[Chill Cosby]

Interesting article regarding the less than innocent reasons behind this current escalation. Some interesting views by interesting people:

(apologies if it's been posted)
https://news.vice.com/article/its-dj...all-over-again

Israel’s military operations in the territory ... are in direct response to the rockets fired by Hamas into Israel — at a pace of about 145 a day, according to the IDF ... before Hamas’s rockets, there was a massive raid of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, leading to hundreds of arrests — including dozens of people who had been released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011 — and at least 10 deaths ... That ... was in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers ... leading to a massive manhunt and the largest military escalation in the West Bank since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

"When those teens went missing, the Israelis had a choice about how to react: ... if they could convict them, punish them to the full extent of the law,” Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian-American political analyst, told VICE News. “Instead they chose ... collective punishment that focused on Hamas as an organization, but also against Palestinians in general. That went outside of the bounds of what was necessary ... It was a deliberate provocation and one that caused the situation that we see today."

Israeli officials knew all along that the teens had been murdered after being abducted, but they kept up the “search” for several days ... “You really have to witness the force of this propaganda, people just buy this ####,” Idan Landau, Israeli scholar and commentator said. “People were angry that there was this cover-up and that the police knew that the boys were dead already, but there’s this kind of unwillingness on the part of the Israeli public to distrust their leaders.” ... the suspects in the boys’ murder — they have also blown up their homes and interrogated and arrested their family members ... Israeli officials placed the blame for the murders on Hamas, an accusation the organization has consistently denied ... though it did not condemn it either.

The murders offered Israel the opportunity to address something it had strongly opposed for weeks: a deal signed by rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah that culminated in the formation of a unity government on June 2 ... “I would add a conspiracy twist to it," said Middle East historian and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. "I think ever since the unity government was announced, Israel has been absolutely hell-bent on doing absolutely anything to pull it apart. I know this is going to sound extreme, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this rogue cell did this with the knowledge of Israeli intelligence... The point is that Israel knows very, very well that these people are not under the control of Hamas ... “The moment those kids were kidnapped, the Israeli government set up a huge deception so they could attack Hamas in the West Bank," Khalidi went on. "... arresting hundreds and hundreds of people. That horrible, racist, fascist wave of hysteria that swept over Israel was entirely the result of the manipulation of information about these poor kidnapped boys’ murder.”

Palestinian, Israeli, and foreign critics have observed ... A threat more dangerous than Hamas’s rockets — which in practical terms, are all but useless — is Palestinian unity, and a moderate partner with which Israel would have to engage.

Materially speaking, Hamas is taking a hit from Operation Protective Edge — losing rockets, people, and infrastructure. But in the long term, critics observed, the conflict will only boost its legitimacy. And, while Israeli leaders claim the opposite, that might just be what they were hoping for all along — a stronger Hamas, averting the risk of a peaceful unity, and maintaining a clear enemy.

“There’s this mantra that people are being told, that if we only finished the job last time, if you just let us do it properly this time, everything will be fine, and that’s really a myth,” Landau said. “The people in power are well aware that there’s no way to solve this militarily, but they want to preserve the myth which will justify the next operation: We never finished the job, and that’s why we have to maintain the siege, and they’re still aggressive, and we have to contain them ..."

It's a really interesting article. Lots of content, I didn't even quote a third of it I think lol. But definitely worth the read if you're looking for some perspective and for a few facts that don't pop up in this thread too often.