It feels like the same war Israel carried out against Lebanon in 2006 again. Doesn’t it? Bombardments, slaughter, complete destruction and civilian killings—all under the banner of “fighting the terrorists.”So what is Israel trying to say in this war? Gaining its reputation it lost back in 2006 after Hezbullah triumphed, became more powerful and now became part of the Lebanese government? Or is it truly trying to stop Hamas’ attacks against its civilians?
I blame the carnage and the horrible death of the Palestinian civilians on both sides. Israel is so arrogant and indifferent to human rights that it had been slaughtering millions of civilians since it was created in the recent history and this war is no different than any of its former ones. And Hamas is even worse. Instead of laying weapons down and creating a stable and indepndent state along with the other Palestinian political factions, they have put their own people in this situation where they knew that messing up with Israel would lead to such a war. None of the both sides have actually thought about human rights and that of course led to the death of civilians on both lands.
Now, what are we going to make of this whole mess? More violence to happen, of course. Hatred will also increase against the Israelis across the Arab world- as if it has not been enough- and the fact that having a peaceful atmosphere in that regions seems moving farther and farther.
So what’s the solution to stop this carnage now? There isn’t, I guess. Israel has managed to break Hamas’ backbone. But what about the innocent civilians who lost their loved ones? Won’t they grow up with the will to take revenge, like those in Iraq and Lebanon? Doesn’t violence breed violence? And wasn’t that what has been happnening in that region since ever?
Blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
107 Comments:
it is sooo sad, it just keeps going on, over and over...personally i sometimes (okay, often) think there may never be peace in that region. It has to come down to a very personal level and neither side seems willing to go to that extreme...and it isn't even an extreme, really. It reminds me of a book i once read, "Whose Promised Land"? It spoke of the tragic deaths of two children, one Palistian, one Israeli... "...the mother's tears were the same." Until it can be understood by both sides that way, where will all of this lead? So very, very sad.
So true Bassam violence breeds violence.
As for Hamas, they actually won a fair and democratic election that a lot of people seem to forget.
Our current Swedish foreign minister attended the election and said it could have been any election in Sweden for the way it was done. But Israel, Abbas and his team and western countries did not like the result of a democratic election. Instead of respecting it and talking to the new elected government they choose to boycott it. As a Swedish politician said its the biggest wrong you can do. Invite them, talk to them and make them part of the international team and change for better will come thru dialogue, since we have to respect a democratic election.
Here in Sweden they report that even moderate Israelis say enough is enough - what I can not understand is how come they lack the ability to empathy and understand that Palestinians have been kicked out of their homes and land since 1948 - when is enough, enough for them respected or understood.
A Swedish person from my hometown reported in the local newspaper from West Bank today that on a peaceful demonstration a Palestinian guy was killed by Israeli soldiers and many other were injured. She saw it all.
What would Americans do if Mexican soldiers killed and injured US citizens who demonstrate in their own country? Because this is what Israel does.
As for Abbas and all the arab leaders in the region they do as they always do. Sell their people and other people who ever helps them stay in power. They are not helping peace in the world and neither is Israel's military attacks on Palestine making Israelis safer. And yet they still continue in the same path : (
"Israel is so arrogant and indifferent to human rights that it had been slaughtering millions of civilians since it was created in the recent history "
That's wrong - and I think you know it.
Nadia - please check out Hamas' charter. The first line will tell you quite clearly why Israel didn't like the 'result'. If you cannot figure out why, let me know and I'll explain it to you.
"A Swedish person from my hometown reported in the local newspaper from West Bank today that on a peaceful demonstration a Palestinian guy was killed by Israeli soldiers and many other were injured. "
If you want to provide a link to this demonstration - please do. I remember some of these 'peaceful demonstrations' (bar the molotoff cocktails, or rocks that knocked out my friend, and the worry of sniper fire - it was VERY peaceful!)
The Palestinians have finally found a weapon that 'fights' their war perfectly. The Kassam rocket won't kill that much (though it is in CLEAR violation of the int'l law everyone claims Israel violates), but will cause tremendous property damage and is brutual psychological warfare. Israel needs to end this - it has nothing to do with Lebanon, these rockets have been landing on our cities long before the 2006 war I fought in.
I don't like Obama - think of him as a 'brilliant' salesperson - but what he says about the 'rockets' is rather accurate in my opinion.
Israel is so arrogant and indifferent to human rights that it had been slaughtering millions of civilians since it was created in the recent history and this war is no different than any of its former ones.
Trust me Bassam, if Israel was indifferent to human rights you'd see a death toll closer to 3,000 by now. Obviously you care deeply for your brothers and sisters in Gaza, but you should place the blame for the death toll in Hamas' hands.
Zak
Bassam "Israel is so arrogant and indifferent to human rights that it had been slaughtering millions of civilians since it was created in the recent history "
Avram That's wrong - and I think you know it.
Well all people who support the creation of a country which is done by throwing out the millions of people who lived there and killing many others will of course have a view like you Avram. But the fact is Israel was created by kicking out Palestinians from their country, houses and land and many massacres where done to pave the way for Israel. That's just the way it was done. Deny it as much as you want here, but facts will be facts. And you see things in another way so just let it be that you do not agree.
As for Hamas they won the election, you better respect if you are a person who respects democracy. Or do you mean that if Netanyaho won the election in Israel you would be okey if a country does to Israel what Israel has done to Palestine and Gaza? Then we go back to what Bassam said, violence breeds violence.
As for the demonstration it was one of many demonstration that have been done against the illegal wall Israel builds on stolen land, this time they demonstrated in support of the people in Gaza too.
The news is out there if you really really would like to read about it Avram. But if you fought for Israel before I guess you have made it clear that you support the illigal action of the aparthied state Israel. Israel claims its a democracy, therefore it really ought to act like one and start respecting human rights and international law.
As for you Zak you use the same analogy people who supported US military attacks in Iraq. Using the killing of thousands as a proof that they respect human rights, since if they did not it would have been much more dead people. Well guess what if that is you understanding of a country who claims to be a democracy you are in deep trouble.
The only solution is the one state solution! Honestly I think that majority of Israelis and Palestinians would do much better in one state! With minimum interference from the EU and U.S. Since these last two have only given the Palestinians and Israelis more problems the last century.
Oy Nadia ... Another one of those 'The Zionists' (or 'The Jews' or 'The Israelis') did everything wrong and the poor Palestinians were innocent partners in such a crime.
If that's how you feel, then there's no point in continuing this discussion. I can stand up and admit when my country has done wrong, to Jew and Arab alike, but much wrong was done on the Arab side and it's rather obvious by your reply that that is not the case with you.
Just imagine if we complained about the 850,000 Arab Jewish refugees in the 1950s? Imagine if we treated them the way the Palestinians (the people the Arabs love to support but hate to help) have been treated by the Arabs since the 1920s?
Hamas and 'legal'? I guess you missed the coup in Gaza and what happened to Fatah/PA officials there (Perhaps quotes along the lines of 'These people are real murderers, even the Jews did not do such cruel things to us' or 'That's evil and hypocrisy. How ironic that Israel is rescuing us from our Muslim 'brothers'' will give you a slight hint).
I don't think Israel is a democracy, just like I don't really feel the US is - or most countries for that matter. Not all citizens are equal ... That's a long discussion for another thread/day.
A one state solution would fail miserably. If you need reasons why, please google first hand accounts of Arab Jews and what they endured as minorities in the Arab world - Their stories paint a picture as to why a two state solution is a necessity.
And I'm very glad you refused (or were unable) to reply with what Hamas' charter says about Israel ... I just hope that it doesn't mean that your hopes for 'our' future are not what Hamas aspires to do too.
Nadia
You said:
"As for you Zak you use the same analogy people who supported US military attacks in Iraq. Using the killing of thousands as a proof that they respect human rights, since if they did not it would have been much more dead people. Well guess what if that is you understanding of a country who claims to be a democracy you are in deep trouble.
The only solution is the one state solution! Honestly I think that majority of Israelis and Palestinians would do much better in one state! With minimum interference from the EU and U.S. Since these last two have only given the Palestinians and Israelis more problems the last century."
Nadia, regarding your parallel between the US in Iraq and Israel in Gaza, I'd like to make 2 points to you:
1) we are not going into Gaza for its resources, we are there because the rocket fire on Israeli tows and cities is not acceptable to the Israeli public.
2) Palestinian civilian casualties increase international pressure on us to stop military operations before their goals have been accomplished. A country like Russia (Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan) or America (Iraq, Afghanistan) would exact a much higher number of civilian casualties in a situation like Gaza because they face much less diplomatic pressure. So no we aren't angels, but yes, we are trying to minimize civilian casualties.
With regards to the one state solution, most Jews don't want that, to say the least. This is not South Africa for many many reasons. The main obstacle to a 2 state solution is only the security issue and with rockets falling on Israeli cities, Israelis feel like their fears are fully justified. that's why this operation in Gaza is needed, I'm sorry to say.
Zak
Hamas won an election. That means that the majority of Gaza's voters want to see Israel wiped out. If that is so, they can hardly complain if they are all treated as mortal enemies.
But I think the Israelis do have some respect for human rights - they have been holding back from bombing those rocket launchers that are placed on top of apartment blocks, to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible. As in Lebanon, they are trying hard to hit only fighters. It would have been easy for Hamas to site its launchers outside the towns, to avoid endangering the civilians - but, like Hezbollah, they deliberately operate among human shields. Photos of dead children make good publicity for them.
In my opinion, the blame for this war lies entirely with Hamas. Why did they end the cease fire, if they didn't want to be attacked?
Robert Fisk's latest Op-Ed. Well said:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-bombing-ashkelon-is-the-most-tragic-irony-1216228.html
Bassam and to all your readers who want to learn more! Here is a link to a very clear map of how Israel has taken over Palestinian land since 1947.
Israel has been committing an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and stealing more and more Palestinian land. A truth they do their best to hide mostly by lies.
Please note that the last map is from 2000, since then Israel has stolen even more land.
So next time remember that its Israel that is steeling land, its Israel that is wiping out Palestinians from their land and homes.
Here are the maps:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_npC_ksz82sk/Rglq1jvtEgI/AAAAAAAAAAw/gzy0tBmArvI/s1600-h/Palestinian+loss+of+land+1946+to+2000.jpg
After that you can view Palestine from 1947 District And District Centers please click:
http://palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story583.html
Thank you Bassam for the Robert Fisk article. Well said indeed.
Using 'one sided'/'biased' information to prove a point? I would never have expected that from you Nadia ...
How do you feel about the expulsion of 850,000+ Arab Jews from their homes? Most of them had been in those countries before the birth of Islam ... They lost 30 BILLION USD in assets (in today's currency) and property far lager than the State of Israel ... Do you know their story too? Or do you ignore it willingly?
The history you choose to believe is very black n' white ... As I said in my first post to you, I can admit we've done some horrible stuff to our neighbors - be it from unnecessary civilian deaths (Qibya) or inability to defend them (Sabra & Chatilla) etc etc etc - but I find you are unable to do that because you are so blinded by anger and hatred. It takes 'two to tango' -
Nadia,
One man's hero is another man's villain.
I think your failure to condemn Hamas here is pretty sad. Even good old Fisk doesn't have too much good to say about them.
Zak
great piece on Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051661.html
you've got to be kidding me arvam. what do we need to read some guilt ridden piece of israeli crap for. this is written for no other purpose but to brag and chastize jews who aren't going along w/the preponderous zionist propaganda.
plus, he author uses the term Israel-hating Israelis about 10 times in one piece. this is the old dead boring canard of 'self hating jew' used to guilt trip any jew who didn't tow the line, it is still used. but this is the first time i have heard this Israel-hating Israelis . lol
seriously, does this really work in your neck of the woods? but to top it off the most rediculaous line is here
The fact that it was carefully planned and carefully executed has restored a degree of trust in Israeli capabilities.
what kind of friggin capabilities does it take to shoot fish in a barrel? they have virtually NO ammunition. they have nothing NOTHING to even approach shooting back against an air campaign. i mean what on earth does the guy think he's talking about?
for the life of me i cannot understand what kind of planning it takes to drop a bunch of bombs on a mostly civilian population in an enclosed space w/no ammo.
so maybe it is just because this article was written because poor little israeli citizens were worried they had 'lost' their capabilities to slaughter civilains after getting roundly trounced by hizbollah in 06. but in no way shape of form have i heard anyone on the internet or in real life say anything about this restoring anyone 'trust' in israel capability. you know why? israel needs no capability when it's got its big superpower brother preventing the UN from calling for a ceasefire. when its big suoperpower brother giving it billions and amo and weapons everything else ir USAID, or whatever it is we call it.
so take you little guilt trip about self hating jews, or excuse me, how was you put it this time..israeli hating israeli (LOL) and pander it off on some domestic site. no one i know is going to believe that blather.
happy new year everyone!
Bassam, this is a little OT, but i thought it might interest you.
one the first day of the sofa, it appears US Troops Shoot Iraqi Woman in First Test to Pact
they couldn't even last one day. a journalist
Earlier today near the al-Jadiriya bridge in Baghdad, US troops opened fire on a female staffer for Iraq’s Biladi TV, critically wounding her.
What is important is that US forces are not supposed to do anything in Iraq without coordinating with the Iraqi government and aren’t supposed to have anything to do with civilians outside of an Iraqi court issued warrant. There was no report that Iraqi forces were involved in coordinating an attack on the woman, nor does is seem likely that an Iraqi court would have issued a warrant to shoot her in the stomach. That would leave this attack either an operation outside of (and in violation of) the SOFA, or just an off-duty, off-base crime against an Iraqi civilian.
zak
One man's hero is another man's villain.
I think your failure to condemn Israel here is very very sad indeed.
so sad it is pathetic.
I think you have summed it up pretty well Bassam. I agree that both Israel and Hamas are at fault for innocent civilian deaths in Gaza. However, I think that Israel must accept more than half the blame. They have turned Gaza, a tiny strip of land with 1.5 million people, into a prison (the West Bank is much the same). The majority of the people there have no employment to support their families. They are entirely reliant on support from the outside world to keep from starving. Still, it is not all Israel's fault that the people there are trapped in a huge ghetto. Has the Arab world offered to welcome Palestinian people into their countries as equal citizens with open arms? No! My friend Mariam who lives in Amman, Jordan, and who is descended from Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes soon after the creation of Israel, has told me how badly Palestinians are treated in Arab countries (like Saudi Arabia, where she once lived) when they go there to seek employment or a better life. So many Arabs seem to me to be giant hypocrites when they condemn Israel and praise Palestinian fighters and suicide bombers, yet refuse to treat Palestinians as their honored equals in their own countries!
