Israeli strike kills 18 family members, stirring debate over targets

Among the dead were...seven children ranging in age from 13 to 28, and a 2-year-old granddaughter, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Also among the dead were two more children, ages 7 and 12, and a 17-year-old from other branches of the clan.

"Stirring debate"? Debate? What debate can be held for children dead in rubble?

Richard Pearce:

" I love how even the article gives credibility to the propaganda claims of the Israeli regime. If the regime wanted to 'stop the rockets fired by Hamas' all they had to do was not start murdering and kidnappings mass numbers of the Refugees. "

Actually, the article tries to give credibility to the propaganda claims of Hamas, by ignoring the fact that the aggression was started by Hamas and that this is a very late and very measured response by Israel. What exactly do you want Israel to do? Still and do nothing, while Hamas peppers the whole country with rockets?

As for the claim of "murdering and kidnapping mass numbers of the Refugees", that is complete nonsense. What refugees? What murders? Yes, one Arab teen was kidnapped and murdered, and the Israeli police is holding 5 supects for doing this. Contrast that to the actions by Hamas, who try kill as many Jews as they can.

What an upside down world view.

Yabits

Your argument against Zionism is pointless.

So again, what would you have Israel do? And what would you have Hamas do?

The military sometimes holds back because of concern for civilians, said the officer who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, citing military regulations.

That 'sometimes' is patently too seldom. Enough of the disinformation, IDF.

Israel has the most moral army in the entire world

Wow! What can we say?

1,200 air strikes and 168 dead? Carpet bombing. Sure.

Hamas is an answer to the Zionist hard-liners' prayers.

The question is, why would they want to be this answer. Why wouldn't they want to be an answer to the Gazans' prayers, instead?

Hamas's main crime is

Shooting hundreds of rockets aimed at innocent people knowing full well that Israel will react eventually. There other crimes include blocking peace efforts and stealing aid meant for Gazans among many other crimes.

theft of land

You keep writing this and keep ignoring that fact that Israel left Gaza completely in 2005 and got rockets in return. There can be no peace without a meeting of the parties and Hamas is not and has not ever been interested in that.

It certainly was not a proposal by the government of Israel for a two state solution as you characterize it.

It has been the basis for a two state solution talks that have occurred ever since. It is based on the position of land for peace. When 242 was created, the land was thought to be Jordanian and Egyptian, but the basic ideas are the same. The Palestinians get land and the area gets peace.

UN resolution 242 has nothing to do with a two-state solution

Although the PLO initially rejected 242, in the early 90's the PLO agreed that 242 should be the basis for peace talks with it has formed the basis for two state talks that have come after that. So, it does have an awful lot to do with a two state solution.

However absent any formal proposal by Israel directly to the UN for a two state solution - and there never has been one - conflict will continue.

Barak's proposal in 2000 was for a two state solution. The Palestinians not only rejected it, but they walked away from the talks never to return in any real way since. No deal will be perfect for either side, but a deal has to be better than what the Palestinians, especially the Gazans have now.

To accept what the state of Israel is doing, I have to accept the possibility that a true Jew lies, cheats, steals, tortures and commits acts of terror which kills women and children. I simply refuse to accept that.

And of course, to suggest that they deny the Holocaust is absurd.

Accept this:

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Police-arrest-4-over-Yad-Vashem-hate-graffiti

Four haredi suspects from Jerusalem, Ashdod and Bnei Brak are under arrest on suspicion of spray painting anti- Zionist hate slogans on the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum on June 11, police announced Tuesday morning.

Poice searched the home of the suspects, who are members of Natorei Karta and seized large amounts of texts condemning Zionism and Israel; PLO flags; and paint. Texts suspected to be incitement to hatred were also found on computers.

It is not 1919, it is 2014. You are not qualified, nor have the right to judge who is a 'true Jew' or not. Again, you have no solutions beyond what is written on holocaust denial sites.

My solution is the two state solution where both sides accept peace and recognize each other. You and Hamas disagee and that is too bad.

Genocide.

Just as there are factions among the Zionist Israelis who seek complete displacement of all Arabs and want no compromises whatsoever with them.

They are not the parties in power. Rabin and Barak are proof that Israeli governments believe in the two state solution. Even Netanyahu has said he believes in it.

They are capable of stirring up trouble, just as they always have. Reference the King David Hotel bombing -- an act of terrorism as obvious as any Arab act.

? Please. You are talking about something that happened more than 70 years ago. There was terrorism on both sides back then, too. It has nothing to do with what is going on now.

So when you claim that Hamas just one day out of the clear blue sky started to fire rockets, my question is what Israeli action provoked them to do so?

