My ignorance, our ignorance. What about the Gaza-Israeli Conflict?

Hello everyone, this is my first post! :D I decided to start this blog, because I am terribly interested in what is happening around the world. I am especially interested in conflicts around the globe, and am amazed more people are not. Of course then I realize, most people may be depressed by this. Some may feel as, it does not matter to them, it does not matter to anyone around them. I find that eventually, someday, it will matter to you, as unfortunately we found out on September 11. Before that, did any of us even care about what was going on in the Middle East? or anywhere else? no and yes, some of us cared, and some of us cared, but did not bother to care enough to even know what was going on. For instance, did you know that over 400 people were killed on Christmas Day in Congo, by Ugandan rebels called, "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA)? People's lips were cut off. Terrible events like this happened, yet we didn't know.

Osama Bin Laden was a big deal to the CIA, all the way back to 1998, he was a wanted man back then, now of course you know what happened. Back in 1979, Osama Bin Laden joined a Palestinian Sunni called Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who was fighting against the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. Essentially, he was "allies" with the United States in a way, since we were fighting a Cold War with the Soviet Union, now thankfully known as the Russian Federation (the deal with South Ossetia and Georgia was "iffy", but at least its over now, at least for now) so essentially we were helping them by providing weapons and training, though this is something that is not terribly hard to figure out. The US and others, gave aid to the "mujahideen" or a muslim freedom fighter (or terrorist depending on who you ask) who is in a jihad, a struggle, a religious duty. Eventually Osama Bin Laden split from Abdullah and started the beginnings of Al-Qaeda, to fight the Soviets. He was successful in getting the Soviets out, make life hard for them while in Afghanistan. Once the Soviets got out, came civil war in Afghanistan, that's where the Taleban come in. By 1998, Taleban was well established in Afghanistan, and was the primary ruling force in the country. The Taleban provided assistance to Osama who in return provided a lot of money and other support to the Taleban. Once the September 11 terrorist attacks where carried out, the Taleban became the United State's primary target, as you know, they are now gone, only their surviving "fans" survive, which have been giving the US forces a lot of trouble.

Imagine, if you knew what a "mujahideen" was, or where Afghanistan was in a map, back in 1998? Would you have foreseen something bad in the future? I sure did not know, in fact, the September 11 attacks came as an extremely rude awakening. On the morning of September 11, I woke up for school, a 10th grader waking up to another day of school. As I am eating breakfast, cereal, imagine my "amusement" as my parents, watching television at 6:30AM, told me that a plane had hit a building. I quickly dashed to the television, saw smoke from some small building coming out, then went right back to eating breakfast at the table. Imagine that. Imagine my ignorance as I ate breakfast, while all of this was happening. I just didn't know what was going on obviously. Once I did, I went nuts, realizing what was happening, friends at school, in the morning thought I was lying when I told them that a big commercial jet crashed into the World Trade Center. As I was sitting in class, watching the news coverage on television, I was thoroughly engaged and amazed at what I was witnessing. From the moment I got back home, I turned on the television, switched to CNN (which before then, I ignored) and watched it, for hours, for the following months. From that day forward, my ignorance was smacked in the face by knowledge. Big huge smack.

GAZA-ISRAELI CONFLICT, where did our big smack come for this? Remember the war Hezbollah had with Israel back in 2006? Yeah, essentially what is happening now is a repeat of what happened then. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, Israel responded, to protect from further attacks, by bombing (courtesy of the IAF - Israeli Air Force) and afterwards a ground assault, which is happening right now as I type, in Gaza. How did the Israel-Lebanon conflict end? The United Nations helped by getting a resolution in place, then this resolution was approved by Israel and Lebanon. Israel started to remove its troops, Hezbollah stopped firing, this ceasefire helped alleviate tensions. Hezbollah still fired rockets, but Israel didn't respond. Weeks later finally it was over, even if there was fighting after the ceasefire, it was over. Israel restraint itself, and Hezbollah disarmed groups. Similar ceasefire agreement was tried in the present Gaza-Israeli Conflict, but while Egypt and Lybia made the ceasefire, the US and UK rejected it because it did not say anything about Hamas and its firing of rockets, so here we are, with Israel's incursion into Gaza. Right now, Israeli forces are fighting Hamas soldiers. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak feels, "We have an all-out war against Hamas and its kind", essentially, they are at a war, while meant to stop Hamas and its rocket-firing into Israel southern region, it still means they want to bring down Hamas, even if they say that is not the intention. Is it? We have no way of knowing, although we can use our brains and figure out a logical conclusion to that question. Even now, Hamas fires rockets into Israel, fueling Israel's purpose of bombing, and now, invading Gaza. 25% of the over 460 Palestinians killed, were citizens, this number could rise, both, in the hours ahead.

edit: The taleban are not entirely gone, just not as they used to be before the invasion. It is ongoing and constant edits pointless but clarification is always nice =)