Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

- Tilted Politics (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/)

- - gaza redux (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/143765-gaza-redux.html)

Quote:

i imagine that were you confronted with this and were your home at stake in it, you'd not find that a terribly compelling line of thinking.

Yes, nevermind history - lets make an emotional appeal for pity and hope people feel sorry for us. Its whats kept this war going for 60+ years now. I'm sure this exact line of thinking runs through the minds of your champions in hamas as they carry out their twisted intrepatation of the quran. As far as native americans, bummer for them...if you care to have a look, they're still around and living a peaceful existence - running casinos, tending to their communities, attending college, building roman candles. They don't have to struggle to keep warm in the winter anymore, or risk their lives hunting wild animals for food, or die a slow agonizing death from sleeping on a smallpox infested blanket. The defeat of the indians paved the way to a free and comfortable existence for millions of Americans; the defeat of the Indians made possible things like personal computers, the internet and the iPod. Think of it like this: in Cherokee Nation, there would be no tfp. Now how sad is that?

uh...my champions in hamas?

that's funny.

so not only do you indicate that you've not read anything i put up in the thread before you decided to post, and not only did you not read anything i posted since you decided to post, but you also managed to confirm my worst cynicism about your political views on this question.

there's no point in continuing this discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown (Post 2583929)

I didn't say there were no morals or laws; I was referring to tactics and strategy. Call it a Battle of Ideas if you want to stay morally neutral I suppose.

Pardon me, but I truly have no idea what you're talking about here. In what way does 'all is fair in love and war' refer to tactics and strategy? If 'all is fair' then there are no rules or moral inhibitions.

And the second sentence... I have no idea what you mean. What battle of ideas?

Quote:

i've argued this repeatedly in this thread, but i'll say it again: THE error, the structuring political error, that opened the way to this disaster in gaza, was the israeli right's decision to refuse to recognize the jan 06 elections...

Quote:

i've said this repeatedly, but again the main fuck-up i attribute to the bush administration is their participation in and support of the decision regarding the jan 06 elections.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

what's startling is that this logic is not understood as replicating the problem that has resulted in decisions like the 06 refusal to recognize the gaza election results. it is that logic itself which has created this situation, which is shaping it, which will do nothing but create more such situations.

Quote:

the siege should be ended immediately. hamas should be allowed to govern under the assumption that the exercise of power will moderate it---it is self-evident that this other tactic has not and will not work.

Quote:

dc--and i think, as i've said, that hamas would have moderated by necessity had the policy choices been otherwise on the part of israel and the united states...

Quote:

the speculative aspect of my take on this is something i wrote earlier--that power would have moderated hamas. in the present context, however, they've no reason to drop the refusal to recognize israel

Power would have moderated hamas...a remarkable statement. I don't see how the leap of faith can be made, given what hamas as said publicly, done publicly, written publicly...their reason for being is the destruction of Israel, something which I don't agree with. Good day.

What are getting at? Do you suppose roachboy is the only person who posits that viewpoint? It is neither marginal nor remarkable (no offense, rb, you know what I mean) and if you had read any amount of news articles and editorials after the Palestinian elections I've no doubt you would have seen this viewpoint espoused by many people - including many of the regular journalists and politicians who make the rounds of television talk shows, I am certain.
-----Added 15/1/2009 at 10 : 33 : 47-----
The reasoning being, of course, that the responsibility of civic governance and maintaining approval of the Palestinian voters would, by necessity, divert their attention from 'destroying Israel.' But thankfully, such foolishness was averted and Hamas was able to keep their eye on the prize.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2582824)

You're putting fourth this line of logic without supporting it. If all Palestinians are responsible for the actions of Hamas (except for those few that speak out against them), can't that same logic be applied to you? What are you doing to reduce violent crime in your city or town? If nothing, based on your logic, aren't you guilty of violent crime?

Even if rb wasn't a member of the staff, I can't imagine this being appropriate.

If I knew of the crime occuring and walked away without doing anything to stop it, or if I elected a city official even though I knew that he support a specific gang in town, then I am contributing to the crime, even though it might not be in an active way.

