Well, we both know, and Israel knows, that nearly all of the people in Gaza can't leave. All of the nations in the middle east, friend to Israel or friend to any faction of the Palestinians, will not accept any large number of refugees beyond those already present in their country (and are in fact unlikely to grant citizenship to the refugees already there).

Honestly, I think that there is no and never was a clear consensus amongst Israeli leadership as to the exit strategy for this campaign. I think everyone involved agreed that some form of military response was necessary/called for, and that they all had and have different ideas of how they want it to end.

Hamas is in the position of balancing further casualties and suffering amongst their members and constituency against the possible goodwill they can gain in the region by mimicking Lebanon's performance in the previous war.

To be entirely blunt, the Palestinians in Gaza (including Hamas) have been losing a lot, and stand to lose a lot more if the IDF pushes forward.
I think the likely "out" in the near term (and possibly the endgame that a majority of Israeli leadership is pursuing) is that a sufficiently large majority of Hamas operatives in Gaza will decide that it is in their best interests to reach a compromise that accedes to some but not all of Israel's demands.

Joedirt, Hamas leadership in Syria has consistently refused a ceasefire without Israel first completely withdrawing, which I think is rather unrealistic.
This Arabic daily criticizes Hamas leadership for obstructing cease-fire negotiations (see the bottom) http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=15352
Here's the Telegraph, saying that there is division as to a cease-fire between the Syrian leadership of Hamas and the leadership on the ground in Gaza http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4240932/Analysis-The-choices-confronting-Hamas.html

In the long term? Personally, I had been thinking that unilateral distancing by Israel was a positive step towards peace. However, if Israel leaves open any significant access to Palestinian territories, additional weapons or weapon-precursors will enter the region and be used against Israel.
As we have seen, Palestinian militants will tunnel or otherwise attempt to circumvent even relatively thorough security procedures put in place by Israel.
This leaves Israel in the unenviable position of deciding whether to leave the Palestinians with relatively open borders, and suffer proportionately more attacks, or completely isolate Gaza (and probably the West Bank as well) in a truly thorough fashion.

This is a classic asymmetric warfare situation, which historically have been very bloody and nigh-impossible to end peacefully. I don't know of any historic examples that didn't end in the militarily superior power either pulling out completely ala Russia in Afghanistan or the U.S. in Vietnam (not a realistic or moral option here) or committing genocide as in many Medieval and Colonial conflicts (also not a realistic or moral option).

To end this before it gets any longer, simply giving the Palestinians a homeland will not bring peace to the region as long as a significant portion of the Palestinian population is willing to pursue the destruction of the state of Israel via violent means.

I do not dispute that there have been a number of bad actors affiliated with Israel. However, I believe from personal experience that the vast majority of Israelis would be happy for the Palestinians to have their own state, but also believe that many Palestinians would continue to pursue the violent destruction of Israel even if they had full sovereignty.

^ ^ ^ I agree completely. The sad part is that Israel and spokesperson know exactly what they are doing. It purposefully is trying to seem strong, not apologize, and thumb their noses at suffering and the Red Cross.

They want more and more rockets and they really probably want problems in the West Bank.

Unfortunately, Obama is a coward on this one.

>> ^donotthink:
This is not an issue of debate. Israel is an apartheid state. It has an army that is powerful enough to give fuck all about their own Supreme Court decisions, and it has created two of the worlds largest concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank.
It's amusing and fun when the TV show is called "Hogan's Heroes", and the heroes always manage to thwart the evil fascists plans. It does not taste good when people realize that they are themselves the fascists being pointed upon.


DoNotThink - Way to live up to your name. Israel is not an apartheid state in any sense of the word.

It is a modern democratic republic, until recently the only one in the Middle East (Now joined by Iraq of course). Arabs are citizens within the country: vote, own property and businesses and have members in the Knesset.

Arabs have more liberty and prosperity in Israel than any Muslim country. Within the so-called occupied territories there are the Arabs calling themselves "Palestinian" who refuse to join Israeli society, or disperse around the region, or live in peace.

Israel does have a strong armed force: to defend against these belligerants, and to protect from the neighboring countries that periodically wage illegal wars of intended genocide on her.

This is not an issue of debate. Israel is an apartheid state. It has an army that is powerful enough to give fuck all about their own Supreme Court decisions, and it has created two of the worlds largest concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank.

It's amusing and fun when the TV show is called "Hogan's Heroes", and the heroes always manage to thwart the evil fascists plans. It does not taste good when people realize that they are themselves the fascists being pointed upon.

