Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
Nah. Israel is not in the business of being "a better man". Israel is in the business of defending its citizens, since unlike Hamas, Israel actually values the lives of its people. If being a "better man" means sitting dily and letting Hamas cause trouble, then screw it. Toothless morality is worthless morality. Let Hamas cry victim and wait out the offensive in bunkers. They can have that moral high ground (if one indeed could call it that), while Israel will be satisfied with having the land and the power. The bottomline is that Hamas does not care about the lives of the people it rules over. To Hamas, the Gazan population is merely expendable cattle that can be sacrificed for perceived political gains. Israel might be the regional boogeyman, but at least it cares about its own people, something that Hamas would be wise to replicate.
Whoever said ANYTHING about morality, about rights, or any of the such? I'm talking about results. Tribes nailed the problem. What about Israel's tactics have successful in dissolving this conflict? NOT A THING. The conflict continues to spiral even further into tit-for-tat life trading despite Israeli air strikes, blockades, and property destruction. As Seamus quite accurately noted, the only alternative to a pacifist resolution to this conflict is all out ethnic cleansing of more than a million people, and maybe far more depending on what the reaction to said efforts is by the Arab/Islamic community. Tell me, which is a more appealing option to you? A few (ten?) thousand dead, or millions?