So what was achieved by Israel in Gaza?

[tisonlyi]

Over 1100 dead including almost 400 children, touching 5000 wounded, 1 in 40 of 1.5m people displaced.

UN schools, hospitals and compounds bombed or shelled. One particular incident, white phosphorous shells, only permitted internationally as smoke rounds to cover troop movements, fired into a UN compound with over 700 refugees trying to find sanctuary in there.

Israel's case, no matter what it was before the action started, has ZERO traction now with the rest of the world, save the US. Why is the US exempt?

Why? Because your media is hobbled and controlled in its willingness to see Israel do wrong, and even as those blinkers are removed, its ability to effectively question Israeli representatives is wildly restricted.

YouTube - Israeli FM confronted by Press Club journalists

YouTube - Israeli FM confronted by Press Club journalists

What has Israel or the US gained?

The rockets continue.
Hamas still exists.

Not one of Israel's main objectives reached, save a few instantly-replaced leaders killed at the price of all those dead?

So at what looks like the end, at least temporarily, of the assault on Gaza we're back to where we were at the beginning.

Israel does not recognise the legitimately elected leaders of the Palestinians as pursuing any 'legitimate interests' of the Palestinian people and so refuses to negotiate.

The 18-month long siege of Gaza (an act of war and against a civilian population, a war crime) continues.

Egypt has agreed to help block the supply of easily assembled rockets, just as they were before the current actions - blowing up tunnels and arresting militants... (sugar and potassium nitrate (Piss!) for the rocket engines, cordite and shrapnel for a payload... that'll be stopping soon)

Square one, except Hamas are now aiming at population centres purposefully as witnessed by the increase in death and injuries from the rockets over these last few weeks.

The rest of the world waits for Israel and the US to grown up and start acting like responsible states and powers, rather than petulant children with the bigger stick.

[scout]

No worries, in exactly 2 days everything will be alright as the Messiah will be taking control and all this nonsense will never happen again. Two days until worldwide utopia wooooooohooooooooooooo!! No more wars, terrorist attacks, starvation, plaques, earthquakes or other natural disasters. Nothing but peace, free love and lots of frisbee playing. Only two days to go, just think!!

The democrats have been in control of Congress for two years now. Why didn't they cut the purse strings to Israel? Blame Bush for signing the budget into law but it still has to be passed by both the house and the senate before Bushy baby signs it.

Israel has stated while the operations have stopped and a ceasefire is in effect they are in fact staying and not pulling out anytime soon. So I would suspect they have some ulterior motive for their operations there up until this point. I'm not a general and I certainly didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night so like most here I can only surmise what might be up with the ceasefire. I would suspect they have captured all their objectives and they have troops placed in strategic spots where they can respond quickly to any suspected or perceived threats. So while on the surface it appears they acclomplished nothing they have in fact effectively by most accounts split the Gaza strip in half.

[tisonlyi]

Well, Hamas have announced a week-long ceasefire to cover an Israeli withdrawal... I doubt they did that unilaterally. We'll see if your idea of Israel staying in Gaza have any weight.

Everything I've read says something completely different.

[Seaver]

[scout]

From Fox News
FOXNews.com - Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire, Gives Israel One Week to Remove Troops - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

The cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday local time after three weeks of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials. At least 13 Israelis also died, according to the government.

An official who attended the Israeli Cabinet meeting quoted internal security service chief Yuval Diskin as telling ministers that "the operation is not over."

"The next few days will make clear if we are heading toward a cease-fire or the renewal of fighting," security chief Yuval Diskin was quoted as saying. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Cabinet meetings are closed.

Israel stopped its offensive before reaching a long-term solution to the problem of arms smuggling into Gaza, one of the war's declared aims. And Israel's insistence on keeping soldiers in Gaza raised the prospect of a stalemate with the territory's rulers.

I guess time will tell if they in fact pull back or stay a bit. It appears it all depends on whether or not Hamas stops the rocket firing or continues. One side says they are pulling out and the other is saying the opposite. Only time will tell.

