Unthinking Majority wrote:100%? Lol. Israel gave them back Gaza and Palestinians have used it as a base to launch indiscriminate rockets with the purpose to terrorize the Israeli civilian population. That's a key reason why they don't have self-determination: when Hamas in Gaza is doing everything it can to ship in weapons to fire at Israeli civilians one can expect Israel to inspect shipments/boats etc going into Gaza and other restrictions. My hope is for Palestinians to have self-determination and statehood but I understand Israel have concerns also, given the times they've been attacked by other Arab states and Gazans.
Firstly, to say Israel "gave them back Gaza" is a bit of a joke given they maintain full control over their skies, their coastal waters, who comes in and out and significant buffer zones around the borders which obviously cuts into a huge amount of their territory - including key farming land. You effectively contradicted this claim yourself when you conceded they don't have self determination.
Look, I don't really have much beef with Israel defending itself from attack, and I certainly don't argue that Hamas is entitled to maintain their ability to threaten Israeli lives. And honestly, I wish the debate would move on from the stale one we see over and over in the media - that is only concerned about the here and now - where one side rages against Hamas rockets, and the other side rages about disproportionate retaliatory strikes by Israel. The fact is, when you have a populated territory existing as shittily as gaza is, then this sort of conflict is inevitable. But who talks about that? I frankly don't care about discussing who is being the biggest a-hole within these inevitable conflicts, I want to talk about how to end the shitty existence of gaza. And I won't apologise for speaking the simple truth that Israel - as the occupier and pre-eminent economic and military power is 100% responsible for achieving this. There I said it. It won't be popular I know, but it really is indisputable: those who create, control and benefit from military and economic suppression and occupation of another people (however justified it may be) - are the ones responsible for bringing an end to it. Really no one who looks at this objectively can refute that.
So what *HAS* Israel actually done to this end? As far as I can tell, bugger all. And really, as I've argued in previous posts, what incentive to they have to do so? And no, don't tell me the threat of rockets - it is insignificant, and pales compared to the weekly suicide bombings they were experiencing at one point during the 90s. I reckon if the Israeli rulers sat down and contemplated what sort of threat to their own citizens would they be willing to accept in return for maintaining a brutal and crippling suppression of the Palestinian people and continuing to deny them self determination - then the current situation of having nothing but oversized fire crackers intermittently flying overhead mostly harmlessly - would be pretty close to it. I mean they can't realistically expect nothing right? As I said to wat0n with my boiling pot of water analogy - periodically bombing gaza into smitherenes, while accepting a handful of Israeli casualties in return, is really a pretty small price to pay for not having to deal with the headache of allowing Palestinians to have dignity and self-determination.
And I reject the notion that there is nothing Israel can do - mostly based on the fact that the 2 state solution is probably dead. There are things that can be done if Israel was serious about it. Here's some general ideas - though of course Brookings is reluctant to explicitly acknowledge that only Israel can make such things work in practice:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... -fix-gaza/The sad fact is though, not only does Israel make no meaningful effort, the international community (read: the US) has no intention of pressuring it to do so.