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-- Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill 192
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| Originally posted by Arbiter That they aren't very good at what they do does not make their orientation any less contemptible. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter Moreover, it is impossible to know how much more successful they might be at killing Israelis but for complained-of actions of Israel to protect itself in the past, |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter and it is also impossible to know how much more successful they might become in the future if allowed to fester. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter Well, that's an inevitable result of armed conflict with an enemy located in dense civilian areas. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter If we hesitate to use necessary force to eliminate them because of the unfortunate side-effect of destroying civilian infrastructure, we only provide every other such group the world-over with an incentive to similarly structure their organizations so that they cannot be attacked without destroying civilian infrastructure. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter In the long run, this state of affairs (which is already occurring) will serve to cause even more suffering. This misguided pseudo-humanitarianism is a particularly insidious ideology, spawned by a toxic mixture of myopia and false hope; save a life today, lose five later.[ I think it's a lousy bargain, but that is precisely the bargain that is achieved time and time again by "international pressure" on Israel. |
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| [b]Originally posted by Arbiter I do not blame anyone for being dismayed when they see the carnage of war, but it is a mistake to infer from the fact that it is horrible that the alternative is preferable. Cancer treatments have the unfortunate effect of harming healthy human cells, but they are still cost-justified. Well, Hamas is a cancer, and delaying treatment is ill-advised. |
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| Originally posted by TranceGiant Please refrain from roll-eyeing me  |
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| The big difference is that Islamist terror organizations are radical up to suicidal and in their essence theological and thus reluctant to rational arguments. |
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| Again, please, at least take a few seconds to think about it: Fatah / the PLO was, although radical and violent at times, always secular and politically motivated. Hamas is beyond politics. Current political issues (once it was the occupation and the settelements, after the disengagement it's the "blockade", next it will be Jerusalem, then the refugees, then, eventually, the core problem, namel Israel's very existence) are means of justification. They are tools. I admit that as long as these "excuses" can be grasped, the might find more followers. But on the other hand, as I already tried to point out in my previous post, "desperation" alone does not smuggle rockets and establish a highly sophisticated terror infrastructure. Hamas is the catalyst that is consciously perptuating the Palestinian misery in order to maintain their fertile recruitment soil. You're confusing cause and effect. |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN well, its been festering now for an awfully long time and i see no evidence of a significant increase in their capability of killing israelis, particularly civilians. |
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| its a matter of proportion. how can a couple dozen rocket-attack deaths over a decade warrant the wholesale slaughter of hundreds or thousands of people? the level or number of casualties hamas wreaks on israel is barely organised crime. |
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| The 'Oldest Hatred' by Mark Steyn In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell "You are the brothers of pigs!", and a protester complains to his interviewer that "Hitler didn't do a good job." In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, "You need a big oven, that's what you need!" In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, "Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!" Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the "global community" � and the results are pretty much what you'd expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the UN refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don't deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the "Palestinian Authority" has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian "nationalist movement" has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago. But why worry about European Muslims? The European political and media class essentially shares the same view of the situation � to the point where state TV stations are broadcasting fake Israeli "war crimes." As I always say, the "oldest hatred" didn't get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes. In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year's Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from January 1st 2009 but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast "accidentally." In Toulouse, a synagogue is firebombed; in Bordeaux, two kosher butchers are attacked; at the Auber RER train station, a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, "Palestine will kill the Jews;" in Villiers-le-Bel, a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, "Jews must die." In Helsingborg, the congregation at a Swedish synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in; in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store; in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a Belgian synagogue; in Antwerp, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel, "youths" attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue. In London, the police advise British Jews to review their security procedures because of potential revenge attacks. The Sun reports "fears" that "Islamic extremists" are drawing up a "hit list" of prominent Jews, including the Foreign Secretary, Amy Winehouse's record producer, and the late Princess of Wales's divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Islamic non-extremists from the British Muslim Forum, the Islamic Foundation and other impeccably respectable "moderate" groups have warned the government that the Israelis' "disproportionate force" in Gaza risks inflaming British Muslims, "reviving extremist groups," and provoking "UK terrorist attacks" � not against Amy Winehouse's record producer and other sinister members of the International Jewish Conspiracy but against targets of, ah, more general interest. So, as I said, forget Gaza. And instead ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch. Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let's take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift. But, even allowing for that, what has a schoolgirl in Villiers-le-Bel to do with Israeli government policy? Just last month terrorists attacked Bombay, seized hostages, tortured them, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. The police intercepts of the phone conversations between the terrorists and their controllers make for lively reading: "Pakistan caller 1: 'Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.' "Mumbai terrorist 2: 'We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.' "Pakistan caller 1: 'Kill them.' "(Voices of gunmen can be heard directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)" "Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims." Tough for those Singaporean women. Yet no mosques in Singapore have been attacked. The large Hindu populations in London, Toronto, and Fort Lauderdale have not shouted "Muslims must die!" or firebombed Halal butchers or attacked hijab-clad schoolgirls. CAIR and other Muslim lobby groups' eternal bleating about "Islamophobia" is in inverse proportion to any examples of it. Meanwhile, "moderate Muslims" in London warn the government: "I'm a peaceful fellow myself, but I can't speak for my excitable friends. Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it." But Jew-hating has consequences for the Jew-hater, too. A few years ago the poet Nizar Qabbani wrote an ode to the intifada: O mad people of Gaza, a thousand greetings to the mad The age of political reason has long departed so teach us madness You can just about understand why living in Gaza would teach you madness. The enthusiastic adoption of the same pathologies by mainstream Europe is even more deranged � and in the end will prove just as self-destructive. |
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| Originally posted by The17sss I don't mean this in a smart ass way at all, but it sounds silly that you are using that statement as an argument because, how are you personally qualified to comment on such evidence? |
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| Originally posted by The17sss The proportionality defense is weak: war is not a tit-for-tat thing where fairness is defined as killing no more than you lose. [Victor D. Hanson] |
Heck, even some prominent British Jews, who are staunch supporters of Israel, are buckling here ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7822656.stm
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UK Jews demand Israeli ceasefire
A number of prominent British Jews have written an open letter calling on the Israeli government to halt its military operations in Gaza immediately.