[roachboy]

what has israel achieved?
well, there are 400 fewer children in gaza.
there are many fewer houses, as the israelis have razed hundreds of them.
there are fewer schools, because the israelis shelled several.
there are fewer united nations headquarters, because the israelis shelled the one in gaza city with phosphorous shells no less.

the israelis achieved tremendous damage to their own political cause, to their own international standing.
they demonstrated the extent to which fanon was right about colonialism, about it's corrosion of reason, it's replacement with a kind of spreading psychosis that degrades the occupiers as much as the occupied. they demonstrated the differences between types of corrosion: for the occupier, there can remain an illusion of reason, projects to be developed and implemented with are internally rational in appearance, but which are unhinged at the levels of premises.

the israelis and hamas in their lunatic pas-de-deux demonstrated the wholesale bankruptcy of the ideologies of nationalism. you can count the civilian casualties and use them as steps in a proof.

the israelis accomplished a theatrical demonstration of the extent to which the israeli right is concerned about the obama administration and its potentials for maybe possibly not going along with everything and anything the israeli right does, and, worse, that it may not find the discourse of "terrorism" to be such a generative frame.

the israelis also demonstrated just how far a well-co-ordinated media campaign to market a military action that heaps crime atop crime can go in convincing a gullible american public that everything is hunky dory. if you control the frame of reference, you control what can be derived through it. you had to venture outside the american media shell to get an idea of what has actually been going on.

the only positive elements i can see coming from this are:

proof that for a reasonable settlement to this conflict, a hard break must be forced between the logic that has been running the show since 1967. i expect we are going to see attempts to force such a break happen quickly over the coming months--how far it will go, how it will be done, whether it can be done in the context of the existing arrangements that constitute the "international community" remains to be seen.

hopefully, the right will loose in the next elections to labour. they're not a lot better, but they're certainly preferable to olmert, to kadima and---especially--to likud.

[tisonlyi]

Seaver, that cartoon is utterly misrepresentative, disingenuous and disgusting.

Make the Hamas guy maybe as high as Israel's ankle, have him beating on Israel's shoe for a while, then have Israel take a baseball bat to the Hamas guy... and perhaps a hundred other little Palestinians and we'll be getting somewhere close to a fair representation of the situation.

[scout]

Originally Posted by roachboy

............

the israelis accomplished a theatrical demonstration of the extent to which the israeli right is concerned about the obama administration and its potentials for maybe possibly not going along with everything and anything the israeli right does, and, worse, that it may not find the discourse of "terrorism" to be such a generative frame.

.....

How much do you really expect the Obama administration to stray from the 1967 status quo? I believe Obama is finding somethings are nothing as he perceived them before the beginning of his morning security meetings and he is making a visible shift to the middle or maybe even a little to the right of the middle. He began distancing himself from most of his campaign promises the day after he was elected. I believe many are putting to much stock in what he {Obama} is going to be able to accomplish because of obvious realities. I also believe contrary to the popular belief here the US doesn't have all that much persuasion on Israel's politics. We perhaps have a little because of the huge amounts of foreign aid we send that way but Israel is going to do what it wants and what it sees fit for it's national security no matter how many envoys we send over. Again, the Democrats have been in control of the purse strings the past few years and nothing has changed from a budgetary standpoint regarding foreign aid to Israel and there is no indication being signaled of any substantial change so exactly how is our foreign policy regarding the middle east going to change? The rhetoric leaving the White House may change but what will be the realities of the supposed change? Be careful not to expect to much so you aren't disappointed when little to nothing changes but the rhetoric. I'm afraid it will be nothing more than just more Washington double speak, say one thing but do nothing to change the status quo in fear of pissing off one side or the other.

