Not until the forming of new illegal settlements stops and the current expanding ones are dismantled. Any attacks from that situation would show a clearer picture. Anything short of that (as a majority of the world seems to agree) the phrase: Israel "defending" itself, is questionable.

A search has not revealed the launch of planes by "Bushco." Link to said slaughter of innocents by the US?


Five more years of Hamas lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians? YES WE CAN!


Your statement indicates that Bush's policies have accomplished their goal of preventing conflict from Iran. "Diplomacy," on the part of Israel, has resulted in the rockets launched by Hamas.

Hamas will laugh at negotiation attempts by Obama. They will scorn overtures from Hillary. Bill MIGHT achieve some success with them (because they are not going to listen to Hillary), but only if he has the authority to give them "the farm," a la N. Korea.

edited a bit later for clarity:

nonsense.

first off, like other folk who seem to find this offensive into gaza like a thrilling off-tackle run in a game and are cheering the israelis for their impressive offensive line play, you leave out everything that makes an assessment of the actual situation coherent.

for example in sporting events, both sides wear the same equipment. so there's a basic parity. one team may be better than another, but at least they're playing the same game.
in this situation, that's simply not the case.


[[aside: i've often wondered over the years about why exactly it is that the israeli military is such an object of attachment and projection on the part of americans who tend to like military action instead of diplomacy---i think they find something admirable in the fact that israel's military has operated with such impunity, that they have done so much in violation of international law, treaties and other such namby-pamby conventions of modernity, which these folk wish the american military was free of as well. this is speculative, of course, because this position is so far from anything i think that i can only approach it this way, by filling in blanks that seem to hold logically. and i don't know how to present this as a question without entailing a donnybrook. so i'll leave it at that]]

hamas is in itself an expression of the failure of the entire us/israeli right approach to palestine, to occupation---all of it. the only way forward is to treat this as a political problem that requires an international solution. and israel really has to be seen as a state like any other. enough of the projection of the illusion of "american exceptionalism" onto it. it is a political agent that has made a series of stupid decisions that have resulted in countless unnecessary deaths. unless you think that the palestinian people are somehow less than the israelis---which is an ugly correlate of much cheerleading for the idf in this context---it's clear that the rhetoric of "terrorism" has the effect of enabling massacre--look at what's happening right now. i mean rationally, not as if it were some sporting event.



the claims you make about iran as circular. "iran hasn't done anything therefore the bush policies toward it hare coherent" is like saying that a meteor has not hit the earth so you're rituals that you do before bed to ward off meteors are effective.

ahmanjiad's administration is politically weak and reactionary and has used its anti-israeli rhetoric in particular to legitimate itself publically. sound familiar?

behind the scenes, iran has offered repeatedly to help the united states in the context of the iraq debacle--had the bush people been less simple-minded, a regional solution to iraq might have been possible--if you accept the american action as given--that would have opened very different possibilities for disengagement--with all the political complexities that would pose within iraq in place--one thing is sure, though: iran has no interest in a destabilized iraq. this is self-evident.

have you ever wondered about this iran-syria-muslim brotherhood alliance and whether and how it makes sense?
what do these folk have in common?
a political solution to the palestine-israel problem undercuts the rationale for all of it.
continued brutality props it up, perpetuates it, justifies it.

latest casualty count: 500 palestinians killed. no update on the number of wounded yet today. (following the titter channel posted earlier in the thread---it's most interesting and desparately sad)

the paradox--which is obvious to most of the planet, though apparently not to the marketing machinery that has accompanied this sickening action on israel's part: all hamas has to do is survive at all and the ambient brutality of this action will hand them a political victory.

no-one, however, is laughing.

uh, q.e.d.

Israel needs to be a little careful though because to date it has actually had tacit acceptance, if not approval, from other countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia who both denounced hamas publicly over this latest situation. If it treats the Palestinians with too heavy a hand, it will lose that. I imagine those aforementioned Arab countries wouldn't mind seeing Israel destroy hamas outright, establish law and order in Gaza and stabilize what is essentially Egypt's eastern border. The idea of giving up hard-fought land only to have it hijacked by terrorists has proven to be nonproductive for all involved.

The Middle East is changing. There are now Arab countries that are trying to join the global economy, and are becoming more tolerant of Israel. Iran is starting to be seen as a more dangerous force against Arabs than is Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah are now discovering that they are not getting the automatic support of other Middle Eastern nations when they screw with Israel.

This is a great opportunity for Israel to build more bridges into the Arab world and to gain acceptance. So it must walk a very careful line in Gaza. On the one hand, indiscriminate rocket attacks cannot be tolerated and should not be, but on the other hand there is such a great disparity of power between Israel and the Palestinians that it must respond with measured force. I just hope Israel finishes off hamas before people start to forget exactly why they attacked in the first place and criticism against them builds up again. It sucks to be Israel, knowing you only have 3 or 4 months to find and eradicate the group who shoots rockets at random civilians before the world decides you're not allowed to chase them anymore.

I will concede this up front: it has been wildly irresponsible of Hamas to fire rockets, or allow them to be fired. To some extent they have brought this calamity upon the people of Gaza, and I hope (but do not expect) that Gazans will understand this. The natural psychological response, of course, will be to rally behind the besieged government. Already there are reports that the remnants of Fatah military elements in Gaza have linked up with Hamas forces to confront the Israeli ground invasion. Anyone who has seen 'War of the Worlds' or 'Independence Day' or any alien film could have predicted that much.

