THE WAR IN GAZA

Israel has been buidling more settlements (in the whole of Palestine) just as fast as they dismantled a few with plans to build more. As far as their offer of aid, if a kidnapper offers their victim food, that is hardly anything to brag about. They are ones who are responsible for the people in Gaza not being able to work, get food and basic human services since they have been barricaded in since Hamas won the election.

I am not justifying Hamas actions in killing innocent civilians, nor do I think Israel has any high ground even if they are smart enough not to dance in the street after killing innocent civilians and destroying homes and mosques.

I blame both Hamas and Israel. Israel for it subjection of all of Palestine and barricading Gaza to the point where they have had a humanitarian crises no one talks about and for building more settlements in defiance of UN resolutions and for its collective punishments and disregard for innocent lives. I blame Hamas in indiscriminately sending rockets into Israel killing innocent lives.

I also wish they would not have Hamas as their elected leaders, but have someone who is not toady for Israel and US but also not a firebrand reactionary to lead them into good decisions.

Israel built the fence to protect Israel from Pal suicide bombers, et al. This and the rockets and shells from Hamas led to other restrictions on Gaza. (Let's be accurate.)

Palestine is not, and has never been, a country. Thus, Israel has a right to have Jewish settlements there. A much larger number of Pals live peacefully in Israel. Why can't Jews (and Christians, for that matter) live in Palestine?

The fact is that the Pals will not reach a reasonable accord with Israel. They demand terms that would lead to the demise of Israel.

At least for the Christians we got an answer last week: because their homes and small workplaces were bombed.
(Our Catholic and Evangelical parishes here support some Christian parishes in Gaza, e.g. we buy most of their handcrafted [religious] art and craft, send maschines, support families etc.)

Actually, Hamas' and the other militant groups' rocket fire have been, for the most part, responses to Israeli aggression: the targeting and killing of these groups' members. Israel knows full well that these killings bring on retaliatory rocket fire, escalating the game of tit for tat between itself and the Palestinian militants. Israel is a world leader in non-, and less-lethal weapons technologies. It can easily apprehend any suspects along the separation barrier, and de-escalate the situation between itself and the militants. Instead, it uses the escalation of the conflict to further renege on its international obligations to the Palestinian people, what with their denial of the Palestinians' Right of Return as afforded the latter by UN Resolution 149, and their continued incursions into Palestinian territory with their unceasing settlement construction and expansion against international calls for a two state solution.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/24/israel.rockets/index.html
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2006-06-20-israel-to-get-tough-over-gaza-rocket-attacks
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/world/middleeast/15gaza.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Gaza%20Strip
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6678295.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/21/AR2007052100107.html

The crux of the matter in the Israel/Palestinian conflict is Israel's insistence on being an ethnocentric, supremacist state--the homeland for Jews--at the expense of the non-Jewish populations in Israel and Palestine. The state of Israel, in order to maintain itself as the homeland for Jews, necessarily discriminates against its non-Jewish population through: 1.) strict control over, and favoritism laws against said population, and 2.) the outright oppression of the non-Jewish population in the territories it covets and occupies through the herding of said population into the increasingly circumscribed mega-concentration camps called the West Bank and Gaza. Until the state of Israel addresses these torts against the non-Jewish people of Palestine the conflict will never see a resolution, and distracting tit-for-tat games only serve the interests of that state to perpetuate its necessary discrimination and oppression of the Palestinian people in order to maintain its supremacist ethnocentric identity.

Why would these Christian Palestineans not get permanent asylum in a nice western nation like Germany? Would they not prefer to live in Germany, rather than make handcrafts in Gaza? You are surely aware of the diverse population in the U.S. Why does Germany not take in more diverse immigration like these deserving Christians?

It is the old story. The Arabs attack Israel. Israel strikes back. The Arabs claim that Israel is the aggressor.

Infra, Israel targeted leaders who engineered suicide bombing attacks on innocent Israelis. Moreover, Hamas never really ceased hitting Israel with rockets and shells.

Israel built the fence to keep the Pal killers out of Israel, not to fence the Pals in. The Pals are free to go to anywhere else in the world.

Israel is an independent country that is free to run its country as it wishes. You may not like its policies, but it is no one else's business.

The Palestinian militants have attacked Israel precisely because Israel runs its country as it wishes: as an ethnocentric state that to exist necessarily discriminates and oppresses the Palestinian people.

That the Palestinians are free to go elsewhere in the world is a red herring that completely ignores the tort that the state of Israel has committed and continues to commit against them.

As the state of Israel points to everyone else's UN resolution 181 as their legal sanction for existence, then yes, Israel's discrimination and oppression of the Palestinian people is everyone else's business.

In other words, Israel controls the whole area as only Israel actually exists because only it has been created. What a load of crock. When their state was created, they were given boundaries, not given the whole area to control in any manner they see fit.