The comment regarding joining the Hamas was referring to the fairly strong position of defending them. I didn't state it as a fact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia (Post 2584046)

The reasoning being, of course, that the responsibility of civic governance and maintaining approval of the Palestinian voters would, by necessity, divert their attention from 'destroying Israel.' But thankfully, such foolishness was averted and Hamas was able to keep their eye on the prize.

Haven't we had a look at Hamas' governing abilities these past 3 years? In that time, have they done anything to improve the plight of their people or accomodate a 2 state solution? We are talking about the establishment of Sharia Law in Gaza, the same form of governance as the Taliban in Pakistan. The same form of governance that requires women to walk around in public in burlap sacks from head to toe, so as not to "encourage immoral behavior". The same form of governance who bury women into the ground up to their necks and be stoned to death for alleged adultery or other so-called immodest behavior. The same form of governance who kill their gay or lesbian citizens in soccer stadiums filled with onlookers, as a means of deterrence. This is no secret: a little research will reveal all.

And no I don't suppose roachboy is the only one who feels this way about this particular conflict. People are entitled to their opinions, it doesn't mean I have to agree with those opinions, or they mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2584059)

If I knew of the crime occurring and walked away without doing anything to stop it,

I'm sure your community isn't free of crime, and I doubt you're unaware of particular areas that are especially crime-ridden or dangerous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2584059)

or if I elected a city official even though I knew that he support a specific gang in town, then I am contributing to the crime, even though it might not be in an active way.

So anyone that voted for Bush is responsible for what he did after he was elected and broke most of his campaign promises?

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown (Post 2584075)

Oh come on, the Israelis have made it impossible for anyone to govern in the Gaza Strip. Nor is it a right of you, me or Israel to determine how the Palestinian people should be governed. The Palestinian Territory is a floundering democracy (you know that word?) and Hamas was fairly elected. And the next time elections come around, Hamas will either remain in power or someone else will be given a try. That's how it is supposed to work. I don't understand how your boogeyman show above is supposed to legitimize the usurping of Palestinian democracy.

Funny thing is, Israel's attempt to bully Hamas out of power has likely made them more popular and more likely to win in re-election. This is also a very popular and widely held point of view.

1,133 killed
5,200 injured.
20,000 residential buildings damaged
28,000 people in temporary shelter
there is still erratic water and electricity.

Quote:

Ari Shavit / Gaza op may be squeezing Hamas, but it's destroying Israel's soul
By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Correspondent

On Thursday it happened, conclusively - Operation Cast Lead turned insane. Attacking any densely populated city is a serious act at any time, but when Israel's international legitimacy is being ground to dust, such an attack is nothing but madness.

Shelling a United Nations facility is something not to be done at any time, but doing it on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem is beyond lunacy. The level of pressure the Israel Defense Forces has been exerting on Gaza may be squeezing Hamas, but it is destroying Israel. Destroying its soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama's America.

Israel is not Russia and Gaza is not Chechnya. Israel cannot deal with its enemies the way belligerent superpowers deal with theirs. Wars must be just and proportional.

Without being just, Israel cannot triumph on the battlefield. Without a sound moral foundation any Israeli victory is Pyrrhic.

Twenty-one days ago the campaign against Hamas was balanced and right. About a week ago it started slipping and in the last few days it has crossed every line. True, Hamas is in distress, its leaders are being killed, its prestige is dwindling. But this cannot change the fact that what began as a vital, calculated military operation has become a riotous rampage in a populated area. At any given moment the rampage could end in disaster.

The prime minister has apparently decided to act like some kind of Putin. If he ended his first war with no clear conclusion, he will end his second one with a scorched earth. But one should also ask, where is Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is supposed to "look the truth in the eye" in his election campaign? And where is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who claims to have the courage to change things?

After two weeks of serving their state, they are now in cahoots with licentious military moves.

In a few days the fire will cease and the fog will disperse, revealing the horror. Hamas will be crushed, but pictures of outrageous destruction and killing will flood the world. Beirut's "Waltz with Bashir" will pale by comparison to Gaza's waltz with Olmert.