I don't have time to do this in depth right now, but I will throw my weight behind roachboy - in his assessment of how we got here, his insistence that people acknowledge what conditions in gaza actually look like, and his belief that this operation is futile, and will do no good to anyone - except in terms of the Israeli electoral calculus.

One thing I feel compelled to respond to: the idea that Gaza was 'freed' in 2005. No. The settlements were evacuated - and I maintain that this was a good step. But Israel still maintained control of entry and exit into the strip, and especially since the election of Hamas, has used that power to systematically deprive Gazans of basic necessities - including, at times, power, water, technology, and medical supplies. You don't have to go to oppositional sources for this. Official, stated Israeli policy with the Hamas government has been to turn the population against Hamas through slow deprivation, without provoking a 'humanitarian crisis'. In practice this has meant sealing Gaza as tightly as possible without actually causing, say, mass starvation.

Remember that we are talking about a tiny, tiny region - the Gaza strip is less than 8 miles across at its widest point, with a total area of less than 140 square miles. Combine that with an absolutely devastated economy and infrastructure and one of the highest population densities on earth, and it becomes clearer why gazans are so dependent on neighboring areas for very basic things - food production, and medical care, for example. This is why the siege, as roachboy rightly calls it, is such a Big Deal.

To get a better idea of what life is really like for these people (and if you care), check out the link below from a Gaza blogger. His experiences, and worse, aren't outliers - these are routine in the Palestinian experience. These are the practical, mundane ways in which the complex system of closures, embargoes, harassment, and occupational bureaucracy destroy the lives and livelihoods of Palestinians in the territories, even without taking into account the effects of these occasionally devastating Israeli incursions.

From Gaza, with Love: The siege -closure- and my personal story

I'm confused Roachboy, you used the word Siege for the last 18 months...but from what I know a "Siege" has only been in place the last few days. From what I read (and I read about 80% of what's up...you guys took like 2 hours of my life tonight) there was an embargo/cutoff

A siege suggest aggression and attacking and raiding
while the cut off was more a "Lets not help these people are trying to kill us".

When you say Siege, do you think Israel is actively attacking Gaza for the last 18 months?



My opinion of this is 2 things

Slims is a genius and downright scholar and gentleman. All you other cats are also of course, but I had to call him out.

and 2 Roachboy it sounds like a major thing for you is that palestine/gaza and it's people is a tiny broken little thing that is now being picked on by a massive megapower. I can appreciate the Chivalry in your reaction. I dont' exactly agree with you. I think the Palestinians have been given too many chances, and I really hope the people there will rat out the Hamas people and recognize that peace talks will happen faster when Hamas is out of power or recognizes Israel.

A siege does not require raids or attacks. To besiege someone is to surround them with forces that allow you to control (i.e. cut off) the supplies that come in and out of the area, usually with the hope of garnering capitulation through deprivation. Sieges often do have assaults, but they can go for months without direct aggression, as we've seen here. For some perspective, it was reported last year that the humanitarian situation in the area has hit a 40-year low. The lowest since Israel occupied the area in 1967. (Up to 80% were relying on humanitarian aid and more than 1/4 had no running water. I say were and had because I'm assuming the situation is worse now.)

What Israel has conducted upon Gaza over the past 18 months is nothing short of a siege, and as you can clearly see now, here is the assault aspect of it. From a humanitarian standpoint, this is an atrocity.

Clearly Israel should just deal with the rockets being launched into their country.

Just a couple people die per rocket attack, what's the big deal?

Indeed, thank you for the clear up

[qoute]Clearly Israel should just deal with the rockets being launched into their country.

Just a couple people die per rocket attack, what's the big deal? [/qoute]

Dude, if someone shot a gun at me, and they miss...they still just shot at me. You better believe I wouldn't ask what the big deal was.

TheNasty: To be clear, the median rocket causes exactly zero casualties, so the actual number is far lower than what you cite.

Konichiwa: To extend your metaphor of the Palestinians and Israelis each as a single human being, think of it this way: someone shoots a spitball at you, and in return, you bash in his left knee with a sledgehammer. This is more suitable than your original analogy to describe Israel's killing of over 500 palestinians (reportedly 40% women and children, to say nothing of any innocent men) in reaction to rockets that, taken together, have killed and injured handfuls. When speaking of nations, the equivalent of a loaded gun would have to be something on the order of a nuclear weapon - something capable of delivering a death-blow. Hamas rockets are awful, inexcusable, morally reprehensible, and must be stopped - but let's not pretend that they are the equivalent of a loaded gun facing Israel as a society.

And all of this about proportionality is really a side-note, a moral dimension to what is essentially a practical question: what could Israel possibly hope to accomplish here?

Once force becomes lethal, you can't use things like spitballs as a analogy.

Are people actually justifying lethal force is excusable? All lethal force is lethal as it has one goal...to kill people.

Yeah Israel is using a lot of force here, but 6 years of small bombings is pretty substantial isn't it?

Sorry guys, I can see both sides but the people who are saying "Israel should just suck up these rocket attacks as everyday standard fare" should really analyze what they are saying.