I agree with you that this current fighting will only make Hamas stronger and the hatred of Israel greater. This violence will only breed more violence. It is really sad.
Annie ... I see you're in the same boat as Nadia. Another hate filled, ignorant 'Zionists' do all wrong, Palestinians do all right, do gooder! It's sad how hate and anger dominate your 'rationale' so much ... Let it go dudette.
If you think Hamas have 'no ammo' (i guess those tunnels smuggle in sheep and diamonds!) and if you think this kind of operation is easy, then perhaps you are of a 'special' line of people who can bring on the Redmeption! Oh Hallelujah Annie! I'm with you all the way!
Annie,
"Pathetic" usually means pitifully inferior or inadequate. Wouldn't that word apply to your failure to see that Israelis have the right to live without fear of rockets?
Pathetic indeed.
Zak
One last thing Annie - if you had the read the article I linked, and not just skimmed it with angry, confrontational eyes - you'd have read one paragraph which shows rather strongly how MOST Israelis feel about the war:
"Operation Cast Lead is a tragic campaign. Tragic, because it is causing the deaths of hundreds and injuring thousands. Tragic, because it is causing physical and emotional injury to innocent Palestinians, including women and children. Tragic, because like every war it creates intolerable human hardship and heartbreaking suffering."
I wonder if your hatred would allow you to say that about the 'other side' ...
avram, It's sad how hate and anger dominate your 'rationale'
yawn, by all means explain to be the difference between the author of the israeli hating israel (self hating jew)accusing it ideological opponents of being hate filled vs you accusing me of being hate filled. that kind of lingo may work on some culture raised in guilt but it doesn't get a rise out of me. it must be 'inner love' driving israel to slaughter palestinians (who our pliant press informs us are not targeting civilians)
zak "Pathetic" usually means pitifully inferior or inadequate.
yes, that was exactly my meaning
Wouldn't that word apply to your failure to see that Israelis have the right to live without fear of rockets?
no, it would not because i do not suffer any failure wrt thinking people have a right to peace and safety where ever they are.
but the hilarity of thinking israel can put out some propaganda that says 'we are avoiding hurting civilians' or 'we are only responding to their violence', well to think no matter how many times some fishwrap repeats this, people are going to believe it? come on joe, get a life. the perpetual Myths of Israeli Victimhood are getting tired and old and very unbelievable. if israelis want the 'right' to live in peace, they could have started out by not cleansing so much of their country of the original inhabitants under the guise of 'defense'. or presently instead of just yapping about 'pulling out of the occupation' they could have actually quit occupying and building more settlements and encroching on more and more palestinian territory and demanding palestinians acknowlege their 'right' to exist without ever saying a damn thing about palestinians right to exist.
so no, i would not say it is me who is pathetic to believe your false assurtions.
One last thing Annie
promise!
actually contrary to your little know it all lingo (laced w/more accusations of hatred which seems to be your ad hominem d'jour), i did read the article, several times, i even linked to it on another thread, and i very much did read what you sited. however, i am simply not impressed by people who try to garner sympathy by showing compassion (heartfelt!) while chastizing w/hate infested accusations anyone who doesn't approve of their slaughter techniques. i am very aware there are israelis who don't support this slaughter, but those who do just spare me the crocadile tears over the civilians they are oh so not trying to target.
btw, your quote..the shorter version is someting we are all familiar with, it is the master whipping the slave saying 'this hurts me nore than it does you'
bwwwahhh
Tragic, because like every war it creates intolerable human hardship and heartbreaking suffering
shorter version
'OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY DRIPPING FROM THIS SENTIMENT JUST WRENCHES MY HEART. WHAT A PITY YOU ISRAEL HATING ISRAELIS WON'T SUPPORT THE CONTINUATION OF THIS HUMANITARIAN TRAGEDY.'
drip drip drip..as the years tick away and palestine still doesn't have a state. maybe if they all lay lay down on the backs and spread their legs, (or bend over..which way would isreal like it?) we can allow a little play pen for them, and call it unoccupied.
yawn. i will do you a favor, i will not accuse you of being hate filled ok. i will imagine deep in your heart you , like the author , you are lamenting the great tragedy that israel is completely helpless to do anything about, except of course pound their loving bombs into them in the middle of winter w/bloodsoaked childrens tears and mother tears and fathers tears, and little israeli tears too, becuase it hurts you because you are so good as you promote accusing israelis of HATING their own country for not coming to the same conclusion that you have.
pardon my french. do you have anything else to say , or is it simply another repeat about how hateful i am, as opposed to say
you.
Annie said - ["Pathetic"] would not [apply to me] because i do not suffer any failure wrt thinking people have a right to peace and safety where ever they are.
I think you do suffer from a failure to respect ISRAELIS right to live without fear of rocket attacks, mainly because you think the attacks are justified. So "Pathetic" seems to describe you quite well, only I would add "hypocrite" too..
Z
Zac and Annie,
Please do not insult each other and concentrate on the topic instead. If you guys continue throwing bad words at each other, I will not publish your comments. I respect both of you and your opinion. So let's just calm down and try to understand and discuss the situation in a better way.
Thanks,
Bassam.
Bassam, fair enough. but I've heard a lot worse that calling someone a hypocrite.
Z
Bassam, i will not call anyone anymore names. sorry
zak, i don't think calling me a hypocrite is inappropriate in the context of making a point if you can give an example of how. but in your case, you are making presumptions you cannot prove, if you want to demonstrate my hypocrisy it would make sense to copy and paste.
that said, i repeat..i DO think people (whoever they are) should be able to live in peace. nor have i justified either parties violent attacks.
i do believe in political solutions, i do not think israel has at all demonstrated it has exhausted either its ability or flexibility to be creative in terms of alternatives/solutions prior to this invasion.
that said, it is not me who is justifying violence, i do believe it is you who are justifying the invasion and assault of gaza along with the deaths of innocents that go along with it. that would be YOU justifying violence.
if you think 'respecting' someones right to live in peace, means 'respecting' their decision to slaughter their enemy in such a disproportionate manner, or any manner for that matter, then you are sorely mistaken. they are 2 very different things.
you find it appropriate to accuse someone of 'failure' to not 'condemn' hamas, at this present time when whole families are dying,
while you are aware hundreds of civilians are going to their deaths by the IS/US government condoned and perpetuated slaughter, so be it. however, it would be noted as an ad hominem attack.
i can perfectly understand how you could perceive it as very very 'sad' people are not rushing to place the blame for the death toll in Hamas' hands or condemn hamas at this time. but this is not due to any 'failure' on the observers part, it is do primarily to israels failures, for no amount of propaganda can adjust the lens of what is going on here, today, this weekend, right now, in gaza.
some people may think israel is 'defending' itself. but for the most part, it is unbelievable to the average sane person what is going on now is 'defense'.
It is hypocritical to say that on the one hand Israelis have the right to live without fear of rockets falling on their schools, and on the other hand - when the rockets do fall - they have not got the right to defend themselves.
You also to ignore the fact that 1) the rockets from Gaza are war crimes, and 2) the invasion is a legal response to these rockets.
As for me justifying violence: I never claimed not to justify the violence that Israel is using now. Read my lips: it is justified. It is defense.
Be aware: While you refuse to adjust your lense you are neglecting to to consider the Israeli perspective, and you are HUMANIZING the rocket attacks.
Zak
zak, calling this latest round of israeli violence against the palestinian people a 'defense' is just a woird game.
furthermore, here is what i said, again.
that said, it is not me who is justifying violence, i do believe it is you who are justifying the invasion and assault of gaza along with the deaths of innocents that go along with it.
my point is that calling someone a hypocrite for something they did not do (ie, i did not justify rocket attacks into israel) while at the same time advocating for and justifying israel's violence (whether in the name of defense or not) is... shall we say..hm, what would be the word for that.
Be aware: While you refuse to adjust your lense you are neglecting to to consider the Israeli perspective, and you are HUMANIZING the rocket attacks.
no, you be aware:
a parallel operation would be required to persuade the rest of the world of the justice of its cause, even as the bodies of Palestinian women and children filled the mortuaries, and to ensure that its war was seen not in terms of occupation but of the west's struggle against terror and confrontation with Iran.
After the debacle of its 2006 invasion of Lebanon - not only a military disaster for Israel, but also a political and diplomatic one - the government in Tel Aviv spent months laying the groundwork at home and abroad for the assault on Gaza with quiet but energetic lobbying of foreign administrations and diplomats, particularly in Europe and parts of the Arab world.
A new information directorate was established to influence the media, with some success. And when the attack began just over a week ago, a tide of diplomats, lobby groups, bloggers and other supporters of Israel were unleashed to hammer home a handful of carefully crafted core messages intended to ensure that Israel was seen as the victim, even as its bombardment killed more than 430 Palestinians over the past week, at least a third of them civilians or policemen.
so no, telling me to 'be aware' is not going to work. i am aware, as is the world. there is only so much lipstick you can put on this pig.
Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN until a few months ago, was brought in by the Foreign Ministry to help lead the diplomatic and PR campaign. He said that the diplomatic and political groundwork has been under way for months.
i will be keeping in mind, that prior to the nyt splashing headline on NOV 4th "israel breaks ceasefire" when they entered gaza and killed poeple for the rediculous excuse of finding some alleged tunnel that was going to allegedly be used by hamas to allegedly kidnap some israeli soldiers that would make hamas allegedly be breaking the ceasefire, israel just HAD to preempt them..before THAT even, this campaign,the PR campaign to convince us all what a victim israel is, well. that is noted.
"This was something that was planned long ahead," he said. "I was recruited by the foreign minister to coordinate Israel's efforts and I have never seen all parts of a very complex machinery - whether it is the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the prime minister's office, the police or the army - work in such co-ordination, being effective in sending out the message."
get it? THE MESSAGE is the one you are sending. it is propaganda, and i ain't buying it.
here, i will do it for you
In briefings in Jerusalem and London, Brussels and New York, the same core messages were repeated: that Israel had no choice but to attack in response to the barrage of Hamas rockets; that the coming attack would be on "the infrastructure of terror" in Gaza and the targets principally Hamas fighters; that civilians would die, but it was because Hamas hides its fighters and weapons factories among ordinary people.
Hand in hand went a strategy to remove the issue of occupation from discussion. Gaza was freed in 2005 when the Jewish settlers and army were pulled out, the Israelis said. It could have flourished as the basis of a Palestinian state, but its inhabitants chose conflict.
be advised, don't talk to me about war crimes or international law. or expect to get an earful. i'm letting you off the hook this time because i know who you are and what you are doing here. but you cannot 'win' w/this message. you can slaughter all the people you want, you can genocide them or whatever, but people will only become more angry at israel. it will only bring hatred and evil, not peace.
Also crucial was what was not said. Just a few months ago Livni was talking of wiping out Hamas, but that would be unpalatable to much of the outside world as a justification for the assault. So now the talk is of pressing Gaza's government to agree to a new ceasefire. Occasionally someone has got off-message. A couple of days into the assault on Gaza, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, said it would continue for "as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely". Infuriated Israeli officials in Jerusalem warned her that such statements could set back the diplomatic offensive.
In the first hours of the attack, Israel repeated the same messages to the wider world. Livni and the Labour defence minister, Ehud Barak, were widely quoted on international TV. The government's national information directorate sought to focus foreign media attention on the 8,500 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years and the 20 civilians they have killed, rather than the punishing blockade of Gaza and the 1,700 Palestinians killed in Israeli military attacks since Jewish settlers were pulled out of Gaza three years ago.
1,700 palestinians? wow. that's really nothing compared to the deaths of 20 israelis. everybody knows arab deaths don't really count.
the day after the slaughter began cnn was interviewing tzipi (great name) and it got off script. after she did her speel instead of moving on to the next question the interviewer responded to her previous answer, he wasn't exactly incredulous, but the whole victim/defense thing is a little hard to swallow, so he asked her about the timing wrt elections or hamas allegation they had been breaking the ceasefire already before..and she turned into a stepford wife. she couldn't answer. she just repeated what she had just said before even tho it was not anything that answered the question.
it was very weird. there was that momentary eye blink, where you could see the brain function/recognition she was trapped..and she got right back on script.
so here is the thing zak, even tho its 4:50 in the morning and i can't sleep (mass slaughter will do it to me every time) i am trying my darnedest not to let my anger spill over into our exchange. my advise to you would be to hold back on the bewares when you are addressing me.
and another thing, you can post whatever it is that keeps getting repeated by all the israel bots on all the threads, but you won't be winning the message on this one. i can guarentee you that. unless for some reason bassam decides i am not being nice enough. i will be here, and truth will prevail.
It is hypocritical to say that on the one hand Israelis have the right to live without fear of rockets falling on their schools, and on the other hand - when the rockets do fall - they have not got the right to defend themselves.
first of all, i did not say israel didn't have a right to defend itself. i am telling you what is happening right now is not, and never will be 'defense'.
that is just a word game.
israelis do have a right to live without fear, and they could live without fear if they could learn to not slaughter people, push them off their land, build settlements on other peoples land, prevent food and medicine from creating a humanitsarian nightmare..lots of things. there are lots of ways to prevent violence, but that would run counter to a goal of an expanding state, and a state whose people don't want to live w/arabs.
it is just not so very simply as the little picture it has taken so long, and so many bloggers, and so much PR, to get us to believe. people don't believe.
that is why it only took ONE country, ours the US, to prevent the UN from making a ceasefire. everyone knows what is going on.
you are HUMANIZING the rocket attacks.
huh?
1. To portray or endow with human characteristics or attributes; make human:
i realize the perceived upside of ad hominem attacks as an alternative to floundering in the reality zone but what does this mean? can you perhaps cite (copy /paste) even one example of this high falluten allegation you felt the need to capitalize.
I just want to get your argument clear: Israel does have the right to defend itself militarily, but it has to be along the lines of 1) not slaughtering people (I'll assume you mean civilians, not Hamas fighters) 2) not push them off their land 3) not preventing food and medicine from reaching the civilian population and 4) by the way, only the US is supporting Israel, the rest of the world knows what's "really" going on".
1) Like I've said, we try not to slaughter innocent civilian (90,000 calls to homes to give warnings is an example of trying quite hard to not kill innocent people). But the death toll climbs when you have Hamas fighters dressing up as doctors in hospitals. That's also a war crime by the way.
2) "Not pushing Palstinians off their land". I don't know if you are refering to the refugee problem or the settlements? Was it the refugees? If it was - I'm sure you're aware that Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and Afghanistan ethnically cleansed their lands of Jews around the time of "The Nakba". On the other hand, if you come to Israel, you might get a cab to the airport with an Arab. Now why would that be possible if Israel ethnically cleansed its land of Arabs?