Then we'll discover that we will not be paying the price of the past week's belligerent escapade only in Obama's America. We will be paying it with the damaged souls of our sons and daughters.

Ari Shavit / Gaza op may be squeezing Hamas, but it's destroying Israel's soul - Haaretz - Israel News

there is a report in haaretz this morning--the lead story--that hamas has indicated it will accept a truce as of tomorrow.

meanwhile, that humanitarian condi rice has taken a powerful bush administration stand and informed israel that blowing up united nations buildings loaded with food and medical supplies is perhaps not the best idea.
tsk tsk, folks.
no more bowing up of united nations buildings now.

some things that appeared obvious from the start of this are now being confirmed:

that a significant factor in the timing of this action was the end of the bush administration.
that the damage done to israel politically is already very considerable and will likely get worse.
egypt has agreed to restrict trafffic through the tunnel systems linking gaza and its territory. that it took until yesterday for this to become official is an indication of the extent to which the action has not really been unwelcome by mubarak's government. another fine bunch of humanitarians.

=============

perhaps in the longer run, this action will be understood as a final, murderous paroxym in the waning days of the aberrant form of neo-fascist conservate politics that have been of a piece with neoliberalism.
-----Added 16/1/2009 at 10 : 34 : 03-----
this outlines the contexts that paved the way to the lunacy in gaza better than i have been able to do here.
it also explains clearly why the 67 divide is fundamental, expanding on what guyy said earlier on the topic, and clarifying what i've been saying all along here as well.

Quote:

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastropheOxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

Avi Shlaim The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009 Article history

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.

Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.

As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.

It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted - a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and shooting".

To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak - terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It di d so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.

This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.

Avi Shlaim: How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe | World news | The Guardian

Egypt has been blowing up the tunnels as they find them for some time, with or without smugglers inside.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2584078)

I'm sure your community isn't free of crime, and I doubt you're unaware of particular areas that are especially crime-ridden or dangerous.

So anyone that voted for Bush is responsible for what he did after he was elected and broke most of his campaign promises?

You did not read EXACTLY what I said. I said that 'If I elected an official even though I KNEW (as in past tense, before he was elected...), and I also said that if I SAW a crime and walked away - not as in knew of crime occuring in a general sense, not in my vicinity or within my realm of actual observation. READ more carefully please.

On a side note - we only have one part time police officer in our community. There are no gangs, have been no recent shootings (except of deer), and I haven't even HEARD of a bar-fight or playground fight. The last crime wasa vandalism of a local church and the perpetrators were arrested. That was 5 months ago. :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2584350)

You did not read exactly what I said. I said that 'If I elected an official even though I knew (as in past tense, before he was elected...), and I also said that if I saw a crime and walked away - not as in knew of crime occurring in a general sense, not in my vicinity or within my realm of actual observation. Read more carefully please.

Yes, I read what you said. Most communities that are crime ridden can be fixed with minor tweaks, but people that are obviously capable of understanding and implementing those tweaks are rarely elected. I was betting on you voting for someone for other reasons. And statistically, I'm probably right.

Still, by your logic, over half of the US is responsible for 9/11. We voted in Reagan and Bush1 (and to a certain extent Clinton), and it was their policies which we were well aware of at the time that spurred the remnants of the Mujahideen to come back to bite us. We voted in men that we knew were going to exploit the Middle East. And no one really did much to stop our foreign policy in the ME.

Quote:

Originally Posted by timalkin (Post 2584474)

And yet the bastards still keep firing rockets at Israel. How many more people need to die before Hamas gets the point?

My apologies, but I have to say this is a weak attempt at rationalizing this.

Look at how many Palestinians the Israelis have killed, and yet they still keep firing rockets. How many more do they have to kill before they get the point?

See?

So now that Israel has said it is finished it objective, how soon does it take for war crimes proceedings to begin against Israel? Maybe they can symbolically be held at Nuremberg.

Actually nothing will happen to Israel. They do as they want and get away with it. I just can't get the adage out of my head though that what goes around comes around. Cyclical I guess.