[roachboy]

well, what i think will happen---and this is speculative of course--is that the bush administration's degenerate policies toward israel in particular, added to the consequences of their various other disasters in the world, will result in the americans becoming less central to the game in the region. i think the quartet will become far more important in mediating relations, with the result that the americans will find themselves a partner amongst others working with the shared goal of reaching some kind of equitable settlement in the region.

i don't have any expectation that the obama administration will in itself represent a hard break with the post-67 logic, particuarly after hearing clinton talking in the context of her confirmation hearing.

what i do see is a change in the overall situation and what, from a neo-con perspective would be a signficant loss of power on the part of the united states--from a position consistent with this "smart power" meme that is central to the overall foreign policy logic outlined in the clinton hearings, i think that this shift in position will probably be welcomed--or at least will be understood as necessary and functional.

btw---i know many many people who supported obama for president, from a wide range of political positions---and not one of them is seeing obama as anything like this "messiah" nonsense, which owes far more to that ludicrous youtube advert campaign mounted by the imploding mc-cain campaign than to anything to do with reality. most people have been watching the hearings of obama's various nominees to see what the administration might actually look like, and get a sense of what it is in fact considering as policy logics/objectives. while it might be reassuring for conservatives to imagine something simple-minded about the people who supported obama (particularly in that it manages to enable some conservatives to pretend to themselves that the record of the bush administration is other than it is), it's mostly fantasy.

[Derwood]

nothing:

Hamas, Israel set independent cease-fires - CNN.com

hours after both sides announced their own cease fires, they're shooting rockets at each other again

[Sun Tzu]

Nothing was gained short of villianizing Israel in the world's eye a little more. The news clip you provided was symbolic. I saw a video report where several Palestian "gunmen" and bomb maker prisoners were interviewed. The common theme was they would put down their arms if the settlements located in the west bank were dismantled and the land retuned to its rightful owners. They feel to do nothing would be inviting genocide. Much of the call for the destruction of Israel is because Israel is destroying their culture. They feel the Token of Gaza was a joke and one that has never been very true to begin with.

There is a big Zionist lobby in America. Its unfortunate because what happend and has been happening is not representative of all America. I personally want it to stop because I think enevitably that conflict will spark a much larger a destructive war.

Like Israelis, Palestinians are made of flesh and bone can be cut down. But this will never stop because ideas are bulletproof.

[Plan9]

Perhaps they're just rotating their ordnance stock without "wasting it."

...

I'm hoping one side will eventually resort to nuclear weapons.

[Seaver]

The common theme was they would put down their arms if the settlements located in the west bank were dismantled and the land retuned to its rightful owners.

Yeah... those settlements were already abandoned and dismantled. You saw it happen on the news. All that happened is Hamas then started launching rockets from new heights to reach further into Israel.

[tisonlyi]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Yeah... those settlements were already abandoned and dismantled. You saw it happen on the news. All that happened is Hamas then started launching rockets from new heights to reach further into Israel.

Gaza != West Bank

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Seaver

It's a bit more like this:

[Plan9]

WillRavel,

Don't forget the third figure in the comic, the one behind Israel. Uncle Sam. He's pumping money into Mr. Israel's pocket and helping upgrade his handgun.

...

Maybe I should do a 9/11 parody of that cartoon.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by Willravel

It's a bit more like this:

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

This is the prequel.

[Sun Tzu]

small example of what is happening widespread throughout the west bank and other areas (exept in Gaza). Its also the primary reason "self defense" doesnt hold any water. Its very clear what the long term goal is.

[tisonlyi]

And now this?

Traces of depleated uranium found in the victims:

Arabs: Israel ammo in Gaza had depleted uranium - Yahoo! News

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Arabs: Israel ammo in Gaza had depleted uranium - Yahoo! News

I sincerely hope this isn't true. To go into Gaza—a heavily populated area without many remote military targets—with munitions containing depleted uranium is nothing short of morally reprehensible and politically suicidal...but would this really make the outcome for Israel any worse?

[roachboy]

so this edito from today's haaretz indicates that gaza accomplished absolutely nothing.

Mr. Obama, grant Hamas the freedom to fail
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Obama, Israel News, Israel

Mr. President, a couple of off-the-record observations as you take the oath:

In the Mideast equation, settler outposts are the Qassams of the Jews

Outposts are tools. They are bargaining chips of great weight. They are potent, if also self-defeating symbols of nationalist assertion. They are sacrosanct to religious fundamentalists. Most importantly, and most potently, they are meant to cripple the possibility of peace.