The letter, published in the Observer, warns the military action, far from improving security, will strengthen extremism and destabilise the region.
The signatories, who declare themselves "passionate supporters of Israel", include several rabbis.
The first major rally in support of Israel in the UK will take place later.
Prominent rabbis, academics and political figures supported the open letter, including Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, head of the Movement for Reform Judaism; Sir Jeremy Beecham, former chairman of the Labour party; Professor Shalom Lappin of the University of London and Baroness Julia Neuberger.
Pro-Israeli rally
They write: "We look upon the increasing loss of life on both sides of the Gaza conflict with horror.
"We have no doubt that rocket attacks into southern Israel, by Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups, are war crimes against Israel.
"No sovereign state should, or would, tolerate continued attacks and the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Israeli army paratrooper moving through the Gaza Strip - IDF handout picture
Israel has warned its may intensify its two-week-old offensive
"Israel had a right to respond and we support the Israeli government's decision to make stopping the rocket attacks an urgent priority.
"However, we believe that now only negotiations can secure long-term security for Israel and the region."
Earlier Jewish officials reacted angrily after a hoax e-mail claimed a rally planned to take place in London on Sunday had been cancelled.
The event at Trafalgar Square is expected to draw thousands of people - it will be the first major rally organised by the Jewish community in the UK over Israel's offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
The e-mail purported to come from the UK's Jewish communal leadership, the Board of Deputies (BoD).
A rally is also being held in Manchester.
'8,000 rockets'
BoD chief executive John Benjamin said despite support for Israel's position, the events are primarily a call for peace.
He said: "Certainly I think the people who will be there will understand that Israel has felt it necessary to take action to stop the many thousands of rockets that have been launched from Gaza in the last several years.
"We're not just talking about the last two weeks but over the course of years I think there have been something like 8,000 rockets.
"So, there is an understanding of that position but it's not a rally that is either commending exactly what's going on on day by day, or even, as British Jews and British Christians and others who are coming together, making a statement about the military action - it's a call for peace."
Protesters at Hyde Park Corner
Pro-Palestinian protesters have already been out in force
On Saturday thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through London to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The protest started peacefully but there were confrontations as police tried to move demonstrators away from the gates of the Israeli embassy.
Protests also took place in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Belfast, Newcastle and Southampton.
In Gaza three Palestinians have been killed and dozens more injured by new Israeli tank fire and air strikes, according to medical sources.
Reports of the deaths came hours after Israel dropped leaflets warning Gazans to stay away from areas used by Hamas, saying its operation would escalate.
Some 820 Gazans and 13 Israelis have reportedly died in 14 days of fighting.
