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GAZA CONFLICT

US Takes Hands-Off Approach to Gaza Violence

Stands by Israel's right to self-defense

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by PolitixMayday

Staff Writer t

A rocket is launched from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel / Image: AP

The Obama administration is turning to regional players in a bid to prevent further bloodshed in Israel and Gaza. According to the Associated Press, national security officials are communicating with Turkey and Egypt, both thought to have sway over Hamas, in an attempt to stem the conflict.

Tensions flared earlier in the week after Israel killed Hamas's military chief, Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari, in response to months of sustained rocket attacks on Negev communities. Hamas is the governing body over the Gaza Strip, and is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.

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Should the US change its stance if the conflict grows? How?

135 Comments (view in Forum)

  • martydotcom
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    Anxiously awaiting McCain & Lieberman's call for us to put feet on the ground, At the moment the Israeli's can handle things hopefully this isn't just a Netanyahou election ploy and for the time being we should stay out his election gambit. These rocket attack have been going on for more than a year. With his impending election, the electorate unhappy about Netanyahou's meddling in the US election and betting on the wrong horse. He felt it was an opportune time to say is enough, Hamas
    We'll stay out until invited in
  • CanisCanemEdit
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    @martydotcom - Of course not.

    It will be interesting to watch this unfold from the standpoint of citizen rather than soldier.

    Historically my statement remains factual.
  • martydotcom
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    @woodtick57 Palestine +Egypt + Lebanon+ Jordan, Iran, Syria(?) and other Arab states tough to handle all at once. Things heat up, that's the historic pattern

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  • MongoAPillager
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    i think hamas is only capable of being an irritant to isreal,not unlike a tick to a dog,however my worry is this will become an focus and rallying point for the muslim world at large,aaahh,but what do i know
  • bsking
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    the Muslim Brotherhood is already involved with hamas. we are funneling arms to al Qaeda in Syria those arms will be used against Israel before this is over. Barack Hussein Obama is as pro Israel as he is pro American
  • MongoAPillager
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    why would you say they love conflicts,i would say they handle conflicts well.but seeing as anyone with a beard or a burqa in that area wants their demise??i think a lot of stick throwers in that area are very lucky the"Jews"have shown constraint.if the arabs care so much about their little Palestine brother,why don,t theyget together and give them a homeland,but for some reason the Arabic world does not seem to want them anymore than the"Jews"
  • IraqWarVeteran
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    Iran's military is supplied by China and Russia. Iran will strike back in a powerful way through air and ground — Syrian Shi'a mujahideen will enter and the Lebanese Hezbollah will conduct a serious of blasts, attacks and will threaten to attack us. Who will pay the price for supporting the war-mangers? United States will. In this case, I will do what I did in Iraq. Period.
  • MRMacrum
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    Hands off I say. But maybe some brokering between the players and those around them might be a good idea. Pretty much what we are doing at this point is about as far as I would like to see our involvement go. I think the hatred there is now securely embedded in the DNA on both sides.
  • Chomsky0
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    Yeah, we should change our stance of supporting Israel. They keep attacking their neighbors and we send them more weapons. Gaza is an open air prison with a brutal dictatorial country controlling them, how would you feel living there?
  • Jasonopolis
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    Oh I don't know... I might start trying diplomatic options and a peaceful attitude.

    Hamas is like a little kid poking a bees nest that runs to mommy when he gets stung and says "look what the mean bees did".
  • Jasonopolis
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    @Chomsky0 What "every country in the world" wants doesn't really matter - even if it were true. What matters is that little kids who poke sticks in bees nests, who then cry "bully" to the UN, are never going to be a reliable peaceful world partners until they grow up.
  • Chomsky0
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    @Jasonopolis Who is the reliable peaceful partner? Ask Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and the Palistinian people if Israel is peaceful. Israel has been poking at these countries for decades and crying to the Godfather for more weapons.

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  • tomincali
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    Israel has that themselves and could do it,yet we know they are not as low as their enemies otherwise they would have already fried them all.
  • Lpguy
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    The USA should stay out. These dumbasses fighting eachother have no effect on our liberty or treasure - lets keep it that way, we would only stand to loose by involving ourselves
  • Keyjo
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    The old Egyptian government was able to act as a buffer. But with the new government in Egypt, they haven't even defined themselves, yet. It's hard to say when and if, and how much influence they might wield.
    But the U.S. must stick by it's old ally, while trying every diplomatic angle. We sorely can not afford another war right now. Not financially, not mentally for our troops. In both circumstances we are spent and exhausted.
    Someone mentioned WWIII. That's what I feared when Bush attacked Iraq. It didn't happen, but it ain't over 'till the fat terrorist explodes. God, heaven, Wizzard of Oz, help us!
  • bsking
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    no this is what Obama had intended from the beginning. by taking down our allies in the region and strengthening our enemy, not Obama's, he has insured that is released completely cut off in the region. and if Israel is destroyed or severely hurt it will be Barack Hussein Obama who will be the hero of the Muslim world
  • Dallas39
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    Obama is bringing us out of wars and will not enter this one. He is a Christian, not a Muslim. He said:
    When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord and I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people,” he said.“And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to forgive me of my sins and look after my family and the American people. And to make me an instrument of His will.”There likely are many who dismiss Obama’s religious rhetoric as merely political, just as there are those who will never believe that he was born in the United States.

