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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele]The last several posts have nothing to do with the topic of this thread. But, as so often happens, the defenders of Israel are simply justifying the killing of Palestinians civilians, especially children.

The disparity in the death toll and the fact that the vast majority of Palestinian deaths have been civilians undermines nearly every claim made by the apologists for the Israelis. The Israelis claim to be targeting military targets. Hamas makes the same claim. I don't think either of them should be believed, but look at the results: Israel has killed mostly civilians including a large number of children. Hamas has killed mostly soldiers -- in fact, killing only two civilians.

The Israeli tactics are based on a willingness to accept Palestinian civilian deaths. These tactics are implemented knowing that Palestinian civilians will be killed. These are not humane tactics and there can be no justification for them. That explains why nearly every defense of Israel relies on the dehumanization of the Palestinians.

In response to the original poster of this thread, I don't know who will stop Israel. Israel has a strongly-held belief in the effectiveness of military strength. But, in recent years, the limits of military might have become more obvious. Israel failed in its last invasion of Lebanon and it appears that Gaza is going a similar way. At some point, perhaps Israel will realize that force is not working for it it and will chose a different path. In that case, Israel will stop Israel .
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The answer is that no one will stop Israel.  They are in an existential conflict.  Their enemies want the country to cease to exist.  Given those circumstances, they aren't going to be influenced by the "International Community" either by those nations friendly or unfriendly to them.  [/quote]

Israel is not God.  Part of the existential conflict is that Israelis will have to decide whether they can exist without Israel.  Israelis have many friends but Israel has very few, and [b]its main patron is increasingly sick of it.[/b]  [/quote]

That is my point.  They don't care about international opinion.  A significant percentage of their population is spending their days planning what to do in case they hear an air raid siren.  Think about that in terms of this country.  If millions of Americans were running to bomb shelters every day, you can bet that we would not give a crap about whether or not France, Russia, and Senegal were mad that we decided to demolish our enemy.  Think about this...these people get rockets launched at them, every day.  So no one is going to "stop" them from trying to destroy the rockets of their enemies, not the US, not the UN, and certainly not their enemies, who intentionally put those rockets in civilian populations.[/quote]

The Hamas rockets are a nuisance that inflict virtually no casualties, but they are an unpleasant reminder to Israel that the Palestinians are not happy with their treatment at the hands of Israel.  So they bomb the daylights out of Gaza and make life hell for the inhabitants of the West Bank, at the same time that most Israelis go about their lives largely undisturbed.  They claim not to care about international opinion, but some day there may be internationally sanctioned air strikes on Israel just like there were on Belgrade when Serbia was hell-bent on destroying Kosovo.  The rest of the world can isolate Israel, which exists at the pleasure of the Americans, and wipe it off the map if it does not change its ways.  [/quote]
Nuisance? The only reason the death tolls are not equal is Iron Dome, and if that ever fails, hundreds of people die.[/quote]

Hamas might as well be shooting off fireworks on the beach, and both Hamas and Israel know that.[/quote]

I your point of view to be interesting.  I don't mean that in a patronizing way.

Do you think because Hamas is relatively ineffective at making war on Israel, the Israelis should somehow only respond in some sort of proportional way?  I guess that is what you are saying.

I contend that if this situation was applied to the United States, people here would think much like Israelis do now.  If both Mexico and Canada were governed by people who were sworn enemies of the US and then Buffalo NY and El Paso Texas occasionally got an IED, or a rocket launched at them, killing just a few people a month wouldn't the huge majority (over 90 %) of Americans advocate miltary action to completely annihilate those governments and force regime change?  Heck, Buffalo and El Paso are not big cities.  The country could "absorb" a few deaths in those towns from time to time.

On 9/11/01 we had two buildings knocked down and 4 airplanes hijacked.  The country was just about unanimous in supporting our military action to overthrow the Taliban who was only indirectly responsible (becuase they harbored Al Qaeda).

Israel is not going to be swayed from demolishing Hamas rockets just because Hamas puts those rockets in civilian populations.  It would be a dumb thing for them to be so swayed.  It is apparently smart for Hamas to do this, as it obviously impacts the view point of lots of people like you.  [/quote]

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