I don't think the question is is hamas bad, I think the question is whether the Israeli response is justified. Imagine that instead of palestinians in gaza, the rockets were fired by a group of (jewish) teenagers in tel aviv and jerusalem, just because they felt like it. Do you think there would be the level of air strikes, destruction, and the same treatment of their neighbours and families, as in the case of the palestinians?

HH - you come on the forum saying you will answer questions, you don't want to communicate with people that disagree with you and now you are spreading propaganda like a confetti at a gypsy wedding .... we've seen it all before mate, it does not really change the facts that Netanyahu is a right-wing genocidal maniac. You are a cad sir of the highest order....

What conspiracy theory? I'm reporting what JPost said.

http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Despite-ongoing-rockets-fire-security-cabinet-to-debate-on-ceasefire-362806

Is Jpost part of the conspiracy?

Netanyahu said this:

"Netanyahu says that "if Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal and the rocket fire from Gaza does not cease, and that appears to be the case, we are prepared to continue and intensify our operation."

So quite obviously this isn't a real truce. Hamas has called for a return to the 2012 agreement, which Israel won't abide by.

And Obi left out where Hamas said they didn't get an offer, which was written right above where they said "not acceptable".

"We did not receive any official draft of this Egyptian proposal," Sami Abu Zuhri said, adding that the plan, as is, was "not acceptable."

Any enemy that would have taken active steps to bring about the destruction of Israel would have been dealt with in the same manner, I hope.
A group of teenagers operating inside Israel would have been treated as a small terrorist organization. There have been cases of Jewish terrorists and murderers, and they were caught and given life-sentences, since Israeli law does not allow the death penalty (at least in practice, the letter of the law does allow it, but it was only done twice since the we gained independance).

NigeeBaby : I have said that I will not respond to inflammotory rhetoric. Like: "spreading propaganda like a confetti at a gypsy wedding ", "Netanyahu is a right-wing genocidal maniac".

Destruction of Israel my foot. How many rockets have penetrated your swiss cheese excuse of an Iron Dome? Barely any, and your defense system doesn't even work properly.

And what of your inflammatory rhetoric? You called us all delusional conspiracy theorists if we didn't agree with you.

A further note: Israeli terrorists, or those who are suspected of it, are restricted from certain ares and sometimes even held in custody before they have a chance to excute their acts. This is a clear case of human rights violations and has sparked a lot of controversy, on both sides of the political spectrum. I myself am not sure where I stand on the matter.

This shows that Jewish terrorists are in fact dealt with in a similar manner to their Arab counterparts. The main difference is that it is easier to apprehend them, since they live in areas under Israeli control. I belive that if that wasn't the case, military operations would have been carried out to get them.

Putin: after claiming that a person is biased since a family member of his has connections to Israel, yes, that is bordering on conspiratorial rhetoric.

This is like claiming that your admiration of Putin (correct me if I'm wrong on this, I admit this was told to me by other members) is grounds to dismiss anything you might say on human rights violations.

Yeah, really? They arrested all the lynch mobs running around chanting death to Arabs, did they?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.602523

I want to see evidence of this.

(According to B'Tselem) There have been a total of 179 cases of homicide opened against soldiers who killed Palestinian civilians among the more than 5,000 civilians killed by Israeli soldiers from 2003-2012. Out of these 179, only 16 resulted in indictments. Of these 16, only 6 resulted in convictions. Of these six convinctions, only *one* served more than one year in prison, and that for killing a British activist. And the person convicted was 1) not convicted of murder; 2) did not serve his full sentence of 8 years and 3) was a Bedouin.

Not that H.H. cares.

"Putin: after claiming that a person is biased since a family member of his has connections to Israel, yes, that is bordering on conspiratorial rhetoric.

This is like claiming that your admiration of Putin (correct me if I'm wrong on this, I admit this was told to me by other members) is grounds to dismiss anything you might say on human rights violations."

That's because it's the bureau chief of the paper for Israel-Palestine.

If the bureau chief of the NYT's son worked for Hamas, I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune about conspiracy theories, especially if all of their coverage was pervasively pro-Hamas.

