Yesterday my wife had lunch with a small group of her co-workers. Most in the group are liberals and full fledged Obama supporters. My wife and one of her friends were the only conservatives in the group. She tries hard to stay away from political discussions as it has led to hard feelings and even disassociation from friends at work (on their part, not hers.) It's truly sad the country has become so divided over politics that some people can no longer have political disagreements without risking friendships.
The luncheon went along well until one of the people present eventually said "Israel needs to stop attacking the Palestinians." Arden was quiet. She didn't want to have the discussion because for her it usually was a lose/lose situation. Her conservative friend, however, spoke up and said "Israel is defending itself against non-stop rocket attacks conducted by Hamas from inside the Gaza Strip."
The first woman looked at her like she didn't understand.
Arden's friend continued. "Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel non-stop for three weeks. Israel has the right to defend itself against such aggression."
Again, blank looks from around the table.
Someone else said "Israel is killing Palestinian women and children."
By this time Arden felt the need to speak up. "Hamas is a terrorist organization that recently signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to co-govern with the current Palestinian government. Hamas has vowed to destroy Israel and has been attacking them with rockets and attempted encroachments for three weeks. They place their weapons inside schools and hospitals in an attempt to shield the weapons from the Israelis, who are merely trying to destroy the weapons. Hamas has told the Palestinian people not to leave the area but to stay, taking full advantage on the world stage of any carnage that occurs. Hamas places children in harm's way then posts pictures of the dead ones to blame Israel for what happens."
"I have a friend there who told me that they have to run to bomb shelters on a regular basis, every day, due to the rocket attacks by Hamas," Arden told them.
Again she was met with blank looks - like they had no idea what she was talking about. Sadly, if they get their news from the main stream media there is a good possibility they don't know what's really going on. The main stream media doesn't report things they don't want people to know, such as negative information about President Obama or negative information about the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The main stream media supports the Palestinians, looking at them as "victims of Israeli aggression" rather than squatters who are in cahoots with a dangerous terrorist organization.
Israel has lived peaceably with the Palestinians in Gaza unless they were attacked - which happens on a regular basis. In 2005, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled all Israelis out of the Gaza Strip - realizing the Israeli occupation of the area was no longer in Israel's best interest. The Palestinian Authority formed and was rapidly infiltrated by Hamas - a group labeled as a terrorist organization by our own government. Hamas is part of an international Islamist movement that does not believe Israel has the right to exist and since their founding in 1987 they have attacked Israel by suicide bombings, rocket and mortar attacks. They attack Israel on a regular basis based on their belief that Israel has no right to exist. Yet some people want to pretend they are the victims in this conflict.
There are other terrorist groups in Gaza, most notably the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said to be even more radical and violent than Hamas.
A cease fire was called last week - which was honored by Hamas for about three hours before they began attacking Israel again. Israel's goal in this conflict is to destroy the capability of Hamas to attack them. They are being as careful as they can but war is war.
I read something yesterday that someone posted that said "If you're attacked and you meet the aggression with more force than was used against you are taking unfair advantage of the situation," or something like that. How stupid is that? In war, the country who has the strongest weapons and the strongest armies wins. That's just the way it works.
Bloomberg Businessweek's Peter Coy recently wrote that Israel's Iron Dome defense shield is an unfair advantage and that it could be defeated if one of Israel's enemies get "cruise missiles that can twist and turn in flight to evade interceptors." It sounds to me like that's what he'd like to see - a terrorist organization with cruise missiles. What an idiot. (He might want to be careful since his boss, crazy Michael Bloomberg, is on Israel's side in this.)
The bottom line is that Israel is under attack by terrorists and is defending itself. If the USA had 70% of its territory under attack we would be fighting back as well. (At least - I hope we would. There's no telling what our current administration would do.)
The main stream media doesn't report the news as is so people who watch it are mostly uninformed about the world's realities. The President says he finds out about various occurrences on the news. I can't help but wonder what channel he watches. I'm sure he has someone assigned to watch Fox though. Otherwise he wouldn't find out about most of the problems in the world...
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