Let's start with that Israel isn't in Gaza, you can say that there is a sea blockade, ok, why? Remember Karine A? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_A_affair Israel can keep it's border with Gaza closed, yet it's not, yes, it allows goods to come and go. There is border with Egypt yet it's the same. Water, electricity flow from Israel to gaza unpaid very colonialist of Israel.

I'm not saying that Israel isn't in the West bank, it is. Are their life better than the ones in Gaza? Absolutely yes. Why? Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Defensive_Shield and that there is corporation between the PA defense forces and Israel. Do they live normal life? No. Israel stand is that peace will be met with peace Israel is rarely the aggressor.

"Palestine is firing into cities because it has no other means to defend itself" this isn't self-defenses that's terrorism. You want to fire at military checkpoints, at soldiers at military vehicles and compounds fine, it's an armed conflict. If by your standards anything goes then don't hold Israel to a different value.

If I was under occupation I would target the military, I would target the the ones that are in my city I wouldn't go to a busy shopping center and blow myself up. I wouldn't fire rockets to kills as many people as I can, I wouldn't add ball bearings to create maximum affect.

According to nearly everyone - Amnesty International, the UN, the EU, the WHO, Oxfam, the Red Cross, the UK, etc. - Israel is occupying Gaza by virtue of all the control they have over it, even if they don't have troops literally living there. Israel itself says it's not occupying it, because that would be illegal, but they're hardly unbiased. In any case they control all airspace, territorial waters, what goods can be imported, they enter with troops at their leisure, etc. Then there's the West Bank, which even Israel acknowledges it is occupying (except Jerusalem, it still disputes that).

>>>...Israel is rarely the aggressor.

This completely depends on whether you consider military occupation aggression. I certainly would. If Israel stopped occupying Gaza and the West Bank and removed the settlements, then it would be a very different situation. As long as they're occupying Palestine, I don't know how you can see them as not being aggressors.

>>>If I was under occupation I would target the military

I suggest that if you were under military occupation, and you saw fellow civilians injured (or killed) and their homes destroyed, you might consider any methods that could stop that acceptable.

It's very simple. Drop the guns stop saying you want to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. You think this is a political conflict? It's religious, always has been. Arab aggression towards Jews was way before the occupation, before the creation of the state of Israel. The fact that Israel has a peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan is a statement that a change of policies can enable peace, on both sides even if the other is reluctant.

Maybe show us an example by ending the illegal occupation of Canada and return to which ever country your family came from and give it back to the poor natives who suffer immensely under the Canadian occupation.

You've lost me on three points.

1) No modern Palestinian group (not even Hamas) is pushing the "kill all Jews" idea, thankfully. The majority seem to want a two state solution with Israel continuing to exist. And again, Israel is occupying territory; why isn't the onus on them to stop doing that?

2) What does it matter if it's religious or not? Call it religious or political or economic, what does that change?

3) And which of the countries my ancestors left ~150 years ago, that I don't have citizenship in, that (in some cases) don't exist any longer, should I return to, exactly? It was wrong for my ancestors to colonize and occupy Canada; we should take steps to undo that harm in the ways we can. I don't think that's the same situation as asking settlers who actively started occupying an area in the West Bank in the last five/ten/fifteen years to move back into Israel.

Let's look at this another way. How do you think this whole mess should be resolved, ideally? I think a two-state solution is really the only way. What would you like to see?

1) This is false, you should read the Hamas and Islamic Jihad charter, and their official statements. It's liberate from the river to the sea and slaughter the Jews.

2) It matters because even if you believe the occupation is wrong you need to understand the reason for it, the hostilities didn't not start in 47 and not in 67. Hell the PLO was founded in 64 to liberate Palestine by force.

3) It's the same situation, it's just it was hundreds of years ago going back to the 16th century. By that logic lets wait 100-200 years and then there will a statute of limitation? The only reason this is a thing is because news media, tv and radio which distort reality into small chunks to be feed to the masses. If this was Muslims conquering other Muslims that's fine but when it's Jews? Oy vey that won't do. You have to understand that it's not the settlements in the west bank, they consider every Jew a settler and want them to go back to Europe or Russia. What about the 850K Jews who were expelled from Arab countries?

Ideally? Palestinians stop all hostilities. Denounce violence. Disarm. Recognize Israel right to exists. Israel stop building more settlements. Israel sees that they hold on to their word, ease road blocks, ease the blockade. Help them have a sea port and airport (which Israel already agreed to do but was declined), connect the gaza and west bank somehow. Both sides agree on borders with land and population exchange, Israel retains security controls, Israel and the Palestinians reduce friction to a minimum but there is a joined council with daily meeting with cooperation on security, economics, health and holy sites.

