Lets be frank, this was a targeted assassination by a nation state that consistently tries to paint itself as a beacon of democracy in the region.
Say all you want about Ahmed Jabari but his modus operandi was a direct result of a life of occupation and subjugation. You don't go into prison at the age of 22 and come out 13 years later a happy individual. I mean it was only 6 years ago that Hamas was democratically elected in a process considered fair and transparant, only for the elections to be found null and void by those (US/Israel et al) outside of Gaza!
Edit: On a side note, I wonder whether many people know that Likud, the Netanyahus political party, does not recognise Palestines right to exist!
Erm, I haven't seen this at all. In fact, most of the people I know who are most critical of Israel are also critical of Obama's foreign policy (though most begrudgingly voted for him anyways, because, y'know, Romney).
Is there anyone in Israel running for office on the platform of "let's not assassinate terrorists"? Are these people under the illusion that they would vote for such a person, or abstain from voting if no such candidate presented themselves?
Once you vote for an assassin in your country, you lose the moral authority to denounce another country's assassinations. Romney or not.
I'm sure there's people who do this, but I doubt there are many of them in this thread. The fact of the matter is that both the Israelis and the Palestinians consistently commit horrible crimes, in the name of some perceived God-declared right to a strip of desert.
On individual cases, you can't blame Israel for defending against hand-made rockets flying over the Gaza strip border. Similarly, you can't blame your average Palestinian for joining the resistance after an Isreali army bulldozered his village to make place for Israeli houses and theatres.
Both sides, in many ways, are equally bad. The main difference is that Israel can choose to stop colonizing, can choose to give Palestinians basic human rights to allow some sort of economy to develop. The only thing Palestinians can choose to do is to stop fighting. There's a difference here.
I don't see how all of that has anything to do with Israel being a Jewish state, except of course that declaring a single-religion state, in general, is asking for trouble.
EDIT: In a different set of comments here, it was pointed out to me that Isreal is in fact a "surprisingly secular state". I tend to believe that. So in that case, you can scratch my last line. In exchange, we all stop calling Israel a Jewish state.
I'm not going to say Israel is a font of ethical behavior or that your analysis is, in broad strokes, wrong, but there are a few facts that should get clarified.
First, the settlers aren't settling in Gaza, they're settling in the West Bank. This makes the idea of rockets-as-retribution a bit strange, since relations with the West Bank are decent and they obviously undergo a lot more daily molestation than Gazans do since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.
Also, Israel is in no sense a single religion state. There is complete freedom of religion in Israel. There is an "official" orthodox Judaism there which sadly has the authority to determine if you get a real Jewish wedding among other things, but there are Muslim and Christian Israelis among everything else, and the stripe of ones Judaism is not relevant to immigration.
Not really. Rockets are rockets. You'd be an imbecile to think you could fire nearly a thousand into the country across the border without experiencing military repercussions. If you live in one of the densest places on earth, you're not just a moron, you're also endangering hundreds of innocent bystanders by doing it. If you've seen the results of this antagonism in the past and you do it anyway, you're maliciously insane. If you launch your rockets from your apartment building, your kid's school, you must know what's going to happen as a result. Israel hasn't summarily executed six people in the street for being "Palestinian conspirators" during this mess, but Hamas has. Ten percent of rockets fired by Gazans land in Gaza, destroying their own buildings, infrastructure and killing their own people.
Who's holding the gate closed to this giant prison camp? Nobody, as it turns out, except Gaza itself. Look at questions 14 and 15 on this poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion:
80% of Palestinians won't give up on right of return, and they won't accept a cash buyout either. The former is as likely as America peacably returning the land to the Native Americans. The latter is an actual possibility, but what's the point if they don't want it. The Palestinian Authority doesn't want a large migration rate out, because it hurts their appeal for statehood and the argument for right of return. Hamas is responsible for turning Gaza into a prison camp, not Israel. Compare to the situation in the West Bank, where you could legitimately say there is too much Israeli interference, yet there is peace. If Gaza wants peace, they should show Hamas the door and elect Fatah. It worked for one half.
Israel has a fundamental responsibility to its citizens to guarantee their safety, and that responsibility has precedence over protecting the lives of innocent bystanders living in an enemy territory surrounded by agents who are actively attacking them. As far as this particular Gaza expedition goes, their hands are clean. This one's on Gaza.
