War in the Middle East (Israel & Palestine)

  • melon avenue.

    melon avenue. (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    29
    Location:
    Germany
    MAD:
    its very hard to write a story without including opinion.
    Well, you can just report it, say what exactly happened, include quotes from both sides etc. You don't have to make a story out of it.
    But I see it has already been said. :file:
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:05pm
  • MAD

    MAD (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    42
    Location:
    Canada
    Bloodraine:
    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.
    this is something they have done before.

    then the palestinian leader who was doing so was assassinated and it all fell apart.

    the fact is it doesn't mater what the governments do, the extremists will continue to act as they have been.
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:05pm
  • melon avenue.

    melon avenue. (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    29
    Location:
    Germany
    I don't really think you can talk to the Hamas. But I never tried, so.
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:07pm
  • Matt Smith

    Matt Smith (900)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    32
    Location:
    Great Britain (UK)
    MAD:
    the fact is it doesn't mater what the governments do, the extremists will continue to act as they have been.
    Then ought we not to look at why extremists act the way they do?
    Would Hamas need to be so extreme if the Palestinian people were not being forced to live the way they do? Israel has acted brutally towards Gaza, to the point of creating a humanitarian catastrophe. The response, some would argue, has been of their own making.
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:12pm
  • Big Maggie.

    Big Maggie. (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    30
    Location:
    Ireland
    I wrote a comment on an article recently that explains my (very limited due to lack of knowledge) thoughts on this...I'll just go find it...

    My aunt, uncle and cousins are Jews living in Israel. My aunt's English by birth, and moved to Israel to live with her husband, who's from Israel, about twenty years ago. I don't really know much about their situation; I only really know what Kizzy, my cousin, told me when she visited here last summer. Kizzy's 15, same age as me, but she can't even go to school there anymore, her Dad has to home school her. She can't leave the house, or go out and do normal teenager stuff. They've been evacuated and held in a bunker for something like three months now. My cousin, Yannis, went missing just before they went into the bunker, and he's presumed dead at this point. He was (is?) only 8. Poor Gina (my aunt) had a miscarriage thanks to all this stress, when they were in the bunker, and there was nothing anybody could do for her. It's just...I'd probably find it more heartbreaking if I didn't have as much shit going on here. I barely know Yannis, but it is just such a horrible thought that your son could be missing, and you can't do anything to help him.

    If I'm being honest, I don't really know anything about why this war is happening...I do know it's over two religions, though, and for God's sake, it's been that way all through time. Even where I live, in Ireland, our country still has to be split into two countries because some narrow minded people can't see through religion. Nothing like Israel and Palestine, although a lot of people have been killed over it. But, that's only the basis of the war, or so I've been told.

    I do know that it does have to stop. It's so easy to just blame one side, what you don't see is that everybody suffers.

    The BBC...? Definitely not impartial, very biased. All media is, and yes, that is a correct generalisation.
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:23pm
  • MAD

    MAD (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    42
    Location:
    Canada
    whichever side you look at it from its an unresolvable conflict.

    the israelies believe they have a right to exist, the extremists believe they have no right to exist.

    that is how it has been since the beginning of the conflict decades ago.

    what is happening now is pretty much par for the course, its not an escalation of the conflict at all.

    the way israel treeted them is not what caused this conflict, i can point to the very begining of the conflict when there was extreme opposition to the formation of israel in the first place.

    that being said, i don't personally care about either side, they can all kill each other just like they want to for all i care.

    you can't move in to the most religiously important part of the world and expect the others who were there to just let it slide.
    January 9th, 2009 at 09:26pm
  • Shtrudel

    Shtrudel (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    40
    Location:
    Israel
    As someone who has actually seen and visited and lived in both sides, let me just chime in...

    The Palestinians have chosen their fate the day they elected terrorists - Hamas - to represent them. Even the Palestinian Authority is not peaceful; they refuse to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, no matter where the borders are.
    We had no choice but build a wall around the West Bank. Only then did the suicide bombings cease.

    While Hamas like to present themselves to the world as oppressed freedom fighters, when you hear them on their own TV stations, they speak a different language. It's truly all about the spread of radical Islam and murdering as many Jews as possible, Israel or no Israel - and they like to say that America etc. will follow [being eradicated].
    They - and the civilians, the oh so innocent - make huge parades, thousands strong, when two of them sneak into a Jewish home and slit the throats of sleeping children and their parents. Because while Israel accidentally hits civilians which is called collateral damage and is unavoidable in a war, the Palestinian terrorists deliberately target civilians, the more innocent the better. A baby's throat was slit and leftists want to tell me this is for freedom...

    Whatever innocent/decent civilians that leaves.... One can safely assume that those representing the Palestinian cause on location, have an agenda that goes farther than rights and freedom - much farther. I'll gladly provide video material where these people speak their own mind. One of the mass murderers released in exchange for Gilad Shalit, proudly said she'd do it again - murder a dozen children, that is. That is the average crime and mentality of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. And people from the West come here and tell US that WE are the villain. Can one really blame us for restricting them?

    Israel may often hit civilians, however this is never on purpose when one omits the tiny number of renegade law-breaking soldiers. Israeli soldiers have the duty of rejecting immoral or unlawful orders; they go to great lengths to spare civilians.
    However Hamas does not. They will make base where many civilians will be dragged into things, so they can later scream about that Israel killed them. What choice does Israel have? Leave Hamas - murderers - alone? Also Hamas loves to prep buildings with explosives they detonate when Israel attacks, making it look like Israel did it.

    Israel has tried very hard, but whatever we offer them, the answer is "DEATH TO ISRAEL!" wrapped in some euphemism if one is lucky. I am long done pitying the Palestinians.

    Lastly, they are not entitled to the territories. Every country is entitled to keep land conquered in a war, it's how the USA happened, it's how part of Belgium happened, and no one ever complained, so what's wrong with Israel doing the same thing? We won the West Bank during the Six-Day-War during which WE were gratitiously, cowardly and unfairly attacked, severely outnumbered. We conquered that strip of land, Jordan let us have it. So? Here's a public secret: The one who has an obligation to take in the Palestinians, is not Israel. They are not even Palestinians - they are mostly Jordanians! JORDAN has to take and accommodate them, not us! It's Jordan's people! We have no obligations to the "Palestinians" whatsoever, yet on a daily basis WE, not Jordan, send them hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid they have no real claim on. And as gratitude, we get bombed. Also on a near-daily basis. Why gee, thanks!

    They are not victims of Israel. They are victims of anti-Israeli Islamic nations who use them as proxy fighters. They are victims of their own authorities and a culture that does not take progress into the equasion; I have seen them do their best to let whatever they have go to the dogs so they can keep mooching off the United Nations as "fugitives".
    Israel may respond harshly to attacks, but it's still a RE-sponse. Honestly, if someone kicks me in the shin, I won't bother being proportionate about kicking back. I'll make sure I'll discourage them from kicking me ever again. What's wrong with that?
    February 21st, 2012 at 07:26pm
  • ode to sleep

    ode to sleep (100)

    :
    Member
    Gender:
    Age:
    24
    Location:
    New Zealand
    I'm sorry, but the Israelis are at fault here.

    Image
    May 30th, 2013 at 06:27am