It is not Israeli action that provoked Hamas. It is Israel's existence. Hamas is against it. This is in their charter and always has been. They are against the very idea or discussion of peace with Israel under any terms.

The Jews are not living in extreme desperation

The situation in Gaza is worse than Israel. However, whose fault is that? Israel left Gaza and Hamas shot rockets. You would not accept hundreds or thousands of rockets being shot at your country. Why should Israel?

yabits, what is your solution? Are you against a two state solution?

UN resolution 242 has nothing to do with a two-state solution (Correct, that is what I said). However absent any formal proposal by Israel directly to the UN for a two state solution - and there never has been one - conflict will continue. As for the Oslo accords these proposed only limited self-governance within a confined territory subject to control by Israel. Again that isn't sovereignty by any definition.

The phrase "land for peace" does not appear in the document

Well, land for peace is an extremely common interpretation of 242

Land for peace is an interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which has formed the basis of subsequent Arab-Israeli peace making. The name Land for Peace is derived from the wording of the resolution's first operative paragraph which affirms that peace should include the application of two principles; Withdrawal of Israeli forces (Giving Up Land), and Termination of all claims or states of belligerency (Making Peace). Since the resolution stipulates that both principles should apply they can be viewed jointly as giving up land for peace, referred to more concisely as 'land for peace'.[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_for_peace

Never in any of this time or since did the UN receive a proposal from the state of Israel to grant statehood status of any kind to the legacy refugee populations within the territory.

There can't be land without the peace. This is supposed to happen through negotiations. Of course Israel is not going to agrree to give up land and create a state without a peace deal. Look at what has happened after Israel left Gaza. Nothing good.

The last thing Israel would willingly bring upon itself is an independent Palestine State with recognition by the UN.

Prime Minister in the past and even Netanyahu says he is for a two state solution. Many Isreaelis are, too. If, there is peace.

yabits,

In all that you wrote you did not answer my questions. So, I will bow out of this discussion. I am not interested in your versions of history or what you think history was in the early 1900 or before or after that. I asked a simple question to which you seem to have no answer. You pick activists and 'historians' that match your interesting interpretations, but you still have no solutions. So, I see no point in continuing the discussion. Good luck to you.

Geneva Convention: It appears that the US, the UK and other European allies are in breach of the convention as well. And, what about the Palestinian extremists who are bombarding Israeli civilians relentlessly? There is a tremendous difference in strategies: The Israelis try to avoid civilian harm by warning people away from areas where there are to be military strikes, and Hamas targets them. Those rockets from Gaza are not going towards military targets, and the people in Israel get no warning. The terrorists target civilians through their suicide attacks in Israel. Israelis get warnings when their sirens go off, fifteen seconds. The corrupt US/European media avoid reporting on the cooperation between most Palestinians, Arab-Israelis, the services that Israeli provides, the fact that Israel supports all religions within Israel. When a wrong is committed by any Israeli, that person or persons are condemned, arrested, and no streets or buildings are named in their honor. They are considered to have violated the laws of humanity. Nope, not a peep. And when Jews are killed it is downplayed by the media, perhaps not mentioned at all. I find it unusual that as many that express such great concern over everything that the Israelis do are not concerned by the thousands of civilians killed in Iraq, in Syria, and in Lebanon, just to mention a few places where the civilians live in such constant danger. It seems to me to be blind hatred of Israel, which is to say anti-Semitism.

yabits,

You are really started to worry me with your parroting of things like 'Torah True Jews'. There are not increasing numbers of those people, their numbers were small to start with and are getting smaller. They are not in the majority. Your attempts to smear Zionists with the acts of extremists and yet your giving a pass to Hamas speak clearly of your lack of perspective on the issue. You really should consider your sources of information more carefully. I have seen the same things written on websites that I would not let a bug read.

as told by unbiased Zionists like Flapan whose primary interest is the truth.

First, an unbiased person is like a shy extrovert...non-existant. Second, there were and are plenty of Zionists like Flapan. He offers opinions on history from his own perspective. I believe you have twisted his words to fit what you would like them to mean instead of what they mean. Flapan was a Zionist and believed in the state of Israel and its right to exist.

Devout Jews have come to see Zionism as the real curse upon their people.

There are many sects of devout Jews and most do not see eye to eye with what you are suggesting at all. The vast majority support Israel's existence and its right to exist.

So how can you tell just what Hamas is aiming for?

The destruction of Israel. It is in their charter.

