Did Israel do themselves a favor?

Lucid Lounge
1

As you may have heard, Israel have recently assasonated the Hamas chief.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3635755.stm

Was this right?

Have Israel caused more problems for themselves?

Have they done the world a favor, by getting rid of a errorist? Was the man even a terrorist?

In my opinion, Israel were justified for their action. I don’t understand how the whole world is shocked when Israel defends themselves, but don’t seem very shocked when suicidal bombers blow up bus stations in Israel. It makes no sense. So Israel can’t put up with it for ever. Thye have to do something.

But was what they did the right action? They have been very patient, but no progress has been happening.

2

Changed my mind. I think the Israel goverment has gone a bit mad.

3

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would mourn the death of the hamas leaders, I’d even say they got what was coming to them after their crimes.

But i think many would like to see a peaceful negotiation and later perhaps trials against the terrorist leaders, instead of this crazy war. This killing moves the conflict in the opposite direction.

I mean almost everyone that gets killed down there is a civilian! The israelis are shooting at palestinians, and palestinian teenagers choose to blow themselves up. Madness. :sad:

4

They can eliminate every major leader of Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, but that doesn’t really solve anything. If they really want to make a difference, instead of worsening the situation with every elimination, they should concentrate on the causes of the current Intifada instead of eliminating the effects.
What are the causes of the Intifada? Much has to do with the current occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israelis. Ever since 1948, Israel occupies more and more land of the Palestinians.
I mean, imagine that one day a flood of foreign people move into your country and proclaim that this is their land. As a result, you have to move to large enclaves where you and the rest of your people may live. The foreigners occupy the rest of your country, including major water supplies, and change the country’s name. During the next decades, the foreigners gradually occupy more and more of your lands. How can you be surprised then that many of your fellow people revolt against the occupation? Now, I’m not saying that Israelis aren’t allowed to have a country on their own. But why do they persist in discriminating the Palestinians (by occupying their lands for instance, or building this damn wall)? And apparently, most of the Palestinians are so fed up with the behaviour of Israel that they take extreme measures, terrorist attacks and suicide bombing. Ofcourse this is wrong, but it’s not completely the fault of the Palestinians.
Improve the general status and life conditions of the Palestinians, and the violence against Israel will diminish imho. Not by eliminating Palestinians leaders, but by pulling back the colonizers from the Palestinian areas and by closely working together to build up a country where these two races can live together without aggression and violence.
Unfortunately, Sharon seems to have his own extreme ideas about how to solve this issue: by eliminating Hamas leaders in real Nazi style, and by building a giant prison wall around the Palestinian areas, thereby again stealing big areas of Palestinian lands. Good job Sharon… again you will only increase the anger of the Palestinian people… but I guess that’s what you want, right? :sad:

5

Really the Palastien and Israely people have my sympathies, but both goverments do not.

Some of the things that the Israel goverment has done without remorse sickens me.

For example, read about two palastienyan families who had less than 5 minuets to get out of their homes, because their houses were"security risks" to the Israelies.

The woman who tells the story says her next door neighbores son got crushed by a wall during the bull dozing.

She has about 6 or 7 children and had to live illegaly in a football stadium. Her only heater for the children is a gril, ripped open and turned up high.

It just disgusts me that the Israelies could do something so cruel to children.

Another palastien had her land “confiscated” and the Israels ripped up her olive trees that were part of her famillies history, and then cultivated it with Israelie houses.

To me it’s just going in a visous cycle.

6

Yeah I wonder when this is going to be solved once and for all… To do that, Israel MUST change its policy towards Palestinians dramatically. At the same time, Palestinians MUST accept this as a cease-fire so that peace may have the chance to grow. So they MUST stop their terrorist actions at once.
However, I don’t think Mr. Sharon and the Hamas militants currently have the correct mental attitude to accept peace…
Nevertheless, this can’t go on forever…

7

The government of Israel occasionally offers compromises, but the terrorist groups never do. They’re too fanatic. They’d much rather blow themselves and other people up than accept a compromise. Since they want to die, they may as well do so from an assassin’s bullet because at least other people don’t get blown up.

8

Yeah, as far as I see it, they are both terrorists (Israeli government, Hamas) and I don’t care for/about either of them (as nations).

I care about the poor people torn apart by all of this, but it would be stupid to take sides. We had no right to found Israel and kick those people out of their homes, that is absolutely no one’s business or right to do. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that throwing Jews into an Islamic (and Jewish I know) holy land and kicking everyone else out is going to cause drastic problems, and it just goes to show that violence does NOT bring peace.