On the reverse side, yeah I wish Israel didn't use as much force...but really what can they do? Just as much as Hamas is using psychology with the palestinians to win their support, Israel has to use the psychology of action to help their side. I would assume there's a bunch of Israeli's who are on the inside happy about this, because their government is finally doing something about the cloud of fear growing because of the constant rocket firing

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.

http://twitter.com/ajgaza

four bits of information.
this is a bit long. mea culpa.
point two is very short, however. short and sickening.


1) this is one of several reports today on the actions of the idf relative to journalists who are trying to cover the situation in gaza, which explains to some extent why the cnn talking heads stand in fields near the border hoping to have authentic-looking explosions happening in the distance as they repeat the press pool line on the invasion. only al jazeera has correspondents actually in gaza. this despite the israeli supreme court ruling of last week.

of course, as you'll see, the idf is more than happy to allow access to sites inside israel where rockets have hit.

figure out for yourself what this means for many of the views expressed here and elsewhere about what's happening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/wo...7media.html?hp

2. earlier today the united states blocked a un security council resolution demanding a cease fire....

3. the israelis bombed a united nations school today, killing 50, mostly refugees.
this is the kind of thing that seemed to me almost inevitable, and is something that undercuts any plausible benefit that israel might have argued it would get from this action.

of course, the idf claims there were mortars being fired from there.
but this is transparently a lie.
like livni's claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in gaza is a lie.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Scores killed as Gaza school hit

4. this link

Democracy Now! | A Debate on Israel's Invasion of Gaza: UNRWA's Christopher Gunness v. Israel Project's Meagan Buren

takes you to a transcript of a debate on democracy now between christopher guiness of the un high commision on refugees who has been working in gaza over the past months, and megan buren of the israel project in washington. it is too long to post, but is really quite interesting. notice the centrality of foregrounding what is actually happening on the ground in gaza--and what has been happening over the past 18 months---in the way this debate unfolds.

it speaks for itself.


660 killed, 2950 injured according to the latest figures.
read what guiness has to say about the situation in the hospitals in gaza in the above to get a sense of what injured might mean.

It is substantial, but so is 18 months of near-starvation due to the closure of the borders. For that matter, 40 years of occupation, dispossession, brutalization, and settlement-building are pretty substantial too. Let's not strip away all context until the thing we are looking at stops resembling reality.

Are you really going to be this dense? OK, fine. Someone murders your sister. You figure out that it's someone from the 8th floor of a 20-level apartment building. You decide to place an enormous bomb on that floor, killing all dozen inhabitants of the 8th floor, killing 6 others, and injuring dozens more throughout the building.

The point of either analogy is to illustrate the utterly disproportionate nature of the response. Models by necessity do not capture every aspect of reality, but the criticism that you leveled doesn't even make any sense. Are you trying to say that once your life is threatened, you can kill just as many innocent people as you please?

Yes Hired Gun, you more buoyant than me.

So what if that person who was trying to kill my sister thought the best way to do it was to carpet bomb a high school she may be at?

Isn't that what they are doing also with the rocket attacks?

Why yes, I'm saying kill all the innocent people in the world (no sarcasm here).

Hiredgun, give me more credit than you do. I don't think any of us are happy with innocent people dying.

Ok, you are right. I should explain my objection more clearly.

To begin with, I am not saying that rockets are excusable, and I am also not saying that Israel must stand by and do nothing. What I am saying is that what Israel is currently doing is inexcusable because it is a reaction completely disproportionate to the original provocation.

You began by saying you would react if someone shot at you, even if they missed. That is perfectly reasonable. You might shoot back, and that seems reasonable too. But if someone shot at you from a building populated by lots of innocent people in addition to your attacker, it would be extreme to knock down the whole building, yes? Certainly you are within your rights to act, but at some theoretical point, I think you would admit that the repercussions of your action on the innocent must be factored in, yes? Perhaps you think that many of the victims are not so innocent, or perhaps you regret what happens to them but feel that there is no other available course of action that might mitigate the loss of life. We could debate either of those points, but since they were never made explicit, all that came across to me was: "Israeli civilians are the victims of potentially lethal rocket fire, and therefore Israel's reaction is justified"-- without any reference at all to what that reaction actually is, what it looks like, what its human costs are, and what its impact will be on the continuing conflict.

I don't even actually think that the argument from proportionality is the best argument that what Israel is doing is wrong, nor an unassailable one. But I was so confused by your initial objection ('you can't use spitballs as an analogy for anything lethal') that I felt compelled to explain myself better.

This isn't unusual for Israel or other countries in the mid east. But Israel and her friends are very good at it.

Canadian journalist Neil MacDonald was an expert in that region. Very balanced and professional. If the Israeli's deemed harsh criticism, he let them have it. If it was the Palestinian's or their Arab neighbours that warranted scorn, he was just as cutting. Once he was standing in a crowded marketplace when an Israeli warship fired in his area. A few minutes later he gave the report with part of a young boys brains in his hands.

