so all the rockets fired from Gaza only contain rocks ?
Strawman argument
Why are the Palestinians firing things in the first place?
Just highlights the huge imbalance of power though:
-Israel oppresses Palestinians with dodgy laws, sophisticated weaponry, and downright aggression,
-Palestinians respond in defiance with a few rocks or some rudimentary type of device that could be loosely described as a missile.
-Israel cried "we are under attack and we must defend ourselves!"
-Israel oppresses Palestinians with more dodgy laws, sophisticated weaponry, and downright aggression,
and on it goes.
Palestinians cannot succeed against such odds on their own and Israel knows it. In fact the only thing that surprises me is that Israel hasn't been even more bold and ruthless in its taking over of Palestine.
I really feel for the Palestinians as they must think that they have been abandoned by justice
Not to mention the biggest paradox of all - Zionist Jews commit an act of political violence/terrorism and get a nation-state out of it, Palestinians do the same, they get bombed into the stone age.
But overall you're spot on, as long as US gives unreserved support to Israel, there is no prospect of a decent compromise that can create a sense of justice for everyone, and more importantly, let everyone get on with their lives without being worried that they can randomly die simply by jumping on the bus or playing football with their mates.
2002 - 17 Rockets 455 Mortar Shells
2003 - 123 rockets and 514 mortars
2004 - 882 mortar shells and 276 rockets
2005 - 574 mortar shells and 286 rockets
2006 - 1,247 rockets and 28 mortars
2007 - A total of 2,807 rockets and mortars
2008 - 1575 Rockets 1528 Mortars
2009 - 858 Rockets and Mortars
2010 - 569 rocket launches and 289 mortar launches.
2011 - 680 Rockets and Mortars
2012 - 2257 Rockets
2013 - 68 Rockets and Mortars
2014 - 4036 Rockets and Mortars
2015 - 4594 Rockets and Mortars
2016 - 12 Rockets
2017 - 51 Rockets
Now lets see Israel to Gaza weaponry used as a comparison.
Overall I agree with your point though, Hamas are no angels, but it's here I would pick up on a point Ryan has made - you are a product of your environment sometimes. If you're walled in, oppressed, abused, are you just supposed to roll over and take it? I hardly blame them.
I think that's overly simplifying things. The only way Hamas gets peace is to bow down to Israel's unreasonable (and illegal) occupation. Without Israel there would be no Hamas.
And Israel certainly want to wipe Palestine out, for sure. They are doing what they're doing because the US is letting them, and protecting them from the ire of the rest of the world. But even the US won't let them go as far as to just wipe them out.
Lets be clear here, Israel are, and have been for a long time, breaking clear international law, and they are getting away with it scot free, thanks to US support, who are also incidentally breaking international law all over the place. The criticism of Israel is only very recent, as people have become more emboldened to criticise, since we now seem to be ok to separate criticism of Israel out from criticism of the Jewish religion and people. Just 5 - 10 years ago there was very little criticism, as most people feared being labelled anti-semitic.
Interesting sidenote: the US are the only country that has ever been convicted of terrorism by the International Court of Justice, for their activity in Nicaragua in the 70s/80s. And in the 1980s, on 5 separate occasions, the UN put forward resolutions for the US to comply with the ruling, all of which they vetoed after they were out-voted heavily. Only El Salvador and Israel (surprise surprise) voted with the US each time.
Countries that have supported terrorism include Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Cuba , Libya, Yemen to name a few.