Shame on you and god damn you!

[Snee]

By which I mean to say that the best thing you could do, for any cause you support, really, would be to argue against it.

[tralalala]

Barbs, you must agree that if a democratically elected government decides to attack Israel, then there is no reason why we shouldn't retaliate in the name of self defence. It's the natural thing to do. It's the only thing to do. The agreement upon which Hamas said they would not rocket Israel was meant to be some sort of basis after which we could continue into peace talks. They decided it wasn't good enough for them so they restarted their rocketing before the time-scale for the agreement was up.

What's OK about that? Not much IMO.

Bawa claims that Hamas were elected and were immediately condemned by us, and sanctions were put on Gaza immediately - Well, obviously, since they claimed they would do everything to get the Zionist conquerors out of their land (which means, at least according to my interpretation, suicide bombings, rockets, etc). So, how can what we did be called bigotry? Or not giving peace a chance? The very fact that Hamas think they're going to recapture the whole of Israel, merely proves how narrow-minded they are. You're in Gaza, live with it. Rocketing a state thousands of times stronger than you can't really gain much.

[Barbarossa]

I am not advocating the rocket attacks and suicide bombings, I am not advocating any sort of violence at all.

How are you ever going to win? I don't see a winning move here, unless you exterminate every last Palestinian.

They are never going to accept a government imposed on them by occupying forces. The spiral of violence will just continue until it drags everyone in.

The starting point is dialogue, and the lifting of sanctions. There If you improve peoples lives they are less likely to resort to attacking you.

[mossy123]

Hamas acheived what they wanted. Israel was stupid enough to retaliate and give hamas what they want. Hamas are a bunch of terrorists who deserve to die because they kill people and they started this. We cant expect the israelis to sit and take it all the time. Israel becoming a nation is the mid 90's was no mistake and was a fulfillment of prophecy. There will be a war in the middle east and israel will be attacked by all the jew hating arab countries eventually.

[j2k4]

What the Israelis don't seem to realise is that this kind of action is just going to engender more hatred in the Palestinian people, and so you will end up with more people prepared to fight back, with rockets, suicide bombers, and everything else. So unless they are prepared to kill every last Palestinian, then this problem is not going to be solved with a violent overreaction of this scale.

So are we're talking attempted genocide here; I'm sure I heard somewhere that the Jews weren't really big fans of genocide...?

I think they are prepared to kill every last Palestinian, thats the problem.

Someone find for me a definitive statement uttered by anyone ever purported to constitute "Palestinian leadership" categorically forswearing genocide of the Israelis ("We will push them into the Red Sea!").

Unless you feel genocide is okay on the one hand, but not on the other, just based on military capability - that is to say, it's okay to talk about it ad nauseum so long as one hasn't the means to follow through...

[bigboab]

Does anyone think that I am being cynical saying that it is no coincidence that this has happened just before Obama becomes President Of The U.S.A?

What would happen if Obama refused to 'fund' or arm Israel. No one knows what his views are on this tricky situation.

[lynx]

I think almost everyone here is ignoring (or unaware of) quite a few pertinent facts.

Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest it would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition, Hamas insists that the borders be opened so that food can arrive unimpeded.

Not my words, those are the words of Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Source

In light of the total refusal by Israel to honour the ceasefire agreement Hamas saw that it had no choice but to refuse to renew the ceasefire agreement, and consequently the rocket attacks resumed (but still hitting very few targets).

Israel has responded with an assault which informed sources feel must have taken many months in planning, from which the only logical assumption is that the assassination raids and attempts at starvation were a deliberate ruse to cause the breakdown of the ceasefire.

Those of you who think that Hamas instigated this round of conflict need to examine what has happened much more closely. Ask yourselves how you would feel if your people had been starved, your politicians murdered, and your legal government prevented from controlling two thirds of your territory.

[pentomato]

I think almost everyone here is ignoring (or unaware of) quite a few pertinent facts.

Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest it would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition, Hamas insists that the borders be opened so that food can arrive unimpeded.

Not my words, those are the words of Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Source

In light of the total refusal by Israel to honour the ceasefire agreement Hamas saw that it had no choice but to refuse to renew the ceasefire agreement, and consequently the rocket attacks resumed (but still hitting very few targets).

Israel has responded with an assault which informed sources feel must have taken many months in planning, from which the only logical assumption is that the assassination raids and attempts at starvation were a deliberate ruse to cause the breakdown of the ceasefire.

Those of you who think that Hamas instigated this round of conflict need to examine what has happened much more closely. Ask yourselves how you would feel if your people had been starved, your politicians murdered, and your legal government prevented from controlling two thirds of your territory.

Palestinians are starving but they look very healthy on TV, I think that is a buch of crap and once more the radicals with cheap propaganda are getting away with murder.
So much talk about starvation and the great "Hamas" that care so much for the people what happened to their priorities, how do they get weapons and not food? Last time I checked a rocket is much more expansive than a bag of rice.
I don't care if the rockets kill one or a houndred people, they have to be stop period, those great "Hamas" Murderos are the same one's that killed their palestinian brothers on the beginning of 2008, all for control of land, so if they kill their own people, what woulnd't they do to a state they want to see erased from the map.

[lynx]

I think almost everyone here is ignoring (or unaware of) quite a few pertinent facts.

Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest it would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition, Hamas insists that the borders be opened so that food can arrive unimpeded.

Not my words, those are the words of Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Source

In light of the total refusal by Israel to honour the ceasefire agreement Hamas saw that it had no choice but to refuse to renew the ceasefire agreement, and consequently the rocket attacks resumed (but still hitting very few targets).

Israel has responded with an assault which informed sources feel must have taken many months in planning, from which the only logical assumption is that the assassination raids and attempts at starvation were a deliberate ruse to cause the breakdown of the ceasefire.

Those of you who think that Hamas instigated this round of conflict need to examine what has happened much more closely. Ask yourselves how you would feel if your people had been starved, your politicians murdered, and your legal government prevented from controlling two thirds of your territory.

Palestinians are starving but they look very healthy on TV, I think that is a buch of crap and once more the radicals with cheap propaganda are getting away with murder.
So much talk about starvation and the great "Hamas" that care so much for the people what happened to their priorities, how do they get weapons and not food? Last time I checked a rocket is much more expansive than a bag of rice.
I don't care if the rockets kill one or a houndred people, they have to be stop period, those great "Hamas" Murderos are the same one's that killed their palestinian brothers on the beginning of 2008, all for control of land, so if they kill their own people, what woulnd't they do to a state they want to see erased from the map.

So, no comments on the assassination squads that led to the retaliation with these rockets and partly responsible for the failure of the ceasefire? And you think that UNHCR and Oxfam are making up the stories of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

Shame on you.

Just to clear things up, the rockets are home made, little more than pieces of metal tubing with fins welded on the end and filled with a mixture of TNT and fertiliser explosive. Very cheap to make, but in any case money isn't the issue WRT the starvation of the people. Substituting food for the materials needed to make all the rockets fired since the start of the ceasefire would not feed a tenth of the population of Gaza for a single day.

As for what happened at the beginning of 2008, I think you'll find that it was Fatah that was trying to take over and was prevented from doing so in Gaza. There would probably have been no deaths if the Fatah controlled forces had left their posts as they had been ordered to do by the legitimately elected Palestinian government.

Still, don't let facts get in the way of your distorted views.

[Rumov]

I predict that this conflict will end when one side gets destroyed.