Interesting side note; In Canada a soldier is being charged with murder because he allegedly shot and killed a wounded, unarmed Taliban in Afganistan, who just happened to be shooting at the soldier previous to his death. This particular soldier was in charge of training the Afgan security forces. If he were in the IDF he would probably be honoured by receiving the keys to Jerusalem or something

Quote:

Originally Posted by timalkin (Post 2584474)

How many more people need to die before Hamas gets the point?

In regards to Israel, the number is: infinite, apparently.

In regards to Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt where they tried pulling this same bullshit: not as many as killed them first, then sent them on their merry way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by percy (Post 2584599)

Actually nothing will happen to Israel. They do as they want and get away with it.

I don't think that's entirely true. Europe was once solidly behind Israel, but their image in Europe has been on the decline since 1967. In the US, the cost in human suffering of Israeli military action has never been an issue -- until now. (at least not in the mainstream press). That gap in consciousness and the constant equation of Palestinians = terrorist has allowed Israel to maintain its image in the US. Now that Americans see bloodied children and weeping grandparents, support for Israel will probably ebb.

1230 dead: 410 children; 108 women; 118 elderly people.
more than 5320 wounded.

unbelievable.

the israelis shelled another school full of refugees:

Quote:

Israel shells UN school in Gaza
The UN has called for a war crimes investigation over the shelling of its school [AFP]

Two Palestinian boys have been killed after Israeli tank shells hit a UN-run school in Gaza - hours before Israel's security cabinet is expected to vote on a proposal for a unilateral ceasefire.

The boys, aged five and seven, died and 25 other Gazans were wounded as they sought to shelter in the school run by the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

The school is the third UN shelter to be hit by Israeli fire in its 22-day war on the territory.

The attack came as heavy artillery and aerial bombardment of what Israel described as "Hamas targets" continued on Saturday.

Christopher Gunness, an Unrwa spokesman, said several rounds hit the UN school at about 6:45am. The third floor of the school took a direct hit after a short pause, killing the pair and injuring another 14 people.

Witnesses said four more people were killed when other shells struck nearby as people tried to escape.

Investigation demanded

About 1,600 civilians had sought refuge from the fighting inside the building, Gunness said.

"The Israeli army knew exactly our GPS co-ordinates and they would have known that hundreds of people had taken shelter there," he said.

"When you have a direct hit into the third floor of a UN school, there has to be an investigation to see if a war crime has been committed."

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said: "I condemn in the strongest terms this outrageous attack, which is the third time it's happened.

"Top israeli leaders have apologised and assured me two days ago that UN premises would be fully respected.

"I strongly demand a thorough investigation and punishment for those responsible," he told reporters in Beirut.

John Ging, the director of Unrwa, told Al Jazeera: "People today are alleging war crimes here in Gaza. Let's have it properly accounted for. Let's have the legal process which will establish exactly what has happened here.

'A failure for humanity'

"It is another failure for our humanity and it is exposing the impotence of our [the international community's] inability to protect civilians in conflict."

In Jabaliya refugee camp, Dr Ezzedine Abu al-Aish, a Palestinian doctor from al-Shifa hospital, lost his three daughters and one niece during an Israeli air attack as he was being interviewed on an Israeli television channel.

At least 10 people were also killed late on Friday after a tank shell slammed into their home during a funeral wake in Gaza City.

More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive, including more than 400 children, according to UN and Palestinian medical sources.

At least 13 Israelis have also died in the same period, three of them civilians.

About five rockets were reported to have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Saturday.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israel shells UN school in Gaza

meanwhile, following on some arrangement between israel and the bush administration to provide "security" on the egyptian border with gaza--which apparently egypt is not part of---israel has announced a cease fire.

madness.

Tidbit o' the day: Rahm Emanuel's (Obama's Chief of Staff) father was a member of the Irgun. Came as news to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2584382)

Yes, I read what you said.

No you didn't, or at least you didn't comprehend it for some reason. Let me rephrase is so you can understand what I've been trying to say...

IF we had elected Bush KNOWING that he would choose or us to attack in the middle east and if we had known about his interest in the middle east (You cannot say that every KNEW about that because I know many people who didn't know of it to until after the fact.) then those people who KNEW and still elected him or those who knew did not make an effort to make the fact known to everyone else and just sat on their ass - THEN those people would be responsible for the initial attacks in the middle east.

