elections are around the corner!....

If all of israels neighbors want it gone, israel cant be a very good neighbor. wonder why

I'm sure Siccy typically blames the victims for their abuse.

Putin, out of curiosity, why do you support Netanyahu so strongly? It seems out of line with all of your other positions to support such a right wing government. I would have thought you'd be a supporter of Labour or even Meretz.

I don't support Netanyahu or Likud and have said so elsewhere. I think his policy towards Iran is a recipe for disaster and he has isolated Israel diplomatically. It frustrates me greatly that the left is so weak in Israel. However, overall Israel is lied about probably more than most countries in the world and I was just trying to correct the record here.

I think the current Israeli policies regarding the settlers and just the overall responses in the past few years have been poor policy and much of it indefensible from a moralistic standpoint, but its important to remember the entirety of the conflict. For most of the time between 1948 to the mid 90's things escalated as a result of Palestinian or Arab aggression. The economic apartheid state? I'm not saying I'd call it that but it is a fairly recent occurrence, prior to the First Intifada Israel and the territories were heavily economically dependent on each other, with Palestinians accounting for large sections of the Israeli labor workforce as well as being a major market for goods. It was once they started suicide bombing city buses that they started being forbidden from entering Israel on occasion.

Also I keep hearing asymmetry as a criticism of the Israeli offensives, is Israel only supposed to to fire back as money rockets as it is hit with? That is a stupid way to fight a war. Overwhelming force leads to short campaigns, which in the long run mean less loss of life and less damage to infrastructure. Blitz warfare has been the preferred option for countries since 1939.

Putin thats like saying the pilgrims were victims of genocidal settlers.

I would like to get the Israeli leadership, and the Palestinian leadership, lock them in a room, and say to them:

"You are all morons. Israel: The palestinians are human beings just like you. Stop killing them. Palestinians: The israelis are human beings just like you. Stop killing them.

"We're going to keep you locked in this room until you MAN UP, come to your fucking senses, and agree a workable peace deal. You will be left locked in here for as long as it takes you to sort that out.

"Every five minutes that pass without you reaching agreement, a dozen more wasps will be released into the room.

"Now start fucking negotiating, idiots."

And after the leadership of both sides have died from 1000 wasp stings (and a couple of strangulations), what then?

stop killing or ill kill you?
this will never end.
a soldier is unemployed in peace times,hamas is a business like any other business and they need to deliver the product ,israel from the other hand will never let hamas the time(peace) to get enough power.

"If all of israels neighbors want it gone, israel cant be a very good neighbor."

Right--on a related note, if you're the only Latino household and run up against trouble with your all-black neighbors in the ghetto in East LA, it MUST be because you were a bad neighbor, NOTHING to do with long-standing social and ethnic feuds...nope, none at all...I mean, it's not like Easterners and Westerners have ANY other problems co-existing side by side anywhere else, right?

No, it could have something to do with that latino household being vehemently anti-black racist.

Prolly doesnt help anything when you promise a holocaust on palestinians (shoah)

The danger, killing, destruction and loss of life on both the Palestinian & Israeli side is emanating from a root cause. That root cause is the occupation of Palestinian land by Israelis, and Zionism is the philosophy underpinning the occupation.

zionism has nothing to do with the occupation, beside that gaza is an autonomy and they should be able to behave as one,in cisjordania where abu masen rules everything is fine and palestinians there live in peace,israel is not the problem,hamas is.

104 or more Palestinian civilians dead since wednesday. 3 Israelis. That is all. Good day to you sirs.

they were not civilians,and if hamas cares about his ppl,why they provoke?
the answer is; they don't care!

"The danger, killing, destruction and loss of life on both the Palestinian & Israeli side is emanating from a root cause.That root cause is the occupation of Palestinian land by Israelis, and Zionism is the philosophy underpinning the occupation."

The occupation of the West Bank is not the root cause of the violence. It's been going on for far longer than that. It's certainly an ulcer on the region, which damages the relations of the Palestinian and Israeli people towards each other, but it isn't the root cause. Hamas would exist even if there were a Palestinian state with 1967 borders, it just wouldn't be as popular. Hamas' goal is the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state from the Jordan to the sea.

A branch of Zionism supports the lunatic and illegal settlement push, but to condemn Zionism as a whole essentially means that Israel has no right to exist and the Jews ought to pack up and go back to New York. That's not only completely unrealistic, it's a position that reeks of real antisemitism.


Border swaps, tear up most settlements, symbolic at best Right of Return, divide Jerusalem, demilitarize the Palestinian state (although union with Jordan is likely inevitable). It's not easy at all, but there's a path and eventually it will have to happen pretty much like that. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere.

I've said it before I'll say it again, the root cause of this conflict is not some centuries old Jewish-Arab fued, it all comes down to what can best be described as hurt feelings on the part of Palestinian share-croppers who lost out when the owners' of the land sold their holdings to Jewish Zionist settlers. That's where the tension started and it has escalated from there to here.

A two state solution would require, land swaps along the West Bank border, a divided Jerusalem, with UN peacekeepers protecting the primary religious sites, (primarily the Western Wall, the Palestinians have an awful record for respecting it, and no treaty that puts it in their hands will ever be signed by Israel), Israeli control of the airspace and territorial waters (military-wise), and some sort of new economic union.

As far as Jordan and the West Bank unifying I would say it's highly unlikely, they are separate ethnic groups, and Black September put paid to any mutual good will. Not to mention Jordan renounced claims on the West Bank (1988 I think).

The biggest problem for a two-state solution at the moment is the fact that the Palestinians, and the Israeli's too although I have less evidence for this) no longer believe a two state solution to be possible and are not acting with that as the goal.

