with the terrible history Jews have, why is Israel behaving like this?

[ssd]

I would have thought they would be showing more compassion for a repressed minority but the opposite is happening

and Netanyahu saying they told the Palestinians to leave because they were going to be fired on...where the bloody hell would they go to?? IF THEY COULD GO AT ALL

You're right topbanana1 - we need to encourage those people. Miracles can happen and I've seen many cases of forgiveness on both sides of the race divide here. So we also need not to lose hope even in this very very dark period.

How would you feel if it was your child's pathetic little corpse you were clutching? That might sound emotive but it's those poor people's reality right now.

Yes it is emotive. And emotive by definition does not tell the whole story.

Hamas and before them Fatah have led Palestinians down the garden path. It must be patently obvious by now, after six decades of attacks, that the only response to shelling Jewish settlements, firing missiles into Israel, sending suicide bombers onto Israeli buses, etc. is going to be massive and unrelenting force. Israel is willing to absorb as many Israeli casualties as it takes, (and to make sure it doesn't take many Israeli casualties), to keep on sending the message that it is useless to attack Israel. About a year ago, Israel asserted her right to a preemptive strike on Iran and eliminate the possibility of being struck by nuclear Iranian warheads. There can be no doubt that the only thing that will deter Israel from dealing with any and all attacks is simultaneous nuclear bombardment from all corners of the map.

I think it follows that any group that thinks Israel isn't prepared to put its money where its mouth is is incredibly stupid, and in the case of Hamas and Fatah/PLO criminally stupid because they know the price that will be visited upon the Palestinian people themselves as a result of attacks on Israel, or Israelis. And they also know that no government in the ME is going to back them up, except possibly Iran, now preoccupied with Iraq and ISIS, or Syria, now also preoccupied. Nobody else wants anything to do with revolution or terror. In particular, they know that Egypt wants Hamas (and fundamentalist terror) done away with just as much as Israel does.

Certainly, I wouldn't wish to be a Palestinian ruled by Hamas. Or ISIS, or the Taliban or any other group of violent religious fundamentalists. As a woman, I'd like to be able to be treated equally to men, for a start.

And a government that wanted to use me as a human shield would not get my vote, either, personally.

Israel is willing to absorb as many Israeli casualties as it takes, (and to make sure it doesn't take many Israeli casualties), to keep on sending the message that it Israel will take whatever land it wants, and will treat Palestinians like the scum they are, and there is nothing they can do to stop it, and unlimited numbers of them will be killed if they don't just shut up and accept it.

Why are you calling Palestinians scum, PigletJohn?

How does that add to the discussion?

Piglet it's not clear whether you are saying 'look at Israel's inhumane behaviour' or whether you actually agree with Israel's inhumane behaviour?

FWIW I met an Israeli couple while on hols once. We chatted about our respective countries and when I asked the population of Israel the husband said '7 million'. The wife, quite calmly said 'No, it's 5 million the rest are Arabs and we don't count them as people' . That view explains a lot - they are viewed as sub-human. If you dehumanise them its much easier to celebrate as the bombs rain down on Gaza.

extremists from both sides feel like that- normal people don't.

You sound extremist when you suggest that's what all people think.

I am describing the message that Israel is sending.

I don't think you're in a position to speak for Israel, PigletJohn, as you're not Israeli.

Particularly not to put highly offensive, inflammatory words into their mouths.

If you can quote a wide range of Israelis who've used the words you've used, then do so. (And a single nutter you found on the internet does not = general Israeli opinion.)

Otherwise stop warmongering. And deliberately spreading hate speech.

electronicintifada.net/content/why-i-vowed-not-have-children-gaza/13614

PigletJohn is paraphrasing my post where I said:

'Israel is willing to absorb as many Israeli casualties as it takes, (and to make sure it doesn't take many Israeli casualties), to keep on sending the message that it is useless to attack Israel.'

It appears PigletJohn may not have been much of a fan of Margaret Thatcher's policy wrt the IRA hunger strikers back in the late 1970s and early 80s. In the aftermath, with ten hunger strikers dead, Sinn Fein took to the ballot box and gradually moved toward the sort of position that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement.

I don't think you're in a position to speak for Israel, PigletJohn, as you're not Israeli.

