@Femme:
The UN has put out a report stating that 77% of the now around 160 deaths in Gaza since last week have been civilians.
That is about 123 innocent lives. A large amount among them being children.
The "human shield" argument does not stand anymore, it is slaughter.
Two days ago they bombed a home for disabled patients who were not able to flee the building after their "knock on the roof" warning system, and 2 or 3 died, others injured.
An absolute massacre, it is horrendous.
I don't post much in this forum nowadays usually due to the fact that I tend to let things be as they are. However, this is something that I feel like I want to put my 2 cents in. Monkey, you can correct me if I go off track here.
I'm not going to dispute the fact that this has become a massacre. From this, I have to point the finger of blame on both sides of the issue even though I really really hate finger pointing. From what I see, Hamas has resorted to using civilians and even children as shields in this conflict to boost their "defences" and to generate sympathy towards the Palestinian cause. Israel, from what I see, seems to perfectly aware of the fact that Hamas are using child civilians as shields but still feel that they need to carry out the bombings in Gaza in order to deter the Hamas "menace" and "protect" their own people.
Both sides, I think, are aware of their own atrocities but in their view, feel that they can't let these things go to their head lest they want to back down and give the other an advantage in the conflict and make themselves look "weak" in the eyes of their own people. These are what I see as the chief catalysts in this whole conflict. I don't see this as a matter of both sides needing to win to gain land, I think this is more about putting down the other for the sake of their own satisfaction. In other words, the burning hatred for the other side has superceded the main task which was originally to punish the other side for the kidnappings of children.
It always disgusts me when children become unfortunate tools in any conflict and to me, that is a blatant sign that the conflict, no matter how passionate it is felt by both sides, has sunk to a level of senseless barabarism.
But I digress, this is the nature of war. Conflicts HAVE to happen in war. In this instance, Israel could end it by wiping out every last Arab in Gaza or they could open up their damn eyes and have a ceasefire and strengthen their anti-missile defence systems.
And you have to look at the issue here that the whole conflict ultimately has its roots on who has a few extra yards of land that they call home. It's absolutely ridiculous at this point because this fight for territory has gone on for what? Nearly 70 years since the end of WWII? At this point, it's quite clear that both sides are doing SOMETHING wrong if the issue has dragged on for this long. What also gets on my goat here is that we here in the West have to support Israel because they are our traditional ally and we're also sorry for them for what happened to them in the Holocaust. Look, I understand that the Holocaust was a very very terrible atrocity and I can understand that. However, the Holocaust is over. It's done. It's finished. We're all perfectly aware that it was one of the bigger arguments that led to the formation of Israel and I can see that. But we can't simply be forced to take one side here because "WELP, HOLOCAUST". It's a copout and a very cheap one at that. You can't use it as an excuse to deprive Arabs of a future Palestinian state because 1: Palestinians appear to be very proud of their identity and 2: They've been fighting for their own piece of land for many many years as well so now Arabs can't have a state because they weren't abused by the Nazis??? What the fuck?
As far as I'm concerned, both sides need to cool their heads as much of a reach as this is. That is the only hopeful method towards a possible Two-State (or One-State?) solution. Unfortunately, we still have a long ways to go because of the civilian atrocities that have occurred here. Death of children and the disabled are grounds enough to continue a conflict, even if both sides are aware of the real matter that resulted in their deaths.
Anyways, I'm done ranting. If you guys want to point out errors in my argument, go right ahead. I'm speaking from my own views of the conflict and some views may be different from others.
Keep on truckin…