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So Gaza fired about 60 rockets and mortars against Israeli civilian centers and killed one Israeli, and Israel basically carpet bombed, striking government and economic centers, and killed 200 or so.



Israel calls it justified.
Hamas calls it a massacre.

I'm the one who is first to call out "Peace Through Superior Firepower," and basically I think that's Israel's strategy.

Israel is going to make going to war with them such a horrible idea that no one will want to face the repercussions of it.

However, this is a challenge when the opponent sees "youth suicide bombers" as the "first strike" offensive strategy.

The way I see it, and the way I've continued to argue it in ED-P, is that both sides have their heads so far up their collective asses that they're making huge ******** mistakes.

At this point, neither side wants to look weak, or lose face. So any solution has to allow both to go with honor.

For Israel, I'd say they should switch to more... accurate weaponry. We know that they can assassinate enemy leadership without causing mass destruction. They should do so.

Hamas is... Eh. Yeah. They're pretty stupid. I think an agreement between Israel and Hamas not to fight in civilian areas would be nice. Doubt it'll happen, though.

Meh, even if they settle down and talk politics it doesn't mean everything's going to stop.
There'll always be those crazy kids who purchase a couple of guns illegally and strap bombs to their chests to get 'them crazy Jews.
That little strip of land has been fought over for CENTURIES.
Safe bet it won't be ending time soon.

I think she did say something about going somewhere iffy...

Yeah, I remember that thread.
Just didn't post because I didn't have much to say.

On that note...

One of the reasons Haifa is a target is because of their oil refinery.



They keep shooting at it, it's what hey always shoot at.

And much like the refineries, rocket attacks are very hard to miss.



Lebanon shoots rockets at Haifa, Israel knows where they were fired from and can basically pound the surrounding area into the ground. That and Haifa has one of the worlds best Air Defense Networks. A hummingbird cannot take off from Rene Mouawad without Jerusalem knowing about it.

So, Haifa is safe and Lebanon will probably stay out of this one.

See this is what I hate about the concept of a Cease Fire.

Cease Fires do not end wars. They pause them.

The theory behind them was, that after a cease fire is brokered. The two opposing sides would turn to diplomacy and discuss the troubles, draw up maps to say "we stay on this side and you stay on that side, and any act of aggression will kick start the war again, this way we can have peace."

Once the cease fire expires, both sides mobilize and go on the defensive, showing the other that we're not going to tolerate any aggression and if one side turns aggressive then the war continues just as it was, and the cease fire is broken.

So in theory, when North Korea and South Korea had their war. The fighting lasted 3 years and the ceasefire was brokered on July 27, 1953. In 1954 the ceasefire expired, and they had official peace talks. The peace talks went nowhere, both sides went of the defensive and that's how they've remained for over 50 years. Not at war, not at peace but in a cease fire.

Both North Korea and South Korea want nothing to do with one another, and both are afraid the otherside will send tanks across the 38th Parallel and war will occur. However both North and South Korea have too much to lose in returning to an aggressive war. So they do nothing.

Israel and Palestine's cease fire is supposed to work the same way. "Supposed to" are the operative words. However, during the brokered cease fire, Hamas has a tendency not to demobilize fully and instead of rebuilding their country and taking care of the damage done in the war, they instead regroup, rearm and have no where to go, nothing to lose. So they watch the clock to wait for the cease fire to expire and instead of going on the defensive, they relaunch their attacks.

The only way you have actual peace after war is like what happened in WWI or Vietnam, and by that I mean, Attrition.

If you kill enough of the other side, they won't have the manpower to continue the fight. When resistance crumbles and there's nothing left to mop up, you take over their government and occupy to annex their land.

If you create a power vacuum, and then fill that vacuum, war will advance and peace is closer.

HOWEVER... Bulldozing Gaza into the Mediterranean and deporting everyone in the West Bank to Jordan or Syria is NOT on the menu. Nor should it be. However, it is the only real way Israel will have a long lasting peace. Until then, they can only broker cease fires and hope the other side honor's the agreement.

Palestine knows it won't win a war of attrition, Israel will never commit to one because that means ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by Jews. It's hard to call out "Never Again," when your people are lining up others against the wall.

So this is probably going to last for another 100 years or so.

To be honest, the Gaza strip shouldn't exist. You and I both know it is Israeli. And so is the West Bank. However, a mentality exists among the Muslims in this area. And killing a few hundred ever few months is only going to reinforce these beliefs. Personally, and probably with very little foresight, I believe that peace could be acheived with propoganda, rather than bigass rockets. Killing is one way, but its only making dents which very quickly repair themselves. Change people's minds, however, is definitely more difficult in the short term, and a hellofa lot easier in the long term.