Israel has one of the more horrendous records of human rights- war crimes- and international law violations in the World. I recommend looking it up, it is very easily accessible. UN, Amnesty International, Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, PCHR, the Israeli B'Tselem etc. anyone really. Most any research done by anyone in any field. Anyone who've actually visited and seen it for themselves.
You will have to look very hard or be extremely brainwashed to find any serious scholary work or any human rights organization that does not draw the same accurate picture, including Israeli sources.
Condemnation of crimes, violence and aggression does not mean you're cheerleader for either Palestine or Israel or their respective inhabitants, it means you can look at empirical data and draw your own conclusions on a moral and rational background.
And the official record is overwhelmingly clear.
Israel has the region's strongest military (due to direct US backing), and the balance of power is simply just a joke to even discuss. As is the the difference in casualties, including and especially the deliberate and uncautious (like using cluster bombs or murdering an entire apartment block to get one 'suspect') murder of civilians (including foreign aid workers, journalists and doctors) and children in particular. Israel is better at killing because they have civilians with a few laughable militias close-packed in prison-like ghettos surrounded by the most advanced war technology money can buy - heavy duty stuff usually reserved for real, total war scenarios.
Israel is an occupying military power. Constantly expanding on the expense of security while breaking international law including treaties with (and moral obligations to) the Palestinian people, a small civilian population divided into bantustans with no rights whatsoever except what is non-judicially decided by the occupying power's military, or on the whim of this power's governing body. Living under martial law with random house searches, seizures and demolitions, tanks rolling through their streets and even houses (when they aren't actually shooting at them) and drones circling over their heads (when they aren't actually bombing them with non-discriminate cluster bombs or other illegal munitions), 24/7.
In the case of Gaza with serious and officially on part of Israel deliberate shortage of food, electricity, medicine, clothing, soap, proper sewers (Israel continues to blow them up and flood what is already an utter slum drowning several civilians in sewage in the process), even toys. Anything that makes living a worthy life possible.
And Palestinians are every day subjugated and harassed through their land being stolen bit by bit in front of them, no parlamentary representation, an openly apartheid system, a trade embargo strangling what little economy might have been possible, checkpoints, moving walls, utterly failing infrastructure through IDF terror tactics, innocent people being beaten, tortured and imprisoned without trial (including many children), pregnant mothers dying at checkpoints because they are denied medical help and other violations so sickening they don't bear mention. And once in a while the violence erupts in a big slaughter, and civilians are massacred by the dozen, attack helicopters firing on civilian apartment complexes, on protesters and other 'acts of desperation' from the poor 'beleaguered' IDF.
And what was the Palestinian's great crime? They are discontent with above mentioned wanton destruction for generations, but more importantly democratically elected a party that Israel didn't like, because it would properly (ie. better than FATAH) represent Palestinian interests in what everyone agrees was a free election. And what is Israel's argument? That Hamas doesn't acknowledge Israel and therefore is not a legitimate party for diplomacy. Not even to be alive, look at sickening, official Israeli rhetoric and targeted assassinations of non-violent politicians and academics. Again I suggest you do a search. Hamas has acknowledged Israel and the two-state solution (like the rest of the world), try to find if Israel has acknowledged Paletine and the two-state solution.. (and was it anyone's surprise that they would elect Hamas, just look at Israel's role in the creation of Fatah and Hamas or the social, political and economic situation in Palestine).
Concerning Palestinian 'aggression' it is fully within international law for a people to defend itself from an occupying power. Which is why Israel with US support openly blocks Palestine's attempts at gaining recognition as a sovereign state in the UN (against the will of most the world and really any sane, responsible person), which would also mean they could put Israel or rather the accountable generals and policy makers before a well-deserved war crimes tribunal. And yes, Israel also claim that Palestine 'shot first' everytime (as do some posters here regrettably), but please do not be unmindful of the history of the conflict or the conditions Palestinians are forced to live under every day, and look at the constant land grapping expansion of Israeli illegal settlements, alone an act of war under international law, and similar examples are simply too numerous to even count. Yes, Palestinian militias do occasionally incite to violence (in response to violence but let's just leave that) against its own people because they believe international attention is the only thing that can help their cause against their powerful adversaries, the United States and Israel. This is no secret even among Palestinians, and you see this in any conflict on both sides, including the strong part (though as with suicide bombing usually the weapon of those who don't have bombers and fighter jets and attack helicopters and artillery).
I do not condone violence and I wish Palestinians had the luxury of being able to accomplish anything with non-violent protest, but look at Israel's response any time an attempt is made at this strategy. Seriously, look it up. This is not a major power like India after WWII where the British Empire was falling apart, this is a small, poor Arab people with no industry, most of its good land (most water ressources) taken, a culture that is almost destroyed, most of their educated classes either fled, killed or imprisoned by Israel, no military, no real government, most of them refugees from an ethnic cleansing a few generations ago - against one of the world's strongest militaries directly supported as a base of operations and military industrial center by the world's strongest military, economic and diplomatic power.
Even the solution is simple. It's called the two-state solution and is supported by as good as all of the world. Except Israel and the United States keeps blocking it, so Israel can continue to sacrifice security on the expense of expansion.