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN proportion is how mature states conduct international relations. it has nothing to do with 'tit for tat', its more like "if hamas fire rockets into israel that don't hit anything, you don't invade and slaughter hundreds of civilians". |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN true, but i think we have a pretty well-established history of israel's tendency to be indiscriminate. |
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| its a matter of proportion. how can a couple dozen rocket-attack deaths over a decade warrant the wholesale slaughter of hundreds or thousands of people? the level or number of casualties hamas wreaks on israel is barely organised crime. |
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| i dunno mate. israel's encroachment since 1967 looks and smells an awful lot like genocide, and im not sure whose lives you think might be saved in the future by murdering many today. are you saying that saving the next two-dozen israelis to be killed by rockets in the next decade justifies killing hundreds of palistinians? |
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| Originally posted by The17sss "slaughter hundreds of citizens"... sweet propoganda lingo. It's simple; Hamas asked for it, and strategically placed their points of interest within those civillian populations for the very reason of hoping they'd get slaughtered to exploit them and play victim to the world. If anything, Hamas is at fault for their "slaughter". Go back and re-read Arbiter's last 2 posts... his argument is objective and emotionless, and makes what you say not so credible when compared. |
nice touch with the white phosphorus 
Israel-breaking International law for over half a century with grace
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| Originally posted by Arbiter At best, that's in dispute. I certainly do not grant it -- in fact, I think Israel's efforts to avoid killing civilians have compromised the effectiveness of their operations and also provided Hamas with a perverse incentive to structure their conduct so as to ensure greater civilian casualties when Israel engages them (although the foolishness of the international community provides some incentive in either case, unfortunately.) |
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Amnesty International's report, Israel/Lebanon, Out of all proportion � civilians bear the brunt of the war, concludes that Israeli forces carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, such as the sustained artillery bombardment of south Lebanon. Of particular concern was the widespread use of cluster bombs in civilian areas in the last days of fighting, leaving a lethal legacy that continues to blight civilian lives. Other attacks indicate that Israeli forces consistently failed to adopt necessary precautionary measures to avoid civilian casualties. |
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Human Rights Watch investigated some two dozen bombing incidents in Lebanon involving a third of the civilians who by then had been killed. In none of those cases was Hizbullah anywhere around at the time of the attack. How do we know? Through the same techniques we use in war zones around the world to cut through people's incentive to lie. We probed and cross-checked multiple eyewitnesses, many of whom talked openly of Hizbullah's presence elsewhere but were adamant that Hizbullah was not at the scene of the attack. We examined bombing sites for evidence of military activity such as trenches, destroyed rocket launchers and military equipment, or dead or wounded fighters. If we were unsure, we gave the IDF the benefit of the doubt. � So what was the cause of so many civilian deaths? The IDF seemed to assume that, because it gave warnings to civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon, anyone who remained was a Hizbullah fighter. When the IDF saw a civilian home or vehicle that Hizbullah might use, it often bombed, even if, as in Kana, Srifa, Marwahin, or Aitaroun, there was no evidence that Hizbullah was in fact using the structure or vehicle at the time of attack. In weighing the military advantage of an attack against the civilian cost, the IDF seemed to assume no civilian cost, because all the "innocent" civilians had supposedly fled. Through these calculations, the IDF effectively turned southern Lebanon into a free-fire zone. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter It's really very simple: if Hamas knows that Israel is less likely to attack a position where there are likely to be large numbers of citizens, then Hamas has an incentive to locate its weapons/personnel/et cetera in that area. The result over time is more civilian casualties than if Israel was not less likely to attack a position where there are likely to be large numbers of citizens. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter Proportion is irrelevant; this is not a "punishment" being meted out in response to a particular act. The amount of force that is appropriate is the amount of force reasonably necessary to accomplish the end to which the force is directed -- the removal of Hamas and elimination of like-minded individuals and organizations. A response proportional to mere present detriments to Israel would not be effective to this end. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter Well, it's the absolute worst job I've ever seen of genocide, if that's the case -- why, they aren't even killing them faster than they're reproducing, so this "genocide" is poised to take a literally infinite amount of time. There also seems to be surprisingly little evidence of any intent on the part of Israel to kill the many Palestinians currently living peaceably within Israel as Israeli citizens� |
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On Dec. 28, 2006, the Israeli human rights organization Betzelem published its annual report on Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories. In 2006, Israeli forces killed 660 citizens, triple the number of the previous year (around 200). Most of the dead are from the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces demolished almost 300 houses and have slain entire families. Since 2000, almost 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, half of them children, and more than 20,000 wounded. The point is not just about escalating intentional killings but the strategy. Annexation Israeli policy makers are facing two very different realities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the former, they are finishing construction of their eastern border. Their internal ideological debate is over, and their master plan for annexing half of the West Bank is gaining speed. The last phase was delayed due to the promises made by Israel, under the Road Map, not to build new settlements. Israel found two ways of circumventing this. First, it defined a third of the West Bank as Greater Jerusalem, which allowed it to build towns and community centers within this new annexed area. Second, it expanded old settlements to such proportions that there was no need to build new ones. Creeping Transfer The settlements, army bases, roads and the wall will allow Israel to annex almost half of the West Bank by 2010. Within these territories, Israeli authorities will continue to implement creeping transfer policies against the considerable number of Palestinians who remain. There is no rush. As far as the Israeli are concerned they have the upper hand there; the daily abusive and dehumanizing combination of army and bureaucracy effectively adds to the dispossession process. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter Casualties directly caused by rocket attacks alone would not justify a response of the magnitude I am suggesting; however, they must be considered in context. The indefinite persistence of terrorist elements in Gaza has two serious consequences: first, it creates an unquantifiable risk of future casualties to both Israelis and Palestinians that is the product of postponing addressing the problem, which is not realistically going to resolve itself through mere idleness. Since both populations are likely to grow, and the destructive capabilities of both sides are likely to increase, casualties will likely be higher in the future than they are presently -- not even counting casualties incurred on both sides in the meantime as the Palestinians continue to do everything they can to kill Israelis, and the Israelis continue to impose harsh restrictions in an effort to reduce the Palestinians' capacity to do so. Second, it makes negotiation with the Palestinians impracticable, thereby ensuring the perpetuation of their present circumstances. Since no concession can be made to the Palestinians while they are engaging in terrorism without providing an incentive (not only to Palestinians, but any group the world over which considers itself to be aggrieved) to engage in terrorism, it follows that eliminating the terrorists is a necessary first step which must be taken before we can begin to move forward with plans to hopefully resolve their grievances. |
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| Originally posted by Arbiter I would be happy to endorse a less costly solution to the problem; however, for all the hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of people who I've seen argue against Israeli "aggression" I have yet to see one of them who can offer a realistic alternative. That alone is quite telling... |
i know its got a thread of its own but i thought i'd repost here:
One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling.
