Israel-Hamas

[Wilma]

We are hearing a lot about the on-going conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip.  How do you feel about it?  I will go first.

I believe that any country has the right to protect their people against attack from another country. Period.  If the Gaza Strip wants Israel to stop firing on them, they should find and disable the weapons that the Hamas are using to fire rockets on Israel every day.

There it is.  Short, maybe not sweet, but it is the way I feel.  You just fire on me or mine and find out what you get back.

[Diane Amberg]

  I agree. Unfortunately there is a long standing double standard there when it comes to the rules of engagement. Hamas wants to hide behind anybody and the rockets can go where they may, but the Palestinians want Israel to only cherry pick Hamas and ooh, how bad if civilians are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They need to run Hamas out of there. But there, as here, money talks.

[jerry wagner]

  I agree. Unfortunately there is a long standing double standard there when it comes to the rules of engagement. Hamas wants to hide behind anybody and the rockets can go where they may, but the Palestinians want Israel to only cherry pick Hamas and ooh, how bad if civilians are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They need to run Hamas out of there. But there, as here, money talks.

It isn't a double standard, Hamas doesn't have a standard and thus their being labelled a 'terrorist organization.'

[Warph]

I want to be perfectly clear so that when I declare my concern for Israel as a Christian,  I want it known that I am on the side of Israel because it's a western democracy, an ally of America, and because I regard her enemies as the scum of the world.  I was there in the late 70's and twice in 1983 and I know first hand what the problems are with the Arab States.

Israel's foes believe in targeting women and children just so long as they're Jewish or Christian.  Don't ever forget that.  They are not only intolerant of the freedoms we take for granted -- speech and religion -- but they are polygamous, treat their women as chattel and encourage their children to achieve martyrdom as suicide bombers.  Moreover, so-called honor killings are part of what passes for their culture.  They are scum!

In order to realize what a paternalistic society they have, you need only look at a photo of an Arab mob carting a corpse through the streets of Gaza; even when it's the corpse of a child, I challenge you to find a woman anywhere in sight.  So far as the Arabs are concerned, the mother, grandmother, aunts and sisters, are of absolutely no consequence.

Yet here in America and even more so in Europe, you will find millions of theoretically civilized people who find a moral equivalence between Israel and her sworn enemies -- and even more millions who favor the Arabs.

In a recent Rasmussen Poll, 62% of Republicans in America sided with Israel, while a mere 31% of Democrats favored Israel in the current conflict.

As you may have noticed, the world's media rarely if ever remarked about the thousands of missiles Hamas fired into Israel over the past few years. However, once Israel finally got around to announcing that enough was enough, and went on the offensive, Condoleezza Rice and the European Union didn't waste a second before crying "Foul!" and throwing a penalty flag.

This same pattern is followed each and every time that Israel responds to unprovoked attacks. You can invariably count on the nations of the world agreeing that Israel is out of line. While it's nice they can agree on something, it's a shame that "something" never seems to be Islamic terrorism, Arab barbarism or slavery in modern- day Africa.

Can you imagine anyone in his right mind 67 years ago claiming that America was over-reacting to Pearl Harbor?  Would anybody but an idiot have suggested that once America had sunk an equal number of Japanese battleships or killed an equal number of Japanese soldiers and sailors that we should have ceased hostilities and turned things over to European diplomats, especially after seeing how well those fellows had kept Hitler and Mussolini in check?

The fact is, only Arabs would continue to call the human refuse of Gaza refugees.  The only reason that there were any Arab refugees back in 1948 was because Egypt, Jordan and Syria, promised to exterminate the Jews and divide the spoils, not because the Israelites had exiled its Arab population.  Once Israel fought off the invaders, no Arab nation would open its doors to the refugees, and to this day no Arab nation ever has.
But that was 61 years ago!  Who ever heard of people being refugees for six decades?

How can people who have never lived in Israel, whose fathers and mothers never lived in Israel, continue to lay claim to a place where they've never set foot -- and which, according to Arab textbooks, doesn't even exist?  They might as well insist they have a claim to Oz, Atlantis or Wonderland.

Frankly, I marvel at Israel's spiritual fortitude, at her reluctance to seek Biblical retribution. Even one missile would be enough to get me riled up.  To absorb 10,000 missile attacks strikes me as verging on the masochistic.  I honestly think Israel continues to be far too concerned with world opinion.  After 61 years of hearing one's enemies repeating Hitler's plans for the final solution, collateral damage would be the least of my concerns.

I understand that civilized societies are supposed to worry about the deaths of women and children.  But in civilized societies, parents don't raise their youngsters to be suicide bombers and they certainly wouldn't dance in the street when 3,000 innocent Americans were incinerated on 9/11.

There are still people who regret the A-Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I am not one of those people.  That's because it's estimated that if the bombs had not been dropped, if, instead, America had been forced to invade Japan, as many as a million lives -- Japanese as well as American -- would have been lost.  Coincidentally, like the Arabs and the Muslims, the Japanese had their own version of youthful suicide bombers -- the Kamikaze pilots who sacrificed their lives by crashing their planes into American ships.

Perhaps the reason that WWII soldiers and sailors in the South Pacific at the time got to live those additional 63 years was because when it really counted, America didn't overly concern itself with collateral damage.

[frawin]

WARPH as usual, a very good post and one that the Christian, conservative right would agree with you in everyway. Your knowledge and participation in the Forum is absolutely great. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and experience.

