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

PigletJohn -

At least - unlike you - I actually know some Israelis and have visited the country several times. Hard as it seems to be for you to understand, Israelis aren't some kind of homogenous mass of identikit people who all believe whatever their government believes. Just like the Palestinians, a small proportion of the population are extremist nutters, but the vast majority are not. They're just ordinary people, who want a quiet, peaceful life where they can get on with their business without having rockets fired at them (1500 just this month).

I think if you read any newspaper, of any country, during a war in which that country's soldiers are being killed, you'll find lots of gung-ho articles. That's what newspapers do. Remember "Gotcha!"? Of course the Sun was gloating that Britain had sunk the Belgrano (with the loss of 323 Argentine lives) and was was fan of such action. It's called boosting morale, during war. Are you seriously suggesting that Palestinian newspapers right now have headlines like "Let's Make Peace With The Lovely Israelis And All Be Friends"? Of course they're not - they're going to be similarly aggressive. So go on - find me a few.

And two can play at that game, PigletJohn - this

www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/21/palestinian-tv-teaches-kids-the-way-to-jihad-street/

is the kind of attitude towards Israel - and Jews generally - that is portrayed on Palestinian TV. Aimed at young children.

But frankly, I don't think focusing on the nutters on either side is likely to bring the situation nearer to a peaceful resolution.

Jerusalem Post, front page article - nutters, you say?

Mainstream Palestinian TV, aimed at kids?

Yes, nutters I say.

Either that, or the world has gone mad.

Yes but palestinian children have every right and are totally justified in loathing israel. They are israels main target under the guise of hamas. Israel has killed their families, bombed their schools, their sanitation loans, refused them exit from Gaza to visit family or get treatment, refused them basic human rights.

What is the justification behind israels hatred? Israel has flourished and expanded on the back of illegal land grabs and murder. Yes ok Hamas sens rockets but thanks to technology they are unlikely to hit civilians (thank god)

I don't approve of those who Stoke the fires of hatred, but most of the world can see that palestinians fight back because they are being denied basic rights and freedoms. If you were hounded out of your home and into a refugee camp would you surrender or fight?

Here's some more on this - I challenge any parent to tell me that this is a perfectly OK way to bring up your kids:

www.spiegel.de/international/world/wipe-out-the-jews-anti-semitic-hate-speech-in-the-name-of-islam-a-553724.html

""Sanabel, what do you want to do to help the Al-Aqsa Mosque?" Farfur asks on the children's program of Hamas's Al-Aqsa television station. "We want to fight." "And what else?" "Wipe out the Jews." Now Farfur, the cartoon character on Hamas's children's television program, is satisfied. Farfur is a carbon copy of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, but the Hamas version does something that Mickey would never do: He entertains children while propagating the murder of Jews.

International protests forced Hamas to take its Disney clone out of circulation. Al-Aqsa complied, but promptly turned Farfur's departure into an anti-Semitic statement: Farfur was clubbed to death by an Israeli official. Then the girl hosting the program turned to the camera and said: "You've seen how the Jews killed Farfur as a martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?" A three-year-old girl named Shaima called into the show to say: "We don't like Jews, because they are dogs! We will fight them!" "Oh, Shaima, you're right," the girl in the studio replied, "the Jews are criminals and our enemies."

The Hamas station, founded in 2006, is modeled on the Hezbollah station in neighboring Lebanon, al-Manar. Al-Manar's children's program shows children wearing explosive belts and images of dying Israeli soldiers, with triumphant chants as background music. Cartoons depict scenes like that of a child blowing himself up near Israeli soldiers, or of a smiling boy flying toward Israel on a missile. Adult viewers can enjoy video clips that use inspirational graphics and rousing music to glorify the act of committing a suicide bombing, while the evening lineup offers family entertainment with a series of films based on the classic anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.""

Anyone STILL making apologies for Israel's govt/military actions or claiming this is even handed- wake up. There is NO excuse

Two wrongs don't make a right.

