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At least 172 Palestinians killed, 1,280 injured, UN says 77% are civilians

the attacks haven't stopped with israel acting "disproportionate"
 
Milhouse said:
the attacks haven't stopped with israel acting "disproportionate"
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I don't know that they are being "disproportionate", but that's not the point of my post. The point is that you can't convincingly argue that he who owns a bullet proof vest that will probably stop the bullet has a duty to sit back and patiently await getting shots fired at him. I don't believe the Israeli whitewash of their version of these events, but I do believe that if I were watching a stream of rockets, mortar fire, homicide bombers and people tunneling into civilian areas, I'd do something about it.
 
you said if israel just sits and takes it then the attacks won't stop. israel has been doing everything but sitting and taking it, and the attacks haven't stopped.

why not try something different?
 
Milhouse said:
you said if israel just sits and takes it then the attacks won't stop. israel has been doing everything but sitting and taking it, and the attacks haven't stopped.

why not try something different?
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That's fair. Post 285 makes the point that you've got to give people a better choice, but I swear that I could have remembered that we just fought a six year engagement where we tried to put a better choice on the table, and they went right back to fighting each other. I am trying not to conclude that our best policy is complete disengagement and just watching this chemical fire burn to the ground from a distance. I am not having much success.
 
jhmd2000 said:
That's fair. Post 285 makes the point that you've got to give people a better choice, but I swear that I could have remembered that we just fought a six year engagement where we tried to put a better choice on the table, and they went right back to fighting each other. I am trying not to conclude that our best policy is complete disengagement and just watching this chemical fire burn to the ground from a distance. I am not having much success.
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Just scanning the comments on here, it does seem that just about everyone would like the US government to stop forcing it's citizens to support one side or the other (or both sides at the same time!) in this no win conflict. I'm sure that if RJ wants to support one side or the other he would gladly write that government a check voluntarily.
 
tjcmd said:
Just scanning the comments on here, it does seem that just about everyone would like the US government to stop forcing it's citizens to support one side or the other (or both sides at the same time!) in this no win conflict. I'm sure that if RJ wants to support one side or the other he would gladly write that government a check voluntarily.
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That is by far your best post. Mobile pos rep.

jhmd, if I have a bulletproof vest and you're shooting at me, do you really think spraying bullets at your kids is going to encourage you to stop?

No. You're going to defend your family.
 
Tremendous NYT op-ed on how the "If Hamas wasn't around Israel would totally make peace" arguments are complete horseshit: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/1...-by-the-west.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&referrer

Basically - Hamas effectively stepped down in Gaza recently (after Morsi lost control in Israel) and Israel and the US did everything possible to undermine the situation. Israel doesn't want peace that leaves a Palestinian state. They just want them gone, or at least that's damn sure how they are acting.
 
Jesus, if only 50% of that is true then Israel and America looks 100x worse than they already do in this situation - which is pretty damn bad.
 
Nathan Thrall is one of the most respected journalists covering the middle east - he's based out of Jerusalem and writes for news organizations in English, Hebrew and Arabic. In terms of people whose voice should carry weight in this discussion, he should be very high up on the list.
 
vadimivich said:
Tremendous NYT op-ed on how the "If Hamas wasn't around Israel would totally make peace" arguments are complete horseshit: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/1...-by-the-west.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&referrer

Basically - Hamas effectively stepped down in Gaza recently (after Morsi lost control in Israel) and Israel and the US did everything possible to undermine the situation. Israel doesn't want peace that leaves a Palestinian state. They just want them gone, or at least that's damn sure how they are acting.
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Shocker. When I was at Wake I remember when Charles Kennedy, the poli sci dept's resident expert in the area, stood up on the first day of class and said along the lines of "make no mistake, this is a political conflict." Characterization of this as some mindless religious holy war is a cop out used to avoid confronting a difficult situation that is solvable.
 
Clearly. There are a lot of Muslims and a lot of Jews who aren't involved in this conflict.
 
jhmd2000 said:
I don't know that they are being "disproportionate", but that's not the point of my post. The point is that you can't convincingly argue that he who owns a bullet proof vest that will probably stop the bullet has a duty to sit back and patiently await getting shots fired at him. I don't believe the Israeli whitewash of their version of these events, but I do believe that if I were watching a stream of rockets, mortar fire, homicide bombers and people tunneling into civilian areas, I'd do something about it.
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jhmd2000 said:
That's fair. Post 285 makes the point that you've got to give people a better choice, but I swear that I could have remembered that we just fought a six year engagement where we tried to put a better choice on the table, and they went right back to fighting each other. I am trying not to conclude that our best policy is complete disengagement and just watching this chemical fire burn to the ground from a distance. I am not having much success.
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I almost never agree with you, but i do here. Although the Iron Dome is working, Hamas is trying to kill civilians. You can't ask Israel to stop firing back at the rockets. I've been struggling to find the appropriate response for Israel. I don't think they should be firing rockets at civilians, but the best way to stop rocket attacks is to destroy the rockets. Just playing Defense might bankrupt Israel. It costs over 60K to fire the Iron Dome each time, it only costs about 1K to fire a rocket. Maybe the best solution would be to insert ground teams to destroy the rockets from the ground, but that is extremely dangerous, and probably would only escalate this.
 
The best response for Israel would have been to not antagonize the situation and to have worked with the PLO in the early part of this year when they had Hamas subdued and there was an opportunity to change the dynamic completely.

Quite frankly, it seems there is a decently large portion of the Israeli government and Army that WANTS Hamas shooting at them so they have an excuse to kill Arabs. They come off as quite simply baiting them. It's more likely they simply are unwilling to compromise in any way, but the result is the exact same.
 
vadimivich said:
The best response for Israel would have been to not antagonize the situation and to have worked with the PLO in the early part of this year when they had Hamas subdued and there was an opportunity to change the dynamic completely.

Quite frankly, it seems there is a decently large portion of the Israeli government and Army that WANTS Hamas shooting at them so they have an excuse to kill Arabs. They come off as quite simply baiting them. It's more likely they simply are unwilling to compromise in any way, but the result is the exact same.
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Missed opportunty, what should they do now given where both sides are currently? I realy have no ideas about a 'good' solution.
 
olddke said:
Missed opportunty, what should they do now given where both sides are currently? I realy have no ideas about a 'good' solution.
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They could start by accepting some responsibility for ending up there, given that this round of fighting was completely avoidable.

Missed opportunity? I mean we aren't talking about not buying a stock that ends up becoming the next Apple.

Israel didn't miss an opportunity, they actively sought to undermine an opportunity to take meaningful steps to a peaceful resolution
 
DeacMan said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-menachem-creditor/im-done-apologizing-for-i_b_5606650.html

This pretty much sums up what so many of you here fail to recognize. If Israel really wanted to beat the ever living fuck out of Palestine, they could simply do so. They aren't. They're responding to the fact, and this is not in dispute, that Hamas has repeatedly, and without warning, attacked Israeli civilans for fucking sport.
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who the fuck doesn't realize that israel could annihilate gaza if they wanted to?
 
How many dead children = "the ever living fuck?"

I need a conversion table here.
 
DeacMan said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-menachem-creditor/im-done-apologizing-for-i_b_5606650.html

This pretty much sums up what so many of you here fail to recognize. If Israel really wanted to beat the ever living fuck out of Palestine, they could simply do so. They aren't. They're responding to the fact, and this is not in dispute, that Hamas has repeatedly, and without warning, attacked Israeli civilans for fucking sport.
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How is this relevant?

So none of the civilian deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan mattered because we could have just nuked "the ever living fuck" out of both countries? Is this what you are saying?
 
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