Hamas: A paramilitary organization and political party that currently controls the Palestinian National Authority, a tiny 'state' that includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They were elected democratically, and have gained popular support through social programs, but they deny Israel's right to exist and generally mortar it from a distance. Hamas is described as a terrorist organization by many other countries and organizations, while others still only describe the military wing as a terrorist organization.

Israel: State carved out of Palestine in 1947 by a UN resolution. Constantly fights wars with nearby states, with notable success. Supported by the US, Israel is considered to have one of the most modern and effective militaries in the world. It's right to exist is threatened by organizations like Hamas and states like Iran. Last major war in Lebanon was a disaster. All Jews have the right to Citizenship. Two largest cities are Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Yearly military budget of $16 billion, though through aid of the US the actual capacity is beyond that.

Summary
On December 26th, a couple of days after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel ended (Hamas had renewed mortar attacks after a brief Israeli incursion in early December and offered to renew the ceasefire in December 23), Israel started the next Middle Eastern war. In the first four minutes, the Israeli air force bombed hundreds of targets along the Gaza Strip that they claimed were affiliated with Hamas. Israel began a ground offensive January 3rd, complete with tanks, infantry and helicopter support. Israel imposed a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip as well. The supposed reason for this war is to exterminate Hamas once and for all.

Casualties (died) so far include 13 Israelies, 3 of whom are civilians, and more then a thousand Palestinians, more then a hundred of whom are women and more then three hundred of whom are children. Assuming that the Israeli military treated such obvious civilians with caution, I think that the vast majority of the remaining men were innocent civilians as well. There have been minor attacks from neighboring states such as the Hezbollah's Lebanon, but Hezbollah hasn't taken responsibility for the three Katushka rockets fired and 'promised to look into it'. The Israeli strikes have damaged UN buildings, schools and hospitals. There is a three-hour-a-day truce during which the wounded could be moved out of the Gaza strip, but because of the chaos such efforts haven't been particularly successful. Hospitals lack the staff and energy to properly treat all those admitted, so some have successfully been sent to nearby hospitals in other states.

International response to the war is mixed. Egypt sided with Israel. Most of the EU and other Western countries expressed support for Israel, although a UN resolution passed with fourteen out of fifteen supporting the resolution, which was supposed to declare an immediate ceasefire and Israeli removal of troops. The abstaining country was the US - meaning that France and Great Britain (I don't know the ten non-security-council voices here, sadly) voted for it. Both Hamas and Israel said that a ceasefire isn't an option. Iran's Ayatollah declared that those who die defending the Palestinian people are martyrs, leading to the possibility of a major terrorist attack on Israel at some point (I actually doubt it, because if they could've they'd had done it already). There have been major protests in major cities worldwide denouncing the Israeli actions.

My Opinion
My personal opinion on this is mixed. On one hand, Hamas had been asking for it, bombarding Israel with mortars for seven years - on the other hand, less then ten deaths were caused by all those hundreds of missiles. Additionally, Hamas is democratically elected and I think has been good for those in the Gaza Strip, though I could be wrong. It has enough supporters to stay in power, at least. Personally, I think this is Israel's sad attempt to fix the soddy reputation caused by Israel's defeat in Lebanon in '06. Of course, Israel has no moral right (at all) to cause all these deaths and ruin all the infrastructure in the Gaza Strip; however, if Israel takes control of the area, the lives of the people might (doubtfully) eventually improve, and an anti-Israeli organization will be removed from power.

As for who will win, so far it looks like Israel. Leaders of Hamas are dying every few days, and at this rate Israel will be successful. However, if Hezbollah starts an offensive as well or if Hamas turns out to be trickier then they look, they could deal a defeat to Israel as bad as the US was dealt one in Vietnam.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 16 2009, 3:56 am by Centreri.

