I despair at Israel sometimes

[AndHarry]

Well, often really. I have family out there who have a bomb shelter in their house and have had to evacuate for weeks at a time so I have great sympathy for ordinary Israelis trying to go about their lives. What happened to 3 sch

It would be as racist to generalize from one photo of the people of sderot, who have suffered many deaths and injuries from constant Hamas attacks since 2005, as it would be to generalize about the mentality of the Palestinian people from the fact that many taunted Israelis by raising three fingers to reflect the kidnapped teens.

Simplistic as well as racist.

The point I was trying to make is (maybe badly) that there is all kind of information online we can use to support our arguments. You may despise Hamas but for Palestinians they represent elected
leaders.

I am more interested in your very informative posts about how we can go about looking to resolve the situation and would welcome suggestions from other posters.

Sarcasm was anger at the idea that you gather up your friends and neighbours and go on to the roof of a house that is to be bombed. I've already apologized for a poor choice of words.

It's hard to believe that posters are trying to justify this behaviour on the grounds that they must have had ptsd!

I know it's difficult to accept but this is the modus operandi of Hamas. A Palestinian friend told me that they have been told by Hamas not to evacuate in the past abecause then it makes it too easy for Israel. She was horrified that this is what her family in Gaza were being told!

Nothing to do with ptsd or having nowhere to run to but strategy, pure and simple. Children's lives are worth less than military equipment for Hamas.

So 100 dead, yet hamas are STILL firing rockets

news.sky.com/story/1299012/huge-blaze-as-rocket-hits-israeli-petrol-station
Just a scratch on the pavement right?

yy Quivering, what other country on earth would put up with being under constance attack and not defend themselves?

I agree with you quivering.

Hamas are an odious group of thugs.

But I do wonder if things will move forward with them. I think they've become more moderate over the years and the pragmatists among them do accept Israel (even if not in so many words).

Despite what they've done to Israel and to their own people, they're probably better than chaos and the more extreme elements in Gaza, like Islamic jihad, salafi groups and even isis who now have a presence there. At least Hamas can keep them under control and have respected ceasefire in the past.

Israel has a right to defend itself but have air attacks worked in the past? Not really and the civilian death toll keeps rising.

The only way out isn't more and more force. A ground invasion would be playing into Hamas' hands. We need a political solution - Egypt, turkey or the US need to broker a ceasefire. It's the only way out. Hamas won't just stop firing missiles and the Israeli govt has too much pressure to do something for it not to respond.

'deathseeking' - can you examine that word? you get what it is? it's a word that takes away the action of the aggressor and turns it into the action of the receivers. it's a way of sanitising murder or making the victims of murder be 'asking for it'.

it's worth examining that word and the kind of media outlet and mentality that it comes from and what purpose it serves in dealing mentally with mass murders.

the point with the photo i thought was self explanatory - that there is readily useable images and videos of propaganda available on all sides and always will be.

none if it undoes the reality of a 25mile by 5mile ghetto against a giant of weaponry, massive financial support from europe and the US and a long history of absolute brutality and genocide like behaviour.

people can't 'unsee' that.

and actually yes ptsd is rife in a place like that - absolutely rife. that you can't comprehend that most people living in that ghetto seeing the brutality they see and having no means of escape for themselves or their children would likely be suffering from trauma and incredible mental stress is mind boggling.

what would i do? i've no idea. i've never had to live like that and raise my children like that and i have no idea how i would cope or who i'd be after a decade or so of it.

i know people who went in there purely doing circus projects and getting kids to play - literally their 'aid' was to provide an opportunity for children to be children and engage in play and it wasn't easy because you ARE talking about a massively traumatised population living as prisoners in terror. children and people do not thrive like that or develop wonderfully luxurious policies and democracies. funnily enough living like that results in things like hammas and things like hate and terror and a sense of utter desperation.

Anya - you've asked what other country on earth would not defend itself? I don't think there is any other country on earth which has dehumanised a whole ethnic group and barricaded them into a densely populated open air prison and fired rockets into a refugee camp.

Shak is right that more force is not the answer. Hamas must stop firing rockets immediately. There must be a peace deal and Israel must stand down. Sky news reported from a hospital where a palestinian woman was demanding that Hamas stop firing rockets. Egypt, Jordan, US and others must intervene now to work towards a ceasefire.

I am not palestinian nor Jewish but I do have muslim amd jewish family members who and friends. They are all in absolute agreement that Israel has acted in a horrifyingly disproportionate way. And that Hamas absolutely must stop firing long range rockets too.

There are some missions from UK who go to Palestine every year to help locals harvest olives. The Israeli settlers meet them with sticks and stones, burn and cut down the trees, break peoples' cameras if they film. General violence. I know a young man who went with one of these missions. He and some of his friends were attacked, beaten up, arrested and jailed. He was eventually deported back to UK and blacklisted as a terror suspect... for picking olives. Stories like that never make it to mainstream media.

no they don't make it to mainstream dog but if you've lived in the middle east and seen aid workers coming and going on there way in there you find out a hell of a lot and see a lot of videos and images that people have managed to smuggle out.

it's horrific how they're living and i can't believe anyone expects dignity and wonderful behaviour from people living under such brutality. if you box people into a cage and dehumanise them and treat them like animals for long enough unsurprisingly some pretty extreme behaviour emerges.

the 'oh they should just stop fighting then we'll..... let them live' is hardly a meeting halfway is it? how is israel going to change things so that the people are not living like this? what is israel willing to concede for peace? absolutely fuck all. it's only ever put up, shut up and don't fire rockets or we'll bomb the fuck out of you. that's not a negotiation that's occupation and murder.

and it's pathological the way it's framed. like they really don't/can't even comprehend that they might have some part in this or need to make changes. it's just poor us, poor us, give us more money and support and backing to continue brutalising and effectively bordering on genocide like practices.

there is no other nation doing what israel is doing and being allowed to do it by the world.

you can't pretend that a fight between an alsation and a cat with no claws (because the dog removed them before the fight) is a 50/50 situation. i think you need to keep working on the racism you were indoctrinated with.

What a nasty post thehoneybadger.

Yuk.