Forbidden Donut

The hive-mind at reddit believes it was IDF.

CNN reports the same. They seem to have fired first, but digging tunnels to kidnap Israelis would, in theory, also violate a ceasefire, and this seems to be the story people stick to on Fark.

who cares. cease fires are bs. peace is not possible there. only solution is to let one side completely wipe out the other.

Peace is the lack of opposition?

Peace is two sides rebuilding their forces to use later.

ANunes, that is the story I heard as well. That Israel violated the ceasefire by taking out those Hamas tunnel diggers in Gaza territory instead of waiting for them to get to Israeli territory.

It's just kind of weird to me. I mean, their intelligence is clearly pretty sweet, as they knew tunnels were being dug and apparently why. There has to be a better way than rockets. Especially when you know the world is watching the region carefully and you're in danger of breaking the ceasefire. I can't help but feel like Israel was just waiting for another chance to justify shooting more rockets. But maybe I'm just being cynical.

One thing I don't think you're considering, or at least not weighing heavily enough, is Israel's desire to avoid using ground forces as much as possible. The Israel government has to appease its own people more than the international community, so they will seek to avoid using ground forces as much as possible. It's the same reason we use cruise missiles to take out terrorist compounds instead of assaulting them with far more precise soldiers. Yeah, we may knock out a residential building occasionally, but Americans would much rather 30 Iraqi civilians die in a tragic "accident" than even a single US soldier die in the name of precision. I'm sure Israeli's feel the same way about their own armed forces, if not more so.

That's why Israel feels justified in shelling despite its far less precise nature than a ground assault.

Fair enough. But these aren't just the occasional civilian target getting missiled. Israel knows that Hamas fires rockets from schools churches and markets and they still just respond with rockets. I see your point, and concede that it's most likely the case. But that doesn't make it any less inexcusable. That's also not to say that Hamas needs to simmer down as well, but I can sort of appreciate a group like that being born out of those circumstances.

Hamas: This is why you don't go around nation-building.

I think part of the hope is, eventually the civilians will stop tolerating Hamas using them and their facilities to hide/operate in. They aren't trying to win hearts and minds as much as make Hamas into an enemy of the Palestinian population.

The trouble is, there are only two sides (as far as both sides are concerned). And it's easy to justify letting Hamas use your school when Israel keeps blowing up schools.


One side perceives your cartoon. The other side perceives this one.
Neither is at all true.