Mr. President, quietly encourage Israel to carry out its own longstanding policy of removing illegal settlement outposts. At this point, it is the one step that Israel can take, to bring it materially closer to an eventual negotiated peace with the Palestinians.

There will be many of your constituents on the Jewish and evangelical right who will tell you that illegal outposts, and settlements in general, promote peace and anchor security.

In fact, so ingrained has that mantra become in right-religious circles within Judaism as a whole, that at the height of the recent war, Michael Freund, a former aide to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, earned rave rightist reader responses by

"This is not to imply a moral equivalence between the two. Just the opposite."

As Freund himself implies, there are distinct similarities. The fact is, that along with their status as lethal civilian-targeting weapons and thus war crimes, outposts and illegal settlements are tools. They are bargaining chips of great weight. They are potent, if self-defeating symbols of national assertion. They are sacrosanct to religious fundamentalists. Most importantly, and most potently, they are meant to cripple the possibility of peace.

Mr. President, when the current smoke clears and a new prime minister takes office, quietly and persuasively urge Israel to act in its own interest, to crack down on illegal settlement outposts and to freeze new construction.

The more it does, the stronger Israel's hand will be in negotiations with the Palestinians. It is a recognition of how destructive illegal settlement, and illegal settlers, have been to the cause of peace.

You will be acting within the Israeli consensus, and fostering an act that could prompt new momentum, and a clearer atmosphere, for peace progress downstream.

Evicting illegal settlers flies in the face of the anti-Israel narrative and the contention that all that Israel really desires is land, not peace.

Grant Hamas the freedom to fail

In the often acrid debate over how best to deal with Hamas, a curiously unifying theme has underscored arguments across the whole of the political spectrum, from the hardline Jewish right to the anti-Israel left: In its war in Gaza, Israel has played directly into Hamas' hands.

A contention as old as Hamas, now entering its second generation, it remains a argument with a great deal of validity. In fact, its validity predates Hamas itself.

It held as early as the 1970s, when Israel began to effectively foster Hamas' precursor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's ostensibly apolitical Gaza-based branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It held for much of the 1980s, when IDF Civil Administration occupation officials hoped to see Yassin's social welfare institutions.

It held when Israel spared Hamas institutions in Gaza in the early years of the Second Intifada, battering into oblivion key institutions of Yasser Arafat's Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and bolstering Gazans' reliance on Hamas for education, health care, and other basic social services.

It held when Israel, in effect, acted as Hamas' campaign manager for the Hamas-Fatah elections in 2006, and has since refused to recognize Hamas, blockaded Gaza, and simultaneously denigrated Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

The axiom also holds that every Israeli shell is a vote for Hamas, and every thousand pound bomb 10,000 votes. There is every reason to believe that the adage is as true as ever.

One can also rely on Hamas to hold fast as long and hard as it can to the three 'R's that distinguish it from Fatah: No renunciation of violence, no recognition of Israel, and rejection of prior Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

At the same time, recent history has shown time and again that there is one factor to which Hamas is acutely sensitive and responsive: Palestinian public opinion. Hamas' willingness to agree to a short-term truce, as well as public statements on negotiating with the Israel it refuses to recognize, have made it clear that what appear to be ironclad principles may be subject to reinterpretation.

Swift and unequivocal as Hamas' proclamations of victory have been, the true test of the movement's strength, and, most critically, its ability to govern and thus sway core Palestinian sentiment, is yet to come.

Hamas' future now depends not on the ability to withstand an Israeli onslaught, but on its ability to manage the re-opening of Gaza's border crossings in an extremely timely fashion, and the degree of its success in securing financing and carrying out a rebuilding program for which, in a pre-recorded victory address by Ismail Haniyeh, it has now taken formal responsibility.

