in absolute terms, the Israeli are beating the Palestinians 30 to 1. When you take military personnel out from both sides, it's 1295 to 1. To be absolutely clear, that's 1295 Palestinian civilians - not militants - and 1 Israeli civilian.
To make things worse, this area of Palestine has (more accurately HAD) a population of approx 1.8 million (so 0.1% of it's population has recently been killed) and Israel has 7.9 million. Israel has a gdp per capita of $32,000. Palestine (Gaza specifically) has $6,100. For comparison, we have a gdp of close enough, $39,000. That's like us going to war with Bolivia. It's not really fair.
That is an horrific figure, makes you wonder why Hamas keep firing rockets when they know the outcome. Perhaps they don't care so much for the Palestinian civilians after all ? Israel has a very good defence and while I don't think they could ignore the tunnels that would allow Hamas to surface in Israeli territory maybe if they ignored the rockets for a month and did not retaliate then they may get some sympathy . Maybe not, but worth a go. Seems a shame that the blockade on Gaza stops food and medicine etc but allows rockets to slip through so easily, they should work on changing that and what a pity Hamas or their backers seem to prefer buying/supplying rockets to food and medicine. Lastly, imagine your teenage daughter or gay teenage son who like to dress as many western teenagers do was stranded in a country in the middle east. Not in a friendly tourist area like Sharm but in the middle of a town in the middle of nowhere. Are you going to choose an Islamic state with all that implies or are you going to choose Israel ? I have neither a teenage daughter nor a gay teen age son but if that was my mother, sister, daughter, wife , friend or even pet dog I know which country I would choose.
I'm not defending all aspects of Muslim life and I'm not attacking all Israelis, but we learnt early in life that being a bully was wrong.What the Israelis are doing is, IMHO, wrong. I don't think the Palestinians are doing themselves any favours, but FFS...
You have made it very clear that you would prefer the Palestinian people to be utterly defenceless and utterly at the mercy (if any) of the Israelis - you would prefer Palestinians to take no action whatever to defend themselves, their homes, their families and their nation. You would rather they not only were deprived of tanks, planes, ships and heavy guns, but even of the home-made weapons they cobble together themselves. But why? Why cannot a Palestinian be patriotic and fight for his country, just as much as a Brit, an Irishman, or any other people?
In the 1990s, Bill Clinton tried his hardest to achieve some kind of settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but ultimately failed. As he said at the time, Yasser Arafat "... never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The Palestinian policy ever since 1948 has generally been to avoid making concessions, and to settle for nothing less than full justice; while the Israeli policy has always been to accept half a loaf if it was available at the time and then start to seek some more. The Israeli policy has worked better.
Curious isn't it? Among the Israeli population the ones who are doing the fighting are called "soldiers"; among the Palestinian population the ones who are doing the fighting are called "militants". This is the terminology always used by Israeli PR people, and Western media (even including the BBC) just swallow it whole without a thought.
[QUOTE="JR45, post: 406463, member: 109 BUT I notice that not one person has denied that Hamas's avowed intent is the total destruction of Israel. Until THAT changes there can be no compromise or peaceful solution, no matter what Israel does.[/QUOTE] and until Israel accepts Hamas as the representative of Palestine there can be no peaceful solution either
FFS........I reckon if a tough bastard was given half a back garden without approval and then kept nicking a bit more here and a bit more there; then threatened the owner and family with firepower and killed family that protested; plus stopped all from leaving what was left of the garden; don't you think they would be inclined to throw stones and knock up the odd retaliatory bomb here and there? I don't agree with what either side are doing, but based on the attitude of the Israelis, IMO their over-reaction every time isn't justified.
That is not my preference at all and I dont see how you reached that conclusion and it certainly is not for you to say what my preference is .I think you very often sound like a politician stating your opinion as if it were fact but hey, that is just my opinion. I find the whole situation abhorrent and wish it could be resolved so they could live peacefully. I was pointing out that in my opinion what both sides are currently doing is making the situation worse with Hamas stupidly goading Israel and Israel stupidly over reacting. Of course a Palestinian can be patriotic and fight .
To certain extent, yes. But Israel claims to be the shining beacon of democracy in the admittedly dark and lawless middle east. They claim to follow the same standards of our western values. But that's all bollocks - a facade. Continued building of illegal settlements on occupied land, regular extra-judicial killing of 'suspects', the bulldozing of their family homes, their second class apartheid inspired culture (if you think the treatment of arabs is bad, check out how they treat Africans!), administrative detention (only for arabs), their blatant disregard for any life that is not Jewish Israeli.....need I go on? Sound like the values of a nice'n'comfy western democracy? I would expect no better from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or North Korea, but at least they don't pretend to be a civilised democracy. True, Hamas might not be the west's vision for a partner in peace, but they are resisting an occupation! What are they going to destroy Israel with? No army, no navy, no airforce, no heavy weapons, no control over borders, no airport, no seaport. What are they going to do? They carry on firing shitty home-made rockets, that's what. Think about it.....why is an Israeli fighter a soldier, and a Palestinian fighter a terrorist? Media manipulation and empty propaganda can't hide the truth forever.
As long as your teenage daughter or gay son was a Jewish Israeli, everything would be fine. Anything else and I would be worried.
It certainly is. I can read your posts, analyse their meaning, and state clearly what your preference is as revealed by what you have said - just like anyone else can. If you are embarrassed by having your preferences exposed, you could consider changing them.
I think you are missing the point here and I know it is going off topic but while you can have an opinion on what you think I think you should not state it as a fact. A few caveats in your posts would in my opinion make them stronger except of course for when you actually are dealing with facts as opposed to your considered opinion. You are most welcome to think I am a rabid pro Israel member of this forum but you would be wrong as that is not the case and I repeat that I find the whole situation abhorrent.
...butt I don't really think this is a war in it's conventional meaning. To me a war is either invading another country and occupying it, or overthrowing it's government. In this case, Israel are doing neither thing. They're not going in to change the regime or drive the Palestinians into the sea. It seems to me as if they're aiming to kill a bunch of people, destroy some tunnels and maybe destroy some rocket launchers. Once this is over, they'll pull out, put up with some rockets and suicide bombers and repeat the process in a few years. The only thing that will change is that some of the kids who remember their classmates being killed in front of them will go on to become the next generation of bombers.
BTW, I really don't think this has anything to do with religion. It may have had a bearing in the past, but now, it's just about land and oppression.
