> You say you see no paralells, and so, hypothetically speaking, you'd have no trouble if the Palestinians bombed the cities these law markers live in, who use the shield of democracy to hide behind a 10 million strong populace?

I understand the missiles. I think it hurts their own people more but I do understand that. The saying here is that if Hamas puts down its arms there will be peace. If Israel puts down its arms there will be no more Israelis. That isn't wrong although the reality is more nuanced.

E.g. the PLO did put down its arms and the result isn't stellar for them either. This is exactly due to those racist government elements. The racists on the Israeli side actually supported Hamas until last week. They did that in order to weaken the PLO and weaken the chance of a Palestinian state. Unfortunately, they were very successful.

The PLO at its current state is so weak, the Palestinian people have no real leadership. Even if Israel is successful in destroying the Hamas there will be a huge vacuum and no one to run a Palestinian state.

> > They are not fighting for their people, they are fighting for their god, it's a war for the purpose of death not liberation.

> The Palestinians don't desire death. I'm sure, they'd want to live as freely and as purposefully as folks on the other side of the fence in Ashkelon and Ashdod.

I was writing about the Hamas not the Palestinian people. The Hamas wants death plain and simple. If you don't believe me I suggest reading up on them and their charter.

They consider any Palestinian civilian death as part of the holy war to be a blessing. They are unwilling to settle for a part of the land. They demand the entire state of Israel. There's no negotiating, no discussion and no compromise.

> What about the seige? There have been reports of shelling without warning, too.

I totally agree that this is horrible and isn't helpful to Israel or its cause. Unfortunately, there's a thirst for blood on the Israeli side. You need to understand the scale of this thing. It's a small country. It's as if 9/11 had 40,000 casualties adjusted to population size. Everyone knows someone who was there and probably at least one casualty.

Hamas new exactly what they were doing. That's why they kidnapped children. That's a trigger at a level and scale we've never seen. They know how to push the buttons and are doing it to trigger the government with the express intention for Israel to murder as many Palestinians as possible. They hope this will enrage the surrounding Arab countries enough to trigger an all out regional holy war for the destruction of Israel.

Israeli bombing civilians is something Israel is doing as part of a Hamas strategy. It's stupid and plain evil.

> I recall, that's how a journalist reporting from there died.

There were several journalist deaths but only one from Lebanon was reported here recently so I might have missed one. Israel said it is investigating it but honestly, they don't do a great job with that. To be fair, plenty of journalists died in US wars too.

But again. I think the bombings are terrible and mostly help the cause of the Hamas.

> Surely, there is a way other than destruction at this scale to kill a handful of who, you claim, are suicidal folks fighting for God?

I would surely hope so but there will be many casualties either way. Ground forces will go in and those will increase dramatically. This is warfare in neighborhoods. That's hard and deadly. Even a tank becomes vulnerable and often can't move. Finding the enemy in these situations is nearly impossible.

The logistic concept of destroying the buildings is removing places to hide when the ground forces move through the streets.

> Surely, you can see that the refugee camps of the West Bank, the barriers in Jerusalem, the walls in Hebron, the crossings at Gaza pack a generation of humiliation which leads to desperation that results in nothing but more pain.

I agree. This situation includes a lot of fault for Israel and its leadership. Unfortunately, I don't see things improving. Even if Bibi is finally held accountable for this debacle the question is who will replace him.

People write about these things a lot in the local papers. There are many organizations that try to fight for the Palestinian people and try to restore faith in a two country solution. But so much poison was thrown in the well that the majority of people around here refuse to see the other side.

Major claims are here are:

* Hamas was voted into power - they chose the Hamas.

* When the attack happened last week people were celebrating in the streets in Gaza.

They aren't wrong. For more than a decade Hamas controlled the narrative in the west bank and brainwashed a generation. They all believe that we're all murderers and must all be killed. How do you unwind that and make peace?

Since the Palestinian leadership was decimated who do you even make peace with?

As a very far left liberal humanist I'm at a loss here. I don't know how anyone can fix the current situation.