[pam]

I've read this a few times today......and this is my opinion. The Palestinians are wrong to fire rockets into Israel, the Israelis are wrong to bomb the hell out of the Palestinians. Sooner or later SOMEBODY is going to have to take the high road and break the vicious cycle. Personally I feel sympathy for the INNOCENTS on BOTH sides. There is too much hate taught on BOTH sides.

As for people who were never born in the land they claim....Israel didn't exist until the fifties as a country, none of them were born in the land they now claim as their ancestral home.

I have NO use for the muslim way. Isrealis come off as arrogant and entitled. They are NOT the only people on earth who suffered from genocide because of who they were. Both sides are wrong and the way I was taught TWO WRONGS DON'T make a right.

[frawin]

Here are some facts about Israel that some of you may find interesting. I think the Israelis have every right to defend their Homeland against a bunch of murdering thugs, which is what HAMAS is.

Israel (Hebrew: יִשְרָאֵל‎, Yisra'el; Arabic: إسرائيل‎, Isrā'īl) officially the State of Israel (Hebrew:  מְדִינַת יִשְרָאֵל‎ (help·info), Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.[5] The West Bank and Gaza Strip are also adjacent. With a population of about 7.28 million,[3] the majority of whom are Jews, Israel is the world's only Jewish state.[6] It is also home to other ethnic groups, including most numerously Arab citizens of Israel, as well as many religious groups including Muslims, Christians, Druze, Samaritans and others.

The modern state of Israel has its roots in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), a concept central to Judaism since ancient times,[7] and the heartland of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to which modern Jews are usually attributed. After World War I, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate of Palestine with the intent of creating a "national home for the Jewish people."[8] In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.[9] On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel declared independence and this was followed by a war with the surrounding Arab states, which refused to accept the plan. The Israelis were subsequently victorious in a series of wars confirming their independence and expanding the borders of the Jewish state beyond those in the UN Partition Plan. Since then, Israel has been in conflict with many of the neighboring Arab countries, resulting in several major wars and decades of violence that continue to this day.[10] Since its foundation, Israel's boundaries and the State's right to exist have been subject to dispute, especially among its Arab neighbors and their many Palestinian refugees. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, though efforts for a long-lasting peace with the Palestinians have so far been unsuccessful.

Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system and universal suffrage.[11][12] The Prime Minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as Israel's legislative body. In terms of nominal gross domestic product, the nation's economy is estimated as being the 44th-largest in the world.[13] Israel ranks highest among Middle Eastern countries on the bases of human development,[14] freedom of the press,[15] and economic competitiveness.[16] Jerusalem is the country's capital, seat of government, and largest city, while Israel's main financial center is Tel Aviv.[1]

[Catwoman]

Frank...thank you so much for that excellent post.  The war of 48, in which Israel made a huge land grab, was only halted because the international community literally begged the Israelis to stop it....to stick to the original agreement.  Israel increased its size by a large percentage during that time...and the rest of the Middle East has never forgiven them for it.  People speak about how heinous it is that there are Arab factions who want to see the demise of the Israeli state...well, Pam has it right...two wrongs don't ever make a right.  The international community was the actual creator of this debaucle...they bought up large tracts of land and seized what they couldn't buy in order to make the division between the Israelis and the Palestinians...because, God forbid the much maligned People of Israel shouldn't have a homeland.  Well...yes, they had been a part of the genecide of WWII...but in addition to the Jews being gassed, there were also millions of other people who went to the gas chambers...yet you never hear about those people, do you?  Catholics...gays...priests, nuns...the mentally and physically infirm...people with dark hair and dark eyes who are low German or Italian descent, not of 'pure blood' (blond hair and blue eyes), etc., etc., etc....and I don't see anyone creating a homeland for those also much maligned individuals.  Well, we've got the results of having been a part of providing for the care and feeding of the Jews...Islamic factions who would love to see any Jew or Christian dead and an Israeli state who makes it clear that it's not concerned with the opinion of the world community...Israel will do as Israel pleases...if what they're doing happens to coincide with the topic of self-defense, then so much the easier for them.  I don't call what Israel did, hunting down every person involved with the abduction and slaughter of the Israeli competitors at the Olympics, specifically wrong...but it is very interesting that they hunted down these people, in broad daylight, and put a gun to the terrorists' heads in restaurants, etc., without so much as a by-your-leave from the host countries...and then left for Israel.  Seems to me like any trouble that area of the world is having now could have been avoided if they just would have located a sunny island somewhere to drop the Jews off on and left the Palestinians alone to stew in their own juices.

[redcliffsw]

There are not two wrongs in this matter, only one wrong and it's not Israel.

Agree or not, it's most probable that the Jews are entitled to much more land than they have now.

[Catwoman]

It pains me to say this, because I continue to admire your posts, Redcliff...but no one is entitled to anything on this earth if the getting of it causes undue pain and suffering to any other individual.  If you are basing your beliefs on what is stated in the Bible, bear in mind that the Bible is a book that was constructed by the Nicean Council...there were many books that the Council deemed unfit to be in the finished product...probably because those books didn't support their vision of what they wanted their followers to believe...The Book of Judas...The Book of Mary Magdelene...etc., etc.  Had those books been destroyed as was most likely the original order, instead of some underling carrying them off to keep them from being destroyed and hiding them in the dry caves of the Middle East, we would have no idea of how definitively we really have been led to believe what it is we believe today.