Just like God intended

Whereas Hamas and the Palestinian Authority will specifically target hospitals, and more recently special needs schools. My cousins special needs school was recently targeted by Hamas missiles. My friends' wife was with the IDF delivering food aid to children and families when she was killed by an IED strapped to a little girl.

Is there a reason why theres always overwhelming condemnation of Israel in the region? Is it possible that its because they're the only democracy, founded by the Jewish people, surrounded by fundamentalist Arab states and countries? No, that couldnt be it...

I think it's the gay rights thing
In Israel gays live openly, whereas some Arab countries use them for target practice
The international community loves standing up for gay rights in Muslim countries!
Oh no, wait....they don't....

Yeah. Israel takes defense seriously. Most people can’t fathom being surrounded by people who want to genocide you. Most people see news clips of Israel and their military and just go “hey! These people are just protesting!” Or “that guy has rocks and Molotov’s and they have tanks!” Well.... what do they expect Israel to do? Send their troops in with rocks to make it fair? The Jewish nation is a thousands year prophecy that many millions suffered and gave their lives to reach for.

They were “given” a nation by inept politicians with the sensitivity and care of rocks- who didn’t care where they put the Jews as long as they weren’t in their country. But they have it. They have something. They have a home. They can sleep at night without wondering who will come for them in the night so long as Israel keeps its military strong. After what their people went through- how could anyone think they’d ever allow themselves to be “weak” again or to put themselves at the mercy of anyone let alone people sworn to destroy them? Israel wants 2 things. It wants the land it calls Israel- and it wants to be left in peace as the one place on earth that a Jewish person would never need worry about the repeated abuses through history and the next inevitable one antisemites would thrust upon them.

But that isn’t something most people get I guess. I suppose unless you’ve suffered for generations and been without a home country, been herded around and kicked and spat on and then been targeted almost every time you turned around for extermination- it just wouldn’t resonate. A person can get raped or robbed once an d swear to never let it happen again. What if your whole extended family had gone through that for centuries like clock work? Yeah.... Israel takes their safety seriously. I would too.

Why do they keep expanding their settlement? Isnt what they have enough for their safety?

They aren't expanding. They're only building on their own land.

One must understand the history of the region to understand the conflict. “Israel” didn’t legally exist yet. The British and UN had sort of haphazardly thrown several groups of people together in the area of Egypt where existing land claims and feuds and the like existed. Much of Palestine and the region had come under British control through colonial expansion. The Brits has promised to honor “Arab” independence in exchange for driving out the Turkish during WW1- but the “Arabs” had understood that to mean they’d become self governing and autonomous. The Brits had meant more in a sense that they’d grant some administrative power within new territories they planned to create. This didn’t really create good will between the occupiers and the occupied.

“Palestine” as an actual entity didn’t yet exist either. “Palestine” was the name given to the general region and people of southern Syria thousands of years ago. The area was taken by force during the expansion of Islam, then parts taken by the Crusaders, several other changes occurred including the conquest by Egyptians, and then in the 1500’s the region was taken by the Ottomans and became part of the Ottoman Empire. The region of Palestine finally started to see some autonomy. It wouldn’t last. The Egyptians again took the region and held it for 9 years before European allies like Britain aided the Ottomans in getting it back.

The Europeans took economic interest in the region and set up a presence there. This brought some of the first numbers of any significance of Jewish farming settlements and a growing movement to establish a Jewish state in the area. And that bring us back to WW1 when the Brits enlisted help of local “Arabs” help to fight out the ottomans and the “Arabs” thought they’d get sovereignty but the Brits said they just meant territorial rights.

Without too much detail to WW2, things were bad for the Jewish- Europe particularly. Jewish refugees were massing by boat loads and no one wanted to take them in. An international committee (mostly European nations) got together and divided up the land of “mandatory Palestine” without effectively any consideration or cooperation with locals. A new Jewish area was created and tentative borders were set up by imperial powers. In the early days the Nazis were even sending Jews to the area before they started the policy of “final solution” as a way to get rid of them easily. Even non refugees began to go to the area, the dream of Israel finally seeming at hand.

Before things could be finalized by the westerners, bus loads of Jewish citizens were attacked by “Arabs” and the conflict we know today in the area got its official first start. In the ensuing conflict Israel ended up with far more territory than the British had promised. Over the following decades would be several other wars which Israel tended to win. Many of the disputed territories were originally under Israeli control but were taken during these conflicts.

So who owns what? If we go by the Western panned borders we are WAY off for everyone concerned. But- what gives the West the right to dictate the borders there? If we say it is because the west had the right by conquering- then that same right by conquering extends to the current conflict does it not? We can’t respect the pre British borders because before that- the territory was under the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Empire doesn’t exist.

So I mean, both Turkey and Egypt have strong claims if we “revert” to pre British rule holdings. Others could lay claims as well. But that’s sort of the thing right? The UK doesn’t claim the territory anymore, the Ottomans don’t exist so they can’t claim it, we’d have to go back 500 years or so before that to find the next last recognized body to control the area. Which would also mainly be geographic regions because the actual governments that could claim sovereignty have all largely been overthrown or replaced by others through conquest.

So.... a big piece of land that doesn’t “belong” to any existing government- I mean... where there is no government whoever makes the government is the government no? As for “expansion” we can perhaps see where that term is misleading. Each side can claim that at one point or another their ancestors lived there, can claim displacement and conquest took it from them. Each side believes they have a right to the land. The USSR and USA split Germany in half because they couldn’t agree who had the right to it- but if they didn’t it would have been war.

So in other words, the one with more firepower is gets to expand. Imagine the kind of turmoil the world would be in if every country rejected colonial borders. Anyways, im no expert on the middle east. Maybe israel are the ones doing the colonizing. Oh look i got a downvote.

