Reply to What should Israel do with Gaza?

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "What should Israel do with Gaza?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Do you honestly believe that Hamas would stop aggression against Israel - rockets and tunnels - if Israel dropped the blockade? On what basis other than hope?[/quote]

Yes, i believe that. Hamas has observed long truces with Israel. It seems accepted among most that Hamas is always the aggressor. But, Hamas generally sees itself as responding to Israeli aggression. It generally can make a decent case for it as well. If Israel agreed to Hamas' terms, it would cause a huge increase in Hamas' popularity and, more importantly, immediate improvement in the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. If Hamas were to do anything to reverse that, its popularity would be very negatively impacted.

Israel is unlikely to agree to any of Hamas' demands, however. Doing so would cause Hamas' popularity to increase so that it would easily displace Fateh in the West Bank. Then, Israel would have to deal with Hamas on two sides.
[/quote]

Can you cite to any long truces? All accounts show a consistent barrage of rockets since 2007. [/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Israel–Hamas_ceasefire

There were others that I don't have time to track down.

[/quote]

I would not call a 6 month ceasefire that apparently neither party held to a "long truce."

I would love nothing more than to have the Palestinians have a thriving society in Gaza but I just dont believe that it can happen, even if Israel completely lifts the blockade, given the culture of hatred, the teaching of children to hate, and the glorification of violence.

[b]The currently use what aid they do get for weapons and tunnels, not for schools and hospitals. [/b]How and why would that change?[/quote]

I'm not sure the bolded is true, but regardless, Israel uses it's aid for weapons. Moreover, that aid comes from the US.

Maybe you don't trust Hamas. What do you propose? Do you really think Israel can solve this militarily? If so, what makes this different from all the other times? History has shown that Israel can't win militarily. Every time the conflict reaches the point where Israel sees that containing it will only make things worse. At that point, the US steps in and negotiates a cease fire. Then, both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of violating the cease fire and the shooting starts again. Rinse and repeat. If this pattern only leads to more rockets, why not try another tactic? If it also results in more rockets, you are just back to the same place.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics