Hamas again.

Those who "can't allow" peace just need to be annihilated: they have no place in a forward thinking world. The real horror and shame here is that it is the ordinary Palestinian's who suffer for the wrong doing of Hamas together with the innocent Israelis who were enjoying a pop festival and were just massacred - atrocities like this can only be carried out by those who are so totally brainwashed that they have no way back!

Are you suggesting that some of the intelligence was put on the "to review later" pile, on purpose? Given all the intelligence gathering capability the Israelis have, questions will need to be asked and answered.

The Netanyahu angle is odd ,I can see why people think he may have had some role in allowing this , but historically Israel gets rid of leaders who fail in security matters so I’m a bit sceptical about the idea being floated .

So he’s either guilty of knowing what was going to happen and doing nothing ,or not knowing and therefore failing .
I don’t see how he comes out of this unscathed (not that I care ,he should be in prison )

I suppose so although I wouldn't lay the blame at his door entirely - if its the former then its the whole chain of command that must be complicit (and I find it hard to imagine that nobody in their intelligence setup would leak at some point, especially given the death toll on the Israeli side) and if the latter then the Israeli intelligence community are at fault and therefore just not as good at this as the rest of the world thought they were.

Agree he should be in prison.

I work with a group of Israelis- the semiconductor industry is focused on several countries and Israel is one of them, so on major projects, people travel in groups.
Anyway, they’re all telling stories about family getting called up to service, other guys who were on holiday in Israel visiting family, aren’t coming back as they’ve been called up.
One guy I work with grew up in Ukraine and is now an Israeli citizen, having lived there for 20 years.
His family were coming over this week and that’s been cancelled as they can’t leave.
On the other side there’s a guy who is very pro Palestinian and is freaking out that people are sympathetic to the other side.
I walked away from a discussion this morning because it was getting heated and I don’t need that crap. Work can be fun but keep politics out of it, especially when you are slamming those you are working with because they can’t contact or be with family because of a war zone.
It’s a problem that’s been going on for thousands of years, and the last hundred years or whatever are just what most people are aware of.

Very true. If you look at the history of these sorts of conflicts ending, the terrorist side needs to genuinely embrace peace and repurpose its efforts on its political arm. Such groups only win when they become a genuine army and win a genuine revolution, in a country where the majority is supporting them. Nibbling at the edges of Israel from outside is never, ever going to bring about the end of the Jewish state. Despite that, the position of countries like Iran remains basically the same as The Nazi's when it comes to Judaism as a whole. 

I often look at the daily newspapers link on the BBC website. The day after the attack, the Labour-leaning papers didn't carry it as frontline news. Now the Israelis are on the offensive, they are quick to criticise that, I see... I don't rejoice - indeed I feel sick - when I watch whole apartment blocks being levelled in Gaza. But I feel much the same way about it, as I do about the bombing of German cities in WW2. It was horrific and I wish it had never happened, but I do not consider it a war crime given that it was a defensive measure against an existential threat to legitimate democratic states. With 28 UN states still not accepting the state of Israel, and some of the more extreme ones like Iran developing nuclear weapons while openly calling for Israel's destruction,  its not hard to see how they might consider threats to them as existential. Especially when armies of terrorists are invading their country and murdering their citizens on sight, which is nothing remotely like collatoral damage sustained in a viable, legitimate war aim. 

I also have a big problem with how many people in the Arab world rejoice at the murder of Israelis of all sorts. And indeed how many rejoiced at 9/11. It's hard to side with people - or indeed to justify the fact that 80% of people in Gaza rely on international aid for food - while they support such actions as dragging civilians about by their hair, murdering them, and defiling the bodies, all on camera. If a body of people supports that, perhaps paying for their food via international aid is counter productive. Maybe if they were more focused on feeding themselves they might be less focused on mudering (or celebrating the murder of) children, and get rid of their rulers who are bringing this about. I say maybe, I have no clearly defined opionion in this (with no Jewish or Arab allegiance), but I am livid at the normalising and celebration of murder, rape and abduction, here as in Ukraine, by states and state backed factions.  

The Netenyahu angle is relevant to consider, but bear in mind how much intelligence is "gathered" or "passed on" and the impossible job of doing it all justice. We have plenty of home grown terrorists where people say they reported them, but in the UK 10's of thousands of potential terrorists are under surveilance, I would not be suprised if reports come in for hundreds of thousands in total (some deliberately false), how can you do justice to all of that? What seems more relevant to me is Iran/Russia wanting to create a second front against the West/US, and the imminent acceptance of Israel by Saudi Arabia. 

Iran is becoming an ever more bold international problem. Their special forces killed Western troops in Iraq, they openly support all kinds of terrorist groups in the middle east that are fighting the US and/or Israel, they armed Hamas (while we are paying for the food of "their" citizens) and brought about this latest action. They're still developing nuclear weapons, despite Israeli attacks on their installations, and assassinations of their scientists. They treat their own citizens - especially women - like absolute shit. Where will they stop? 

Watching interviews on tv is is striking that so many Palestinians and their sympathisers are so soaked in blind hate. It's hard to see any way forward when so many seem so committed to the total extinction of another group.

I can’t unsee that , some warning maybe about the content ?

Isn't that what they always do?

The UN seems more and more like a pointless organisation sadly.

I think the feeling in some quarters is that the Israelis refuse to try to find a solution to the Palestinian problem that might be even remotely acceptable to the Palestinians. However I fully accept that for as long as the leadership of the Palestinians (Hamas) wants to wipe Israel and all Jews off the face of the planet it makes any discussions rather difficult. Both sides need to give ground whilst accepting the other's right to exist peacefully. 

I'd express my opinion on the way the Jews are viewed in the wider Arab world, not just by Hamas but I think it would be better in the members only section.

The whole situation with Israel and Palestine is an utter mess and I don't think anyone from the West suggesting they need to work together to live peacefully side by side is anything other than utterly deluded. You'd be better off trying to get Celtic fans to be welcomed in the pub next door to Ibrox!

By shooting the white flag waving hostages they were there to save, the Israeli's have done themselves massive damage. I think the shooting whilst waving a flag shows that they are operating a 100% kill solution to Hamas and now many of the ordinary Israelis are calling for an end to the conflict. What the Israelis are forgetting is that the aims of Hamas are an ideology and by destroying Gaza they are just feeding that ideology - they might kill all the Hamas fighters but there will be far more coming behind them who are prepared to take up arms especially when their "country" has been destroyed and their loved ones killed.


Negotiation and compromise is required on both sides, including giving the Palestinians their own country otherwise it won't end and will just be a bleeding sore for decades to come. 

Not for the weak of stomach... my cousin who lives in Berlin volunteered to help set up the first UK-funded field hospital in Gaza earlier this year. After about a month close to the bombing etc he's on his way back to Germany. These are some of the photos taken by the charity's media representatives; horrific doesn't even get close to describing what is going on:

www.flickr.com/photos/8301862@N05/albums/72177720316416023/