That would be true if Hamas solely sold terrorism and a fight against occupation, but Hamas also provide social services for the people of Palestine and has constructed schools and hospitals to achive this aim. From Wiki:

Hamas also runs extensive social programs and has gained popularity in Palestinian society by establishing hospitals, education systems, libraries and other services throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas' charter calls for the recapturing of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now named Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Hamas describes its conflict with Israel as political and not religious or antisemitic. However, its founding charter, writings, and many of its public statements reflect the influence of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Hamas's political wing has won many local elections in Gaza, Qalqilya, and Nablus. In January 2006, Hamas won a surprise victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking 76 of the 132 seats in the chamber, while the previous ruling Fatah party took 43. Many perceived the preceding Fatah government as corrupt and ineffective, and Hamas's supporters see it as an "armed resistance" movement defending Palestinians from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. However, since Hamas's election victory, particularly sharp infighting has occurred between Hamas and Fatah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

Wow, talk about histrionic titles.... geesh.

Look, if you want any Western strategic interests located in the heart of the Middle East, this is how it's accomplished. If the US didn't pay this money, they'd have less influence over Israel and the region as a whole. The money buys the US a spot at the table. It also buys the US a military presence, a proxy military, a military jumping-off point, and thus political pressure in the area. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is another discussion.

As to the current fiasco: it's war and it's not a new war. If this were the dark ages and the groups could fire weapons the distance of a football field or two, I'm sure the groups could live together. Given the small size of the country and the advancement of weaponry, it's far easier for for the Israelis to be harmed by state or non-state players.

Look at the current situation: Hamas in Gaza started firing rockets into Israel. Israel asked the world for help. No help came. Israel attempted to remove this enemy once and for all. The attacks wouldn't be a problem if we were in the pre-rocket days - catapult fire wouldn't travel far enough. Pity our advancement of "civilization", eh?

Is there a right or a wrong in this fight? Wow. That's a naive question. Both sides have a right to live in the area. What right? There are historic rights for both groups. Military rights, too, for the Israelis, since 1948 and reaffirmed in '67. Both groups also have political/lawful rights. The problem is that the groups can't seem to Just Get Along. That puts Israel in a pickle: they can't readily defend themselves from hostile fire from enemies, many of whom refuse to accept that Israel is a legitimate state. They can't get make those people move to other countries... not legally, anyway. That leaves them with their only legal option: defend themselves from attack.

The Palestinians this time are fighting against the war of attrition; being cut off. The Israelis are defending against the reprisal terrorist attacks. Enter the circle of violence.

Of course nobody wants the civilian deaths in Gaza; neither child nor adult. That said, if you choose to live in Gaza or the West Bank, there's no doubt you'll have terrorists (and I say "terrorist" instead of "freedom fighter" because Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO have have plenty of civilian blood on their hands) living with you. And if you have terrorists as neighbors, you'll have bullets as weather.

Ha.

You guys are ridiculous, you think the IDF bombing Gaza will eliminate Hamas? Did the Lebanon war eliminate Hezbollah? Both these entities came forth from Israel aggression and injustice in dealing with Palestine. Jewish people themselves resent the Zionist actions of the military forces knowing full well that everything that is wrought now will back fire in new groups, new individuals and new suicide bombers.

But you know maybe it will! Who knows! It definitely has worked in Afghanistan and Iraq! Not COIN or hearts and minds but simply we have to bomb Gaza to save it!

Gaza has been under blockade for 2 years, continuous apartheid has been in effect for far longer, its economical, socially and politically been coerced into fighting in any means it can, the Israelis have gone into the West Bank and Gaza countless times to seek out terrorists only to see them rise again like hydra heads because the essential underlining policy of achieving peace is flawed in design to propagate continuous hostility and conflict with the Palestinian people. You know so Israel can claim victim, build walls all over, sniper towers while pushing settlements out and claim a bit more land.

Zionism wants Israel to occupy West Bank and Gaza with no Palestinian state, so in effect Hamas wants the elimination of Israel. The two policies are mirrors of one another.

The Palestinian areas have hand every building bombed, bulldozed and blown through so many times and you guys are saying Hamas should act like uniformed forces against the IDF. It's asymmetrical warfare, the same kind the Fedayeen employed against US forces after seeing how the Taliban got bombed to shit in Tora Bora.

That's just plain military tactics, its unfortunate they use suicide bombing and rocket attacks but hey you know they don't have obligatory military service, Merkava Tanks, F-16s, Apaches or a steady supply of Military Aid from the US.

The US achieved peace with a hostile enemy by employed the methodology of COIN and hearts and minds to allow Iraqis to govern themselves, though years late cooperation and dialog in parts of Iraq have shown that soft contact with the local populace has meant that Iraqis actively gave up insurgents themselves.