The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled "Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report," confirmed that the June 19 truce was only "sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by ... "rogue terrorist organisations".
Instead, "the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement" occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day.
One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling.
The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled "Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report," confirmed that the June 19 truce was only "sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by ... "rogue terrorist organisations".
Instead, "the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement" occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day.
He claimed that such tunnels were "as big as the Holland and Lincoln tunnels," and offered as proof the "fact" that lions and monkeys had been smuggled through them to a zoo in Gaza. In reality, the lions were two small cubs that were drugged, thrown in sacks, and dragged through a tunnel on their way to a private zoo.
Israel's self-image
The claim that Hamas will never accept the existence of Israel has proved equally misinformed, as Hamas leaders explicitly announce their intention to do just that in the pages of the Los Angeles Times or to any international leader or journalist who will meet with them.
With each new family, 10, 20 and 30 strong, buried under the rubble of a building in Gaza, the claim that the Israeli forces have gone out of their way to diminish civilian casualties - long a centre-piece of Israel's image as an enlightened and moral democracy - is falling apart.
Anyone with an internet connection can Google "Gaza humanitarian catastrophe" and find the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories and read the thousands of pages of evidence documenting the reality of the current fighting, and the long term siege on Gaza that preceded it.
The Red Cross, normally scrupulous in its unwillingness to single out parties to a conflict for criticism, sharply criticised Israel for preventing medical personnel from reaching wounded Palestinians, some of whom remained trapped for days, slowly starving and dying in the Gazan rubble amidst their dead relatives.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has flatly denied Israeli claims that Palestinian fighters were using the UNRWA school compound bombed on January 6, in which 40 civilians were killed, to launch attacks, and has challenged Israel to prove otherwise.
War crimes admission
Additionally, numerous flippant remarks by senior Israeli politicians and generals, including Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, refusing to make a distinction between civilian people and institutions and fighters - "Hamas doesn't ... and neither should we" is how Livni puts it - are rightly being seen as admissions of war crimes.
Indeed, in reviewing statements by Israeli military planners leading up to the invasion, it is clear that there was a well thought out decision to go after Gaza's civilian infrastructure - and with it, civilians.
The following quote from an interview with Major-General Gadi Eisenkot that appeared in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October, is telling:
"We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases," he said.
"This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised."
Causing "immense damage and destruction" and considering entire villages "military bases" is absolutely prohibited under international law.
Eisenkot's description of this planning in light of what is now unfolding in Gaza is a clear admission of conspiracy and intent to commit war crimes, and when taken with the comments above, and numerous others, renders any argument by Israel that it has tried to protect civilians and is not engaging in disproportionate force unbelievable.
International laws violated
On the ground, the evidence mounts ever higher that Israel is systematically violating a host of international laws, including but not limited to Article 56 of the IV Hague Convention of 1907, the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Convention, the Fourth Geneva Convention (more specifically known as the "Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949", the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the principles of Customary International Humanitarian Law.
None of this excuses or legitimises the firing of rockets or mortars by any Palestinian group at Israeli civilians and non-military targets.
As Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur, declared in his most recent statement on Gaza: "It should be pointed out unambiguously that there is no legal (or moral) justification for firing rockets at civilian targets, and that such behavior is a violation of IHR, associated with the right to life, as well as constitutes a war crime."
By the same logic, however, Israel does not have the right to use such attacks as an excuse to launch an all-out assault on the entire population of Gaza.
In this context, even Israel's suffering from the constant barrage of rockets is hard to pay due attention to when the numbers of dead and wounded on each side are counted. Any sense of proportion is impossible to sustain with such a calculus.
