QOD
Should the United States really be taking Israel’s side during this Gaza situation?
Of all the fines levied against him, how much will Donald Trump actually pay?
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Well, we can’t take the Hamas’ side. Hamas broke this ceasefire, and Israel has endured rocket attacks for months before it responded. Now, I think Israel is now overdoing its response, and I will criticize them for that, but I will not criticize them for striking back.
DD
Hamas rocket attacks have killed exactly how many people in the latest barrage? What’s that number again?
Israeli rocket attacks have now killed or wounded more than 1,000 people–many of them civilians.
This is more than “overdoing its response.”
But then, from a country that regularly mounts illegal cross-border attacks into Pakistan and Syria (US!) I wouldn’t expect even-handed treatment of the situation.
Yes, of course we should.
Mr Newton: Do you believe that if someone keeps shooting guns at people, say in Wilmington, but never actually manages to hit anyone, that it’s somehow no harm, no foul, and nothing should be done about it until he manages to hit someone?
God, Steve….
Don’t make me agree with Dana. The world will end.
Dana
But if there is somebody in a building shooting, we don’t blow up the entire neighborhood–unless we’re Wilson Goode.
DD
The issue is proportionality of the response.
Killing and wounding hundreds of people is not a proportional response, even if the majority of those people sympathize or support the people who actually fired the damn rockets.
Dana’s algebra is this: the potential threat to one Israeli life equates to the justified killing of hundreds of Palestinians.
But, as I already said, from our own country which routinely flouts international law in firing across borders into civilian-occupied areas in Pakistan and Syria, what would you expect?
I do agree with you there Steve. Israel is now overreacting.
Back to the original question, the choice in taking sides is not between Israel and Hamas, rather it is between Israel and neutrality.
How about taking sides with international law, which would have supported a limited, proportionate Israeli response, but which comes really close to labeling what is going on now as a war crime?
DD,
God, Steve….
Don’t make me agree with Dana. The world will end.
perhaps that should give you pause and re-evaluate.
You might want to take a look at the “sanctions” being placed on those people. Reminds me slightly of another country that had SEVERE sanctions against it…
What would the consequences be if Hamas used the same weapons as Israel?
DV…
You framed this question in such a way that it made me agree with Dana.
I will never side or support or have sympathy for any member of Hamas. They are terrorists akin to Al Queda. I do have sympathy for innocent Gazans who are dying and suffering.
h.
That, as jason would say, is one of those false equivalency questions. It hasn’t happened.
DD
Here’s my concern (and I am completely serious here): you say “Israel is over-reacting” and that is the way a lot of Americans put it. Why does it become controversial then when I say, “Israel is over-reacting by killing and wounded over 1,000 people when nobody in Israel was killed or wounded by a Hamas rocket attack.”
And why isn’t a rocket attack by any country that targets civilians considered murder?
hardly, dana makes it sound like this problem started a few weeks ago.
The Israeli’s have been closing off Gaza for years.
It’s classic bullying by Israel and once again it gets framed that way in America and we support them because the evil Gazaans are Arabs and we all know Arab’s are Terrorists and so they are wrong and Israel is right.
simple
I’m sick of both sides. Neither, imo, is serious about peace. I’m beginning to think that the leaders – on all sides – enjoy living like this. What a waste.
pandora
But please don’t let that feeling cut you off from feeling something for the victims (currently Palestinians) who are mangled and dying because of their leaders’ decisions.
If we are not a voice for them, what good are we?
I agree with Pandora. They wouldn’t know how to live in a peaceful region.
Steve
Thank god it hasn’t happened. Do you think they would change strategy with better weaponry?
Steve
They elected their leadership.
Correction – that should say “justified killing of hundreds of Hamas militants”. They are not aligned with the legitimate Abbas government in the West Bank. The reason why Israel’s overreaction is a serious problem is that it’s killed dozens of civilians as well, and there isn’t any evidence to suggest that it will be even remotely effective at stopping Hamas. And the worst part is the political timing.
How I dream of a day when we can have a Labor government ruling Israel again! The assassination of Rabin was effectively the plot of Star Trek 6 being carried out successfully.
h.
So did we: in 2000 and 2004
killed dozens of civilians
Really? Your source?
steve? really?
they bombed a college….
