I can't believe the naivety of some posters here.
Unfortunately, I can believe the naivety of some posters here. I used to share it. I accepted the propaganda about Israel and the Palestinians without question. I tried not to notice that everything I was taught to believe in - freedom, liberty, human rights, treating people fairly and respectfully without regard for race, creed, or ethnic origin, or that the US doesn't have dealings with terrorists - was being subverted by my country's foreign policy in the Middle East.
The day I finally realized that the settlements had absolutely nothing to do with keeping Jews safe was the day I started to question my fundamental assumptions about Zionism. The day I finally realized that when people said Menachem Begin was a terrorist they were simply stating a well known truth was the day I started questioning the moral character of a State that would have him as Prime Minister. And the day I found out about the USS Liberty was the day I stopped trusting what my government had to say about how great a friend we had in Israel.
Hamas is almost made into the victim.
No. The Palestinians are the victims. Not all Palestinians are part of Hamas, or voted for them, or want them around. But Hamas was inevitable. And if Fatah's current attempt at a diplomatic solution fails, you can expect more Hamas-type factions to spring up.
BTW, did you know that in the beginning
Israel cultivated Hamas as a way of undermining the PLO? The Israelis wanted to keep the Palestinians divided, and thought an Islamic faction in Gaza would help keep the secular PLO and the socialist PFLP weak and distracted. So if we're laying blame for the rise of Hamas, make sure to give some to the Israeli politicians who thought the enemies of their enemies would be good to have as next-door neighbors.
Make no mistake, this group is cut off the same branch as ISIS which in turn are all branches of the muslim brotherhood and other Islamic terrorist groups. Israel is the only democracy in the whole Middle East region, the only state that's standing between freedom and anarchy and genocide.
All so called "atrocities" from the Israeli side are in self defence. Most are in response to provocation
The history of the conflict is rife with examples of atrocities committed by both sides, with both sides claiming they were responding to provocation. Can you support the claims of one side and counter the claims of the other without resorting to racism and special pleading? I've never seen it happen in these threads.