I just don't know about Hamas not wanting peace. Maybe certain people in the organization or it's head or whatever, but surely those individuals being bombed and killed directly would at least be open to some sort of serious (and by serious I mean Israel will at least have to begin reversing the horrible conditions of Palestinians) peace talks. Maybe I'm wrong, the media in all countries doesn't giver Hamas any real tv time so all we know about them is what others have said. I just find it strange that we say Hamas doesn't want peace but Israel does though both have continued fighting since their existence. To me, Hamas doesn't fill terribly different than your average right-wing militant organization that pops up in nearly every country including the US (I'm thinking the KKK for instance). Though honestly, the KKK has a much more serious history with terrorism than Hamas does.
I'm kinda more familiar with this than you seeing as I live here, so I'll just explain to you a few things you have definitely wrong.
1. I don't want to get into this because neither side is morally right regardless, and killing kids sucks, but it is a definitely proven fact that Hamas uses tactics that are defined as human shields. There is no point where they physically hold the kid in front of them so that the bullet has to go through the kid. No. That's not what they mean when they say human shields. The point is that Hamas chooses to fire rockets directly from urban areas, from inside hospitals/hotels/houses, which means that the IDF is faced with the choice of not returning fire, or returning fire whilst conscious of the fact that it will hit innocent people. The choice Israel ends up making, largely, is to warn the people to get out, and then shoot. This also gives lots of time for the actual terrorists to get out, so it's very problematic. Anyway, you also can't really blame Hamas for doing it. It's a very simple solution: Israel either can't shoot, or shoots and looks really really bad to the International community. In a straight fight, Hamas would never win, they have to do shit like this if they want to live. Eventually, Israel comes to the conclusion that it really can't give that much of a fuck, missiles are being fired at you, you have to fire back at whoever's shooting, no matter where he is. That's all there is to it. I shoot you, you would shoot me back. It's just basic war. It sucks, but you have to remember: this is war. War sucks.
2. Hamas doesn't want "peace" because "peace" isn't good for Hamas. What I mean is that the Gaza strip's state right now is absolute garbage. Israel wants peace because peace is good for Israel. You say that they're both attacking, yes, but Israel is just retaliating. If Hamas shut the fuck up and never did anything again, Israel would never acknowledge it. The reason Israel is heavily biased toward peace and Hamas is biased toward disturbing the status quo is, as I said, the status quo
sucks for Palestinians. What we define as "peace" is the Gaza strip living under its current subhuman living conditions, and Israel living as a normal Western country. Basically, imagine I force you to live in my doghouse. That's "peace" that I'm happy with, and you're very pissed about. One day, you come up to me, and start bitching about the fact you live in a doghouse, and I brush you off, so you start throwing rocks at my house to get my attention, doing literally anything just to get me to say, "for fuck's sake, you can come into my house and live in a room next to mine, you don't have to live in a doghouse anymore."
And that's what Hamas ends up doing. They know they have no way of getting Israel's attention, and they're desperate to change their living conditions, so they're intent on forcing change through violence. You also can't really blame them, because they don't have another choice. The problem, though, the biggest problem, is that Israel
also doesn't have a choice. Because you see, there is really nothing Israel can do about Gaza. There is no true solution that doesn't compromise Israel's safety, and Israel prioritizes its safety over others' living condition, just as any sane nation should. It's more like I keep you in my doghouse because I know for a fact that you've tried to murder my family in the past, and putting you in my house with me is
very problematic.
------------------
also @M3J
The Hamas use innocent citizens as shields, right?
Israel acknowledged this, right? Yet they continue to attack and cause tremendous destruction in an attempt to take out Hamas. There is no excuse for Israel's actions. It's no different from a military force throwing a grenade in building full of hostages just to take out the terrorists when they have other methods. Side with Israel if you want, but you can't defend them lying or causing the deaths of innocent citizens just because Hamas use them as shields.
As I said before, it's true that it's problematic, but you're acting like there is another solution. Israel isn't throwing a grenade in a building full of hostages just because there's terrorists there. It is terrorists, actively firing at you from a room full of hostages. Okay. You need to stop the fire. What is there to do?
1. Volunteer to die because you're a saint and you think your life and your family's life is worth less than the hostages' lives.
2. Shoot indiscriminately and blow the fuck out of that place.
3. Try to ensure the terrorists' death while maintaining as little damage to the hostages as possible, but remain conscious of the fact that
you will end up killing some hostages.
This is even more skewed by the fact that largely
those hostages aren't really hostages. A large portion of them (I'm not saying all, but a large portion,) aren't there because Hamas are holding guns to their heads, like, "woo fucker, you move from here and I'll kill you, you're my hostage!", they're there because they know they're helping Hamas have a strategic advantage, and they want Hamas to win. They are, like, volunteering hostages, and you can't help but feel less sympathy toward that.
Anyway, Israel also doesn't really lie about its intentions to blow places up. In fact, it warns those places, sometimes days in advance. Israel doesn't claim sainthood, it just claims to be doing the absolute best it can, which is objectively true. Again, I'm not trying to defend the death of innocent people. I'm just trying to say that there are situations in this world where the death of innocent people is unavoidable, and you should be happy to live in such privilege that you will never have to make that decision. We do not have that privilege. Sorry.
------------------
anyway what I'm trying to say is that it's a very complicated issue and Israel aren't saints here, because there's no saints in war, but there is definitely no question that Hamas is a terrorist organization using questionable tactics and indiscriminately killing civilians (and generally failing at that), while Israel is a democratic state doing absolutely everything it can to minimize civilian casualties (and generally failing at that). Israel would not continue fighting a day longer if there was an option for peace, and Hamas would not stop fighting a single day if the current status of their land doesn't change (and it can't, really, as I said: there's no good solutions, no one knows what to do.)