Unfortunately he wasn't allowed to be truthful regarding Israel and left the mid east for Washington, but not before Israel barred him from the country and applied enough pressure that the Canadian Jewish Congress, Simon Weisenthal Centre and B'Nai Brith tried to paint him as a hate mongerer and threatened to sue his employer, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation(CBC)

Ben Wedeman of CNN was in the West Bank when an Israeli tank pulled up. As he was giving his report, the tank fired 5 times and killed an Italian photojournalist who was wearing his press flack jacket. The tank rolled away. The IDF later said it was a Palestinian sniper on the roof. I was watching live.The shots came from the tank. CNN showed that clip live once, never again.

At the same time a group of Americans were protesting in Palestinian terroritory when a tank rode up and opened fire. One killed, 11 injured as they were a peaceful protest, holding up their passports. IDF excuse,..the tank was fired on. Aired live,..never to be seen again.

It's no wonder the Israeli's don't want reporters there because it is business as usual. They do what they want because no one can stop them for fear of persecution. Anyone in Washington going to ruin their career for speaking out against whatever Israel feels like doing? Not on anyones lives.

Even our Prime Minister in Canada stood by Israel as they blew up a UN command post in Lebanon in 2006, killing a Canadian peacekeeper. And then the Israeli's went back to blow up the huge UN sign to cover their tracks, long after they had information that peacekeepers were present.

But like I said. The IDF doesn't care who or how many they kill. Because it's either an unfortunate mistake or a human shield. Any excuse really. One would expect more from a people whose entire history is mapped in persecution and genocide.

Is it really a lie, or do you just want to believe everything you read critical of Israel?

You didn't mention that the video you posted is from 2007 and is ostensibly of a school in the south of Gaza, whereas the school recently hit (the U.N. one for refugees) is in the north.

Please refrain from issuing misinformation. It isn't helpful. If you have evidence that there was indeed mortar fire coming from the school in question, then please present that instead.

Maybe start with this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/wo...07mideast.html It's a little more two-thousand-and-niney and far more geographically relevant as well.

Spectacular video, by the way. What's the source?

what i want, powerclown, is this barbarism to end.
what i want to believe is that it will end before the real slaughter starts--which is "phase 3"--which is being debated now.

if you'd like a sense of the stuff that generates a sense of outrage about this that i do not write about here, read this.
i put the key section in bold.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...a-israel-obama

Well, I'd like the barbarism to stop, too, but I think you have the wrong barbarians, roachboy. I could write for pages about this, but let's focus on the one incident you quoted the Guardian about. That precise incident has actually been reported differently in different sources. It's one of the reasons I never get my news from only one source. (You know the Guardian's well-documented views on the whole Israel-Palestine mess, I'm sure).

Let's start with the Associated Press, and I'll boldface the appropriate sections:OK, so the neighbors were afraid to be named (for obvious reasons - Hamas has been murdering people and breaking legs to intimidate opposition during this fight), but they told reporters that there were rockets fired from right by the school, and it turns out that Israel even could name the bad guys who it took out. You have a problem with schools getting fired on? So do I. Take it up with Hamas and tell them not to use schools as assault sites. Hamas's total disregard for Palestinian life is just horrifying - as far as they are concerned, a dead baby isn't a tragedy, it's a propaganda coup.

The Israeli military has a YouTube channel with films of its operations in the current fight. One of the things you might notice if you have a look there is the preponderance of secondary explosions - meaning that there was ordnance being bombed, which then exploded. If you bomb a mosque, and then there are a series of additonal explosions from within the mosque, what does that tell you? What it tells me is that the imam of that mosque wasn't too particular about the uses to which the mosque was put. But don't take my word for it, go have a look yourself.

You can get more detail if you want to see what the Israeli military is telling the Israeli press. Take it with a grain of salt, of course - the motivation of the speaker is evident - but this should alert you to the prospect that more is going on than the house organs of the British left are willing to report. So you might find this article in the Jerusalem Post interesting:As far as I'm concerned, if a misogynistic, eliminationist, explicitly and proudly genocidal terror group like Hamas deliberately targets civilians as a tool of its own prestige and does the targeting from civilian areas, those who make apologies for them when retaliation finally comes are complicit in the slaughter.
-----Added 7/1/2009 at 02 : 27 : 06-----
Oh, one other thing. Israel apparently learned a lesson from the 2006 Lebanon War, and that is that no matter what precautions they take there will always be people who parrot the Hizbullah/Hamas propaganda use of civilian casualites and use it as a bludgeon. So Israel no longer pays attention. It does what is militarily necessary, and damn the critics. If you go back to the sources, you'll see that something on the order of 80% of the dead people in Gaza were Hamas fighters, which for urban warfare is extraordinarily precise. (I don't know what the ratio is now; I suspect it's somewhat lower but not drastically so). Those who focus on the 20% as a reason to discredit the entire operation are saying, in effect, that Israel has no right to protect its citizens, and that all Hamas needs to do to make sure it can attack Israel with impunity is to use the local population as human shields.