As my colleague Avi Issacharoff has noted, Haniyeh's Sunday victory address contained significant concessions relative to an uncompromisingly tough speech by Hamas political department chief Khaled Meshal in Damascus not 24hours before. Meshal had ruled out a cease-fire and set a strikingly high bar for a truce - saying all IDF troops had to leave the Strip before Palestinians would cease fire - while Haniyeh hinted at steps toward rapprochement with Fatah and said Hamas and other groups would bide their time for a week before an IDF pullout.

There is no reason to believe that anger at Israel will subside. But there is every reason to believe that Gazans' patience with Hamas will run out.

Ironically, the same casualty statistics that Hamas has used to catalyze rage with Israel may also give Gazans second thoughts about Hamas. On Monday, Hamas said that only 48 of the 1,300 Gazans killed in the war were its armed men.

How, in the end, are Gazans to square that with Hamas statements prior to the war - and with Hamas' martyrdom ideology over the decades - in which the movement vowed that its fighters would defend the soil of Palestine and the lives of Gazans with their very blood, in the process, turning the Strip into a graveyard for the IDF.

As it was, Hamas, having altered its strategy and tactics under the relatively recent guidance of Iran, Syria and other advisors, abandoned its once-standard practice of sending armed men against the IDF in what amounted to suicide missions, to fight until death.

As a consequence, it remains unclear how much of their martyr-hero credibility can still be marketed to a Gaza public in critical need of social services.

Halima Dardouna, 37, from the northern city of Jabaliya, whose house was destroyed by an Israeli shell, told The New York Times in a Monday article that both Fatah and Hamas were to blame because of their rivalry, "and we are the victims."

"I will never vote for Hamas," she continued. "They are not able to protect the people, and if they are going to bring this on us, why should they be in power? If I thought they could liberate Jerusalem, I would be patient. But instead they bring this."

This is where the U.S. in particular and the Quartet as a whole can have an impact. Hamas needs the border crossings open. Neither Egypt nor Israel are keen to open their crossings. The bridge is Washington, which can play a mediation role that can change the history of the Strip.

The people of Gaza need the government of the United States to help them. At this point, Hamas does as well.

Take advantage. Don't allow Israel to play into Hamas' hands once more. Find the formula which will allow for the arrangement both Israelis and Gazans seek: Open border crossings, and a true end to rocket attacks.

Put Hamas to the test. For too long they have been able to blame misrule on Israeli interference. Play into the hands of peace. Grant Hamas the freedom to fail.

Mr. Obama, grant Hamas the freedom to fail - Haaretz - Israel News

because these are exactly the problems and options that were on the table 18 months ago.

white phosphorus shells, munitions with depleted uranium, and a swath of destruction of astonishing proportions--charges of "scortched earth" are accompanying the idf retreat.
this in a context that the israeli war-marketing machinery does not and cannot control in terms of information...so the israelis are now worried about lawsuits.

1315 dead.
this number will probably rise as more bodies are dug out of the rubble.
the list goes on.

so carnage was accomplished. destruction was accomplished.
politically, i think this was a bush-worthy debacle for israel.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by roachboy

so this edito from today's haaretz indicates that gaza accomplished absolutely nothing.

More evidence of just that:
Israel prevents Abbas from bringing cash to Gaza | Reuters.com
Some Gaza smuggling tunnels working again | Reuters
Gaza rockets hit southern Israel | Reuters

[roachboy]

LRB · Henry Siegman: Israel’s Lies

i posted the text of this piece in the gaza redux thread, but it's probably more appropriate here. it's a pretty devastating critique of the entire operation, from it's fake historical and political justifications through the systematic mischaracterization of hamas as a terrorist organization to the debacle that was the action itself.

[roachboy]

israel seems to have accomplished a systematic destruction of infrastructure in gaza.
and it also seems to have accomplished the formation of an inter-ministerial group charged with preventing israel from being charged with war crimes.
good job.

UN 'shocked' by Gaza destruction

The UN's humanitarian chief has told the BBC the situation in Gaza after a three-week Israeli offensive against Hamas was worse than he anticipated.

Sir John Holmes, who visited Gaza on Thursday, said he was shocked by "the systematic nature of the destruction".

He said that the territory's economic activity had been set back by years.

