it's really not so simple.
you can make it simple if you want, but that's to leave real life behind. do it if it's pleasing, for whatever reason, but at least acknowledge that you're doing it.
no-one is saying that israel should just suck it up and deal with anything--what i've been saying all along is that everything about this situation follows from a stupid, ill-advised policy choice that olmert's government made with the nitwits in the bush administration giving full support--the decision to not recognize the results of the last elections in gaza and instead to impose a state of siege on the civilian population, as if imposing a siege was going to turn the population against hamas.
a siege is an act of war.
that there was a cease fire is certainly preferable to the appalling situation that's happening now--and that hamas chose to gamble with the civilian population of gaza at the end of that cease fire an inexcusable mistake--but the fact is that this is a POLITICAL problem, the result of stupid choices made by israel and the united states for which they must take primary responsibility.
of course in the period just before elections, it's hardly plausible that the weak reactionary government in israel is going to admit anything--it suits the purposes of the right to push this to the limit---and it is justified by repeated statements about rockets.
this is not to condone what hamas chose to do in any way--but it is la-la land to assume that the rockets are all that's prompted this, all that's at stake in this. the fact is that the cease fire was violated by BOTH sides---and the central, structuring fact is that the israelis and americans fucked up when they decided to head down this road in the first place.
i'm not going to repeat the rest of the information that's already in the thread to back this up---read it if you want the arguments.
there is no justification i can imagine for what's happening in gaza right now. no justification at all.
and there was a report earlier this afternoon which said that there is no infrastructure in gaza to protect civilians from bombs--no shelters, no bunkers. there's no electricity. in many places, there's no water. the hospitals have been seriously short of basic medical supplies for much of the past 18 months of siege and now they have to cope with the casualties of the israeli incursion. today's casualties--the numbers of which i have not yet seen, are reportedly 60% women and children.
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