I really wish this sort of fight wasn't necessary, but those who proudly advertise their genocidal intentions have made it necessary. And frankly, I take this personally. I don't have the link now - I can dig it out - but Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas who is out of danger in Syria right now, has told the press that every Jew on the planet is now a legitimate target because of Israel's war on Hamas. (So much for any distinction between Anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred/anti-semitism). That's me and my family that are now "legitimate targets," roachboy. My family has withstood one genocide in the last century and I really don't feel like having to deal with another.

loquitor--nice to see you again...

first, you shouldn't confuse the perspectives that i have been developing in the thread with support of hamas.
second, i had gathered more information about this than is in the guardian article--the idf's version, which is what you post above via ap, was floated not long after the story first broke and seems to me an exercise in damage control. while it's obviously impossible for any of us to *know* what happened, i don't think that this attack and the institution of the 3 hour cease fire for humanitarian assistance to reach the civilian population is a coincidence.

i'm in the middle of a dealine-driven thing at the moment, so will for the moment refer you back to the thread above for my view of this overall situation. the narrative is think central does not preclude yours exactly, but it does undercut it in some important ways. i'll check back tonight and see if there is stuff up for discussion... but for the moment, i gotta go.

I'll stipulate that neither of us really knows what happened. Neither can any reporter, by the way. The "fog of war" is well known.

What I want is a clean result. Until now, outsiders kept mixing in to prevent Israel from having a clean victory. That allowed the Hizbullahs of the world to survive to rearm and fight another day. This time it looks like Israel isn't biting, and they really shouldn't.

The "human shields" strategy works only because Westerners let it: That's from Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, here.

I've had to stay quiet on this subject because it shook me a bit. I'm not interested in jumping in, guns blazing.

The bottom line:
We need a two-state solution immediately, before this conflict escalates beyond anyone's control. Oslo was a good start, but that's history now and it's clear that without outside interference Palestine will continue to become more radical and Israel will continue to escalate their level of force. Either Israel will finally wipe out Palestine or there will be a war between Israel and other Arab countries, again. Obviously neither of these can be allowed.

We need to stop arguing about unimportant points like who started the recent attacks or what kind of illegal weapons one side is using or what the other side is chanting, and we need to start talking about peacekeepers. We need to start talking about the end of Israel ignoring the UN. We need to start talking about Palestinians being satisfied with Israel remaining in the Middle East. Most of all, we need to start talking reasonable solutions for the Jerusalem conundrum.

It's time to use our soon-to-be Secretary of State. Send Sec. State Hillary Clinton to Israel and Palestine to explain that the US is going to stop protecting Israel in the UN and is going to stop the flow of arms into Palestine, and that the introduction of foreign troops on both lands are inevitable without a change. After she lays the groundwork, Obama and Hillary can "invite" (demand) Israeli and Palestinian leadership to talks. We need to get a solid cease-fire in place and get them talking asap.

I'm no longer interested in the "if you show an ounce of objectivity towards Israel, you hate Jews" type of response. We're so far beyond that it's not even funny. I'm more than willing to drag anti-Palestinian/Israel-is-perfect simpletons kicking and screaming into reality, and I hope everyone that reads this feels the same way, but it can't end there. We have to be solution-oriented whenever the issue can be brought up. We have to demand that our government not only stop being Israel's lap-dog, but to also be solution-oriented.

Can you imagine a world without Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad or Fatah? Can you imagine the devastating blow to "radical Islam" from both the US leaving Iraq and a real shot at peace between Israel and Palestine? It's too good not to do everything we can.

If I thought a two-state solution could work I'd be in favor of it. I don't think it can because I don't think the Palis want it to. Israel has already traded away or just walked away from lots of land and you see what it got for its efforts. The only solution that can work is for Egypt to take Gaza and Jordan to take the West Bank. Unfortunately, neither of them wants either misbegotten piece of land, and I can't say I blame them.
-----Added 7/1/2009 at 03 : 46 : 48-----
Will, you're a nice person who grew up in a basically nice country. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that other people's thought processes are much like yours and that we all want basically the same things. It just ain't so. What you're saying would make sense if your premise was correct but it's not. Have enough respect for the Palestinians to take them at their word. They elected Hamas as their govt knowing full well what they were getting. They consistently approve of attacks on Israeli civilians (yes, I know, the polls vary depending on how questions are worded, but ask yourself whether you would ever answer yes to a question like that, irrespective of wording). When I say that I wish the two state solution would work but I don't think it can, that's what I mean. There won't be peace when one side wants peace and the other wants victory.

gee. loquitor, what gives you an inside track into what all palestinians are thinking?

among the patterns of thinking that seem to be reaching the end of their road---i hope---is this essentialist take on the israel-palestine matter. you know, there are two sides defined as identical to themselves internally--there are the israelis who all think one way---which is entirely, completely false---and then there are the palestinians who all think in exactly the opposite way---again entirely, completely false. what this does is to enable you to dodge thinking about this as political, dodge thinking about concrete policy choices and their implications.

there is an obvious, concrete, empirical historical and political trajectory that opened the space for hamas to win the elections in gaza, and another that led the israelis and bush people to refuse to recognize that election result---all of it is to blame for the resulting siege--that siege has failed to weaken hamas. what that siege has done is brutalize the civilian population in gaza. you may substitute a Hamas Bogeyman for this reality if you want, but i don't nor do i see the point of it. hamas chose to play a dangerous game with israel at the end of the last cease fire and in that they fucked up--but the reasons for that, too, are political. you know, actual choices made by discrete agents that have consequences in the world. the israelis made their choice based on a political calculation that was only secondarily about the famnous rockets you hear so much about so so much about. kadima faces elections, finds itself weakened politically and sees the end of the bush period of unconditional support for the brutal and self-defeating policies of the right rushing up against them. hamas knew it too, no doubt.