Was it the settlements? - but then what do you say about Israel's withdrawal from Gaza?
3) - "Open the border crossing for humanitarian aid": Don't make me laugh! Where do you get your news from? Al Jazeera? Every time we open the border we get more rockets! This is the way Reuters put it:
"Israel eased a blockade of the Gaza Strip Friday but militants there aimed rockets and mortars across the border, one of which misfired and killed two Palestinian girls.
Israel said it was responding to numerous requests from the international community by reopening border crossings with Gaza to allow in vital truckloads of fuel and humanitarian aid.
But renewed fire from Gaza-based militants -- a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamist group Hamas to stop firing rockets or pay a heavy price -- ensured that the easing of tension was short-lived."
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSLP57609320081226
4) I think this is a very naive point on your part. Have a look at which countries are the most "concerned" and you'll find they just happen to be the ones with large Muslim populations or strong Muslim interests. If they just care about human rights, why aren't they kicking and screaming about what's happening in Sudan?
As far as I can tell, you've made no argument. What I said still stands: all you really say is Israel does have the right to defend itself from rocket attacks, but really it doesn't.
Finally, here are 2 serious questions for you:
1) What distinguishes you from a knee-jerk anti-Israel bigot?
2) Why have you still failed to condemn the murderous rocket attacks that target civilians in Israeli cities?
Zak
PS Humanizing means "to make Humane". But rocket attacks against Israeli civilians are inhumane, are they not?
Finally, here are 2 serious questions for you:
1) What distinguishes you from a knee-jerk anti-Israel bigot?
2) Why have you still failed to condemn the murderous rocket attacks that target civilians in Israeli cities?
1) ad hominem attack noted
2) failure is in the eye of the beholder. i repeat:
you find it appropriate to accuse someone of 'failure' to not 'condemn' hamas, at this present time when whole families are dying,
while you are aware hundreds of civilians are going to their deaths by the IS/US government condoned and perpetuated slaughter, so be it. however, it would be noted as an ad hominem attack.
there is no assignment here in which i 'fail' if i do not make your point for you. i have stated quite clearly i do not condone violence, from anyone.
Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims
04/01/2009 03:32:00 PM GMT
(Reuters)
Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gazan residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive into the strip.
Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.
The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.
did you notice the word 'offensive' zak? your entire premise of total israeli victimhood is required to swallow this line of thinking. nobody is that stupid. no matter how much PR you laden it with.
furthermore it seems impossible for you to argue without the ad hominem crutch to spice up your argument. sans copy paste i might ad.
w/arvam's 'great piece' celebrating the psychological guilt tripping of 'israeli hating israel' self hating jew broha plus your 'anti semite' crutch plus your attempts to not only focus ones attention on the 4 israeli deaths since the beginning of the ceasefire to now, as a result of the rockets fired and my 'failure' as you call it (as if you were some school marm) one would almost think you were making attempts to focus the attention away from israels culpability for this slaughter.
so. lets take a little trip down memory lane shall we. (oh, before we begin i would like to mention gaza is one of the most populated places on earth, the largest prison and the 'courtesy' of dropping flyers over gaza as 'warnings' means absolutely nothing, because where on earth are the citizens to go to escape death. do not be disingenuous.
onward to the wayback machine.
Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
(it should be no shock to anyone the tactic of breaking down of society by empowering the growth of religious fanatics in your enemies communities, NOT after what we see in iraq)
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist movements. Beginning in the early 1980s, with generous funding from the U.S.-backed family dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, the antecedents of Hamas began to emerge through the establishment of schools, health care clinics, social service organizations and other entities that stressed an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not been very common among the Palestinian population. The hope was that if people spent more time praying in mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their own media or right to hold political gatherings, the Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers and even have their own radio station. For example, in the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli soldiers -- who had shown no hesitation in brutally suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations -- stood by when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering family-planning services for women.
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who had been freed from prison when Israel conquered the Gaza Strip 20 years earlier. Israel's priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent during this period were revealing: In 1988, Israel forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-Palestinian peace, while allowing Yassin to circulate anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the destruction of Israel by force of arms.
i look forward to coming back and posting more of this history in a later thread.
looking forward to your not so creative use of the ad hominem attack as a means of strawmaning your way thru this argument zak.
team zionist propaganda 0
annie from the truth brigade... out of the ballpark!
But the death toll climbs when you have Hamas fighters dressing up as doctors in hospitals. That's also a war crime by the way.
also zak, i don't know if you are aware of this, but thus far there have been NO male civilian casulaties reported. none. all of them are women and children. (like in iraq!) so team israel does not consider males to be anything BUT hamas. therefore any thing they 'dress up in' would, according to the propagand brigade, be a war crime.
just saying
can you perhaps cite (copy /paste) even one example of this high falluten allegation you felt the need to capitalize.
zak, this is not a copy paste:
rocket attacks against Israeli civilians are inhumane, are they not?
either demonstrate for me w/a copy paste of my words how i have 'humanized' rockets, or your continuation of this particular form of ad hominem will be noted.
we try not to slaughter innocent civilian
says who, your propaganda machine? what proof do you have of this rediculous allegation.
Now why would that be possible if Israel ethnically cleansed its land of Arabs?
strawman. quit evading the subject w/this blathering.
I'm sure you're aware that Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and Afghanistan ethnically cleansed their lands of Jews
so what? what has that got to do w/israel appropriating land from palestinians illegally?
do you think we are fools?
"Israel eased a blockade of the Gaza Strip Friday but militants there aimed rockets and mortars across the border, one of which misfired and killed two Palestinian girls.
you forgot this part:
No militant group claimed responsibility. Hamas police said they would investigate.
whoops, they killed the police!
only last summer
Hamas blasts militants who break truce with Israel. who are these militants? and why are palestinians paying collective punishment (war crime) for them?
what do you say about Israel's withdrawal from Gaza?
here's the dkos diary at the top of the rec list @ the countries most traffic'd 'progressive' site. i think it speaks to your question
In the West Bank Israel's armed domination takes the form of an occupation, under which soldiers control the movement of Palestinians, seize their homes, and sporadically bombard them in the name of fighting militants. You know: an occupation. In Gaza the form of domination for the last couple of years has been a blockade that has reduced the area to, as Amnesty International put it, "bare survival." I'm sure some Gazans would prefer an outright occupation, what with the denial of lifesaving medical care and children eating grass. And that was before the latest attacks, which have killed hundreds.
Annie, I think the fact you think there are no male casualties shows how naive you are. Here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/israel_and_gaza.html
Now, you have consistently avoided answering my questions: Do you condemn the rocket attacks against israeli civilians or not? It's very simple - yes or no?
Stop humanizing warm crimes by refusing to condemn them.
By the way Annie, as far as propaganda goes: wrt to uranium found in Palestinians - can you explain why you posted a link claiming to be from reuters, when it's actually from an iranian website? Press TV.IR
I tried really hardto find the uraniuum article. This is all I got: "Your search for 'Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims' produced 0 results."
Aren't you lying here Annie? I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
zak, that website is from finland. i copied the text exactly as it was written (including the reuters identification). i found it on google, as you can if you print the text as it is written. i read about it from a norweigian poster on a COIN blog. apparently there are norwegian doctors in gaza, and they have also reported the white phospherous. there are several COIN sites w/soldiers discussing the white phospherous issue because it is apparently very easy to distinguish from the videos of the bombings. i don't know why you should have to try hard to find it, because i linked to it. here is the google news page. you can also find it by googling thru 'web' and not news. maybe if you translate it into another language you can read about it in the norweigian press also.
Aren't you lying here Annie? I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
yawn, more ad hominem. while you support this slaughter of innocence that is so filled with violence and pain i don't know what kind of civilized being could ever conceive of advocating this you play games of calling me a liar, i have already assured Bassam i would not be resorting to name calling so i will not be telling you what i think of you using this term.
I think the fact you think there are no male casualties shows how naive you are.
perhaps you missed my meaning when i used the word, CIVILIAN. by all means link to ONE article reporting the deaths of any adult male civilians, for i have read thus far, none have been reported, which means (i would assume) all male deaths are reported as militants. prove me wrong.
lest you forget, you are in no position to be ordering me to do anything or requiring anything of me. i have made myself crystal clear. if you choose to copy/ paste any of my words to make a point, so be it. i could care less.
Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power PT 2
American policy was not much different: Up until 1993, U.S. officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met periodically with Hamas leaders, while they were barred from meeting with anyone from the PLO, including leading moderates within the coalition. This policy continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far back as 1988.
One of the early major boosts for Hamas came when the Israeli government expelled more than 400 Palestinian Muslims in late 1992. While most of the exiles were associated with Hamas-affiliated social service agencies, very few had been accused of any violent crimes. Since such expulsions are a direct contravention to international law, the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the action and called for their immediate return. The incoming Clinton administration, however, blocked the United Nations from enforcing its resolution and falsely claimed that an Israeli offer to eventually allow some of exiles back constituted a fulfillment of the U.N. mandate. The result of the Israeli and American actions was that the exiles became heroes and martyrs, and the credibility of Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians grew enormously -- and so did its political strength.
Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount of settlers over the next dozen years. The rule of Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Yassir Arafat and his cronies proved to be corrupt and inept, while Hamas leaders were seen to be more honest and in keeping with the needs of ordinary Palestinians. In early 2001, Israel cut off all substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, and a devastating U.S.-backed Israeli offensive the following year destroyed much of the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, making prospects for peace and statehood even more remote. Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian economy into a serious depression, and Hamas-run social services became all the more important for ordinary Palestinians.
Seeing how Fatah's 1993 decision to end the armed struggle and rely on a U.S.-led peace process had resulted in increased suffering, Hamas' popularity grew well beyond its hard-line fundamentalist base and its use of terrorism against Israel -- despite being immoral, illegal and counterproductive -- seemed to express the sense of anger and impotence of wide segments of the Palestinian population. Meanwhile -- in a policy defended by the Bush administration and Democratic leaders in Congress -- Israel's use of death squads resulted in the deaths of Yassin and scores of other Hamas leaders, turning them into martyrs in the eyes of many Palestinians and increasing Hamas' support still further.
20 children killed by israel on monday
Random shelling and Compulsory Migration For Thousands in Gaza Strip
Breaking News: A Massacre: Samuni family says: Israeli soldiers gather
30 persons from Al Samoni family in one house. Ten families were in
the house from the same clan. Many civilians were killed as artillery
shells bombed the house. The number of victims around 14, most of them
are children and women. Some are in critical conditions!
Breaking News: Hundreds of shelling target houses in east of Gaza City
and Jabalia now. No new coming up yet. The conditions getting tougher
in that area.
Breaking News: Three children and their mother killed during a shell
hit their house in Al shija'ya area east of Gaza. The victims were in
their house during the shelling. Their bodies were torn to pieces.
Breaking News:Bloody clashes between Palestinian factions and Israeli
organized army east of Gaza City. Israeli army is firing back using
Apachi and heavy artillery shells. Many people wounded and no upcoming
news if militants are being targeted.
BBC
Images of crying and injured Palestinian children once more dominate the front pages.
As the Daily Telegraph and the Irish Times note, Israeli tanks and infantry have effectively sliced the Gaza in two, cutting off Gaza city from the rest of the Strip.
And under the headline "Israel's rain of fire", the Times carries a striking image of what it says are controversial white phosphorus shells falling through the sky above Gaza.
The paper says that Israel is believed to be using the weapon, which can cause horrific burns, as a smokescreen for its assaults.
Meanwhile, for the Independent's reporter in Gaza, the Israeli invasion became a personal tragedy when he discovered that his father was one of the first casualties.
In a moving report, Fares Akram describes how an F16 airstrike obliterated his father's small farmhouse in Northern Gaza.
Unprecedented Numbers of Americans Question Israel's Actions in Gaza
The rift between the progressive base and the party played out on Barack Obama's Change.gov site, which was deluged in recent days with demands for a statement condemning Israel's assault on Gaza.
So what accounts for the surprising trend in American opinion on Gaza? The proliferation of progressive online media and social networking sites could be a factor, but I have another theory: The same pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault on Gaza once sold the occupation of Iraq to America, and with a nearly identical set of arguments. In their voices and those of the grim Israeli PR agents carted out for cable news, many Americans hear echoes of the Bush administration's most fantastical lies. When they see images of Gazans under withering bombardment, they flash back to Fallujah and the assorted horrors of Iraq. When they look at Israel, they see themselves during the darkest days of the Bush era.
Now, an increasing share of Americans know what Israel is doing to Gaza. And they reject it, even when Israel is "at its best."
Annie, you copied LIES, which means you LIED. The original article came from an Iranian website, if you had bothered checking. Anything with a remotely anti-Israel headline is good enough for you - you have very little interest in the truth.
I don't think much can be said that's constructive at this point.
One last comment Annie, lest you misunderstand my silence - here's your immoral position:
1) You refuse to condemn the murderous missile attacks by Palestinians in Gaza that target Israeli civilians.
2) You refuse to acknowledge the right of Israel to use force to stop these attacks.
3) You refuse to acknowledge that Hamas fighters are breaking international law by firing on Israeli troops from civilian population centers. (Israeli propaganda you claim).
4) You copy and paste lies from reliable sources such as "a Finnish website" which quoted an Iranian website. (How you fail to see that that is propaganda is beyond me.) An apology here would be appropriate.
Until you address those 4 points, I see very little point in carrying on like this.
“If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” – President-elect Barack Obama
telegraph UK
Israel strike kills up to 60 members of one family
With Israel barring foreign journalists from reaching Gaza, it is impossible to verify the account of what happened to the Samouni family emerging from eyewitness testimony provided by survivors.
But different survivors all gave near identical accounts of how the Israeli army arrived at dawn on Sunday in the area of Zeitoun where the Samouni family have lived for generations.
In what the United Nations fears could be the bloodiest single attack of the Israeli assault, as many as 60 members of the extended Samouni family were killed near their homes in the Gazan town of Zeitoun while nine more died in hospital.
Dozens of bodies are believed to remain under the rubble of a large house hit repeatedly by Israeli shelling in the incident.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has formally requested permission from the Israeli army to visit the scene of the attack to establish the exact scale of the slaughter.
Israel has so far not granted permission to the ICRC due to ongoing fighting.
Palestinian ambulances have also tried to reach the scene but it remains too dangerous. Several ambulances have been hit by Israeli shelling and at least seven paramedics killed.
"There are many houses where we live and they ordered us into the house of my brother, Wael,'' Nael said.
Wael, 39, another survivor, said as many as 100 members of the clan crowded into his single-storey home with strict orders from the Israeli soldiers not to move.
