Israel attacks Gaza

[The Progressive]

[quote name='Samalander' post='1634200' date='Dec 30 2008, 10.56']He deleted the post in question long before you logged on, so you don't really know what you are making fun of...[/quote]

I actually do hope that you'll get to deploy into the gaza strip (war looks so easy and impersonal with aerial bombardments against immobile buildings and targets). In fact, I bet that Hamas is waiting precisely for the IDF ground invasion. If anything, their popularity and support could only go up and up.

[snake]

[quote]its showtime[/quote]

Time to get some popcorn I guess.

[davos]

Lets stop trying to determine what the rights of the Palestinians are by their ethnic makup or rather they qualify as a nation. At the turn of the century you had a group of people living in Palestine, which at the time was just a part of the Ottoman empire. Most of them could be called Arabs like many other Ottoman citizens. There was also a population of Jewish ancestary in the area that was growing rapidly as well as mixture of others, but those are not our concern since their fate would be rather different.

This group of people, who happened to be Arabs were displaced from their homes during or following the warw that accompanied the creation of Isreal in 1948-49. They generally had little, if any choice in the matter. They were either evicted or fled from personal danger due to the fighting. Rather they qualify as a nation or not, this is a group of people who had their homes and in large measure their wealth and properity taken from them by force. Mind you the Arab states also share responsbility in the matter since they by and large refused to take the displaced Palestinian arabs in. Thats not a critical part of what I'm discussing here. The refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank were then occupied by Isreal during the 1967 war.

There people, rather you define them as Palestinians or Arabs have, as a group, been jammed into what amounts to perminate refugee camps, particularily in Gaza (the situation in the West Bank is a little better). Not only were they deprived of homes that in many cases had been in a family for generations they have been forced to live in miserable conditions, deprived of basic services and rights. Their anger is simply the result of being fucked over by pretty much the whole world for 60 years. This does not justify in any way indiscrimate rocket attacks, suicide bombings or the other heinious tactics some Palestinians have taken up to express that anger. It does make such anger understandable though.

I don't fucking care if these people make up a nation or not, they have rights that have been denied them for a long time. I agree that the right of return has long been an unreasonable expectation. they deserve compensation, they deserve what the rest of us want, a fair chance. They deserve the right to be a part of a genuinine nation, to basic public services, to education. they have a right to not live in fear and not have what little they do have constantly restricted by an what amounts to an occupying force (yeah, I know Isreal no longer maintains a perminate military force in the occupied territories but given the reality on the ground effectively is not much different). I support Isreal. that nation has been stuck in a extremly difficult strategic situation since its creation. I would imagine its hard for those who aren't isrealis to imagine the mindset their dilema creates. That being said Isreal needs to find a way to resolve the Palestinian situation. The world needs to find a way to solve the Palestinian sitaution. they've been living through a prolonged tragedy and its well past time a way out for them is found. They are human beings and deserve a hell of a lot better than they have been getting.