By building up more settlements, they create boundaries which give an unfair advantage in any future state for Palestine. Not to mention it goes against the so called "road to peace" and violates UN resolutions.

Israel lived happily within the original borders, even though they were constantly attacked by the Pals. Finally, after being attacked in the '67 war, Israel took control of the WB and Gaza.

Israel would love to see a separate state for the Pals. Unfortunately, the Pals have never agreed to this, except in the context of ridiculous conditions that would lead to the demise of Israel.

The Palestinians and associated terrorist groups only see a Palestinian state as a stepping stone to exterminating Israel completely, rather than a final solution for lasting peace. When the goal is total extermination, then there is no negotiation or pact that compromises that goal that will work. People that sympathize with the Palestinian cause either agree that Israel should be exterminated, or they fail to face the harsh reality of what is going on here.

Since a couple of hours the "harsh reality" is even worse.

exterminated, not at all, just moved to replace the state of Oklahoma. You can move elsewhere, Okie, it matters not where.

Since you want Israel moved to replace the state of Oklahoma, answer me this.

What SOVEREIGN, INDEPENDENT,country did Israel displace?

Does Oklahoma qualify as such?

Israel, with the present ground invasion going on, has been forced to do what it did in Lebanon. In response to the thousands of rockets and shells, as well as other attacks, on Israel, Israel is going into Gaza to accomplish a great deal of damage to the infrastructure. This evidently taught the Lebanese that their attacks on Israel are not worth it. Gaza, and Hamas, are getting a similar lesson. Let's hope it works.

Maybe I've missed it, but has Obama said anything, anything at all in regard to this? I think Hamas and the Palestinians timed all of this to see what Obama would say before inaugurated, test the waters, etc. This will help them to design strategey for the next 4 years.

According to the IDF Spokesperson (as on Israelian tv Channel 2) it will last a couple of days and then all terrorists nests will be destroyed.

Here is some interesting, and rare candor, from a Hamas official. He condemns the rocketing [6 to 8,000 rockets] used on Israel, as well as many other actions of Hamas, as being counter-productive to the residents of Gaza.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/29/news/hamas.php

The tiresome repetition of this empty rationalization, has neither made it anything but the gross distortion of the truth that it truly is, nor has it ever persuaded anyone who wasn't already in the grip of anachronistic Zionist fantasies.

Palestine - at least as described in the Old Testament - appears to have been a settled land with existing cities and rulers when the Jews first took portions of it after their flight from Egypt. The biblical history of the subsequent wars and struggles of the Israelis with their neighbors (interestingly largely in the area that today iss called the "West Bank") also verifies that other cultures, religions and political entities existed there. The history of the Jewish civil wars, uprising against Rome, and eventual destruction at their hands is well known, as is the subsequent history of the Moslem/Ottoman Empire there, the development of Western Europe and the history of the Jewish diaspora in both worlds. "Palestine" was the name of an entity that the British created after their destruction of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. In typically duplicitous British fashion they (nearly simultaneously) promised it both to European Zionists and the Hashemite family that then ruled Mecca and Medina. It was the combination of British greed and duplicity and European anti Semitism that created the conditions for the mass movement of European Jews to Palestine after WWII (the survivors of the Holocaust generally weren't welcomed in their former European homes after that conflict). While the desperation of that remarkable generation of European Jews was certainly understandable, their attempt to create an exclusive homeland for themselves was doomed from the start, by everything we know about human history.

There can be no peace and justice for all of the people of the region based on warring sectarian states, each founded on a principal of tribal or religious dominance. The zealots of both sides will have to give up on their sectarian fantasies before there can be peace and justice for everyone there. Based on current conditions, that is likely to take a long time. Until then the United States has no real interest in which of the competing, sectarian antagonists prevails.

Mindful of their own historical roles in this sad affair, Europeans should merely observe events in silent shame.

Mindful of their own historical roles in this sad affair, Europeans should merely observe events in silent shame.

Not really: someone has to stop the cycle of killing: and certainly not bankroll it. Condemning the murderous actions of the Israeli air force would be a start.
An interesting parallel: the republic of Ireland does not recognise the current British borders. We have peace now, because we negotiated with terrorists, and also because Eire is a lot wealthier now.
Attempting a military solution to maintain injustice doesn't work.
I find it laughable that an American can believe that it has no interest in Israel.
Israel receives more aid from America than the whole of Africa. It used to receive more aid than every other country in the world combined. I'm not sure whether the Americans include what they are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq as aid, even tho it isn't helping.
America supports Israeli aggression: Israel has invaded all its neighbours at least twice each since its creation. One thing is certain, you wouldn't want Israel as a neighbour.
Every UN resolution against Israeli military action has been voted down: by America.
Basically I can't think of any country that can bomb its neighbours and go unpunished.
Israel is the region bully: backed by the world's bully.