Three teenage members of the family – Walid, Moussa and Imad – were taken away for questioning by the Israeli army while the remainder waited anxiously without adequate food or water until night fell and fighting intensified outside.
They thought they had survived the night when at 6.35am on Monday the house was suddenly hit by a shell that brought the roof down. It was then hit again and again.
IDF: Hamas militants fired shells from inside UN school in Gaza
"The Israel Defense Forces bombed an UNRWA school in Gaza on Tuesday after militants fired mortars at troops from inside the school, the IDF Spokesman's Office said Tuesday night. The bodies of militants were found inside, it added."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053455.html
Bassam, as a speaker of Arabic, can you confirm if the translation of this of this Hamas speech is correct?
"Hamas - we desire death like you desire life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWIDZ7Jpdqg&annotation_id=annotation_656462&feature=iv
Zak
Further evidence from the Associated Press that Hamas fired at Israeli soldiers from the UN school:
"Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD95HUIG80
Robert Fisk asks a question and says he and the West know its answer:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html
Bassam,
Fisk lives in Lebanon, he can't write anything anti-Hamas or anti Hezbollah or his head would be chopped off. Read him carefully and you will see that.
As usual, he is guilty of peddling half truths. Of course the Israel-Palestinian conflict causes anguish amongst Muslims world wide, but reading Fisk you would think that Islamic fighters in Gaza and Lebanon are don't fire missiles at Israeli cities, which was the very reason Israel went in.
Zak
"but reading Fisk you would think that Islamic fighters in Gaza and Lebanon are don't fire missiles at Israeli cities, which was the very reason Israel went in."
Zak,
Even when I read this article, I totally knew why this whole mess started. I know Hamas was the one who provoked this war. Hamas is a terrorist group in my opinion because they terrorize their own people as well. However, the punishment has gone too far. As if your country men are saying if one Israeli is killed we'll kill 100 Palestinians (which is basically what is happening now).
What Fisk is bringing the world's attention to is that why do you keep asking why Arabs "hate" us the West? It is because it was proven along the decades that followed Israel's creation that thousands of innocent people lost their lives as a mass punishment for living among Israel's "enemies."
I have been thinking a lot about the aftermath of this war. Israel DOES have the right to protect its people, but not by killing civilians!!! Do you really think that you as an Israeli will feel safer after this war is over? Hell no! You know why? Because the orphaned and traumatized children of this war will take revenge and will be the new Hamas fighters. If they don't attack you, they'll attack your children when they grow up. Violence breeds violence. How about how the world looks at you? Every American abroad is being bashed for what Bush did in Iraq. Imagine you traveling to another country. People care about humanitarian issues, not justifications. Look at how the world is reacting now. I understand you are defending your country but this bloody war will not result in having peace on your land. Unfortunately it is making Hamas even more powerful. The IDF may have killed scores of them, but the avenging people will be the new Hamas or any other group similar to it and will not let you live in peace.
In brief, this whole approach was wrong. And you'll see the consequences.
Bassam,
Thanks for your response.
I read Robert Fisk religiously, mainly because he's able to articulate the Palestinian perspective of Israel eloquently and humanely. He's old school, authentic, very smart and too arrogant to need my compliments. He wrote two books, I believe the first one was called Pity the Nation, about the Lebanon war. When I opened it, I was surprised (and touched) to see that it started in Eastern Europe, not in the Middle East. If I'm not mistaken, the entire first chapter talks about the holocaust, and what happened to the Jews of Europe before the birth of the State of Israel. This is a man who, for lack of a better term, knows his s***. He is the voice of Palestinians.
The problem is, that as marvelous as his writing is - it is tangibly biased against Israel. The recurring pattern in his writing is the eloquent explanation of Arab outrage at Israel, with a consistent absence of such explanation for Israeli outrage at Arabs. Although he understands history, for reasons best known to himself, he doesn't give an honest and complete picture of what's going on in real time. "Why is the West hated?" he might ask - and we both know that with a picture of innocent dead women and children under the title, that's not a question - but he won't write an article tomorrow with the title "Hamas fighters fired at Israeli troops from near UN School" - which, the Associated Press reported is what actually happened.
I don't expect Arabs around the world to not feel outrage when they see an Israeli missile take the lives of children who should never have known war. But is it really Israel that their outrage should be directed at? You asked me how I would feel when I travel abroad. I will ask a simple question of anyone who tells me Israel acts inhumanely: Would they behave any differently if it was their city that was being bombed? Would they expect their government to sit on their hands while rockets fell on their homes?
So who is responsible for these deaths? Fisk is so marvelous at historical causality. He can trace back the routes of The Nakba to the holocaust, and the routes of Lebanon's divisions to the imperial powers slicing it and dicing it one way or another - but from an Israeli perspective - he can't see the basic, trampled over truth. Causality here is those rockets fired at Israeli cities. Trust me, Jewish mothers really didn't want this war.
Zak
The original article came from an Iranian website, if you had bothered checking.
i presume you mean because i didn't verify the information i lied, if it was not true. the last i heard, something is not necessarily a lie simply because it was first reported on an iranian site.
furthermore, i saw an interview of the norwegian doctor working for the UN. if you care to allege the report was based on the doctor lying, so be it.
Until you address those 4 points, I see very little point in carrying on like this.
well that is quite a relief, because i have no intention of addressing your need to direct your focus on whether i will or will not meet your demands. so by all means, stop carrying on like this.
Bassam I know Hamas was the one who provoked this war.
please check out these graphs. notice the dates in the little pink box on the 2nd graph and the difference in the rocket attacks from that date of nov 4th, compared to previously.
nov 4th was the day the idf entered gaza and broke the ceasefire by killing the palestinians.(according to the NYT)
i recommend http://www.tikkun.org/
tikkum is a jewish magazine. from 'a range of views' we have a variety of opinion
That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
....
THE OFFICIAL NAME of the war is “Cast Lead”, two words from a children’s song about a Hanukkah toy.
It would be more accurate to call it “the the Election War”.
In the past, too, military action has been taken during election campaigns. Menachem Begin bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor during the 1981 campaign. When Shimon Peres claimed that this was an election gimmick, Begin cried out at his next rally: “Jews, do you believe that I would send our brave boys to their death or, worse, to be taken prisoner by human animals, in order to win an election?” Begin won.
Peres is no Begin. When, during the 1996 election campaign, he ordered the invasion of Lebanon (operation “Grapes of Wrath”), everybody was convinced that he had done it for electoral gain. The war was a failure and Peres lost the elections and Binyamin Netanyahu came to power.
Barak and Tzipi Livni are now resorting to the same old trick. According to the polls, Barak’s predicted election result rose within 48 hours by five Knesset seats. About 80 dead Palestinians for each seat. But it is difficult to walk on a pile of dead bodies. The success may evaporate in a minute if the war comes to be considered by the Israeli public as a failure. For example, if the rockets continue to hit Beersheba, or if the ground attack leads to heavy Israeli casualties.
The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That ensured several days free from outside pressures.
my point in posting this, is not to assert who provocate who to start this war, for obviously both sides have resorted to violence and i'm not clear how it serves us going forward to stake out our claims, but i find the timing both particularly troubling and telling. the graphs from a government site (tho i am unable to open them at this time) also demonstrate by usage of the date, that the timing was of significance to who ever was recording it. killing five people would be a major provocation for anyone, as would establishing certain pre conditions with which to enter into possible upcoming negotiations which the obama adminitration has asserted it will be moving forward aggressively in the region. how , is still a mystery to me.
next, i would like to address nyt Israel Puts Media Clamp on Gaza
i recommend the whole thing.
And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it waited in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering, but with full access to Israeli political and military commentators eager to show them around southern Israel, where Hamas rockets have been terrorizing civilians. A slew of private groups financed mostly by Americans are helping guide the press around Israel.
Like all wars, this one is partly about public relations. But unlike any war in Israel’s history, in this one the government is seeking to entirely control the message and narrative for reasons both of politics and military strategy.
entirely control the message. part of that may be inserting claims into articles about having unidentified witnesses who support israels version of events that we are supposed to take for granted (as was demonstrated in one of the previous posts by zak).
Beyond such tactical considerations, there is a political one. Daniel Seaman, director of Israel’s Government Press Office, said, “Any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that.”
Foreign reporters deny that their work in Gaza has been subject to Hamas censorship or control. Unable to send foreign reporters into Gaza, the international news media have relied on Palestinian journalists based there for coverage.
But it seems that many Israelis accept Mr. Seaman’s assessment and shed no tears over the restrictions, despite repeated protests by the Foreign Press Association of Israel, including on Tuesday.
i have no certainty about what is going on, other than lots of death and suffering, albeit more on one side than the other. as far is who is responsible for starting this war, if you choose to blame hamas solely that is of course your prerogative. you will certainly have company here on your blog, but the evidence of timing favors one side politically by leaps and bounds and perhaps that should not be ignored.
which, the Associated Press reported is what actually happened.
i do believe the associated press likely pieced together its report from the idf spokesman. or has AP reporters allowed into gaza?
from your link
Israel's military said its shelling — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza Saturday — was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover
Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone said
two anonymous residents?
U.N. officials demanded an investigation of the shelling.
i saw a video last night with some UN workers. thus far none of them have confirmed the assertion hamas was operating out of the school.
my point is , do we really know what happened here based on this report from anonymous sources and an idf spokesperson? isn't that the whole point of controlling the narrative of a war? to control it? 'what actually happened' is NOT the same as what the idf spokespersons actually reported.
Trust me, Jewish mothers really didn't want this war.
this much i can certainly believe.
video of UN guy
" i can tell you categorically there was no militant activity inside that installation at the time of the horrible trajedy"
he is calling for an investigation.
Annie,
Why would the AP make that up?
Their condition of anonymity is totally understandable - they fear for their lives: Hamas has started executing 'collaborators'.
The Herald Tribune article is here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/29/mideast/gaza.php
Zak
the AP report said they were in a street near the school, not in the school.
By the way Annie, it seems that you are saying the following: If it didn't happen as the AP report says, then Israel is wrong. But if it did happen as the AP report says - then Hamas is wrong.
Well, at least it is nice to finally hear you condemn the act of firing weapons from civilian areas, even though it is only by implication of your words.
Zak
By the way Annie, it seems that you are saying the following: If it didn't happen as the AP report says, then Israel is wrong. But if it did happen as the AP report says - then Hamas is wrong.
zak, lest you miss my meaning. wrt israel bombing the school..no matter what, i think israel is wrong. they had the coordinates of the location and knew the place was full of civilians. nothing excuses bombing it. nothing.
Why would the AP make that up?
they didn't make anything up zak, they stated quite clearly: Israel's military said
IOW, according to the israeli military (or their propaganda department).
Well, at least it is nice to finally hear you condemn the act of firing weapons from civilian areas
zak, a persons home is a 'civilian area'. a person has a right to defend themselves and their family. gaza is crowded, it is all civilian areas. so obviously i would not condemn a person for defending their country or their persons from the place they reside.
furthermore, outside of the idf spokesperson and some anonymous telephone correspondense, their is no evidence of any defense/offense rocket attack near the school so i am not going to address your hypotheticals.
as long as israel is preventing war reporters anything and everything they say is suspect, as is anything that could be construed as hamas propaganda. UN propaganda? sorry, i am not going there. so far the UN has called for an investigation and stated no bombers were operating in the school or school grounds. i would imagine of someone were blowing off rockets near them the UN would have had some awareness of this.
this bogus blame the victim w/the human shield allegation in these kinds of condensed concentration prison type situations is just flagrant propaganda and holds no water.
that is my position and i'm sticking with it.
i will also assume you heard of the redcross report today plastered all over. hoe dead women corpses are found on their mattresses w/babies hovering nearby happens in a war zone is not too difficult to figure out. maybe the bombs just fly in the window, make right and left turns and kill women in the beds leaving the children.
the implication of butchery is a constant in this conflict.
your personal mission here of putting words in my mouth are noted.
zak, the internationa tribune has an excellent reputation as a rightwing mouthpiece
Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem. Dina Kraft contributed reporting from Ashkelon.
and who would their sources be??????
A crowd at the hospital showed no pity after the shooting, which was widely observed. A man in his thirties mocked a woman who expressed horror at the scene.
"This horrified you?" he shouted. "A collaborator that caused the death of many innocent and resistance fighters?"
Another man told her, "It was his brother who killed him to wipe away the shame from his family."
did you notice how this was not sourced??? if Sobhia Jomaa, a lawyer with the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, was the source of this why wasn't she attributed? who got this first hand dialogue?
was an idf spokesperson in the hospital? seriously i cannot believe you buy this garbage that is rife w/propaganda such as: Despite fairly precision bombing, civilians are constantly caught up in the fire.
says who? were the reporters there observing the precision bombing?
as you know reporters are not allowed, except maybe the idf 'spokesman'. so spare us your propaganda.
also, note that hamas kept these people in prison and did not execute them. so now are we to blame hamas for their fate at the hands of the 'mercy killers'?
and if they bombed a prison, how do they even know in the midst of a war zone who escaped and who was killed at the prison. and who is it that is reporting to the idf spokespeople about the spys for israel? spies for israel?
i can't believe you use this worthless piece of crap and try to pon it off as legitimate.
at least washington post and new york times have to source their assertions. that is not the case w/lies published outside the country which can then be used in some viral of propaganda.
Until a few moments ago we counted 650 dead, 153 murdered children, in addition to 3,000 injured, and innumerable missing. The number of civilian deaths in Israel has thankfully stopped at 4. But after this afternoon the death toll on the Palestinian side requires an urgent recount since the Israeli Army has started attacking the United Nations schools. The very same that had been offering shelter to the thousands evacuated under threat of an imminent attack. They chased them off the refugee camps, the villages, only to collect them all in one place, an easier target. Three schools were attacked today, the last being at Al Fakhura, in Jabalia, which was hit full on its head. Over 80 dead. In a heartbeat, men, women, elderly people and children were wiped away, believing themselves to be safe within those blue-tinted walls adorned with a UN logo. The other 20 UN schools are now shaking in fear. There's no way out anywhere in the Gaza Strip. This isn't Lebanon, where the civilians in the Southern villages targeted by the Israeli bombs could flee to the North, or to Syria or Jordan. From one enormous open-air prison, the Gaza Strip has become a deadly trap. We look at one another in bewilderment and ask ourselves whether the UN Security Council will finally unanimously condemn these attacks after their own schools have been targeted. Someone out there has really decided to turn this place into a desert, and then call it peace.
..
