Has Hamas Bought This On The Palestinians??

I've read that Palestine land was occupied fair and square by Israel, because Palestine started war with Isreal but Palestine lost resulting in Israel taking over there land which was not officially Palestines land anyway.

IF that's true

maybe Hamas should just get over it and stop poking the bear, and endangering the lives of Palestinian people.

Do the actual Palestinian people even want to keep this old conflict going or is it just Hamas holding a grudge?

Also it seems as though Isreal is being quite heavy handed in defending themselves, but then you have Hamas using schools and residential areas to store and launch rockets which is in turn endangering civilians.

Who is right who is wrong?

Maybe if Israel is so much more mighty than Palestine they should stop the Ariel assault and just send in ground troops to deal with suspected areas instead of bombing them surely that would reduce civilian casualties.

What you think OT???

No, the Palestinians brought this on themselves. After all, they are the ones who elected Hamas into office. So clearly they support Hamas and their actions.

@AmazonTreeBoa: ok but do the Palestinians actually want this conflict, is this what they signed up for?

True. Can't disagree.

@LJS9502_basic: do they support Hamas' actions though? If they do then surely they don't deserve all the sympathy they are getting.

Yes they do....

that's some fallible logic if i've ever seen it.

Even assuming most Gazans support Hamas (which they don't; check recent polls), it does not follow that the average Palestinian also supports all particular actions done by Hamas.

@BossPerson: It doesn't make sense that the Palestinian people would sacrifice their children's lives by supporting a conflict they cannot win. Hamas is clearly at fault here, and the Palestinians are suffering because of Hamas. What is Hamas' logic in continuing this conflict what are they trying to achieve?

they want to justify their existence

Wait didnt Israel took away most of their lands though? As in, striking first as well.

Yes. They knew wtf they were doing when they voted Hamas in and they knew damn well that Hamas was a terrorist group and knew their goals before voting, so yes. Are there those that didn't vote for Hamas? Yes and those are the ones I feel sorry for, but they are the minority.

shocking.

so how many years do you you think Israel will stand for? 5? 10? 20?

Hopefully forever.

gray fox and all terrorist supporters need to kill themselves.

Yeah it's a shame those 13 colonies didn't stop "poking the bear"

It was Englands rightful land afterall

@Nuck81 problem was USA had home field advantage, England is an ocean away. The Americans had gunpowder rifles so did the British, same pistols, same cannons more or less, the Americans also had ships but fewer of them.

While George Washington lost most of his battles they won the war in no small part thanks to the French at the Battle of Yorktown which sealed the deal.

I've also seen people make the allusion to Vietnam. again it's a false argument. why? because while the might of the US ultimately did defeat the Viet Cong and for a while crippled the NVA, the Americans were like the British, they didn't have the home field advantage, and the public in America - war weary - ultimately got the Americans to leave. later on after the Paris agreement the American democrats manage to F over the South Vietnamese by not keeping the American end of the bargain of resupplying the South Vietnamese as they needed to. and ultimately it was subdued and taken over by the North.

In Israel/Palestine case, the Israeli's are not going anywhere, as far as they're concerned with the vast majority of them at this point, they are home. so this war will continue on until the Palestinians decide they wanna put down their weapons try building an economy for once, or sit at the table and negotiate a settlement or at the VERY LEAST use smarter non-violent tactics that undermine the Israeli's at every turn.

Right now the Palestinians suffer from terrible leaders, the Fatah is unable or unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to secure a nation and to take the harsh truth that 5-7 million refugees are not returning into Israel at best some symbolic number will. and Hamas loves death more then they love life and relish in the deaths of their people. Meanwhile the Israeli's with the right wing leadership have no real pressure on them to actually make a fair deal with the Palestinians, and with leaders like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad they give the Israeli right wingers and racists every justification to continue to being pricks to the Palestinian people....

but you know me, giving practical advice to Arab friends, condemns me as a collaborator....

Even if tomorrow the Americans stopped giving Israel any kind of military aid, the IDF could still keep the Palestinians well in hand. the Palestinians as a resistance force are literally a one legged man in an @ss kicking contest. Even Jordan's military can keep them well under control. Maybe they could take over Lebanon if they asked Hezbollah nicely.

I don't give two shits about some useless poll. I only care about the facts. The facts are they voted them into office and it takes a majority to do that. You rely on your polls, I'll stick to the facts.

Yeah, I think so. I don't think Palestinians agree with everything Hamas does, that's like if all of Obama's (or Bush's) voters agree with absolutely everything he's done just because they voted for him. It's just not that simple or black/white.

@Aljosa23: it's rather odd seeing people making this such a black and white issue. Sad sitch all around.

@GrayF0X786:

seriously Ive been waiting behined this rock for you to come and get me, the rock has gotten so bored screaming that its given up, maybe you need to go back to worshiping idols, you were more successful back then. Don't worry, you will end up in a museum before me.

as for the question at hand, to an extent yes, for reasons mentioned above. Though I don't agree with the "they voted for them" argument. Its true Hamas was the largest party in the 2006 elections, but that was 8 years ago , there should have been elections since then and there hasn't for obvious reasons (Hamas and Fatah both seem to follow the general Middle Eastern rule of free elections once). Fact is Hamas runs Gaza like a pseudo dictatorship, if the authorities threaten to detach someone's head from his neck , he will do exactly as he is told in most cases.