PigletJohn can hardly claim that Israel views Palestinians as "scum" (his words, not mine, not anyone else's that I'm aware of) yet regard those who teach Palestinian children - three-year-olds - that all Jews (not just Israelis - this refers to me too, and to all Jews, including those who've never set foot in Israel, and those who campaign tirelessly for Palestinian rights just like many on this thread) are "dogs", and "criminals and our enemies".

How can someone sane justify that?

topbanana - the difference is there was outrage about The Sun's Gotcha headline and fierce criticism of the navy for attacking a ship that was sailing away from combat. Where are the Israeli protests against the mass slaughter in Gaza? Against the shelling of children playing on a beach? The bombardment of a hospital?

With one or two exceptions, all I've heard are pathetic attempts at justification. 'Ooh, we don't really want to kill all those hundreds of children, it's just that we are trying to get to Hamas and the hospital happens to be in the way, so we are going to insist we have every right to carry on.'

Springheeled - no-one is making excuses. As I just posted, two wrongs don't make a right and two sides who focus on hate will never make peace. In the end, extremists of whatever ilk are the enemies of all normal people who actually don't wish to murder anyone, strangely enough, but just get on with everyday life.

edam - where are the Israeli protests?

Do you not read the papers? Or this thread? There are loads of protests.

Dates:
Following the hunger strikes and SF's decision to focus on 'the ballot box' tit for tat sectarian violence continued in the context of massive policing, during which it became clear that the government was willing to do whatever it took to prevent a win for either side and that there was no possibility of either Provos or Unionists 'winning'.
Ceasefires were announced in 1994.
Feb 1996 - Provo ceasefire over.
Bomb in London.
Garda shot in Co Limerick.
Bomb in Manchester.
May - Sinn Fein willing to accept Mitchell Principles.
Bomb found in Dublin.
July -Unionist riots over policing decisions on marches.
August - Bomb in Enniskillen.

...Various 'I'll blink if you blink' tactics by paramilitaries on both sides through late 1996 and up to early 1998...
Hanging over all was the promise of peace, the memory of the successful stand of families against the hunger strike, and small acts of defiance within nationalist communities against the grip of the Provos.

Conservative govt relies on Unionist support.
Labour elected.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed on Good Friday 1998.

August 1998 -- bomb in Omagh wipes out all vestiges of popular support for violence. Popular revulsion against violence made it impossible for SF to keep on resisting decommissioning.

In both NI and the Republic of Ireland the agreement was ratified in 1998 by popular vote. It was very clear to the Provos in the wake of the referenda and in particular in the wake of the Omagh bomb that the majority of people in both NI and Ireland wanted an end to the armed struggle for all-Ireland unification and supported the main planks of the Agreement -- a devolved, inclusive government, prisoner release, troop reductions, targets for paramilitary decommissioning, provisions for polls on Irish reunification, civil rights measures and parity of esteem for the two communities in Northern Ireland.

The nature of the Provisional IRA and UVF (i.e violent gangs), and the massive policing presence, meant that their modus operandi was to enforce respective community silence through terror -- reinforcing their power within their own communities by kneecapping, beatings, rape, etc. The UVF et al and the Provos and INLA, etc. were well able to fund their own activities the same way that other armed gangs fund themselves - racketeering, extortion, robbery, etc. None of them depended exclusively on outside support.

Support from outside had its place, just as support from outside of the West Bank and Gaza by terror-loving groups who prefer to play at international politics from the comfort of their armchairs has its place in the continued efforts to dislodge Israel. In fact, given the almost complete lack of resources in the West Bank and Gaza, outside financial support for the purchase of weapons is vital.

The Palestinians are pawns. Their welfare is not a concern to their Muslim brethren who think the conflict is winnable. It's a pity the ME anti-Semites seem unable to grasp that Israel is here to stay, that they are not going to win against Israel, and that no amount of money or efforts by Fatah or Hamas is going to make a difference.