there are no heros here. there is nothing but idiocy amongst the political agents involved--the bush people, the israeli right, hamas.

but nothing---and i mean nothing---justifies what the israelis are not doing to the civilians in gaza, just as nothing---absolutely nothing---justifies the disastrous POLITICAL choice to refuse recognition of the jan 06 elections.

i think this has to be internationalized and quickly.
even the israeli right must see that everything about thier brutalize the palestinian people as a way to keep the political order weak has not worked.

i think everybody sees the endgame of this entire way of thinking except perhaps for the american supporters of the israeli right, who sit far away playing tedious little image subsitution games---o look at this anecdote about how horrible hamas is.

but that's a noin-sequitor. here, no-one is supporting hamas. but israel's approach of brutalizing the palestinians is no different and no better--except that there is an enormous assymetry of means---so to my mind, if anything it is worse. a military superpower pulverizing people who make rockets and throw fucking rocks.

it is obvious that the logic in place leads to nothing but carnage. internationalize the situation and move quickly toward a two-state solution. force israel to dismantle the existing settlements in the west bank. do it now. stop building new ones. create an international status for jerusalem. it's time to end this lunacy.

A two-state solution is the only peaceful solution, and regardless of being bombed, invaded, and otherwise attacked for decades and decades, I know that the average Palestinian wants peace. Sure, many have become radical, wanting the end of Israel, but I honestly do not believe that this constitutes the majority of Palestinians AND I believe that this attitude would decrease substantially during a cease-fire when leadership from each government is talking peace.

We both know that radical elements thrive when conditions are bad. It stands to reason that with improved conditions and "hope" radical elements would lose at least some of their clout. Will that make them more desperate? Sure. We saw that in Lebanon in 2006 with Hezbollah. But that doesn't have to mean that they will succeed in their crusade.
:)
You know they elected Hamas out of desperation, though. It wasn't some calm, rational decision. It was an emotional reaction. The plan with Palestine should be to attempt to improve conditions to lessen the anger, hatred, and resentment. How do you think the Palestinians would respond to news that Israel put returning to the boundaries of 1967 on the table? And how do you think they'd respond to removing all Israeli settlements from Palestinian land? How about taking down the walls?

And let's not pretend for even a fraction of a second that Palestine wants victory and Israel wants peace. That's below a man of your intellect. If Israel wanted peace, they wouldn't use such asymmetric military responses every chance they get (compare t he death tolls, compare the death tolls of civilians). They wouldn't ignore the UN all the time (35 resolutions violated at last count). Please, please do not pretend that Israel is the innocent superpower and the Palestine is the evil terrorist aggressor. The longer people cling to that myth, the longer it will take to solve this.

I don't see how anyone can find it in themselves to see this in any other way. Any support of Israel's actions at this time I find to be reprehensible. And yes, I find the actions of all murderers to be damnable including those who murder Israelis. But any justification of what has been happening in the streets of the Gaza Strip for the last year and most particularly the last 12 days is beyond my comprehension, and is almost as distressing as the siege itself.

Do you guys REALLY believe Israel targeted a school just to kill civilians? Or do you think maybe they ate a few rounds and when they returned fire they hit a nearby school?

If Israel were simply trying to gun down civilians the death toll would be a couple orders of magnitude higher by now.

With regard to the school fiasco, it sounds like they were using a radar counter-battery and lobbed a few rounds at the calculated point of origin of some incoming mortars/rockets. That sort of thing isn't pinpoint accurate, and if someone was lobbing mortars from 'near' a school, they likely returned fire without the artillery crew realizing how close to a school it was.

actually, slims, maybe i should have made this point more forcefully--through the fog of disinformation---i do not think it was intentional, no. when i posted the guardian article this morning, i prefaced it by saying that i thought the israelis had made a mistake--but it's the kind of mistake that's inevitable in this situation. it's just a question of time. the problem is the situation itself.

so no, i don't imagine anyone on the idf do be willing to or intentionally able to shell a school full of refugees.
mistakes happen.

but the fact is that the civilian population of gaza is trapped there. and THAT is a choice that israel made 18 months ago. and THAT is the level at which direct responsibility rebounds back to them.

the individuals of the idf are just as trapped by the idiotic logic of the politics around gaza as anyone else is.

i don't see anywhere in this thread such simplistic views of this situation that'd lead you to think anyone imagines the idf to be composed of sociopaths. they're charged with carrying out the directives of the political leadership of israel. they are responsible--along with hamas---along with the united states--directly--for this. the policies are to blame. period.

roachboy, I don't claim to know what every Palestinian is thinking. All I can go by is the evidence of what the conduct of their polity has been. I also read the public opinion polls, which of course are flawed, but it's what we have.

Which leads me to ask Will how he knows the Palis elected Hamas out of desperation. It's not like radical Islamism is exactly unknown in the muslim world the past decade. It's not a fringe phenomenon. Probably not a majority or plurality one, but not fringe by any means. You are assigning motives by projection or inference, which I do understand, but that comes back to assuming that others think the way you do. They don't. Different cultures, different background, different assumptions. In the end you have to evaluate people based on their own words and actions.

