Let me first add that I am not knowledgeable about most all of these issues and won't pretend to be, but watching and listening to the reasoning for continuing and the escalation of a bombing campaign got me even more confused.
So I'm asking. Why a bombing agenda that kills civilians no matter how carefully prosecuted, if, as has been stated, that is what 'Hamas wants'?
This video has an excerpts from CNN & from ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of a “double war crime,” saying that to gain sympathy and line up the international community against Israel, Hamas "wants* to kill civilians on the Israeli side, and the amazing grotesque and gruesome fact is they want to have as many civilians killed on the Palestinian side."
@ minute 2:00+ is the bolded comments from Netanyahu
(link to this video with more YouTube ABC videos in case this one gets pulled)
Netanyahu’s speech to the Israeli Parliament, Knesset
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu speech in front of the Knesset (15 Jul 2014):
To Ismail Haniya, and the leaders and operatives of Hamas:
We, the people of Israel, owe you a huge debt of gratitude. You have succeeded where we have failed. Because never before, in the history of the modern State of Israel, has the Jewish people been so united, like one person with one heart. You stole three of our most precious children, and slaughtered them in cold blood.
- emphasis added
Netanyahu is grateful and owes Hamas: "..a huge debt of gratitude.." .."with one heart" -
This sounds like the tallying up of political reward (point scoring) garnered by the slaughter of innocents
something about that way of thinking/pandering/whatever it can be labeled, I'm not sure, but at least on the surface of it, is wrong - imo - and shows no desire to reach a peaceful solution long needed and zero heart
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Netanhayu asks: "What choice do we have?"
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I've been hearing other ideas that don't include bombing that sound like a good place to begin again, like this article posted @ the Guardian by Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson (August 5, 2014):
Gaza blockade must end | The UN should mandate an end to the siege of Gaza as a first step towards a settlement
Israelis and Palestinians are still burying loved ones killed during Gaza’s third war in six years. Since 8 July, more than 1,800 Palestinian and 65 Israeli lives have been sacrificed. Many in the world are heart-broken in the powerless certainty that and despite the latest ceasefire, it seems that more will/could die yet; that more are being killed every hour.This tragedy results from the deliberate obstruction of a promising move towards peace, when a reconciliation agreement among the Palestinian factions was announced in April.
This was a major concession by Hamas, opening Gaza to joint control under a consensus government that did not include any Hamas members. The new government also pledged to adopt the three basic principles demanded by members of the International Quartet (UN, US, Europe, Russia): non-violence, recognition of Israel, and adherence to past agreements. Tragically, Israel rejected this opportunity for peace and has until now succeeded in preventing the new government’s deployment in Gaza.
Two factors are necessary to make the unity effort possible: at least a partial lifting of the seven-year sanctions and blockade that isolate the 1.8 million people in Gaza; and an opportunity for public sector workers on the Hamas payroll to be paid. These requirements for a human standard of life continue to be denied. Instead, Qatar’s offer to provide funds for the payment of employees was blocked by Israel and access to and from Gaza has been further tightened by Egypt and Israel.
There is no humane or legal justification for how the Israeli Defence Force is conducting this war, pulverising with bombs, missiles and artillery large parts of Gaza, including thousands of homes, schools and hospitals, displacing families and killing Palestinian non-combatants. Much of Gaza has lost its access to water and electricity completely. This is a humanitarian catastrophe.
There is never an excuse for deliberate attacks on civilians in conflict. These are war crimes. This is true for both sides. Hamas’s indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is equally unacceptable. However [...]
It also seems like
not all Jewish people are "so united" on this bombing campaign as this pro-Israeli site indicate:
Fadi El-Salameen [a senior adjunct fellow with the American Security Project] agrees, opining that “the only way this war can truly end is by lifting the siege and opening the borders.” He told The Media Line that, “Only a political solution could end this fight. There is no military solution.”
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Maybe growing up with a little brother has made me protective and to instinctually go after bullies, but I am trying to ignore that inner-voice, be fair, and figure out how
"unconditional" fits in with intelligent solution seeking foreign policy.
So while Netanyahu is busy with both 1) his media campaign apportioning blame within the MSM; that Hamas 'wants' people to die on both sides and 2) the ongoing bombing campaign that is achieving the deaths he accuses Hamas of striving for, why help with that killing as a policy?
It makes no sense and certainly not for future generations to come who are living, remembering and dying right now
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And this; "unconditional"
We've been hearing a lot of "unconditional" talk right here at home from our own neo-con chicken-hawks:
We must "demonstrate our our strength" or the world will view us "as weak" blah blah - "leadership" - blah blah. It almost never leads to anything positive. Just more war & death - imo - and the reason I'm asking
There has to be something better than bombing
Thanks for stopping by