The hypocricy of the anti-Israel brigade

This is a big problem with the Palestinian side. They aren't one side.

The Palestinian government is either unwilling or unable to do anything about groups like Hamas. And if the Palestinians can't keep their own house in order, then the Israelis are going to have to take action.

I'll point out the offensive isn't just about the rockets, Hamas also has a warren of tunnels it uses to cause trouble and store arm caches, the offensive is much more about those than the rockets.

I'll also point out that, short of ceasing to exist, there is nothing Israel can do to stop the rockets. Hamas' end game is the destruction of Israel, and no matter how badly or well behaved Israel is, they will keep firing.

Israel is 'losing' the media war however, not many point out that pretty much every attack by Hamas is a war crime (they intentionally target civilian areas, and use the Palestinian population as human shields to the point of telling the population to ignore Israeli warnings. Dead children look so good on TV) whilst hand-wringing over the assaults, and whilst many of Israels own war crimes go under the media radar, so do their efforts to help the Palestinians (such as reconnecting electricity supply to a region whilst under fire)

It is why much of Israel hasn't so much a problem with a two-state solution, but a problem with the fact Iranian-backed groups like Hamas would certainly take it into a war as soon as possible, and on a much bigger scale than what is happening now.

So yeah, until the likes of Hamas come round to just wanting to live in peace with Israel, this isn't going to stop. And Israel is going to get increasingly paranoid and aggressive.

Which is what you get when you don't allow for a democratic government. And which means that there is no "they" to make the last sentence true.

What action? You've already pointed out that their current action won't improve the situation for Israel.

Sooo ... nothing?

That's pretty disgusting given the number of innocents being killed and maimed. Doubly so if you also recognise the slaughter as being militarily futile.

Every piece of public property housing them has been stolen. Remember that government is a non-party to the social contract, according to gul; government is just a mechanism. Mechanisms have no rights. Mechanisms own nothing. Public property in the United States, then, belongs to the citizenry of the United States, not to Central American illegal aliens.

Ah, this routine again. Most of them seem to be being housed at military bases. Is it your contention that these shouldn't exist?

Here's a more interesting contention: Unless these kids are prisoners of war, or American soldiers, there's no reason for them to be housed at military bases.

More basically, though, the government of the United States -- accepting gul's characterization of it as a mechanism rather than as a party to the "social contract" -- exists as a mechanism to serve the people of the United States. That mechanism, by accepting and housing illegal aliens rather than turning them back immediately and decisively, is currently failing to fulfill one of its very few, very narrowly defined legitimate functions.

To bring us back on topic, compare that with the Israeli government, which is vigorously and effectively fulfilling its function of protecting the Israeli people and punishing their enemies.

Maybe, but that's a bit like saying to a kid who is bullied that they should just give away their lunch money because it's better not to get his ass kicked. From the Palestinian perspective, that's a valid analogy.

Should we have any mechanism whatsoever for evaluating refugees for possible acceptance, or just automatically ship them all home to whatever they were fleeing in the first place?

And to compare this situation to Israel's -- to compare kids fleeing gangs that want to kill them or turn them into sex slaves with Hamas lobbing missiles at Israel -- is beyond ludicrous.

Second question: Some of the protests by shrieking xenophobes are in places where private social services organizations have proposed to help house the refugees. Is THIS acceptable?

Ship them all home. If their home countries really are as badly off as that, I'm sure you'd support military intervention to reform those countries, wouldn't you?

It would be, and that's why that isn't the comparison I made. Perhaps you should go back and read the comparison I actually did make.

I'm not aware of protests by any such groups.

Vassar, Michigan. The organization proposing to house the refugees was Wolverine Human Services, a private organization. The xenophobes went apeshit.

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2014/07/report_vassar_residents_meetin.html

Well, if Castle is consistent, Wolverine Human Services also cannot have any rights; thus all property collected from its members is theft, and the members passing it on to asylants is a crime, no matter how much they'd like to do so. Remember: Just because it's your property doesn't mean you can do anything with it that Castle doesn't like.

Participation with and membership in Wolverine Human Services is voluntary as opposed to mandatory. Wolverine Human Services is a party, not a mechanism. There's the difference. See, trying to absolve government of any and all obligations also strips it of any and all claims to rights or privileges. It's a double-edged sword, that special pleading on behalf of government.

And what is this Xenophobes organization you refer to, tafkats? Do they have a web site, d'ya think?

I believe they've fallen to the status of having to open for Feckless Woo on the sports bar circuit this year.

There were protests in Vassar almost from the moment the idea came up. The article mentions one of them. What, are you planning to claim that without a website and articles of incorporation, you don't have to admit they exist?

If they kill enough people, Israel will suddenly wake up, and go "oh, wow, everything we believe is wrong, and our country doesn't exist. Well, that wraps it up for us, we're moving away. Bye!".

It'll work. Just you wait.

Ope, ecky already said the same thing, but he tried to make it sound rational.

No, I'm going to state explicitly that I don't accept your hyperbolic characterization of them. The only legitimate functions of the United States government are those that serve the interests of United States citizens. Characterizing that as "xenophobic" is simply dishonest and lazy.

There is no getting around a simple fact, Hamas is the aggressor in this situation. Israel does have the and the obligation to defend itself.

I am not able to think of any actions taken by Hamas that demonstrates an interest in living peacefully with their neighbors in Israel.

If you can please let me see it.

Are you able to elaborate on that statement?

I didn't see this, but I'll respond. At this point, playing devils advocate, the cost to the taxpayers being used by the President in order to provide housing.

Both side are acting aggressively and it is stupid to attempt to identify one or other initiating that. Israel's expansionism isn't going to be halted by Hamas endings rocket attacks any more than Hamas rockets are going to be halted by Israel reconsidering their massacre.

Are you prepared to make the same claim regarding foreign nationals illegally living in the U.S.?

What expansion has Israel made?

Yes, both sides are acting aggressively. But, one side clearly started the aggression.

I also think that saying that Israel is expanding when it really hasn't is a means to ignore the aggression which has lead to the pounding that Israel is giving to Hamas.

If the US were being attacked in the same manner, it would probably do the same thing Israel is doing. I also think it would be a safe bet that most administrations would come pretty close eliminating the country as we know it.

So should we have any sort of process for accepting refugees, or is it just "throw up the fence, it was all right for MY ancestors to seek refuge here, but everyone else can go fuck themselves"?

That does seem to be the expectation.

The Palestinians (some of them, anyway) seem to cling to the notion that they're fighting the good fight by attacking Israel however they can, even if the attacks are (1) not going to motivate Israel to accede to their demands and (2) are likely to bring massive suffering to their own people when Israel inevitably retaliates.