any given state. I base my claim upon a great shitload of facts, some of them personal experiences with Muslims and yet others being personal experiences with repressed cultures similar to the Muslim one. But I'm offended by your assumption that I would be so stupid as to base such a general condemnation on merely two verses of a book, so I'm not really going to explain this any further.

I guess you've never heard the term "God, family, country". It's a popular Christian phrase in the US.

In other words these people claim to be loyal to god first, their family second, and their country third.

Yes it's true, they're more loyal to an invisible imaginary friend than their family, but the point is their loyalties are exactly the same as these Muslims.

But even though they claim loyalty to their god first they are not more loyal to French Christians than they are to their own country.

So these claims of loyalties here and loyalties there are worthless.

When push comes to shove people put their home and family above any religion.

It actually goes way beyond that for Muslims BORN in the countries in which they reside. It's easy to get distracted in places like, say, England or France where the lion's share of the Muslim population are actually immigrants who entered the country in the first place looking for work; you wouldn't EXPECT them to be loyal to the country in which they reside because they have purely self-interested reasons for being there in the first place.

The situation is very different for Muslims born and raised in that country, especially in communities that have been allowed to at least partially integrate into the broader national conscience. Thus American and Canadian Muslims and (in some communities) Chinese Muslims become a lot more attached to their home countries than their parents were and become more loyal to their homeland than more recent arrivals in the community.

Those communities tend to form a unique identity within the Muslim world; they become "The American Muslims" or "The Chinese Muslims" and over time the customs change to match the culture that surrounds them. This is what has always happened historically, and actually still remains the case today: Iranian Muslims are almost mirror images of American Christians: fiercely patriotic while cynically disenchanted with their own government and even their own religious leaders.

It's easy to reduce it to a few lines of scripture and say "This is what they believe and this is what thy will do" but scripture doesn't actually provide that much of a blueprint for day-to-day operations. As good as Christians are in bending scriptures to support whatever it is they've already decided to do... Muslims are even better.

 

[untermensche]

I guess you've never heard the term "God, family, country". It's a popular Christian phrase in the US.

In other words these people claim to be loyal to god first, their family second, and their country third.

Yes it's true, they're more loyal to an invisible imaginary friend than their family, but the point is their loyalties are exactly the same as these Muslims.

But even though they claim loyalty to their god first they are not more loyal to French Christians than they are to their own country.

So these claims of loyalties here and loyalties there are worthless.

When push comes to shove people put their home and family above any religion.

It actually goes way beyond that for Muslims BORN in the countries in which they reside. It's easy to get distracted in places like, say, England or France where the lion's share of the Muslim population are actually immigrants who entered the country in the first place looking for work; you wouldn't EXPECT them to be loyal to the country in which they reside because they have purely self-interested reasons for being there in the first place.

The situation is very different for Muslims born and raised in that country, especially in communities that have been allowed to at least partially integrate into the broader national conscience. Thus American and Canadian Muslims and (in some communities) Chinese Muslims become a lot more attached to their home countries than their parents were and become more loyal to their homeland than more recent arrivals in the community.

Those communities tend to form a unique identity within the Muslim world; they become "The American Muslims" or "The Chinese Muslims" and over time the customs change to match the culture that surrounds them. This is what has always happened historically, and actually still remains the case today: Iranian Muslims are almost mirror images of American Christians: fiercely patriotic while cynically disenchanted with their own government and even their own religious leaders.

It's easy to reduce it to a few lines of scripture and say "This is what they believe and this is what thy will do" but scripture doesn't actually provide that much of a blueprint for day-to-day operations. As good as Christians are in bending scriptures to support whatever it is they've already decided to do... Muslims are even better.

Yes. Many of them are tribal. They have no great loyalties that extend beyond their village.

 

[Barbarian]

It doesn't. I quoted those words as one example, and I quoted them from a work of this guy, who was a Muslim himself (and lecturer in a number of Islamic universities), and who used those words to support exactly the point I made, that Muslims are first and foremost Muslims and only secondarily citizens of any given state. I base my claim upon a great shitload of facts, some of them personal experiences with Muslims and yet others being personal experiences with repressed cultures similar to the Muslim one. But I'm offended by your assumption that I would be so stupid as to base such a general condemnation on merely two verses of a book, so I'm not really going to explain this any further.

I guess you've never heard the term "God, family, country". It's a popular Christian phrase in the US.

In other words these people claim to be loyal to god first, their family second, and their country third.

Yes it's true, they're more loyal to an invisible imaginary friend than their family, but the point is their loyalties are exactly the same as these Muslims.

But even though they claim loyalty to their god first they are not more loyal to French Christians than they are to their own country.

So these claims of loyalties here and loyalties there are worthless.