> I don't see how all of that has anything to do with Israel being a Jewish state, except of course that declaring a single-religion state, in general, is asking for trouble.
Israel isn't a state for Judaism, it's simply a state for Jewish people. The set of Jewish people is not equal to the set of people who practice Judaism.
You know, many people don't know that Jews form an ethnic group, not just a religion. There is a surprising lack of knowledge about our, admittedly small, but still widespread and supposedly familiar group of people.
Right, good point. I see I've been mixing those up. So it's a single-race state? Or not that, either? (not intended in any offensive way - I'm just trying to understand what you're saying)
What do targeted assassinations have to do with democracy? The USA, the great bastion of democracy, engages in those as a matter of daily practice. I don't think these tactics are always useful but it's one of the things that can happen in situations where you have two parties who want to fight a war. I would say the outcome was a result of choosing to wage an armed struggle (mostly targeting civilian population) towards the destruction of Israel. He made his choices (which included firing hundreds of rockets to population centers). What does "recognizing" someone's right to "exist" mean in this context? "Palestine" is not recognized by anyone in the world so why should the Likud recognize it? This is a new entity that the Palestinians want to create. Perhaps it is the best solution for the region but for it to actually exist some sort of agreement has to be reached.
Since this is HN let met just say that I hope you don't apply the same sort of oversimplification to the code you write. Technically Gaza may have been under Egyptian control historically but Egypt doesn't want it back. Israel has no presence in Gaza. So there's no occupation in Gaza and no apartheid in Gaza any more than there is South Korean occupation and apartheid in North Korea. That doesn't mean everything is right in that region but unfortunately there are no simple solutions that satisfy the wishes of both sides.
Why can't North Korea import missiles and parts for their nuclear program through the South Korean border? I say, we must protest that. Israel is at war with the Gaza entity so they blockade it (partially, oddly enough Gaza does get a lot of supplies from Israel). To continue the analogy, just like North Korea can import through its border with China so can Gaza through its border with Egypt. As evidence of there being no effective blockade look at the amount of weaponry available to the Gaza people. Israel doesn't pretend to treat Gaza well so there's no need to whitewash that. However to some extent it's a function of Gaza's attacks on Israel. In the west bank Israel also doesn't treat the Palestinians that well and the "apartheid/occupation" argument may hold a tiny bit more water there but it's also some sort of more stable Palestinian partial autonomy over there. The west bank used to be under Jordanian control and Jordan doesn't want it back either. Anyway, as I was saying the situation is far from simple. It's not black and white.
Because if they had that access, they would import weapons to use to kill Israeli civilians. Are you forgetting which side of this conflict tends to strap bombs onto their chests before walking into a nightclub?
Is it the same side that straps children to the front of armoured troop carriers? You're trying to make this a dichotomic issue when its not. How do you expect Hamas to maintain a truce with Israel when Israel prevents them from acquiring the basic tools necessary to govern!
I get it, no confectionery == we'll fire missiles randomly at your country. If confectionery is so important why don't they smuggle some from Egypt. Israel does have a policy of minimizing what they allow through their border to a bare minimum but there is another border and there is an option to negotiate improving the situation. If you said the policy was stupid I might agree with you but it doesn't justify the Hamas. If Hamas was motivated to reach some sort of long term stability they would act differently.
> How do you expect Hamas to maintain a truce with Israel
I don't, because Hamas is a terrorist organization with the express goal of destroying Israel. And it's not for lack of candy, either.
> Is it the same side that straps children to the front of armoured troop carriers?
Um, do you have any kind of evidence of that ever happening, or is this just another blood libel? Google literally brings up your comment as the only relevant result.
Lets be frank, this was a targeted assassination by a nation state that consistently tries to paint itself as a beacon of democracy in the region.
Say all you want about Ahmed Jabari but his modus operandi was a direct result of a life of occupation and subjugation. You don't go into prison at the age of 22 and come out 13 years later a happy individual. I mean it was only 6 years ago that Hamas was democratically elected in a process considered fair and transparant, only for the elections to be found null and void by those (US/Israel et al) outside of Gaza!
Edit: On a side note, I wonder whether many people know that Likud, the Netanyahus political party, does not recognise Palestines right to exist!