Gaza death toll rises as Israel hits a disability shelter

[Spider]

[Saz]

This is what I don't get about those who act as if Israel doesn't have any claim to the land. I don't see Israel as different from any settler colony. It was simply the last one to be created. Europeans have gone around the world and populated parts of just about every continent. Does a 250 year head start make you in the right? Does the fact that you slaughtered all the natives so they couldn't complain, make you right? it's not a great leap of observation to realize the only reason the palistinians are still a problem is because israel was to late in history to employ the "solution" most other settler colonies did.

To me Israel is pretty much the South Africa situation. Bunch of relatively recent whites, bigger poorer native population. Both regimes have been kind of oppressive in the past. But the reason south africa has moved forward and palistine has not is because of the choices the opposition made. I guarantee you south africa would still be an apartheid regime today, had all her neighbors waged war on her every 10 years. Had the blacks blown up busses in Johannesburg or demanded the whites be driven into the sea, they never would have let power slip. It was the recognition of white rights to play a part in the new south africa that opened the door to end apartheid. Hamas on the other hand, still does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Combine this with the fact that half of the jewish people were literally exterminated for being jewish not even a century ago, and you can understand why the palistinian demands are counterproductive to the point of being unreasonable. This is not a nation that will ever put itself in a position of military weakness, just as the whites would never have ceded absolute military authority to the blacks, even if it meant gunning them down in the streets. But once their safety and survival was no longer in question, apartheid fell quite rapidly. Once the safety and survival of Israel and her citizens is truly no longer in doubt, their position in the west bank will simply become untenable. But for that to happen Hamas, and the rest of the Palestinian leadership, need to pull and ANC and drop the militant nonsense and focus on their social efforts alone.

[exploited]

Israel hasn't faced a real military threat since 1968.

[Saz]

[exploited]

[Saz]

[eynon81]

[eynon81]

[exploited]

I have no idea where you guys got the idea that the African National Congress was nonviolent. They engaged in wide scale violence from the 1960s onward, and the tempo of their violence actually increased as time went on. They quite literally chose to abandon nonviolence because it wasn't working:

"There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate." -Nelson Mandela

He then proceeded to create the militant arm of the ANC.

Between 1985 and 1989, five thousand civilians were killed due to political violence between two anti-apartheid groups, with mob actions, torture and summary execution throughout the country. In one incident, the ANC executed over thirty captive South African soldiers. They regularly bombed movie theaters, shopping malls and bars. Overall, they killed far more people in a decade than Palestine has killed in four decades.

Also, Mandela supports the Palestinian people, and has spoken against Israel war crimes in the past. He once said "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."

But, you know, the Holocaust.

[Saz]

Good job reading the Wikipedia.

Now examine the end of apartheid. Mandela was a former militant, which is where you snatched your out of context quote from. International pressure forced the regime to roll back some discriminatory laws. Now, Mandela and the ANC responded by ending their militant campaign and calling for peace. Compare this to gaza, where international pressure forced and Israeli withdrawal in 2005, and rather than take the Mandela approach and renouncing violence for the sake of progress, Hamas just shot more rockets! This is the f**k point. Mandela came out of a 27 year sentence and called for peace and an end to the militant campaign. It worked and he is a near god to South Africans and the world. When presented with a similar opportunity, the Palestinians had no Mandela and made zero attempts to end their insurgency.