Rabin was a Zionist and he believed in the two state solution. You seem to only be here to 'show the supposed evils of Zionism' which you seem to actually know very little about. You had no idea Rabin was a Zionist. Perhaps you should consider talking about solutions instead of attempting to stir up emotions.

yabits**

What would you have Israel do? And what would you have Hamas do?

As for getting smaller in numbers, the high birthrate among the Haredi belies that claim.

Sigh. Again, there are many different sects of Haredim. Shas, among many others for example, enthusiastically supports the State of Israel. So, please stop pretending to know what you are talking about.

FYI, Neturei Karta is basically a fringe cult and is quite similar in their views to the Christian Right that I so often hear you railing against. The Neturei Karta participated in the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran, so I question their perspectives as well. They certainly do not represent nor speak for the Jewish people and you should stop representing it that they do. Theirs is a fringe view.

The key to understanding this entire situation comes in understanding the spirit and attitude behind the map that the Zionists presented in Paris in 1919.

I have read this same stuff on many a holocaust denial site. Again, you really should be more careful where you get your information. 1919 has nothing to do with now. Nothing. In 1919, the perspectives of the whole world were very different. What is important is now.

You still have no answers. I think that is because you are only here to put down 'Zionism', which interestingly is a keyword holocaust deniers use to refer to Jews in general. They often suggest that Jews are not really Jewish if they support Israel. I suggest it is not their place to judge who is a real/true Jew or who is not.

At any rate, as another poster correctly pointed out, your slings and arrows at 'Zionism' are rather pointless as you seem to have nothing in the form of any solution to discuss.

Israel IS breaking the rules of engagement. I understand they want to stop Hamas from firing the rockets, but exactly how bombing civilians accomplishes this really escapes me.

"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered, but never before have I watched as soldiers enticed children like mice into a trap and murdered them for sport."

Christopher Hedges, Pulitzer Prize Winning American Journalist, on assignment in Gaza

Below-in their own words-are the remarks of just a few members of the IDF describing what life is like for the Arabs living in the Occupied Territories

"The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you... You are the law... The moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God..."

"We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, we shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look"

"With women I have no problem with violence... One threw a shoe at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw shoes at me. When one of them spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't spit anymore"

"It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. Our officer suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He grabs the boy and breaks his hand here at the wrist and his leg here. Then he started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left... The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

I'm appalled that someone has stooped so low as to use the H word, not that it should be taboo, but that it's woefully inappropriate in this context.

Condemning the actions of the IDF and Benyamin Netanyahu is not anti-Semitism. To claim so is grossly insulting, disingenuous and counter-productive. Israel, all her people and her neighbors deserve much, much more than this self-limiting myth.

If a two state solution was truly supported in fact by the government of Israel then it would simply introduce a proposal in favor of that to the UN (which would be promptly endorsed unanimously by the full 193 country membership including the United States). Claims that either a single democratic state of Israel with suffrage for all, or a two state solution in which internal territory gets independent sovereign international recognition will ever be accepted by an Israeli government or its supporting religious leaders is patently incredible. What will prevail is the only default option possible: an interminable asymmetrical conflict until such time as all internal territories are absorbed and their legacy populations expelled by whatever means is convenient. This eventual "exodus" solution is what Israel supports now and forever - nothing else.

If a two state solution was truly supported in fact by the government of Israel then it would simply introduce a proposal in favor of that to the UN (which would be promptly endorsed unanimously by the full 193 country membership including the United States).

It already has been endorsed by the UN in its resolution 242 on the matter of land for peace. Israel has said several times that it is in favor of a two state solution. Barak tried, with Clinton's help to negotiate for a solution based on resolution 242 and the Palestinians walked out. Hamas has never supported negotiations and has in fact been very much against them.

Claims that either a single democratic state of Israel with suffrage for all, or a two state solution in which internal territory gets independent sovereign international recognition will ever be accepted by an Israeli government or its supporting religious leaders is patently incredible.

There is nothing incredible about it. Past prime ministers and even Netanyahu have stated they are for a two state solution and are willing to negotiate for it. Hamas is against this completely.

This eventual "exodus" solution is what Israel supports now and forever - nothing else.

Not true. There are some Israelis who feel this way, to be sure. However, this is not the stated policy of the Israeli government. It is the stated policy of the Hamas government however that Israel should cease to exist.

UNSCR 242 (S/RES/242) adopted unanimously November 22, 1967 refers principally in to the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and therefore endorses a full "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict(s)". It was submitted to the UN by the ambassador of United Kingdom and endorsed unanimously by all permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council. It certainly was not a proposal by the government of Israel for a two state solution as you characterize it. The complete one page document in English and French can be retrieved here: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/242(1967)

Deleted once already deemed "off topic". How can it be off topic after a poster makes a bold claim that Israel has the most moral army in the entire world

"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered, but never before have I watched as soldiers enticed children like mice into a trap and murdered them for sport."