Incorrect, Israel is building settlements for not just Israelies either. Also, quick question, where does Palestine get the majority of their utilities? Electricity to keep the lights on? Food rations and aid? Oh, that's right--from Israel because Hamas and the Palestinian Authority spend the vast majority of the funds they're provided from the UN, and from Iran, on illegal weapons, reinvesting in their illegal opiate trade, and the Palestinian people see NONE of that.

I strongly suggest you do your research, talk to people in Israel, talk to Palestinians who escaped Palestine AND dont have loved ones still there who can be killed if they say something negative about Palestine. You're going to very quickly realize that, and I've said this before, you might not agree with the entire administration in Israel, but Israel as a whole and her people want nothing more than to survive and live in peace.

I didn’t DV you, and believe in discussing things. But Yes and no @kevman. Yes in the sense that ultimately the fundamental basis of power is and has always been force- yes in that there is essentially no country on earth that isn’t where it is from expansion and conflict. Yes in the sense that we are talking about a place where no countries actually existed- a land being administered by a foreign and disinterested administration who itself had taken that land through military force. We are talking about two nations that are only about half a century old. In their very earliest formation- and you would judge them and hold them to the status of nations that are established.

But show me a young nation that didn’t have conflict. Is it your belief that the union shouldn’t have made conflict with the Rebels in the American civil war but just let them succeed into their own nation, even if those territories once were part of their nation? Should America give the original colonies back to Britain and then Britain and America and Canada can give that land back to native Americans and Mexico which they took? Should the Germans get back the parts of the UK they once held? What about Rome? So we all get to judge the politics of a new nation far away for doing exactly what our own nations did when they were being founded- only much more peacefully and inclusively than most European powers did- because we already went through that?

You’re literally saying that we should judge a child or teenager by the same standards as an adult? That a small start up should be ran exactly like a large and established entity? Seems more than a bit hypocritical.

But no- violence shouldn’t be the way wherever it can be helped. And Israel doesn’t want violence. But Israeli policy is “live and let live.” Israel doesn’t seek to destroy the culture or religion of Palestine. It doesn’t seek to enslave or wipe out the “race” or ethnic peoples of Palestine. But- the official stance of Palestine is that it seeks to wipe out the Israeli, the nation of Israel, and the Jewish religion, culture, and ethnicity.

It is not the Israelis that refuse to coexist with the Palestinians. The violence isn’t on their side. Violence is the force that comes to bear when 2 parties cannot reconcile their goals. Israel wants to form a prosperous and secure Jewish state. They want some territory. Let’s look at that bargaining table:

Israel: we want to live and have a prosperous state. What do we have that you would want?
Palestine: We want you to die. To be erased from the earth. At the very least we would settle for growing strong enough as a nation that we could hunt and murder you across the globe until none of you are left.
Israel: uh... we don’t want to die. Ok. What if like- we didn’t expand?
Palestine: yeah. That’s fine. But we still get our part of the deal. I mean, as long as we can eventually wipe you off the face of the earth it’s square fam.
Israel: ok.... but... we don’t want to die.
Mediator: what if Israelis decided to convert?
Palestine: Not the ones with Jewish ancestry. There’s still some Jew there. So religious Jew maybe. Ethnic Jew, no deal.
Israel: keep talking shit I’m going to come over there and smack you.
Palestine: shit talk.
Israel: SMACK!
College kid: I saw the whole thing! Israel is crazy!

Also, Israel gave Palestine the entire Gaza Strip in 1993 for the entire purpose of then building settlements on it. Instead, Palestine placed land mines and created child-soldier training camps on the overwhelming majority of the strip. They also run a well know opiate traffic lane through it. At a certain point, unless you're just choosing to ignore facts, you cant blame Israel for what Hamas and the Palestinian authority do.

Yes. It’s a sad situation overall. The Palestinian people are suffering because of a corrupt and mismanaged government which is putting their politics and power ahead of the people’s well being. A bunch of “freedom fighters” are using them as human shields and the average innocent Palestinian is caught in the inevitable collateral damage, or baited into it by extremists who WANT to rack up civilian casualties in inevitable counter actions against them as a way to wage a media battle against Israel.

“Freedom fighters” who’s actions cause restrictions and suspicions to be cast upon innocent civilians, who’s agenda isn’t even about “freedom” and who if Israel left the West Bank tomorrow and Gaza etc. would STILL have conflict because their fundamental ideology isn’t one of Independence but one that Israel shouldn’t exist.

So there ARE Palestinians who suffer but the majority of that suffering is being caused in house. Again- you’re going to blame Israel for defending its right to exist? A right to even be Jewish and alive? If Canada was launching rockets at New York, training terrorists for the next 9/11 and broadcasting for all to hear that it was coming for America and wasn’t going to stop until every American was gone from the earth- do you think America would just laugh it off? We went to Afghanistan across the globe because some guys with a P.O. box there launched a single multi pronged attack once every 20-30 years. If we were being attacked weekly or monthly what do you think we’d do? And compared to what we did in Afghanistan or Iraq Israel is a model of restraint.

Unlike Russia, the US, et. Al- they don’t bulldoze the entire country into the last century. These are their neighbors. They have to live with them. They want a stable, happy Palestine. They don’t want to create a lawless poverty zone so they can spend the next centuries with guys in shouting distance who have nothing and every reason to cause them problems. And they sure as hell don’t want a neighbor that’s a super power and hates their very existence. Would you? The Israeli government doesn’t hate Palestine or want to end all Palestinians but the Palestinian government wants them gone. In such a conflict are you going to back the guys willing to live side by side or the guys who literally will, given the chance, murder the other guys?