Beard Man

poor them

no Safety
no food
no freedom
distructed houses
lost lifes

what kind of criminals are there in israel

Norm_uk

Maybe if Hamas stopped launching rockets at the Israelis during a time of truce Israel would not be able to justify attacks.

There's something called non-violence and it works a LOT better than crazed fanatical warfare. Britain had to give back India due to non-violence...

N.

pedrochilli

Stone my kids on the way to school steal my land and home beat me starve me ... go figure?

TGFKASE

Cant quite work out whose side you are on.... Are you an Israeli bemoaning the decision to return the Golan Heights???

Or are you a Palestinian who voted in a political (??) party who have repeatedly stated there conviction to wipe the Israelis from the area?

As has been said before, the strongest people in this conflict, and the ones that will garner the most world wide support, are the side that decide to use non-violent means to find a solution...

Frankly, I think the easiest way to sort the whole thing out is to build a wall around the whole area and leave it till a lone spotter reports back to the world that the situation is resolved, one way or another....

still.unsure

if the israeli's went back to their pre-1967 borders, and the borders were manned by a "neutral" third party, rather than having israeli's act as beligerent(spelling) prison guards, maybe something could be sorted out.

in no way is hamas or any violent struggle the right way to go (no one seems to remember that israel was 'started' by terrorism with acts such as the bombing of the king david (name?) hotel etc.) but hamas is an example of 'extremism' in the occupied territories. opression of the entire population only feeds extremism. the average palestinian (and i'm guessing) probably just wants to survive and raise a family in peace. if you keep taking that opportunity away, suddenly extremists such as hamas sound like a 'reasonable' option.

if israel truly wants peace, then they need to back off. they have the greater strength in the argument, time for them to show restraint, back-off, and actually compromise rather than just try and squash any resistance.

yes, there has been such incidents as the return of the golan heights and southern lebanon, but there is still the occupation of jerusalem and large areas of gaza which, by occupying, fuels extremism and its consequences.

so, israel backs off, lets normal palenstinians rebuild their lives, and hamas will (over time) lose it's powerbase, especially if a moderate faction can come about.

admon

I agree, but unfortunately that would take some political common sense, which is doubtful from either side..

benzonar

Let's be realistic, pre-1967 borders are not going to happen.......ever, unless it is by armed conflict. The formation of the state of Israel started with the Balfour Declaration and had absolutely nothing to do with a terrorist act on the King David Hotel instigated by a small group, in fact the bombing set back the process somewhat at the time.

As to Israel backing off, how many rockets per day are acceptable to be landing in Israel. Should Israel provide a proportionate response, i.e. for every unguided rocket fired into Israel then Israel can fire one back into Gaza unguided. With the higher population density in Gaza it won't be long before we hear calls of it being disproportionate again.

The only way this issue will ever be resolved will be if the Palestinians get the upper hand and drive the Jews into the sea as is the stated aim of Hamas. Until that happens Hamas and its Iranian backers will not accept any form of peace that is palatable to all parties. So what is the solution? Well frankly there isn't one, and there won't be one in several lifetimes.

Norm_uk

I don't think you've been reading up on recent events. Israel has been in unofficial negotiations with Syria over Golan and seems to be following it's land for peace doctrine again.

The current "war" is against the extremist organisation Hamas who are condemned even by other Arab Muslims for not respecting a ceasefire with Israel...

N.

still.unsure

israel is in a precarious position b/c it will not be able to broker any kind of deal with the majority of it's neighbours unwilling to even recognize it's current existence, let alone any future possibility of one. but i fail to see how a strategy of oppression and containment will get it out of this current mess. when a young man is unable to assist or support his family, and someone comes to you and offers you the ability to enact some kind of support by retaliating against your oppressors, why wouldn't they sign up? the current strategy by israel leaves only a disenchanted population that seess (rightly or wrongly) that there are no other options than to fire rockets blindly into their 'enemy' and spout such rhetoric as 'driving them into the sea.'