The Hamas has been outspoken against Israel and it has been known. The people who KNEW that the Hamas intended to do Israel harm, Those people are just as guilty for electing the Hamas as the Hamas is guilty for instigating the issues between the two nations.

The key here is IF YOU KNOW and THEN you elect - you are as guilty as the elected. Do you get it yet?????????

what's there to get about your post, raeanna?

after years of israeli policy geared around keeping the political organization amongst the palestinian population as shattered as possible, it's hardly surprising that something the israelis would like even less would come into play.

the assumption was that if the plo/fatah was prevented from governing, the population would turn against it. which supposes that the palestinian population is too stupid to figure out that the reason fatah could not govern followed from israeli policy. they were wrong.

so the reason there is hamas in something like power in gaza follows directly from israeli policy.
and that the population would be inclined to support an organization that is *more* radical in terms of rhetoric than fatah/plo *because* of that policy of occupation is not surprising.

that the israelis imposed a siege on gaza using the exact logic that failed in the first place the baffling. that the bush administration supported that action is not surprising, however--they were chumped by the discourse of "terrorism" in this, as they have been repeatedly--as they chumped a significant segment of the american population in the run-up to the war in iraq.

so you don't have the history straight, even in its broadest outlines.
so your post works off a false premise, based on not knowing how to actually account for the situation.
so there's not a whole lot to "get" about it.

Palestinian legislative election, 2006 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's a nice little page that outlines the statistics of the 2006 Palestinian elections. It appears that out of 990,00+ votes cast, 440,000+ voted for Hamas.

So what about those 555,000 people that didn't vote for Hamas on election day? What about the 25% of Palestinians who did not vote at all?

We're not talking about personal angst that a person might feel for voting an asshole like George Bush. We're talking about 1200+ people who are dead. Almost a third of them being children and I highly doubt anyone in the Gaza Strip was asked where their sympathies lie while their world was being blown to hell and back.

this is self-explanatory.
read on...

Quote:

Israel’s Lies
Henry Siegman

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’

The truce, which began in June last year and was due for renewal in December, required both parties to refrain from violent action against the other. Hamas had to cease its rocket assaults and prevent the firing of rockets by other groups such as Islamic Jihad (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness), and Israel had to put a stop to its targeted assassinations and military incursions. This understanding was seriously violated on 4 November, when the IDF entered Gaza and killed six members of Hamas. Hamas responded by launching Qassam rockets and Grad missiles. Even so, it offered to extend the truce, but only on condition that Israel ended its blockade. Israel refused. It could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try. It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that Hamas declared an end to suicide bombings and rocket fire when it decided to join the Palestinian political process, and largely stuck to it for more than a year. Bush publicly welcomed that decision, citing it as an example of the success of his campaign for democracy in the Middle East. (He had no other success to point to.) When Hamas unexpectedly won the election, Israel and the US immediately sought to delegitimise the result and embraced Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who until then had been dismissed by Israel’s leaders as a ‘plucked chicken’. They armed and trained his security forces to overthrow Hamas; and when Hamas – brutally, to be sure – pre-empted this violent attempt to reverse the result of the first honest democratic election in the modern Middle East, Israel and the Bush administration imposed the blockade.

Israel seeks to counter these indisputable facts by maintaining that in withdrawing Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005, Ariel Sharon gave Hamas the chance to set out on the path to statehood, a chance it refused to take; instead, it transformed Gaza into a launching-pad for firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population. The charge is a lie twice over. First, for all its failings, Hamas brought to Gaza a level of law and order unknown in recent years, and did so without the large sums of money that donors showered on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. It eliminated the violent gangs and warlords who terrorised Gaza under Fatah’s rule. Non-observant Muslims, Christians and other minorities have more religious freedom under Hamas rule than they would have in Saudi Arabia, for example, or under many other Arab regimes.

