It's all religion, religion, religion. They should just find the maturity to reformulate the entire Israel-Palestinian problem in terms of geo-politics and come up with a pragmatic solution.

They have to get rid of the Hamas influence and militants first.

Well Hamas are religious extremists so yes, they need to go.

I can't speak for other religions, but anyone who uses Christianity as an excuse to use violence is an idiot.

Or has read the bible properly ^^ ;)

@obi - And the US doesn't have the same "obvious, transparent bias" for Israel? Get real. We claim we want peace, but which side has the F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, A-10s, Humvees, Tanks, and more supplied by the US and *oh wait* US troops training their soldiers in hand to hand and small arms combat and tactics?

@obi

That's like saying that Ireland had to get rid of Sinn Fein's influence before there could be any negotiations about Northern Ireland. How the hell do you get rid of militants before negotiation, given the history between the parties? Basically, what you're doing is setting an impossible condition for negotiation.

Didn't Sinn Fein target the British army rather than civilians? (I could be way off)

It depends what you mean by Sinn Fein. But if you mean the IRA (and, lets face it, a lot of powerful members of Sinn Fein were also members of the IRA) they targeted civilians on a regular basis.

They attacked plenty of military targets too, of course.

A fun IRA trick would be to disguise themselves as civillians (women with prams was a particular favourite because you can hide some pretty serious weapons in prams), position themselves near army observation posts, and then attack the soldiers. Nasty buggers, they were.

Well, Sinn Fein didn't do any targeting. The various IRA organizations allied with Sinn Fein would do the targeting. But to the larger point, for much of the Troubles, it was a nasty fight on both sides. I'd argue that illegal settlers, tacitly encouraged by members of the Israeli government, are at very least the moral equivalent of UDA paramilitaries.

Because that's how Hamas got all the rockets they now have, and rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Hamas now has almost as many rockets as Hizballah.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/16/hamas-fires-on-jerusalem-as-israel-weighs-ground-attack-in-gaza/

"Just a few years ago, Palestinian rockets were limited to crude, homemade devices manufactured in Gaza. But in recent years, Hamas and other armed groups have smuggled in sophisticated, longer-range rockets from Iran and Libya, which has been flush with weapons since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted last year.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/16/3670399/israel-finds-arab-spring-has-complicated.html

“The major problem . . . is the greater accessibility to Gaza from Sudan and Libya,” Oren said, referring to the decline in Egyptian vigilance since Mubarak fell 21 months ago. Egypt borders both Libya and Sudan, as well as Gaza. “And the flow of arms from Libya has been significant.”

"And the US doesn't have the same "obvious, transparent bias" for Israel? Get real. We claim we want peace, but which side has the F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, A-10s, Humvees, Tanks, and more supplied by the US and *oh wait* US troops training their soldiers in hand to hand and small arms combat and tactics?"

I don't disagree at all, Draug--

There needs to be a neutral party...or at least a party more neutral than the US or a Muslim Brotherhood-run nation.

"That's like saying that Ireland had to get rid of Sinn Fein's influence before there could be any negotiations about Northern Ireland."

Forgive my ignorance, Bob G. but I don't possess that in-depth knowledge of the goings on regarding Ireland and the UK...so the reference is lost on me, I'm afraid...? :/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html

I don't think this is at all a simple issue and being "pro Israel" or "anti Israel" probably isn't the right approach. Here is a video that I think you should all watch, its from a very interesting website from people with a very unique perspective on the conflict, israeli combat soldiers who are now telling stories about their time serving in the occupied territories:

http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos/84876

From Sic's link:

"We defined "conflict pauses" as periods of one or more days when no one is killed on either side, and we asked which side kills first after conflict pauses of different durations. As shown in Figure 2, this analysis shows that it is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict: 79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks (the remaining 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same day). In addition, we found that this pattern -- in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause -- becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days."

"if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill."

Could that be because Palestinians have bad aim?

"Israel unilaterally interrupted 100% of the periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days"

Case closed. Israel is at the very very best, a brutal, war-mongering, apartheid state.

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/11/gaza-redux.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7960071.stm

http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos/53417

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUJfxTZaDWo&feature=player_embedded

I'm noticing a little bit of asymmetry

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer3/2012/11/16/4273963/IMG_8377_wa.jpg

As Palestinian militants in Gaza fire rockets into Israel and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bombard the Strip 'in retaliation', here are 10 things you should probably know about Gaza:

1) "PRISON CAMP"

David Cameron once referred to Gaza as a "prison camp" and "some sort of open-air prison". 1.7million Palestinians are crammed into just 140 square miles; Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth.

Israel, despite withdrawing its troops and settlers from the Strip in 2005, continues to control its airspace, territorial waters and border crossings (with the exception, of course, of Gaza's land border with Egypt).