Contrast this methodology with Israel hostile stance against all Palestinian people and you quickly realize that peace is not what Israel is striving for. It's a political process of land acquisition through the guise of fighting terrorism.

Israel GAVE the primitives Gaza and the West Bank; instead of creating anything, they used the real estate as a launch pad to attack Israel.

If the primitives are given their own country they'll use it as a launch pad to attack Israel.

Israel owes the primitives nothing and has every right to defend itself.

Fuck, I hate these truther nutjobs.

It is such a pathetic syndrome of the Western armchair analyst.

- I have figured out exactly who is behind everything and it's the people that I read about on the internet and have seen on TV! If I do not understand an ideology or have no personal experience of something, it hasn't happened! There is no government more powerful than that of the US - they control EVERYTHING and I know ALL THERE IS TO KNOW about them!

If this were true you would all be dead; like real dissidents in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, DR Congo, Belarus, all Arab states except Iraq and the West Bank, Iran etc etc...

>> ^bcglorf:
Finally, I must insist that Israeli aid to the region must not be ignored either. If Israel really wants the region cleansed, why are they still the largest individual provider of humanitarian aid to the region? You know what the biggest complaints where when the borders where closed? Access to Israeli hospitals that where previously available to Palestinians living on the border. And for unemployment caused by closing the border, it was because a great many living in Gaza were working in Israel.


Err? Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza since 2007.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said that while Israel had been letting some relief supplies into Gaza, with 60 truckloads entering on Monday, that was "wholly inadequate", as about 100 truckloads a day of flour or grain alone were needed. Stocks of fuel were "more or less zero", meaning Gaza's power plant might have to shut down at any time, while medical supplies were "just about enough to cope", Holmes said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LV538165.htm

A boat delivering 3.5 tonnes of Cypriot medical aid to the Gaza Strip has been rammed by Israeli naval vessels in international waters, activists say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7805075.stm

"The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Karen AbuZayd, on Monday warned that new restrictions Israel planned to impose on the West Bank could force the agency to curtail its humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/925748.html

Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2616242520080427

The United Nations is accusing Israel of imposing arbitrary taxes on humanitarian relief supplies - including food and medicine - being ferried to Palestinians in occupied territories. The levies charged by Israel were "unreasonable and unique", Peter Hansen, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees, told a meeting of donors Wednesday.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/aid/2002/0925israel.htm

On average, the U.S gave more than $6.8 million* to Israel each day and
gave $0.3 million** to the Palestinians each day during Fiscal Year 2007.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html

>> ^Farhad2000:
Really bcglof? I wouldn't have thought Israel sought the middle ground with an open air prison system, collective punishment through food and power blockades, previously illegitmate incursions, the numerous checkpoints, the artillary fire, the air bombing campaign, movement controls and so on...


I didn't specifically say Israel was taking the right middle ground. I said that the middle ground between ignoring rocket attacks on it's civilians and killing all palestinians in retaliation was to target only militants and at the same time use aid to try and win over the moderates.

I agree that Israel's responses are typically overly aggressive. But none the less, they are attempting to target militants, and they are providing large quantities of aid to civilians. I am content to defend Israel when it is accused of trying to cleanse the region, at the same time as I am critical of their military for being too aggressive. I even go so far as to be MORE critical of Hamas for recruiting suicide bombers from as early as the age of 2!

Finally, I must insist that Israeli aid to the region must not be ignored either. If Israel really wants the region cleansed, why are they still the largest individual provider of humanitarian aid to the region? You know what the biggest complaints where when the borders where closed? Access to Israeli hospitals that where previously available to Palestinians living on the border. And for unemployment caused by closing the border, it was because a great many living in Gaza were working in Israel.

I really think the problems in Palestine are much like those in Iraq. America couldn't decide in Iraq if they wanted to run things interim or allow the Iraqis to start from scratch. The indecisive mix and match approach just created confusion, bitterness and fighting. In Palestine it is the same thing where Israel needs to take a clear and consistent approach. They need to either the run the West Bank and Gaza completely and provide security, infrastructure and civil services, or stay out completely. Unfortunately Israel and Palestine are still too intertwined for either of those transitions to be smooth.

And to be on topic, this is a Hamas children's video encouraging children to aspire to grow up and become martyrs. Surely we can agree that deserves the strongest kind of condemnation?

Terrorism in Judea is symptom not a disease, when paths for peaceful resistance is shut down only violent resistance remains, remember that Hamas did not exist 50 years ago.

