Hamas strike on Israel

Are you really using what happened in 1947 and 1967 as some kind of roundabout justification for the situation the average Palestinian finds themselves in today? What relevance has it got? How many of those in power in 1947 are still in power today? I would imagine none. So who exactly do you think should be copping on?

You think Palestinians of today should be punished for the sins of their grandfathers? Collective punishment, got it. A favourite tactic of the most moral army in the world that you seek to defend constantly. For people that scream antisemitism as soon as anyone mentions anything negative about the Israeli government or the IDF, you are fairly fond of speaking in general-isms yourself.

It is so easy to sit and type frantically on your key board and argue semantics and bring up a rejected deal from 1947 or 1967 - while you are here doing that, kids (imagine your own son or daughter if you're a parent) are being bombed and sniped at while waiting to be given a daily ration of food. How anyone can condone that, or "whatabout" that with some rubbish about 1947 is beyond me.

Do you really think so little of Palestinians that you think that they have been fooled by Israeli manipulation for 80 years and haven't been capable of independent thought to conclude that violence is not an option?

The Brits made us do it was a pathetic excuse put out by good republicans here, seeing it repeated as the Israelis made us do it is no better.

Hamas make a choice every single day. Release the hostages and end the Israeli excuses for the conflict or keep the hostages and subject their own people to more pain and suffering. We know which one they choose every single morning.

The mad notion around here is that we should go back to the 1948 boundaries and ignore the realpolitik of the wars repeatedly lost by the Arabs.

The fact you keep going back to the hostages speaks volumes. Its another attempt at diversion from the topic at hand. You and I both know it will change nothing. Netanyahu abandoned them long ago, even the families are in agreement on that. Do I think they should release them? Absolutely. Will it change anything? Absolutely not. But again, you using it as a justification speaks volumes.

If all the hostages are released, the internal pressure within Israel on Netanyahu will suffice to end the conflict. Hamas appear to have an interest in prolonging the conflict which I am struggling to understand.

If all the hostages are released, the internal pressure within Israel on Netanyahu will suffice to end the conflict.

There is zero, actually less than zero, evidence to support this claim.

Whether Hamas want to prolong it or not, it is not an excuse for collective punishment and war crimes, which is something you seem to support and attempt to justify here on a daily basis.

The point is that Hamas could release all the hostages tomorrow morning and Netanyahu could still go on his 'war'. In fact, I think the hostage release would have absolutely zero impact on his longterm plans for Gaza and nor would he give a hoot what international opinion had to say.

He has never been remotely bothered about what anyone thinks and even went as far as to say that an opinion poll of Israeli public opinion this weekend was "fake" and could be ignored.

Right so taking 250 civilian hostages is worse than trying to starve 2 million civilians to death.

Innocent people are being killed every day by those who you support.

Nobody is saying that these people haven't been killed or that killings were all justified or that the IDF have not been killing people.

However, the determination to apply the term "genocide" to what is happening is a determination driven by factors other than the legal process for determining genocide and the legal principles of genocide. The same energy isn't being devoted to the greater number of deaths in Sudan, for example.

Those who keep claiming that what is happening in Gaza is not a genocide appear to be on shaky ground : putting forward spurious arguments of how it is not similar to the Holocaust, when that was a horrific standalone event in world history. Most genocides have been much more similar in fact to the one in Gaza.

Latest person to call it a genocide is a Jewish Israeli genocide expert who served in the IDF, in an opinion piece for the New York Times:

As I recall it, the 1947 plan was a UN-produced and UN-endorsed plan for the region. So the Palestinians were correct to reject the UN plan back then, but the Israelis are wrong to reject UN-endorsed plans now?