That said, whether Hamas survives this or not (and they most likely will), I don't think this will add to their long term popularity, in the short term yes, but once that clears up , people start asking questions, complaining again . The same happened with Hezbollah in 2006 , they were popular right after the war, nowadays they are not popular outside of the Shia. Hamas does have Qatar to pay for things, but the Qataris are playing a dangerous game here.

is this some sort of joke?

It doesn't take a majority to win an election

It's much easier to take a hard stand on something than to think critically on it. It's pure laziness.

Whoever told you this is either a fool or is trying to fool you. Israel's annexation of occupied land is a textbook violation of international law.

What annexation? Certainly not the gaza strip.

They knew they were terrorist when they elected them. They all know what terrorist do. So yeah, they support what Hamas does.

Nothing like living in the past.

@thebest31406: "Whoever told you this is either a fool or is trying to fool you. Israel's annexation of occupied land is a textbook violation of international law"

Why is it that America has continued to provide economic aid and military aid to Israel even though Israel have violated international law? The israeli's have received billions of dollars and US military equipment.

I really don't know much about the conflict, but everyone these days are talking about how it's ok to kill civilians which is really disturbing and confusing.

However, maybe this many confusing pro-Israel posts were blessings in disguise. As I wasn't interested in researching this conflict before.

So I googled to find out what are pro-killing civilians talking points are and found out they are 5 talking points:

1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.

2) Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

3) This Israeli operation, among others, was caused by rocket fire from Gaza.

4) Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.

5) Hamas hides its weapons in homes, mosques and schools and uses human shields.

However, by finding out the talking points, I found out the debunk argument for them (http://www.thenation.com/article/180783/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked)

After reading that, I'm really sad now that this is happening. I pray for justice and wish pro-Israel here to help humanity as a whole or if anything help Israelis restore the image we had about their country by spreading the truth about this conflict and not the confusing illogical pro-killing civilians talking points.

Dishonest post is dishonest.

If voters were to be really held responsible for the actions of their leaders, people in many countries of the world would end up prosecuted or killed...
Think of all the corruptions, invasions and other crimes that governments get away with and people from democratic countries still vote for them.

Poor analogy. You seem to gloss over the attacks done in the name of Palestine by HAMAS. Now if another democratic country is firing rockets into their neighbors then yes....those neighbors have a right to defend themselves.

The situation in Israel and Palestine is not uncommon. Since the beginning of mankind losing a war usually means losing land and whether or not some people can come to grips, the land "taken" by Israel is the result of constant terrorist attacks as well as surrounding nations (who controlled certain pieces of land) attacking Israel and losing.

Who's to say that all the Palestine civilians killed are HAMAS supporters? Both sides need to suck it up as far as my opinion goes, but inflicting civilian casualties because of the actions of the government goes beyond self-defense.

That doesn't matter. If someone is firing from across the street into your house are you going to defend yourself or walk over ask which ones are doing the firing? When an individual is under attack....or a nation....they have the right to defense. In a perfect world collateral damage won't happen....but that is exactly what happens. Every time.

You mean like throwing a grenade and killing everyone nearby?

Since the death toll is so one sided, I'm failing to see how the self-defense argument can justify the collateral damage. If Israel can show that it's taking effort to actually trying to avoid civilian hits, I might be able to sympathize with them

Hamas is a resistance movement against Zionist occupation of Palestine who use terrorist tactics against a terrorist state (Israel) funded by a terrorist super power (United States)

@one_plum: I don't get the arguement about the one sided death toll do people expect isreal to let Hamas catch up or not try and stop incoming rockets?

The IDF drops leaflets and such to warn civilians. Hamas tells its population that these warnings are nothing more than Israeli psychological terror and should be ignored.

Since Israel's military power is unquestionably better, I'm sure they can find other strategies than bombing that many civilian areas. If people are willing to see the whole situation as black and white and accept Israel is "the good guy"(which I believe is the majority of OT at this point), then they should be held to a higher standard in terms of how they deal with civilians, especially if you're ready to consider the other group as nothing more than terrorists.

So israel didnt start this? 'Cause the thing is, everyone always says how Israel illegally expanded its territory.

Israel gave Gaza back to the Palestinians. The current conflict is occurring because Hamas is shooting rockets into Israel.

What a cesspool this thread is.

Look it's sheer stupidity to continue to attack a country stronger than you are militarily. On the other hand if you don't give a crap about your people then I guess you will continue to do so ala HAMAS. But the one sided death toll is actually immaterial. If you start something and can't back it up....shame on you. But I feel no sympathy for the total disregard HAMAS has for it's own people. If you keep walking up to a bigger individual and punching him....don't cry when he decks you.

Well HAMAS propaganda certainly works on you.....

Yeah they do. They do the same for Egypt as they've done for countless others. International law isn't a factor when you're the superpower of the world. Apartheid SA didn't have to worry about violated international law as long as the superpowers were supporting them. It wasn't until the US imposed sanctions upon SA that SA had to worry about their crimes.

Yes but the palestinians originally had a MUCH LARGER territory while Israel's was extremely small. Now it's backwards, how did this happened? This palestine legitly attacked Israel for no reason or was it backwards?