Re: Why Gaza matters to Pakistanis
As Gazans do not really have much of an international propaganda influence the way the Israelis do because of the media exposure, the superior command of a sophisticated appearance that seeminly justifies their activities as ethical (they wear suits and they're well groomed, and the GAzans look haggered, the Israelis can't possibly be doing anything unethical), and the fact that the Israelis have the Holocaust behind them (how can someone who gets abused go on to abuse any one else - neverminding the fact that abused orphans do it all the time when they grow up and therefore, this is a natural human phenomenon), the Gazans have to be more smart.
If there are people setting up settlements on your land, then there is a better way than launching mortars to get the international attention. Because if you shoot the mortar, no one is going to feel pity for you - the opposing side can easily say "look they're killing our people, how can we tolerate it?"
Furthermore, if the muslims want proportionate responses, how do you explain the proportion of civilians setting up an illegal settlement, to firing off mortars onto civilians who were NOT the ones setting up those settlements.
And another question - why wouldn't you just fire the mortars at the illegal settlements? Why fire at someone else who may actually disapprove of the illegal settlements - the Jewish population is quite divided on the illegal settlement issue - many Jews I meet don't like the idea that the airspace, waterspace, etc in Gaza is controlled by the Israelis.
Its like this. I don't know if you watch Jon Stewart, but he has this comedy show on cable in the US. He's Jewish. He had another Jewish reporter on his show some days ago, and they were talking about the Israeli and Gazan war, and Jon was saying how he can't believe no one in the American government will criticize Israel for what its doing.
Now here's the example. Hitting a mortar on innocent civilians in Israel in return for OTHER civilians illegally settling within your boundaries, is no different than murdering Jon Stewart because he's a civilian jew because some Jewish people have decided to set up camp in your local mosque in order to protest against the presence of muslims in the area.
Its not proportional right?
Hamas doesn't think through its tactics - they're not very smart people actually. And now their irrational and poorly planned maneuvers of mortar launching - which might have destroyed how much property and taken how many lives? - is now leading to a death toll of 860 + last time I checked. I don't know about you, but that's not very smart planning. And I don't support stupidity. Yet the muslim world is so blind and so fueled by their passion that they don't stop and think - lets step back for a minute, think this through, and figure out an EFFECTIVE way to end the Israel-Palestinian problems, that would result in least civilian death. No one is doing that. No one. Its sick. We'd rather see mass casualties than try to just settle this issue once and for all, even if it means some concessions to the Israelis. Thousands of deaths is worth the idea of not having to acknowledge Israel as a state? Does that seem right to you? No thank-you, that's not what my life costs, and I think its preposterous that the muslim world would deem it fit to make that decision about my life or any other muslim life. Maybe that's why God is punishing us so much - we've stopped caring about our own people - all we care about is a sliver of land here, and a sliver of land there, when clearly God tried to resolve this issue a long time ago by clearly letting us know the Jurusalem is not longer our city, but that Mecca is. And we have Mecca. And we have Medina. Why are we running after Jurusalem? One of the senior Hamas leaders was killed recently, and his statement was something along the lines of how its sinful that the Jews have Jurusalem and that its an offense in the eyes of God and how Jurusalem should belong to Muslims.
If you seriously believe the Hamas hogwash about boo-hoo we're trying to preserve the Palestinian lives - its all BS. What they're really after is some delusion that they'll win some palace in heaven if they capture Jurusalem - that's why they can never negotiate well with the Israelis, because they're not willing to settle for anything less than having all of present day Israel for the Palestinians and kicking all the Jews out back to Europe.
Those days are gone, and that approach is completely unrealistic. The fact that muslims around the world share in this delusion is simply nothing less than SCARY.