Christopher Hedges, Pulitzer Prize Winning American Journalist, on assignment in Gaza

Below-in their own words-are the remarks of just a few members of the IDF describing what life is like for the Arabs living in the Occupied Territories

"The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you... You are the law... The moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God..."

"We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, we shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look"

"With women I have no problem with violence... One threw a shoe at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw shoes at me. When one of them spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't spit anymore"

"It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. Our officer suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He grabs the boy and breaks his hand here at the wrist and his leg here. Then he started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left... The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

Moderator: The purpose of the discussion board is for readers to post their opinions on the topic, not copy and paste someone else's.

Simply "having an awful lot to do with" something does equate with it being that thing. It should not be necessary to debate that point. Only members of the UN Security Council were presented with Resolution 242 in November 1967 and they alone approved it unanimously. The phrase "land for peace" does not appear in the document. PLO representatives long resisted entreaties from Israel to officially forfeit lands occupied after the 1967 and 1973 conflicts in exchange for agreement on a cessation of hostilities. Over time such proposals came to be known by the verbal shorthand of "land for peace" initiatives. Later certain PLO leaders changed tack and agreed to participate in international discussions with this principal as the basis of possible agreements to which people might be persuaded to adapt peacefully. This led to the Oslo Accords and the Camp David talks (and sadly the assassination of the Israeli leader who had supported them). Never in any of this time or since did the UN receive a proposal from the state of Israel to grant statehood status of any kind to the legacy refugee populations within the territory. The last thing Israel would willingly bring upon itself is an independent Palestine State with recognition by the UN. Any poll of Israeli opinion will confirm that point resoundingly.

Been looking through the Geneva Convention and it seems that both sides are in breech of it equally... though I doubt terrorists take notice of that... however, Israel SHOULD take notice, or be charged with war crimes...

5 Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:

(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and

(b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

6 Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited.

Israel still doesn't realize that they will never be able to live in peace by killing many Palestinians. They will just make themselves targets of radicals all over the world unfortunately. They need to sit down and talk and make concessions and sacrifices if the so-called two-state solution has any chance of happening. It is such a stupid cycle of violence. So when do they sit down for talks? After 200 are killed? 500? 1000? Back to square one yet again.

What’s fascinating to me is not so much the raw imagery from the streets, the bodies, the huddled school children, the blown up buses, the funerals and the explosions. That’s been with us for a while, though it still sickens. Look instead at the firefight over propaganda and how it’s waged. In Gaza, where telecommunications access is almost entirely controlled by Israel. There has been no other case in the history of modern warfare where one side controls all the communication infrastructure of the other. All of Gaza’s telephone networks and internet servers go through Israel; every phone conversation and email is routed through Israeli territory and from there sent on through underwater fiber-optic cables to the rest of the world.

you live in the house of a high profiled Hamas bent on the destruction of Israel. Hamas started firing rockets, Isreal started dropping bombs. Yesterday, Israel briefly entered Gaza to announce more bombing and asked the civilians to evacuate because heavy bombing will ensue in the next 24 hours. But people remained. Will the Palestenian mourn for these dead people? then let it be a lesson.

@Texana4 are you blaming the media for biased reporting when 99.9 % of the media outlets are by far jewish ownership?

@Serrano,

Too bad the 5 kids were in the Gaza police chief's cousin's home (Hamas home).

Was the cousin in Hamas? Or is it guilt by association? Does this justify collective punishment?

"Winning the hearts and minds" of the Palestinians, one rocket at a time.

Not.

I love how even the article gives credibility to the propaganda claims of the Israeli regime. If the regime wanted to 'stop the rockets fired by Hamas' all they had to do was not start murdering and kidnappings mass numbers of the Refugees. Even when the regime cold bloodedly murdered two children (that is how the Israeli regime described the radicalized youths it used to whip the Israeli public into supporting the present atrocities the regime is visiting on the part of its real population it refuses to recognize as such ) a couple of months ago, Hamas squelched, as much as possible, the efforts of some to respond to the regime's terror attacks with rockets. It was only after the regime made it clear to anyone paying attention to the facts that it was out to kill everyone who dared to be trying to hold out for justice that the rockets started answering Israeli fire.