The UN passed resolution 242 that requires Israel to withdraw back to the borders of 4th June 1967. Palestine accepted the 1967 border agreement in 1988 as a concession to end hostilities between both nations.

Israel's approach is however to claim that any lands occupied by Isreali citizens should be cede backed into Israel, however lands occupied by Palestinians is up for debate. The University of Tel Aviv was actually built on Palestinian land (this was in the http://www.haaretz.com/).

Encroaching Israeli settlements mean that Israel captures more land, there is documented evidence of how Israel demolishes Palestinian homes and brings over Israeli settlers, when the Palestinian people revolt against this it's presented as Israel defending itself against terrorism, the fact that it was Palestinian land never makes the media reports.

Thus Israel cannot accept the full 1967 border zone because settlements within West Bank divide Palestinian land into a cadre of small islands surrounded by barbed wired, IDF and armed Israeli settlers.

The Zionists believe that all of Judea is rightfully theirs at any cost.

Ironic that what Israel is doing is the same thing Nazi Germany did when it captured Czechoslovakia, when it claimed there was a native German population at the border that needed to be joined back to Greater Germany.

>> ^Irishman:
That's why I think he was the wrong president and Ron Paul was the right one.

Ron Paul would never in a million years give aid to the Palestinians.

He'd basically tell both of them to fuck off, and let them fight it out amongst themselves. Which would result in the destruction of not only Gaza, but the West Bank as well.

Ron Paul would basically allow Israel to eliminate Palestine.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^bcglorf:
That's either the most ignorant or racist remark that seems to be made by people about the issue.

I'm not surprised you said that.
I'm actually pro-Israel.
For some reason, some people equate any criticism with Israel, its actions or origins, with a certain form of racism.
You can't sugar coat it: millions of Palestinians who used to own land and live in that region no longer own the land and are living as expatriates or refugees.
They received zero recompense for their loss.
That is not a racist statement; it is a painful and obvious reality.


And before you said:
Yeah, they stole that land fair and square, right?

Sounds really pro-Israel there now doesn't it? Did you even read my post? All the 'occupied' territories where originally 'stolen' by Arab countries in 1948 through an effort to destroy Israel. They never gave the land back to the Palestinian people, they instead used it to launch attacks on Israel in new attempts to eliminate it. As a result of Israel winning many of those wars they took control of much of that land themselves. Solely laying the blame for the Palestinian plight on Israel is ignorant or racist and I stand by that.

As for Israel keeping Palestinian land, Israel has removed all it's forces from Gaza(unilaterally). Just this week Israeli soldiers forcefully removed jewish settlers from the West Bank. Unless the land you refer to is within Israel's own borders, Israel has made many efforts to return the occupied lands to the control of the Palestinian people. They could do more, but groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and surrounding countries like Syria and Lebanon could all be doing a lot more as well. Solely blaming Israel is ignoring all the other problems of a very complicated situation.

Many are also keen to point out how cruel it is for Israel to close it's borders with regions like Gaza because the people require aid that comes through them to survive. They are so busy blaming Israel for that, they forgot that some credit should be given to Israel when the borders are open since the largest single source for that aid is Israel itself.

Israel is attacking Palestine, and occupying it. Israel is invading Lebanon, and occupying it.

Hezbollah was set up to drive Israeli occupying forces from Lebanon (and it drove MOST but not all of them out in 2000). Hamas was set up to drive occupying forces from Palestine.

It can't be made any clearer than that. Hamas is now the elected government of Palestine with the overwhelming support of its people. Israel has refused time and time again to respond to the offer of a ceasefire in return for removing their forces from occupied territory.

Jesus man, everyone knows this. I am completely exasperated now. Amnesty International has even condemned the killings of civilians by Israeli armed forces, and that is a good place to start to learn about what is really going on.

http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/regions/middle-east-and-north-africa/palestinian-authority







In reply to this comment by bcglorf:

Hamas' charter calls for a withdrawal from all land occupied by Isreal since 1967, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.


No, it doesn't:
Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences:
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad...

Plainly Hamas Charter defines Palestine as all of modern Israel in addition to the occupied territories.


That is their legitimate goal and attacks sanctioned by Hamas are against military targets on occupied Palestinian territory. Attacks inside Isreal are not sanctioned by Hamas and are condemned by Hamas.


And yet the most recent school shooting inside Israel was praised by Hamas. That is of course consistent with their Charter since all of Israel is rightfully part of Palestine in their view.

I'll walk through the various truce offers made when I've got time make sure I have the correct sources. I clearly recall Hamas' stance on the 10 year truce to be that it was only acceptable as an interim step to re-claiming all of Palestine. None the less, that's a good step but a lot more went into each effort falling apart.