'Rogue' state
Israeli commentators and scholars, self-described "loyal" Zionists who served proudly in the army in wars past, are now publicly describing their country, in the words of Oxford University professor Avi Shlaim, as a "rogue" and gangster" state led by "completely unscrupulous leaders".
Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, has declared that Israel's actions in Gaza are like "raising animals for slaughter on a farm" and represent a "bizarre new moral element" in warfare.
"The moral voice of restraint has been left behind ... Everything is permitted" against Palestinians, writes a disgusted Haaretz columnist, Gideon Levy.
Fellow Haaretz columnist and daughter of Holocaust survivors, Amira Haas writes of her late parents disgust at how Israeli leaders justified Israel's wars with a "language laundromat" aimed at redefining reality and Israel's moral compass. "Lucky my parents aren't alive to see this," she exclaimed.
Around the world people are beginning to compare Israel's attack on Gaza, which after the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers was turned literally into the world's largest prison, to the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Extremist Muslims are using internet forums to collect names and addresses of prominent European Jews with the goal, it seems clear, of assassinating them in retaliation for Israel's actions in Gaza.
Al-Qaeda is attempting to exploit this crisis to gain a foothold in Gaza and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, as well as through attacking Jewish communities globally.
Iran's defiance of both Israel and its main sponsor, the US, is winning it increasing sympathy with each passing day.
Democratic values eroded
Inside Israel, the violence will continue to erode both democratic values in the Jewish community, and any acceptance of the Jewish state's legitimacy in the eyes of its Palestinian citizens.
And yet in the US - at least in Washington and in the offices of the mainstream Jewish organisations - the chorus of support for Israel's war on Gaza continues to sing in tight harmony with official Israeli policy, seemingly deaf to the fact that they have become so out of tune with the reality exploding around them.
At my university, UCI, where last summer Jewish and Muslim students organised a trip together through the occupied territories and Israel so they could see with their own eyes the realities there, old battle lines are being redrawn.
The Anteaters for Israel, the college pro-Israel group at the University of California, Irvine, sent out an urgent email to the community explaining that, "Over the past week, increasing amounts of evidence lead us to believe that Hamas is largely responsible for any alleged humanitarian crisis in Gaza".
I have no idea who the "us" is that is referred to in the appeal, although I am sure that the membership of that group is shrinking.
Indeed, one of the sad facts of this latest tragedy is that with each claim publicly refuted by facts on the ground, more and more Americans, including Jews, are refusing to trust the assertions of Israeli and American Jewish leaders.
Trap
Even worse, in the Arab/Muslim world, the horrific images pouring out of Gaza daily are allowing preachers and politicians to deploy well-worn yet still dangerous and inciteful stereotypes against Jews as they rally the masses against Israel - and through it - their own governments.
What is most frightening is that the most important of Israel's so-called friends, the US political establishment and the mainstream Jewish leadership, seem clueless to the devastating trap that Israel has led itself into - in good measure with their indulgence and even help.
It is one that threatens the country's existence far more than any Qassam rockets, with their 0.4 per cent kill rate; even more than the disastrous 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon, which by weakening Israel's deterrence capability in some measure made this war inevitable.
First, it is clear that Israel cannot destroy Hamas, it cannot stop the rockets unless it agrees to a truce that will go far to meeting the primary demand of Hamas - an end to the siege.
Merely by surviving (and it surely will survive) Hamas, like Hezbollah in 2006, will have won.
Israel is succeeding in doing little more than creating another generation of Palestinians with hearts filled with rage and a need for revenge.
Second, Israel's main patron, the US, along with the conservative Arab autocracies and monarchies that are its only allies left in the Muslim world, are losing whatever crumbs of legitimacy they still had with their young and angry populations.
The weaker the US and its axis becomes in the Middle East, the more precarious becomes Israel's long-term security. Indeed, any chance that the US could convince the Muslim world to pressure Iran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons has been buried in Gaza.
Third, as Israel brutalises Palestinians, it brutalises its own people. You cannot occupy another people and engage in violence against them at this scale without doing even greater damage to your soul.
The high incidence of violent crimes committed by veterans returning from combat duty in Iraq is but one example of how the violence of occupation and war eat away at people's moral centre.
While in the US only a small fraction of the population participates in war; in Israel, most able-bodied men end up participating.
The effects of the latest violence perpetrated against Palestinians upon the collective Israeli soul is incalculable; the notion that it can survive as an "ethnocracy" - favouring one ethnic group, Jews, yet by and large democratic - is becoming a fiction.
Violence-as-power
Who will save Israel from herself?
Israelis are clearly incapable. Their addiction as a society to the illusion of violence-as-power has reached the level of collective mental illness.
As Haaretz reporter Yossi Melman described it on January 10, "Israel has created an image of itself of a madman that has lost it".
Not Palestinians, too many of whom have fallen prey to the same condition.