For every terrorist we kill, there are dozens of civillians dead, for every civillian dead there is a survivor that now hates us enough to want to sacrifice his life in attempt to destroy us.

We kill one terrorist, 5 more take his place… it’s a never ending cycle of stupidity.

By we, I mean the US and the war on terror… but as for Israel, their actions certainly don’t help attain peace, and of course, neither do Palestine’s.

But I don’t think you can really pick sides here… I mean, one nation uses governmental terror, the other, more traditional terror.

9

I don’t know enough about the real story to really judge either side. All I know about the conflict is from what I hear about in the news. It seams as though both sides have a legitimate gripe. Until 9/11 I had some sympathy for th Palestinian situation. But, after seeing them dancing in the streets after 9/11 I no longer care. I know that view may be short sighted but, that is the way I feel. They want to kill us and at the same time want our help. :confused: If they think thousands of Americans dying is a reason to rejoice then, as a tax paying citizen I do not want one dime of my money used to aide them in any way. I know a lot of people who feel the same way. I say we all stay out of it period. Let the 2 sides duke it out and then establish relations with who ever is left standing.
Maybe. :content:

10

First off, in many cases (to my knoweldge), what you saw that morning was STOCK FOOTAGE of random middle eastern celebrations. Propoganda at its finest… second off, they had every reason to celebrate, you would if you lived out there.

That doesn’t make it right obviously, but if we as a nation do not LEARN A DAMN THING from 9/11, we are going to repeat it, and it’s going to eventually be a lot worse.

These things happen for a reason, and that reason isn’t “the angry stupid heathens hate freedom” it’s more along the lines of the US does some horribly screwed up things, we sponsor their enemy, who in turns does horrible screwed up things, and so on, and so forth.

Try to imagine what it’s like to be constantly attacked by a foreign military, and then think about how much you would hate and wish death upon the country who put that military into the powerful place it is today.

We as Americans would be committing acts of terrorism against that nation, you’d better believe it, and we’d consider each other heros.

But most Americans cannot see that, all they see is what the government wants them to see, that these people are clearly evil and hate us for no good reason, that we are some super innocent righteous nation, that is not so.

That doesn’t mean we as a people deserve to die, but that isn’t to say that we didn’t have it coming for a LONG TIME.

The sentiment of the world toward us is to be expected right now, and we certainly aren’t some innocent victim.

Unfortunately no one has learned anything from 9/11, but rather fallen into ignorance and hatred… and false-patriotism…

I don’t know that there is a solution to this conflict, but I know things would get a lot better if Americans reflected upon WHs their government has done, and demanded change.Y we are hated, looked at things for as they really are, looked at the wrong

I mean, hell, if some of the people out there just saw that we as a nation were pissed off at what was going on and wanted to change things (via citizens actively criticizing their government and taking an informed role in its actions, and demanding change), that might be enough to fix a lot of potential problems that lie in wait for us down the road.

Those that don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them… and that includes America, and sadly, American citizens…

It’s not a black and white issue of good vs evil.

11

I agree we do not know enough about that region of the world to even form an opinion about who is right or wrong, let alone lay blame. Which is why I think we should stay completely out of it. Nothing we do, will ever be enough. True, we do give money to Israel. They are our ally. However, we used our alliance to pressure them into making concessions that Israel would never have made otherwise. Yet somehow we are still the bad guys.

I wish there was a peaceful solution to the crisis. There just does not seem to be one. From what I can see both sides are to thick headed to understand that they need and could benefit from each other. No mater how much Israel gives up it will never be enough (as far as the Palestinians are concerned) as long as there is an Israel.

As long as we stay involved we will be blamed. We need to stay out of it.

12

For some reason a lot of Palestinians have a problem with the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. They’re probably anti-Semites. Perhaps they could enroll in diversity training?

13

If only it were that simple.

Conflicts in that region date back farther than most people realize. Not just between the Israel and Palestine but the entire middle east. Centuries of violence and hate.

14

" True, we do give money to Israel. They are our ally. However, we used our alliance to pressure them into making concessions that Israel would never have made otherwise."

This is a good point I suppose… but I don’t know, the point is though, that we (and the UN) founded them, and we constantly favor them and take their side, and don’t really seem to care about any of the other countries or their points of view.

The thing is it’s now too late to stay out of it, if we do we risk Israel lobbing nukes everywhere, if things got too bad…

We need to step back from it all, say “who wants money and technology and aide?” and then whoever does, they have to do peaceful things to work towards better relations with their neighbors in exchange, and they HAVE to implement non hateful/brainwashing education immediately, teach kids tolerance instead of “do you see the jew behind the tree? Shoot him!” (i know that’s totally dripping with American propoganda and might not be wholly representatitve of education all around)

They all want money, they all want security that we won’t invade them, it’s not a lot to ask in return for the government to let us make sure they are promoting pro-tolerance anti-terrorism education in their kids minds.

