actually, the news hasn't said much about it at all. stay safe man.

I've been on a vacation for the past few days so I have been out of the news loop, but Swedish media is traditionally more Palestina-friendly and my memories of the headlines have been reflecting that - I do remember one article about how the Israeli prime minister called the parents of a murdered Palestinian 16-year old boy but that's it in terms of specifics.

Alright, a barrage of rockets flew here right now so I got pics for you
but later, because I want to go~

meanwhile - isa - three teens were kidnapped and murdered about a month ago. after their bodies were found(killers weren't found yet) a body of a 16-years old palestinian kid was found murdered too. the murderers are jewish and were found and will be prosecuted, probably spend the rest of their lives in prison.

these stories flipped it, and caused this war

From what I gather from the media:

-Some Israeli teenagers go hitchhiking in Gaza. They end up dead.
-In retaliation, some Israeli guys kill a completely unrelated Palastinian teenager from Jeruzalem.
-Now everybody is shooting missiles at each other.

There was also something about a couple of cops beating up an innocent American Islamic visitor, but I don't know if that was in retaliation to the earlier events or if it was a completely isolated incident.

I remember something about police brutality versus the cousin of the murdered Palestinian kid who was also half American. Might be the same person.

-they weren't in Gaza, they were on the west bank, trying to get home from religious school. kidnapped and murdered.
-true
-yup lol

second part - never heard of it, but you might mean:yeah. the cousin claimed he was just standing there and got beat up, police say he was stonethrowing like everyone around.

~looks like we're going to enter gaza in the near future, probably in search for tunnels..this is not going to end soon :<

Can I just take a stand and say that I absolutely do not support either side in this conflict? Both have been doing absolutely atrocious things. Both the Israeli government and Hamas are horrible and both need to be shipped to The Hague ASAP to be put on trial for the crimes they have committed.

of course, but then again, the guys in Hague have never faced such problem, and cannot offer a different approach, so I'm assuming this is why nobody from israel is being prosecuted

Looks like ceasefire tomorrow. no casualties on the israeli side, so I can live with that.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119046/gaza-war-media-coverage-lacked-reporting-hamas-fighters-tactics

Atvelonis asked me yestetday on FB but I cannot access FB at work and do not want to download ots messenger so I put tgis here for all. Back to work!

Interesting article here. Hopefully, some progress will be made soon!

How have I never realized that this is a position one can hold before? I've always felt uncomfortable parading either side as positive and great, and I think I just found the solution to this cognitive dissonance.

it's probably because we live in the us

No its because you choose not to make any choices when a choice is needed because its easier to sit on the fence (PS: Choose Israel)

I'm saying there is no fence. There is a variety of positions, although holding the view that what both are doing is positive for the world is rather self-contradictory since both sides in a violent conflict can't both be benefitting humanity, unless they're using death-toll heavy methods and both people groups have incredibly horrendous cultures. I find that the view that both sides are wrong agrees the most with the other facts I know about Israeli and Palestinian national behavior.

I hold the view that what both sides are doing is wrong because Israel has repeatedly bombed Palestine and refuses to acknowledge the squalid conditions that many Palestinians live in (Israeli GDP/capita is $36051 whereas Palestinian GDP/capita is $2782). They think they are fighting equals, but they stopped being equals and started being far more powerful years ago. Meanwhile Palestine, especially Hamas, uses terrorist techniques to scare Israelis and keep them on the edge. They also continue to pretend as if they can destroy Israel and return the region to an entirely Islamic state, when this is literally the opposite of what can happen. They also kill civilians without warning and do other such terroristy things. So as a result I think both sides are pretty crap, although Israel should be held to a somewhat higher standard due to the previously mentioned enormous wealth gap.

Israeli here! sup.

sitting on the fence is definitely not a viable option, imo.
The world's media is very biased and it should be really hard for you guys to understand how things happen here.

@Dar, 2nd paragraph:
Every "bombing" of the land in recent years (>2005) are operations I can talk to you about, if you want. Reasoning, goals, etc., as a soldier and officer I can give you any detail you want. None of these are just because.
In short, I will say that 99.9% of the times the cause for these conflicts is that the people controlling the money in "palestine" invest 99% of it to arm themselves against Israel, and only 1% to actually grow, support their people, and get better. We all acknowledge the bad conditions in the Gaza area in comparison to Israel, that's why there are tens of thousands of palestinians who work daily in Israel.

And I'm really going to lol at the 'fighting equals' part. Israel is not equal and not even nearly equal to any army surrounding it in radius of ~5000km; we invest MILLIONS on making sure that any attack we do causes the LEAST casualties needed, lol. If we cared less, there wouldn't be so many operations, there would be one, and it would have been very short and decisive. This is the case since about 1979.

Re: Hamas actions: we're not fearing them, not at all. There are certain towns and cities very nearing Gaza which, in war times, get loads of missiles shot at them, but nowadays with Iron Dome and Magic Wand, they're pretty well defended. It's bad, yes, and this kind of stuff takes us to operations again and again, but Hamas is not a threat to Israel. If they collapse financially, THAT would be bad for Israel, because WE are the ones who will have to deal with it - arab countries don't want any contact with the "palestinian" government, so we're screwed.

The above is a short version of how we look at it from HERE. if you want elaboration, questions on anything, at all, I'll gladly waste my time answering, because I strongly believe that we're doing the right and moral things, and I think it's important that people abroad know that too.

I'll gladly listen to what you have to say, I'm trying to form the most informed opinion I can without listening to the junk spewed around everywhere (especially on sites like tumblr)

Earlier today I was on Reddit and saw an article that said Bernie Sanders has a higher chance of winning the general election that Hillary Clinton does. It said that Bernie was ahead of Trump by either 12% or 17% (I don't quite remember) and Hillary's lead over Trump was only 8%.
Regarding the primaries, although Hillary is currently ahead of Bernie, based on a few articles I've read Bernie has a pretty good chance of winning; most of the articles I saw said that his campaign would eventually gain momentum and possibly win enough of the states that vote later to get the nomination.

I selfishly want trump to win lol
I'm so tired of democracy sometimes :X


Also Dar, talk on Slack ;P

I don't dislike democracy (in real life), I only dislike gridlock and partisan disputes (and that's why I hate Mitch McConnell; he seems to love getting nothing done).

there's no realistic way that sanders wins the nomination

He has a chance. Don't forget that he's done much better than anyone expected.

i agree with isa

the republican party is going to inject obama and romney and delete the democratic party causing a repeat of 2012  

So, Trump bragged about having a large hoo-ha during a Republican debate.
Sanders is only big in the 25 and below crowd for the most part, he doesn't have really any minority votes, so he's kinda screwed