“If the Palisitinian’s put down their weapons and promised to stop fighting, the fighting would stop. If the Isrealies put down their weapons, they would be wiped off the map.”

I wouldn’t think of it. But if someone was shooting rockets into my neighborhood, I would demand that the government do something about it. And I wouldn’t even think of telling the armed forces to stop until the rockets stopped for good. No, it’s not alright to shoot civilians, but if they were harboring terrorists, willingly or unwillingly, I would do whatever was needed to protect my family. If you want to blame someone, blame the militants firing rockets into Israel. I’m sure you will have noticed the definite “cause/effect” relationship. No rockets or attacks on Israel, no retaliation. If the Arabs in Hamas have that little regard for their own people, then it seems pretty unreasonable to expect the Israelies to have more.

Frankly, I don’t care about the history of the area. As you said, there has been war for many generations. Some times the land has been owned Israel, sometimes by others. And BTW – there were also Israelies living in Palestine when it formed a government. They were living peacefully until the homeland was established. Since then, it’s been one war after another.

Has it occurred to you that if the rest of the Arab world to a reasonably small percentage of the resources that they’ve devoted to the destruction of Israel to help the Palestinians, they could have a thriving economy? Or perhaps if they (the Palestinians) would take the parts out of their school books that Jews are pigs and Christians are monkeys (or perhaps I have it reversed, anyway) that in a generation or so the animosity might go down enough for a peaceful settlement? But you can’t make peace with someone who wants to destroy you and you can’t negotiate with someone who insists on launching rocket attacks on foreign civilians while using their own as human shields. The next time you sing a sad song for the poor, oppressed people of Gaza, first ask yourself what the rest of the Arab world has done for them, and second, ask yourself what you would do if one of their little rockets took out your son.

Last point – You wouldn’t happen to live on land that once belonged to someone else, by chance, would you? Native Americans, perhaps? Planning on donating it back to them to help them out? It’s sad, but true. Human history is in great part the strong oppressing the weak. In fact, I’m pretty sure that was the rationale that let the Jews establish the government they currently have, as payback for their historical oppression. I’ve also read up on the history of some of the Bhuddists. Warfare between monks and sects. Again, the strong oppress, and in many cases, kill the weak. None of us is innocent in that regard. Not the Jews, not the Christians, not the Bhuddists, and certainly not the Muslims. Pick your villain. At least the Palestinian civilians got killed, unlike some captives taken by Muslim terrorists who had their heads cut off.

It’s one thing to play devil’s advocate. Or point out that two wrongs don’t make a right. Which is true; however, Israel isn’t some innocent besieged country. Statements like that make it sound like it’s quite alright to shoot elderly and children as admitted and witnessed by Israel’s own soldiers. Like it was okay for Israel to shell the shit out of Palestinian encampments filled with civilians so that the encampment populations were separated (much like the Nazi’s did the Jews) and then shot in their own homes as a blanket revenge for the assassination that took place of one of their leaders. (Documented by Israeli soldiers and reporters)

It’s an over simplification (on everyone’s part, including mine) to say that one side has some moral superiority in the situation. The entire region has been fighting over things a lot of people have forgotten to history for as long as individuals have lived in the area. The problem I have with the situation in Gaza concerns how Israel has treated the civilian population by performing mass punishment across the region. The problem I have with the US involvement (and there is US involvement) is that the US says boo about it half the time and provides them with the weaponry and the machinery to accomplish whatever tasks Israel is accomplish regardless of legality the other half of the time.

Don’t forget either that people who were Palestinian and living in Israel at the time it was formed went to the government and said..”I want to stay here, under your rule and keep my home.” since they lived there their whole lives and it was their land to begin with. They were shipped to camps with no housing in Lebanon for their trouble and separated from their families. There was an article about one such individual in the BBC not that long ago and I think I posted it here. So…yah. Having rockets fired into their land does not excuse the overly aggressive and ultimately futile response. Rockets still were fired to show they were not hurting Hamas (or any other wing of fanatics) they were simply killing a lot of civilians.

The sad part of that plays out in the children who survive. They will have memories of their friends being killed, and they will become staunch adversaries of Israel when they are old enough to hold a gun/detonate a bomb.