To feel it is high time that Israel/Palestinian issue got resolved?

[SippyDippy]

conflict us starting up again. I cannot bear another round of children being killed indiscriminately. The super powers would have you believe that it is all oh so very complicated. its not though is it. It is so bloody unfair how those children will keep dying if the status quo is maintained. Something needs to change.

I'm sure seeing your home and family blown to bits, or losing your legs or sight incites hatred a lot more effectively than a cartoon.
Hamas are not blameless, they do some awful things. Hamas got power in 2005 this mess has been playing out for many many years before that.

I'm sure it does and it's hard to blame them. I just think that unless the failings of both sides needs to acknowledged instead of partisan views which paint one side as an innocent victim and the other as beyond evil. It just feeds the flames. Until both sides can honestly look at their hate, beliefs and actions - then I can't see much changing.

Sippy - you said Israel restricts - that's the present tense, and it's wrong. They don't. It would be like saying that British troops are occupying Iraq, because they did some time ago.

If you read some of the English language Arab press, which is a bit better informed than the Guardian, you will see that many of the current problems in Gaza were caused by the breakdown in relations between Hamas and Fatah, and between Hamas and the Egyptian govt (which Hamas keeps plotting against).

Is anyone aware of what happened yesterday in Israel? There was a bus stop attack where an Israeli Arab drove into a bus stop and attacked the people waiting with a cleaver, 1 person died and 6 were wounded. In a suburb of Tel Aviv 5 people were stabbed. In another bus attack 2 people were killed and 4 were injured. And people wonder why the Israeli's are sealing off access from East Jerusalem. If that happened in England would we really be saying "oh that's fine they deserve it?" No we wouldn't.

It doesn't make what is happening in Gaza right, I vehemently object to the settlements but a bit more balance is needed especially by the UK media who are so one sided against Israel. The information is all over social media but I had to search hard to find it in the UK press

I don't think anyone would say they deserve it. I don't think anyone deserves to be stabbed on the way to work, ran over or burned alive.
You say what would we do if this happened in England, can you not look at it from the other side and realise that people who have been displaced oppressed and dehumanised are desperate and angry and they're not about to lay down and die.
What would you do?

No we wouldn't,dreading. But we wouldn't have allowed the apartheid and racist conditions which have given rise to these attacks to be enshrined in law in the first place.

Here in the good old UK it isn't perfect by any means, but at least our government isn't throwing one social or religious group out of their houses and stealing their farms in order to give them to another social/religious group. We don't really do stuff like that here. For some reason it's ok in Israel though. The international community has outlawed it and condemned it but Israel still does it.

It starts with the settlements. It starts with dismantling and a cessation of land theft. Nothing else will do.

"No we wouldn't,dreading. But we wouldn't have allowed the apartheid and racist conditions which have given rise to these attacks to be enshrined in law in the first place. "

I'm not so sure, we haven't had to face what Israel has faced. It's a unique situation not many countries have faced in recent history. People are talking about the situation trough safe untried far away british eyes. Our situations, history and experiences are so different.

Anybody who has such vehement hatred of the Jewish state is anti- Semitic. Why? Because Israel is the Jewish homeland, our kind of 'insurance policy' against another Shoah, the one place we are free to be Jews. Unless you are Jewish you CANNOT understand the importance of Israel. I am a Jew, I know how important it is that Israel exists. Israel is where my grandmother finally felt safe after fleeing the holocaust, where the memorial to my great-uncle who perished in Buchenwald is, it's where I took my DD1 when somebody shouted 'filthy Jews' when she was a child and wearing the Star of David. A non Jew saying they understand how Jews feel about Israel is akin to me saying I understand how African-Americans feel. AllJews have different feelings on Israel (I speak for myself and my friends have similar views, but obviously there is variation). However, it is frustrating how Israel is always targeted. If you are all so concerned about human rights why don't you concern yourselves with other nations too? What about China in Taiwan? The Mugabe regime? Why is the world's only Jewish state repeatedly targeted?! I am a proud Zionist- I support Israel's right to exist and Jewish self-determination.