I'd like to state one of the big troubles I see, however obvious, with this issue:
Israel believes it is morally justified in defending its home territory, but may be limited by international pressures to stop short of eliminating hamas and hezbollah
Hamas/Hezzbollah believe they are morally justified because they are being killed by Israel and as such defending themselves, and because their homes were taken from them
Killing is not moral

-Seems like one of those evil cycles that perpetuates itself, doesn't it?

Though Centreri, when you claimed Israel had "no moral right (at all)" to cause these deaths, it makes me wonder about your views on the purpose of government. Namely, from the American Constitution,
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Perhaps you are of a different opinion, but I thought it reasonably well established that defending your country is within the bounds of morality, even if it is a bit grim.

This is the same argument as always. Israel is being a jerk because they have a bunch of money from western countries, while poor people who have nothing are getting blown to bits for existing.
1,000+ dead and 4,000+ injured > 13 dead and 100+ injured

Israel should stop bombing schools and UN complexes, and maybe start working to get at the real problem, themselves.

For the palestinians, those are where it hurts the most.

Vrael... Israel has no moral right not only because for the extreme casualties, but because it was carved out of Palestine. It's essentially a people that migrated into a certain area, played upon sympathy to get the UN to make Israel a separate state, then used arms gifts to subjugate those around them. Seriously, what idiot thought of putting a Jewish state in the middle of a bunch of pissed off Muslims?

Vrael, I of course view your quote from the constitution as particularly hilarious - millions have died for the 'common defense' when only 2000 were killed by a select group in some other freaking country. Quoting the Constitution when the US is the largest violator of international laws is rather humorous, no? The US had no moral right for what it did. Neither does Israel. As I had mentioned, Hamas had asked for a ceasefire (before this war started), and there was one before except that Israel had carried out a strike at targets at which point the bombardment restarted.

Rantent sums it up nicely.

I personally think this is a conflict that can't be solved until Israel conquers all arab countries or they conquer Israel. I just wish that Israel could co-exist with Palestine, but it won't happen because of radicals on both sides.
Anyways, I compare (in this case) Israel's action to rocket attacks on Israel to what the US (or any country!) would do if their neighbor launched rockets inside their country. Kick their ass.

Centreri... You haven't made any argument. I found what you said offensive due to the obvious disregard and lack of thought put into your response. I base this on your lack of response to anything I said, and your finding the quote from the constitution "particularly hilarious."
All you did was reiterate what you said earlier.

My argument reiterated, due to the fact that you either did not recognize, or do not accept, the defence of the livlihood of a nation:
Israel is being attacked by cerain organizations which threaten the livelihood of its people. Because their lives are at stake, and because of the severe unliklihood that peace is imminent, they are morally justified in defending themselves.

Just a side note, for something you may be thinking: Forty years ago, the fact that Israel did not exist would have been a valid reason for determining they have no moral justification for killing palestineans. However, Israel DOES exist, it IS a country, and as such they have (in my apparently crazy opinion) a right to defend themselves. One argument that also used to be very valid was that Israeli people now owned land and such things that the palestineans used to own. However, if a palestinean 35-or-so-year-old man were to go to Israel and claim it's his homeland, that might e true spiritually, but not physically. He doesn't own anything in Israel. I'm sure there are many exceptions, such as family estates, but should we repeat the wrong we already wrought and kick all the people that have been living in israel for 40 years out?


This captures much of what I think and said.

Lets just nuke the world and end all of human miseries by killing all of them. That'd be more humane.

Uhh, no?
If that was a joke, ummm....

Oh, Vrael.

The reason there are no complete arguments for Israel having no moral right to attack at all is because that is a slight exaggeration. A rather obvious one, I thought. It maybe ten dead Israelis are the moral justification for killing now thousands (well, one thousand, but that's technically thousands).