Stay human
Vittorio Arrigoni (an italian in gaza)
read the whole thing
There are no "strategic" targets around that building, nor a resistance fighting off the deadly armoured Israeli vehicles, which can be found a way away towards the North. Clearly, someone in Tel Aviv cannot bear the images of the massacres of civilians clashing with the ones that the Israeli officers' briefings provide while offering the mercenary journalists their aperitif. Through these press conferences they're declaring to the world that the bombs' targets are only the Hamas terrorists, not those atrociously mutilated children we pull out of the rubble every day.
is it rather amazing that w/20 or 25 thousand hamas fighters we only have a handful of dead israeli soldiers? maybe they have no one shooting back. maybe it is just humans under attack. building after building. and once the people move to the shelters they bomb the shelters.
extermination.
Bassam, re who initiates violence i would like to direct you to these grafts from from The Israeli consulate in NYC , presented in this report @ huffingtom post. it is too long to recite it all here, but it is an essential read.
the ceasefire was remarkably effective: after it began in June 2008, the rate of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza dropped to almost zero, and stayed there for four straight months (see Figure 1, from a factsheet produced by the Israeli consulate in NYC). So much for the widespread view, exemplified in yesterday's New York Times editorial that: "There is little chance of restraining Hamas without dealing with its patrons in Syria and Iran." Instead, the data shows clearly that Hamas can indeed control the violence if it so chooses, and sometimes it does, for long periods of time.
Second, and just as important, what happened to end this striking period of peace? On November 4th, Israel killed a Palestinian, an event that was followed by a volley of mortars fired from Gaza. Immediately after that, an Israeli air strike killed six more Palestinians. Then a massive barrage of rockets was unleashed, leading to the end of the ceasefire.
....
We analyzed the entire timeline of killings of Palestinians by Israelis, and killings of Israelis by Palestinians, in the Second Intifada, based on the data from the widely-respected Israeli Human Rights group B'Tselem (including all the data from September 2000 to October 2008).
We defined "conflict pauses" as periods of one or more days when no one is killed on either side, and we asked which side kills first after conflict pauses of different durations. As shown in Figure 2, this analysis shows that it is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict: 79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks (the remaining 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same day). In addition, we found that this pattern -- in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause -- becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days.
please check the link, and review the israeli consulates graphs.
Figure 2. For conflict pauses of different durations (i.e., periods of time when no one is killed on either side), we show here the percentage of times from the Second Intifada in which Israelis ended the period of nonviolence by killing one or more Palestinians (black), the percentage of times that Palestinians ended the period of nonviolence by killing Israelis (grey), and the percentage of times that both sides killed on the same day (white). Virtually all periods of nonviolence lasting more than a week were ended when the Israelis killed Palestinians first. We include here the data from all pause durations that actually occurred.
Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.
The lessons from these data are clear:
First, Hamas can indeed control the rockets, when it is in their interest. The data shows that ceasefires can work, reducing the violence to nearly zero for months at a time.
Second, if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill.
Annie says: they didn't make anything up zak, they stated quite clearly: Israel's military said
Umm, no, that is not what the AP report said at all. Again, the AP report:
"Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal"
That means they spoke to the AP.
As for your comment about the IHT being a right wing mouth piece, I think you consider all newspapers who don't agree with Iranian TV's latest "facts" to be right wing mouthpieces. I suppose Amira Hass at Haaretz is also a right wing mouth piece!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053825.html
She says the same thing. Hamas are murdering their political oponents.
Sad to see you in denial Annie.
On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "monstrosity."
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a "1948-style solution" – the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller "cantonments" and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed … Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it."
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic," she wrote on 31 December. "But I'm not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (the president of Iran) or Ashkenazi Jews. What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years …
i recommend , Holocaust Denied The lying silence of those who know, By John Pilger
January 08, 2009
As for your comment about the IHT being a right wing mouth piece,
this news source has been a reliable mouthpiece for the neocons thruout the iraq war. news that isn't fit to break in the US (there is a requirement fake news ie infor warfare propaganda) can not be directly inserted into the msm in the states. this sort of fake news always originates outside the country and then gets picked up here. the british press source for the neocons is usually IHT. this is nothing new.
they didn't make anything up zak, they stated quite clearly: Israel's military said
ok zak, i think i already told you what i think of anonymous sources over the telephone. again, the AP didn't make anything up, they were transparent who there sources were. about as transpaerent as one can be when their sources claim to be residents calling up some journalist and supporting idf allegations after an idf assault on their neighbors that killed 40 civilians. if you choose to believe the idf, or some anonymous source over the telephone that is up to you. since we have NO reporters in gaza (as if any idiot doesn't know what a news blockade is good for) i will rely on news from the UN or red cross, or some source other non israeli source.
haaretz is a great source of opinion pieces, quite varied. but i have little interest in news reports from anonymous sources and a reporter who isn't even on the ground. at leasst when reports include UN sources, or UN allegations they have some standing behind them, as opposed to alleged anonymous opposition political figures from the west bank when we know quite well israel and fatah are both squashing dissent, protest, and support for gaza from WB.
go ahead and pump this story about hamas executing traitors. i think it is fairly clear who is killing palestinians now, so whatever traction your non sourced story brings you..nice try and all that.
She says the same thing. Hamas are murdering their political oponents.
oh wow, how impressive/not. maybe you missed the news stories about the coordinated propaganda campaign. i imagine that coordination would be to have multiple people all singing the same tune. i would also imagine it would include stories that demonize the enemy. i would also assume it would be inserting fake stories w/fake alleged sources. whoops, guess this fits all those categories. bumerella.
speaking of haaretz, they have run an update on the story of the idf rounding up memebers of one family and then bombing them, then preventing the red cross to do their jobs.
UN: IDF bombed building in Gaza that housed civilians
A UN agency has said Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City, then shelled the building 24 hours later.
Based on eyewitness testimony, the account added details to an incident previously reported by The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group.
The UN agency said 110 people were in the house and 30 people were killed, far higher figures than in other accounts.
It said a Red Cross medical team was blocked from reaching the area until three days later. Rescuers were allowed in on foot, without ambulances.
A report by the UN's Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at least 30 people were killed in the incident. Most were members of Samouni's family.
OCHA deputy chief Allegre Pacheco quoted eyewitness in the Zeitun district as saying Israeli troops had ordered about 100 civilians to get into the house and stay there, out of their way. But the following day the house was hit by Israeli shells.
"There are no bomb shelters in Gaza," she said.
The Israeli army said it was investigating the incident.
Speaking to Reuters from his hospital bed in Gaza, the boy recounted how his family came to be herded into the building that was later targeted.
"We were asleep when the tanks and the planes struck, we all slept in one room," Samouni said in a weak voice. "One shell hit our house. Thank God we were not hit."
"We ran out of the house and saw 15 men ... they landed from helicopters on rooftops of buildings." Soldiers beat residents and forced them all into one house.
After it was hit the next day and his mother was among those killed, Samouni kept his three younger brothers alive and tried to help injured adults lying among the dead.
Local Red Cresent rescue workers and a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to reach the house on Jan.7 after being denied access by the Israeli military for what the Red Cross called an "unacceptable" period.
The children were starving when help finally reached the place, the Geneva-based ICRC said.
"They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses," it said.
Earth redoubts built by Israeli bulldozers blocked the streets so the ambulances could not get close. "The wounded had to be brought out on donkey carts," Pacheco told Reuters.
"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The ICRC accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the area and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded.
"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded," he said.
Israel accused of using white phosphorus in Gaza
rueters (really!)
JERUSALEM, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A leading human rights group on Saturday accused Israel of using white-phosphorus munitions during its offensive in the Gaza Strip and warned of the risk to civilians near the fighting.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that its researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts on Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 of artillery-fired white phosphorus near the city of Gaza and the Jabalya refugee camp.
The group said Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus to hide military operations -- "a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law".
"However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world," Human Rights Watch said.
It called on Israel to stop the practice.
An Israeli army spokesman had no immediate comment.
israel is loosing the pr war. headlines in wapo today
100 Survivors Rescued in Gaza From Ruins Blocked by Israelis
Annie,
You can't really get more Palestinian than Amira Hass (she is Robert Fisk's second wife) but have it your way: Hamas are actually NOT firing rockets into Israel, they are NOT killing Fatah representatives in the Gaza strip, and Israel is killing women and children because, well, they just like doing that.
As for the phosphorus, pretty nasty, but not illegal, like Hamas rockets fired at old age homes in Israel. If you think quoting Reuters truthfully now makes up for your propaganda efforts earlier in this thread - well - you bought the Uranium lies, and you re-printed them. You'll buy anything unfortunately.
Just one question for you: if there were no rockets being fired into Israel - would Israel have invaded?
if there were no rockets being fired into Israel - would Israel have invaded?
yes
from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC) website...The Situation on the Ground (As of November 5, 1700 hours)
9. It was the first time since the lull arrangement went into effect that Hamas participated in firing rockets into Israel . It was also the first time that the terrorist organizations attacked Israel with massive amounts of rocket and mortar shell fire (until now there were occasional violations of single rockets or mortar shells being fired).
IOW, on november 5th, the day after israel broke the ceasefire (after planning the invasion since june) hamas reacted.
the precious rocket attacks were from other militant groups, chastised by hamas for breaking the ceasefire.
this invasion was timed for the israel election. it was going to happen irregardless of what hamas did, or did not do.
You can't really get more Palestinian than Amira Hass
why do you reference Amira Hass? did she write something i linked to?
is she not credible because she was once married to someone you don't likspeaking of fisk..
It took Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times's resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. "When does the mandate of victimhood expire?" he asked. "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"
curious minds want to know.
Annie,
You keep ignoring my questions but I'll take yours:
Why do I mention Amira Hass?
Because she is an authentic Palestinian voice, and she also calls Hamas murderers. But "curious minds" like yours don't seem to want to acknowledge that. Bassam also used the term 'murderers' for Hamas by the way. Did you miss that?
As for your second question - when does the holocaust stop becoming an excuse for the incursion into Gaza: Annie, the incursion into Gaza has nothing to do with the holocaust, and I haven't heard the argument made from anyone other that the radical left. Those who say we shouldn't be using the holocaust to justify Gaza ignore a simple fact - we're not. We are in Gaza to stop the rocket attacks.
Honestly, there would be a lot less loss of Palestinian life if people like you said to Hamas - ENOUGH!
Zak
just saw your other comment about planning the invasion since June. (please don't ignore the other post I just wrote).
Quite right - we've probably been planning this invasion from before then - because rockets have been falling since we withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
We are a small country that doesn't outsource our battles to lower socio-economic groups inside the country. Everyone does the army and the citizen's care about the soldiers deeply. It's hard to find anyone in Israel who doesn't have someone they care for fighting in Gaza at the moment. If there wasn't a plan, that would be highly irresponsible.
Zak
Annie, the incursion into Gaza has nothing to do with the holocaust, and I haven't heard the argument made from anyone other that the radical left.
well you didn't hear it from me either. this is a strawman. here, i will break it down for you:
It took Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times's resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. "When does the mandate of victimhood expire?" he asked. "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"
curious minds want to know.
ok, no one on the left is asserting or implying the invasion has to do w/the holocaust. it has to do w/the assertion of victimhood wrt israelis reason for invading:
"When does the mandate of victimhood expire?"
IOW, while it is clear jews were most definitely VICTIMS during the holocaust, doesn't mean you get to always assert you are motivated (the constant allegation of 'reaction' as being the source of your offense) by being the 'victim' of others aggression.
also: "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"
i have total certainty invading gaza is unrelated to the holocaust, but i definitely think the 'we're so the victims' meme is being played here. ie: No rockets would have meant no deaths in Gaza. Very simple. Hamas brought this on.
get it? you are asserting it was the sole actions of hamas that motivated israel to act. hamas, aggressor, israel acting in defense. the question implies (and i would agree) this claim of 'defense' supposedly gives you cover from the demands of international law and of common humanity? why? well anytime anyone criticizes israel they are met by a barrage of anti semite accusations. i just came from a site that posters claimed all the protests in europe were a result of people wanting a repeat of WW2. plllease.
Why do I mention Amira Hass?...But "curious minds" like yours don't seem to want to acknowledge that.
i don't even know her. now you want me to acknowledge her because you dropped her name into a thread.
there would be a lot less loss of Palestinian life if people like you said to Hamas - ENOUGH!
dude, i can personally guarentee you if i said hamas, palestinians in gaza would still be getting slaughtered.
here hamas hamas hamas
all better now. i didn't think so.
if you think i am going to fall into your propaganda meme of pretending palestinians aren't getting slaughtered by israelis day in and day out, you've got another thing comin'
If there wasn't a plan, that would be highly irresponsible.
yeah, i get it. agree to a ceasefire so you can plan an invasion while your propaganda arm asserts while the ceasefire was going on the palestinians were planning an invasion. break the ceasefire and then claim the palestinians broke the ceasefire.
here, for you..Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power part 3
Hamas Comes to Power
With the Bush administration insisting that the Palestinians stage free and fair elections after the death of Arafat in 2004, Fatah leaders hoped that coaxing Hamas into the electoral process would help weaken its more radical elements. Despite U.S. objections, the Palestinian parliamentary elections went ahead in January 2006 with Hamas' participation. They were monitored closely by international observers and were universally recognized as free and fair. With reformist and leftist parties divided into a half-dozen competing slates, Hamas was seen by many Palestinians disgusted with the status quo as the only viable alternative to the corrupt Fatah incumbents, and with Israel refusing to engage in substantive peace negotiations with Abbas' Fatah-led government, they figured there was little to lose in electing Hamas. In addition, factionalism within the ruling party led a number of districts to have competing Fatah candidates. As a result, even though Hamas only received 44 percent of the vote, it captured a majority of parliament and the right to select the prime minister and form a new government.
Ironically, the position of prime minister did not exist under the original constitution of the Palestinian Authority, but was added in March 2003 at the insistence of the United States, which desired a counterweight to President Arafat. As a result, while the elections allowed Abbas to remain as president, he was forced to share power with Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister.
Despite claiming support for free elections, the United States tried from the outset to undermine the Hamas government. It was largely due to U.S. pressure that Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a national unity government that would include Fatah and from which some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders would have presumably been marginalized. The Bush administration pressured the Canadians, Europeans and others in the international community to impose stiff sanctions on the Palestine Authority, although a limited amount of aid continued to flow to government offices controlled by Abbas.
Once one of the more-prosperous regions in the Arab world, decades of Israeli occupation had resulted in the destruction of much of the indigenous Palestinian economy, making the Palestinian Authority dependent on foreign aid to provide basic functions for its people. The impact of these sanctions, therefore, was devastating. The Iranian regime rushed in to partially fulfill the void, providing millions of dollars to run basic services and giving the Islamic republic -- which until then had not been allied with Hamas and had not been a major player in Palestinian politics -- unprecedented leverage.