What can Israel do that is right? Someone here mentioned the King David Hotel bombings---well, that was over sixty years ago. The Israelis left Gaza, every square inch of it, leaving behind businesses for the Palestinians there, and removing by force those Israelis who did not want to leave behind their homes. The Israelis saw that step as a step towards peace and there was goodwill and optimism immediately after among the Israelis who thought that peace would soon be accomplished. And then the terrorist attacks started. Suicide bombers, targeting ONLY civilians in cafes,on buses, in hospitals, at schools. The rocket attacks started and have never totally stopped. Israel provides health care for any and all Palestinians who need it, they award work permits to work in Israel, they attend universities in Israel, they can shop in Israel. The distortions come from the media, but I don't know why. Most of the people who are commenting negatively about Israel here have never been there, or have no idea of the history of Israel and that area of the Middle East. A tiny country in the Middle East in the desert, and tiny minority of people (less than 1% of the world's people), and all this hatred towards them, left over from the Holocaust, I suppose, by people with a similar mindset...it is frankly appalling and sickening.

Yabits:

" -- thanks to Israel's making it into the equivalent of a large prison compound. "

A prison who shoots rockets at its neighbours? That is some prison. And do you ever get around to mention that Israel is suppling electricity and water to this "prison" which is never paid for?

Personnally, I would advocate cutting off water and electricity supply for an hour for each rocket that Hamas fires on Israel. But of course, the UN and international press would immediately denounce that as inhumane. While, of course, never commenting on Hamas terrorism.

horizon360:

" If a two state solution was truly supported in fact by the government of Israel then it would simply introduce a proposal in favor of that to the UN "

Israel does truly support the two-state solution, but at the same time it insists on its right to exist. The condition that Fatah attach to the two-state solution (including the complete ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank, the declaration Jerusalem as capital of the Arab state, and the "return" of 4 million Arabs to Israel de facto mean the end of the existance of Israel. Israel has offered compromise after compromise (and even before Oslo), which all have been rejected by the Arab side.

And Hamas, which has the destruction of Israel in its constitution, we don´t really need to mention, do we?

Horizon360:

UN resolution 242 has nothing to do with a two-state solution. Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan; reversing that would mean handing it back to Jordania. (Which actually would be a much more preferable condition than handing it to Fatah or Hamas.)

If you want read about the two-state solution, read the Oslo accords. Israel offered 90% of the West bank, and the Arabs refused that. They want all, and then some.... including Israel proper.

While I agree that Israel needs to destroy Hamas I am totally against their habit of killing civilians in order to do so. I've said this before, but you don't target civvies in a war zone. It's a war crime. Also, the five minute warning is a joke... five minutes to gather the family together and get out of the killing zone? As effective as the old 4-minute warning we were to get in the event of a nuclear strike.... i.e. NOT!

Not surprising that most of the pro Israeli posters here are American... it's the same tactic as used in the Vietnam War. Blast the hell out of an area regardless of the number of civvies in the hope of taking out the launchers and/or artillery.

@mikihouse

Part of the problem is the IDF’s expansive definition of a military target. It attacked a range of civilian facilities, from government offices to police stations, on the theory that they all provided at least indirect support to Hamas militants. But by that theory, Hamas would have been entitled to target virtually any government building in Israel on the ground that its office workers indirectly supported the IDF. That would make a mockery of the distinction between civilians and combatants that lies at the heart of the laws of war, which require direct support to military activity before civilians become legitimate military targets. Behind the unsupportable legal claim seemed to lie a determination to make Gazans suffer for the presence of Hamas–a prohibited purpose for using military force.

Israelis seem dismayed that the world has not embraced the justness of its latest war in Gaza. Of course Israel is entitled to defend itself from Hamas’ rocket attacks, but when it does so in violation of its duty to spare civilians, and with so massive a civilian toll, public outrage is entirely predictable. Meanwhile, the IDF does itself no favor when it resorts to censorship, PR techniques and misrepresentation rather than subject its conduct to the open and independent scrutiny that should characterize any military that is genuinely committed to respecting the laws of war.

yabits - The vast majority of rockets are landing in uninhabited areas. So how can you tell just what Hamas is aiming for?

Hamas is aiming to murder as many Israelis as possible. Hamas is, once again, using rockets launched from civilian areas to accomplish this goal. The Hamas rockets haven't been very effective but it's not from a lack of trying. Hamas rockets are indiscriminately aimed and many are being met by anti-missiles.

Israel is entitled to defend itself. If you're truly concerned about civilian casualties (on both sides?), you might want to tell Hamas to stop launching rockets into Israel.

