I'm sorry, I give more of a benefit of the doubt to children, rather than a state that has been proven to jail dissidents and to beat children with truncheons. So you're in favor of life imprisonment and execution for juvenile offenders?
Canada supports Israel unconditionally, probably even more than America. We have huge Jewish communities down here, and all major political parties pander to this group of interests. So, is your support of Israel and indirectly, America's worst enemy (Canada), a feature or a bug?
It's funny how you call everyone younger than 18 "children". Personally, depending on the nature of the crime, life imprisonment, yes (with certain caveats, which also apply to adults). Execution, no, because I am against the death penalty in general. But e.g. in Germany, the maximum penalty for someone 18 or younger is 10 years, even if they murdered 10 people by torturing them, raping them and eating them alive.
12 to 18. ATW, are you seriously quibbling over whether a 12 year old or a 13 year old is a child. Well, let's take a 12 or 13 year old "big boy" and throw him into Israeli jail, see what happens. Or in one case, a "big girl". Let's say the crime is trying to visit your father in prison. Life imprisonment?
No, over whether a 17 year old is a child. If you have a story to share with a reliable link, please do.
The truth seems very one-sided. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1129829.stm Israeli child-killer escapes jail
It seriously pisses me off too. Are people f**king stupid or conditioned to think that suffering somehow solves things? That fear will overwhelm everyone? Just because we're placid sheep following whatever is set before us, doesn't mean the more desperate citizens of our world won't stand up for themselves, with the only deplorable methods available to them. Sure, there will always be born psychopaths. But Hamas was largely born of the children and non-violent protesters who were killed or beaten during the First Intifada. I shudder to think what will happen with this generation of children who are imprisoned and beaten.
Unfortunately, fear is actually a very effective tool. When a dog chases you, you run faster than you've ever ran in your life. That's fear making you do abnormal things. Today, every child and probably every adult in Gaza is not sure if every Israeli wants them dead with no questions asked. All they see are soldiers. What would infuriate them more is if they saw the luxury that Israelis are living in, and the support for settlers on the West Bank. Everyone is quick to say Hamas is a terrorist organization, and I agree they probably are. Is that really unusual or illogical to you? Wouldn't you be extremely shocked if Hamas broke the historical pattern of developing terrorist organizations when facing an otherwise insurmountable enemy? Isn't this exactly how the US was born? Isn't this EXACTLY how Israel was born - the morphing of terrorist organizations into a government? It's a sad thing and a terrible thing, but it's not an illogical thing. This situation will breed terrorists, and you would have to be a freaking moron to think that a population this large and this starved would persist with peaceful efforts for 70 years. Our goal is to eliminate the terrorism, and the way to do that is to eliminate the motive for terrorism, rather than to kill terrorists and commit improportionate collateral damage. People on here very often talk about Palestinians as if they have always been, are and will always be sheep to the Islamic extremists. That's bull****. The reality is that if there was not mass immigration of European Jews to that territory in a manner which was not agreed upon or seen as fair, the Palestinians wouldn't give a damn about those Europeans today. They wouldn't be flying to Europe to kill them. They wouldn't be invading neighbouring countries. They wouldn't be launching rockets into Europe targeting Jews. They wouldn't be creating terrorist organizations. It has nothing to do with them being Jewish. It is stupid to think that Muslims or Arabs want to kill all Israelis. There are 1+ billion Muslims and 17 million Jews - do you really think that these 1 billion Muslims can't just start walking towards Israel and end the whole thing? Of course they can. But that is NOT what the majority want. The majority want Palestinians to have the right of return, access to their assets, be able to visit the graves of their families, not be discriminated against, not be made to look like animals in the media. Simple things. What creates terrorist organizations is (1) a cause, (2) fear mongering, and (3) having very little to lose lifestyle-wise. The moment Palestinian and Israeli civilians that they have no reason to fear each other, and that they need to fear their governments, and that they have actually lost more than "nothing to lose", things will change. There are kids born into Palestinian families every day, and every one of those kids is a fresh chance at changing the mindset of people in that region. This tension can not and will not last forever. There are 5 parties here: Palestinians people, Israeli people, Israeli government, Palestinian de facto government, and the US government. At least one entity has to be erased from this equation/situation, and it's not Palestinian people or Israeli people. It's the other 3 that are the enemies of the peace process IMO and I say that with all due respect to American people. Unfortunately, right now, palestinians think Israelis are the enemeies of the peace process, and vice versa. That's what they are being told, and fed, and that's what they are being made to fear the other side. Seriously, it's time for Israelis, Palestinians and Americans to wake up and start twisting the arms of their governments. Time to demand genuine peace efforts and time to stop them all from demonizing each other. These are all people and they all have hopes and dreams and want to live in peace and dignity. One of these days, Iran will undergo a revolution, and the oil in the Middle East will run out, and all those people will realize that no one cares about them anymore. The aid will stop coming, the weapons will stop coming, and they will only have each other. America will do what's in its own best interests, and once the oil and security threats are gone, America will be gone from the region too. That will be a very awkward time.
