And without a blockade, rockets would still be being launched into Israel.

"If the Muslims laid down their arms, there'd be no more conflict with Israel. If Israel lays down its arms, there'll be no more Israel."

(why could this not been put in the recent I/P post?)

Yeesh, you know there is enough blame to go around without devolving into a "It's all X's fault and everyone who disagrees with me is stupid!"

I think most people recognize that Hamas is "not a great government," by the same token it can be argued pretty convincingly that the tactics the Israeli government have used are, and have been, questionable at the best at times. There are no good guys here, and the people at the shit end of the stick are the citizens of Gaza.

Both Hamas and Netanyahu need to go.

Lets not oversimplify.  Both Hamas and the government of Israel regularly violate basic morals, and both are incompetent.  Both have shown a disregard for human life, both killing hundreds of children since the Second Intifada.  124 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,441 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000 (http://bit.ly/dC9UlM).

Both are more concerned with satisfying their own small constituency than dealing with real problems.  They are like two immature kids that keep accusing the other of being immature.

Meanwhile, in Gaza an average family has just 66 US cents for food a day, and in the West Bank it is 56 cents (http://bit.ly/cArPd8).  Israel has a median household income of about $40,000, has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and keeps control of the Palestinians through blockades, mass house razing, miles of walls separating people from their jobs and fields, and many mandatory checkpoints throughout the occupied territories.  Hamas takes advantage of this poverty and inequality to radicalize the young and keep control.

Blaming Hamas for the plight of Gaza is essentially blaming the victims of a genocide for reacting violently against it. When 1.5 million people are ghettoized Warsaw-style and denied clean water, housing and dignity, some of them tend to get pissed. Consider that for every Hamas rocket fired into Israel, Israel has a thousand laser-guided missiles target-locked to houses, schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets. Then there's the pesky fact that as much as you and I and our government may dislike them, Hamas was elected into power throughout the Palestinian territories in a vote that the U.N. declared free and fair. No, I am not a Hamas supporter; I deplore their use of Islamic fanatacism, but I support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination through democratic elections, whatever the outcome. I would also point out that Hamas's ascent into power is a consequence of the corruption of Fatah and the PLO and the world turning its back on Palestinians' suffering at the hands of Israel. 

What's so wrong about this whole situation and Israel's spin on it is that they are essentially claiming that humanitarian aid activists murdered themselves. This isn't "both sides are to blame." One side is clearly the perpetrator of a despicable act of piracy, and the only thing that keeps Israel's apologists from condemning it is their own sheer will to believe Israeli propaganda no matter how it contradicts reality.

I would counter that Hamas exploits the situation and is not completely a product of the Israeli actions, but also a political party that seeks to directly gain and use power based on maintaining the status quo of violence. The article the OP linked to suggests that Hamas is just as, if not more, corrupt then Fatah and the PLO. Yes they where elected, but electing a group whose vocal aim is the destruction of its neighbor does nothing but make the problem worse.

I understand Israel's desire to keep weapons from entering the Gaza strip, there are enough States hostile to Israel that would gladly arm Hamas gratis so they could wage direct war with Israel. I emphatically disagree with how the situation is set up and how Israel runs the blockade. It is a job for a neutral third party.

There are two major problems toward moving to a two state solution, one is Hamas' unrelenting declaration toward exterminating Israel, the other is Israel's combination of over-the-top response and unilateral action. 

The fact is, there are a lot of people who can see both Israel's bad behavior and Hamas' manipulative exploitation. Israel totally reinforced Hamas this past week, they made Hamas stronger which perpetuates the problem.

Charles Krauthammer published an enlightening and well-researched opinion on the subject in The Washington Post Friday titled "Those Troublesome Jews." Read it.

Hamas was elected, then used force when those competitors Farragut mentioned refused to relinquish power after the elections. And Superior lobbing rockets into Duluth is a poor analogy. A better one would be the brutal way the South African government reacted to the African National Congress, or the way the French reacted to Algerian resistance to France's colony there, or how early Americans reacted to Natives lobbing arrows at settlers. Any time people start redrawing maps, as Britain did after WW1, or the UN did when creating Israel, or  Israel did when confiscating lands beyond the  UN mandate in 1967, there will be resistance. Some of that resistance is terrorism, and I don't support it. Neither do I support state- terrorism, as practiced by the US or Israel or any other state. A siege like the one on Gaza is an act of war, and an act of collective punishment against a million and a half people. Most U.S. media are blatantly biased toward Israel, and one rarely hears the Palestinian side of the story.

dbb maybe because they are opening it now.  

Egypt: Gaza Blockade A Failure

But they too deserve the outrage.

Without making too much light of a serious situation, I'd like to suggest 'Eygptian Outrage' as the name of Duluth's next new band.

Farragut, I think plenty of people recognize that as one of the fundamental problems, yes absolutely. But, it is not the sole problem by any stretch of the imagination. There are near countless examples of Israel acting in bad faith, and exerting disproportionate amounts of force from time to time. I don't think there is any confusion as to WHAT the problems are, but there is an abundance of frustration in arriving at solutions BOTH sides will agree to and abide by. 

There is a legitimate argument that the Israeli government could be considered an occupying force, for that I think the WWII powers are genuinely complicit in initiating this whole fiasco. But, the reality is that Israel exists, and all sides have to come to terms with this in some manner. Helen Thomas may have spoken in frustration of the situation and I understand what she was saying (and don't think she should have resigned because of it), but what she articulated will not come to pass, and came off as tone deaf.

Hamas is essentially a group of people in the middle being used by nations such as Iran as a means to harass and cause problems for Israel, which in turn allows them (Hamas) to manipulate and control the citizens of Gaza. For all their brash talk and horrific mission statements Hamas is not a serious threat to the Israeli government. It IS a threat to individual and groups of Israeli citizens and from time to time can murder quite a few people. 

One step in the process is for Hamas to lose power in the next elections (which Israeli actions last week make less likely to happen), but that doesn't automatically mean Israel will start acting in good faith, and say, stop settlement building or seriously address immigration and a two state solution. 

What people are concerned about and why there are these pro formal attempts to break the blockade is that living conditions in Gaza are atrocious. A good part of the blame for that is scarcity of supplies which is caused directly by Israel (and Egypt), but secondarily by Hamas' distribution favoritism. I, honestly, cannot fault the stated motives of those who want the blockade lifted. But, again, I also think a targeted arms embargo should be strictly enforced and administered by a third party.