Meanwhile, record unemployment led angry and hungry young men to become easy recruits for Hamas militants. One leading Fatah official noted how, "For many people, this was the only way to make money." Some Palestinian police, unpaid by their bankrupt government, clandestinely joined the Hamas militia as a second job, creating a dual loyalty.
Annie said: I don't even know [Amira Hass]
There is a lot you don't know Annie. But you keep insisting on keeping yourself in a state of ignorance.
Here, let me suggest to you the following:
I will read and respond to an article of your choice, if you read and respond to an article of my choice.
You go first, if you accept.
Annie said:
"i definitely think the 'we're so the victims' meme is being played here. ie: No rockets would have meant no deaths in Gaza. Very simple. Hamas brought this on.
get it?"
No, I don't get it. There is absoltely no link between the statement you made before your "i.e." and the one you made after it.
You seem to be linking the victimisation of jews during the holocaust to the gaza incursion when it has nothing to do with it and no-one suggested it did. It is only the loony left that keeps brining it up. The incursion into Gaza has more to do with 1 million Israeli residents not being able to take a shower because they won't be able to make it to the bomb shelter within the 15 seconds between a siren sounding and a rocket landing.
Zak
The incursion into Gaza has more to do with 1 million Israeli residents not being able to take a shower because they won't be able to make it to the bomb shelter within the 15 seconds between a siren sounding and a rocket landing.
you don't recognize the 'victims' mantel as the justification for this ?
last night democracy now interviewed someone in tel aviv who said more people are killed each week in israel by car accidents than all those killed this year by rockets, including the deaths since the last invasion. but nobody seems to be worried about the 4000 deaths of car accident victims last year and they are still driving their cars.
and you don't think those 1 million israeli, the ones you use for your excuse, you are not painting as victims to justify this massacre? that is quite telling.
i have another story for you.
Israel Is Losing This War
by Uri Avnery
NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books - if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
here's more.
let's also note your silence thus far wrt pts 1,2,3 of Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power. perhaps you could simply follow your own advise (and listen to your accusations) for you have certainly had ample opportunity to respond to the writing. it is just another sign of your hypocrisy to engage one more time in the ad hom crutch to accuse me of that which you engage.
it is also almost funny your accusations are based on some multiple name dropping!
let us watch you set by example. then i may have enough respect in you to make the sort of deal you request. for why deal w/deception, illusion, propaganda and cowardice of ad hominem ?
here is how i will deal w/you. i will treat your article with the same respect w/which you have treated mine, in the same timely fashion.
have i once ask you why you have ignored these articles? have i yet to demand you respond? have i accused you of 'insisting on keeping yourself in a state of ignorance'?
this thread shall be our evidence. the game is on after you post your article you have already accused me of ignoring. remember, i will be respecting your article, in the same timely fashion and with the same integrity and openness with which you choose to address the one i started posting back at the beginning of the thread. this may give you a more acute appreciation of you own accusations and insults.
btw, have you noticed the white phosperous news has moved beyond the TVPRESS (iranian/lies!) ?
CNN and many other news sources have picked it up. last night they showed a film of a gaza child w/ chemical burns. your liar accusations, they mean nothing.
actually Annie, I said that phosphorus was use was nasty but possible, as it was not illegal.
I'll get back to you with something to respond to. And as for "the game is on" nonsense... don't take it too personally. It seems you might be. As someone smarter than me once wrote, that's just pride f***ing with ya.
See you soon.
Z
OK, here is what I'd like a response from you on. I did post it earlier, and I asked Bassam if this translation was accurate and he didn't reply. Most of the comments don't complain about the translation either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0wJXf2nt4Y
Zak, the translation in the video is correct.
In my opinion, it's just a stupid, arrogant Hamas leader who is using slogans to mislead the world about what Palestinians really want.
Maybe he's right about his fighters who 'desire death' but I don't think civilian really wanted that war to happen.
I said that phosphorus was use was nasty but possible, as it was not illegal.
it is not illegal when used according to international law which DOES NOT include using it in (enclosed)civilian areas.
"I can see them; we are very certain, whatever the Israeli Defense Forces may say, that white phosphorus is being used. It was used by Israel in Lebanon in 2006, but not until the population fled. In Gaza, the population can't flee."
....
don't take it too personally. It seems you might be. As someone smarter than me once wrote, that's just pride f***ing with ya.
excuse me? it is not my pride f'ing w/me nor is it me making or taking it personal. it is you making constant use of personal attacks in lu of a common sense approach dealing w/the argument at hand. i did not ask you to respect me, tho i would assume common sense would prevail. i asserted i will afford your article (not yet presented) the same respect with which you have respected mine. (in the same timely fashion, which means basically whenever the hoot i get around to it, and maybe never).
IOW, i am throwing your challenge prefaced w/another of your unsubstantiated snide accusations ( ie bla bla 'you keep insisting on keeping yourself in a state of ignorance.' bla bla. )where they belong, right back atcha sans the unsubstantiated ad hominems.
don't worry, taking this personally is not in the cards for me. i have plenty of confidence and self worth to be kowtowed by some false sense of guilt. i also know perfectly well i am not ignorant for you are clearly a testimony to that for you would not be bothering w/me if you believed it to be so.
nor have i called you ignorant for i have no need to fling about ad hominums as there is plenty of evidence to bring to the table without resorting to demonizing my adversary thru personal attacks.
so no, this is not my pride speaking, not in the least. it is my common sense, the same common sense that informs me your crutch of ad hominems is used as a cover for evidence of 'defense' which is sorely lacking.
re the video. ditto what Bassam says.
check out this frontline pbs report. by the standards israel is setting by promoting this video for the hamas leader as justification for the slaughter of civilains.. by that standards how would israel respond if the global response to some of its citizens matched those of israels response to the civilain palestinian population? keep in mind these people are represented in the knesset.
They do not believe in peace talks. They do not want to share the land. They are well armed and are carrying out increasingly violent attacks, even targeting innocent civilians. They are members of Israel's militant far right, and they are threatening to become Israel's next big problem
...
Mike Guzofsky, a transplanted New Yorker and leading Kahanist, is convinced that the very people who are now painted as extremists will one day be viewed as heroes. "I think the day will come when the secret service and the government will look for Jews who are willing to risk their lives and go into Arab villages and kick them out, kill them… and we have thousands of civilians with the military know-how to instigate a mega-attack against Arabs."
furthermpore
Poll: 30 percent of Israelis support pardon for Yigal Amir
On eve of 11th anniversary of Rabin's murder – about third of Israeli public believes that his killer should be pardoned. Figures jump to over 50 percent among right-wingers and religious public. Yuval Rabin: "If someone were to tell me 10 years ago that this is that would happen," Rabin says, "I wouldn't have been able to believe it. I worry that only if there is another political assassination people will start wondering what mistakes were made regarding my father's murderer."
we all know why he was murdered.
Among respondents defining themselves as right-wing, 54 percent support a pardoning, with 47 percent setting the pardon in 25 years. Among respondents defining themselves as religious the numbers jump again – 64 percent support a pardoning: 50 percent in 25 years and 14 percent today.
this is the greater israel movement. they represent quite a few israelis. i think it was one of their leaders (lieberman?)who said something about a holocaust raining down on paletinians.
don't act like this person, this hamas person is acting in some island of illusion. i can perfectly understand how a perrson might be a touch paranoid, when his people are in an inclosed prison first threatened by these sanctions (sanctioning people who have nothing!) then the incursions in to gaza that kill people..really, i am not going to EXCUSE this person, but i am going to assert is rhetoric is not only understandable, but that it does not speak for the masses, nor does it justify the retaliation by israel on the population in gaza!
furthmore..i know how i feel when i am hungry. by 2 in the afternoon i am not very rational. that is one day. i cannot even imagine what kind of sanity (if any) i might have by living under these conditions for what seems like an eternity. and i do not think you can blame palestinians for their plight. not w/the abundance of evidence so many israelis clearly do not ever want a lasting peace w/palestinians neighbors, they want the greater israel. as in NO ARABS on a greater piece of land as determined in their religious text.
now you can hide behind this pretext of 'defense' but their is a fanatical climate in israel as surely as their is a fanatical crusade climate in portions of america. these people are not rational, but they are amongst us.
you cannot nurture fanatacism (as the links i provided demonstrate), clearly as a means of coroding a society from within, and then pretend like your own fanatics don't exist.
rabin was murdered for gods sake. his family is still alive. i cannot believe there are even discussing about pardoning him. this is NOT about forgiveness, it is about SUPPORT for the same senitment exists today that murdered the politician that would dare to bring peace.
that is what i think of your video.
ps, never was there ever a poll in america about who wanted to parol kennedys assasin.
the fact that this is even discussed in israel is vile and digusting.
that fact that you let murders produce children while they are in captivity is simply beyond my imagination. the family should be shunned, not put on some pedestal.
Maybe he's right about his fighters who 'desire death'
morally i suppose this is miles away from the concept of 'give me liberty or give me death'.
comparing this hamas guy to patrick henry is probably not going to win me any brownie points. i imagine lining up for your imminet death while not preferable (death is death) at least garners more pity on the world stage. but does it allow for the permanent mantel of victim?
i do not pity hamas, nor does it want to go to its imminent death w/my pity which i imagine is the purpose of this video just as saddams stoic performance at his own execution was to dismiss any pity to pave the way for his martyrdom.
palestinians on the other hand are civilians and of course any sane person would pity them as they probably pity themselves and their predicament. but i think palestinians and israelis alike, and understandably so, do not believe in the integrity of their adversary to seek peace or ever afford them the opportunity.
dignity comes in many forms. don't dismiss the aim of self dignity in this video just because you wish to use it to demonstrate the lack of humanity, for this is part of human nature when you're facing the genocide of your people. there are those on the side of israel who would show the same determination to drag the entire jewish race to their knees before succumbing to an imminent death.
this is why we're in this mess. f'ing warriors.
"re the video. ditto what Bassam says"
I asked bassam to confirm the translation was correct, but from you I'd like to know what you think of all the civilian casualties in light of the seeming eagerness of Hamas to give up life on their own side.
Whilst you ask why is Israel not taking more care to protect civilians - which is a fair question - should you not also be asking why isn't Hamas? Doesn't this video indicate that at a a leadership level - Hamas really don't mind if there are civilian casualties?
I'd like to ask you for more than "Diito to what Bassam said", and then, if you want me to, I'll take the time to reposnd thoroghly to something you might like me to.
Just saw that you wrote this Annie:
"really, i am not going to EXCUSE this person, but i am going to assert is rhetoric is not only understandable, but that it does not speak for the masses, nor does it justify the retaliation by israel on the population in gaza!"
Tne point is not that most Gazans want to die, but that hamas uses human shields, which is why aside from the 500 hamas fighters who have been killed, there has been a horrific number of civilian casualties.
But as for this point:
"rabin was murdered for gods sake. his family is still alive. i cannot believe there are even discussing about pardoning him....
...that is what i think of your video."
As if these discussions held legal weight - why are you bringing up Rabin's murder? I don't think this is relevant at all to this discussion.
I am asking you: Does Hamas leadership have the same value of human life as you do? Why aren't you condeming them loudly. Like Bassam.
Finally, please excuse me for not following every link you post, the reason I wanted open a discussion in this manner was to get and give enough attention to specific comments. I will check out and respond to what you specifically ask me to check out.
As if these discussions held legal weight - why are you bringing up Rabin's murder? I don't think this is relevant at all to this discussion.
what discussion? the one you want to have? perhaps you missed this comment of mine:
here is how i will deal w/you. i will treat your article with the same respect w/which you have treated mine, in the same timely fashion.
so before you go thinking you can direct this thread maybe you should review the article i have posted and elaborate on why you think it is israel and the US promoted hamas, and along w/it muslim extremism in palestine. then i may get around to discussing w/you what i think of these extremists and why it is this is whom israel wished to promote.
but to get back to what rabin has to do w/this discussion and how he is relevant today (in case you did not think the context in which i inserted him into the discussion was clear enough. israel clearly needs brokers of peace, so they not only choose which palestinians to promote (hamas), they kill their own who dare to broker peace).. here is a babelfish (machine) translation of Andre Nouschi, french jewish historian's letter to the israel's ambassador in france published today in the french press.
historian sends hard truth to l'ambassadeur d'israel en france (original in french)
Letter with the ambassador of Israel in France of the historian Andre Nouschi
Below a letter with the ambassador of Israel in France of the historian Andre Nouschi (86 years), originating in Constantine (Algeria), which wish that its text diffused as much as possible. André Nouschi, who was combatant of free France, is in particular the author of a book, maintaining well forgotten, on the standard of living of the rural populations constantinoises during the colonial period jusaqu' in 1919 (PUF, 1961). This book, decisive, had in its time greeted by the Minister for the GPRA and Algerian nationalist historian Ahmed Tafiq Al-Madanî as “the water gouttre which is offered to the traveller after the crossing of the desert”. André Nouschi was teaching at the university of Tunis, and he is professor emeritus of the university of Nice.
On January 3, 2009
Mister the Ambassador,
For you it is shabat, which was to be one day of peace but which is that of the war. For me, for several years, the colonization and the Israeli flight of the Palestinian grounds have exasperated me. I thus write to you for several reasons: as a French, like Jew of birth and craftsman of the agreements between the University of Nice and that of Haiffa.
It is not possible any more to keep silent in front of the policy of assassinations and expansion imperialist of Israel. You act exactly as Hitler acted in Europe with Austria, Czechoslovakia. You scorn the resolutions of UNO like him those of the SDN and you assassinate with impunity women, children; do not call upon the attacks, Intifada. All that results from ILLEGITIMATE and ILLEGAL colonization. WHO IS A VOL.
You act like robbers of grounds and you turn the back on the rules of Jewish morals.
Shame with you: Shame in Israel! You dig your tomb without you to give an account of it. Because you are condemned to live with the Arab Palestinians and states. If you miss this political intelligence, then you are unworthy to make of the policy and your leaders should take their retirement. A country which assassinates Rabin, which glorifies its assassin is a country without morals and honor.
That sky and that your God puts at dead Sharon the assassin. You underwent a defeat in Lebanon in 2006. Vous will undergo others of them, I hope, and you will send to dead young Israelis because you do not have courage to make peace.
How the Jews which suffered so much can they imitate their torturers hitlériens? For me, since 1975, colonization recalls me of old memories, those of the hitlerism. I do not see a difference between your leaders and those of the Nazi Germany?
