There is no excuse, I'm not excusing anything either party do but this conflict does not involve any innocent party.What's the excuse for the West Bank, where Hamas isn't in charge and where this round of the conflict was initiated?
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Editing this to be a bit less blunt, I mean to say that ultimately the responsibility for changing the situation lies more heavily on the shoulders of the occupying power. I remember arguing with David Simon the Wire creator oddly enough (on twitter, not like I met him in person), and he said that you couldn’t compare Israel/Palestine to apartheid South Africa because there was no Palestinian Mandela with which the Israeli state could make a deal for peace. As I said to him, the conclusion that ultimately flows from that position is that if Mandela had died in prison in 1985 say, he’d be defending apartheid to this day. That’s an untenable and morally indefensive position to be in, in my view. The analogy I’m making is not to say that Israel = Apartheid, a debate I don’t think we need to get in to, but just that if there are steps Israel should be taking towards peace and justice, then those are the right steps to be taking - full stop.
On peace, a sizeable majority of Palestinians support one thing and one thing only which is the return of all Palestinian land and that can only mean the end of Israel. Some states supporting Palestine do not even recognise the existence of Israel and always rejected the partition many years ago.
You cannot reconcile that into Israel stopping hostilities and accepting that a few rockets will kill a few Israelis every now and then. Israel should not violate international law but the whole idea that Israel should stop what it's doing, return to old lines and then there will be peace, it's just fantasy.
Either way nothing is going to change, it's a stalemate based upon the almost pointless demands of one party and the obvious unlawful behaviour supported by the west in the other. This isn't a military war, it's a fight for land.
Thinking of Mandela, what is wanted is a million miles away from what Mandela fought for and let's not pretend that even Palestinians want this. Are we going to see a single Israeli/Palestinian state where Muslims and Jewish people can live together anytime soon? Not a chance in hell.
This whole thing isn't as simple as one side wants to live in peace but the other keeps nicking land and so the Palestinians retaliate but then the other fires laser guided bombs back.