War in the Middle East (Israel & Palestine)

So as we all know there's always been fighting between Israel & Palestine.
Recently though there has been much bombing & killing.
It needs to stop.
The whole thing is getting old, and I for one am sick of it.
Not to mention my family in Israel are right in the middle of the bombing target.
It's scary, and stupid.
They should just settle it once and for all.
Stop the war, let's just have peace, for once.
Your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

There will never be peace as long as israel exists.

The fact is the Quran teaches that if you die while fighting against infidels, you go to heaven... now thats just a couple lines in a book that mostly preaches tolerance and love.

Never the less, as long as israel exists, the extremists will see it as a direct insult.

As a result there will never, ever , be peace.

It's Israel that started it. The Palestinians are treated as second class citizens and I think it's understandable if a few get hacked off and try to do something about it. If the Palestinians are treated with the same respect as Israelis then there will be peace but at this moment in time, there isn't. Israel is a very multicultural place in itself with it being an epicentre of various religious beliefs but it is the treatment of Palestinians that is the problem.

palestine is just the face media puts on the arab multitude that wants israel wiped off the map, its really not just them at all.

Much of the hatred is from other arab countries in the area, many of the bombers are from other areas...

and no, treating the palestinians differently will not have any effect.

There are more religious extremists than there are israelis.

Until israel is gone there will not ever be peace.

As I've made clear before, I am anti-war and anti-violence, so neither side has my 'support', though I would probably say my sympathy lies more with Palestine. If anyone wants to know why, then I think this article explains quite well.

I think America's actions (or lack thereof) over recent days have been very unhelpful. By refusing to condemn Israel's actions and vetoing UN security council resolutions calling for a ceasefire they have effectively allowed Israel to continue in its treatment of the Palestinian people.

I also don't think a solution will be possible unless Israel are prepared to talk to Hamas. Controversial, perhaps, but if nobody is prepared to negotiate with them then nothing will get better.

I'm sorry but no possible negotiation will ever bring a true end to the violence.

the forces that want Israel destroyed are very much larger than palestine or any other single political group.

israel's very existence is an affront to their religion, which is, for the extremists, their life.

not that i agree with israel, but their fight is one for their own existence, they are hemmed in on all sides by about twenty times as many enemies.

as for the us and their actions, israelis own a large portion of the us, thus they will never change their position.

I would also like to note that "israel started it" is a shortsighted and not entirely accurate statement.

israel dropped the first bombs, but it was only after their life line had been blockaded, they were forced to act or die.

i can see a lot of people just take what the media tells them without seeing the complete picture...

MAD:

i can see a lot of people just take what the media tells them without seeing the complete picture...

Well, that's somewhat difficult to assert as 'the media' don't all have the same view.
I would imagine that the British media (being politically neutral) is significantly different to Fox news (which certainly isn't) not to mention Al Jazeera English; or The Guardian newspaper (which is very liberal) or The Sun (which cares far more about Celebrity Big Brother).

So you can see by my limited cross-section of the kind of media avaliable to me that it certainly doesn't portray one side. 'The media' is too broad a term.

mass media always portrays it as being one side as the aggressor at any given time.

in reality its an ongoing battle that has been raging for decades and has never really stopped for any significant period of time.

for a better understanding of the conflict you need to read political science studies on the conflict. which are by necessity far less biased.

news is so slanted its not even funny.

MAD:

I'm sorry but no possible negotiation will ever bring a true end to the violence.

the forces that want Israel destroyed are very much larger than palestine or any other single political group.

israel's very existence is an affront to their religion, which is, for the extremists, their life.

An affront to whose religion? I know muslims who don't consider Israel's existence an affront. Only extremists consider it in that way, you can't generalise the whole Islamic world. You believe no negotiation is possible, okay, but I completely disagree - negotiation will and always has been the only solution I find acceptable because violence goes against everything I believe in. You may have given up hope in diplomacy but I haven't. What's your solution, to get rid of Israel? Because that isn't acceptable either.

MAD:

not that i agree with israel, but their fight is one for their own existence, they are hemmed in on all sides by about twenty times as many enemies.

as for the us and their actions, israelis own a large portion of the us, thus they will never change their position.

Israel are not fighting for their own existence. It is quite the opposite, in my view. Palestine are the ones being oppressed here, they are fighting to maintain their dignity and right to territory which Israel has taken every opportunity to destroy and demoralise.

I'm also not aware of Israel owning the US (if I've read your post right) so perhaps you could enlighten me?

MAD:

news is so slanted its not even funny.

Have you ever heard of the BBC?

do you really believe its impartial? really?

heres the thing.

in order for it to be news worthy, they need to make someone out to be the victum and someone else as the bad guy.

they need to make it seem as though the bad guy is doing something horrendous to the victim. and they need it to seem as if this is something new.

in reality, war between israel and palestine is never honestly news worthy. its been going back and forth since the sixties and there has never been anything close to a resolution.

any time any leader looks like he wants peace, he gets assassinated and replaced, or some place gets bombed.

there is no way there will ever be peace there as long as israel exists.

FACT.

Actually, I do.

do you know many americans believe fox news and msnbc is impartial?

that does not make it so.

So it's really all just about the beginning, two thousand years ago, where the Israelis were driven out of their country. So they then (quite a while later) came back to the Palestinians and wanted their country back.
In this conflict, I can understand both parties here. Israel has been prosecuted very often and want a country for themselves, since no-one tolerates them.
Palestine (and I) don't understand why they should move over for people whose long-gone ancestors had lived here.

MAD:

in order for it to be news worthy, they need to make someone out to be the victum and someone else as the bad guy.

they need to make it seem as though the bad guy is doing something horrendous to the victim. and they need it to seem as if this is something new.

And people need to stop blaming the news constantly.
There are stupid papers, but most people who care about these things, who are intelligent enough to understand serious things, can tell the difference between gossip papers and serious news.
Of course, there are a lot of opinioated papers, but some of them have actually quite good opions and are worth the money.
Anyway, we have lots of papers who just state what happened and let us decide what to make of it.

MAD:

do you know many americans believe fox news and msnbc is impartial?

that does not make it so.

Your point being?
Maybe some Americans have misconceptions about the impartiality of their news channels, that doesn't really have an effect upon me. The only suggestion that I can make to you is that you judge the impartiality of the BBC for yourself. You can read articles on their website or watch their coverage of the conflict directly here though I'm not sure if it works outside of Britain.

You mean me?
EDIT: ah, okay.

its very hard to write a story without including opinion.

and i have never seen it from the bbc or any other news outlet.

i actually can watch the bbc on my television from my satalite .

i get british, american, canadian, japanese, italian, french and a host of other channels.

i don't just talk out my ass, when i am saying i do not find them to be impartial, its because i have seen it for myself and have judged it as such.

MAD:

its very hard to write a story without including opinion.

and i have never seen it from the bbc or any other news outlet.

Well, maybe you should look harder? It's not so much including no opinion, that would be quite dull. It's more that they don't favour any one opinion, they interview people from all sides and present information in an unbiased way. It's about achieving balance.

Anyway, this is moving slightly away from the Israel-Gaza issue. I assure you that my opinions on the matter have been formed from a variety of sources and am not merely parroting what 'the media' told me.