Israel-Hamas

[frawin]

Conflicts and peace treaties
Main articles: Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Arab countries over the years refused to regard Israel as having a right to exist, and Arab nationalists led by Nasser called for the destruction of the state.[70] In 1967, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan massed troops close to Israeli borders, expelled UN peacekeepers and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Israel saw these actions as a casus belli for a pre-emptive strike that launched the Six-Day War, Israel achieved a decisive victory in which it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.[71] The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Law, passed in 1980, reaffirmed this measure and reignited international controversy over the status of Jerusalem.


Prime Minister Golda Meir, who resigned following the Yom Kippur WarThe failure of the Arab states in the 1967 war led to the rise of Arab non-state actors in the conflict, most importantly the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which was committed to what it called "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland".[72][73] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks[74] against Israeli targets around the world,[75] including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, in which those responsible for the Munich massacre were tracked down and assassinated.[76]

On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. The war ended on October 26 with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses.[77] An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.

The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party.[78] Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state.[79] In the two years that followed, Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.[80] Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy for Palestinians across the Green Line, a plan which was never implemented. Begin's government encouraged Israelis to settle in the West Bank, leading to friction with the Palestinians in those areas.

On June 7, 1981, Israel heavily bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in Operation Opera, disabling it. Israeli intelligence had suspected Iraq was intending to use it for weapons development. In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the Palestine Liberation Organization launched attacks and missiles at northern Israel. That move developed into the First Lebanon War.[81] Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone until 2000. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule,[82] broke out in 1987 with waves of violence occurring in the occupied territories. Over the following six years, more than a thousand people were killed in the ensuing violence, much of which was internal Palestinian violence.[83] During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO and many Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel.[84][85]


Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands, presided over by Bill Clinton, at the signing of the Oslo Accords, September 13, 1993In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party promoted compromise with Israel's neighbors.[86][87] The following year, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, on behalf of Israel and the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to self-govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[88] A declared intent was recognition of Israel's right to exist and an end to terrorism.[89] In 1994, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.[90]

Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, continuation of settlements,[91] and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by Palestinian suicide attacks. The November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a far-right-wing Jew, as he left a peace rally, shocked the country.

At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron,[92] and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.[93]

Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanon and conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the July 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Yasser Arafat rejected it.[94] After the collapse of the talks, the Second Intifada began.

Ariel Sharon became the new prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.[95] In January 2006, after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke which left him in a coma, the powers of office were transferred to Ehud Olmert.


Recent developments
In July 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a cross border abduction of two Israeli soldiers sparked the Second Lebanon War.[96][97] The clashes were brought to end a month later by a ceasefire (United Nations Resolution 1701) brokered by the United Nations Security Council.

On November 27, 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to negotiate on all issues and strive for an agreement by the end of 2008. In April 2008, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad told a Qatari newspaper that Syria and Israel had been discussing a peace treaty for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. This was confirmed by Israel in May 2008.[98]

Main article: 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
Main article: Israeli–Palestinian conflict
In late December 2008, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed after rockets were fired from the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip. Israel responded with a series of airstrikes.[99] Rallies of protest and support broke out around the world.[100] On 3rd January 2009, Israeli Troops entered Gaza marking the start of a ground offensive.[101] On Saturday, January 17, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, conditional on elimination of further rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza, and began withdrawing over the next several days. Hamas later announced its own ceasefire, with its own conditions of complete withdrawal and opening of border crossings. A reduced level of mortar fire originating in Gaza continues, though Israel has so far not taken this as a breach of the ceasefire.

[pam]

You don't have to choose a side when they are BOTH wrong, there is nothin that says you HAVE to choose the lesser evil if evil is all there is. You CAN hold out for somthin better.

Again, You do not make any sense.  Israels damed if they defend themselves and damed if they don't. Sounds like they can't win in any decision they make yet Hamas can do anything they want and get world support. 
Sounds like nothing but antisemitism to me.  Same crap happened in ww2, and its repeating itself

Antisemitism my ass...............anti STUPID. Read my lips bud......they.....are......BOTH......WRONG.... y'all seem to be under the impression that I'm just talkin out my rear end here with no idea of what has or hasn't gone on.

Thank you SDM and Catwoman......may rational people someday out number the unrational people.

[Catwoman]

Frank, my position is one that stems from my weariness over the amount of suffering that there is going on right now.  I am no longer hung up on the issue of right vs. wrong, tit for tat, etc.  I want an end to the hostilities.  I want children, no matter WHOSE they are, to be safe...and free from the fear of falling bombs, no matter where they fall from.  I have kids that I am teaching at school who have real problems...I juxtaposition them into the scenario that is playing out overseas...and I try to envision what their lives/futures would be like, their problems compounded by the senseless agression from whatever side it comes from.  They don't understand political gain or loss...kids only understand the fact that they are now even worse off than they were before.  They only understand the uncertainty of whether or not what they'll need to exist on will make it through the lines drawn in the sand.  I am tired, Frank.  I am tired of seeing childrens' eyes watching in fear.  No matter whose God it is that we acknowledge...God, Yaweh, Buddha, Allah, whatever...I cannot believe there is any justification ANYWHERE for putting little kids through what I'm watching.  You'll have to forgive my seeming departure from my normally analytical stance on this one occasion...My activist bone is acting up again...and the battles I am fighting, right now, on the behalf of children, are exhausting in both physical and mental forms.  People who make decisions just because they can...with no regard to what effect it has on children...should be sentenced to the same hell that they put those children through.