    But as Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast,“We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but that we are true to our conscience and true to our God.”
    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/04...
  • MongoAPillager
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    Thats pretty kool for the leader of a party that wants nothing to do with God,is the Dem party aware of this stance as spoken?why are their no cries of separation of state and church??maybe i'll vote for him
  • ded
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    Israel's disgusting 2008/2009 slaughter of 1400 people in Gaza was one of the worst acts committed by a supposedly respectable nation recently. The USA should have nothing to do with Netanyahu's administration.

    Of course Hamas are shooting rockets at Israel. They're furious. People in Gaza are extremely limited in the extent to which they can plan to develop their careers, get a better education, move to a different country. And Israel gives them no reason for optimism. Israel insults and taunts them with its continued illegal settlements and total disregard for the World's opinion. When people have little to lose, and they are furious, what do you expect? It's the middle classes in Israel, who have similar freedoms to the middle classes of Europe and the USA, who need to realise that peace requires concessions from them. Even if they were morally in the right, pragmatically, peace would still require concessions from them.
  • Jasonopolis
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    "Of course Hamas are shooting rockets at Israel. They're furious."
    So that's it, huh? When you get mad just fire off rockets and kill people. Sounds like the same logic as Al Qaeda. When you get mad enough just fly planes into buildings....
  • ded
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    @Jasonopolis When you get mad enough, throw away legal process, embrace torture, throw away the rights of Americans to privacy from the state, and start decade-long wars in far-away countries killing a hundred thousand people in return for a one-off terrorist attack. It's human to get mad, as the USA has demonstrated. Israel is dealing with humans.
  • Jasonopolis
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    @ded Well, let's review the facts as they happened and you tell me. " The UN, Human Rights Watch and many other international bodies and NGOs, consider Israel to be the occupying power of Gaza.[59][60][63]

    January 2006 legislative elections brought Hamas to power of Palestinian National Authority.[64] Since the formation of a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government Israel and the Quartet on the Middle East imposed economic sanctions against the Palestinian territories.[65][66] In 2007, Hamas overthrew Fatah. President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas then dismissed Hamas-led government and formed government in the West Bank, bypassing the Hamas-dominated parliament.[67] Israel imposed a ground, air, and maritime blockade, and announced it would allow only humanitarian supplies into the Strip.[68][69] Palestinian groups were partially able to bypass the blockade through tunnels, some of which are said to have been used for weapons smuggling.[70]

    Between 2005 and 2007, Palestinian groups in Gaza fired about 2,700 locally made Qassam rockets into Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and injuring 75 others."
  • Jasonopolis
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    @ded Additionally - "On June 19, 2008, an Egyptian-brokered six-month "lull" or pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas went into effect.[73] The agreement had no mutually agreed text or enforcement mechanism and eventually collapsed.[74]

    The agreement required Hamas to end rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and to enforce the lull throughout Gaza. In addition, Israel insisted that the agreement would include an end to Hamas' military buildup in Gaza and movement toward the release of Corporal Shalit.[75] Hamas said all the Gaza's militant groups would abide by the truce.
    Defense Ministry Official Amos Gilad, the Israeli envoy to the talks, stressed that Israel demanded a ceasefire, meaning that even one single rocket fired will be seen as a violation of the agreement.
    Since violence flared on November 4, Israeli forces and militants, some of them from Hamas, engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat exchanges.[2] In about ten days since the November 4 incident, eleven militants were killed and about 140 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza at Israel. On November 16, four Popular Resistance Committees fighters were killed by an Israeli airstrike as they fired mortars at Israel.[3] On November 17 Hamas leaders went underground amid Israeli targeting threats."
  • MRMacrum
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    @ded - Do you think the culture of the Mid East thinks with the mind of a westerner? This situation has gone well past logic and the rule of law. It is now one I think Israel understands a whole lot better than we do sitting here comfortable in our desk chairs second guessing the actions of a country that knows many countries want to destroy them utterly and completely. I think it is a sad situation the Palestinians allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder by Islamic countries safely out of rocket range. The Israelis may appear to us as brutish, but I tell you what, as far as I am concerned they are kittens compared to the cowardly Hamas.

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  • ctc
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    We've armed Israel to the teeth, they know how to use 'em......case closed.
    Pull up a chair.......pass the popcorn.
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