You should all be proud of your trendy, right on left-wing anti-Semitism. Thanks to you my DD1 doesn't dare wear her star of David on her walk to and from university, her Jewish society have a secret meeting place and she only feels she can tell other Jews where she spent her gap year. Why? Because pro-Palestinian activism has intimidated her and scared her, because she is made to feel like a monster just for wanting a homeland so she will meet perish like her ancestors did.
Am Yisrael Chai.

Also, the historical inaccuracy on this thread is astounding- Palestinians have been offered peace many times. Each time they have refused, they could have had 2 states but felt confident they would win the war so didn't. Hamas would now rather see a dead Israeli than feed their own people. It is sad for the Palestinian people but they have been given many chances. Hamas have promised to free the WORLD of Jews- making jewish schools, businesses etc targets. They are a terror group and should be treated like such.

Wine seriously, how is your daughter going to feel safe in Israel if violence escalates, as it surely will?

It's a bit rich when Israel accuses someone else of being terrorists. Spare a thought for the palestinian daughters and the palestinian sons who don't have half the rights that your daughter does. Are they just less human than Israeli children?

From the river to the sea
Palestine will be free.

Is that you saying you want Israel to cease to exist then Sippy?

Just so we're clear: the current fighting consists of Israel fighting as it always has done, and Palestinians fighting differently.

What does differently look like? It looks like a man driving a car into a 60 year old Rabbi at high speed, getting out of the car, and hitting him with an axe.

There are still rockets. There is still stone throwing. But now, there are people driving cars into people and then hitting them with an axe.

graphic video, be warned

Think I just won a line on hasbara bingo for 'you're all anti semites' and 'what about china?'
I don't hate isreal, they have a right to exist in peace. But so do Palestinians.

WineIsFineAtNine - there you go barking rabid ANTI SEMITIC!! at anyone who dares to challenge Israeli racism. If you are proud of supporting a nation which is racist then I pity you. I pity your daughter as well - if she doesn't feel safe in the Uk she sure as hell won't feel safe in the so called 'homeland' - which annexes more and more Palestinian land every day. Wonder why?

There are also settlers setting fire to houses with babies and toddlers inside.
Do isreal intend to occupy and oppress for ever? The status quo cannot continue.

"Jewish self-determination".

What does that mean exactly?

From the river to the sea
Palestine will be free.
That doesn't leave a lot of room for a two-state solution, does it?
It effectively says that Jews are not allowed a country of their own. Other people, sure. Just not Jews.

This is why some Jews think anti-Zionists are anti-Semites.

I take exception to being called anti-Semitic. I'm not and I never have been. Also what do you call the Jewish people who oppose Israel and it's actions such as Jewish Voice for Peace? I'm guessing self-hating.

I view the conflict more as an exercise in Western imperialism. I certainly don't hold the views that I do because I'm a trendy left-winger, how dismissive. I hold them because I think the situation is a hideous injustice, I've held this view for many years and last summer was the final straw for me. It actually made the world feel like a darker, blacker, uglier place. Gaza certainly isn't the only place in the world that tiny children are being dismembered, but in most cases my own fucking government doesn't cheerlead the attacks. And it's that which gets to me. The fact that the Western powers support this. It's got fuck-all to do with anti-Semitism.

And no-one pro-Zionist can seem to explain quite what they want to do with the Palestinian population. As it is, I've read lie after lie claiming that there's "no such thing as a Palestinian" and that there wasn't anyone living on the land, which is ridiculous since their's clear photographic evidence to the contrary.
Something needs to be sorted out or this will continue to be a miserable, festering sore. I think Netenyahu is a complete psychopath and it serves him very well to have continued conflict. I think the last thing he wants is any sort of peace.

And I'm sorry but I think the settlers are in the main violent, provocative nutjobs who have no right whatsoever to be there.

Because Israel is the Jewish homeland, our kind of 'insurance policy' against another Shoah, the one place we are free to be Jews.

If a Jewish homeland is meant to be the insurance policy against another holocaust, then surely it should fall upon Europe's shoulders to provide this homeland? Why should Palestinians hand their homes over?