I checked this out, because I started to question myself....

The definition of terrorism is, The unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

The only real difference between a soldier and a terrorist is a soldier is actually part of a military structure and attached to a government.

This does make me wonder though, with Hamas actually being the government of Gaza (democratically elected no less) are they not actually soldiers themselves....

Sorry this is just a little something I was curious on, will get round to your post now.

Ha, a fair question which could lead to many many other questions regarding weapons and so on.

The whole thing is decked and this latest conflict needs to lewd to long term answers once the t!t for tat comes to an end.

The world needs to demand it, not just the USA.

*lead not lewd

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Agree with your last post by the way, we will disagree on the little details no doubt but this is simply the continuation of an on off war that has gone on far far too long!

I really do believe that the Israeli- Palestine issue is the cause of many issues we have in the world.

Some Muslims (a few westerners too to be fair) feel there is a culture clash between the west/christians and the Muslims, there are other issues such as us supporting puppet dictators who will help us liberate their natural resources, but the main part of that is the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I saw an Al-Qaeda recruitment video years and years ago, was pre the Iraqi war (the recent one not the 90's one) but after/during the Afghanistan war.

The video contained footage from 2 conflicts, one was the Cechnya (sp?) conflict involving Russia, the other was the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Israel-Palestine conflict actively encouraged people to join Al Qaeda and target the west (or Israel)

If we could solve that and sort out one or two other issues we have caused in the middle east then Al Qaeda would have far more trouble convincing people to blow themselves up in an effort to hurt the west.

Some valid points SAF

Got me interested in a few points, shall do some reading tomorrow.

And completely agree that the west is as guilty as parts of the Muslim world in its complete ignorance toward one another and the issues at hand.

For now I am done, got me a game in the morning, take it easy

Thanks for the chat, its difficult to do but an adult conversation regarding such a controversial subject is so much more rewarding than a slanging match

Ohh and good luck!

Not one of us is defending Israels extremist actions back then, which is a huge difference to how you are defending and justifying Hamas actions.

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I am not saying anything about you defending extremist elements or not, I'm asking for what reason, fundamentally, did right wing Israelis assassinate Rabin after he had agreed on a peace deal in '93, why was this?

Also what prevents the Israeli government from implementing the terms of '93 agreement as it was back then?

Please read for more understanding about the right wing Israelis and what happened in the aftermath of Rabins, and whether the current government wants peace..

Opposition to the Oslo Accords & the Gaza “Disengagement”

In the 1990s, while leader of the Likud party in opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the most prominent critics of the series of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that became known as the Oslo Accords, which began under the Labor party government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Following Rabin’s assassination in 1995 by a right-wing Jewish extremist, someIsraelis, including members of Rabin’s family, even blamed Netanyahu for being complicit in Rabin’s murder by fanning the flames of incitement against him. In particular, his critics point to rallies that Netanyahu addressed at which Rabin was portrayed on signs in a Naz; uniform and accused of being a traitor.

Taking power in 1996 for his first term (1996-1999) shortly after Rabin’s death, Prime Minister Netanyahu proceeded to drag out the negotiations begun by the previous government while delaying or refusing to implement provisions of already-signed agreements, including redeployments of Israeli troops, antagonizing Palestinian negotiators as well as US President Bill Clinton. Following his first meeting with Netanyahu, in 1996, a frustrated Clinton exclaimed angrily to his aides: “Who the f–k does he think he is? Who’s the f—ing superpower here?”

While drawing out talks with Palestinian negotiators, Netanyahu increased settlement construction, following the advice of his Likud predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, who said after losing power in 1992 that if he had remained prime minister: “I would have conducted negotiations on autonomy for 10 years and in the meantime we would have reached half a million [settlers in the occupied West Bank].”

In 2001, back in the opposition, Netanyahu was caught on video bragging to a group of Jewish settlers that he had undermined the Oslo process while prime minister, stating: “I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords.” Regarding pressure from the US, Netanyahu said: “America is a thing you can move very easily.” In the video he also told the settlers that the way to deal with Palestinians is to “beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable.”

In 2005, then-Finance Minister Netanyahu resigned from his post in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud government in protest of Sharon’s plan to withdraw settlers and soldiers from Gaza and four small Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Remaining on the fence until the last minute, Netanyahu resigned despite the fact that Sharon assured his right-wing critics that the withdrawal from Gaza would actually help prevent the creation of a Palestinian state rather than hasten it, by alleviating international pressure and allowing Israel to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As top Sharon advisor Dov Weisglass put it in 2004, the Gaza withdrawal supplied the “formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians… until the Palestinians turn into Finns.”