I have been having some real difficulty here understanding how nice, educated, enlightened people can possibly think it's ok for the self-proclaimed genocidal murderers of Hamas to lob rockets at civilians and hide behind their own children as human shields -- but be outraged when Israel takes steps to stop it. Or if you don't think it's ok, you are silent about it when the rockets are being lobbed but vocal when Israel finally says "enough." As I said before, my family has managed to survive one genocide in the last century, and I don't want it to have to survive another one in this century, which is what is going to happen if Hamas isn't stopped.

And the Palis will be better off when Hamas is overthrown too. Or did you just gloss over the murders and leg-breaking that Hamas has been doing over the last couple of weeks to intimidate its own population? I guess that doesn't count, it's just Arabs killing and maiming other Arabs. The best thing that can happen to the Palestinians is to have the back of the Hamas monster broken for good. If, as I hope, the people here on this site are right, and the Palestinians really do want nothing more than peace, that will be their chance.

Jeffrey Goldberg had it exactly right:And so was Golda Meir exactly right:

“We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

"We can forgive you [the Arabs] for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours."

My comments were not meant to indict the Israeli military with targeting civilians, either, but there is no doubt that there are measures being taken by the Israeli government that show an indifference to the security of Palestinian civilians. I find this to be inhumane and as a logical extension, according to my brand of logic, murderous. But I understand that such is the way of warfare, regardless of the colors that are waging it and I don't mean to sound overly critical of the Israeli government in a particular way.

loquitor---if you look at the history of the occupation, hamas is a direct result of earlier israeli efforts to fragment the plo/fatah so they could then not negociate about settlements etc. by claiming that there is no-one to negociate with. the assumption was the same as informed the siege---if you prevent a political organization from governing, the people will turn against it. except that everyone knows they main reason these organizations can't govern is the colonial occupation. hamas represents a rejection of conventional politics because the occupation has been such that conventional politics don't function. what's stupid--and i put this up before---is that such a organizations are typically not prepared to actually win something like an election and would have found itself moderating in all probability had israel and the united states recognized the results of the jan 06 elections. remember hamas is also located in syria and the syrian hamas is FAR more moderate than is it's--o what do you call it exactly--not a branch--it's namesake in gaza. to my mind, that refusal is the policy blunder that set up all of this. you can post all the anecdotal stuff you want to demonstrate that you personally prefer to bracket all this and focus on what nasty fellows hamas is comprised of in gaza--but the fact remains that while i do not doubt that some of it is true even, the problem was that the israelis--again--used the discourse of terrorism to refer to hamas and that boxed in the idiots in the bush administration, who in turn supported unconditionally, as a function of their wholesale abdication of any pretense to being even interested in brokering peace in the region, the genuinely awful idea of refusing to acknowledge the elections and imposing the siege instead.

this siege has *strengthened* hamas' position and has imposed no significant challenge to it organizationally.

the pattern of oppositional groups finding themselves in a quandry if they actually win in conventional political elections (or some other process) is well known and has repeated over and over and over. just as the pattern of failure of the israeli "idea" that you can brutalize the palestinians with the result that they'll turn against their own organizations has been repeated over and over and over.

i don't understand what your motivation is in avoiding the political reality of the situation and instead imposing this simplistic overlay on it. i really don't. it doesn't enable you to do anything except rationalize away what's happening now to the civilian population of gaza. i can't seem to find it within myself to pretend it's not happening. i find doing so to be an analytic and ethical problem.

Palestinian media, mainly. You'd be surprised how much information is coming out of Gaza and the West Bank from independent journalists.
I'm well aware and even posted that there are radical elements within Palestine. My point was simply that the level of radicalism is directly proportional to the suffering of the common Palestinian and that your average Palestinian, if given the choice, would prefer peace.
Aren't we both assigning intent? You seem to be suggesting that based on the evidence the motive is victory, whereas I believe, probably looking at a lot of the same evidence, that their goal is peace but that goal is colored by the fact that there is so much suffering. A fight for independence can turn into a fight to destroy when the insurgents are desperate enough. Remove the desperation, and, well you get the point.
Hamas is a democratically elected violent extremist organization. It's not as simple as "Bad hamas! Bad!" Actually, it's not as simple as "Bad Israel! Bad!" either. I can't think of a time in my lifetime when a rocket attack has occurred that I agreed with. Palestinian militants are absolutely, positively wrong to fire missiles into Israel. No question. The Israeli government is absolutely, positively wrong to not take more effective steps to reduce collateral damage and they're absolutely, positively wrong to respond so asymmetrically. Why is it that when one is equally outraged at both Palestine and Israel, they are anti-Israel and pro-Palestine?
That's not what happened this time. Israel broke the cease fire on actionable intelligence in order to kill high priority targets and Palestine responded. But that's not important. Both sides have "started it" time and again. We should be concentrating on how to prevent the next "who started it" game.
Again, I don't see anyone here with an I (heart) Hamas t-shirt on. I can't wait until Hamas is one. I also can't wait until Israel is no longer dropping 1 ton bombs that level three city blocks in a populated refugee camp just to get one man. Why ignore that half of the equation, Loq? You've certainly been clear about me ignoring Hamas, what about Israel? Surly you see that Israel is not an innocent victim. Please tell me you're not one of these people that thinks Israel can do no harm.

