Seven killed in terror attacks at Israeli port city
 

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- At least seven people were killed and 20 others were wounded Sunday in two suicide bombing attacks in the Israeli port city of Ashdod, Israeli police said.

Two bombers also were killed in the terror attacks, police said.

One blast took place inside the port, police said, and the other just outside the port.

The Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- a military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement -- have claimed joint responsibility for the attacks, according to Lebanese television reports.

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas have been labeled by the U.S. State Department as terrorist organizations. Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians as well as attacks against the Israeli military.

A terrorist bus bombing that killed eight people in Jerusalem also was claimed by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades on February 22.

The tragedy of the middle east is that this is a situation that is ripe for nonviolent resistence. If the Palestinain people could cultivate nonviolent resistence against the Israeli occupiers, this situation would change very quickly, instead of grinding on destructively for generations.

The problem is that Hamas and the other Islamic terrorist groups do not represent the Palestinians who are law abiding and peaceful.

And teror groups like Hamas don't just want to co-exist with Israel, instead, they want to destroy Israel completely, or at least that was their goal until lately. I think I heard once that maybe they were.....rethinking that goal.

You know, the whole Palistinian-Israeli situation really prompts the question: "Why can't we all just get along?"

Let's think about it for a minute:
How do you convince someone:

1. To kill innocent bus riders
2. Kill yourself in the process
3. And go to heaven while doing it

Some how these suicide bombers have been convinced that the riders are so evil that by "nobley" killing yourself to get rid of them is a deed worthy of heaven. This kind of propaganda can only come from dictatorship. It's no wonder that democracies don't have suicide bombers.

Israel may not be helping Palestinian poverty, but the dictatorships have done far worse by diverting attention away from their corruption and using Israel as an all-purpose scapegoat. Oceania anyone?

Yes, Israel is totally innocent all this mess.

Who started the 6 Day War that led Israel to invade and keep the West Bank and Gaza?

Who continues to occupy land that dosen't belong to them?

Who is building a wall around a people, cutting them off the friends, relatives and the land they work?

Who uses attack helicopters and tanks to attack civilian areas?

While the killing the of innocent people is appalling, lets not paint Israel as an innocent in a sea of sinners. Israel is as much sinner as sinned against.

This is a strawman fallacy. My argument is as follows:

Dictatorships produce far more terrorists by restricting the flow of information into a country through propaganda and censorship.

Attack this argument please.

killswitch1968, the problem with Israel and Palestine is not one that can be solved by stating one side is right and the other is wrong, thats what I was saying. Until both sides realise that they been in the wrong, then the solution will always evade us.

Besides, the Palestinians elected their leader, as did the Israelis. Neither is a dictatorship. The only difference between the two is that one side is massively armed and financed and the other is largely defenceless and improverished.

I don't believe one is right and wrong either. However which Palestinian governments are elected? I don't know a single Middle East government that has a democracy. UAE, Oman, Saudi, Syria, Iran, am I missing something?