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So who wants peace via a two-state solution? It's not the current Israeli government led by netenyahu :

In June 2009, Netanyahu gave a speech at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University where he said for the first time that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state, in a move heralded by his supporters as a bold and historic moment. However, he attached numerous conditions that effectively stripped the proposed state of any real sovereignty, and others that no Palestinian leader could accept even if they wanted to. These conditions included:
The state would be demilitarized and its borders and airspace would be controlled by Israel.

Occupied East Jerusalem would remain under Israeli control.
Palestinians would have to recognize Israel as the “state of the Jewish people,” thereby formally endorsing the institutionalized discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel (who make up about 20% of the population) face living in a state that privileges Jews over non-Jews.
Palestinian refugees expelled during Israel’s creation and their descendants (also refugees) would not be allowed to exercise their internationally recognized legal right to return to the land they were forced to leave when Israel was established in 1948-9.

Who would accept peace on those terms? It continues :

In his speech to a joint session of the US Congress in May 2011, Netanyahu reiterated and elaborated on his vision of a Palestinian “state,” saying:
He would refuse to base negotiations on Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders, the foundation of previous talks and international efforts to make peace going back decades.

Israel would retain large so-called settlement “blocs” in and around East Jerusalem, which jut into the West Bank (the heartland of the proposed Palestinian state), effectively cutting it in two.

Israel would maintain “a long-term military presence” in the Jordan Valley, meaning Israel would control all entry in and out of the Palestinian “state” along with some of its most fertile agricultural land.

In late December 2012, Likud Knesset member (MK) Tzipi Hotovely told a panel discussion that the Bar-Ilan address was merely a “tactical speech for the rest of the world,” declaring: “We are opposed to a Palestinian state.”

So I ask again, who wants peace via a two state solution? The Israeli right wing parties, one of whom is in power have urinated over Yitzhak Rabins plans for peace :

During both his first (1996-1999) and second (2009-2013) terms in office, Netanyahu accelerated the building of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, part of an effort to create “facts on the ground” designed to prevent the creation of a contiguous and genuinely independent Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In 1997, a year after taking power in his first term, Netanyahu gave the final go-ahead for construction of a new settlement between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Har Homa, which forms part of a ring of Jewish settlements around East Jerusalem, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank. Attempting to minimize the diplomatic and public relations damage done by the announcement, Netanyahu claimed that green lighting Har Homa was an insignificant matter and that construction probably wouldn’t begin for many years to come. Today, 16 years later, around 15,000 Jewish settlers live in Har Homa.

From the time that Netanyahu returned to power for a second term in March 2009 until July 2012, the number of Jewish settlers living illegally on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank grew by18% according to the Israeli Interior Ministry. In November 2012, following a string of new settlement expansion announcements, including in the highly sensitive “E-1” corridor of East Jerusalem, the US State Department issued an unusually strong rebuke of Israeli settlement policies, with a spokesperson describing them as a “pattern of provocation.”

On January 16, 2013, Israel’s Peace Now, which monitors settlement growth, released a report condemning Netanyahu’s settlement policies, alleging they “disclose a clear intention to use settlements to systematically undermine and render impossible a realistic, viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

So to conclude on this series of posts :

In a televised interview with Netanyahu and his father after the Bar-Ilan speech in 2009, the elder Netanyahu said of the caveats that his son (who was sitting next to him) had placed on Palestinian statehood:
“He supports the kind of conditions they would never in the world accept… That’s what I heard from him. Not from me. He put forth the conditions. These conditions, they will never accept them — not even one of them.”

We have to ask, Mr Netenyahu, how many more lives is your policy for non-observation of the Oslo accords, and the denial of a two-state solution worth?

It is clear that the Israeli government, at this moment, are not serious about peace.

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Sizzle it doesn't exist, and under the views held by Netenyahu and his cronies, won't exist.

In a nutshell, they'll say, "£oh yeah we removed hundreds of thousands from their land to create our state but here's a bit back for you to call your state, however we will still control who comes in and out of your state, but those families that we removed, they aren't allowed back. We're also keeping the settlements we built on illegally, so you're just going to have to accept them being on your land"

Like netenyahus dad said, he will place conditions that no man would accept, and then he'd say he offered terms but the Palestinians refused. The man is a grade A

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TBH all the stuff Redinthehead just posted is why you often find Palestinians (or Muslims in general) kicking off about the situation and just going on rants that make them look like crazy psychopaths.

I will freely admit when it comes to PR the Palestinians are terrible at it, you can regularly find their leaders going off on long crazy rants. Occasionally they will be mistranslated (I can think of at least one prominent example involving the Iranian president)

The Israeli PR is much smoother, you often get calm articulate people representing their case.

To get to the real truth of the matter look at the actual actions and events. I am sure Hitler, Stalin and various American presidents (no state comparison just the leaders themselves) have spoke about peace and presented themselves with great levels of PR when their actions suggesting anything but...