RB: I'm well aware of the history. It's also irrelevant for current purposes. Why thugs act like thugs is not pertinent when the issue is whether someone has the right to stop the thugs from acting like thugs. The reasons for the thuggery might be relevant to what sorts of treatment the thug should get once he is immobilized, but the justice of the immobilization doesn't turn on that. I submit, respectfully, that it's your position that has the ethical issues, if the purpose is to justify thuggery. I understand explaining bad behavior. I understand attempts to understand bad behavior. Those are good things to do; they are responsible things to do. What I don't get is attempts to justify bad behavior, and complain about the efforts to stop it.

Will: I think Israel acts incredibly stupidly at times. Its governmental system is a travesty and many of its politicians are repellent. That has precisely zero to do with whether Israel has the right to shut down self-proclaimed genocidal murderers who hide behind children and seek to exterminate Israel's population. It does. When you ask whether I'm ignoring the half of the equation about whether the bombs Israel is using are too big for the objectives, what's your point? I'm not a military expert and neither are you - neither of us has even a tiny clue what is or is not a weapon big enough to effectively achieve a military goal. You're just assuming that if there is collateral damage that means the bomb was too big, which is self-evidently false. What I do know is that there have been instances in the past where Israel used smaller bombs for the precise purpose of avoiding civilian casualties, and the result was that the bad guys (the leadership of Hamas, as it happens) got away. I can try to dig up a link for that if you want; it's pretty well documented.

This is one of the situations that brings the following to mind:

As stated previously, by myself and others, I don't think it's useful to take the extreme viewpoints of a population and project that onto the entire population. I'm sure at this point the "Death to Israel" mantra is growing stronger and stronger in Palestine. I also feel fairly confident that this current action is doing nothing to decrease that sentiment, and is in fact fomenting it. If the endgame is to control the violence on behalf of the extreme Palestinian elements, I can not see that this will accomplish much. I agree with the sentiments that loquitur posted above from Golda Meir; just as I did when a similar situation obtained in Northern and Southern Ireland. I can't pretend that I know precisely how a peace can be constructed in the Jerusalem/Israel/Palestine area - and I don't mean to armchair quarterback this - but I can't see this as being productive. I can see this as an action carried about for election demographics in Israel, with tacit approval by some in Israel as a result of understandable frustration. I see a huge clusterfuck being carried out by both sides, with a problematic history. It would seem obvious that both sides would need for peaceful minds to gain strength on both sides; I do not current political strategy as empowering those elements in either society. In fact, I would guess they are being marginalized. Particularly within the Palestinian population because at the end of the day, they are without a doubt the weaker of the two groups directly involved here. At present, the best I can see is that they will continue to fight from the underdog position and the best thing Israel could do would be to deflate that position of strength for the extremist factions in Palestine. I don't see that happening here. As far as I can see, the only way the current strategy is coherent on behalf of Israel and the US is if Israel eradicates the Palestinian population, leaving behind any humanitarian or ethical considerations. If that isn't the endgame Israel is aiming for, I don't see how this will bring peace any closer. I hope I am wrong, but I can't see the strategy that ends in anything other than simply rewinding the clocks to a perpetual stasis of conflict, or decimation of the Palestinians. Am I missing something?

you're not missing anything. If Israel "wins" it gets a respite at best. It's not willing to exterminate the population of Gaza.

You think Israel making serious mistakes doesn't have any bearing on a conversation about peace between Israel and Palestine?
You don't need to be a military expert to understand that each attack being a response to a previous attack is an unending cycle. You don't need to be a military expert to know that Israel has one of the most high tech militaries on the planet, mostly due to backing by the US. You certainly don't need to be a military expert to know that killing dozens of innocent people in a refugee camp to kill one man is going to earn you animosity. I've seen a missile hit one building and level just that building doing essentially no damage to any of the buildings around it. That missile was launched by Israel into Palestine. That tells me that they can reduce collateral damage, but choose not to. If the target got away, that's because the intelligence was bad, not because the attack didn't blow up enough buildings.

That particular case was just a recent example, though. The best example in recent years was the invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers with the intent of trading them for Hezbollah prisoners. A symmetrical response might be to hit a Hezbollah training camp, which Israel has been known to do. Israel launched a rescue attempt which failed. What did they do next? They essentially declared war on Lebanon. There were massive air strikes on civilian targets, intentionally crippling the infrastructure of the country, a ground invasion, and a naval blockade. Over two soldiers. In response, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. Fatalities? Over a thousand Lebanese civilians. 44 Israeli civilians that were only fired upon after Israels air strikes and invasion. Hezbollah was wrong to kidnap the soldiers, Israel was wrong to murder over a thousand civilians and send an entire country back into the stone age. The worst part is that Israel galvanized Hezbollah support, which was dwindling before the 2006 war. Now? Hezbollah is gaining positions in government again and Lebanon is becoming more radical, which is opposite to the path they were on 3 years ago.

The insane thing is that Israel were to give up Shebaa Farms, Hezbollah would no longer have a cause.

Do you have any opinions about the settlements in the West Bank? Bulldozing Palestinian homes? How are these acts of self-defense? How are these not essentially goading Palestinians to respond?

I'm wondering is Israel knows that they can never win this battle? What exit strategy do they have? I read somewhere that their plan is to get Fatah back in power. But there will still be plenty of people who will want revenge for killing a family member, even if they are a militant.