Not everyone in Israel agrees with this.

Not everyone in Israel... Two Jews will, infamously, have 3 opinions on most matters...

Arabs, on the other hand, are much more determined — 2/3 voted for Hamas in the free elections of 2006. 2/3rds wish to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Any state living next to such enemies is absolutely justified in doing anything to defend itself.

What you mean is that Israel doesn't consider what is 'currently' Gaza to be its own terriitory -- but that its own territory expands inch by inch at the crest of a bulldozer

Ariel Sharon demolished Israeli settlements in Gaza and forcibly pulled all of the "encroaching" settlers back. Hamas' charter did not change — they still aim for destroying Israel...

Lets at least keep reality on the table here.

And reality is, the Arabs should've accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 and built their own state. That they chose to instead wage war — and not just one, but many — is their own fault. And the fitting punishment for that aggression is loss of land. And as long as the morons keep shooting at Israel, they will (or should) continue losing land. Occupying the enemy's territory is perfectly proper conduct in war — and if the stupid enemy is not giving up for decades, then the loss may become permanent.

Majority of people are arguing against Israel because they want the senseless killing to stop

Where was this "majority of people", when Hamas were firing dozens of rockets per day at Israel? Watching soccer? Why don't you go back to that — and leave the arguing to people with attention spans longer than 30 minutes...

Yes and not long ago all US citizens had the right to be married to one person of the opposite gender of the same race.

What the rest of the society considers worthy of recognition as "marriage" should, indeed, be up to that society... This is not about sex-life, which should be up to the willing participants, but about other people's opinions: "We are a married couple!" "No, you are not — you are two men..." "Yes, we are — this new laws says so!"

To force others to consider a particular union as "marriage" may be illiberal...

No doubt eventually we will knock the gender caveat off of marriage too

Sure. And move straight on to fighting the species caveat next, will you not? Or, perhaps, the one person caveat will be next — why can't I be married to two consenting adult human females and an adult male cat — at once, after all? How is that prohibition not discrimination?

While we are at it, lets just get the state out of marriage and just allow exclusive legal partnerships between any two consenting adults.

Full agreement here — there should be no special provisions for "spouses" in any laws — we are all equal subjects and citizens. Until then, however, "marriage" and "spouse" are legal terms and their precise definitions are up to the legislatures...

Well then, Iranian homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else there: they can avoid gay sex or die.

No such dilemma exists for American homosexuals — their sex-lives are entirely up to them.

What they seem to be fighting for is for the rest of us to treat their unions as "marriage". And for that the term needs to be redefined...

The guy in the wheelchair may be deprived of his ability to practice karate, but its not because his fellow citizens are campaigning and voting to keep him from doing it.

Nobody is campaigning to keep the homosexuals unable to marry — they are unable to do so already. Not because they have no right — only because they have no ability.

It is more to do with proportional response.

This is utter bullshit. If an enemy is trying to kill you, you try to kill them — using the best weapons you've got, hitting them as hard as possible. Because they are doing their best.

You also have to consider that the Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas

That lie was exposed as such, when the Gazans voted — in free and internationally-observed elections — for Hamas.

For every innocent non-terrorist killed, that will recruit many terrorists.

Contrary to the haters' portrayal, IDF are not indiscriminate killers they don't need this sort of calculations to try their hardest to avoid killing innocent civilians. Shit still happens, unfortunately.

Saddam never gassed his own citizens, you probably mean Kurdish insurgents.

Assad never gassed his own citizens, you probably mean rebels.

Both strongmen considered their victims to be their citizens and subjects. In the state of rebellion, but citizens nonetheless. Bullshit propaganda much?

How are they NOT "citizens"?

How are they citizens?

Those people have lived within the territorial boundaries their whole lives.

So? The "boundaries" have Israel on one of the sides — why aren't you claiming them to be citizens of Jordan and Egypt? At least, those two neighbors actually once occupied the entire West Bank and Gaza respectively — for twenty years...

The Israeli government is being run by far-right reactionaries

Israeli government has changed many times since the country's establishment — swinging from Left to Right and anything in between. Never once have PLO or Hamas changed their official goal of destroying Israel.

but that won't make it any less true.

Nothing your wrote is true — except for the obvious fact, that downmodding will not make it any less so.

hows that gay marriage thing coming in the US?

All US citizens have the exact same right, when it comes to marriage: they can be married to one person of the opposite gender, who are not too closely related to them by blood.

That about 3% of the population are unable to exercise that right is unfortunate, but it does not mean, they are deprived of the right.

Not any more so, than a quadriplegic is deprived of the right to practice karate.

Oh, so it's a separate nation that Israel recognizes?

No, they are not a nation — not in Israel's opinion, not in their own, not in that of the rest of the world. When the UN split the former British mandate into two parts, Jews proceeded to establishing their own state. The Arabs, instead of likewise establishing theirs, declared war... That was because — in their own opinions — they weren't separate nations (Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians), but simply Arabs. They lost that war — and the subsequent ones. By the end of the 20th century, Arabs have given up attacking Israel openly and switched to terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.

That tactics seems to be succeeding...

Not a territory they claim?

No, Israel has no territorial claim to Gaza strip. Are you not embarrassed over being wrong so often?

Israel is sure doing a good job in that area creating more enemies

With the share of Gazans being enemies of Israel before the war being around the "five nines", I doubt strongly, Israel has increased the animosity substantially in recent weeks.

Certainly not enough to prefer to go back to living under the constant barrage of rockets — however ineffective they may be.

Did that make them valid military targets?

It would have, if that — destroying the soldier's transportation — were the goal. But it is not. The goal of blowing up a bus is to make the population — civilians — afraid. That, by definition, is terrorism.

To put it differently, if the IDF started providing a separate transport for these soldiers going home for the weekend — prohibiting them from using the regular buses, Hamas would still try to blow up the regular transit. On contrast, if Hamas were to stop using schools and hospitals to store weapon caches or, indeed, fire from, Israel would not be shooting at those installations.

Got any more false analogies for me?

This shit keeps up and I'll just skip the goddamn Internet completely and go back to reading more books instead.

Please, do. Instead of adding anything to the discussion, you simply repeated your previous comment — only with more swear words. Please, disconnect. Remember to logout.