Money would make a difference to quality of life in Gaza and the West Bank of course. But quality of life for Palestinians is not a concern for those willing to use Palestinian lives to advance their agenda.

That's like saying that all British people are to blame for everything done by British soldiers in the Irag War - which incidentally killed many times more civilians than Israel has ever done - and that clearly as it happened there must have been no protests. In reality, as we both know, there were lots of protests. Fat lot of good it did.

But I don't feel personally guilty for what was done in my name - why should Israelis?

Either everyone has a right to loathe others or nobody does.

And it doesn't actually matter who loathes who. Public opinion can be manipulated, and it often is.

@ edam

It's possible that if Palestinians take a long hard look at the cost to them of making themselves available to every group that wants to have a go at Israel ask themselves where Arafat earned his millions, ask themselves why the Gulf States won't share the wealth, and tot up the real cost of refusal to accept the political reality of Israel in terms of dead children on beaches, etc. they would decide that dropping the refusal to accept the right of Israel to exist might be a better idea than being led by the nose by people who climb over the bodies of their fellow Palestinians to get their power (i.e. Hamas).

Sorry mathanxiety I'm a bit tired but that reads to me as if you are trying to imply that the Palestinian people should somehow bear the responsibility for the slaughter of their children? If so, I think your position is entirely wrong and hugely offensive.

math

I suggest you take a long hard look at what the Palestinians have put up with in terms of oppression and forced occupation by Zionists.

Oh math, it's pretty low to blame the palestinians for their own oppression. I thought mark Regev was bad enough with his excuses.

I think that when any struggle gets romanticised and people get fixated on the rights and wrongs of events decades ago or hundreds of years ago, nobody is going to make any progress in the here and now or worry too much about the future.

I also think that many here do not understand what it is really like to live in a neighbourhood dominated by a group of armed thugs. They may call themselves Hamas or the UVF or the Provisional IRA, and they may well have some title for their commanders like Executive Council, or whatever, but within their own communities they behave exactly like the thugs they are and they get away with their domination by means of terrorising their own people.

Sometimes things have to get pretty bad before ordinary people say 'enough'.

The responsibility for casualties lies with those who refuse to believe it is not possible to turn the clock back and who fund their front line troops in their struggle against Israel instead of funding schools where Palestinians might be given a voice.
How do they think Israel is going to respond to threats?
Have they learned nothing from the last 60 years?

Why do they think the struggle is winnable?
In all the decades since 1948 what indication has there been that Israel is going to roll over and play dead?

Springheeled, where has refusal to recognise the right of Israel to exist got the Palestinians?

Whose interests are served by refusal to recognise the right of Israel to exist?

The whole thing is fucking stupid IMO.

They won't stop until they love their children more than they hate each other.

It is a nasty piece of fucking desert, is it really worth this? Really?

Right now, all they are doing is creating the next generation of terrorists, who will hate Israel as much as the current Palestinians do, and then of course they will murder innocent Israelis and around and around we go.

STUPID

Morloth you're right - this is just going to run and run and the hatred, lost and ruined lives passed on to the next generation like a baton in some twisted and never ending relay race.

It might be a grotty piece of desert but people will and do fight over everything, both real and perceived. We had neighbours threaten to kill each other over a rockery stone (I kid you not!), which just shows what terratorial animals we are under all our veneer of sophistication. Once a conflict has spiraled out of control, it doesn't matter what the wisest thing to do might be, everyone has demonised and dehumanised the other side, and it's a war of attrition that no one can win.

What did anyone learn about trying to defeat Afghanistan? Bugger all by the look of it. Everyone takes a pop at it and like a woman determined to change her bad boy of a man, thinks they'll be the one to win through.

There's not the will for peace between Israel and Palestine. It's not going to happen. A tragic nightmare.

I'm Jewish but not Israeli or a Zionist. What the Jews have done to the Palestinians cannot be condoned. That the terrorist leaders of Palestine are prepared to use civilians as human shields cannot be condoned.