Israeli aircraft strike Palestinian PM’s office

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I think it's sending exactly the wrong message when the israeli's respond so much more robustly and aggressively to the capture of an on duty soldier in uniform than they do to the terrorist massacres of israeli civilians.

It's insane. Unless the isreali government really does prefer in some perverse way that the pals attack civilians rather than it's soldiers in uniform.

I think the point is the Israelis have said enough is enough for the Hamas government.

I wouldn't want to see the response if the trigger was a car bomb and a 100 dead Israelis.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Geronimo


but the government of Israel has been directly responsible for thousands acts against the palestinians that are at least as noxious as the kidnapping of a soldier.

Aren't such actions actually considered more legitimate when undertaken by a government than when undertaken by a private organization?

Yes, and it will result in a shooting war.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Hueij

Maybe the Palestinians will get the message that if they elect a goverment which tries to destroy Israel, that Israel won't be so happy about that.

Did you ever asked yourself why the Palestinians voted Hamas? That it might have something to do with the incompetence of the former government and with the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in general?

That was a very stupid thing to vote for if the Palestinian people wanted peace.

Put responsibility where it properly belongs.

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Vesayen


Does not matter. Hamass refuses to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist. How can Israel negotiate with people who hold such a position?

Israel had enough trouble negotiating with Arafats goverment who only wanted the explicit destruction of Israel instead of implicit.


They want to destroy the state of Israel. They want to kill all Jews in Israel. They want to kill Jews elsewhere as well.

A series of points. First, and this is a very minor one, it's Hamas, not Hamass.

Second, those are not the goals of Hamas. The stated goal of Hamas is to end Zionism in Palestine, and return control of all of Palestine to the Palestinians. This does not in fact mean that they want to kill every Israeli, and this in no way even implies that they want to kill every Jew in the world. Rather, they want to obtain political control over Palestine (and for the record, I use "Palestine" instead of "Israel" only because I am summarizing their argument, not because I agree with that framing). You confuse "state of Israel, " namely the Jewish government, with the entire citizenry of Israel. Now, we all know that that could not happen without the death of a considerable number of Israelis, but that does not change the fact that the explicit goal of Hamas is not to kill all Israelis.

But this leads into the real motives of Hamas. First, privately, everyone involved in the conflict recognizes that neither Hamas nor any other Arabic, Palestinian, or Muslim organization or state has the capability to erode effective Isreali control over all of Israel as well as the occupied territories. From this, we might gather that the people in Hamas are simply insane. Possible, but extremely unlikely. The fact is, Hamas has been successful. When the PLO regained its dominant position in Palestine by entering the Oslo accords, Hamas was a marginal organization. Due to adopting a extremist position, Hamas was able to leverage Palestinian discontent into a political win for Hamas.

This is something that many in the US tend to forget. Hamas is both a military and a political institution. And by being the dominant party in the quasi-government of Palestine, Hamas and the middle east are in a very interesting position. If Israel wanted, the Israel and the international community could have said, 'listen Hamas, you're now in a position of political power. If you are serious about wanting to government all of Israel/Palestine, prove that you can effectively govern Gaza and the West Bank.' There is an historical precedent for this. I alluded earlier to the IRA. Another example would be Hezbollah. By allowing militant groups the chance to take part in a democratic government, you allow the groups either to reform and legitimate themselves, or to prove that they are unfit to govern, and suffer a massive erodement of popular support. Some like to think that groups like Hamas exist simply through force of arms. The fact is, if Hamas did not enjoy popular support, they would not have been as effective at waging their campaign against Israel, let alone would they have been able to win an election.

Instead, Israel proclaimed that Hamas was inherently illegitimate. This did nothing but stregnthen Hamas' position, while in no way allowing Hamas to prove or disprove its ability to govern.

This was rather long, and if you skipped over all of the above, here is my real point. We really cannot take sides. We really cannot say that Israel is more in the right, or Palestine is more in the right. Most of the arguments here on Apolyton involve one side or the other assuming propaganda to be fact. We tend to support Israel over Palestine because they are a democracy, and because, lets face it, they're European. They're more like us. But the fact is, groups in Israel are just as extreme as groups in Palestine. People point out that the explicit goal of Hamas is to destroy the Israeli government. These people fail to mention all the Israelis who believe that all of the occupied territories rightly belongs to Israel.

But what we can do is point to the side that currently has a better chance of taking steps in the right direction. Right now, Israel has the upper hand. For peace to be achieved, both sides need to compromise, but over the years Israel has taken more and more, and so must give up the greater share than Palestine. And, critically, Israel must make the first move.

[SlowwHand]

A series of points. First, and this is a very minor one, it's Hamas, not Hamass.

He's saying they're ham asses. Hamas ham asses.

[GePap]

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim brotherhood. Their aim is the creation of an Islamist state in the area of Palestine. Israel is obviously a problem because you can hardly have a Jewish state in the land you want to build an Islamic state on.

Hamas's aim is nt anti-Jewish in the sense they want to kill jews simply because they are Jews. To say that is deeply ignorant.

[SlowwHand]

I disagree. Read their rhetoric and it's clear they have an attitude problem about Jewish. If Israel decided the Rock of Gibralter was really the Holy site and moved, that wouldn't change anything.

[GePap]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I disagree. Read their rhetoric and it's clear they have an attitude problem about Jewish. If Israel decided the Rock of Gibralter was really the Holy site and moved, that wouldn't change anything.

I have read the founding statements of Hamas. So I really could care less about your opinion on the subject. Sorry.

[notyoueither]

Have you read the charter of Hamas?

[Admiral]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I disagree. Read their rhetoric and it's clear they have an attitude problem about Jewish. If Israel decided the Rock of Gibralter was really the Holy site and moved, that wouldn't change anything.

Hamas is an extremist resistance movement to what they see as a hostile occupier/invader. Of course they have an attitude problem. But while occasionally they get caught up into anti-Jewish rhetoric, their beef is with the state of Israel. If that state moved outside the middle east, Hamas would effectively cease to exist as a political organization.

[GePap]

To be more precise, Hamas makes it clear that their struggle is within Palestine. They have no "global" aims. Their aim again is an Islamic State within the area of Palestine. Obviously again, a Zionist state is one antithesis to their aim. If there was a Zionist state elsewhere, Hamas would hardly care. So the assertion that they seek to kill Jews anywhere is false.

And for the curious, this is the document:

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818.htm

[notyoueither]

How do you jive that with the existance of Israel?

[SlowwHand]

Founding statement. Isn't the Koran a founding statement, that's been bastardized by militants?

[GePap]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Have you read the charter of Hamas?

I think I linked to it, oh, look, yes.

Certainly the language is harsh and anti-semitic> of course, read the whole thing, and you see that they again have no "global" aims. Its a nationalist movement inherently. Which is odd and somewhat contradictory since one would think Islam would supersede Nationalism, but I guess that isn;t true for Hamas.

[Admiral]

Even if you concede the point, and I wouldn't, you're still assuming that Hamas' actions are all aimed at achieving Hamas' rhetoric.