There were few posts in social media and some of posts in this thread touched the matter, which is justifying the Hamas's attacks on Israel civilians and suicide bombings because of the suffering and hellish living condition Palestinians have to live through.

That is total BS. while I sympathies with Palestinians for what they have to go through, There is simply no excuse for killing innocent civilians for any party involved and both parties are guilty of killing innocent civilians


Its not only Palestinians who suffered from this war, spare a thought for all the Israel citizens. Israel was under the cosh from several enemies ever since the country was created, these people had to live in a country where rocket attacks and suicide attacks on their people is a daily occurrence. Israel people lived their whole life fearing every day what devious plan their enemies come up with to kill them all. Israel people want peace, They dont want to live in fear just like you or me.

Almost all of the Israelis are born and bred in Israel, Its their motherland, Its their country just like USA is the country of Americans. They will not go away and they have nowhere else to go. Palestinians have to accept this, there be peace only if Hamas or Palestinians drop their old hardline ideologies and made a honest and sincere effort to bring peace to that area

There are nearly 10million Israelis and Im yet to see a proper answer to the question what Hamas plan for them If they had it their way and took control of all lands.

killing of civilians of wrong, Death of innocent civilians is tragic, rather than making one sided arguments based on history, people should take a moment to understand Israel's point of view as well

I dont see the point in keep going back to what happened in 1947, 1967 or during Arabic invasions in middle ages. These things already happened and there is simply no way to change the past. As long as people cling on to history and hardline ideologies there is no hope of peace for this conflict.

There are several facts people have to recognize here

The state of Israel exists, It is real country. Israelis born and bred there have every right to defend their land and its people.

Their military is strong, so strong that their is simply no hope for Hamas of ever becoming the victorious party in a armed conflict

Israel gains nothing from killing innocent people and children but as long as the war wages on the innocent civilians will die, in both sides.

Israel people want peace, they dont want to suffer war just as much as Palestinians.

Hamas is fighting a war they have no hope in winning, If they want whats best for their people they should put and end to this war and seek a peaceful solution. Keep waging the this war will only bring further suffering to their people

Death of innocent civilians is tragic but condemning civilian deaths wont put an end to it. Only the end to war will put an end to dying of innocents

Hamas have to understand the above points. Only they can put an end to this war. They should recognize the Israel state, Lay down their arm and seek peaceful solutions

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spare a thought for all the Israel citizens. Israel was under the cosh from several enemies ever since the country was created, these people had to live in a country where rocket attacks and suicide attacks on their people is a daily occurrence. Israel people lived their whole life fearing every day what devious plan their enemies come up with to kill them all. Israel people want peace, They dont want to live in fear just like you or me.
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Compared to Palestinians they live in pretty much luxury, Israel is pretty much a first world country...

Palestine is pretty much a third world country..

Compared to the Palestinians the Israelis live in relative peace....

The Palestinians in this recent conflict and in pretty much every conflict they have had end up with a far bigger casualty list.

How many rockets have hit Israel?

In this recent conflict I hear the estimate is 30 Israeli's dead, I hear the estimate for Palestinians is 800.

I imagine the injured lists run along similar lines.

The Israeli's own checkpoints within the Palestinians territories and they even build Israeli only roads across their territory!

Another major difference between them is the water supply. Israelis have a far greater supply for it (for a smaller population) The UN recently said 90% of the water in Palestinian is dirty (or undrinkable) their already smaller supply is mostly contaminated!

The Israeli's can afford to water their garden living in their mostly safe first world state whilst the Palestinians live in a third world hellhole, the most densely populated country on the planet and struggle for access to water whilst the Israeli's water their gardens!

This is before we even mentioning Israeli's never ending aggression such as the illegal settlement building which continues whether there is a ceasefire or not whether there are rocket attacks or not!

Lastly Israel has not had a war against any significant neighbour since 1967 (thrashing their smaller weaker neighbours from time to time is not exactly a war that threatens them) That isn't even a valid excuse to do what they do to the Palestinians but especially so considering that was now 47 years ago!

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Palestinians suffer more than Israelis, there is no question about it but the the truth is that both parties suffer and both parties will continue to suffer(Palestinians more than Israelis) as long as war wages on. Both sides benefit from peace.

Rather than arguing over who suffers more, or what happened in the past, Its in the best interest for both parties to put an end to war.

What will Hamas gain from this war apart from bringing more death to their people? Most countries condemn them as a extremist movement. they dont have any powerful allies. they have no hope in winning. more they fight, their people will suffer more

Pls Dont compare this with what happened in SA or in Nazzi germany, Its completely different. If Israel want to kill all the Palestinians in Gaza they can do it in 5 mins

What is Hamas's plan? what do they plan to do if they win the war? what will they do to Israelis if they took control?