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Originally Posted by classicman
He said, she said. Who struck first.
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Lets look at the facts.
A six month ceasefire occurred on June 19th, 2008 between Israel and Hamas on the conditions that Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel and Israel would allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is very much needed.
Lets look at the stats. The following is a graph showing rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza.
We can clearly see that Hamas made a very good attempt to stop rocket fire into Israel from the start of the ceasefire until November. The numbers on wikipedia say rocket fire dropped 98% and keep in mind their are other factions besides Hamas in Gaza and have taken responsibility for a few of those rocket fires while the others remain unclaimed.
On the other hand, during this time, humanitarian aid into Gaza increased only 20%. Yes, there are legitimate reasons for Israel to block off humanitarian aid but they did not live up to their side of the ceasefire as Hamas did.
Now that brings us to November, when rocket and mortar attacks increased dramatically. What happened during this period?
On November 4th, Israeli intelligence got hold of information saying that a kidnapping of an Israeli soldier was going to take place through a tunnel between Gaza and Israel. To prevent this, Israel when into Gaza and killed six militants. After this event, we can see a very sharp increase in rocket fire.
So with this information we can come to conclusions.
- Neither Israel nor Hamas truly respected or lived up to the ceasefire
- The reason for Hamas attacks are because of the blockade and siege. November 4th was a catalysis, but the ceasefire was obviously not going to last.
- Israel was the first to officially break the ceasefire. November 4th was a very big mistake on their part. This is also assuming Israeli intelligence was correct.
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They all need to STFU & start over like adults. There is so much friggin blame to go around its pointless to mention it.The problem as some here have pointed out, is that they are teaching their children HATE.
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Besides the irony of saying it is pointless to mention blame and then blaming Hamas for teaching children to hate, we really do need to change our method of viewing this situation. This problem can never be solved on moral philosophy, both sides will always think they are the morally correct side, and should be viewed as a power issue.
For example, the method of fighting by both Hamas and Israel should be seen as immoral but necessary because of the power disparity between the two sides. Hamas cannot fight with any other method besides the one they are doing now and Israel cannot either. To blame either side for their methods of fighting is pointless, idealistic, and will not solve anything. Neither side will change.