hypochondriac

Given the stakes involved, I could see why Israel would be particularly sensitive to misreporting. Particularly given that the BBC are supposed to have a reputation for decent journalism and are influential on the world stage for that reason. Such a misattribution can have grave consequences.

I'm not knocking this and it sounds like a good evening, but ultimately this is all bollocks if we keep losing more than winning. This approach will ultimately be dictated by results and if we get spanked too many times the it doesn't matter how much Martin says we aren't changing.

I am of the firm view that you are utterly blind to the realities of the situation and are weirdly trying to conflate the two sides when they are entirely separate with differing motivations. It doesn't make Israel perfect or even particularly good but it is absolutely clear who is the antagonist in this scenario and who has more people on their side of the divide who would gleefully take the opportunity to torture and remove the other side from existence if given the opportunity and use their holy book as some sort of justification. I'm on the side of Israel having a right to exist and having the right to prevent those who would torture old women and kidnap children from doing so. I'm perfectly aware there was a history prior to this month, it doesn't change what has happened and that Hamas knew what the response was going to be. Like you said, best you leave it there.

I don't necessarily agree with this particular incident- I don't know the context and the article only presents one side- but my point is why any response (disproportionate or not) exists. You could say that the IDF have acted aggressively or with disproportionate forcebwhich I am sure they have at times, yet this atmosphere and reaction would not exist if they weren't surrounded on all sides by countries who want to kill them and by Hamas in particular on their doorstep. Like I said, if the attitude of Hamas was one of peace then the response woukd be entirely different. Not so if the situation was reversed. You know that's true.

If that's the case then it would help if you avoided unnecessary inflammatory language like blinkered and naive then.

The truth is you will never be able to eliminate the ideology because it is so ingrained in these people. It's like ISIS you will never be able to fully eliminate it but you will be able to cripple it to an extent that it loses its capacity to harm you in such a manner in the short to medium term. Ideally I'd like peace but that would have to mean that Hamas completely sheds its desire to murder Jews and recognises Israeli's right to exist and that isn't going to happen.

Again, if Hamas had not threatened and then carried out multiple deadly attacks against Israel and it's citizens then there would not be any response- deadly or otherwise. It's only because of ongoing killings and murdering (some of which are mentioned in that very article) that the response from Israel exists - whether you agree with it or not. If Hamas suddenly decided to preach peace and called for open borders etc, you wouldn't have Israeli's parachuting into Gaza and torturing innocents jn the name of their imaginary God. That isn't the case the other way round and that's the stark difference you refuse to accept.

Still trying to conflate the two. You're the blinkered one and what's sad is you don't even realise it and think it's everyone else.

What part of the Hamas response has made anything better? What collective effort or discussion is going to remove Hamas from their present stance of wanting to kill the Jews and remove them from Israel? Like Lighthouse said, the same argument was put forward about ISIS (in fact I believe it was soggy who advanced it on here) and it was proven to be absolute nonsense. What destroyed them was significant amounts of force.

The motivations are entirely different. The only one with a bizarre perception or wilful ignorance is yourself with your odd assertion that they are in some way the same.

So if you don't think that's the aim of Hamas, what do you think are their aims?

The only person who is naive is the one continually using the term about people who disagree with you.

Are you suggesting there is no evidence that Hamas don't want to wipe out Israel?

So what form of compromise did you have from Hamas to try to improve the situation? Because hampering the ability of Hamas to acquire heavier weaponry has seemed like quite a good tactic from Israel thus far to limit the murder rate.

So you think if Israel ended their occupation of the West Bank that Hamas would then back down in some way from their current stance of wanting to kill all Jews and remove them?

And he has the temerity to accuse others of calling him anti semitic for what he perceives to be something minor. It's staggering hypocrisy but pretty much par for the course for soggy.

What compromise? Israel should be allowed to exist. They should stop blockades and recognise Palestine and allow the border to be open but they would be unable to do that presently as Palestine wants to murder them all. I have no doubt that if Hamas did what I had outlined that the call for Israel to respond woukd be deafening and imo they would respond positively. They aren't going to end the blockades now or lower their defences for obvious reasons. Why would they?

I could say likewise about yourself. We aren't going to agree because you don't recognise the clear and obvious difference between the two. (I note the reaction from the rest of the Muslim world too which has frankly been disgusting but not surprising.)

Yes they are involved as well but my point is that if Hamas was so inclined, they could work towards solving the problems but they won't because they've sworn to eradicate Jews from Israel and they believe that the qaran gives them that justification. Israelis don't have that option because if they just allowed Hamas to do what it wanted, they would end up with more death and slaughtering. So there's one side who wants to commit genocide given the opportunity and another side who if they stopped their defensive actions-whether you agree with the or not- know that it would result in many or most of them being killed.

If Israel had decided not to respond, to allow any goods through to Palestine and allow free travel, do you think the violence against Israel would go up or down? Do you think Hamas would become peaceful and no longer attack? That this course of action would put more or less weapons in the hands of Hamas? However, if Hamas decided that their goal was to work towards improving the lot of the Palestinian people, stop attacks, recognise Israel's right to exist, use foreign aid to improve infrastructure etc and this stance is maintained for a number of years, then most of the problems would be solved. Hamas has the power to make things better but they refuse. Because they hate Israel and want all Israelis dead.

Certainly not the level of certainty that major news outlets or nation states had yesterday at any rate.

Not just permission, they believe they are commanded to do so.

My point is they don't want to share anything with Israel as evidenced by the fact that they have turned down more than one opportunity when offered. A large number want to slaughter them all.

So again, what's your realistic alternative? Israel wants to get rid of as much of Hamas as they can. Hamas cares nothing for human life, uses civilians as human shields and stores weapons and hideouts in hospitals. If you want to get rid of a large amount of Hamas then unfortunately there will be some unavoidable civilian casualties due to how Hamas operate. Beyond the bellicose rhetoric from both sides, Israel simply has to respond to the slaughter and terrorism and it's unrealistic to expect them not to do so.

Palestine were offered that opportunity in the 1940s by the UN. They declined.