i will happily concede israels right to defend itself in light of random and despicible attacks, but will not listen to complaints when it has at its disposal, more power and influence to be able to offer the enemy a compromise.

think about the US's recent strategy in iraq of paying militants to not fight for the insurgency? (i can't remember the exact name but something like 'brotherhood of light') essentially, these fighters were only on the side of the insurgency b/c there was nothing better in their lives. the yanks suddenly paid them (thus offering them a proportionately better life), and the fighting calmed down. i'm not suggesting that israel pay hamas (thus rewarding their conduct), but surely there's ways to look at the majority of the palestinians welfare and address that first. i'm of the opinion that once the welfare issues are addressed, the extremist parties will lose their base.

(have to agree to disagree about the level of influence the bombings had on the british interest in the area...)

shiva

Whilst I in no way support or agree with the actions taken by Hammas, I can however perfectly understand why "they" believe their actions to be justified and why their numbers will grow after the current israeli actions.

When you have people alive whos parents and grandparents can point out the houses they used to live in to their children and grand children, who can point out their land and crops which are now occupied and farmed by someone else, when you cut of the supplies of fuel, food, water, money, medical supplies to people, when you force men when they reach the age of 18 to move from their homes and family areas, when you oppress a people upto and well beyond the point of desperation by using overwhelming military might....


WHAT THE **** DO THEY EXPECT WILL HAPPEN????????



Israel has consistently and repeatedly proved that it does not want a peacful solution and in almost every action plays into the hands of hammas and thus the cycle continues ad infinitum.

Its the poor bastards who suffer at both the hands of hammas and israel whom i feel sorry for as they are truely screwed by all sides. Hammas will be loving this as they have probably just recruited another few hundred if not thousand disenfranchised fools for their inglorious war of terror.

shiva

doesnt look like handala will be going home in 2009

Sandboy

why is it always the religious types that fight each other ? us drunken atheists never start wars ( unless it's something serious like jumping the queue in the kebab shop or nicking me taxi )

Charismatic

I can't see how else Israel could have acted; really did they do anything we didn't expect? The Israeli government is under immense pressure to deal with this problem and for the most part the international communities bleating runs contrary to their actions.

I'd sum it up with this parable:
Little bloke walks into a bar and proceeding to flick the ear of the biggest bloke he can find because he is sitting in "his" bench (he sat there, his father sat there etc.), big bloke asks him to stop and find another bench or share but does nothing else.

So the little bloke slaps him around the head. Big bloke just asks him to stop, confirms with barman that him sitting there is OK and issues a stern "or next time...".

Little bloke pours his drink over his head. Big bloke clobbers little bloke.


I used to think that both sides where as bad as each other etc. but now I realise that Hamas really has little interest in peace, freedom or liberation of the people it professes to serve. I'm not saying that Israel has always been justified or even handed but at the moment it would seem obvious what they are doing is to the benefit of most within the area .

Mostly the people I feel sorry for are people caught in the crossfire between the two who couldn't care less politically but just want to live without fear, grow old with their families and perhaps even better the world in which they live .

shiva

[QUOTE=Charismatic;7114209]

I'd sum it up with this parable:
Little bloke walks into a bar and proceeding to flick the ear of the biggest bloke he can find because he is sitting in "his" bench (he sat there, his father sat there etc.), big bloke asks him to stop and find another bench or share but does nothing else.

So the little bloke slaps him around the head. Big bloke just asks him to stop, confirms with barman that him sitting there is OK and issues a stern "or next time...".

Little bloke pours his drink over his head. Big bloke clobbers little bloke.

QUOTE]

one small problem, what happens in the parable when the little bloke used to own the bench, live under the bench and make his livelyhood from said bench........wouldnt you ask for your bench back?

Charismatic

One bench is much like another.

As one person who has moved between benches speaking to another . I suppose sometimes we live our whole lives living in regret at what could have been, fighting what is inevitable. In the case of Palestine the current approach has yielded little in the way of reperations for what they have lost and their current approach isn't lending itself to a resolution. Isn't the defenition of madness doing the same thing again and again expecting a different results?