Not the Middle East Quartet, the European Union, the United Nations, or the Arab League, all of whom are utterly powerless to influence Israeli policy.
Not the organised Jewish leadership in the US and Europe, who are even more blind to what is happening than most Israelis, who at least allow internal debate about the wisdom of their government's policies.
Not the growing progressive Jewish community, which will need years to achieve enough social and political power to challenge the status quo.
And not senior American politicians and policy-makers who are either unwilling to risk alienating American Jewish voters, or have been so brainwashed by the constant barrage of propaganda put out by the "Israel Lobby" that they are incapable of reaching an independent judgment about the conflict.
During the US presidential race, Barack Obama was ridiculed for being a messiah-like figure. The idea does not sound so funny now. It is hard to imagine anyone less saving Israel, the Palestinians, and the world from another four years of mindless violence.
Mark LeVine is a professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine, and is the author of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam and the soon to be published An Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989.
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Well, luckily for me I am similar to most people here in that I don't give two shits about your opinion in politics. |
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| Originally posted by The17sss I know, it's crazy... because for someone who doesn't give 2 shits, you seem to have a desire to try and refute my points of view quite often |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN The last time I checked, the forceful removal of a people from their land is defined as genocide as far as the UN is concerned. And this is what israel has been doing gradually for the last several decades. How many UN resolutions have called for the abandonment of occupied-territory settlements? How many people have been displaced to make room for jewish-only towns? I wasn't aware there had to be "X amount of deaths per Y hours" to classify something as genocide? |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN And why do you think current military activities will be any more successful in defeating the terrorists and terrorism than any of the failed operations in the past? Whilst I certainly blame hamas for their lack of commitment to politics without violence, israel's continued prescence in the occupied territories is hardly a blameless exercise. In other words, why is your emphasis purely on hamas' rather insiginifant commitment to violence, and not on israel's policy of creeping expansion? |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T genocide is "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." according to most dictionaries. applying the un's newspeak, i suppose matricide would be the forceful removal of your mother from your property. |
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Punishable Acts: The following are genocidal acts when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group�s existence: Killing members of the group includes direct killing and actions causing death. Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes inflicting trauma on members of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or coerced use of drugs, and mutilation. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group�s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts. Prevention of births includes involuntary sterilization, forced abortion, prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation. Forcible transfer of children may be imposed by direct force or by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other methods of coercion. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as persons under the age of 18 years. Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group�s existence. |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T when did israel last expand? (not a rhetorical question nor a bait, i sincerely don't know) |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T when did israel last expand? (not a rhetorical question nor a bait, i sincerely don't know) |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN http://www.preventgenocide.org/geno...fficialtext.htm |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i have no idea. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton When their settlers moved into the West Bank and Gaza. |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T that doesn't answer my question. why do you expect i'd know when that was? especially given my last question. :S |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T meh, just look at the etymology of the word. |
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| Originally posted by Psy-T you refer to some policy of 'creeping expansion' by israel while being as clueless as me to when they last expanded? |
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Annexation Israeli policy makers are facing two very different realities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the former, they are finishing construction of their eastern border. Their internal ideological debate is over, and their master plan for annexing half of the West Bank is gaining speed. The last phase was delayed due to the promises made by Israel, under the Road Map, not to build new settlements. Israel found two ways of circumventing this. First, it defined a third of the West Bank as Greater Jerusalem, which allowed it to build towns and community centers within this new annexed area. Second, it expanded old settlements to such proportions that there was no need to build new ones. Creeping Transfer The settlements, army bases, roads and the wall will allow Israel to annex almost half of the West Bank by 2010. Within these territories, Israeli authorities will continue to implement creeping transfer policies against the considerable number of Palestinians who remain. There is no rush. As far as the Israeli are concerned they have the upper hand there; the daily abusive and dehumanizing combination of army and bureaucracy effectively adds to the dispossession process. |
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One Israeli group, Settlement Watch, says in the three months to May, West Bank settlements expanded by 26 hectares (65 acres).The government has approved construction of thousands more homes in the three main settlement blocs on the West Bank, encouraged by an apparent endorsement by George Bush for their eventual annexation. In a letter to Mr Sharon, Mr Bush praised the Gaza pullout and agreed that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centres", it was unrealistic to expect a full return to the 1967 borders. Dror Etkes, head of Settlement Watch, said that the expansion of Jewish outposts and continuing house building since Mr Sharon announced his plan in December was evidence that the government was seeking more territory. |
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Since 1967, Israel has built 120 settlements in the West Bank, and 12 settlements in East Jerusalem. The Interior Ministry calls them �communities,� though some settlements� land boundaries are not contiguous. In addition to the settlements, Israelis have built 100 so-called �outposts� that don�t have the status of settlements in the Interior Ministry�s eyes but do enjoy the same protection from the Israeli military, the same funding from Israeli nationals and the same special treatment from Israeli authorities, such as roads, utilities and schools for the exclusive use of settlers. The �outposts� are, in fact, settlements by another name, as a report on the �outposts� commissioned in 2005 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described them: In fact, the unauthorized outposts phenomenon is a continuation of the settlement enterprise in the territories. But while in the distant past the Israeli governments officially acknowledged and encouraged the settlement enterprise, in some of the years, a major change took place in the beginning of the nineties. The Israeli governments were no longer officially involved in the establishment of settlements, apparently due to Israel�s international situation, and the negative position of most nations towards the settlement enterprise. That was not the case for public authorities and other Israeli government bodies, who took, along with others, a major role in establishing the unauthorized outposts. Some of which were inspired by the political echelon, sometimes by overlooking, sometimes by actual encouragement and support, but never as a result of an authorized resolution by the qualified political echelon of the State. Peace Now, the Israeli human rights organization, reported that as of April 2007, there were 102 �outposts� in the West Bank. �The outposts in which construction and expansion was noted during these months are located throughout the whole of the West Bank,� Peace Now noted. �Within the context of the �Road Map� which was approved by Israel as early as in June 2003, Israel undertook to evacuate the outposts which had been established after March 2001. The reference is to approx. 50 outposts, none of which have been evacuated to date. As expected, these outposts have continued to expand, even during the last few months.� |
Some pretty disturbing stuff going on for both sides... not surprising though given the state of open warfare.
