And the slaughter in the Middle East goes on... year after year. Innocent Israelis and Palestinians are killed - both civilians and soldiers. The violence breeds more violence and ultimately death. We the onlookers stand and watch helplessly, wherever our sympathies lie. This is not one side or the other, this is an ancient conflict between two religions. There are also two different sets of people on the same land, each blaming the other in a political merry-go-round of death and destruction. Each group maintains its moral right to do so soaked in its own and the others' blood. The prospects? More of the same. Year after year.
The lines between the aggressors and defenders are deliberately blurred for propaganda purposes and each side has its audience of supporters. The population of Gaza is kept poor and imprisoned, their resentments boiling up periodically. The West Bank, conquered by Iraeli military force is slowly annexed hill by hill, settlement by settlement. East Jerusalem is bought up house by house, deed by deed. Israelis permit any Jew anywhere in the world to settle in Israel. Palestinians who fled their homeland cannot return and are permanent refugees in foreign countries. Israel fears democracy because they would be a minority. Israel is a modern state with nuclear weapons and a sophisticated army. Palestine has kids throwing rocks, homemade rockets and smuggles in guns and weapons.
Israel knows how to make war and defend itself but doesn't want to make peace. The dream of the Israeli right is Greater Judea, King David's old Empire and they use their religious faith to justify it. If you oppose the actions of the Israeli state, you are labeled antisemitic, a supporter of the holocaust. If you oppose Israeli soldiers carrying out raids against Palestinians, you are condoning evil. The US supports Israel but if there is ever to be a solution or some sort of negotiated settlement, the US must weigh the lives of all inhabitants and political groups inside and outside the area. Bullets will never solve the problems, only a fairly negotiated settlement will. It worked in Northern Ireland. We need peacemakers not revenge takers. The West must broker that peace otherwise the carousal of death and revenge keeps turning.