[pam]

Exactly catwoman.

[frawin]

Catwoman, I agree with you about the Children. My only point in what I posted is that the Israelis have always wanted to live in peace and the Palestinians , Hamas and the Arabs in general have tried to deny them that. I have read a lot and followed the Isrelis in their defense of their homeland and I have never seen a report by qualified observers that said the Israelis were the original aggresors. What are they supposed to do, allow the Plestinians to bomb, shot and kill innocent Israelis and not fire back. Read the article that I posted ansd see who it says broke the cease fires first. I have a lot of respect for your judgment and I know that you give a lot of thought to your posts and I would not offend you in anyway.

[Catwoman]

Frank, you couldn't ever offend me.  I have never met you face to face but respect and admire you as much as if we had sat together out at Toot's for the past 30 years, shooting the bull and comparing war wounds.  I guess when it comes to kids, you've hit me where I live.  There is no other position for me...and like I modified my earlier post to read, the wars I'm fighting right now, on the behalf of some kids, have me worn down to the point where I'm not good company on any political subject.

[Anmar]

Catwoman, I agree with you about the Children. My only point in what I posted is that the Israelis have always wanted to live in peace and the Palestinians , Hamas and the Arabs in general have tried to deny them that. I have read a lot and followed the Isrelis in their defense of their homeland and I have never seen a report by qualified observers that said the Israelis were the original aggresors. What are they supposed to do, allow the Plestinians to bomb, shot and kill innocent Israelis and not fire back. Read the article that I posted ansd see who it says broke the cease fires first. I have a lot of respect for your judgment and I know that you give a lot of thought to your posts and I would not offend you in anyway.

According to CNN and Associated Press, Israel broke the most recent cease fire between Hamas and Israel.  Here's a link to the report.      To say that the Israeli's have clean hands in all this is a falsehood.  It's true that generally, it is the Arabs who attack Israel, but it's also true that Israel generally committs much more crimes against civilians whereas the Arab attacks mentioned in the article were all preformed by National Armies fighting against another National Army.  The palestinians have no army, and the majority of palestinian casualties are women and children. 

I also saw that someone posted something about Gazan's using people as human shields.  In my humble opinion, it's propaganda to de-humanize the people.  When ever i hear some story, i put myself in their shoes.  Imagine living in a densely packed urban area and a foreign army, lets say russia, invaded.  Imagine them rolling through the streets in tanks destroying homes and posessions as they go.  What would you do? what would i do?  Wouldn't you grab you're rifle, go to the high ground, and try to repel the invading force?  Why should we expect other people to do any different?  do you want them to lay down and allow what little they have to be destroyed?

As for being anti-semetic, thats a silly statement.  The Arabs, and palestinians, are also semetic people.  Nobody in this thread ever supported Hamas, but even if anyone did, you couldn't call them anti-semetic because Hamas consists of semetic people.  It's an oxymoron.  I think what you can call us is anti-warmonger.

[srkruzich]

Whoa there, big guy...where do you get anti-semitism out of what Pam and Anmar said?  I have read and re-read what they wrote...there is nothing there but the belief that there is no one RIGHT faction in this whole mess.  Any side that would willingly be on the side of sending their youth into harm's way, just to satisfy a grudge, is the WRONG side.

well lets start with this,  who is it that is using women, children, men to go in and blow up civilians, who uses civilians as shields?   Yet Israel is wrong because it decided to fight back after how many years of rocket launces, suicide bombers, ect?  At least the israelis had the balls to take their men into battle and not use their women and children as shields.
And for this their wrong?  I have watched the last few years and have seen that israel has turned the other cheek more times than necessary.  IF Mexico had launced rockets into texas and oklahoma, do you really think we would sit there and take it?  I don't think so.  We would have gone in and taken out the agressors and post haste.

Forcing israel to sit there while its enemies shoot rockets and bomb their civilians and slowly exterminate them is tantamount to another WW2 eradication of the jew.   Israel has allowed the palestinians to live amonst them, and doesn't really have to since it is their land not the palestinians land.   IF we as a world sit here and say awee pooor hamas, and poor hezbollah their so persecuted, we must smack the big bad israel for hurting them, were no better than adolf.

[pam]

Nowhere in any of my comments did I say hamas is some great organization. They are chicken-shit cowards. There is no doubt about that.

Nowhere in any of my comments did I say israel is the original evil empire.

I have had relatives in every war since this country began except this one, I assume the Sgt. is your son? Well tell him thank you for me and my family.

My position is that war does NOT have to be a way of life or the solution to differences. More killing is never the right answer. It may be the only one people understand but there is ALWAYS a better way.

Those people have been killing each other since time began. It didn't just start when they created Israel. I personally think those arab extremists are some of the most BACKWARD people on the face of the earth. They haven't progressed in 1000 years! They are stiff-necked, judgmental, intolerant, fundamental zealots. They are seriously misguided. Both sides are still livin in the old testament. They seriously need to move on, their children on both sides deserve it.

[Catwoman]

Thank you, Pam.