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1231/p01s02-wome.html
but seven civilians died as a result of that attack.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6544391
The United Nations reported that at least 62 of the dead were women and children, and medics said eight children under the age of 17 were killed in overnight strikes.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/civilian-death-toll-gaza-raises/story.aspx?guid=%7B17CD49A2-97B4-476B-9A0F-71AC40E202E7%7D&dist=msr_1
The rising death civilian toll in Gaza as Israel carries out its aerial assault has drawn concern among humanitarian groups and non-government organizations.
Many of the nearly 60 civilians who died in four days of airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza are people who live near targets, including a family that lost five daughters when an Israeli missile hit the family’s house, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Steve
Did we?
According to polling (see today’s Glenn Greenwald blog), 70% of Americans think we should be neutral. Try finding evidence of that in what our political leaders say. They’re too busy falling over each other in expressing support of Israel’s bloodthirsty leadership.
That’s what happens when cowards hide behind civilians.
This is essentially true of the hardcore Israeli settlers and the Palestinians who live in “refugee camps”. There’s only one place in the world where people live in refugee camps for sixty years. The reasons are the same in both cases – a desire to be an obstacle to compromise. Both are effectively waging a multi-decade sit in, and have organized their lives around a “we will not be moved” principle. But that is not true of all of Gaza, nor all of the Israeli towns near Gaza. There are many on both sides who did not choose to be targets.
But if there is somebody in a building shooting, we don’t blow up the entire neighborhood
You are right. The correct thing to do is run away and call the police.
Where should Israel run to? Who should they call?
Or… maybe your analogy breaks down when applied between nations?
If someone is hidden in a building shooting at me and my family, and I happen to be driving a fully armed tank…
Delaware Dem,Overdoing their response? What is the purpose of the response? Is it to make a statement or degrade the capability of Hamas to make it much less of a threat for a while? Israel knows that Hamas won’t stop. It needs to go in and root them out before they become any stronger. This is why liberals are scary when it comes to national security.
This is war and it is about time the whining, weak Omar government acts like its a war.
The best solution is a new government. GO BeBe Go.
case in point. When people like David are championing for war….think twice about where you stand.
make sure you go to church and pray extra hard David. God will be tickled you are praying for murder.
David,
Thus I take it that you support the killing of innocent civilians, especially if they are Palestinians, and further believe no one should ever dare criticize any Israeli action.
DV, understand my position. I support Israeli’s ability to strike back at the Hamas leadership. I now criticize Israeli’s going too far in leveling whole neighborhoods, which has predictably resulted in the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians.
This crisis, and indeed the entire Middle East conflict is too complicated for your and David’s simple framing.
There are victims – people – on both sides. I refuse to see them as Israelis and Palestinians. People are dying. I’ll stick to my guns. I’m sick to death of this waste.
That said… Israel’s response is not only over the top, it’s beyond stupid. They are a terrorist-making machine. And every time they over react I have trouble generating sympathy for their cause – whatever that is.
I know our “leaders” pledge unlimited support for the Israeli cause, but, the truth is, I would never send my son or daughter to fight for this nonsense… and, I would guess, I’m not alone in this sentiment.
What’s really a shame is that most people I know who live, or lived, in Israel hate this fighting and their leader’s actions. And, let’s face it… Israel takes this hardline approach because it knows the US has its back. We are in a truly disfunctional relationship.
Omar? Dana, you’re officially disqualified from having a meaningful opinion here. Go back to remedial.
The fact is, killing 1000 militants isn’t that much of a dent in Hamas’s 20,000-50,000 man brigade. And the last Gaza reoccupation effort didn’t make a lick of difference either. Trying the same strategy over and over again while expecting a different result is madness. Meanwhile, Qassam rockets are reaching all the way to Haifa and Beersheba. Israel needs a government willing to commit to Abbas – willing to actually take the huge risk of giving Fatah broad financial and military aid. The only solution will be one that incorporates Fatah, Jordan, and Egypt, and gives them the flexibilty needed to create BOTH civil order and economic stability.
And mind you, the problems faced by all four would-be partners (Israel, Fatah, Egypt, and Jordan) are being financed by another US ally – Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of violent theology.
yes. the us should be taking israel’s side.
for 40 some years the palestinians have been a hemorrhoid on the world. it’s time to slice them out and stitch the healthy areas together.
I think the Israelis have been on the overbearing side for years now, and forced the Palestinians into their situation. Having the US’ support is not helping things any. I’d say it makes it sound like one bully gets his bigger bully brother as a backup if the fight goes sour. The support of “terrorist” Palestinian groups by other nations is just a reaction to balance the power in this struggle.