UN workers have been given access to Gaza. On Friday, Israel lifted a ban on international aid agencies entering the Palestinian territory.

The ban had been in place since early November when tensions mounted between Israel and Hamas.

Staff from a number of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were allowed to cross into Gaza on Friday morning.

Michael Bailey from Oxfam said: "We are extremely relieved to be able to join our local colleagues inside Gaza and to be able to provide them with some support and relief from the relentless work they have been doing."

He described the task ahead as "enormous", with vast amounts of building materials alone needed immediately to help rebuild hospitals, mosques, public buildings and homes.

A key problem facing them, he said, is that the main crossing for the aid is 40km from where most of the relief is needed and is too small for the number of trucks that need to go through.

He also urged Israel to end its policy of restricting the amount of cash Gazans can have access to, saying people in Gaza had run up "phenomenal debt" over the last few weeks, trying to buy goods that are in increasingly short supply.

Future of Gaza

Mr Holmes, the top UN official responsible for emergency relief and humanitarian affairs, said the scale of destruction would have "disturbing" repercussions for the people of Gaza.

In an interview with the BBC's Today Programme, he described an industrial area where every building within a square kilometre had been levelled, by bulldozers and shells.

He told of broken pipes pumping out raw sewage onto the streets.

"I'm sure the Israelis would say that's because there were people there firing shells and rockets from there, or perhaps manufacturing them.

"But the nature of that destruction means that any kind of private economic activity in Gaza is set back by years or decades," he said.

"That's very disturbing for the future of Gaza, for the future of the people of Gaza, who are forced to fall back on the public sector and indeed on Hamas, who control the public sector."

A humanitarian appeal was launched by a number of UK charities on Thursday to raise money for aid relief in Gaza.

War crimes claims

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is reported to have placed his justice minister in charge of defending Israel against any accusations of war crimes.

Daniel Friedman will lead an inter-ministerial team to co-ordinate a legal defence for Israeli civilians and the military, a government source was quoted by AFP as saying.

Richard Falk - the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories - has said there was "a prima facie case" that Israel gravely breached the Geneva Conventions during its 22-day campaign.

Israel responded by saying that Mr Falk's "bias against Israel was well known".

Israel said it launched its offensive to stop cross-border rocket attacks by militants in Gaza against its civilians.

The intense fighting ended on Sunday, with both sides declaring a ceasefire.

Palestinian medical officials said about 1,300 Palestinians were killed and thousands more were injured. Thirteen Israelis died during the conflict.

[Baraka_Guru]

So it's looking like Israel has accomplished making Palestinians more dependent on Hamas. Maybe they did this on purpose to ensure they fall from grace from the inside out...except it wouldn't exactly be from the inside out...more like from the outside to the inside and then out...or something.

Now, will it actually work, or will Hamas be strengthened by dealing with the fallout?

[roachboy]

we'll have to see---for example obama, in the speech he gave annoucing the mitchell appointment, said that the us was planning on sending significant humanitarian aid through fatah/the palestinian authority---while at the same time demanding that israel lift the siege.

what exactly this routing of aid through the pa is supposed to accomplish is obvious--what it will in fact accomplish--or if it will happen that way once they get closer to the ground---remains to be seen. within the playing out of this sort of manoevering and image will emerge of how hamas has fared.

in the short run, however, they've won.

[tisonlyi]

This is quite long, so I won't quote it in here:

"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

Mr Chomsky.

[Sun Tzu]

I am only beginning to learn about the limitations and applications of presidential executive orders. So hopefully someone here that does know can answer this question:

Could Obama issue an executive order than all US monetary funding and arms appropriation will stop unless Israel immediately stops settlement expansion in the West Bank and disbands all current illegal settlements?

Would something such as that take the backing of Congress?

