To the ones mostly on Israel’s side:
I understand the dilemma the Jewish people face. They need a land of their own, they have been wandering and persecuted for centuries. But what they are doing today in Palestine is not the answer.There is a Jewish proverb that says:

“One who is merciful to the wicked will ultimately be cruel to the righteous.”

This simple proverb embodies the deepest most esoteric reality of the modern Jewish People struggling for a State of their own after having suffered inhuman atrocities and fearing a remake of a past genocide. But being cruel to the righteous is never the answer!
The fear of reliving the Holocaust does not legitimize racial bias or recent criminal acts against civilians in Gaza, nor does it justify the inhuman living conditions imposed upon Gazans (not to mention the ones on the West Bank) or Israel’s segregation of its own Arab population!

Numbers speak for themselves
Israels Casualties: 10 soldiers 3 civilians
Palestinians: 1,314 (412 of them children) It’s called collective punishment and against the Geneva Convention.

Now to those who would rather have South Africa ignore its moral duty towards an other people who is suffering from Apartheid, pleading that it has already a lot on its plate, let me remind you that it was only a statement from the Government, and no resources were diverted from the coffer of the Republic!

Respectfully,
Mark Stuart.
NYC,NY

For mister and missis “Numbers”, In an small area such as Gaza, where 1.400.000 people live, who gonna tell me that Israel is doing a genocide, who gonna tell me that Israli army doesn’t target???

In Israel, it is written nowhere that palestinian have to die…on the other side, Hamas charter clearly states the destruction of Israel and the right to kill all the Jews…Israel has the right to defend itself even though people don’t believe what they say…people only react to emotional images on TV and forget to be rational in their judgement.

I have never seen the press showing so many dead bodies on cover page or on TV…Even though most of these pictures are realand sad, only Hamas will use it as propaganda (don’t forget Palywood and the Hamas CNN strategy).

( for those who base their judgement on numbers)

1500 casualties in Serbia mostly civilians who protest???…Muslim killing each others in many countries by 100 of thousand…also the wars in Africa- Rwanda, Congo, Kenya, Zimbabwe…Darfour genocide – where are the shoking images??? why muslim or others people don’t protest against that??? why pro-palestinian demonstrator all around the world support “Hamas ” a terrorist organisation???

There is a radicalisation of islam in few countries and I don’t hear the so-called moderate muslim people raising their voices agaisnt them…only a few have the courage to express their opinion but they are threathened and experience boycott.That is Islam and democracy:” You have the right to talk as long as it is what I think”- you have the right to show as long as it is beneficial to me”…if not…big Fatwa!!!

BTW, I think you are missing @Steve Smith’s point.

OMG, i can’t believe you’re saying things like “…Those of you who would defend Hamas, and all other terrorists, deserve to be subjugated and enslaved…”

is this some kind of payback to what Hitler did to y’all?

Reading through some of the responses, though, communicates nothing so much as that all is lost. A people cannot be so ignorant and survive. Those of you who would defend Hamas, and all other terrorists, deserve to be subjugated and enslaved.

i really hope you wrote this post only to get lame blog hits and start controvesy.

i rest my case: http://sabbah.biz/mt/wp-content/palestine_olmert_plan_maps.jpg

@Dale It is justified but you don’t agree? I don’t get it. You don’t agree with just?

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I believe that Israel have lots of other options than to bomb civilians.

Anyway, I have another though. Very unrealistic and hypothetical, but still:

What if Israel backed out of Gaza, told Hamas they were sorry and maybe gave them back some land or something as a sign to show that Israel now are willing to cooperate. Maybe tare down some walls as well. I don’t think that would change much, it might lead to more violence against israelis but what if they from that point on, always treated Hamas with respect and was humble to them, always agreeing on peace, maybe give up tiny parts of land and not condamning them at all, even though Hamas kept sending rockets at them. Also offer trade and charity at all times.

If they kept this good-faith in Hamas for a long time, without ever doing any harm to them and always showed willingness to cooporate. Would Hamas still gain support from its people and the arab world when Israel does nothing to provoke them and is only being good to them?

I don’t agree with that at all. I also don’t agree with what Israel is doing, but it is justified in my opinion.

Whether or not it will result in success (whatever that may be) is also debatable – We all know that killing militants or civilians is only going to harbor more anger towards Israel resulting in future attacks.

To go a little off-topic here, I am trying to understand the arab/Israeli battle over land.

I have visited Israel, and I must say it’s miles ahead of many destinations (london, new york, sydney, etc) in terms of technology, infrastructure, education,security and financial stability.

It was a deset roughly 60 years ago and the Israeli’s have turning it around. They are content with their state – I can’t understand why the Arabs aren’t content with the land that they have which is probably 1000 times the size with massive natural resources.

Yet in 100’s of years they are barely scraping by as third-world countries and continue to direct their energy everywhere accept productivity. If Hammas spent half the time, effort and strategy on building rockets on schools, educational infrastructure and civil requirements, palestine could thrive, be independent, have an economy and co-exist with Israel. Israel welcomes this but is almost forced to take measures into their own hands when Palestinian leaders can’t control their own people and militant groups.

Did anyone see that senior Palestinian negotiator an AlJazeera last night??? What a muppet!!! I’ve seen Grade 5 students debate and formulate sentences better…

The problem is how much pain and suffering will it take to get to this realisation?

Well done a starting a great debate! There are more to it then meets the eye.