When push comes to shove people put their home and family above any religion.

I think Christians and Muslims are different in this respect. The Christians I personally know or knew carry their religion as a tribal marker, reinforcing and correlating with their ethnicity or class. When out of the church (where they mostly show up on religious holidays only), they act completely secular. There's no prayer, gestures, references to God, nothing. I was about 30 years old when I first saw someone say grace over a meal, and it felt like I accidentally stumbled upon some traditional tribe on the Amazon and was witnessing their spirit-honoring ceremony. On the other hand I did 'convert' from Greek Catholicism to Calvinism only 25 years before just to clarify where my ethnic loyalties lay.

Muslims are different, because their religious observances are sort of a system of artificial OCDish behaviors which gnaw themselves all the way to the bone. Read this book (can be downloaded for free). It was recommended to a friend of mine who converted to Islam because she's about to marry a Muslim and move to the Middle East. It was the bridegroom who did the recommendation, so here we have the honest-to-Allah endorsement of a real Muslim about what the ideal behavior of a Muslim actually is. And it turns out that it is very hard to go for minutes not doing some religious observance or at least remembering that you should. There's prescribed utterances for when you enter or leave the WC, or when you wake up in the night and roll on your other side. The rules of maintaining wudhu do not allow you to relax for a minute. They do take their prayers and fasts seriously, as I saw with this girl - honestly, from my point of reference anyone who ever prays when no one sees it is a religious extremist, let alone someone who prays five times at home or who makes a desperate effort to keep Ramadan (for the first time in her life in mid-summer!) and yet look cheerful in her workplace while trying to keep her new religion secret. And we, secular people, are prone to ignore the deep impact this constant awareness of one's religious affiliation and the rationalization of those permanent and rather silly sacrifices (like getting up before dawn, watching what one eats, maintaining wudhu etc.) one must constantly make will have on one's psyche.

So, what I am trying to say is that a Muslim seems to me to be necessarily way more Muslim than a Christian is Christian. Therefore I have no great problem accepting that they do take their rhetoric seriously, as in, they really either think they would act on it if necessary or they wish they were strong enough to do so. This has nothing to do with how many of them actually do it. When one or the other crazed guy calls for Jihad, very few Muslims react, but the way I see it this is more like they have a cheap way out "sure, Jihad should be fought, but this guy is not the legitimate one to call it". When the legitimate guy finally calls it, the call will be answered.

Also, honor killings. Even admitting for the sake of argument that killing your daughter for wanting to marry/trying to elope with a non-Muslim is not Islamic, we still have to conclude that people committing them think it is. Here we have a clear case of people putting their religion - or what they perceive as being their religion - before their family.

One counterargument I've got on this was that as killing your daughter is already an aberration, maybe we should not chalk this up to Islam, but seeing how cheap life is nowadays in the Middle East, I'd rather think killing your daughter isn't the aberration, only the particular reason cited in honor killing cases. Killing her for leaving Islam would be perfectly okay. Another counterargument is that honor killings are actually rare, which is meaningless without knowing how many otherwise honor-killing-worthy events go unpunished, and I don't think a religious Muslim family would give much opportunity to their daughters to fall into temptation, so disobedience may itself be rare. So while it is possible that honor killings are a rare aberration, it is also possible that we see almost all cases of such disobedience leading to either honor killings or less severe assaults. I would guess for the latter.

OK, long story short, Muslims seem to believe their rhetoric, and that Christians don't seem to is not proof to the contrary.

 

[Barbarian]

Yes. Many of them are tribal. They have no great loyalties that extend beyond their village.

The claim was not that they have no loyalty to anything else but their religion. The claim was that loyalty to their religion is rather high on the scale. Would those tribesmen stone their fellow man for leaving Islam? Somehow I get the feeling that they would. Isn't that loyalty to religion placed above loyalty to the tribe?

 

[Philos]

The claim was not that they have no loyalty to anything else but their religion. The claim was that loyalty to their religion is rather high on the scale.

Barbarian,

I have heard this put forwards as a problem for Jews trying to integrate into non Jewish societies. It goes deeper though, for if a Jewish person become a Christian or whatever, there can still be a suspicion that there will be loyalty to other Jews and not the society into which they wish to integrate.

Alex.

 

[Togo]

So, what I am trying to say is that a Muslim seems to me to be necessarily way more Muslim than a Christian is Christian.

I don't see any difference between the groups. Maybe it's just because I live, work and play with Muslims on a regular basis, as well as Hindus, evangelical Christians, and so on.

Let's try a test, shall we? It's a Friday evening after work and you're meeting the following for a meal. What religion are they?


A) A is carrying a beer someone gave him earlier. He doesn't want to drink it until after sundown, and is worried they won't let him into the restaurant with it.

