I hate the 'blame both sidesism' that people use to describe Palestine/Israel.

The arms deal was approved on May 5th, and Congress notified. Congress has until the end of the week to vote on it, and the vote must be Presidential veto proof.

It is NOT a war between equals, but it's not a war that the Western powers, and some regional powers (Saudis, Emirates, Kuwait) would like to see Hamas win, or appear to win.

The unspoken truth, is that they all want Hamas clipped, as it's a danger not only to Israel, but primarily to the Palestinian people's chance of peace. Of course Netanyahu and those who brought him to power, are just as big an obstacle to peace, but nothing is going to change that, except for a political change from within Israel.

Palestinians exhibited an unprecedented (since the Intifada) show of unity. Normally, the PA and Israeli Arabs would not give a shit about Hamas, but Netanyahu's SS troops have taken it too far in Jerusalem.

I like John Oliver, but just as he points out the lopsided nature of the conflict, he's also misidentifying it, using classic war terms, declaring it's an apples to apples comparison. It is not. It's apples to oranges.

A very complex situation. Netanyahu asked Biden for one more day, to finish off the head of Qassam Brigades.

There's also an internal Israeli political struggle. Gantz (min. of defense), does not want Netanyahu to reap the political benefits, as Gantz tries to "accomplish" something, as so far, none of the goals sought by Israel have been achieved: 1) the head of the Qassam brigades is not only still out there, but most of the civilian casualties resulted from strikes that were designed to kill him, but ended up hitting residences he was not at; 2) Hamas has not lost its ability to fire rockets, and Israel is nowhere closet to figuring out how they continue to fire; 3) only a tiny portion of the tunnels have been destroyed, not enough to cripple Hamas; 4) Hamas' popularity is up.

This was not a well thought out Israeli action, but the minute Hamas fired its first on Jerusalem, Netanyahu had no choice, and despite the Gaza devastation, Hamas will emerge the winner.

In addition to the civilian casualties, the primary victim is the unity government, Jewish-Arab, that would have brought the first Arab ministers into the Israeli government, to replace the Netanyahu government. That's no longer a possibility and Netanyahu may be back.

You agree that there should be a "but" after he says that Hamas shoots of a 1000 rockets which he calls "reprehensible"? Because what comes after the "but" is pretty stupid. It's not because a rocket doesn't reach the target, that the act of firing off a rocket doesn't have the clear intention of hitting the mark. And since Hamas with his random rockets are just firing all over the place to hit random non-combatant targets, there is no "but". Just like every target Israel hits that is full of non-combatants is reprehensible without a "but", so are similair actions of the opponent. Attacks on non-combatants and infrastructure that don't belong to the political institutions that govern, can never be justifiable.

It's kinda hard to just discredit the "protection" argument that Israel keeps playing, when Oliver clearly thinks that shooting 1000 rockets towards civilian territory is rephrehensible. If Hamas was a bit smarter and not goes shooting rockets over civilian territory, then you could at least invoke that argument. Now it just feels silly. This could have stayed with local riots, but Hamas never really was good at that and by doing what they do they make it pretty hard to hold an honest discussion about just the citizens that seriously need a break from all the crap that they have to endure and the hot heads that still believe that Palestine should be free from the river to the sea. Which is... well, totally delusional in todays context.

At that John just cuts out all the context to make it easy on himself... well, that's just lazy John. He ussually isn't that lazy. But I can symphathesize here and there. If people were really concerned about international law [i](which I am too)[/i] then the nations inside the UN should enforce it. Since the UN has no power, and totally relies on the goodwill of it's members. The US, European nations and a bunch of other powers that have a seat in the UN should do what they should do, enforce the laws they voted and signed years ago. Laws that are supposed to protect [i](or try to safeguard)[/i] all human beings from war crimes [i](that means everyone, including you... the reader)[/i]. But because geopolitics is full of favoritism, I would be amazed that this will actually happen. In the meantime, Israel will enforce national law which is their right as a sovereign nation. They should abide to international law too, but since no one is going to enforce it, those civilians out there are just as much victims of the international community that keeps staring and not doing what they have to do then they are victims of being born on the bad side of the fence in this tribal-conflict. Because everyone in full support of Israel might want to wonder how their world would look like if they popped out of a Palestinians' vagina in the West bank or the Gaza strip.

I also wonder why I don't here a lot of voices discussing that the political people in charge on both sides are just trying to crick up their popularity by showing muscle. Even though all the civilians are loosing, both Hamas and Likud can profile themselves as strong political leaders at the cost of everything and everyone else.

He has a pretty good take on this.

For me, I liken it to the US's history with racial issues, where there's a massive power imbalance between the gov and a group that's oppressed. When that group retaliates due their plight, though that's not a moral justification, it is met with a disproportionate response which only highlights how there is no equal playing field.

When it comes to optics, the oppressed people have a lot to gain from not feeding into the both sides narrative, as hard as that may be. Bc then the convo shifts from Israel's terrible policies to what palestinians are doing, similar to how a civil rights protest turned violent shifts the convo from the US gov's policies to whatever protesters are doing.

Yeah I'm disappointed by the arms sale. Your literally giving them weapons and asking them to use the honor system and not use them.
Instead the US could have withheld them and used it as leverage to get them to cease fire.

It's 100% about ethnic cleansing and that's why NATO has always let Israel do whatever they want.

"Both sides are bad" pretends both sides are equal in power and influence and that's just a ludicrous statement.

The arms sale.
That says it all.

https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm

[quote]SECURITY COUNCIL
7853RD MEETING (PM)
Israel’s Settlements Have No Legal Validity, Constitute Flagrant Violation of International Law, Security Council Reaffirms[/quote]

Palestine is a tragic sacrifice zone

and its not the fault of the Jews but maybe america's filthy military outpost in the Middle East...Zionist Israel

SHAME on the NWO for allowing and enabling and ENCOURAGING THIS,,AND endangering the safety of ethical Jews everywhre...just like ME!!!

So do I. Israel is a sovereign state and Hamas, supported, funded and probably contolled by Iran, aims to destroy Israel. No room for even-handedness in my opinion.

Historically such an arrangement is doomed to eventual failure. It's just a matter of time.

I'm not sure American hypocrisy on the issue can stand much more stress. Bibi will go on a PR war, and be lauded by Republicans if there is anything but 100% support, but at this point there is right and wrong. American aid to Israel must be conditional.

Our media seems to confuse people over simple matters pretty often.