Weak. You owe Mathloom a real apology. This makes even the pseudo-apology you offered seem disingenuous. You make Mathloom out to be some kind of Hamas sympathizer even after you claimed your previous post implying the same thing was "in jest." I find it dishonest for you to constantly pass off malicious innuendo as harmless joking, only to turn around and indict others for not taking terrorism and violence seriously enough. To top it all off, your accusation in this post is completely off base; Mathloom didn't come close to characterizing Hamas as a "lawful and respectable entity." He was making a point about how both sides of the conflict use their own INTERNAL justifications to excuse abhorrent behavior. His intention was pretty clear. Your intention, in posting that picture, was ambiguous at best. Do you really expect us to buy your lame excuse that you just wanted to post a funny picture you found? I mean...even when people post those walrus/bucket pictures in basso threads, they're doing it for a reason. Are you really going to come in here and tell us that replying to Mathloom's post with a picture of some random illiterate antisemite under a few rolleyes is anything but an attempt to associate Mathloom with antisemitism? Again--weak. And I think you also owe an apology to the intelligence of the D&D community.
Very late response here. Shalit wasn't kidnapped for crimes according to Hamas Law. He was kidnapped to be used for negotiations plain and simple. Here is what happened in the last kidnap and prisoner "swap": http://www.haaretz.com/news/abbas-congratulates-kuntar-s-family-for-killer-s-release-1.249843 This human piece of fecal matter was released... This is how they kidnapped people and made their demands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_Kuntar And no, people should not be held indefinitely in prison. But these are POWs. Shalit is a POW. Any suspected Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. person in jail is a POW (and I'm not saying it's right, but it would be ignorant to say that teenagers are not recruits of these organizations). You can't really expect there to be much trust between the two sides when there has been perpetual war for decades. Here's how we stop the bleeding on the macro level. Stop the rocket fire and weapons smuggling. Stop the settlement building. These are the main arguments by both sides why there can be no peace. The parties that are currently in power thrive off of a war culture. It's not fair to both sets of civilians.
He was kidnapped for both reasons, just like many other Israelis, just like many other Palestinians. There is nothing special about his case, his case is as depressing and sad as any other person who has been kidnapped by the other side in this whole situation. According to Hamas laws', his presence/existance is illegal. We both know how insane Hamas "laws" are. What they believe, what they think. As much as we disagree with them, Shalit is the enemy to them, he is a pawn in the Israeli government's game in their eyes. On the macro level, those two things are partially connected, but not enough to create a cease fire in the absence of one or the other. The solution IMO is to get rid of the extremist elements of Palestinian and Israeli leadership and to tell the US to mind its own business. You are dreaming if you think these people in power will ever get along. Their fame and fortune means far too much to them, their religious inclinations are pubicly extreme and privately non-existant, and they will continue to try to one-up the other side as long as they live. They think they are doing God's work, and drunk with pride. The practical reality is that there are Palestinians and Israelis who want to live in the exact same geographic area, and both have legitimate historical, religious and political claims to it. If it is fair that Israel annexed land by war, then Palestinians will forever consider it viable to regain the land by war. If it is fair for Israel to allow settlement actitity, Palestinians will always see that as a legitimate means of getting back their land. It will go in cycles. Like a game of tag. But it comes down to the one thing: Palestinians and Israelis want to live in the exact same geographic area and the only way that can be achieved is through one state which treats them both equally and fairly and strikes down upon any extremist element which tries to disrupt the peace. Call it Israel, call it Palestine, I don't care. Until this group of Palestinians and this group of Israelis can move freely, fairly and peacefully within the entirety of that territory, there won't be peace.