Personally, I will fight you of all my forces as I did between 1938 and 1945 until the justice of the men destroys the hitlerism which is in the middle of your country. Shame in Israel. I hope that your God will launch against his leaders the revenge which they deserve. I have shame like Juif, war veteran of the 2nd world war, for you. How your God curses you until the end of the centuries! I hope that you will be punished.
Andre Nouschi
Professor emeritus of the University.
if you cannot see how israel chooses its representatives on both sides, and treats those voices with which it does and does not agree, and the way it treats their hero/assasin of their leader in peace (rabin) and to promote the one you now condemn as hiding among civilians tho israel's very own ministry of defense in located in tel aviv among the citizens is it not? hmm, well lets get back to your question after you have demonstrated for me how much respect i should afford your request by your own treatment of the article which i have presented in 3 parts thus far. here is the part 4
The demands imposed at the insistence of the Bush administration and Congress on the Palestinian Authority in order to lift the sanctions appeared to have been designed to be rejected and were widely interpreted as a pretext for punishing the Palestinian population for voting the wrong way. For example, the United States demanded that the Hamas-led government unilaterally recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist, even though Israel has never recognized the right of the Palestinians to have a viable state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or anywhere else. Other demands included an end of attacks on civilians in Israel while not demanding that Israel likewise end its attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip. They also demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority accept all previously negotiated agreements, even as Israel continued to violate key components of the Wye River Agreement and other negotiated deals with the Palestinians.
While Hamas honored a unilateral cease-fire regarding suicide bombings in Israel, border clashes and rocket attacks into Israel continued. Israel, meanwhile, with the support of the Bush administration, engaged in devastating air strikes against crowded urban neighborhoods, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties. Congress also went on record defending the Israeli assaults -- which were widely condemned in the international community as excessive and in violation of international humanitarian law -- as legitimate acts of self-defense.
A Siege, Not a Withdrawal
The myth perpetuated by both the Bush administration and congressional leaders of both parties was that Israel's 2005 dismantling of its illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of military units that supported them constituted effective freedom for the Palestinians of the territory. American political leaders from President George W. Bush to House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have repeatedly praised Israel for its belated compliance with a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for its withdrawal of these illegal settlements (despite Israel's ongoing violations of these same resolutions by maintaining and expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights).
In reality, however, the Gaza Strip has remained effectively under siege. Even prior to the Hamas victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the Israeli government not only severely restricted -- as is its right -- entry from the Gaza Strip into Israel, but also controlled passage through the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, as well. Israel also refused to allow the Palestinians to open their airport or seaport. This not only led to periodic shortages of basic necessities imported through Egypt, but resulted in the widespread wasting of perishable exports -- such as fruits, vegetables and cut flowers -- vital to the territory's economy. Furthermore, Gaza residents were cut off from family members and compatriots in the West Bank and elsewhere in what many have referred to as the world's largest open-air prison.
the section including 'Weakening Palestinian Moderates' doesn't come til part 6 or 7.
from the 500 hamas fighters who have been killed, there has been a horrific number of civilian casualties.
oh please. 500 is the amount of men killed. when you provide me w/any evidence of reports of male civilian casualties only then can you allege how many hamas fighters have been killed. this fantasy hamas is primarily militaristic is not supported by evidence. the reason they rose to power to begin with was they provided needed community support for a besieged people.
am i to construe all adult male deaths are hamas fighters? please! the male children are perhaps future palestinian threats so in this regard killing off the children certainly isn't unique. but don't go bragging about killing 500 hamas fighters, especially when israel doesn't have the cajones to allow reporters in. what are the chances their is no footage of decisive battles being fought in gaza? i'd say pretty good. frankly i don't think their are thousands of hamas fighters. what army? w/what? rocks? tanks? some rifles?
this is a slaughter of civilians by the idf. all it takes is one male in a family for the idf to justify wiping out the family in their home if every male is counted as a hamas fighter.
show me the numbers of male civilian deaths, then we can talk a little more about who it is hiding among civilians. israel wouldn't be the first conquers to cull the male population from a society. that is what this is about.
Annie,
its a shame this is not a discussion, I was trying to take it that way: But when I referred to a "discussion" in my last post it was a reference to your allegation that their had been a discussion regarding the pardoning of Rabin's murderer. There has not been one that carried legal weight. Some jeering by football fans during the minute silence held for him once a year and some polls taken after a suicide bombing does not really count as a "discussion" regarding his pardoning. And I still fail to see why it is relevant to the Gaza war, other than to be a totally falsified allegation, like your Uranium nonsense, to de-humanize Israelis. You should be asking why the Iranians named a street after the guy who murdered Anwar Sadat, but that probably never crossed your mind.
Nevertheless, regarding the letter you posted:
The letter makes allegations that don't hold up to the very slightest scrutiny.
Take the allegation of imperialism: The author totally neglects to mention that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. How is withdrawing from territory imperialistic?
Then the comparison to Nazis: Based on what? On a crude similarity to the closing of the border to concentration camps (which would also make the Egyptians Nazis??) Or is it to the "fact" that we are gassing Palestinians and using their bodies to make soap? When did the Nazis allow humanitarian aid to reach citizen's who weren't fighting in the Warsaw ghetto.
Seriously, he sounds senile and if this is your best shot I think you need to come with something better.
Finally, regarding the plan you seem to believe to have that we are out to kill all the males - trust me, 500 civilians is a very low number relative to other historical examples of this type of warfare. Your wild allegations that try and dehumanize Israelis remind me of a current version of Jews have horns, protocols of the elders of Zion nonsense.
You still haven't responded to the video of the Hamas MP idealizing the taking of human shields.
Zak
my uranium nonsense?
watch the video presented by the san francisco examiner.
don't feel too special:
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
your allegation that their had been a discussion regarding the pardoning of Rabin's murderer.
i have read the article in jpost that presented the poll of israeli citizens. i'm not going to go search for it. something like 70 percent of the rightwing think his pardon is acceptable, less on the left, and near 50% of the country. perhaps my figures are off but i would assume for their ever to be even the idea of a poll their would be some discussion of this is israel.
There has not been one that carried legal weight.
so what? just the idea people are discussing this at all, or advocates of his release are even given any platform.
does not really count as a "discussion" regarding his pardoning.
who takes polls about subjects no one talks about. please you are trying to evade the reality by saying it doesn't have 'legal weight' or crowds 'jeering' in approval is not a 'discussion' call it what you will, you know what i am referring to.
I still fail to see why it is relevant to the Gaza war
really? let me walk you thru it then,
from the jewish historian's speech.
A country which assassinates Rabin, which glorifies its assassin is a country without morals and honor.
you see here is is speaking of morals and honor. something that seems to be missing today from the psyche of those who have promoted this madness, but there are many jews in the world appauled by this latest action of israel for example the UK MP
it is this same off balance that seems unable to understand how this massacre slanders those who said 'never again'. this disconnect in israeli society is demonstrated by the hero worship that exists of a person who assassinated the very leader who engaged with a workable settlement for peace.
if you cannot understand how these two events collide i think it is perhaps you are showing a symptom of what imbalance does to ones mind, for it is very obvious to most people reading the letter.
You should be asking why the Iranians named a street after the guy who murdered Anwar Sadat, but that probably never crossed your mind.
when iran encircles a community and startes slaughtering them i will be the first to stand up and condemn them.
Then the comparison to Nazis: Based on what?
oh (from the MP's speech)
My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.
My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.
i think rather than compare things that are different about today and the holocaust, you may be more well served to look at the similarities, because that is what many many people are doing. denial will not serve you, to just close your eyes to that which you promote and excuse.
Seriously, he sounds senile and if this is your best shot I think you need to come with something better.
so, listening to the old and wise who lived thru the holocaust is listening to the senile ? you cast aside the wisdom of your people. i suppose the MP is senile also?
500 civilians is a very low number relative to other historical examples of this type of warfare.
you keep saying that. this is the women and children. why do you avoid men civilians when you calculate? the MP:
“500 of them were militants.”
That was the reply of a Nazi.
you cannot hear how you sound to us can you? you are promoting collective punishment.
Your wild allegations that try and dehumanize Israelis
i have no need to dehumanize israelis, they are doing an excellent job of doing it themselves.
You still haven't responded to the video of the Hamas MP idealizing the taking of human shields.
you are still willfulling ignoring my offer to you, to treat your request w/the same respect w/which you have treated the article i have presented now 4 times, the first 3 prior to you presenting what you would like to focus on. you should practice what you preach zak.
i think in the context of how and why it is israel promoted hamas would be the perfect context w/which to critic this video you present. so the ball is in your court zak. you can pick it up or not. otherwise there is no reason for me to respect your request, none whatsoever. you have only yourself to blame for that.
its a shame this is not a discussion, I was trying to take it that way
really?
I will read and respond to an article of your choice, if you read and respond to an article of my choice.
You go first, if you accept.
apparently it is you who have chosen to not keep your word w/this offer. for my article of choice is obviously the one i have posted over and over and over. if you want a discussion, i suggest you keep your end of the bargain, the one you initiated.
part 5 (how fitting coming right after you mention israels 'withdrew from Gaza in 2005')
In reality, however, the Gaza Strip has remained effectively under siege. Even prior to the Hamas victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the Israeli government not only severely restricted -- as is its right -- entry from the Gaza Strip into Israel, but also controlled passage through the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, as well. Israel also refused to allow the Palestinians to open their airport or seaport. This not only led to periodic shortages of basic necessities imported through Egypt, but resulted in the widespread wasting of perishable exports -- such as fruits, vegetables and cut flowers -- vital to the territory's economy. Furthermore, Gaza residents were cut off from family members and compatriots in the West Bank and elsewhere in what many have referred to as the world's largest open-air prison.
In retaliation, Hamas and allied militias began launching rocket attacks into civilian areas of Israel. Israel responded by bombing, shelling and periodic incursions in civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, which, by the time of the 2006 cease-fire, had killed over 200 civilians, including scores of children. Bush administration officials, echoed by congressional leaders of both parties, justifiably condemned the rocket attacks by Hamas-allied units into civilian areas of Israel (which at that time had resulted in scores of injuries but only one death), but defended Israel's far more devastating attacks against civilian targets in the Gaza Strip. This created a reaction that strengthened Hamas' support in the territory even more.
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of refugees from Israel's ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine almost 60 years ago and their descendents, most of whom have had no gainful employment since Israel sealed the border from most day laborers in the late 1980s. Crowded into only 140 square miles and subjected to extreme violence and poverty, it is not surprising that many would become susceptible to extremist politics, such as those of the Islamist Hamas movement. Nor is it surprising that under such conditions, people with guns would turn on each other.
Undermining the Unity Government
When factional fighting between armed Fatah and Hamas groups broke out in early 2007, Saudi officials negotiated a power-sharing agreement between the two leading Palestinian political movements. U.S. officials, however, unsuccessfully encouraged Abbas to renounce the agreement and dismiss the entire government. Indeed, ever since the election of a Hamas parliamentary majority, the Bush administration began pressuring Fatah to stage a coup and abolish parliament.
The national unity government put key ministries in the hands of Fatah members and independent technocrats and removed some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders and, while falling well short of Western demands, Hamas did indicate an unprecedented willingness to engage with Israel, accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and negotiate a long-term cease-fire with Israel. For the first time, this could have allowed Israel and the United States the opportunity to bring into peace talks a national unity government representing virtually all the factions and parties active in Palestinian politics on the basis of the Arab League peace initiative for a two-state solution and U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. However, both the Israeli and American governments refused.
next up Weakening Palestinian Moderates
balls in your court zak. if you want a discussion, pick it up.
as for the idf being contemporary Herods:
At approximately 3.00am on Sunday 11th January, Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed the buildings of the Dar al-Fadila Association for Orphans, which included a school, a college, a computer centre and a mosque, on Taha Hussein Street in the Kherbat al-'Adas neighbourhood in the north-east of Rafah. Parts of the buildings were totally destroyed and others were structurally damaged. The school had been assisting about 500 children disadvantaged children.
No offense but
http://www.scoop.co.nz
isn't really a credible source
"because that is what many many people are doing"
Yes Annie, and it seems what "many many" people are doing is by default right.
Here is Robert Fisk on comparisons between Gaza and the holocaust.
Robert Fisk’s World: When it comes to Gaza, leave the Second World War out of it
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/
"apparently it is you who have chosen to not keep your word w/this offer."
i am surprised you would write this after I did respond to the gentleman who wrote to the French ambassador.
I knew you are a bit too trigger happy when it comes to posting links, but I at least thought you would acknowledge my response.
Annie,
again, your random sources of information leave much to be desired. Here's just one example of an error:
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of refugees
Nonsense. Most Gazans are not refugees.
Where did you get that? It came up in google as coming from the Tasmanian Times, amongst others.
Peace,
Z
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of refugees
Nonsense. Most Gazans are not refugees.
they are refugees from southern israel. they got pushed over. from wiki :
The Gaza Strip as it is known today was the product of the subsequent 1949 Armistice Agreements between Egypt and Israel, often referred to as the Green Line. Egypt then occupied the Strip from 1949 (except for four months of Israeli occupation during the 1956 Suez Crisis) until 1967. The Strip's population was greatly augmented by an influx of Palestinian Arab refugees who fled from Israel during the fighting.
many of the people in gaza were the inhabitants of what is now israel. their ancestral homes are there.
are you denying israel bombed the orphanage?
hey annie, still waiting for a response from you on that Hamas MP...
sure zak just as soon as you respond to the article of my choice, as long as you can figure out what that article might be.
for your review
I will read and respond to an article of your choice, if you read and respond to an article of my choice.
You go first, if you accept.
...............
here is my first response to your challenge:
let's also note your silence thus far wrt pts 1,2,3 of Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power. perhaps you could simply follow your own advise for you have certainly had ample opportunity to respond to the writing.
here is how i will deal w/you. i will treat your article with the same respect w/which you have treated mine, in the same timely fashion.(hey zak, can you tell yet which article i am talking about? or are you going to play clueless?)
this thread shall be our evidence. the game is on after you post your article you have already accused me of ignoring. remember, i will be respecting your article, in the same timely fashion and with the same integrity and openness with which you choose to address the one i started posting back at the beginning of the thread.
remember my saying that, when i first responded to your challenge?
here is the next segment to the article, the one you ignore, the one i have been posting continually thruout the thread:
pt 6 Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
Instead, the Bush administration decided to escalate the conflict by ordering Israel to ship large quantities or weapons to armed Fatah groups to enable them to fight Hamas and stage a coup. Israeli military leaders initially resisted the idea, fearing that much of these arms would end up in the hands of Hamas, but -- as Israeli journalist Uri Avnery put it -- "our government obeyed American orders, as usual.” That Fatah was being supplied with weapons from Israel while Hamas was fighting the Israelis led many Palestinians -- even those who don't share Hamas' extremist ideology -- to see Fatah as collaborators and Hamas as liberation fighters. This was a major factor leading Hamas to launch what it saw as a preventive war or a countercoup by overrunning the offices of the Fatah militias in June 2007 and, just as the Israelis feared, many of these newly supplied weapons have indeed ended up in the hands of Hamas militants. Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip ever since.
