Great find Mdv2. The article was great. Definately good food for thought. Common sense and all that are definately missing when it comes to Israel/Palestine.

Hamas won the Gaza Elections.


And at that point both the US and Israel refused to work with them at all.


GO DEMOCRACY!

Well, sadly for the Zionists, according to international law Hamas must be supported - as they are the legitimate, democratically elected representatives of the people of Palestine. There are lizerally dozens of other dictatorial regimes that are not only supported and recognized by the international community, they are granted a place at the UN table despite their human rights records or the fact that they were NOT elected by their people.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
Hamas won the Gaza Elections.


And at that point both the US and Israel refused to work with them at all.


GO DEMOCRACY!

The US has greatly failed in the last decade when it comes to diplomacy. All they have reached with their policy of not talking to organizations and governments they don't consider to be friendly, is isolation. This isolation is definitely not the key to peace. Therefore, one can argue that peace with these specific countries might not be in the US interest.

I agree with you that Hamas hasn't had a chance. They offered Israel to discuss a two-state solution, but Israel refused to even speak to them. Instead, they started isolating them, like the US does to its 'enemies.

Should they have given dialog a chance, the situation might have been much different by now.

Additionally, the fact that Israel continues to annex more and more of the land belonging to the Palestinian territories is one of the primary reasons for Hamas' violence.

Like I said, I understand their desperation. The US ensures Israel is never condemned through the UN security council, allowing Israel to be above the law - they have ignored international laws time after time with US support, while the same country condemned Russia's retaliation on Georgia. This gives them the ultimate freedom to do whatever to want to the Palestinians, and I cannot deny their only purpose is to move Palestinians out of their territories with the goal of creating a greater Israel. This ideology is supported by the leading Israeli party: Kadima.

However, the bottom line is that civilians should never be targeted, there's simply no motive that justifies that. If you support Western democracy, unlike some Western governments, you cannot support Hamas' violence against innocent civilians.

Good article.

I have said and stated that Hamas is the problem and the reason peace is not possible at this moment. That is not to say that Israel is right in what it is doing either. The civilians on both sides are the ones paying the price. Sooner or later these two sides will have to learn to live alongside one another or this innocent bloodshed will never end.

Originally posted by jam321
The civilians on both sides are the ones paying the price. Sooner or later these two sides will have to learn to live alongside one another or this innocent bloodshed will never end.

The question remains whether Israel truly wants to live alongside Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians has accepted (approx. 70%) that they will never get all of the land back they used to live on and would be more than happy with a two-state solution.
One can argue that Hamas' terroristic background was reason enough for Israel not even to engage in negotiations, but before Hamas was elected, Israel also allowed settlers to build new settlements on the West. All Rice said was 'that's not helpful to a solution'. As mentioned, I think that the Israeli government wants the Palestinians to move to other Arab countries so they can start creating a 'greater Israel' like supported by Kadima. We should be objective about Hamas, but also about Israel since they have done too little to reach a real solution.

Also the US and the EU are to blame. The US for its biased position in this conflict, with its power it could have reached much more than the Oslo treaty, and the EU for its powerless approach towards this conflict; coming forth from guilt feelings.