The greater lie is that Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was intended as a prelude to further withdrawals and a peace agreement. This is how Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass, who was also his chief negotiator with the Americans, described the withdrawal from Gaza, in an interview with Ha’aretz in August 2004:

What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements [i.e. the major settlement blocks on the West Bank] would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns . . . The significance [of the agreement with the US] is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with [President Bush’s] authority and permission . . . and the ratification of both houses of Congress.

Do the Israelis and Americans think that Palestinians don’t read the Israeli papers, or that when they saw what was happening on the West Bank they couldn’t figure out for themselves what Sharon was up to?

Israel’s government would like the world to believe that Hamas launched its Qassam rockets because that is what terrorists do and Hamas is a generic terrorist group. In fact, Hamas is no more a ‘terror organisation’ (Israel’s preferred term) than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons. According to Benny Morris, it was the Irgun that first targeted civilians. He writes in Righteous Victims that an upsurge of Arab terrorism in 1937 ‘triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses, introducing a new dimension to the conflict’. He also documents atrocities committed during the 1948-49 war by the IDF, admitting in a 2004 interview, published in Ha’aretz, that material released by Israel’s Ministry of Defence showed that ‘there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought . . . In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them, and destroy the villages themselves.’ In a number of Palestinian villages and towns the IDF carried out organised executions of civilians. Asked by Ha’aretz whether he condemned the ethnic cleansing, Morris replied that he did not:

A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.

It is too easy to describe Hamas simply as a ‘terror organisation’. It is a religious nationalist movement that resorts to terrorism, as the Zionist movement did during its struggle for statehood, in the mistaken belief that it is the only way to end an oppressive occupation and bring about a Palestinian state. While Hamas’s ideology formally calls for that state to be established on the ruins of the state of Israel, this doesn’t determine Hamas’s actual policies today any more than the same declaration in the PLO charter determined Fatah’s actions.

These are not the conclusions of an apologist for Hamas but the opinions of the former head of Mossad and Sharon’s national security adviser, Ephraim Halevy. The Hamas leadership has undergone a change ‘right under our very noses’, Halevy wrote recently in Yedioth Ahronoth, by recognising that ‘its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.’ It is now ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state within the temporary borders of 1967. Halevy noted that while Hamas has not said how ‘temporary’ those borders would be, ‘they know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their co-operation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: they will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.’ In an earlier article, Halevy also pointed out the absurdity of linking Hamas to al-Qaida.

In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any understandings or agreements with Israel. [The Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled] Mashal’s declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida’s approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps a historic one, to leverage it for the better.

Why then are Israel’s leaders so determined to destroy Hamas? Because they believe that its leadership, unlike that of Fatah, cannot be intimidated into accepting a peace accord that establishes a Palestinian ‘state’ made up of territorially disconnected entities over which Israel would be able to retain permanent control. Control of the West Bank has been the unwavering objective of Israel’s military, intelligence and political elites since the end of the Six-Day War.[*] They believe that Hamas would not permit such a cantonisation of Palestinian territory, no matter how long the occupation continues. They may be wrong about Abbas and his superannuated cohorts, but they are entirely right about Hamas.

Middle East observers wonder whether Israel’s assault on Hamas will succeed in destroying the organisation or expelling it from Gaza. This is an irrelevant question. If Israel plans to keep control over any future Palestinian entity, it will never find a Palestinian partner, and even if it succeeds in dismantling Hamas, the movement will in time be replaced by a far more radical Palestinian opposition.

If Barack Obama picks a seasoned Middle East envoy who clings to the idea that outsiders should not present their own proposals for a just and sustainable peace agreement, much less press the parties to accept it, but instead leave them to work out their differences, he will assure a future Palestinian resistance far more extreme than Hamas – one likely to be allied with al-Qaida. For the US, Europe and most of the rest of the world, this would be the worst possible outcome. Perhaps some Israelis, including the settler leadership, believe it would serve their purposes, since it would provide the government with a compelling pretext to hold on to all of Palestine. But this is a delusion that would bring about the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Anthony Cordesman, one of the most reliable military analysts of the Middle East, and a friend of Israel, argued in a 9 January report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the tactical advantages of continuing the operation in Gaza were outweighed by the strategic cost – and were probably no greater than any gains Israel may have made early in the war in selective strikes on key Hamas facilities. ‘Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal, or at least one it can credibly achieve?’ he asks. ‘Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process? To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes.’ Cordesman concludes that ‘any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends.’