B) B is joking about the quest for a husband, or rather, her mother's quest to find her a husband. She's got another 'date' tomorrow.

C) C, her housemate, warns B to 'test drive' the guy upstairs in her own room, rather than on the living room couch, which is now in danger of collapse. If nothing else she doesn't want them to upset the candles she's setting up, in observance of a holy day in her religion's calandar.

D) D, C's boyfriend, says he doesn't really approve of B's sex life, but doesn't feel he can say anything, because of the hard time his family is giving him about dating C without marrying her.

E) E is going to be late, because he has to has to regularly go into a small room by himself with a fold-out mat, as part of his daily ritual. He'll catch them up at the restaurant. He approves of B's approach.

F) F is concerned that A is carrying a beer around in public, as he sees that as immoral. He offers to throw it away now, and buy him another beer when they get to the restaurant.

G) G can't make it, as she has to reach her religious retreat by sundown. She's not really looking forward to it, but she's been told the food will be good.

H) Wants to change restaurants, as she's heard that some of the food is prepared in a way that conflicts with her beliefs. She suggests a different one.

I) Is happy to eat anywhere. When he starts the meal, he closes his eyes, and enters what looks like some kind of epillectic trance. His closed eyes flicker back and forth, and he violently trembles and shakes for about 30 seconds.

J) J makes her excuses and leaves. She regards D as immoral because of his ethnic identity, and doesn't feel she can share a table with him.

Ok, so what religion are all these people? The list contains 10 people, including at least one of Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Atheist. For a bonus point, spot which one is involved in acting as a political representative for the militant groups in his homeland, who need more shoulder-mounted rockets.

Note that these are all real people that I know well. There's nothing theoretical about this.

Now, if Muslims really are different from other religions, it should be obvious, right?

 

[Togo]

The claim was not that they have no loyalty to anything else but their religion. The claim was that loyalty to their religion is rather high on the scale.

Barbarian,

I have heard this put forwards as a problem for Jews trying to integrate into non Jewish societies. It goes deeper though, for if a Jewish person become a Christian or whatever, there can still be a suspicion that there will be loyalty to other Jews and not the society into which they wish to integrate.

Alex.

The same argument is used about Christians in China. On the level of a company, I've heard it argued that atheists can't be trusted because they aren't willing to follow ethical guidelines laid down by others.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

All in all, you can do a broadbrush generalization of just about anyone based on the theoretical implications of their belief systems. But people are still PEOPLE, and human nature still prevails.

 

[Rhea]

I think Christians and Muslims are different in this respect. The Christians I personally know or knew carry their religion as a tribal marker, reinforcing and correlating with their ethnicity or class. When out of the church (where they mostly show up on religious holidays only), they act completely secular. There's no prayer, gestures, references to God, nothing. I was about 30 years old when I first saw someone say grace over a meal, and it felt like I accidentally stumbled upon some traditional tribe on the Amazon and was witnessing their spirit-honoring ceremony. On the other hand I did 'convert' from Greek Catholicism to Calvinism only 25 years before just to clarify where my ethnic loyalties lay.

Muslims are different, because their religious observances are sort of a system of artificial OCDish behaviors which gnaw themselves all the way to the bone.

I'd like to introduce you to the American Republican Party and their extremist wing, the Tea Partiers. Called by us the Teahadists. The Tealiban. Teavangelicals. Becuse they act EXACTLY THE SAME INCLUDING THE OCCASIONAL MURDER as your extremist Muslims in your paragraph above. We have several million of these in the USA. The constant praising of God and invoking religions, icons, attributes, actions to their god. The shunning of outsiders. The oppressing of the out-group. The lies, the ghastly lack of scientific knowledge or cultural empathy.

Your broad brush point that they are different may be because of which ones you are personally acquainted with.

 

[laruan]

The Israeli Prime Minister has defended the actions of Israel’s armed forces in the recent war in the Gaza Strip, blaming the heavy civilian casualties on Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza was a necessary response to Hamas attacks.
“It was justified. It was proportionate,” he said.
Nearly 1,900 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, most of them civilians. Israel says some 900 Palestinian militants were among the dead. Netanyahu said he regretted “every” civilian death, but said that Hamas was responsible because it carried out attacks from civilian areas.

Every WAR brings unmentionable woe upon the civilian populations that reside n the war zones. Every leader has to justify these casualties to his troops to keep them on song in the killing department.

What the world can do to stop it , that is the question . Or does the world even want to stop it. The west has been conditioned to accept deaths in foreign wars in the same vein as emphysema or cirrhosis , just self inflicted malady s caused by bad behavior . Its not what should the Israelis do but what should everybody do.