Increasing numbers of people are hearing the message from orthodox Rabbis that Israel is a failed experiment. Regarding Gaza:

"Orthodox Rabbis representing Torah-True Jews and Rabbinical authorities will be demonstrating their outrage at the Zionist state of "Israel" and its atrocities against the inhabitants of Gaza. What has caused a people to fall to such levels of depravity?..

"Judaism is a religion of thousands of years. Zionism is a relatively new movement of over little over a hundred years, created by non-religious Jews who aspired to transform the religion into nationalism and have rebelled continually against the Almighty's commandments. This has culminated in the terrible atrocities being perpetrated against the people of Gaza today."

These orthodox rabbis consider the nation-state of Israel to be in open rebellion against their G-d, and call for its peaceful dismantlement, as well as for full rights for the Palestinian people.

@yabits

Yes! You're a man who clearly knows of what he speaks.

People should listen.

What would you have Israel do?

The devout Jew believes his people were chosen for a very special mission on Earth. They have to put that mission above this golden calf they have created that they have chosen to christen "Israel."

There is simply no way to fulfill that mission and purpose when the entire world can point to the state of Israel and say, "There is nothing special about them. They steal, kill, make war, and build nuclear weapons just like any other nation lusting after worldly power." (By extension, this enables the nations to reject the One who chose the real Israel for its mission.)

Don't blame Isreal. Put the blame on Hamas for rocketing Israel. And what if Isreali children were killed by those rockets? Hamas is a curse on Innocent people living in Gaza.

Those rockets from Gaza are not going towards military targets, and the people in Israel get no warning.

The vast majority of rockets are landing in uninhabited areas. So how can you tell just what Hamas is aiming for?

It seems to me to be blind hatred of Israel, which is to say anti-Semitism.

And that would be gross misjudgment, the same of which applies to most of the rest of your post.

Israel still doesn't realize that they will never be able to live in peace by killing many Palestinians.

But the desire of many key elements in the Zionist movement was never to live in peace with Palestinian Arabs and never to let them have a state in the lands the Zionists consider as "greater Israel."

Take a look at the map the Zionists in Europe presented at the 1919 conference in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreement

The vast majority of the land at that time was under Arab ownership, and had been for well over a thousand years! What could have possessed any European Jew to think they were entitled to that area? Is that a map designed to promote peace with the Palestinian Arabs who owned the bulk of the land? The other key point is that Jews -- the Yishuv -- lived for centuries in Arab-dominated Palestine. So the Arabs proved for many centuries that they were comfortable living with Jewish communities in their midst, even though Arabs outnumbered them by nearly 10 to 1.

Again, there are many different sects of Haredim. Shas, among many others for example, enthusiastically supports the State of Israel.

The Haredi, as a group have a very high birthrate. The numbers for Neturei Karta are increasing, as all Haredi groups are. I wouldn't try to claim that the majority of Haredi support the Zionist state. Pictures like this belie that claim:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-of-haredi-jews-protest-draft-in-nyc/

The Neturei Karta participated in the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran,

And of course, to suggest that they deny the Holocaust is absurd. Still, you bring up Shoah and want to forget all about 1919 -- when the Zionists made their intentions known: take the land and displace the Arabs living on it. It wasn't about a Jewish state in Palestine but all of Palestine as a Jewish state. Every move made from that time has been in calm, calculated, relentless pursuit of the goal of the conquest of all of Palestine.

They often suggest that Jews are not really Jewish if they support Israel. I suggest it is not their place to judge who is a real/true Jew or who is not.

To accept what the state of Israel is doing, I have to accept the possibility that a true Jew lies, cheats, steals, tortures and commits acts of terror which kills women and children. I simply refuse to accept that.

Too bad the 5 kids were in the Gaza police chief's cousin's home ( Hamas home ).

This is all self-inflicted. Hamas deliberately started firing rockets into Israel to distract from their failure to improve living conditions in Gaza. It's no good moaning and whining when the Israelis strike back; what else did they expect? If the Gazans want to save their lives they should insist that Hamas stop firing rockets. Of course, they won't do that as they support it, in which case they deserve everything they get.

The people would not be dead if Hamas would not have started firing rockets in the first place. Whatever your position is on Israel and Hamas, at one point they were in negotiations and then Hamas started firing rockets. What is Israel suupposed to do? They have stopped some of them with their Iron Dome system, but is that the only option they are allowed to use to gain world support? They are just going to have to sit there and take it while Hamas throws a tantrum like a child? No, Israel has a right to defend itself. You shoot rockets at them, they can shoot back at you. Just because they have the means to deflect some of them and they don't doesn't give Hamas the right to act as the injured party.

However, the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem said Israel is overreaching.