[roachboy]

i found myself--as usual against my better judgment--channel surfing last night and was stunned to find 60 minutes airing a most damning report about the israeli settlement programs in the west bank.

i've seen quite a few such reports in the context of shows on pbs like frontline, but here it was on one of the usually sycophantic major networks.

this is one of the massive facts that is wholly absent from the dominant thinking about israeli policies in the united states---this is self-evidently at the heart of the matter: the report talked about west bank apartheid, the special transportation networks for settlers only coupled with an elaborate maze of restrictions on movement of palestinians. the apartheid-like restrictions on palestinian movements into and out of jerusalem. the lunacy of the settlement program itself. the fact that so long as the settlements not only exist but continue to expand there is no hope--at all--for peace in the region.

so one thing that the israeli action in gaza seems to have accomplished is a significant cracking of its own image in the space that has so far been most dominated by marketing--the mainstream american press. and i see no problem with this--unless you support the settlement program, in which case you are also not in any way interested in regional peace.

nothing can happen until those settlements either come down or are forcibly abandoned. nothing can happen that moves the region toward anything but more war until they are taken down or turned over the palestinians.

i think it's time for the united states to begin playing hardball on this question. threaten all military and economic aid unless there is a drastic and immediate change in the west bank. what gaza showed is that it's time to stop denial about the occupation, stop the fantasy narratives about the violence in the region, and parse out responsibility in a rational manner--which so far has not happened.

[Strange Famous]

Every nation has the right to defend itself.

If Mexican terrorists, being sheltered by the Mexican government, were raining rockets down on Texas and claiming that Texas was rightly the property of Mexico and had been illegally annexed by the US, and by the way they were killing a family in Houston at a rate of 1 or 2 a week - would you not expect the US government to act to ensurethe safety of its citizens?

Israel is not trying to conquer another nation, or gain access to any natural resources that happen to be located in another nation, they are asking for their people to be allowed to live in peace, and showing those who will not allow this that they will fight for the right to be left alone.

It doesnt make me happy to see Palestinian civilians killed in bombing raids, any happier than I was for Yugoslav civilians or Iraqi civilians or Afghani civilians to be killed by UN, US or UK forces killed - but if you start at the point that Israel has the right to exist as a nation (which the current Palestinian govt does not agree with)... all Israel is doing is shutting down the rocket attacks on its own people - by a show of superior force.

[roachboy]

i've been arguing since the start of the gaza incursion that this is by no rational standard an action of self-defense. i'm not going to go through it all again--but the basic problem is the context that you exclude when you make the claim that gaza was such an action. in the immediate situation, you exclude the siege. there is no way to do that and say anything coherent about the situation. you exclude the brutality of the action itself--the civilian population was trapped in place because of the siege. in the larger context, you exclude the continual violence of occupation and *especially* the routinized violence of and around the settlements.

this is not to say that it's ok to lob rockets, but no-one who has looked outside the idf marketing campaign that accompanied this action is fooled by the claim that this action was triggered by the rocket attacks---which in the main fell in fields. and no-one who has looked at the situation at a remove buys the claim that these were simply "terrorist" attacks--that rhetoric is threadbare at this point: it doesn't allow for anything remotely like a comprehensive view of the situation and so doesn't allow for anything like a rational assessment of the action in context.

this seems to me more an extension of the pathology of colonialism than anything else.

[tisonlyi]

Originally Posted by Strange Famous

Every nation has the right to defend itself.

If Mexican terrorists, being sheltered by the Mexican government, were raining rockets down on Texas and claiming that Texas was rightly the property of Mexico and had been illegally annexed by the US, and by the way they were killing a family in Houston at a rate of 1 or 2 a week - would you not expect the US government to act to ensurethe safety of its citizens?

Israel is not trying to conquer another nation, or gain access to any natural resources that happen to be located in another nation, they are asking for their people to be allowed to live in peace, and showing those who will not allow this that they will fight for the right to be left alone.

It doesnt make me happy to see Palestinian civilians killed in bombing raids, any happier than I was for Yugoslav civilians or Iraqi civilians or Afghani civilians to be killed by UN, US or UK forces killed - but if you start at the point that Israel has the right to exist as a nation (which the current Palestinian govt does not agree with)... all Israel is doing is shutting down the rocket attacks on its own people - by a show of superior force.