 

[arkirk]

The Israeli Prime Minister has defended the actions of Israel’s armed forces in the recent war in the Gaza Strip, blaming the heavy civilian casualties on Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza was a necessary response to Hamas attacks.
“It was justified. It was proportionate,” he said.
Nearly 1,900 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, most of them civilians. Israel says some 900 Palestinian militants were among the dead. Netanyahu said he regretted “every” civilian death, but said that Hamas was responsible because it carried out attacks from civilian areas.

Every WAR brings unmentionable woe upon the civilian populations that reside n the war zones. Every leader has to justify these casualties to his troops to keep them on song in the killing department.

What the world can do to stop it , that is the question . Or does the world even want to stop it. The west has been conditioned to accept deaths in foreign wars in the same vein as emphysema or cirrhosis , just self inflicted malady s caused by bad behavior . Its not what should the Israelis do but what should everybody do.

How about terminating the fucking killing of women and children and men who are helpless? The killing is still happening there. This is not acceptable behavior for people who pretend to be civilized. They need to sit down at the table will ALL PARTIES INVOLVED AND BRING THE KILLING TO AN END. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO DO THIS.

 

[maxparrish]

I think Christians and Muslims are different in this respect. The Christians I personally know or knew carry their religion as a tribal marker, reinforcing and correlating with their ethnicity or class. When out of the church (where they mostly show up on religious holidays only), they act completely secular. There's no prayer, gestures, references to God, nothing. I was about 30 years old when I first saw someone say grace over a meal, and it felt like I accidentally stumbled upon some traditional tribe on the Amazon and was witnessing their spirit-honoring ceremony. On the other hand I did 'convert' from Greek Catholicism to Calvinism only 25 years before just to clarify where my ethnic loyalties lay.

Muslims are different, because their religious observances are sort of a system of artificial OCDish behaviors which gnaw themselves all the way to the bone.

I'd like to introduce you to the American Republican Party and their extremist wing, the Tea Partiers. Called by us the Teahadists. The Tealiban. Teavangelicals. Becuse they act EXACTLY THE SAME INCLUDING THE OCCASIONAL MURDER as your extremist Muslims in your paragraph above. We have several million of these in the USA. The constant praising of God and invoking religions, icons, attributes, actions to their god. The shunning of outsiders. The oppressing of the out-group. The lies, the ghastly lack of scientific knowledge or cultural empathy.

Your broad brush point that they are different may be because of which ones you are personally acquainted with.

Given the over-reaction, I wonder, have you grown desperate to find someone to personally excoriate?

Barbarian made the perfectly reasonable observation that self-identified Christians are less religiously motivated and serious than self-identified Muslims. As little as 20 percent of claimed Christians regularly attend Church, more than half of those are just pew warmers. Most mainstream religions memberships lead a secularized life, and religion (and religious practice) is rarely is a part of their everyday discourse.

To illustrate Barbarian related his personal knowledge, based on experience with, and biographical details on, a friend, a Muslim moving to the Middle East. He explains the hyper-superstitious conduct, rules, and rituals he observed - and considers it nonsense (as should our board's agnostics and atheists).

And he believes their religiously motivated blood lusting rhetoric is sincere, that "they really either think they would act on it if necessary or they wish they were strong enough to do so."

So how do you respond? Name calling the poster ( "Teahadists. The Tealiban. Teavangelicals") and then ranting unsupported claims about how such folk are part of the millions those who "are exactly the same because they constantly praise God, oppressing, and shunning."

When painting your own "broad brush" you might note that at least Barbarian provided a personal experience and a number of specific examples of Muslim practice; and from you? Nothing but hyperbolic offense and theatrics over the "Tealiban" as some kind of sinister religious mass movement of millions that occasionally murder.

In sum, when you are ranting about "broad brushes", name calling a poster, and bemoaning his/their "lack of cultural empathy" you might start at home, right?

 

[maxparrish]

Every WAR brings unmentionable woe upon the civilian populations that reside n the war zones. Every leader has to justify these casualties to his troops to keep them on song in the killing department.

What the world can do to stop it , that is the question . Or does the world even want to stop it. The west has been conditioned to accept deaths in foreign wars in the same vein as emphysema or cirrhosis , just self inflicted malady s caused by bad behavior . Its not what should the Israelis do but what should everybody do.

How about terminating the fucking killing of women and children and men who are helpless? The killing is still happening there. This is not acceptable behavior for people who pretend to be civilized. They need to sit down at the table will ALL PARTIES INVOLVED AND BRING THE KILLING TO AN END. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO DO THIS.

You are correct "they" have the power to do so. But in order to have a "they", there must be mutual agreement. HAMAS won't stop rocketing and won't agree to a cease fire. Therefore Israel ought to continue its counter attacks. My only criticism of Israel is that they are far too temperate in their use of force.