^^ Why is he not allowed to suggest motivations for Israel's behaviour?

That is pretty much the suggestion in this dismissive image: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10980065/Houses-of-Parliament-under-attack-in-Israeli-army-tweet-to-justify-Gaza-invasion.html

As though no other country has ever experienced what Israel is experiencing and therefore doesn't have a right to an opinion?

I think some of the comparisons with Northern Ireland are very apt. Maggie Thatcher took disproportionate force against Republicanism and Nothern Ireland and the UK continue to pay for that in the form of violence and unrest for its citizen's despite the Good Friday Agreement and other work done to broker a peace deal.

Israel and Zionists would do well to take heed of that imo.

Piglet doesn't have to speak for accurate. Their actions are speaking loudly enough. And piglet is spot on as far as I can see.

The fact that Palestinian life is expendable and needs to be degraded and annihilated is the message being taught in schools and permeating the media in Israel. And before any of you ask how I know, I have family and friends in tel aviv who have thankfully avoided the brainwashing.

Israel not accurate that should read.

And yes yes Hamas want to kill israel too. Both sides want death. One side is succeeding with alarming success.

He is allowed to suggest motives for Israel's behaviour. He has the right to be wrong.

And whatever Provo violence the UK is now experiencing (are you actually serious about this?) is nothing compared to what used to be the case. And if you think violence, racketeering, and intimidation of commnuities in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement is a problem then you need to take another look at NI.

MT knocked the stuffing out of the Provos. The hunger strikes were called off when the families of strikers understood she meant business, intervened, and put an end to the madness, a very brave gesture of direct opposition to the paramilitaries who ruled their communities. The credibility of the Provos fell down around their ankles.

I shall only support Israel's right to exist when Israel recognises Palestine's right to exist and give them back ALL the territory that Israel has stolen from them.
I don't understand why the US and UK and other powers don't have the balls to stand up and publicly condemn Israeli government and the illegal settlers actions.
And why is Israel actively encouraged to have nuclear weapons?? And why, if Israel is a true democracy, do they pursue a policy of violence and provocative action against Palestinians?
There's a sick kind of irony that a people who suffered so much during the Holocaust can behave as they do. And even more ironic that when confronted with the question of Palestine, many start complaining that you're being anti Semitic...I remember going to Uni lectures where all the Jewish students stood up in the lecture theatre demanding that we support Israel against the Arabs, and seemed to take it for granted that we would!!
I appreciate that there are many Jewish/Israeli people who support Palestine's cause, but it looks like they are in a minority.
Axis of evil? Syria, Russia and Israel.

I've been baffled as well by the seemingly blind, unquestioning support of Israeli actions until reading this today. It's all about the oil again, it seems:

m.ibtimes.co.uk/gaza-crisis-israel-invading-secure-palestinian-4bn-gas-reserves-1457356

By their deeds shall ye know them.

math inaccurately believes that the confrontational, no discussions, no negotiations, no settlement approach of the Thatcher woman led the Republicans of NI to abandon their armed struggle.

Funnily enough, it was the ending of the flow of money, arms and political support from the US that dried up their ability to wage war. This was a direct result of the 9/11 attacks in New York, when Americans lost some of their rose-spectacled sympathy for the romance of freedom fighters terrorism.

Check the dates.

It's possible that if the US stops being the obedient poodle of Israel, supporting them without limit whatever they do, then Israel may finds it needs to start to seriously consider reaching a peaceful accommodation with its neighbours.

Slightly off the point, but can anyone recommend a book about Israel/setting up of the state/the issues involved, something basic enough for someone starting off from a pretty low knowledge base .

an interesting report which includes a brief visit to the beach where the Israelis fired shells at children playing football, killing three

topbanana1

I don't think you're in a position to speak for Israel, since you have previously told us that none of the Israelis you know would want to kill Palestinians. Since Israel is slaughtering them by the hundred, whether boys playing football on the beach or sick people in a hospital, and the casualties are predominantly non-combatants, Israel's agenda is clearly one with which you are not familiar.

I don't generally read the Jerusalem Post, but I am led to believe that it is a popular mainstream paper.

Front page article: "“We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too”."