The fact is that after being occupied by another country for 47 years anyone would get desperate and use any tactics they can to get rid of their oppressors.

Gaza is a huge prison camp where Israel (and to some extent Egypt) only allow in enough to stop the people starving but not enough for what anyone else would call normal life.

As a small example, The Palestine football team is recognised by FIFA is hampered all the time because Israel won't let the players have gree free movement. Perhaps they think they will bring in exploding footballs.

Israel should be slung out of FIFA until they cease harrasing the Palestian players at club and national level.

Someone on this thread asked what incentive there is for Israel to get into proper negotiations. The answer is that there isn't all the time the West (particularly the USA) backs them up in every atrocity they commit. All we can do is boycott Isaeli goods and make sure the message gets out that Israel will have no respect until it deals with its neighbours fairly.

Nope.

The problem is partly people like you whose attitude is never ever going to lead to a practical solution to this problem. Hamas and their tactics will never succeed.....In fact all they do is bring more bloodshed and suffering to their own people and maintain 'hard man' governments in Israel.

The west will never undertake the attitude you prescribe. And in my view rightly....You can boycott what you like. In fact reading posts like yours makes me want to buy Israeli goods.

Hamas control Gaza. The Palestinians in Gaza voted them in. If a region next to me had a government which would only countenance my demise I wouldn't give them nothing either. In fact I would be at war with them in any fashion I could that didn't impact the innocent......And there are plenty in Gaza who never voted for Hamas.

I don't blame Israel for anything to do in pursuit of Hamas. The west don't either and frankly many middle eastern countries, even some arab ones can't stand Hamas......Still, that doesn't mean that many of us agree with this vastly overreaction of a response we are seeing at the moment.

I and many criticize Israel for its actions in the west bank and so do the west in general. Lots of those settlements will not be allowed to stand in any peace agreement.

Abbas and Fatah are the way to go......But we are a lot of bloodshed away before people are ready to give reason and pragmatism a go again.

All while Israel see the attitudes of people like yourself the less they are willing to listen.

Edited by Stirlingsays (21 Jul 2014 1.20pm)

The thing that I find the most disturbing is America's bias towards Israel - the reasons for this are obvious. Meanwhile the rest of the western world , including the UK just stands by and lets Israel get away with it.

They have had 47 years years to listen. How much longer do you expect the Palestinians to take it? What do you see as a "practical solution" to the problem?

Because of Israel's actions over the past decades, Fatah and Hamas have agreed to have a coalition government, and it is the right of the Palestian people to elect whoever they want.

Who are you to decide who they should be electing?

The idea that Hamas could destroy Israel is ridiculous. Israel has every sort of weapon you can imagine (including nuclear) whereas the Palestians have pea shooters by comparison. Yet Israel is threatened? If they stopped occupying great stretches of land containing millions of people that might be a "practical solution".

The fact is Hamas does not control Gaza. Israel does. Israel decides every little thing that comes in and out of Gaza and bombs and shells it whenever it wants to, which is increasingly often. Hamas controls it in the same way that the toughest prisoners control the prisons, but the prison warders decide nearly everything the prisoners can do.

Are you happy that over a million people are being bombed and shelled as we write?

In the Second World War the Germans had a policy of killing 100 people in the occupied territories for every one of theres that got killed. It may be by different methods but that is exactly the ratio of fatalities in the Israeli occupied territories. And it hasn't just been for four years like the Germans - it has been for more than 40 years.

Carrying on buying your fruit from Israel if you like but for me it would taste of the blood of Palestinian children blown up on a beach by Isareli guns and I could not eat it and not feel sick.

Yes, political funding talks in many countries on a range of issues, as does having oil in the ground (ie Saudis).Perhaps an argument (for another day and another thread) for state funding (and limits thereto) of political parties (for all its negatives) coupled with limits on the TV advertisement activities of Political Action Committees which so debase the US political process (and on far more than any issues pertaining to Israel)

In the sense that it gives them a feeling that they can get away with anything and therefore they do not have to consider other international opinion. This means that they push the limits of bullying and oppression in a very uneven fight, far beyond what would otherwise be considered as reasonable.