The United States also threw its support to Mohammed Dahlan, the notorious Fatah security chief in Gaza, who -- despite being labeled by American officials as "moderate" and "pragmatic" -- oversaw the detention, torture and execution of Hamas activists and others, leading to widespread popular outrage against Fatah and its supporters.
Alvaro de Soto, former U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, stated in his confidential final report leaked to the press a few weeks before the Hamas takeover that "the Americans clearly encouraged a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas" and "worked to isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry." De Soto also recalled how in the midst of Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire following a flare-up in factional fighting earlier this year, a U.S. official told him that "I like this violence … it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas."
Weakening Palestinian Moderates
For moderate forces to overcome extremist forces, the moderates must be able to provide their population with what they most need: in this case, the end of Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip and its occupation and colonizing of the remaining Palestinian territories. However, Israeli policies -- backed by the Bush administration and Congress -- seem calculated to make this impossible. The noted Israeli policy analyst Gershon Baskin observed, in an article in the Jerusalem Post just prior to Hamas' electoral victory, how "Israel 's unilateralism and determination not to negotiate and engage President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority has strengthened the claims of Hamas and weakened Abbas and his authority, which was already severely crippled by … Israeli actions that demolished the infrastructures of Palestinian Authority governing bodies and institutions."
i am surprised you would write this after I did respond to the gentleman who wrote to the French ambassador.
i guess you thought 'the article of my choice' for the challenge was the article you chose to respond to.
that is ok zak, as i stated when i first responded to your challenge, i will treat your article w/the same respect w/which you have treated mine, in the same timely fashion. which means..i will ignore it.
Palestinian refugee
The number of Palestinian refugees by country as of 2005 were as follows:
* Jordan 1,827,877 refugees
* Gaza 986,034 refugees
* West Bank 699,817 refugees
* Syria 432,048 refugees
* Lebanon 404,170 refugees
* Saudi Arabia 240,000 refugees
* Egypt 70,245 refugees[1]
The Israeli government passed the Absentee Property Law, which allowed for the confiscation of the property of refugees. The government demolished many of the refugees' villages and settled Jewish refugees in urban Arab communities - the Library of Congress Country Study on Israel cites American scholar Don Peretz's estimate that 'by 1954 "more than one-third of Israel's Jewish population lived on absentee property, and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in the urban areas abandoned by Arabs"'[8].
you must know this zak. are you asserting the gaza strip was a condensed urban area prior to nebka? this is where palestinians fled to when israelis drove them off their land. many fled to the gaza strip. the majority of gazas inhabitants are there as a result of their expulsion from what is now the state of israel, or the descendant of those who were driven off their land.
so much for what you call nonsense, i guess wiki and the Tasmanian Times isn't the only source out there regarding palestinian refugees.
UNRWA
The Gaza Strip is unique amongst UNRWA's five fields of operations as the majority of its population is refugees and over half of the refugees live in eight camps. Most of the people who fled to the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war were from Jaffa, towns and villages south of Jaffa, and from the Beersheva area in the Negev. In all, some 200,000 refugees came to Gaza, whose original inhabitants numbered only 80,000. Such an influx severely burdened this narrow strip of land; an area of only 360 square kilometers. Over three-quarters of the current estimated population of some 1.4 million are registered refugees; representing 22.42 per cent of all UNRWA registered Palestine refugees.
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have one of the highest population densities in the world. For example, over 80,688 refugees live in Beach camp whose area is less than one square kilometer. This high population density is reflected in the overcrowded UNRWA schools and classrooms
any further they would have been driven into the sea. oh, i forgot, that's israel's talking point.
I got 33% from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/population_settlements.stm
but if the UNRWA says otherwise I won't argue at this time.
33% or 60% - no one is denying their is tremendous sufferring in Gaza.
One wonders why there are still refugees? Many Israelis wonder why Palestinian refugees haven't been absorbed into their concerned neighboring countries - the way Israel absorbed Jews that were expelled from Arab lands in 1948 and 1967? The number of refugees coming into Israel was pretty similar to those leaving.
One wonders why there are still refugees?
really? well, it is my impression all of the land that was once called palestine was not intended solely for the state of israel. no? this is what the 2 state solution is all about. i suppose they are refugees until there is a country made for them.
Many Israelis wonder why Palestinian refugees haven't been absorbed into their concerned neighboring countries
yes, i suppose that would solve your problem and also provide more additional expansion for israel. why should israel be expanding for other countries to give up land?
- the way Israel absorbed Jews that were expelled from Arab lands in 1948 and 1967? The number of refugees coming into Israel was pretty similar to those leaving.
they didn't 'leave' zak. they were running from death, the fate that met many of those who stayed. perhaps you should search the archives here at bassam's site for we have discussed this 'expelling' from arab lands, and it really is not quite as simple as that.
from you bbc link
Gaza, one of the most densely populated tracts of land in the world, is home to about 1.3m Palestinians, about 33% of whom live in United Nations-funded refugee camps.
zak, as the link to UNRWA explains, only a portion of palestinians refugees live in the camps provided by UNRWA. i will provide for you the text again from the report.
The Gaza Strip is unique amongst UNRWA's five fields of operations as the majority of its population is refugees and over half of the refugees live in eight camps.
if 33% is 1/2 the refugees, the total according to the bbc would be 66%, or 2/3 the population. i think UNRWA is probably aware of how many people they have in their camps, and in the link i provided at the top they list their numbers in all the camps.
GAZA REFUGEE CAMP PROFILES
CAMP NUMBER OF
REGISTERED REFUGEES
Jabalia 106,846
Rafah 97,412
Beach 80,567
Nuseirat 58,727
Khan Younis 61,539
Bureij 29,805
Maghazi 23,161
Deir el-Balah 20,215
Total 478,272
also, note the density of the bbc quote of 1.3 million. every other source i have read claims there are more residents in gaza strip. the official CIA census says 1,500,202 (July 2008 est.) the previous July 2007 estimate 1,481,080 .
that would be 1.5 million, 200,000 more than the bbc report. btw, i have never heard of this reduced figure of 1.3 million before.
The number of refugees coming into Israel was pretty similar to those leaving.
perhaps a little more attention should have been placed on where exactly all these inhabitants were supposed to end up, and some arrangements made PRIOR to designating the region as a state for jews. this lack of accomodation is a glaring ommission.
Israel accused of war crimes over 12-hour assault on Gaza village
White flags ignored and houses bulldozed with families inside, claim residents
In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village:
• attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside;
• killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags;
• opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded;
• used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.
If the allegations are upheld, all the incidents would constitute breaches of the Geneva conventions.
The denunciations over what happened in Khuza'a follow repeated claims of possible human rights violations from the Red Cross, the UN and human rights organisations.
...
There is also strong visible evidence that Khuza'a came under a sustained attack from tanks and bulldozers that smashed some buildings to pieces.
Pictures taken by photographer Bruno Stevens in the aftermath show heavy damage - and still burning phosphorus. "What I can tell you is that many, many houses were shelled and that they used white phosphorus," said Stevens yesterday, one of the first western journalists to get into Gaza. "It appears to have been indiscriminate." Stevens added that homes near the village that had not been hit by shell fire had been set on fire.
The village of Khuza'a is around 500 metres from the border with Israel. According to B'Tselem, its field researcher in Gaza was contacted last Tuesday by resident Munir Shafik al-Najar, who said that Israeli bulldozers had begun destroying homes at 2.30am.
When Rawhiya al-Najar, aged 50, stepped out of her house waving a white flag, so that the rest of the family could leave the house, she was allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers nearby.
The second alleged incident was on Tuesday afternoon, when Israeli troops ordered 30 residents to leave their homes and walk to a school in the village centre. After travelling 20 metres, troops fired on the group, allegedly killing three.
....
"By 6am the tanks and bulldozers had reached our house," Iman recalled. "We went on the roofs and tried to show we were civilians with white flags. Everyone was carrying a white flag. We told them we are civilians. We don't have any weapons. The soldiers started to destroy the houses even if the people were in them." Describing the death of Rawhiya, Iman says they were ordered by Israeli soldiers to move to the centre of the town. As they did, Israeli troops opened fire. Rawhiya was at the front of the group, says Iman.
more at the link. rumor has it (w/photo)
Ahdaf Souif sent me this from (Egyptian) Rafah (I cite with her permission): "Outside the general Hospital in Egyptian Rafah a city of tents has sprung up. I counted 200. But the soldiers there told me they have many more and can set them up immediately. They said the beds and furnishings for all the camps are ready. I was also told that other camps are being set up, in el-Arish and other locations. I was told these camps were being set up for “the Palestinian refugees.” Where will they come from? From Gaza. When? When they open the border. Officers then arrived and insisted that we leave immediately. Any information we wanted we could get from the headquarters of the Second Army in Ismailia. A soldier added that some TV stations had been here already – but they were with the Army."
I at least thought you would acknowledge my response.
sorry, i should have acknowledged your comment, here goes
"because that is what many many people are doing"
Yes Annie, and it seems what "many many" people are doing is by default right.
i am not going to argue w/jews who lived thru the holocaust if they want to make this comparison. clearly there is a differnce but there are also multiple similarities
chilling photo comparisons. it's truly an unfortunate comparison, but alas, inevitable under the circumstances.
good day.
To the Editor:
Karl Meyer writes (''Why the Palestinians Left,'' Editorial Notebook, July 7) that Benny Morris, an Israeli journalist in a book called ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-49,'' found no evidence of Arab broadcasts giving instructions to the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes in the wake of the Arab armies' invasion of Palestine.
Where could Mr. Morris find such evidence? Are there transcripts of such broadcasts, or are there tapes? If there are such transcripts or tapes they are not available in the Israeli, British and American archives of declassified state papers where Mr. Morris looked. I can state categorically that when I was in Baghdad in 1948, the broadcasts were blaring from all Arab radios, shortwave and other, imploring the Arab population of Palestine to leave their homes in the war zones to return with the victorious Arab armies and claim not only their homes but also Jewish homes.
After Israel had won and the Arabs faced a fait accompli of the war's outcome, we Jews of Iraq were told that we were being thrown out of Iraq to vacate our homes for the Palestinian Arab refugees.
Maybe some of the Arabs left in confusion, maybe some left in fear, but there is no question that the Arab governments and the Arab radios made such broadcasts imploring Arabs in Palestine to leave their homes. There is no question that we Jews of Arab countries were forced to leave our homes, though we were not involved in the war.
To end this bitter dispute, the refugee problem, both Jewish and Arab, should be resolved, and there should be a resettlement of the Palestinian Arab refugees so that they can live in homes and lead a respectable life, and in order that the Palestinian problem can be diluted and become more amenable for a political solution.
HESKEL M. HADDAD President, World Organization for Jews from Arab Countries New York, July 7, 1988
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2DD143BF933A15754C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=
Annie, its true, the Israelis use barbed wire and guns to defend themselves. Clearly there are strong parallels between them and the Nazis.
here's what Robert Fisk says to people like you:
"pro-Palestinian marchers should think twice before they start waffling about genocide when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem once shook Hitler's hand and said – in Berlin on 2 November 1943, to be precise – "The Germans know how to get rid of the Jews... They have definitely solved the Jewish problem." The Grand Mufti, it need hardly be added, was a Palestinian. He lies today in a shabby grave about two miles from my Beirut home."
there is no question that the Arab governments and the Arab radios made such broadcasts imploring Arabs in Palestine to leave their homes.
well, in iraq there was the british puppet government of Nouri as-Said , if you could consider that 'arab'.
zak, have you read Naeim Giladi
About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs.
....
The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the "Oriental" Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948.
israel needed cheap jewish labor
This, too, was the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whom I had the opportunity to meet in New York in 1988. In his book, Ropes of Sand, whose publication the CIA opposed, Eveland writes:
In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. . . . Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had "rescued" really just in order to increase Israel's Jewish population."
....
In 1955, for example, I organized in Israel a panel of Jewish attorneys of Iraqi origin to handle claims of Iraqi Jews who still had property in Iraq. One well known attorney, who asked that I not give his name, confided in me that the laboratory tests in Iraq had confirmed that the anti-American leaflets found at the American Cultural Center bombing were typed on the same typewriter and duplicated on the same stenciling machine as the leaflets distributed by the Zionist movement just before the April 8th bombing.
Tests also showed that the type of explosive used in the Beit-Lawi attack matched traces of explosives found in the suitcase of an Iraqi Jew by the name of Yosef Basri. Basri, a lawyer, together with Shalom Salih, a shoemaker, would be put on trial for the attacks in December 1951 and executed the following month. Both men were members of Hashura, the military arm of the Zionist underground. Salih ultimately confessed that he, Basri and a third man, Yosef Habaza, carried out the attacks.
By the time of the executions in January 1952, all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel. Moreover, the pro-British, pro-Zionist puppet el-Said saw to it that all of their possessions were frozen, including their cash assets. (There were ways of getting Iraqi dinars out, but when the immigrants went to exchange them in Israel they found that the Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value.) Even those Iraqi Jews who had not registered to emigrate, but who happened to be abroad, faced loss of their nationality if they didn't return within a specified time. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them.
...
Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. In March, the bombings began.
Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings. Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.
As I said, all this went well beyond the comprehension of a teenager. I knew Jews were being killed and an organization existed that could lead us to the Promised Land. So I helped in the exodus to Israel. Later, on occasions, I would bump into some of these Iraqi Jews in Israel. Not infrequently they'd express the sentiment that they could kill me for what I had done.
one could look at israel as open arms, a place where jews ran from prosecution. but israel needed a labor force, and some people think it took a more formidable active role to instigate the influx of jews.
here's what Robert Fisk says to people like you:
zak, as i stated earlier, i am not comparing what is happening today to the holocaust. does it offend you when i post articles where others do? as i recently stated i am not going to argue w/jews who lived thru the holocaust if they want to make this comparison.
it is unfortunate and it is inevitable. but hey! here's the good news
Israel recruits 'army of bloggers' to combat anti-Zionist Web sites
apparently the pre slaughter recruitment of bloggers wasn't sufficient to combat the barrage of negativity in the world reaction to what is happening in gaza.
The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.
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