If we could just get a ton of countries to do that in exchange for some aide here and there and security of not being invaded… I bet things would stabalize in 30 years…

You can’t be tolerant if you are horribly ignorant and impoverished… eliminate those two factors and violence largely dies.

But we don’t, we do the opposite, in the case of Iraq, passing harmful sanctions that helped drive Iraq into poverty in the first place, and of course, supporting Saddam Hussien, arming him, etc…

Now we are freeing them, by torturing them and choosing their leaders for them, and well, killing them, being ignorant and unaccepting of their culture… it’s just a huge mess.

I can’t believe there are Americans that thought this war would work… if we wanted to “disarm” Saddam we should’ve gone the route of Clinton and just bombed weapons plants… but you know, in order to do that, DON’T YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT HE HAS THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I mean… gahh… we just keep making things perpetually worse than us, we need a new leader who is radically different who will stand up and apologize for his countries actions, all of them, and you know, who will maybe sit down and listen to these guys and what they want.

I mean, the only unacceptable thing bin laden wants from us is to be an isalmic country, everything else he asks is reasonable and understandable…

We know war isn’t going to fix this, we have tried some diplomacy, but I really don’t think we ever tried hard enough… I don’t know.

Maybe we should just back out and hope it doesn’t spark nuclear war… who knows.

We just know that what we are doing now not only doesn’t work, it is making things worse than they have ever been before.

15

The old woman in the fotage said she was dancing because they were handing out sweets to the people on the street. She is terrified the way it has been used, she had no idea about 9-11. Infact, I think it had not even happened yet when they shot the pictures!

I guess most palestinians did not hear about 9-11 the day after when the newspapers came out. Poor people have more important things to do with their time than following the world news on TV.

16

Yeah, kind of a deal breaker. :grin:

Of course he also demands to remain free and alive, which is unacceptable since he’s committed so many murders.

17

I believe he wants quite a bit more than that. Even if his demands were reasonable it’s kind of irrelevant now. :wink:

Reasonable ??? Lets see! Assuming that was all he wanted. A state where women are treated as property. A state where yong girls are not allowed to attend school or even learn to read and write. A state where yong men are taught, from a yong age, to kill all infidels. And that is just for
starters !!!

Reasonable ???

18

I don’t follow you, I do not think Osama is some sort of stupid religious extremeist, I mean, he worked with the CIA, he’s just using the fanatics out there to screw us over… I rather doubt he believes in a lot of what he says.
(i’m also not sure of whether he’s even alive… but if he is he should turn up pretty soon, let it get too close to November and it looks bad for you)

Granted he has to make demands that his followers want to, but the gist of what he asked for, according to some letter allegedly by him was:
Stop supporting Israel
Stay out of the middle east.
Don’t perverse the middle east with obscene American culture.

and towards the bottom of the list, he said he wanted us to stop being so immoral and to make Isalm our official religion.

He basically said though that the main reason about this is what we do to the people over there, and our support of Israel.

Also keep in mind he is not a vital part of al Qaida, rather, a valuable and respected symbol to them, and we are better off not capturing him due to the furor it would instill, and the fact that he instructed people to carry out attacks if he were ever killed.

Now, no one knows how big of a threat terror really is, but if it’s as bad as the government wants us to think, how many sympathizers and sleepers are in this country right now that could simply go on sporadic shooting sprees for a very long time upon his capture, those kinds of things?

He just isn’t much of a threat to us, he should be dead by now given that he was reportedly on dialysis a very long time ago, during the Afghanistan war, all it serves is “closure” for those naive enough to think that without him, terrorism cannot exist, and well, revenge for the 9/11 victims.

19

I guess Osama and I can agree that there is some decadence in American culture. On the other hand, the most decadent people in the world are the royalty of Middle Eastern countries.

Imagine if President Bush lived in a golden palace adorned with jewels and filled with sex slaves. He’d only be even! Compared with the Saudi royals, an American president must look downright workaholic, living where he works.

So why single out America? Europeans are always dogging us for being so puritanical and prudish.

True, America supports Israel but what about all the other Middle Eastern countries America supports. The Saudis always have a good deal going on, most of the other countries get a lot of money and even Iraq used to be supported.

20

LOL I have a friend from England and she can not believe how we get our panties all in a bunch over stupid things.