15 January

Note
[*] See my piece in the LRB, 16 August 2007.

Henry Siegman, director of the US Middle East Project in New York, is a visiting research professor at SOAS, University of London. He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America.

LRB · Henry Siegman: Israel’s Lies

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2580366)

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

In the thick of the discussion we post things that were truth at the time but we vary rarely come back and post things when the truth changes.

Account of Israeli attack doesn't hold up to scrutiny
globeandmail.com: Account of Israeli attack doesn't hold up to scrutiny
"While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Martin - Globe and Mail

PATRICK MARTIN

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 29, 2009 at 4:00 AM EST

JABALYA, GAZA STRIP — Most people remember the headlines: Massacre Of Innocents As UN School Is Shelled; Israeli Strike Kills Dozens At UN School.

They heralded the tragic news of Jan. 6, when mortar shells fired by advancing Israeli forces killed 43 civilians in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The victims, it was reported, had taken refuge inside the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, a facility run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The news shocked the world and was compared to the 1996 Israeli attack on a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in which more than 100 people seeking refuge were killed. It was certain to hasten the end of Israel's attack on Gaza, and would undoubtedly lead the list of allegations of war crimes committed by Israel.

There was just one problem: The story, as etched in people's minds, was not quite accurate.

Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.

Stories of one or more shells landing inside the schoolyard were inaccurate.

While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers.

The teacher who was in the compound at the time of the shelling says he heard three loud blasts, one after the other, then a lot of screaming. "I ran in the direction of the screaming [inside the compound]," he said. "I could see some of the people had been injured, cut. I picked up one girl who was bleeding by her eye, and ran out on the street to get help."But when I got outside, it was crazy hell. There were bodies everywhere, people dead, injured, flesh everywhere."

The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: "Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead."

"Three of my students were killed," he said. "But they were all outside."

Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street, just out of range of the shrapnel, when the three shells hit. He showed a reporter where they landed: one to the right of his shop, one to the left, and one right in front.

"There were only three," he said. "They were all out here on the road."

News of the tragedy travelled fast, with aid workers and medical staff quoted as saying the incident happened at the school, the UNRWA facility where people had sought refuge.

Soon it was presented that people in the school compound had been killed. Before long, there was worldwide outrage.

Sensing a public-relations nightmare, Israeli spokespeople quickly asserted that their forces had only returned fire from gunmen inside the school. (They even named two militants.) It was a statement from which they would later retreat, saying there were gunmen in the vicinity of the school.

No witnesses said they saw any gunmen. (If people had seen anyone firing a mortar from the middle of the street outside the school, they likely would not have continued to mill around.)

John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza, acknowledged in an interview this week that all three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school and that "no one was killed in the school."

"I told the Israelis that none of the shells landed in the school," he said.

Why would he do that?

"Because they had told everyone they had returned fire from gunmen in the school. That wasn't true."

Mr. Ging blames the Israelis for the confusion over where the victims were killed. "They even came out with a video that purported to show gunmen in the schoolyard. But we had seen it before," he said, "in 2007."

The Israelis are the ones, he said, who got everyone thinking the deaths occurred inside the school.

"Look at my statements," he said. "I never said anyone was killed in the school. Our officials never made any such allegation."

Speaking from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as the bodies were being brought in that night, an emotional Mr. Ging did say: "Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. ... There's nowhere safe in Gaza."

And in its daily bulletin, the World Health Organization reported: "On 6 January, 42 people were killed following an attack on a UNRWA school ..."

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs got the location right, for a short while. Its daily bulletin cited "early reports" that "three artillery shells landed outside the UNRWA Jabalia Prep. C Girls School ..." However, its more comprehensive weekly report, published three days later, stated that "Israeli shelling directly hit two UNRWA schools ..." including the one at issue.

Such official wording helps explain the widespread news reports of the deaths in the school, but not why the UN agencies allowed the misconception to linger.