Yes, overreaching. There are many Israelis who have common sense and decency. It's sad, but not surprising, to see how many buy the propaganda from those behind the overreach.

“Official spokespeople state that it is enough for a person to be involved in military activity to render his home (and his neighbors’ homes) legitimate military targets, without having to prove any connection between his activity and the house in which he and his family live,” B’Tselem said. “This interpretation is unfounded and illegal.”

Unfounded and illegal. Why isn't this Israeli position given the credit it warrants?

Hamas is a curse on Innocent people living in Gaza.

Hamas is an answer to the Zionist hard-liners' prayers. The Zionists then have an excuse to engage in unfounded and illegal overreach that kills scores of innocent people. Hamas's main crime is representing a faction of the Palestinians that won't surrender to Zionist terror, torture and the theft of land and lives.

HOW EXACTLY is Israel breaking any rules of war? Israel has the most moral army in the entire world. No other army in the history of the world, certainly not currently, gives civilians warning of the areas that will be targeted. Not the US certainly where thousands of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan by the US and its allies, and casually referred to as "collateral damage" by former Secretary of State Clinton. Notice that the media is not keeping count there, not giving a blow by blow account of the horrible plight of the civilians as Ben Wedeman of CNN is doing, while neglecting to mention the extraordinary efforts of the Israel Defense Forces to spare the lives of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli forces drop leaflets, make radio announcements in Arabic, and make personal phone calls to the homes of Palestinians to warn them from danger. By the way, the rockets from Hamas, a terrorist group, never totally stop, and it was Hamas that ramped the assault up, and finally, finally Israel had to react to protect their own citizens. The corrupt BBC falsely reported that Israel started the escalation. Not true. Let me ask: How long would any other country show such restraint as rockets targeted their civilians---by the way, Hamas gives no warnings to the Israelis at all and all rockets are aimed at civilian targets: homes, hospitals, schools. I am really shocked and sickened by the international media that so obviously hates Israel and has no qualms about lies and lies of omission where they distort the truth. It is a form of evil to lie, distort and discredit good intentions, and to fail to report anything which will show credit for Israel, like the marches of solidarity of both Jews and Arab-Israelis in Israel recently or the efforts that Israelis make to help the Palestinians.

There can be no peace without a meeting of the parties and Hamas is not and has not ever been interested in that.

Just as there are factions among the Zionist Israelis who seek complete displacement of all Arabs and want no compromises whatsoever with them. They are capable of stirring up trouble, just as they always have. Reference the King David Hotel bombing -- an act of terrorism as obvious as any Arab act.

So when you claim that Hamas just one day out of the clear blue sky started to fire rockets, my question is what Israeli action provoked them to do so? The Jews are not living in extreme desperation, as the people of Gaza are -- thanks to Israel's making it into the equivalent of a large prison compound.

yabits, what is your solution? Are you against a two state solution?

In order to have a "solution," people must first come to a realistic assessment of the problem. To do that requires an honest look at the history. It was only in the mid-1980s that archival materials related to Israel's founding were declassified and made available for analysis and scrutiny.

You are talking about something that happened more than 70 years ago...They are not the parties in power.

For example, Menahem Begin, who was with the Irgun that carried out the act of terrorism at the Hotel, most certainly did attain power. Keep in mind that the "revisionist" faction that Begin represented was willing to bring violence upon other Jews if they got in the way of their plans.

One might begin at the beginning and observe the map of the Jewish state that the Zionists proposed in Paris in 1919. Take a good look at it. (Link below.) Did that state have an inherent right to exist? The lands were owned by Arabs for the most part, and you've already got Zionists discussing how they are going to take it away and ethnically cleanse the area. If I was an Arab, why would I accept it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreement

There's a lot of heat in the US now about immigration. The Arabs owned over 85% of the land of Palestine and here is what the Zionists are essentially telling them in 1919: "Even though we don't have a state, we are going to push as many Jewish immigrants as possible into Palestine. See our map? That is what we perceive as ours. We're going to take it from you by hook or by crook. If you do anything to try and stop us, we'll make sure we have a vastly superior military force to knock you down and accomplish our aims. And the radicals among us will do everything possible to provoke you to attack us."

The first of seven myths that have to be dispelled about the creation of the state of Israel is this one, according to the Israeli journalist and historian, Simha Flapan: "Zionist acceptance of the United Nations Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947, was a far-reaching compromise by which the Jewish community abandoned the concept of a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine and recognized the right of the Palestinians to their own state. Israel accepted this sacrifice because it anticipated the implementation of the resolution in peace and cooperation with the Palestinians."

