Chippy wrote:Quartz can you not even give a slight indication that killing about 300 children just might be the teensiest bit wrong. You cant write God but you can defend killing innocent women and children. Weird morals.
It is a horrible consequence of the military campaign.
Of course I would prefer if no one died.
But there are three fundamental things to be taken into account:
1)
Jews/Israelis vs Arabs/Muslims is a war that will rumble on until the Messianic era.
It is a conflict of spiritual nations, two of Abraham's sons warring with each other.
2)
Israel intentionally targets Hamas operatives, arms stores, tunnels, etc.
Never has intentionally targeted any civilians.
Has nothing to gain from targeting civilians, and is terrible for PR.
The civilian deaths are either because of aiming/information error by the Israelis, or because Hamas personnel have fired from buildings inhabited by civilians.
Israel will fire back at the source of fire.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the other hand fire their missiles into Israel with no attempt to avoid civilian targets.
They do not even make any attempt to avoid their fellow Muslims, at least one of whom was one of the casualties of this war on the Israeli side.
They glorify death, and seek "martyrdom".
Death is valued more than life.
To the extent they believe blowing themselves up in restaurants, buses and tube trains is a positive act.
3)
Hamas has been armed, trained and advised by Iran.
It is not a group of kids with catapults, but a military force with machine guns, land mines, RPGs, mortars and missiles.
Iran is seeking it's own nucleur weapon and most of the rest of the world is trying to stop it.
This Gazan war is part of the Iran vs Rest of the World tension that has been building since the late seventies.
What alternative is there for Israel but to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad?
The U.N?
Effective in Serbia, but have had little success in Darfur (genocide, rape and slavery still occuring), or Zimbabwe (chaos) or North Korea (a million people died in famine caused by government mismanagement, many masses of people in concentration camps and forced labour camps).
We have had pages of discussion and argument here but most political initiatives have failed for 60 years.
Talk of Israel going back to 1967 borders is a familiar call from some.
What would that achieve?
Hamas and Jihad would just carry on fighting, they do not care about those borders, they want all the land.
Then they would want all the Palestinians to be under their brand of fanatical Islam.
Proof?
Israel has not been in Gaza since 2005, yet the rocket attacks continue.
Israel has not been in Lebanon since 2000, yet the rocket attacks continued from Hezbollah in 2006. Much quieter since them, but Hezbollah has been re-armed.
When Hamas took over in Gaza, the first thing that happened was they fought the Palestinian Authority/Fatah!
The only way to dampen down the will of the Islamic radicals is to bombard them until they are severely weakened.
It may not crush them 100%, but can set them back for a period of relative calm.
Example one:
After losing four wars with Israel, Egypt and Jordan made peace in 1978.
They had enough, their will to fight was over.
The gains of peace outweighed the perils of war.
Example Two:
Look at what has happened in the North with Hezbollah.
They fought in 2006, but in this war they have launched less than ten missiles.
They know that any attack by them will result in a huge Israeli air campaign that will destroy most of Lebanon's infrastructure.
They cannot risk that so soon after the destruction of the last war.
Massive military action can therefore provide a deterrent against the terrorists, in this world order.
Spiritual action can bring about the lasting piece, which is a new world order that would result from a Messiah revealing himself and ushering in a heightened era of peace, technology and international co-operation.
A future world view and belief common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam (though of course with differences in the detail).
) in mosques and schools (not to mention the fact that they're booby-trapping them too) and in several other civilian-territories. They don't care about the women and children. Actually, I think they are somewhat happy, because they can show the world what have evil Israel has done to them, when they only show corpses of children. 
Well done for getting that far though, congrats everyone. 