This just in: Israel returns fire on Syrian targets from the Golan Heights

[SlowwHand]

Hamas are the epitome of chicken****. Blame them, then the civilians among whom they hide before you blame Israel for casualties. Israel is telling them, you have 5 minutes and then this building is going down. You need to leave. Five minutes later, the building goes down. How can anyone have a problem with that, when Israel is retaliating?
Tell me one country that would accept being rocketed.

[giblets]

Not at all. People's views are not fixed in stone. Enough propaganda can affect low information voters for example.

Even the low information voters can probably figure out that Israel is only responding to rocket attacks against Israel. "No country would tolerate rocket attacks" is a pretty simple concept to grasp and a lot of low information voters are probably thinking that. I also think the Israelis have a lot more propaganda power (at least in the US) than the Palestinians.

[SlowwHand]

It's not like this is an isolated incident. They're constantly asked to restrain from retaliation. I'm amazed at their patience.

[regexcellent]

It would take something really dramatic to make public opinion in America anti-Israel (and this is probably true in Canada and Australia as well).

[Zevico]

Right now they're being restrained from a ground invasion, incidentally, so that the international community can force Hamas to enter into a cease fire. We'll see how that works out. Prognosis: doubtful.

there's been a lot written by the usual suspects on hamas' motivations, but nothing on israel's. there's an election coming up in israel and unfortunately, murdering some palestinians plays well with a certain section of the israeli electorate.

If this thesis were true, wouldn't there be a significant political party standing opposed to the invasion for the other parties to draw votes from? There simply is no such major political party out there. So what you're suggesting is that this is a war initiated to deny votes to what, the Communist Party? What a joke.

[regexcellent]

Netanyahu's going to win the election regardless. The escalation in conflict is a liability for him more than anything. People who think there's some dirty electioneering going on here haven't been paying attention to Israeli politics lately or are just plain ignorant of it. I don't pretend to be an expert but it's been obvious for a while that there isn't so much a question of whether Likud will head the government but rather how big its coalition will be.

[onodera]

Hamas are the epitome of chicken****. Blame them, then the civilians among whom they hide before you blame Israel for casualties. Israel is telling them, you have 5 minutes and then this building is going down. You need to leave. Five minutes later, the building goes down. How can anyone have a problem with that, when Israel is retaliating?
Tell me one country that would accept being rocketed.

Your house is going down in 5 minutes, Sloww. How can you have a problem with that?

[SlowwHand]

If terrorists are in the building, I shouldn't be surprised.

[dannubis]

Hamas are the epitome of chicken****. Blame them, then the civilians among whom they hide before you blame Israel for casualties. Israel is telling them, you have 5 minutes and then this building is going down. You need to leave. Five minutes later, the building goes down. How can anyone have a problem with that, when Israel is retaliating?
Tell me one country that would accept being rocketed.

Gaza strip ?

[Hauldren Collider]

Has anyone noticed how only Gaza is getting bombed? Not the West Bank? Anyone care to make any theories about why this might be?

The difference between Hamas and Fatah:

[Imran Siddiqui]

So you are saying Hamas are like scientists?

[Hauldren Collider]

They are certainly doing a long-running experiment on whether rocketing Israeli cities results in Israeli retaliation. Preliminary results conclude "yes".

[Asher]

It's funny because clearly Hamas is the entire cycle of violence.

[Sava]

According to random Israeli official on CNN a few days ago, most of the rockets being fired against Israel do not contain explosive warheads. Rockets fired as part of a junior high school science project would be just as dangerous. And this has been going on for months. But it's only now when the American elections are over that Israel feels like it needs to "defend" itself.

Airstrikes against civilian populations without air defense isn't something I would consider to be a just act of war.

[Hauldren Collider]

It's funny because clearly Hamas is the entire cycle of violence.

Yes, it is.