I'm trying to work out if you are being serious here.
No-one should ever have right to use rockets against another group of people. Whether Hamas, or Israel, or anyone else.
Sure there is intense provocation, but nonetheless using rockets is their choice. Just as it's Israel's choice to kill people, as they are doing, under the justification that Hamas are firing rockets at them.
Both are stupid choices, which extend the cycle of violence.
I believe eyebrows is being completely serious - and I understand where they're coming from. If you've been on the receiving end of a 70 year occupation, tens of thousands of deaths, massive ethnic cleansing and repeated throttling of attempts at resolution, then of course you feel that violence is justified.
However Israelis have been brought up with the holocaust as ever present (see the seriousness of the marking of Yom Ha'Shoah, the holocaust memorial day) and the narrative of all the arab states trying to drive plucky Israel into the sea. If you see the Palestinians as just an extension of an entire region who preaches hate against you, and a people who instead of targeting the military targets will fire missiles at schools, or blow up dinner parties to mark your holiest days, then of course you feel like anything can be justified to stop your children or grandparents being attacked.
but - this is where dialogue is key. If Israelis made the effort to understand and empathize with a downtrodden people who are persecuted by an occupying force, and discriminated against everywhere they've sought asylum/refuge and Palestinians could understand the trauma of a holocaust of which nearly a third of your entire people were wiped out and how Israel is not their colonial project, but a safe haven, then perhaps we could move towards peace. Too much blood has been spilled already. Northern Ireland, South Africa, Poland, India - not that they are situations with exact parallels, but they are examples of how dialogue and non-violent action have created a better situation.
I believe eyebrows is being completely serious - and I understand where they're coming from. If you've been on the receiving end of a 70 year occupation, tens of thousands of deaths, massive ethnic cleansing and repeated throttling of attempts at resolution, then of course you feel that violence is justified.
However Israelis have been brought up with the holocaust as ever present (see the seriousness of the marking of Yom Ha'Shoah, the holocaust memorial day) and the narrative of all the arab states trying to drive plucky Israel into the sea. If you see the Palestinians as just an extension of an entire region who preaches hate against you, and a people who instead of targeting the military targets will fire missiles at schools, or blow up dinner parties to mark your holiest days, then of course you feel like anything can be justified to stop your children or grandparents being attacked.
but - this is where dialogue is key. If Israelis made the effort to understand and empathize with a downtrodden people who are persecuted by an occupying force, and discriminated against everywhere they've sought asylum/refuge and Palestinians could understand the trauma of a holocaust of which nearly a third of your entire people were wiped out and how Israel is not their colonial project, but a safe haven, then perhaps we could move towards peace. Too much blood has been spilled already. Northern Ireland, South Africa, Poland, India - not that they are situations with exact parallels, but they are examples of how dialogue and non-violent action have created a better situation.