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| Both sides in Gaza war using lethal new tricks By Steven Erlanger Sunday, January 11, 2009 JERUSALEM: The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks. Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the past two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons caches are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership's war room is a bunker beneath Gaza's largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say. Unwilling to take Israel's bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire. In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building. In an interview, the reporter, Ron Ben-Yishai, a senior military correspondent for the newspaper Yediot Aharanot, said soldiers also found a pile of weapons with a grenade launcher on top. When they moved the launcher, "they saw a detonator light up, but somehow it didn't go off." The Israeli Army has also come prepared for a battle both sides knew was inevitable. Every soldier, Israeli officials say, is outfitted with a ceramic vest and helmet. Every unit has dogs trained to sniff out explosive charges and people hidden in tunnels, as well as combat engineers trained to defuse hidden bombs. To avoid booby traps, the Israelis say, they enter buildings by breaking through side walls, rather than going in the front. Once inside, they move from room to room, battering holes in interior walls to avoid exposure to snipers and suicide bombers dressed as civilians, with explosive belts hidden beneath winter coats. The Israelis say they are also using new weapons, like a small-diameter smart bomb, the GBU 39, which Israel bought last autumn from the United States. The bomb, which is very accurate, has a small explosive, as little 27 to 36 kilograms, or 60 to 80 pounds, to minimize collateral damage in an urban environment. But it can also penetrate the earth to hit bunkers or tunnels. The Israelis, too, are resorting to tricks. Israelis are telephoning Gazans and, in good Arabic, pretending to be sympathetic Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians or Libyans, Gazans say and Israel has confirmed. After expressing horror at the Israeli war and asking about the family, the callers ask about local conditions, whether the family supports Hamas and if there are fighters in the building or the neighborhood. Karim abu Shaban, 21, who lives in Gaza City, said he and his neighbors all had gotten such calls. His first caller had an Egyptian accent. "Oh, God help you, God be with you," the caller began. "It started very supportive," he said, and then the questions started. The next call came five minutes later. That caller had an Algerian accent and asked if he had reached Gaza. Shaban said he answered, "No, Tel Aviv," and hung up. Interviews last week with senior Israeli intelligence and military officers, both active and retired, as well as with military experts and residents of Gaza itself, made it clear that the battle - among civilians and between enemies who had long prepared for this fight - is now a slow, nasty business of asymmetrical urban warfare. Gaza's civilians - with nowhere to flee, given that the borders are closed - are "the meat in the sandwich," as one UN worker said, requesting anonymity. It is also clear that both sides are evolving tactics to the new battlefield, then adjusting them quickly. To that end, Israeli intelligence is detaining large numbers of young Gazan men to interrogate them for local knowledge and Hamas tactics. Last week, Israel captured a hand-drawn Hamas map in a house in Al Atatra, near Beit Lahiya, which showed planned defensive positions for the neighborhood, mine and booby trap placements, including a rigged gasoline station, and directions for snipers to shoot next to a mosque. Numerous tunnels were marked. A new Israeli weapon is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis counter with missiles designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called "a knock on the roof." The most important strategic decision the Israelis have made so far, according to senior military officers and analysts, is to approach their incursion as a war, not a police operation. Civilians are warned by leaflets, loudspeakers and telephone calls to evacuate battle areas. But troops are instructed to protect themselves first, and civilians second. Officers say that means Israeli infantry units are going in "heavy." If they draw fire, they return it with heavy firepower. If they are told to reach an objective, they first call in artillery or airpower and use tank fire. Then they move, but only behind tanks and armored bulldozers, riding in armored personnel carriers, spending as little time in the open as possible. As the commander of the army's elite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press Wednesday: "We are very violent. We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers." His name cannot be published under censorship rules. "Urban warfare is the most difficult battlefield, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad have a relative advantage, with local knowledge and prepared positions," said Jonathan Fighel of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism. "Hamas has a doctrine; this is not a gang of Rambos. The Israeli military has to find the stitches to unpick, how to counterbalance and surprise." Israeli troops are moving slowly and, they hope, unpredictably, trying not to stay in one place for long to entice Hamas fighters "to come out and confront them," Fighel said. Today, he said, "the mindset from top to bottom is fight and fight cruel; this is a war, not another