Honestly, if the US took a hands off approach, (not a visible hands off approach, but pull the strings in the background) and let a neutral, mutually respectable third party body of nations (not the UN) negotiate a peace, we could probably see a long standing peace treaty in our lifetimes.
Basically take the approach we try with the North Koreans. Get countries both sides respect to work together as an intermediary.
Steve Newton – why should one Israeli have to die. For too long, Israel has not done anything to squash Hamas – now is the time. Do I want to see bloodshed – no. But I believe that the only way we are going to have peace in the Middle East is for Hamas and Hezbollah to be destroyed. (Yeah, I know, not too dovish and liberal, but I have family and friends over there who live in fear of their lives every day).
MJ
I also have friends in the region–on both sides. I don’t want anybody to die.
Your belief that the only way to have peace in the Middle East being for the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah to occur strikes me as simplistic. Both groups enjoy external State-sponsorship and their eradication would probably lead only to Syria and Iran to throw resources behind other groups.
Why should one Israeli have to die?
What makes one Israeli civilian, or one American for that matter, worth inherently more than one Palestinian?
Unless you agree with squirrelgun that Palestinians should be considered hemmorhoids and not human beings….
mj’s war is peace logic seems astonishing
MJ, what is the difference between your opinion and those who believe there will be no peace until Israel is destroyed?
See the problem?
I supported Harry Truman in most things ,however , he made one big mistake back in 1948 he should have listened to General George Marshall who begged him not to recognize Israel. For it would lead to nothing but unrest in the middle east for decades to come. How right he was. Their confiscation of land their apartheid. This is not the bases of a free society
“for 40 some years the palestinians have been a hemorrhoid on the world. it’s time to slice them out and stitch the healthy areas together.”
Replace “palestinians” with “israelis” and you’re back to “I’m rubber, you’re glue.”
MJ: The solution for your friends is quite simple. They should leave that country. In fact, if all the Israelis did so, problem solved.
TT – Arabs in Israel have rights that they could only dream of in Saudi Arabia.
“Arabs in Israel have rights that they could only dream of in Saudi Arabia.”
So that’s why we prefer the Israelis to the Palestinians — their society is more like ours? Nice to see someone admitting it.
Xstryker
Of course they do that’s why they have separate roads for them and checkpoints all over the country. and it must be nice to have you home taken away from you and your olive garden with it trees uprooted.You will forgive me but i am tired of hearing all this bullshit that God gave this land to me. if the Zionist had stayed where the came from Poland Germany and Russia we wouldn’t be having these problems today. We thought we were doing everyone a favor by dumping a bunch of Europeans in an Arab land after World war II all it has caused for both sides is trouble. We should have giving them part of Germany after all they were the criminals
Why are we worried about whether justified violence should be supported? Supporting violence gets us nowhere but more violence.
If the US is involved they should be in a role which participates in ending the violence on both sides in an unbiased manner. Since our elected leaders can’t do that for political reasons, they must participate in some peace coalition of nations in order to pass the buck and save face.
Violence will only bring more violence.
Ours is a violent world. Wars end when one side wins or when both sides see the futility of fighting. Hamas just declared war again on Israel and refused to renew a cease fire it had been breaking all along. You don’t fight wars based on proportional response. You fight them on the basis of degrading your enemy to the point that they are no longer a threat.
I don’t know if I support a ground offensive. I feel that it is taking the eye off the ball. Israel’s Olmert is falling for Iran’s game. Israel will not fight on two fronts therefore Iran may get a pass while it builds its final solution. I addressed that concern on Delaware Politics.
David
you should be careful of using the phrase FINAL SOLUTION
Can’t say that, might offend someone.
But not you, eh, h.?
Yes, David, war is hell. The question is why we’re picking sides when most Americans would prefer to stay neutral.
david,
you are wrong
Ours is a violent world. YOUR world is a violent one created by violence and war
Thank you, Donhusseinsquishviti. Peace.
David
“you should be careful of using the phrase FINAL SOLUTION”
Right on Truth Teller, we might come closer to it then you think, the Final solution that is.
1981 Israel bombed and destroyed Baghdads nuclear reactor
Israel Admits To Sept. Air Attack In Syria 2007 and is now just itching to go into Iran..somebody just might get mad enough and fight back dragging us right along into WW3
Hello Dr. Strangelove….”we’ll meet again…..”