The common Israeli point of view:
- The latest killings and woundings of Israeli civilians by Hamas rockets are making the situation intolerable. The Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon is more proof that Iran is becoming a real threat to Israel. If we don't do something quickly, we'll be trapped between two Iranian entities: one in Lebanon and one in Gaza.
- We Israelis have to do something.
- What can we do?
- Minority view (very small minority, actually): talk with Hamas.
- Majority view:
- Attack them - destroy their military capability, and make the citizens of Gaza sorry that they elected the terrorists of Hamas.
- The goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. If we lower the pressure, all we're going to do is allow Hamas more time to gain power in order to achieve their goal of destroying Israel. Proof? Sure: we left Gaza, and what we got in return was more rockets than there were before.
- If the people of Gaza want to stop sufferring, they should prove to us that they want peace. We proved it to them by leaving Gaza, and all we got in return was proof that they want to destroy us.
My guess about the Arab point of view:
- The rockets on Israel are nothing compared to the sufferring of the innocent civilians in Gaza now and in Lebanon during the last war.
- The Israeli talk about "proving to us that they want peace" is pure propaganda. They didn't really leave Gaza, they just put a seige on Gaza. Their helicopters and airplanes never really left.
- The only way we can protest against the seige is by firing rockets. We'll keep firing rockets until the Israelis lift the seige.
- These rockets aren't doing any real harm - they're just proving to those cruel Israelis that they can't beat us. If we stop firing those rockets, then we lose our pride.
- Yes, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, but there's no way it can really achieve this in the forseable future, so the Israelis aren't really afraid. On the other hand, Hamas and Hezbollah are proof that we Arabs aren't so incapable as we used to think.
Did I get it correctly?
-IB