pinpoint operation." Israeli officials say that they are obeying the rules of war and trying hard not to hurt noncombatants but that Hamas is using civilians as human shields in the expectation that Israel will try to avoid killing them. Israeli press officers call the tactics of Hamas cynical, illegal and inhumane; even Israel's critics argue that Hamas's regular use of rockets to fire at Israeli civilians in Israel, and its use of civilians as shields, are also violations of the rules of war. Israeli military men and analysts say its urban guerrilla tactics are deliberate, including the widespread use of civilian structures and tunnels, and come from the Iranian Army's tactical training and the lessons of the 2006 war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas rocket and weapons caches, including rocket launchers, have been discovered in and under mosques, schools and civilian homes. The Israeli intelligence chief, Yuval Diskin, in a report to the Israeli cabinet, said the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas was in underground housing beneath the No.2 building of Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. That allegation cannot be confirmed. While The New York Times and some other news organizations have local or Gaza-based Palestinian correspondents, any Israeli citizen or Israeli with dual citizenship has been banned from entering Gaza for more than two years, and any foreign correspondent who did not enter the territory before a six-month cease-fire with Hamas ended Dec. 17 has been prevented from entering. Israel has also managed to block cellphone bandwidth, so very few amateur cellphone photographs are getting out of Gaza. But Israeli tactics have caused episodes of severe civilian casualties that have created an international uproar, both in the Arab world and the West. In one widely reported episode, 43 people died when the Israelis shelled a street next to a UN school in northern Jabaliya where refugees were taking shelter. The Israelis said they returned fire in response to mortar shells fired at Israeli troops, which is legal, but there are questions about whether the force used was proportional under the laws of war, given the danger to noncombatants. The school attack is just one example where Israel may be able to dismantle Hamas's military structure while losing the battle for world opinion and leaving Hamas politically still in charge of Gaza. Those, too, are realities and risks of urban warfare. Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza. |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Well, let's look at our most recent high-profile example. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/a...20352006en.html The full report may be read here http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/a...20332006en.html And from human rights watch http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/08/...ate-bombardment I understand the argument, I just think it�s a moot point because such organisations will always do this, knowing that if/when retribution comes it will make israel look bad. Im not criticising their decision to engage in warfare in population centres, im criticising their decision to invade based on the low level threat they have been enduring. I never said it was "punishment"; but state's have an obligation to grade the threats to their property and people and respond accordingly. At least, that's how mature states operate in regards to foreign policy or international relations. By your reasoning any state should be able to do whatever they wish as long as the force is appropriate to accomplish whatever aim they desire. Not a very wise yardstick to use world-wide I wouldn't have thought. The last time I checked, the forceful removal of a people from their land is defined as genocide as far as the UN is concerned. And this is what israel has been doing gradually for the last several decades. How many UN resolutions have called for the abandonment of occupied-territory settlements? How many people have been displaced to make room for jewish-only towns? I wasn't aware there had to be "X amount of deaths per Y hours" to classify something as genocide? Sure, this is merely opinion but just wanted to point out that im not the only one that thinks so. http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe280108.htm And why do you think current military activities will be any more successful in defeating the terrorists and terrorism than any of the failed operations in the past? Whilst I certainly blame hamas for their lack of commitment to politics without violence, israel's continued prescence in the occupied territories is hardly a blameless exercise. In other words, why is your emphasis purely on hamas' rather insiginifant commitment to violence, and not on israel's policy of creeping expansion? Well, that's where we'd agree that hamas need to learn what it means to be elected officials. But israel needs to abandon their process of settlement in the occupied territories, and stop carving up ghetto gaza and the west bank for their own Lebensraum. I wish I could find that picture of the israeli roads that criss-cross all over the territories making any chance of a real & viable palestinian state a fucking joke. |
"White Phosphorus". What kind of fucked-up bomb is that again? These guys have really no limits
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| Originally posted by PETRAN "White Phosphorus". What kind of fucked-up bomb is that again? These guys have really no limits |
yeah, its used as a smoke screen, illegal to use on civilian areas
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