But will we see any prosecutions.

IF Israels justification for the war is to stop indiscriminate attacks on civillians by Hamas rockets then why are
Israel killing over 4 palestinian civilians for every one Hamas fighter whilst
Hamas is killing 17 Israeli soldiers for every 1 civillian.

Surely it is Israel who are carrying out indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian civillians.

Targeting UN safe zones, UN schools,the only power station in Gaza, independent media outlets being bombed. Dropping over 100 1 TONNE bombs on a densely populated urban area.


All of this should be regarded as a war crime ?


No wonder Muslims become radicalised. All this happens and the west stands back and does nothing.

According to save the children charity.
1 in 4 of all Gazans being killed is a child.
That would mean 275 Palestinian children have being killed in the last 3 weeks.

Does that make the state of Israel baby killers.

( i await to first accusation of anti semitism by the usual suspects)

Are you Joey Barton? Why is it that people only look at this issue with one side in mind with a pre-conceived bias towards the innocents of Gaza when in reality it's a nigh on unsolveable issue that is magnified by horrific behaviour on both sides.

You want to know why UN schools are attacked? Because they let Hamas use them as bases to fire rockets from. Hamas use the media to mourn the dead children, the media buying it in spades, yet it is Hamas who hide behind children.

Don't believe everything you read in the press and most certainly don't take the pictures you see in the papers and on twitter as proof of anything. Several of the images of children have been Israeli, yet they are used as stock images on websites and papers to support the idea that it's only Palestinian children dying.

The reason fewer Israeli civilians are dying? That's because of the defense systems stopping wave after wave of Palestinian missile and preventing the deaths.

Israel overreact, but Hamas are the aggressors, they are ones consistently breaching peach treaties and cease fires. Firing from (And accidentally at) schools and parks and hiding in populated areas despite knowing this will get innocent people killed. The fact that a terrorist organisation is in Government is a joke and should not have been permitted by the UN. Democracy only goes so far, if the people democratically elect a terrorist organisation who intends to wage war on another ethnicity, is that permissible?

The land grab is the main issue here of course but is a massively complex situation that the Joey Barton's who are blindly supporting Palestine don't even attempt to consider. It is not something that is going to be stopped by Israel stopping their current offensive and it something that will need outside intervention.

I don't disagree with much of your post but your post suggests that "The East" in general is expecting "The West" to solve the problem.

Why doesn't "The East" do something?

Has "The East" actually asked "the West" to intervene? What is the way to intervene which might stop the killing? How does "The West" know which armed conflicts in the Middle East it is allowed to get involved in, and which not?

Why would Muslims become radicalised? I don't believe it is the general religion of occupants of Gaza that upsets Israel, I believe they would act in the same way whatever the religion or religions of the inhabitants of Gaza. Hamas is their sworn enemy, and there are many reasons but I don't think specifically being Muslim is one of them. There are plenty of nearby Muslim territories that are not being decimated by Israel. They seem to have their own particular worldview, which is set in granite, and in reality will never be affected at all by anything "The West" may say or do. And the firing of 100 or so rockets a day at Israel by Hamas is ultimately not something they can or are likely to ignore, though I'm sure they use it as a pretext for other goals than simply defence.

It seems obvious that the occupants of Gaza would be likely to become "radicalised", and they happen to be 99% Sunnis, but surely they would be as likely to become radicalised against their foe, regardless of what religion they are?

If Belgium was firing 100 rockets a day aimed at London, would the UK use any armed force to suppress the attacks? Would we care that (or even if) it was Belgians, Christians or even Martians that were doing the firing?

A great post. I absolutely detest how casual news observers throw their entire weight behind Gaza because, y'kno, DEAD CHILDREN AND STUFF! LOOK AT THE DEAD CHILDREN AND STUFF! I bet they don't know that given half a chance, Hamas would happily slaughter the entire Jewish population of Israel without a moments thought. Including, y'kno... Children and women. That entire region would destroy Israel given the means to, Iran has even said so itself. These are the same type of people who didn't know anything about Mandela but the media told them to care, so their facebook and Twitter posts became Mandela eulogies for 6 weeks. Sheep.

As opposed to say, Israel, who have just ignored a fair number of UN resolutions instead?

Both sides are as bad as each other. Politicians and/or terrorists, but its the innocent that suffer.

Hamas put their weapons in built up areas so when they fire at Israel they are fairly safe until the IDF launch weapons back at them and then civilians get caught in the crossfire. As Chris says above - both sides are as bad as each other.

I often wonder how much less trouble in the world there would be if everyone suddenly realised that when you're dead, that's it, no heaven etc just end of innings. One (of innumerable) problems with conflicts is when many on one side actually want to ide as they are convinced they will be a martyr and hit the afterlife jackpot. If you could somehow remove that belief then you wouldn't stop conflict but you sure as hell would make a bloody great dent in it.

That said, I don't see how it can fairly be said the Israelis and the Palestinians are as bad as each other; no doubt Hamas' suicidal tactics cynically factor in the martyrdom effect, and use the certainty of huge numbers of dead as a tool to both court world publicity and stir up feelings of muslims seeing innocent muslims killed. But the unfortunate residents of the Gaza strip are largely powerless, blockaded and under constant siege, up against a nuclear power with one of the most highly armed forces in the world. I see as much parity there as I see in civilian casulaties. Which is none, really.

Seems a simple situation to me. The international community recognises Israel as a state. People (terrorists), whether you call them Hamas or whoever, attack them and Israel try to crush the attackers. The terrorists are, as I understand it, are funded by oil rich Arab states and that's why they are probably content to let innocent Palestinians get slaughtered. It's about time someone started dealing with the funders.

I think parity is a bit of a red herring really. In war no side aims for parity. I don’t think that this situation would be any better or more tolerable from either side had 1100 Israelis died as well. Nor do i think we would be seeing less death if the IDF had less advanced weapons.

Im also not really sure we can hold Israel responsible for the actions of the IDF, but not Gaza for the actions of Hamas.

I think that the vast majority of both sides would like peace and would be able to live with the concessions necessary to achieve that. Pride and politics will not allow their leaders to accomplish that. Both sides still think they can achieve peace by winning when in reality peace is winning.

I am with those above who pointed out the naivety of Durham Giant's comments.

On the news the other night there was VT evidence of a Hamas rocket being fired from a school. The Israeli's have asked that civilians leave northern Gaza. Those that have chosen to stay are being used as human shields and the media are lapping it up.

Of course war is terrible and innocents always suffer. But Israel has the right under international law to defend themselves when attacked. With their history it is understandable why they return fire with interest.

It is a big mess and it is most unlikely that there will be a peaceful solution. With the rest of the region either in or near a war zone I would not be surprised to see this latest clash develop and Israel send in their ground forces into Gaza and stay there.

Do you mean those funders who are friends of the United States?

Welll Hamas are a terrorist organisation they cannot travel freely anywhere in the western world.

I feel i have evidenced significant examples of war crimes and " terrorism" by Israel.

Maybe if a few leaders in the west were to say that Benyamin Netanyahu Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Gantz were told they were not welcome in the west and could be arrested for poetential war crimes they might stop killing Palestinian kids