"I know no one was killed in the school," Mr. Ging said. "But 41 innocent people were killed in the street outside the school. Many of those people had taken refuge in the school and wandered out onto the street.

"The state of Israel still has to answer for that. What did they know and what care did they take?"

Another update:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru (Post 2582755)

It's interesting how the parties that filed for the ban are on the far right, while the parties that were banned are progressive (ostensibly...I'm open to being enlightened otherwise).

Don't disqualify the Arab lists - Haaretz - Israel News

Israel Supreme Court overturns election ban on two Arab parties
Israel Supreme Court overturns election ban on two Arab parties
"The court unanimously voted Wednesday to overturn the decision to ban the UAL, while eight of the nine judges supported allowing Balad to run."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monsters and Critics

Jerusalem - Israel's Supreme Court overturned Wednesday a decision by the country's Central Elections Committee (CEC) banning two Arab-Israeli parties from competing in next months Knesset elections.

The nine-judge panel accepted the appeal filed on behalf of the United Arab List (UAL) and by the Balad party against the CEC ruling earlier this month, which had claimed that since the two parties did not recognise Israel as a Jewish homeland, they could not run in the February 10 elections.

The court unanimously voted Wednesday to overturn the decision to ban the UAL, while eight of the nine judges supported allowing Balad to run.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who was asked to prepare a brief on the matter for the court, said Monday that he saw no grounds to prevent the two parties from taking part in the elections and that the decision to disqualify them had been based on 'flimsy evidence.'

The requests the CEC to disqualify the UAL and Balad had been submitted by two ultra-nationalist Jewish parties, Yisrael Beiteinu and the National Union-National Religious Party.

The appeal against the decision was filed by the Adalah Arab- Israeli rights group, which argued that the decision to prevent them from taking part in the election was a violation of their rights.

Prior to previous elections, the Supreme Court has also overturned decisions to disqualify Balad based on similar claims to the ones lodged this year.

the fog of information war.

however:

Quote:

"I know no one was killed in the school," Mr. Ging said. "But 41 innocent people were killed in the street outside the school. Many of those people had taken refuge in the school and wandered out onto the street.

i'm not entirely sure how much this changes about the story, really.

i don't doubt that there were inaccuracies of information at any number of points over the course of the 3 weeks this was happening. and there's been considerable scurrying about after the fact, particularly within israel, in order to be proactive in the face of an expected wave of criminal charges for war crimes. strangely, all this seems to have dropped off the radar screen.

the most recent blip happened at davos. i watched the sequence on c-span. it was curious--but in the end, to my surprise, i agreed more with the turkish prime minister than anyone else.

but the facts remain: there was nowhere for the civilian population to run in gaza.
this followed from the siege that was put into place in january 2006.
the humanitarian situation throughout was catastrophic.
it remains not great.
all the main criticisms of israeli actions remain.
but now we are forgetting, like we always do. anything and everything we forget.

the settlements in the west bank continue to be built.
the routine brutalization of the palestinian population there continues.
so from time to time do rocket attacks on israel.
so do the outsized retaliations.

most recent reports put likud ahead of kadima in the coming elections. that is a disaster.

but at the same time, i think israel lost far far more than it gained---but that changes nothing about the appalling action it undertook in gaza--and that israel will not directly answer for it, here or anywhere else. so it happens, once again, that we are reminded that the primary cause of war crimes is not what a military apparatus does, but whether it wins or looses a war. war crimes happen when a country looses. that's the defining characteristic.

Gaza war crimes investigation: Guardian uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza | World news | guardian.co.uk

i link to this article so you can see the film that appears at the start of it as well.

this won't go away.

and there are rumblings that the far right in israel is arguing for another incursion into gaza already....

It went away eventually after the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. I'm concerned that this will eventually fall by the wayside just like all of the previous war crimes.

When was the last time you heard someone talking about the illegal wall? For me, it's been nearly 2 years in the MSM. It simply was replaced in the news cycle and people moved on to being frustrated with something else.

It's already mostly forgotten. I clicked on this thread to read what I hadn't yet read, and it brought everything back. I think most Americans will continue to blindly support Israel no matter what.