[SpardaSon21]

Nice try. Maybe you should look more closely at what is actually being said.

Hamas have never officially said that they want to drive the Jews out of their homes AFAIK. In fact a lot of them have said that they don't mind the Jews living in a Islamic state of Palestine. Their issue is with the existence of the state of Israel. They wish to turn back the clock to pre-1947 unpartitioned Palestine and have a single state under Muslim rule.

So what you are saying is that since Hamas wants to eliminate the nation of Israel, the nation of Israel can and should negotiate with Hamas?  I'm not talking about the citizens of Israel here, I'm talking about the government of Israel.  The government of Israel cannot negotiate with Hamas since Hamas wants to destroy the government of Israel.

Now look at the IRA. What did they want? Well their issue was with the existence of a separate Northern Ireland. They wanted to turn back the clock to pre-1920 unpartitioned Ireland and have a single state under Catholic rule.

Now personally I have little patience for either argument. Both of them are a case of people arguing about stuff that happened so long ago that most of the people involved are dead. But I find it quite funny when people try to claim that Hamas want something very different from the IRA. Had Northern Ireland become an entirely separate nation instead of remaining part of the UK I doubt that we wouldn't have seen something like the IRA come along and try to use violence to reunite the country.

Hamas does want something different from the IRA.  You said yourself Hamas wants to remove the nation of Israel.  The IRA did not want to eliminate England as a nation, they wanted a part of England to no longer be English.

[iamzack]

Israel has no right to exist. None.

[Flipside]

Neither does the United States, it just does.

[Snail]

[Commander Zane]

Israel has no right to exist. None.

Neither does the United States, it just does.

Or the human race for that matter. It'll be the cause of its own downfall.

[karajorma]

So what you are saying is that since Hamas wants to eliminate the nation of Israel, the nation of Israel can and should negotiate with Hamas?  I'm not talking about the citizens of Israel here, I'm talking about the government of Israel.  The government of Israel cannot negotiate with Hamas since Hamas wants to destroy the government of Israel.

So because someone wants something different from you, you can never ever talk to them?

Again, take a look at Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement resulted in a power sharing government between people who want Northern Ireland to stay part of the UK and people who want it to be reunited with Ireland. According to you, that must be impossible since they want diametrically opposite things.

Hamas does want something different from the IRA.  You said yourself Hamas wants to remove the nation of Israel.  The IRA did not want to eliminate England as a nation, they wanted a part of England to no longer be English.

Got a phone call here. It's 8 million angry Welsh and Scots. They want a word with you.

[Flipside]

Actually, iirc, what the final intention of the IRA was, was to create all of Ireland as the sovereign nation of Eire.

[Slasher]

Hamas does want something different from the IRA.  You said yourself Hamas wants to remove the nation of Israel.  The IRA did not want to eliminate England as a nation, they wanted a part of England to no longer be English.

Got a phone call here. It's 8 million angry Welsh and Scots. They want a word with you.

In this imaginary world there are no Welsh or Scots or Cornish or Irish or United Kingdom, just England lol

x 8,000,000

[Blue Lion]

There are other people there? Are we sure? They never talk about them over here in Amurika.

[karajorma]

The fact that he was talking about Northern Ireland should have been a hint that there was more to the UK than just England though.

[Grizzly]

Yes, but people usually call Great Britian just England for some dark and mysterious reason. I bet it is the English own fault, so the Scottish and the Welsh should get them...

Just like that we call the USA America, while the USA si only a small part of the northern part of America. But then again, they do like to pretend that they rule the whole continent (and more)...

And exactly how do you propose to get a long-term cease-fire without negotiations? Cause that sounds like something pretty much unprecedented in history to me.

The Versailles Treaty (WW1 edition)?

[karajorma]

Huh? The armistice was a short term cease fire signed six months before the treaty. The fact that they needed a treaty pretty much proves my point that you can't simply just stop shooting at each other.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Nobody quotes civilian vs. soldier casualty rates for WW2 or Korea or Vietnam.  BTW, at last count, the USA and coalition forces in Iraq had lost about 6000 soldiers to around 15000 or 2000 enemy combatants with something like 3000 civilian deaths, accidental or otherwise.

Things changed since WW2. Our standards got higher.

We just had the luxury of not having to fight fullscale wars with opponents that are on an equal footing.
Had the Cold War gone hot the fighting would have been just as brutal as during WW2, if not worse due to nukes.

[karajorma]

While that is true, I doubt anyone could claim that Israel faces a full scale war with an opponents that is on an equal footing.

[Grizzly]

Huh? The armistice was a short term cease fire signed six months before the treaty. The fact that they needed a treaty pretty much proves my point that you can't simply just stop shooting at each other.

They needed the treaty to exact their revenge and bleed the Germans dry.  Germany was not really involved in the negotiations...

But on the other hand, the losing side actually wasn't capable of shooting back, since it broke apart and the new government did not have any guns to begin with.

[karajorma]

Which is why it didn't work in the end.

[iamzack]

Neither does the United States, it just does.

Israel is the equivalent of Native Americans rising up and killing everybody because their ancestors lived on this land.

[Flipside]

Everyones ancestors lived on everyone's land, most of Europe was a game of Geographical musical chairs for thousands of years, same in the Middle East.

I'd say Israel is more like people being bought in from another country and displacing the people who already lived there because they were more technologically advanced, which is exactly what happened in the USA. Yes, there are theological differences etc, but, in essence, the idea is the same.

In truth, any nations 'right to exist' is based on its ability to stop its neighbours from invading.

[iamzack]

But the Jews in Israel went there specifically because it was their ancestors' land.
Israel can fall in a well and die.

[Mika]

I didn't expect to see this many replies. It gets harder to keep track...

And how the hell is that me claiming that independence for Gaza is a bad thing?

In case you're misinterpreting the weapons thing. Israel has constantly used the claim that Hamas are smuggling in weapons as a reason to blockade and periodically invade Gaza. But if the state of Palestine exists then that entire argument becomes moot. As an independent state they have the right to buy as many weapons as they can afford.

That argument came after I said Palestine should exist as a separate and independent country!

Whether Israel has right or not to exist is not for me to decide. I think UN has already made their view clear and the majority of countries has accepted it.

What it comes to Hamas, I'm still seeing major warcrimes being committed by them. The evidence is available in YouTube for everybody who read Splinter's posts. This fact makes it relatively difficult to believe they would be happy with the original Palestinian land area with Jewish people in it. Thus I don't see the fusion of West Bank and current Israeli state as any kind of solution to the conflict.