Why I feel little Sympathy for Israel
Israel has been engaged in a continuous attack on the Palestinian people for at least the last forty years, seizing land and building settlements in blatant violation of a number of treaties regarding occupied land to which Israel is a signatory. The Israeli public has clearly endorsed this criminal behaviour at the polls and several times elected war criminals and mass murderers as prime minister (Begin and would be Nazi collaborator Shamir). Israeli civilians are not innocent bystanders, they are directly responsible for their government's actions. Like Apartheid South Africa for whites, or Stormont for protestants, Israel is democratic for Israelis, even if not for the rest of those it rules. Anyone who failed to vote for political parties opposed to the settlements is guilty of supporting them and has by their actions declared themselves an active enemy of the Palestinian aspiration for an independent state. Hamas are not doing anything that Israel didn't do when they attacked Lebanon last year, attacking the infrastructure that supports the attacks on their people.
Israel has never done anything to indicate a sincere desire for peace, not even remove less than a hundred violent racist religious fanatics from the centre of Hebron, indeed rather than remove them Israel retained control of about 20% of the city and many thousands of Palestinians. The cowardice of the Israeli government in the face of a tiny number of people, who if they were any other ethnic group would be called neo-Nazi, is deeply shameful. Especially when compared with the murderous savagery with which Palestinian protests are met. Israel has violated the land for peace principal by not only failing to remove the settlements already built nor even by merely freezing the settlements, as they are, but has actually vigorously expanded them.
During the previous Hamas ceasefire it was Israel who initiated the cross border fighting by first conducting an air attack and then a launching a ground attack when Hamas retaliated. During the ceasefire before that (the one in place during the Palestinian elections) Israel responded to Hamas winning the election (a result of Fatah's corruption incompetence and the failure of negotiation with Israel to achieve anything) by imposing harsh sanctions before Hamas had actually done anything. Israel demanded that Hamas explicitly endorse existing agreements rather than treating practical compliance as implicit endorsement. Fatah had got very little for making some very big concessions, only promises of future concessions which were never fulfilled. Hamas might, at length, have been willing to make those concessions but wanted Israel to make concessions of a similar scale at the same time. As it is Israel has repeatedly failed to respond positively to Hamas ceasefires, this does not give Hamas much incentive to try a peaceful approach. Violence has borne results, Israel has been forced to retreat from both Lebanon and the Gaza strip meanwhile in the West Bank settlements continue to expand, underlining the failure of negotiation.
Israel has never done anything to indicate a sincere desire for peace, not even remove less than a hundred violent racist religious fanatics from the centre of Hebron, indeed rather than remove them Israel retained control of about 20% of the city and many thousands of Palestinians. The cowardice of the Israeli government in the face of a tiny number of people, who if they were any other ethnic group would be called neo-Nazi, is deeply shameful. Especially when compared with the murderous savagery with which Palestinian protests are met. Israel has violated the land for peace principal by not only failing to remove the settlements already built nor even by merely freezing the settlements, as they are, but has actually vigorously expanded them.
During the previous Hamas ceasefire it was Israel who initiated the cross border fighting by first conducting an air attack and then a launching a ground attack when Hamas retaliated. During the ceasefire before that (the one in place during the Palestinian elections) Israel responded to Hamas winning the election (a result of Fatah's corruption incompetence and the failure of negotiation with Israel to achieve anything) by imposing harsh sanctions before Hamas had actually done anything. Israel demanded that Hamas explicitly endorse existing agreements rather than treating practical compliance as implicit endorsement. Fatah had got very little for making some very big concessions, only promises of future concessions which were never fulfilled. Hamas might, at length, have been willing to make those concessions but wanted Israel to make concessions of a similar scale at the same time. As it is Israel has repeatedly failed to respond positively to Hamas ceasefires, this does not give Hamas much incentive to try a peaceful approach. Violence has borne results, Israel has been forced to retreat from both Lebanon and the Gaza strip meanwhile in the West Bank settlements continue to expand, underlining the failure of negotiation.