And naturally nobody in Israel complains about media bias against them. But if they do, OMG, conspiracy theorists.

@Nigee "Netanyahu is a right-wing genocidal maniac" - Ouch, maniacs have feelings too you know.

""We did not receive any official draft of this Egyptian proposal," Sami Abu Zuhri said, adding that the plan, as is, was "not acceptable.""

I didn't leave that out...I find that a contradiction--how do you find a draft of a plan "not acceptable" when you claim not to have received a draft?

"Destruction of Israel my foot. How many rockets have penetrated your swiss cheese excuse of an Iron Dome? Barely any, and your defense system doesn't even work properly."

1. Um...it's worked well enough to shoot down rockets with a 90%+ rating this round...I'm sorry that's not good enough for you? Yes, truly a "swiss cheese excuse" of a defense, a 90%+ success rate...

2. Yes...because when a group repeatedly campaigns on the Destroy Israel ticket, and makes good on their threat to continuously shoot rockets at you, and you live surrounded by states that have in the past or may well in the present harbor the same kind of idea...yeah, it can be a little touchy, living there.

And how can you have it both ways--should the Israelis feel overly safe because of the Iron Dome, or should they be scared of being protected by a "swiss cheese defense?" You can't very well say "Your defensive systems are SHIT...and that's why you're totally safe and overreacting to these hundreds of rocket attacks from people bent on your extermination!" Well...yes, YOU can, actually, since you're the Marxist Hipster of our happy crowd, and CLEARLY basic logical consistency is just too mainstream for you, man...wear that Che Guvera shirt that you spent $15.95 on and fight the power, man...be different--by being just like all the other pathetic individuals bent on establishing themselves as different and hating the West while enjoying its cushy cozy comforts?

You know, I'm not entirely convinced that krellin isn't just Bizarro World Putin...

The level of exclusively-right wing pandering, insanity and dogmatism from him is about equal to Putin's degree of smug Marxist lunacy...

Extremism, everybody! (Because, hey, THAT never harmed anyone anywhere, right?)

3. And there, there, Maniac...soothe those hurt feelings...you're better than a past-his-prime right-wing PM or a past-sanity Nigee.

(Israel needs a new PM, H.H...at least, that's my outsider view, what about you?)

While Iron Dome is better than the US Patriot system it isn't 100% and it isn't covering everywhere that Hamas is attacking. There have been Israeli casualties and most people have to go to bomb shelters everyday. Hamas has fired over 1000 rockets and is showing no sign on running out.

Hamas finds it unacceptable that the Egypt representatives aren't from a terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, as in 2012. Morsi bailed out Hamas when it was losing and this time Egypt is hoping Israel will clear out the Gaza Strip to help them with attacks on Egyptian police and military.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/15/israel-cabinet-approves-gaza-cease-fire-egypt-offer/

"An Israeli man delivering food to soldiers Tuesday at the border of the Gaza Strip was struck and killed by mortar fire, becoming the first Israeli death in more than a week of fighting between the country’s army and Hamas militants.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Associated Press that the man, in his 30s, was at the Erez Crossing with the Gaza Strip.

The news of the death came around the same time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to exert "great force" against Gaza's Hamas rulers after the Islamic militants rejected a truce agreement.

In a televised address, Netanyahu said "Hamas chose to continue fighting and will pay the price for that decision."

Gaza militants fired close to 100 rockets since the morning, when the truce was to have begun, the Israeli military said. In the evening, a quick barrage of 40 rockets fell over the course of a few minutes. Palestinian health officials say 194 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,400 over the past week.

Israeli officials said that the truce proposed by Egypt's Foreign Ministry had been accepted by the cabinet shortly after it was due to take effect Tuesday at 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. Eastern Time). Less than half an hour later, a senior Hamas official told The Associated Press that the group had rejected the proposal, claiming that Cairo had not consulted them.

"We did not receive any official draft of this Egyptian proposal," Sami Abu Zuhri said, adding that the plan, as is, was "not acceptable."

Israel’s military later said it resumed airstrikes on the Gaza Strip Tuesday after Hamas continued to fire rockets throughout the country."