Yes, any country would be justified in defending itself. However, I personally (you'll note that I wrote all that under personal opinion) think that that justification was by far too small. Additionally, think that the reaction of the US in this case in particular, when you compare the 5-day war in Georgia and this Gaza conflict, was disgusting. One was 144 Russian Citizens in South Ossetia and 10 Russian peace keepers over a period of a day. The other was 10 Israelis over seven years. One was ~100 casualties, 80% of which were Military on the 'victim'. The other was 1000+, at least 500 of which were Civilians (probably 800 of which or so). One the US blames entirely and provides weaponry and money to the victim - the other the US doesn't even deem fit to offer a ceasefire. So, yes, my anger over that spills over. Of course Israel had SOME justification for attacking; however, I consider the justification very meager for causing more then a thousand deaths, bombing UN buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques...

So, in conclusion, no, not every country would do what Israel did. Russia didn't, even though the offense was far more severe. And seriously, if Russia had cut ties with NATO and started a row with the US over it, why the hell isn't Israel suffering at the very least the same consequences? Israel could easily have been more careful with its assault, and though it would've suffered more casualties, there would've been far less Gaza casualties. It's like nuking the offending country - huge civilian loss, but hey, a few less soldiers died! Israel had shown complete disregard for human life and still gets the support of its friends.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 17 2009, 5:45 pm by Centreri.

nihilism ftw!

Technically, if you did kill everyone on Earth now you saved infinite amount of human lives in the long run. Everyone, in millions of years, will have a Hitler descendant.

Centreri speaks my thoughts for me. I've said many times Israel had no right to be made, especially under USA's forceful guidance. And we shouldn't be spending tax payer's money to support Israel and their wars.

I found your second response much more appropriate Centreri, thanks.

One thing missing though I think, is that it isn't a mere ten deaths that started the attack. It's the state of being a virtual time bomb. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the violence in Israel has been going on for quite some time. Maybe if I was a dictator and 10 of my citizens died, I might not declare war. But if ten of my citizens died every month for a few decades, I would get pretty pissed. (Of course, these numbers are meant to be used only as illustration for the idea involved, not to be taken as actual fact).

(By the way, there's no way only 10 Israeli's have died in the past 7 years due to this violence. That's just ridiculous. If it's true, give me a source from the BBC or something.)

Mmm.. I read some analysis that while making fun of Israel said it was nine... well, I found the number in a BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7818022.stm
Twenty-eight. Still a tiny number compared to 1000+.

And that number is quite small compared to how many people die in a day from getting hit by a car.

I do not like this reaction. I think even ONE innocent life dieing is too many.

Does the end justify the means? The nation of Israel is a great democratic nation and is very prosperous and is continuously making advancements in science and engineering. Is it alright then that the creation of the nation was underhanded, but the nation itself is a spectacular achievement. Please remember that I'm not arguing if Israel originally had the right to exist, I'm saying now that it's established and has proven itself to be a lot more rational than its neighbors, has it become a successful democratic nation?

Kinda like if you stole $1000 from your grandpa because he wasn't doing anything with it, but then turned it into $100,000 but never gave the $1,000 back...

Alright bad analogy. Let's say your neighbor had an apple tree sapling, but never didn't like apples and didn't devote much care for it. So you take the apple seedling and help it grow into a huge fruitful apple tree, which supplies the community with wonderful apples that everyone can make apple pies with. The whole while your neighbor hates you bitterly and taking his apple tree that he neglected just because it was his (and for your success that could have been his, but really wouldn't have).

You're speaking like Bush. Anything is alright as long as it's in the name of Democracy. Let's kill a ton of Iraqis, but hey, we'll give them democracy! With democracy like that, no thx.

Hint hint: Hamas was democratically elected. They defeated Fatah (secular) the polls, who then tried a coup to regain control.

Anyway, Israel isn't a spectacular achievement. If it were independent, sure; however, the US sends a ton of money its way. If I put a guy with a 100 AI-controlled fighters in the middle of a plain filled with a million pissed off Muslims without guns and he survives, how is that a 'spectacular achievement'?

They've done much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c

Whether or not the Zionists have made the hamas monsters is not my point. What matters now is that hamas is a monster, and the IDF are trying the best they can to get rid of them with as little civilian casualties as possible, which is very hard when the civilians fully support hamas even if they don't carry a gun.