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Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
The media is no friend of Israel that's for sure.
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Should media be anyone's friend? I believe the general goal of media is to be unbiased. I think the problem you run into is when criticism of Israel is seen as being anti-Israel. But how can you NOT be critical of Israel unless you have a pro-Israel bias? There is a progressively intimidating amount of human rights violations occurring, should everyone excuse Israel simply because they are fighting terrorists?
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Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
I am not shy about being critical of the government of Israel nor the IDF when circumstances warrant.
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To continue with my point above, circumstances very clearly call for criticism of Israel. The civilian death toll is unacceptable on every level. They have violated the rules of war multiple times, including the bombing of homes, hospitals, and densely civilian populated areas. They blame this on "human shields" but the IDF has itself been a proponent of using human shields, and would send Palestinian civilian teenagers to negotiate with militants. Civilian deaths here are not unavoidable, Israel simply chooses not to avoid them. According to some on the ground of the most recent hospital bombing, they were bombed while negotiating a time to leave. Warning aside, IDF knew the hospital was full of innocent civilians, and bombed it anyway. How many civilian lives are Hamas rockets worth? How many times do they have to get locations wrong, or fail to warn civilians, before their bombing is seen as inexcusable? We've already stopped excusing the actions of Hamas, when do we do the same for Israel?
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Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
Hamas must be disarmed once and for all and renounce violence. There is no reason for these kinds of weapons to be stockpiled in Gaza.
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The reason is Israel, and unfortunately, that is where a Catch 22 comes in. Hamas will not renounce violence until Israel ends occupation, and Israel will not end occupation until Hamas renounces violence. Many Palestinians would likely say that Israel must leave once and for all and give back the 67 borders. There are clear solutions available to both sides. Neither side appears interested.
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Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
As I said before all of this is on Hamas. What have they done over the last several years? Their "infrastructure projects" involved the construction of vast networks of underground tunnels in which to import weapons to attack Israeli citizens.
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What have they done? They do a lot. They provide health care, dental, day care, soup kitchens... their funding of social welfare programs is a huge part of their budget.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar...ld/fg-charity2
And the tunnels were not originally intended to attack Israel, nor has that been their sole purpose. They were used, not more than a year ago even, to bring in goods and supplies for the Palestinian people. Basic supplies like foods, clothing, and fuel that became unattainable because of the blockades.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-palestinians/
Neither of these points are meant as support for Hamas, but just so you have a better idea as to why Palestinians supported them. They do(did) a lot of good for their own people, and while the mood is changing, they gained power at least partially because of the way they helped people.
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Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
They demand an end to the blockade of Gaza not for humanitarian purposes but so they can freely import larger more sophisticated and destructive weapons from Iran in which to carry out their terrorist objectives.
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As stated above, the end of the blockades are not simply desired for the transportation of weapons, but for actual supplies for the Palestinian people. Hamas are not an "all bad" organisation. Will they use open borders to import weapons? It's almost undeniable at this point in the conflict. But unfortunately the statement of "it's not for humanitarian purposes, it's to import weapons" is not true. At very least, they would do both. Hamas is desperate to maintain popularity, something that is waning due to their inability to currently provide for it's citizens.
As I've said before. Painting Hamas as this regime of pure evil, lacking any and all duty to it's people, does not paint the full picture and can lead to statements like this:
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Originally Posted by T@T
Palestinian's will continue to die as long as they support these type of groups.
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Statement which are, unfortunately, too simple for the situation, and ignore the very real plight of the Palestinian people and why it is they turn to organisations like this in the first place.
Palestinians may continue to die if they support organisations like Hamas. However, they rightly fear they will be unable to truly live. Eliminate that fear, and you eliminate the need for Hamas. Perhaps an impossible task.