There's a difference between going to war with a country that launches defunct missiles at you, and slowly taking that country's land and water sources while making sure they have enough sanctions from other nations to never be able to economically stabilize.

Surely the fact that for every 1 Israeli child killed by a Palestinian, 16 Palestinian children are killed by an Israeli is at least worth a raised eyebrow.

The fact that the U.S. is legally prohibited from providing aid to Palestinians should also raise and eyebrow. Are mandatory $2.6bn aid to Israel should also raise an eyebrow.

Iran should be treated differently because of their actions--that's my point. We should be able to openly criticize the actions of a government without our arguments being dismissed by broad labels such as asnti-semetism or Islamophobia.

Especially when nearly 30% of Israeli Jews are against illegal settlements.

@StephenHenkel
Of course raise an eyebrow. A lot of people have done that for decades over there. Why look just at children?

Had the Palestine/body count discussion. Highlights taken from here - [slug.com]
If Canada started launching rockets into the states and was unable to fix the problem, Canada would cease to exist as a nation within half a year.

Someone has been doing a drive by on your house, strafing it every couple of days. No one's died so far, so somehow that's OK?
The sentiment is valid for any nation that imposes its will on another. You present an active position of aggression. War is declared and the loser loses. There is no time out.

• Rockets are being launched from Palestine into Israel
• Those rockets are being launched by Palestinians
• The rockets, if they land, cause damage and have the potential to kill people
• The Palestinians are responsible for their actions
• If you intend to murder someone there should be a consequence
• If someone is attacking you, you have the right to defend yourself
• It is an act of war if a state engages in aggression against its neighbor
• Israel is not a superior nation and should not be held to a higher standard than other nations
• The winner of a war is not a popularity contest

@RobBlair

I think premise 2 "These rockets are being launched by Palestinians" ought be subject to some deeper investigation.

Palestinians are not mentally handicapped. Their political system is not mentally handicapped. Any governing body knows that a missile launched at Israel will 1. be ineffective and 2. lead to the death of potentially thousands of Palestinians.

I submit for review, a hypothesis that Hamas is potentially a puppet government run by the CIA or Mossad. Wikileaks has some information to this end, but not enough conclusive.

This would make sense as missiles from Palestine generally don't harm any Israelis, but give the Israeli's cause to oust a few hundred/thousand more Palestinians and lobby for more funding from the U.S.

It's not a belief I hold, just a hypothesis. We know plenty of puppet governments do and have existed, we also know for a fact of a handful of false flag operations committed by Israel.

@RobBlair And to be clear, I fully support Israel's right to exist, and I detest and oppose any legitimate anti-Semitism.

I simply question some of their policies and know a bit of their history.

Is it politically correct to be Islamophobic? Surely both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are politically incorrect.

@StephenHenkel

@DocWatty Thank you for this, I think it really touches on language usage and how to be more concise.

I agree Islamophobia is a misnomer, and Muslimophobia would be more accurate.

@StephenHenkel I agree with that.