Where are the Israeli people when this shit happens....why do they not stand up to their terrorist rogue government? Or are they condoning this behavior?
Such a small country and they still can't control the goons who run it.
I am so tired of no accountability in government. (especially ours)
OK, let us take a closer look at what it is you are implying here, however tacitly.
For starters, we have to dispense with all normative arguments at this point because they are irrelevant in the context of this circumstance where the Arab/Muslim world stands to bring the rest of the world to nuclear war. Make no mistake in failing to take this seriously because if an existential threat arises against Israel, they will have NOTHING to lose by loosing their weapons. When that happens, we can all kiss lives even remotely worth living a fond adios.
And before you label me as some "jew-loving kisser of Israel's ass", I assure you I am anything but that. At this very moment, pragmatism is actually our friend, painful as that may be to accept. I daresay that not a single one of us understands with any minimal sufficiency the forces working here at the deepest effective levels of material power. I suspect that they are the same powers that lead to Israel's establishment in the first place. Are those powers orchestrating all of this, or did the situation get away from them? Are they the puppeteers pulling various strings to get the players to do as they would have them, or are they now crapping huge loads in their pants as their creations turn against them? I cannot say and I suspect neither can anyone else here. Therefore, we can only deal with what we have before us. If perchance the ring-masters are still in sufficiently full control, then we have no reason to fret because if their power is indeed that complete, then I suspect there is nothing any of is can do except sit back and wait to see how this situation resolves itself.
Forget whether the Israelis "belong" there, whether they are good or evil people... none of this matters. The Israelis are FACT and I doubt they will go away without the craziest fight-per-pound anyone has ever witnessed - and yes, I mean nukes. I do question why they have tolerated Palestinian presence in "their" territory at all. Is it because they are tolerant people attempting to be fair? Is it due to international pressure to be tolerant? Or is there a deeper strategy at work? We do not know and once again it is irrelevant from the standpoint of whether this is going to get out of hand on a global basis.
However, one point that
is of value in assessing this situation is to realize that the Arabs are not the only religious fanatics involved. Beneath the veneer of rationality lies a core of religious beliefs that drive the Israelis, collectively speaking. God chose
them as his people and nobody else. God gave the "holy land" to
them and to nobody else. This is what they BELIEVE and in principle it closely mirrors the mindset of the Muslims, differing only in details but not in nature.
In other words, what we have here is a religious war with a political face painted upon it. These are the basic truths.
Now, am I mistaken in my understanding that Hamas started lobbing rockets into Israel? If so, why? If this the case, then pray tell us what do you believe the Israeli response should be? We are speaking of Muslims here - people who, statistically taken, respect but one thing: strength. They despise weakness and when the see it they endeavor to destroy it. That is what they DO. Any smoochie-smoochie, lets-be-friends response by Israel will only make the Palestinians want to hurt them all the more. Again this is a RELIGIOUS war and on top of that it is a war of deeply clashing cultures. The likelihood that there is a political solution to the disagreements in question approaches zero.
Therefore, Israel is faced with a very practical choice: fight or be consumed. I suppose they could all pack their bags and move to NJ, but they will not do that. And even if we grant for argument's sake that the Jews of Europe had no right to go to live in Palestine (an assumption that would violate just about every principle of liberty some of us claim to hold dear), they now have at least a third generation who have been born there and know no other home. If the Arabs "kick them out", to what place shall they go where they would not be likewise unwelcome and having to start all over again?
I am the first to acknowledge the significant fuck-ups of the Israeli government, but the "Palestinians" are no babes in the woods either. There is plenty of blame to go around there.
Were YOU king of Israel, how would YOU resolve this, knowing what the realities are WRT the threats looming at your borders? Would you just roll over and die? What endlessly clever thing would you pull out of your hat to save the day for all time such that the Arabs would "come to their senses" and molest your people no more? Is there anything? Or would you endeavor to slaughter the bastards until such time as they got it straight for another generation or so that you mean business and will not be tread upon? These are serious questions and if you cannot answer them, then I suggest that your railing against Israel has not legitimate basis. I am not taking their side against the Arabs - but I am looking at the situation from a practical point of view on the part of the Israelis. Each side has screwed things up. The Arabs told the Jews the piss-off after '45. If freedom - real freedom - is in fact the proper underlying principle of all human relations, then what just cause did they have for denying entry and settlement? So perhaps it was the Arabs who fired the first shots in this decades-long conflict. Why are the Israelis always the bad guys? I have known several and still do and all they want is to not get blowed up real good when they go to the market.
I understand there are elements at work there that are fanatical - the lubavitchers and their religious mania. On that point I agree with you and others in questioning where are the rest of the people? But you also have to take into consideration that those people are shit-scared. I would also point out that any significant internal conflict would doom Israel to destruction. So the average Moishe is faced with the choice of tolerating the jerks who have seized power or risk annihilation by going out and protesting en-masse. Mr. Rock, meet Mr. Hardplace.
Given that the Muslim states openly hostile to Israel run from just this side of Turkey to the west coast of Africa, covering what I would imagine must be at least one million square miles, I see no reason to begrudge the Israelis just over 7K squares of sand. This whole deal is dangerously childish and I for one am in no humor for those Muslim assholes to provoke a nuclear exchange with their Israeli counterparts. This is NOT just about them. It is about all of us. If Israel nukes Syria, for example, what exactly do you suppose the Russian response might be? I doubt they will give them hugs and kisses after their people in Damascus become French fries. How about China? Pakistan is so fucking unstable in some ways, one may only hazard a guess as to what they might do.
This is a powder keg and the imbeciles Arabs with their imbecile messianic jihadist bullshit stand to get us all fracked because it should be born in mind that we do not have to have a hydrogen bomb fall on Manhattan to be sufficiently screwed. Fallout would be everywhere and it will be loads because I am quite confident in my belief that Israel would employ ground bursts rather than air as they do the most damage and produce the most fallout.
So once again: what is your practical solution to this situation?
Gary L Bauer @GaryLBauer 
it's clearly bullcrap.
