On 2009-Jan-04, at 02:46, Chris Gehlker wrote: > On Jan 3, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Chuck Bennett wrote: > >> After Israel's half hearted attempt last time, and the internal >> political fallout of it this is about to get ugly and the Gazans are >> going to suffer the retribution they have brought on themselves. > > So which is it? Have the Gazans "brought on themselves" or are they > the victims of Hamas who "'wants' their own civilians to be killed for > the political gains"?
I wonder what percentage of Gaza's population have Hamas' outlook. Particularly the stuff about obliterating Israel, and turning Gaza into a graveyard for Israeli soldiers. (And that medic in the youtube clip wonders why the Israelis drop bombs from the safety of an F-16-- guess they also saw Black Hawk Down) Plus I wonder what percentage of Gaza just see Hamas as the only game in town, the only kind of thinking that they can imagine. Just fight fight fight. Do something, anything, to retaliate. Be honorable. Make the Israelis respect us. It certainly isn't all of Gaza, because the Spiral Dynamics people are out there liking up with Palestinians who don't want to fight, but who want to build infrastructure, good schools, universities. People who want their kids to grow up with aspirations to become doctors and engineers, and not kids who grow up wanting to throw rocks at Israelis, and then rockets, and suicide bombs. Basically they are out there finding the Palestinians who are most interested in nation building, and trying to sell that to everyone else as the most "honorable" and "heroic" way to live (as opposed to gaining honor with a gun). But the radical elements are apparently very strong, so moderates sometimes get assassinated. >> Hammas "wants" their own civilians to be killed for the political >> gains and that is the reason they fire from schools and mosques. > > And Israel does precisely what Hamas wants. How dumb is that? Exactly. And now the moderates and nation builders are getting bombs dropped on them. I wonder how many of the Palestinians killed were moderates? I wonder what their children are aspiring to now? I agree with Chuck that against the radicals, force is the ONLY thing they understand. But meanwhile, the moderates need time, they need time to start to rebuild the nation, and it is for that reason, that I think--well its friggen' obvious to everyone here--that Israel is probably making a mistake. Israel needs to exercise patience (and the world needs to get off their case). How can a hardline approach work when the guys are living right friggen' next to you.... it is a tiny area, a few kilometers separate this massive divide. Anyway, Israel should be exercising patience, yes more patience. But if they just can't stand it anymore then they're radicalizing just like the radical Palestinians want them to. Anyway, I say "probably". I guess it is also possible that Hamas was just dragging the Palestinians down even further, and the Israelis to boot, so they decided to try chemotherapy and hope that by the end of it the patient can recover. Stefano _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
