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

Oh christ a woman with a dead toddler, people wailing in shock and grief, right on the news. I'm shaking, those poor poor people.

Awful.

BTW justasecond...are you rev?

Quivering: I agree with you when you said earlier that you feel a secular one state solution with international / NATO supervision. I no longer believe in a two state solution - it would have happened by now, if it was ever going to . However, I don't see either the Israelis agreeing to give up the Jewish nature of their state, nor do I see the Palestinians giving up the Islamic / Muslim nature of their territories. So that proposal is also riddled with complexities.

Very good and balanced phone in on LBC earlier with hosts David Mellor and Ken Livingstone. I'm sure it's available on some kind of catch up facility on their website. I recommend people listen to it.

Yes, a disabled centre where Israeli attacks left disabled people dead. As well as women and children in the last few days. Over 100 Palestinians dead and no Israelis dead.

Anyone else got a really depressing sense of deja-vu?

I take back my comments re William Hague as I misread the article turns out he is a complte shit too who is sanctioning the murder of Palestinians.

they do not speak for the UK. i hope everyone around the world by now realises that leaders do not represent or speak for the vast majority of the public.

the uk does not fucking stand by israel's right to repeated mass murders on the basis of ethnic hatred and a misguided sense of ethnic supremacy.

someone has to stop them and the west is not going to step in. i suspect they want iran to attack so they can call big brother US to come bomb the fuck out of them.

I just want palestine to join up to international criminal court, so it can get some protection of its human rights. See, until then, the leaders wont see palestinians as humans.

Israel is really angry that palestinians will be given human status once signed up and also doesnt want palestine to come after it for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Reuters:

Israel's campaign "will continue until we are certain that quiet returns to Israeli citizens," Netanyahu said. Israel had attacked more than 1,000 targets in Gaza and there were "more to go."

War mongering, trigger happy, vile, genocidal maniac.

There have been some very sizeable protests these last couple of days- not that you'd know from the bbc etc. There's a national one next sat

They are evil politicians wiry an agenda. Nothing new there. Anyone who has ever supported a 'Jewish' state needs a reality check. This is nothing to do with religion and everything to do with greed and power.

Anyone who has visited Israel will know first hand the arrogance of the Israeli soldiers. I fear though, that there may be severe repurcussions from neighbouring Muslim countries after this. If you puts a people so far, like Israel have taken great glee in doing, then something very, very bad is likely to happen.

Oh dear. I realize that people are dying and being injured and tensions are running very high. I was enjoying having a fairly civilized thread. Can we please keep it that way?

Instead of trying to work out the exact degree of blame that should be apportioned to each side, how about we look at real solutions? Settlements and rockets aren't going to just stop. How are both sides going to get to that point?

@sunny_hundal: If a country had killed as many Americans as Israel has killed Palestinians in the last two days, U.S. would be declaring war.

So true!

There is no solution. Netanyahu is a power hungry vulture. The Palestinians continue to be oppressed. And the general silence from so called Muslim leaders in their countries speaks louder than words. Palestine is on it's own and until a miracle happens whereby Israel is taken down a peg and brought to justice for its war crimes and blatant genocide, nothing will change.

Sorry AndHarry. The footage today was beyond distressing though.

The solution is for Israel to stop the genocide.

And for the international community to voice it's outrage. William Hague is going to a conference in lovely Vienna this weekend to 'discuss' the problem. Actions like this are not helpful. People are during right now. This second.

There was a mass demo of thousands of people outside the BBC in Manchester today. Photos and coverage is all over Facebook and Twitter. Not even a whisper of this on the news.

Andharry I agree that we have to find a solution but first the violence must end. Palestinians have now been told to evacuate for their own safety. And go where exactly?? And the irony of israeli saying it won't stop it's murder unless Hamas stop firing rockets. It's thoroughly depressing.

And here comes the UN. Perfect illustration of how it's completely unable to respond effectively in such rapidly changing situations. The Quartet is better placed to make a response but is focused on the medium-long term.

i agree the only solution is for israel to stop. to talk about solutions or agreements really is again a kind of denial of what is really going on there and the crimes against humanity being committed.

I think Israel is like the child at the party who is behaving abominably and the parents are grinning horribly and saying 'it's because of his childhood trauma , it's the trauma which makes him so bad!' but they love him too much to address his bad behaviour. America is like the grinning parent, they love the child unconditionally and also need a Western foothold against the Muslim world. Just like the way the Americans were demented about Communism;Look at the history that produced.