How about if Mexico was under siege?
How about if Mexico had been on the receiving end of 10x as many casualties over the last 40 years?
How about if Mexico had to dig tunnels through to its neighbouring countries to try and smuggle in the basic necessities of life?
How about there being next to no medicines in the hospitals?
How about if the US had been planning for 12 months, with care and deliberate precision, to commit war crimes against a civilian population?
How about if the US had been sponsored and supplied by a pan-galactic empire, with the Mexican's plight barely registering on the pan-galactic media?

Your analogy is far too flawed to even begin to register the recent situation, let alone bring in any of the baggage.

Hamas currently proclaim that Israel has no right to exist. Israel currently claim that the Palestinians are free to elect any government that Israel chooses. Square that one.

As for Israel not trying to gain any natural resources from the Palestinians... Look away from the slavish majority of the UK media, you might find some interesting reading.

83% of the West Bank's water resources used by? Israel. (W.H.O.)

ReliefWeb » Document » West Bank wall elevates barrier to water access for Palestinians

Israel, to maintain its existence, is currently dependent on West Bank water supplies.

Who controls the seas off Gaza? Hmm. I wonder if there are any other resources in Gaza that have been nicked by the occupying forces?

Alternative Information Center - Israel Continues to Exploit Gaza Resources

There are a few things to chew on.

[Strange Famous]

How about if Mexico was surrounded by states that were universally hostile and would destroy the moment they could if they had the power to?

[dippin]

I have no problems with the idea of the right of Israeli self defense.
The problem with that is that West Bank and Gaza are not actual states. To chalk it all up to a nation's right to self defense is to pretend that what you have there is a situation where there are two equivalent states, which there aren't.

Israel controls the borders, commerce, zoning, even water wells and so on. It has carved out multiple sections of the territory for itself, and has created a de facto apartheid state, where Israelis can drive around the West Bank in modern highways and to as they please, but Palestinians can't. A situation where any Jew around the world can become a citizen, but no Palestinian ever can, even if they are married to a Israeli. A situation where Israeli incursions are not a breach of cease fires, but any Palestinian action is. When you control a territory that much, when you destroy the state infrastructure in that territory that much,, then the "self defense" analogy is inherently flawed. A better analogy would be Spain bombing Bilbao any time the ETA did a terrorist attack. You can't simply occupy a region and act as its de fact state, and then when it suits you treat it like a foreign country and indiscriminately bomb it.

By the way:
Is Peace Out Of Reach? Video - CBSNews.com

Putting 500k settlers on West Bank is certainly not for self defense.

[tisonlyi]

Originally Posted by Strange Famous

How about if Mexico was surrounded by states that were universally hostile and would destroy the moment they could if they had the power to?

I think the US is Israel in your analogy, SF, but anyway...

The historic moment when that particular case was true is LONG past... It's like a UK politician talking about our Empire. There is, literally, as much water flowed beneath the bridge as that.

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

This is quite long, so I won't quote it in here:

"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

Mr Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is, imho, the best source for objective information on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He has been authoring essays and articles and even entire books about the conflict which include any and every detail one could hope for.

[roachboy]

you have to read chomsky critically, like any other source. that some of his positions resonate with yours doesn't therefore mean that it makes sense to adopt the attitude of a baby chick being fed my it's mother. i find his political stuff to be interesting and useful (the propaganda model crossed with a bit of bourdieu can be tons of fun)...but still, no sense in just inverting the prescribed relation to the dominant informational order. the structure of belief is a problem, not only the sources.

[tisonlyi]

Hey, maybe we should set up a sceptical empiricist society.

Down with belief! Down with induction! Down with confirmation!

Vive la negation!

[roachboy]

i understand politics as a variant of philosophy.
so it's not negation for it's own sake that's at the center of the game.
chomsky is not a Prophet who descends from the Mountain with The New Information.
he's an embedded actor like anyone else whose work is frequently useful, generally interesting, and is sometimes just wrong.
for example, i remain very ambivalent about his position on the faurrisson affair, and i read his earlier stuff on cambodia....