As Flapan's research shows, this was a complete myth. The reality is that the acceptance was only a "tactical move in an overall strategy. The strategy aimed first at thwarting the creation of a Palestinian Arab state through a secret agreement with Abdallah of Transjordan, whose annexation of territory allocated for a Palestinian state was to be the first step in his dream of a Greater Syria. Second, it sought to increase the territory assigned by the UN to the Jewish state."

You pick activists and 'historians' that match your interesting interpretations, but you still have no solutions. So, I see no point in continuing the discussion.

I am under no delusion that I have the solution to a problem that is not mine to solve. Once upon a time not so long ago I bought into the Israeli myths until I was challenged by Israeli voices to dig deeper. I am still a supporter of the Jewish people, but not the crimes being committed on a daily basis in their names. My hope is that Americans will become better acquainted with the historical truths about Israel's founding -- as told by unbiased Zionists like Flapan whose primary interest is the truth.

I had "no interpretation" but the myths I had been taught and accepted. When folks from the Israeli side, including a general in the IDF, stepped forward to provide a counter to those myths, the demands of truth-seeking compelled me to listen. I have made references to source material that I hope will spur other readers who are interested in truth over myth to examine for themselves.

Am I going to sit idly by and let the Israelis kill and maim thousands more Palestinians? I'm not. I'm going to provide a set method for ensuring that Israel no longer has the will to terrorize people in their homes and bombard schools and hospitals.

It is time for Muslims everywhere to provide the Palestinians an actual means to negotiate from a position of strength so as to meaningfully "threaten" to destroy large segments of Israeli cities if the Israelis fail to negotiate in good faith for a two-state solution.

Already, useless rockets are being smuggled into Gaza, which only serve as a pretext for Israeli incursions. Let's up the ante. No more rockets. Use the same means and methods of smuggling weapons into Gaza for the introduction of guided missiles to overwhelm Israel's supposed Iron Dome.

There are advanced Chinese and Russian guided missiles available for sale. It's time to start purchasing these instead of rockets that are little more than firecrackers and useless as bargaining chips.

Once the Palestinians can inflict a commensurate level of harm on Israel as Israel currently has on Palestine, you will see the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" come into play. Settlers will stop terrorizing the Palestinian populace and the Israeli government will stop initiating turkey shoots in Gaza.

Muslims everywhere, get it into your heads that you need to support the purchase and delivery of guided missiles to Gaza in order to ensure the protection of Palestinian lives and property. As long as Israelis feel safe from effective Palestinian retaliation, these fascists will continue with their "Final Solution" of the Palestinian problem.

You are really started to worry me with your parroting of things like 'Torah True Jews'. There are not increasing numbers of those people, their numbers were small to start with and are getting smaller. They are not in the majority.

Regarding those who truly keep to the Torah, I would not expect them to be in the majority. As for getting smaller in numbers, the high birthrate among the Haredi belies that claim. More importantly, it is their message that is finding larger and larger audiences. Or perhaps it is the time that Hashem is starting to open more ears and hearts.

Here we have Israel over decades forcing itself onto lands not belonging to it and indiscriminately killing people who dare to put up a fight. This is not the Israel of Torah, called out to be a light to all nations. Today's state Israel is, and was from its conception, a golden calf.

The key to understanding this entire situation comes in understanding the spirit and attitude behind the map that the Zionists presented in Paris in 1919. Jews in Europe, with no provable genealogical ties to ancient Jews of Palestine, after nearly two thousand years of divinely imposed exile, were deciding for themselves to take back land, and not just that land which was apportioned to the tribe of Judah. Moreover, that land did not belong to them!

Yes, it is Zionists like Flapan who confirm for the historical record that this modern state of Israel was born of subterfuge, murder, and land theft. The two main forces working within Israel today are the traditional hatred of neighbor which these indiscriminate killings in Gaza demonstrate, and the stirrings of the Jewish conscience based in Torah. The former fosters pride and faith in military power and human prowess, and the latter the complete opposite.

The solution is and has always been a return to Torah. Modern Israel has no faith in it, which is why they had to develop weapons of mass destruction and murder to hold onto what they have stolen. They will know no peace whatsoever, nor should they. Some light among nations...

@Wulfe N. Straat

More violence is not the answer. Devout Jews have come to see Zionism as the real curse upon their people. Zionism is a natural human reaction to the many abuses suffered on the Jewish people, but it is a human reaction.

Consider the following link, which has orthodox Jews calling for the peaceful dismantlement of the Zionist state of Israel.

http://www.nkusa.org/

"What can Israel do that is right?"

Roll over and die?

Israel may have to eventually raze Gaza to drive out the terrorists launching rockets at them.