Israel's Invasion of Gaza Discussed--While Willy Cutes It Up

[John Green]

In which John talks about Israel and Palestine, and the Israel's recent invasion of the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks from Hamas. Obviously no four-minute video can do the topic justice; we'll continue the conversation in comments, hopefully with some thoughtfulness and empathy.

[Danger Devery]

I love the new intro!

[Barefoot on the Moon]

Wow. That was.... unusually vociferous.

[Paris]

I, like Hank, am a failure at keeping up with worldly events. So thank you John for providing not only information but what appears to be greatly unbiased information.

[SaMe]

Willy loves political discussion!

[jempin515]

woah. i didnt get much of that i was too distracted by the cute dog :P

[Arielle]

Unfortunately, not even Bubbles the Nerdfighting puppy can detract from the fact that this whole situation really does suck monumentally. It's one of those annoying issues with no right answers. It seems unlikely that Hamas will stop bombing Israel and villages like Sderot (which is bombarded with rockets on a near constant basis) and such any time soon. And even if they did, redrawing the original Israel/Palestine plan would most likely not work in that a.) it would disjoint the country even more, so that both sides would be stuck with a smattering of territories that would look more like marble bread than an actual country, b.) Israel in its current state is still only about the size of New Jersey, so there is only so much dividing one can do, and c.) Ultimately, the dividing would mean that there would be many areas in which control would switch from Israeli to Palestinian. While this is obvious, it presents a heck load of problems in that hundreds of thousands of people would be displaced as a result. Sometimes, people seem to be under the impression that Israel is a small, developing country that is still 90% desert. This is most certainly untrue. With the exception of a large chunk in the south called the Negev, more and more of Israel is cities and highly populated suburban towns, mixed with developed farmland. If such places were to switch in control, the amount of people who would be displaced would be enormous. Not to mention the country would have shrunk to the size of Rhode Island. Also, in the original Partition Plan of 1947, most of what would be the Jewish state would have been desert. Reverting back to this would mean a heck of a lot of desert construction. This would be costly, difficult, and take a long, long, long time.

It's hard for me, personally to speak with no bias, seeing as I am Jewish and my dad is Israeli, meaning that I also have a heck of a lot of cousins and such that live in Israel as well. Again, there is no way to really solve the issue, unless if an identical strip of land was to spontaneously generate along the Mediteranean, cities and farmland and all, so that one could be Israel, and the other Palestine. Or, everyone could just get a Bubbles the Nerdfighting puppy clone, there by solving all issues, as people would be too busy cuddling with said puppy to get angry.

[Erika]

THANK YOU JOHN!!! Today before I left for my history test I watched your video, and when I got there, there was a question about this!!! It helped me a lot!!! I wrote a blog post about this with the question XD

[Boris]

Nicely done with the facts, but most of the other people (AKA none-israelis.) Do not understand the situation really. You don't know how dangerous these people really is, and "as a response tp the missile attack" is not completely correct. They have been attacking the areas around Gaza for over eight years now.
But good video, anyway. ( I say it all as an Israeli. Stupid country. I hate it)

[Een]

Also, I'd like to add that in my opinion.. Argyle socks can never be entirely mismatched. They may be different colors or different lengths, but they're STILL ARGYLE. Thus, you're halfway to matching from the get-go.

[Een]

Your voice sounded REALLY excited.

I say no one gets Jerusalem. The UN should just go in and establish it as a no-mans land, like Disney. Not part of any actual country, but everyone can come visit.