2) (UN)FAIR FIGHT

Remember: according to the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem, in the last major conflict between Israel and Hamas - 'Operation Cast Lead' which kicked off in December 2008 - 762 Palestinian civilians were killed, including more than 300 children, compared to three (yes, three!) Israeli civilians.

We seem to be seeing a similar imbalance in bloodshed this time round: "More Palestinians were killed in Gaza [on Wednesday] than Israelis have been killed by projectile fire from Gaza in the past three years," wrote Palestinian-American activist Yousef Munayyer on the Daily Beast website.

3) "COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT"

Why do they hate us, ask ordinary Israelis? Well, Gaza has been under siege since January 2006, after its residents dared to elect a Hamas goverment in free and fair elections. The subsequent economic blockade imposed upon the Strip by the Israeli government at one stage prevented the residents of Gaza from importing, among other things, coriander, ginger, nutmeg and, even, newspapers.

Most international lawyers, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), consider the blockade to be illegal under international humanitarian law; in 2009, a UN panel, led by distinguished South African judge and self-confessed Zionist Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment".

4) "ON A DIET"

In 2006, Dov Weissglass, the then chief of staff to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon summed up his government's approach to Gaza and its residents when he confessed: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

A rhetorical flourish? Not quite: in 2008, Israeli defence officials in charge of restricting food and supplies from entering Gaza went so far "as to calculate how many calories would be needed to avert a humanitarian disaster in the impoverished Palestinian territory, according to a... declassified military document."

5) STUNTED GROWTH

Some 10% of children under five in the Gaza Strip have had their growth stunted due to prolonged exposure to malnutrition. "Stunting (chronic malnutrition) is not improving and may be deteriorating," concluded the World Health Organisation in May of this year.

6) JOBLESS AND HOPELESS

The unemployment rate in Gaza is 28% - and stands at 58% among young people aged between 20 and 24, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

7) STRESSED KIDS

One in five children in Gaza suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to the award-winning Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Eyad El-Sarraj. (More than half of Gaza's residents, incidentally, are under the age of 18.)

8) KILLING YOUR OWN 'SUBCONTRACTORS'

The escalation of the violence this week was prompted by Israeli's assassination-by-drone of Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari; the IDF said Jabari was a terrorist with "blood on his hands". Yet, as Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, pointed out: "Ahmed Jabari was a subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel's security in Gaza... Israel demanded of Hamas that it observe the truce in the south and enforce it on the multiplicity of armed organizations in the Gaza Strip. The man responsible for carrying out this policy was Ahmed Jabari... Jabari was also Israel's partner in the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit; it was he who ensured the captive soldier's welfare and safety, and it was he who saw to Shalit's return home last fall."

According to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, Jabari was the "key actor on the Hamas side" responsible for keeping calm inside the Strip and the official who would "force" ceasefires "on all of the other factions and on Hamas". Good job, IDF!

9) POOR GAZANS. LITERALLY.

The most recent UN report on Gaza found that 80% of households in the Strip receive some form of financial assistance and 39% of people live below the poverty line.

10) 1948 AND ALL THAT

Two out of three Palestinian residents of Gaza - more than a million people! - identify themselves as refugees; the majority of these are 1948, and not 1967, refugees - that is, they fled to the Strip in the "ethnic cleansing" of 1948 and not the Six Day War and subsequent occupation of 1967. Thus, tragically, even a two-state solution, based on pre-1967 borders, will not deliver justice to these particular Palestinians.

http://www.facebook.com/IDFSpokesperson

How enlightening. Especially the comments

1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a ‘peace process’ with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In fact, Israel has refused to cease colonizing and stealing Palestinian land long enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with them. Tel Aviv routinely announces new, unilateral house-building on the Palestinian West Bank. There is no peace process. It is an Israeli and American sham. Talking about a peace process is giving cover to Israeli nationalists who are determined to grab everything the Palestinians have and reduce them to penniless refugees (again).

2. Actions such as the assault on Gaza can achieve no genuine long-term strategic purpose. They are being launched to ensure that Jewish-Israelis are the first to exploit key resources. Rattling sabers at the Palestinians creates a pretext for further land-grabs and colonies on Palestinian land. That is, the military action against the people of Gaza is a diversion tactic; the real goal is Great Israeli, an assertion of Israeli sovereignty over all the territory once held by the British Mandate of Palestine.

3. Israeli hawks represent their war of aggression as in ‘self-defense.’ But Israel’s chief rabbi admitted on camera that that the Gaza attack actually ‘had something to do with Iran.’

4. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinians of Gaza as “bad neighbors” who don’t accept Israel. But 40% of the people in Gaza are refugees, mostly living in refugee camps, from families in pre-1948 Palestine that had lived there for millennia. They were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 Zionist ethnic cleansing campaign. Israelis are now living in their homes and farming their land, and they were never paid any reparations for the crimes done to them. [pdf] “Israel’s failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees over the past six decades is in blatant violation of international law.” Israel does not accept Palestine’s right to exist, even though it is constantly demanding that everyone, including the displaced and occupied Palestinians, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

5. Israeli hawks and their American clones depict Gaza as a foreign, hostile state with which Israel is at war. In fact, the Gaza strip is a small territory of 1.7 million people militarily occupied by Israel (something in which the UN and other international bodies concur). Israelis do not allow it to have a port or airport, nor to export most of what it produces. Palestinians cannot work about a third of its land, which is reserved by Israel as a security buffer. As an occupied territory, it is covered by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by their military occupier. Indiscriminate bombing of occupied territories by the occupier is clearly illegal in international law.

6. Israeli hawks see themselves as innocent victims of bewildering Palestinian rage from Gaza. But Israel not only has kept Palestinians of Gaza in the world’s largest outdoor penitentiary, they have them under an illegal blockade that for some years aimed at limiting their nutrition without altogether starving them to death.

If any foreign power surrounded Israel, destroyed Haifa port and Tel Aviv airport, and prevented Israeli exports from being exported, what do you think Israelis would do? Oh, that’s right, it is rude to see both Palestinians and Israelis as equal human beings.

7. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinian residents of Gaza as followers of Hamas, a party-militia of the Muslim religious right. But half of Palestinians in Gaza are minors, who never voted for Hamas and cannot be held collectively responsible for that party.

8. Israeli hawks justify their aggression on the Palestinians on grounds of self-defense. But Israel is a country of 7.5 million people with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16s and F-18s, plus 400 nuclear warheads. Gaza is a small occupied territory of 1.7 million which has no heavy weaponry, just some old guns and some largely ineffectual rockets. (Israelis cite hundreds of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza in 2012; but until Israel’s recent attack they had killed not a single Israeli, though they did wound a few last March when fighting between Palestinians and Israelis escalated.) Gaza is a threat to Israel the way the Transkei Bantustan was a threat to Apartheid South Africa. As for genuine asymmetrical threats from Gaza to Israel, they could be dealt with by giving the Palestinians a state and ceasing the blockade imposed on them, or in the worst case scenario counter-terrorism targeted at terrorists rather than indiscriminate bombing campaigns.

9. Israeli hawks maintain that they were provoked into the attack. But actually Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated earlier this week, had been engaged in talks with the Israelis about a truce. Assassinations achieved by the ruse of openness to peace talks are guarantees of no further peace talks.

10. Although most American media is a cheering section for the Likud Party, in fact the world is increasingly done out with Israel’s aggressiveness. Boycotts and sanctions will likely grow over time, leaving Israeli hawks with a deficit…

Absolutely frustrating that so many people support Hamas in this war here...

I'd really love to ask such people "WHY do you support a terror organization that uses human shields, does not discriminate between civilian and military deaths and considers all of Israel a target, and has openly declared hostility to the West, that is, where you currently live (most likely) if you are reading this and people like you and me???"

Honestly!

If this were a question of strictly Israel vs. Palestine, THEN I could see the case.
I still advocate for a two-state solution, I think both have a right to the land, but still.
This, however, is not Israel vs. Palestine, but rather Israel vs. Hamas.
HOW do you side with Hamas, tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, in that situation?

I DO in part blame news outlets, to be honest...

They're framing this as an Israel vs. Gaza affair, and while it's Gaza that's being hit and suffering,

1. Israel's being hit as well,
2. Israel HAS been being hit for some time prior to this,
3. Gaza citizens are NOT the enemy here, it's Hamas, as
4. Not all Palestinians are affiliated with Hamas, not even close

I think the cartoon on the front page of antiwar.com pretty much sums up any response I would make to you, obi:

http://antiwar.com/

"I still advocate for a two-state solution, I think both have a right to the land"

If that is the case, you cannot be a supporter of Israel since Israel clearly does not intend to permit any kind of two-state solution.

If that's you "summing it up," I have to say, Tolstoy--

Not only is that inaccurate as hundreds of rockets and shells have been fired on Israel for years...that's pretty callous and cold to belittle the terror felt on a whole side of the war.

Israeli, Palestinian, it doesn't matter--to belittle the fear EITHER side experiences from shelling is insulting and shows a propensity towards shallow quips rather than complex, intelligent answers.

"If that is the case, you cannot be a supporter of Israel since Israel clearly does not intend to permit any kind of two-state solution."

Israel's repeatedly said it wants to work towards that.
It wants Jerusalem, that being, well, their capital.
The Palestinians won't accept a state without Jerusalem that, well, being Jerusalem.
And so here we are.

The reason there isn't yet a two-state solution isn't because Israel doesn't want one...

It's, well, in large part because we can't just split Jerusalem in half.

(Well, Old and New City, yeah, but you get what I mean...once again, religion = conflict.)

I'm struggling to work out how 2 out of 3 Gazans are refugees from '48 and '67 despite over 50% of them being under 18. One might almost be forgiven for concluding that certain people are talking a load of bull.