The British effectively created modern Israel and, ipso facto, it created a perpetual curdle. I think it's like Solomon's dilemma. The two women can't share the one child. It doesn't work - and you can't cut a child into pieces and share them out. Israel wants the whole child. But it was the Palestinians child beforehand. This wouldn't work in real life as Israel Palestine doesn't work in real life.

I'm struggling to articulate my thoughts on this so apologies if it comes out all wrong.

I don't agree with Israel's justification for bombing civilians based on 'intent'. Bibi says that that's the difference between what Israel and Hamas are doing: 'They fire indiscriminately at our civilians and our cities in order to attack them. Sometimes they hit soldiers by mistake. We strike at their armed forces and sometimes we hit civilians by mistake'. The thing is, it isn't 'sometimes', it's almost every time.

The last figures I saw were over 100 dead, 77 of which were civilians. That surely can't be an acceptable figure? I can't see how it can possibly be justified to launch an air strike knowing that for every 1 militant killed, 3 civilians will die too, including children and the disabled, who cannot possibly evacuate to a safe distance in under a minute. It's disingenuous to blame all civilian deaths on the Palestinian militants when you know those ratios.

I don't really understand this minute warning thing. That's plenty of time for able-bodied men who are used to being shot at to jump out of a window and scarper. Not enough time to wake up a sleeping woman and for her to grab her children and get beyond the blast range. I said if it was me it wouldn't be enough time but I would try. In actual real life, I don't know. Would I panic? Would my militant husband insist that I gathered the children on the roof and that would save us and our home? Would I be so worn down by years of suffering and trauma that I would rush up there to shout defiance at the enemy before they blasted me to oblivion? I don't know. If I had more than 2 children, or more than 1 family in the house, it certainly would not be enough time. What about if a militant took the call and decided not to tell anyone, that the images would be worth it in terms of propaganda for the greater cause?

If the warning is for everyone to leave and just weapons to be destroyed then they could give a minute longer, couldn't they?

of course it's not acceptable and of course it can't be justified.

we all buy into this nonsense about a peace negotiation or a solution or needing to facilitate talks as if we were talking about two nations on equal footing at a stalemate. no one wants to say actually one of these parties is guilty of war crimes and atrocities. the west gave birth to this child and continues to indulge it and hand it money and make excuses for it's poor behaviour.

meanwhile the child is acting abominably and bullying other kids at the party and the rest of the world is looking at it's parents going really???? this is ok to you??? you who bombs the fuck out of countries for imaginary womd???

the child's behaviour is killing people and threatening to create a world war and driving a huge wedge between the parents and the other children who are subjected to sharing real, close quarter space with that child.

meanwhile the child's behaviour gets worse and worse and more and more entitled and fearless because it knows it can get away with it because mommy and daddy will never discipline them, they're untouchable. mommy and daddy will be loathed and hated for their inaction and for defending the child no matter what it does.

stop the money pouring in there, stop the privileges and make israel actually stand alone as an adult and base it's behaviour on what real consequences could look like if daddy wasn't shielding them. we withdraw our support and they have to start making more responsible decisions to ensure their safety and existence.

If the militiant wouldn't leave after a minute, what makes you think he would leave after 5?

I don't see any blame laid at hamas for using human shields.

Hamas have been firing rockets for week. Why should Israel just accept it?

Poke a dog with a stick long enough it will bite you

I agree. Israel is a dog. A great big vicious indiscriminate rockweiler. 130 dead now and 900 injured. The mass slaughter continues.

The most misused term of this slaughter by Israel is self defence. There is NO defence here.

There can be no negotiation. Just an end to the apartheid and murders. How can anyone justify Israel at this time??

I'm not fussed about the militant. Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that. I do think it's not ok to kill his wife and children just to kill him though.

I've spotted plenty of condemnation for the Palestinians using civilian bases (including a refugee camp?!) and human shields. That's not ok either.

The 'wound' to Israel is not 'imaginary'. Palestinians started firing rockets at Israeli population centres. I do not agree with Israel's response but it's not in response to an imaginary threat.

What I do think is that all this could have been avoided if right at the beginning when those 3 boys were murdered, Netanyahu had picked up the phone to Abbas and discussed what had happened, how the PA were going to investigate and bring the murderers to justice, the steps that both sets of leaders could take to keep their people calm and avoid an escalation in violence. Which brings me back to the opening post: how can responsible leaders justify cranking up the rhetoric in such a delicate situation until open conflict is all but unavoidable?