Well, the "swiss cheese" failed--or, maybe Hamas shouldn't have fired 1400+ rockets. Maybe it shouldn't have declared the peace offer was unacceptable as is while simultaneously claiming they hadn't received an offer.

Oh well, Putin doesn't declare Israel legitimate anyway, so what are the deaths of "illegitimate" citizens to him?

And to those who argued the Iron Dome was so impregnable that Hamas firing these rockets was merely their way of "expressing" their anger at the situation...

I'm glad nearly 200 Palestinians and now an Israeli citizen had to be murdered so they could "make their point."

But I'd best be as outraged as possible, just to compensate, for there will be no outrage..an innocent dead Israeli simply isn't a fashionable enough death to warrant the once-ever-few-years feigned outrage of those who jump on the bandwagon and, as soon as the shooting stops for a few years so the sides can reload, start again.

After all, one murder as a result of hate isn't enough to start a firestorm of protest--

Unless it was one hate-filled murder of a Palestinian boy, burned alive...because dying as a result of a rocket blast is no less gruesome.

Oh well...clearly, the Israelis should just shut down the Iron Dome and let 179 more of their citizens die, distribute the death evenly, and then maybe they can get some of that phony fashionable outrage...I'll stick to the real stuff.

Shame the peace offer that Hamas rejected as unacceptable despite claiming to have never received an offer which they could describe as unacceptable before murdering this man, indiscriminately.

What a shame...

http://news.yahoo.com/police-first-israeli-citizen-killed-gaza-fire-170105827.html

^There it is carried on Yahoo as reported by the Associated Press, as in fairness, citing a FOX News article may as well be citing krellin on one of his, um, "off days."

Obiwan: regarding Netanyahu, he is very problematic on both internal affairs and foreign ones, but at this time there are no other serious contenders. Leaders of other parties are unelectable. Despite the massive discontent (mainly on socio-economicth issues), the only other viable candidate is Likud minister of internal affairs Gidon Sa'ar.

The problem is that as yet he lacks the experience and has not held any high ranking finance or foreign affsirs position. In short, despite all of Netanyahu's shortcomings, there is simply no one to replace him.

Then you have a really shitty political class.

Loathe as I am to do so, I'm forced to agree with Putin in part there--

If your politicians or opposing parties are so poor that Netanyahu keeps winning de facto, it's time to get some new politicians and parties...

Because Israel needs better than Netanyahu right now.

What could be better? Israel is more of a villa in the jungle now than in its whole history. Netanyahu has consistently delivered on keeping Israel safe and secure, no small achievement after revolution in Egypt, war in Syriraq, and with Lebanon and Jordan tottering. And all the while settlers gnaw more land away from the West Bank with his implicit blessing. Considering how bad things ought to be for Israel if you step back and look at the Middle East, he's a goddamn miracle worker. He's kept winning because he's been an effective leader.

Now, it should be clear I'm no Likudnik. I think this is EXACTLY the time to create a Palestinian state, since Israel is so strong and could get more or less whatever it wants. Netanyahu will never do that. However, you really can't look at his time in office and not say that, from an Israeli perspective, he's almost everything the country needs as a leader right now.

The political atmosphere is awful, I agree. Netanyahu is the lesser of evils right now, in my opinion. Many voters would disagree, but an election held right now would land him a victory. I just don't see a bettet csndidate.

Netanyahu is not the lesser of plain evil, he is evil. He is a corrupt fear mongering thug, nothing less. He is the Jewish equivalent of an embarrassing uncle except he serves as a fucking world leader. The things unbridled fear does...

What is wrong with Zahava Gal-On? She seems like a perfectly sensible person.

The fact that Invictus thinks the creation of a Palestinian state is conceivable (without a serious military defeat of Israel - somehow) shows just how ridiculously stupid and out of touch the American political class is.

"
Hamas finds it unacceptable that the Egypt representatives aren't from a terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, as in 2012. Morsi bailed out Hamas when it was losing and this time Egypt is hoping Israel will clear out the Gaza Strip to help them with attacks on Egyptian police and military."

So we can dispense with this notion that the Egyptian "offer" was anything but political cover for escalation. It's quite clear that the Sisi government is in league with Israel to destroy the Palestinians.