"Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel."
With your logic, why not give it back to the Ottomans? It was taken from them in 1918. But then they took it from the Persians in 1520.
Nick you seem very selective in your narrative. BEFORE the three Israeli students were abducted in June, the following occurred this year alone:
January 2014
In January, Palestinian Militants launched 22 rockets and four mortar shell at Israel in 19 separate attacks. Two of the rockets were launched from Sinai.
February 2014
In February, Palestinian Militants launched nine rockets at Israel in seven separate attacks.
March 2014
In March, Palestinians launched 65 rockets and mortar shell, in 23 attacks.
April 2014
In April, There were 19 rockets and 5 mortar shell in 14 attacks towards Israel. These attacks caused property damage, but no deaths or injuries.
May 2014
Through May, 4 rockets and 3 mortar shells were launched from Gaza in 5 attacks towards Israel.
And you call the Israeli strikes "indiscriminate"?? My amazement is how they did not launch the ground offensive well before this. As an interesting side note, the Israeli electrical engineers and power workers in Sderot, Israel, have continued to work during Hamas missile bombings, to supply electricity to... yep, Gaza. Apparently the Palestinians are not particularly appreciative.
Israelis simply want to stop the rocket attacks once and for all and apparently you suggest they have no right to do so. They gave up Gaza in 2005 and look at what the Palestinians have done with it since . Hamas, (which denies Israel’s right to exist) is tolerated by Israel only as far as they are the only current alternative in Gaza that might be occupied by even more dangerous enemies such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaeda breakaway group now dominant in large parts of Iraq and Syria.
Contrary to what has been posted, the Israelis were also called Palestinians before 1948. If you want to play the "who was there first game" the Kingdom of Judah was a state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. There is no "stolen land". Gaza was awarded to the Arab refugees(not welcome in any fellow Arab nation) as a unilateral gesture of postwar peace. The place is a glorified displaced persons camp for the Arab states. But then Arab militants and their sympathizers also say that about the state of Israel.
In return, for Israel departing Gaza in 2005 and forcibly removing Israeli citizens on the land, the Arabs responded with rocket attacks from the once prosperous land they have allowed to fall into ruin. Since Egypt has also built a wall on their border to Gaza, Israel is not isolating the Palestinians by itself.
The Palestinian Authority is universally recognized as the legitimate government party ruling Gaza. Hamas is (not quite universally) recognized as a terrorist usurper in southern Gaza.
Therefore support for the terrorists in Gaza is either an Arab nationalist or an naïve noob who considers trendy and popular support of the underdog more important than historical fact.