[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Livia

Northern Ireland hasn't been firing rockets into the mainland all that time. It's not the same thing at all. Hamas fire rockets at Israel every day, indiscriminately, at residential sites, not military ones. There are always air raid sirens going off. It's only the fact that Israel's defence system is good that the Israeli death toll isn't much, much higher. So many people are armed in Israel, even primary school teachers to protect children against terrorist attack. That doesn't happen on the British mainland, so the analogy isn't a good one. I'm not saying Israel's reaction isn't extreme... it is, the loss of life in Gaza is appalling, no one could argue against that. But people seem to be under the impression that Hamas wouldn't bomb an Israeli school if they could get to it. If Palestine has the same kind of arms and equipment Israel has, the whole place would be a smoking crater.

Something's got to give... I can only hope they can come to some kind of peace agreement the way they have in Northern Ireland.

True but those differences are also why the France analogy would be way off, because that would be two global powers of near equal might and capabilities going to war whereas this conflict is very much imbalanced in almost every way possible. I'm not saying they are right to think this but both Hamas and the IRA would see themselves as the persecuted David taking on the oppressive Goliath of Israel/the UK.