Hass you have to understand Israel is a democracy and the majority of the population are Westernised and secular.
Yes in the distant past Israeli policy has been about expansion and there have been religious zealots (or supporters of religious zealots) in government but the nature of a democracy is that governments come and go and policies change.
The Israeli people don't make a habit of voting for religious zealots.
Yes they vote for people who will defend them against attack but they are not voting for racist, expansionist fundamentalists.
When I listen to people who oppose Israel even moderately they talk about it as if it was a monolithic military regime run by expansionist and genocidal dictators.
It is not, it is a liberal democracy whos policies are like shifting sand.
Most Israelis want peace so the sand is very unlikely to shift in an expansionist messianic direction.
Some Israelis only see peace possible with a wall and an active military who wont give up an inch of territory for fear of it being seen as in retreat, others want to see 67 borders and an end to defensive retaliation but no politician would get voted in if he said that his policies were to expand Israel.
Israeli politicians get voted in for saying they will defend Israel not expand it.
Israel is a liberal democracy, they have gay pride for crying out loud. Do you really think Israel is run by a ,racist, ultra religious, military regime....Sheesh
Also if you study any war in history I think you will find that recently Israel has been uniquely interested in targeting their enemy and avoiding civilians.
Yes there is always going to be civilian casualties, deaths, pain misery and despair in a war but Israel is attacking an enemy which uses guerrilla tactics and is based in a very densely populated area. When you take that into account it's quite obvious that Israel is trying to target Hamas not civilians. If they didn't care about civilians the death toll would be in the thousands if not hundreds of thousands.
People called Jennin "The Jennin Massacre" the Palestinian authority and Western activists claimed that 500 civilians were slaughtered. The Western media lapped it up and Israel was condemned. It turned out that 56 people were killed and 46 of them were armed. Be careful when talking about the conflict in Gaza as an Israeli atrocity.
You said your father fought against Israel. It's difficult to see the reality of a conflict when you have such a close relationship to one side in that conflict.
I think you are looking at the situation with the eyes of someone who has been raised to see Israel as the enemy. Any Israeli attack is going to seem like an atrocity when you have been bought up with stories of war and oppression by the losing side in a war.
I have to say your view of this is totally partisan and there is no way you can see the reality of Israeli policies when you have always seen Israel as a brutal racist oppressor.
I'm not Jewish or Muslim and I don't know anyone who has ever fought for or against Israel.
I'm just looking at Israeli policy objectively and it is without a doubt defensive and I'm looking at military history and Israel does not target civilians.
It does have a load of illegal settlements, an oppressive network of roadblocks, check points and an aggressive military occupation of the West Bank. All of this should be removed but make no mistake that the road blocks and check points are there to stop the murder of Israelis not to humiliate the Palestinians.
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Topic: ISRAEL does it have a right to exist?