Israel has the right to protect itself, don't you agree?

Question

I have spent a lot of time in Israel and have both Jewish and Arab friends (Muslim and Christian). The widest part of israel is aproximately 70 miles from the mediterainian to Jordan and about 380 miles long. Israel is surrounded by Arab countries and regularly bombed from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The bombs are most often directed at civilian homes not military targets.
Israel is a reality, only took land after 1947 in it's own defense and has always wanted peace.
If mexico started shooting katuscha rockets into the USA don't you think we would have the right to stop it?

Answer 1

Everybody has that right. What scares me is that Israel seems to be getting a little soft and much too tolerable of the hostile acts being precipitated against them. That has got to change or they are going to be nuked one day.

Answer 2

Yes, of course.

To matineesiren:

All the territories the Israelis now possess are theirs by legal right -- the right conferred by the League of Nations Mandates Commission, when it carefully defined the territory which would be set aside, from the vast territories in the Middle East that had formerly been in the control of the Ottoman Turks as part of their empire, and which had been won by the Allies.

An Arab State, a Kurdish State, and a Jewish state were all promised. The Arabs got their state -- no, in the end, they got far more than their state but rather, in 2005, 22 members of the Arab League, the most richly endowed with natural resources of any states on earth, enjoying the fruits of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history The Kurds did not get their state, because by the time things had settled, Kemal Ataturk was driving a hard bargain and would not permit it.

The Jews got the Mandate for Palestine set up for the express purpose of establishing the Jewish National Home, which would inexorably become, all parties realized, in time a Jewish state. It did not seem wrong then, and does not seem wrong now, that the Jews should have a state of their own. They asked only for the right to have no barriers put up to their immigration, and no barriers put in the way of their buying land. That was it. That was the sum total of what they demanded.

Until the 1948 war, when five Arab armies attacked, not a single dunam of Arab-owned land (and remember that nearly 90% of the land, in any case, remained the possession of the state or the ruling authority, as in the Mandatory period) was appropriated. No one should dare to write about this subject without having done the research on demography, land ownership, and law.

The Israeli claim to the West Bank (as Judea and Samaria were carefully renamed by Jordan after 1948, in precisely the same way, and for the same reason, that the Romans, nearly two thousand years before, had renamed Judea as "Palestine" and Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina) is not that of a military occupier, though it is also that. The main legal and historic claim is that based on the League of Nations Mandate, which in turn, was based on a considerable historic and moral claim recognized by the educated leaders of the then-civilized world, who actually knew something of the history of the area, and were not nearly as misinformed as so many have been by the mass media, and the laziness and prejudice of journalists today.

Answer 3

Very good point! I find it interesting that EVERY time peace talks start it is ONLY Israel that is bombed that puts an end to the talks. Iran, the Palestinians and other arab groups do not want peace but the destruction of Israel because they are anti-semitic. I am glad you brought this question up.

Answer 4

Yes, Israel should do everything in its power to ensure the safety of its citizens. Including everything possible to stop the rocket fire out of Gaza into Jewish communities.

Unfortunately, the current leadership in Israel is wimpy and complacent.

Answer 5

I just have one question to all those bashing Israel.

If Israel would recede to 67' borders (something the UN did not demand read what they stated)

would their really be peace?

if so why was their a war in 1948, 54, 67???

The Arabs had three chances to make peace with Israel. They instead chose war. They have reaped what they have sown.

if the Arabs had made peace with Israel after the 1948 war. Then we would not be having this talk.

Answer 6

Yes, Israel has a right to protect itself. In general, I am pro-Israel, but there have been times when it has seemed to me that certain Israeli leaders had no interest in peace: just when there was negotiation and cease-fire, there were deadly bombardments by the Israeli forces.
It seems that on both sides there are those who want peace, while others think they have something to gain in the long run if there is no peace. Rather diabolical, I think.

Answer 7

Without a doubt!!!
Israel is not the aggressor, they only retaliate and anyone who says different needs to read history.
Also anyone who says they would not bomb Mexico after 100's of bombs hit our soil is full of siht.

Answer 8

Israel has the right to protect itself--within it's OWN borders. All the settlements they are are ILLEGAL. In direct violation of several U.N. resolutions AND the Geneva Convention. An occupying country that practices apartheid, racial discrimination, and downright genocide does NOT have the right to whine about being shot at while they are the oppressors.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

Israel has as much as a right to defend itself as the Palestinians have to their own land.