A non ideal solution is that neither side agrees to anything, all the settlers go back to Israel and the west bank and gaza become a nature reserve because no one can play nicely.

> You think this is a political conflict? It's religious, always has been

People aren't that much religious in Palestine, at least not the younger generations. Things change, generations come and go.

But I can understand if you think people are, because of so much silly things to read on Facebook etc.

However a 2-3 hours bus trip to get to the University (can be in total 4-5 h in the bus, per day), when normally it'd been 20? minutes by train (on a railroad that hasn't yet been built), doesn't make Israel and the checkpoints popular.

> However a 2-3 hours bus trip to get to the University (4-5 h/day), when normally it'd been 20? minutes by train (on a railroad that hasn't yet been built), doesn't make Israel and the checkpoints popular.

How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms that they know will eventually be fired into populated areas of Israel out of pure hatred, killing innocent civilians? They certainly don't run checkpoints because they're fun.

Please note that I didn't say that the barrier could just be removed.

Indeed among both the Israelis and Palestinians, there's a small percentage violent men (mostly men), for example, a small fraction of the people in IDF shot a thousand people in Gaza some years ago (about 100 died, don't remember exactly).

And a small fraction of the Palestinian men in Gaza fire rockets against civilians (although they pretend they target military but they don't) and I think eventually some people like them would blow bombs if they could get past the barrier. And that would restart a circle of violence, bad for everyone.

> How else do you propose they quell the proliferation of arms

That might take about a generation.

Examples: Stop doing bad things to one's neighbor: Don't send soldiers with weapons to the West Bank, building settlements and taking other people's land, forcing them to leave. You can websearch for "Breaking the silence IDF" maybe combined with "male soldier Gaza" or "female border police" to find out other things individuals in IDF or the border police sometimes do, that can create and keep alive such hatred you mention. (And maybe is that kind of hatred, just this time from some Israelis against Palestinians.)

And do kind things to one's neighbor: Share the Covid-19 vaccine with the Palestinians: Reverse time and give it to high risk group in Palestine, instead of first to low risk groups in Israel. Support women in Palestine who start their own businesses -- women are generally more peaceful and the more influence they have, the better.

And about the barriers: More buses, more checkpoints, and more staff in each checkpoint, so takes less time to pass the checkpoints. To respect other people's time.

There're probably 100s of things to stop doing, and 1 000s of things one could start doing, to create peace and friendship. Then, continue like that, for one (maybe two) generations, and it'll be fine.

(Plus doing kind things to the people in nearby Arab countries, so it'll be harder for dictators or corrupted politicians there, to say bad things about Israel -- which they apparently do a bit much, maybe to divert attention from problems in their own countries. For example, share the covid vaccine with the people in Lebanon.)

However I think Netanyahu and Hamas or Jihad group leaders, need conflict, to get more votes and stay in power. Isn't Netanyahu popular partly because many voters think he's saving them from danger. Too many of the voters don't realize that he is part of creating the danger. And the same goes for Hamas and jihad groups. And they'll want to continue taking land, and firing rockets, doing the opposite to what I mentioned above.

> Palestine is firing into cities

Those who do that, make Netanyahu stronger -- I think many people vote for him because they think he's better at stopping such things. (When in fact he encourages it by eg using military to take more land)

By firing rockets, they are Netanyahu's best recruiters for the elections.

Please don't say that "Palestinians" fire rockets? It's a small fraction, one in a thousand or less? who does that.

> firing into cities because it has no other means

That's like, "we cannot reach the military so let's stab a bunch of school children instead". Doesn't solve any problems, doesn't make a good impression

(And btw I think it'd be a bad and sad idea to fire rockets at military too. It's just ordinary people, there's general conscription in Israel. Now when I've said that I suppose I have to mention that I don't like violent settlers (those who are) and talking land from others.)

> firing into cities

I didn't know that the commanders in IDF were doing that just now -- they've killed 40 Palestinian children and 139 adults, and comparing 40 with 139 indicates that most (almost all?) adults were civilians.

Those "let's stab a bunch of school children" type of people -- some of them are military commanders in IDF, and gives orders about those reckless bombings (of Gaza). That makes Hamas and jihad groups more popular in Gaza. (Whilst the rockets being fired makes Netanyahu more popular in Israel.)