New Hamas leader killed

Yes that is what I meant. Slanted against Israel. And funding a moderate group is a huge difficulty, but also one that's not really addressed with any real resolve or determination. It may have to go further than funding one. Someone may have to help organize one, fund it, do the training, do publicity for it, support it as it grows, etc. That's a lot to ask for, but the rewards might be well worth it.

 

If one of an organization's primary goals is the elimination Israel (and it's people) - and they are actively working to that end - I have a hard time accepting the validity of ANY 'educational services' they provide.

Slanted?

Recruiting might be a better word.

 

I think it's a problem seeing things in such black and white terms. Hamas believes the spiritual and social services are the backbone, and the suicide bombings serve that end more than the other way around, but they do participate in suicide bombings, and that is no doubt terrorism. I'm no friend of Hamas, but because they provide social services they will always be seen as helpful by many in the community. Israel being an enemy of Hamas is definitely just. Israel should be an enemy of Hamas and all Palestinians as long as they occuy land outside their borders. The way they fight that enemy is the problem with Hamas. In order to best eliminate Hamas it would be necessary to provide the same services if not better ones, and have a genuine interest in helping the community and people.

 

I haven't heard of Sharon using his high-priced weapons to kill women and children only members and leaders of terrorist organizations.

 

What about the large numbers of civilians who have the bad luck to be walking along a street when a car carrying targets gets blasted? I'm not taking sides, but there are very large numbers of innocents killed during Sharon's "targeted" attacks. Both sides are crazy, if you ask me. It's the civilians on both sides who suffer the most.

 

If I am hanging out around gangbangers, and I get killed in the crossfire of a shootout with a rival gang or the cops, I wouldn't say the rival gang/cops are responsible for my death, but rather my hanging around with a bad element. If Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al Aqsa (sp?), etc were ostracissed from the community, then no innocents would be killed. When the Palestinians allow themselves to be used as human shields, then they can expect to be in harms way.

 

1) Glad you brought up Lebanon; why is there no hue & cry internationally, no protests, no UN resolutions demanding an end to Syria's occupation of Lebanon?

2) Last I checked, Arafat became a billionaire plundering the PA/PLO coffers.

 

Huh?

Hanging out with = walking down the street where their car is passing, living in the same block, etc.?

Remember, to extend your analogy to the actual occurence, the police have built walls, displaced people etc. and left them no option but to all live in the same ara, as determined by their race. SO for the police to then attack that area and say " omelette/scrambled eggs" when bystanders are killed is a little selective, no?

 

Are you nuts? There are no gradations of hate. They are suicide-bombing anyway so why not kill their leaders? Cut off the head and hopefully the rest of the snake dies. Terrorist butchers deserve death. You can't negotiate with them or try to get them to see reason. Israel does want peace. That is a lie perpetuated by a pro-Palestinian media. You need to read this editorial from your own Houston Chronicle.

link

 

The Palestinians were wise to not accept the deal offered during the Clinton administration. It would not have left a viable economy to support any sort of a state.

It is wrong to say that Israelis or Palestinians don't want peace. There are segments of both Israelis and Palestinians that will never be happy with each other as neighbors no matter what. There are people on both sides who will always want the other gone. However Palestinian hatred will decrease once they are no longer faced with having their rights taken away, especially when those rights aren't related to the Israelis security at all. The Hatred will decrease when they are no longer occupied by a foreign army. Their hatred will decrease when they have their own state to worry about. There will be a small group of Palestinians who will still want to destroy the Israeli state, but when the general anger and rage aren't continuously fed by an occupying army, and laws which discriminate against them for no other reason than nationality.

There will still be a small segment of Israelis who will continue to believe that all of the land should be theirs. They won't be satisfied no matter what. But the numbers of those that currently support the strong arm tactics that have proven unsuccessful will decrease as they see that their families neighborhoods and streets are safer.

It is going to take both sides willing to change, and probably international peace keepers in their to seperate and sort out the trouble makers from both sides. But it's really the best hope they have.

 

Should they not have offered an alternative??

I probably cut Israel a lot more slack than is deserved -- especially under Sharon's reign. I take strange comfort in an elected leadership that has to form coalitions with other parties in their nation to govern. I see a system in place that could, conceivably, find compromise and solution.

I don't see that with Hamas or Arafat.

 

It's just a horrible situation overall, but I do see a qualitative difference between what the Israelis are doing and what these Hamas leaders are doing. One side targets civilians because they hate them for belonging to a nation. The other one targets leaders of terrorist groups, and believes that if some innocent people get killed in the course of taking out those terrorist leaders, it will prevent the killing of even more civilians. Also, they seem to try as good as they can to avoid killings of non-terrorists, whereas the other side seems to try as good as they can to not only kill civilians from the other side, but they don't mind killing their own people (the misguided suicide bombers) in the course of this either.

One does not necessarily need to agree with the Israeli logic that killing the Hamas leaders and accepting that some uninvolved people get killed during that will prevent more civilians' deaths, but as I said, I think it is something completely different from what the terrorists are doing, and Sane has it backasswards.

 

I absolutely agree with you that the Palestinians should have offered a counter proposal, and given up some of the less desired land for the better land.

I also agree that Hamas and Arafat are not the way to go as far as leadership. Arafat is barely hanging on to things. I don't think he's really serious as far as getting a workable solution for two-states. Priority number one for him is holding to what he has now. He won't hand over enough of his power to the prime minister. Hamas obviously supports and carries out suicide bombings. So they won't work. It's a rotten situation for people who are served by corrupt leadership. They need to be shown that somebody else could make there lives better, and get rid of Arafat.

 

I wasn't saying that Sharon hasn't killed any innocent people I was just saying he hadn't aimed for killing them, I mean there are always innocent bystanders in any type of conflict. Suicide bombers on the other hand target innocent people on buses, sidewalks, restaurants, etc. I might be a little more understanding if these bombers targeted the military but not ordinary people.

By the way, I'm not stating I like one side more than the other I agree with many on this board who think both sides are nuts.

 

You previously stated that hamas was not Anti-Israel, yet they envision a world w/o Israel?

And what exactly is meant by Israel envisions a world without anyone else?



If Rantisi was a moderate who could be negotiated with, then the Israelis may have hurt themselves. But then, it wouldn't alter my low impression of sharon anyway; he's as blind as arafat.