Also, important to remember, Hamas won the last election, Fatah are the illegitimate government, not Hamas. (I hate Hamas as much as the next Jew, but they are the De Jure representatives of the Palestinian people)

yes, Israel can do nothing wrong in the eyes of some. It is realy so strange the lovefest people have for Israel.

I dont care that they are there, i think they have a right to a place to call their own, but they do flame tensions as much as hamas and Iran do, and if anyone says otherwise, they are lying to you.

I'm not saying Israel is blameless, and over the past two decades I would argue that Israeli's policies have been neither fair nor effective. But if you take an actual look at the events prior you'll see that while still not blameless, more blame belongs with the Arab backers (early on) and the Palestinians, later on. It's amazing how quickly, Munich, Black September, the suicide bus bombings, the Shelling from the Golan Heights, The Yom Kippur War, the War of independence are all forgotten. Or blamed on Israel.

Israel is no saint, and if I lived there I certainly would not be voting for the party in power. But the "plight" of the Palestinians is largely of their own making. There are certainly situations where Israel took advantage of them, not to mention outright acts of aggression (the settlements), but from the early days of the conflict, the Palestinians have adopted stances of no compromise, all or nothing destruction of Israel, and they have paid the price and suffered the consequences of those choices.

I believe its no time to move on, bury the dead, and honor the blood spilt on both sides with peace. A real peace, one in which the Palestinians get full autonomy and self rule, and Israel gets peace and safety.

I don't think any of my past comments in this conversation have been biased inappropriately towards Israel, and I think I approach the issue with proper restraint and nuance. If I am wrong, please, point out where you feel I have been unfair to one side or the other, I would like the chance to defend my specific points, or the opportunity to reflect and reassess my views on the issue.

"104 or more Palestinian civilians dead since wednesday. 3 Israelis. That is all. Good day to you sirs."

1. That's nice and reductionist...how about the 1900+ missiles fired by Gazans since January of this year towards Southern Israel--or did you just oh-so-conveniently forget (statistics are so easily cherry-picked and gerrymandered by the indoctrinated to spin that turn table anyway they wish, eh?)

2. Hamas' own fault for breaking international law by intentionally setting up in civilian centers...they're despicable human beings using their own civilians as human shields.

3. How about a big round of applaud for the Iron Dome, defending a good 80% of the missile attacks and thus allowing for such a low Israeli death toll so far or are you callous and cruel that you'd have more "sympathy" for the Israelis if they just bled a bit more...sorry, but I'm counting civilian less casualties on EITHER side a damn good thing, thank you very much.)

First step to solving this conflict, if you ask me:

Both sides should assign numerical values to how important they find certain historical sites, and certain patches of land. Then you scale all values by setting the average value to 0 and the standard deviation to 1. Then you know what everybody wants.

...Wouldn't both sides just pick the maximum amount for all sites, and say they wanted all of it?

Who's going to force them to take some sites but not others?

(It really is sad one city can be responsible for so much suffering...especially when it's such a rich and historical site...even leaving aside the fact that I don't believe in any of the religions, it'd still be pretty amazing to see one of the most storied cities in the world and all its historical, architectural, and cultural wonders...instead, Jerusalem just causes the world agony. What a pity.)

:/

obi, pay attention:

If they all give, say 10/10 to all sites, given the subsequent scaling, they would simply assign 0 effective value in the final outcome and the other side then gets to be more nuanced on what it wants.. (and wins the most important sites)

Showing the wisdom of Soloman the international community has ensured that both sides are armed. The Israelis via help from the US and their friends, and the Palestinians via Iran and their friends. And thus, when anger over the Holy Land reached boiling point, we would know who was goodly and derserving for they would rather let the other side win than see their beloved land torn apart by war...

That Soloman was a thick bastard, wasn't he?

@ obi, there is a difference between war and slaughter

^I agree.

Israel's waging a war, Hamas is, by their own admission, seeking to slaughter innocents, saying NO Israeli--even school children--are out of their line of fire, lest they "grow up"...

THAT is not fighting a defensive war...that's attempted genocide, and I'm GLAD the Israelis can defend themselves as well as they can.

They've lived for 4 years under rocket fire, 1900 rockets have been fired on Israel from Hamas THIS YEAR ALONE, most in civilian areas, targeted at civilians.

THAT IS *NOT* the way way to make me view the Hamas-led side as anything but thugs who deserve what they get, and I'm shedding no tears that the Iron Dome has protected Israel as well as it has so far.

That being said, there NEEDS to be a two-state solution and the Palestinians are not the enemy...Hamas is.

Hamas is a terror organization, Iran-funded, anti-Western, and a disgusting cadre.
The PLO in the West Bank is a far more reasonable group.
The more secular Israeli Left, currently out of power, is a reasonable group as well.
The Radical Israeli Right is every bit as fascistic as the terrorists Israel seeks to quell.

BOTH SIDES need to prune their ranks of their radicals and get a deal done.

But there is blame enough for both sides...but I'm sorry, if you're going to call it a "slaughter" for the Palestinians, you have to acknowledge the the civilian-targeted terrorism of 1900 rockets fired on a nation that's had to learn to treat air raid sirens and bomb shelters as part of everyday life for far, far, FAR too long.



Let Abbas and the Palestinians in the West Bank hammer out a deal with Israel (who WAS wrong in their illegal settlements there.)

But as far as Hamas goes, no pity--I save that for the civilians Hamas uses as human shields and for the Israeli civilians as well, and the more Israel can batter Hamas, the better in my book.

Stop using SO MANY CAPS, you look like Krettin.

You call the PLO a more reasonable group, and they're certainly more moderate. But you need to remember that Hamas was democratically elected, specifically because the people were tired of the PLO having spent decades achieving almost nothing. The PLO's moderate stance was seen by many palestinians as a failure to stand up to Israel enough.