Israel in the Gaza Strip

It's difficult to know what to make of anything especially if you choose to sit on the fence. Watching children die from adult human activity is gut-wrenching and always will be.

But so is discovering what Palestinians teach their children in schools:

http://www.pmw.org.il/getresults/political/index.html#i211849

Even if your response is that this is in itself a propaganda website, these are the next US Secretary of State - Hillary Clinton's words. Is she so inextricably bound up with the Jewish lobby?

Isn't it more likely that, yes, these are the type of textbooks in Palestinian schools?

YouTube has plenty of vids of vile racist kid show muck that teaches Palestinian kiddies to hate (even "eat") Jews. What is often worse is reading the comments of people who have viewed this stuff:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8w7_P8wZ0

Isn't this a form of serious child abuse as equally and morally disturbing as kids being blown to bits in wartime?

Actually, please tell me it's all Jewish propaganda and I'll sleep better. But spare me the line that this is the inevitable reaction to decades of oppression. It is the reaction; OK, I'll buy that, but inevitable? I don't think so.

So to respond to your question, roland, it's what they learn in school that is deeply disturbing to me. Is that why they are sent there in time of war?

Independent.ie
Israel's problems are due to its enlightened founders

The death toll from Gaza is of course, shocking, dreadful, unspeakable; though it does not compare with the death toll amongst Israelis if Hamas had its way.

Recurring in the current debate are allegations about the terrible deeds Israelis did in 1948. But that is history. That some of these wrongs done to Arabs might have been prompted by local Arab support for the invading Arab armies is irrelevant. Historical injustices were certainly done in the formation of the Israeli state.

However, far greater wrongs were inflicted in 1945 on the Poles of Eastern Poland, and on the Germans of East Prussia, the Baltic and of the Sudetenland. We can go back a further quarter of a century, and look at the fate of the Christians of Anatolia, and the Turks of Crete and Thessalonika, or even, at a far lesser level, of the Catholics of West and North Belfast and the Protestants of Cork, who in different degrees were dispossessed, murdered, and exiled.

What was the difference between all those expulsions, and the expulsion -- let us settle for the word -- of some Arabs from what was to become Israel? It is that the exiles found homes in the states to which they had fled, and there they were allowed to work, and become full and active citizens. Turkey absorbed the Greek Turks, Greece absorbed Anatolia's Orthodox Christians, impoverished post-war Germany absorbed the millions of Balts, Sudetens and Prussians, the Free State absorbed the Northerners, (even appointing one of them, Dan McKenna, the head of the Army).

But not Israel's neighbours. No, they herded their fellow Arabs (not then known as Palestinians) from the former Ottoman province of Palestine into displaced persons camps, and kept them there. Not for months, but for decades, causing all kinds of political, cultural and moral claustrophobia. It was in these camps that the modern notion of "Palestinian" was born. And though we hear a lot about the walls between Israel and Gaza and Israel and the West Bank, we don't hear much about the walls between those densely populated Arab territories, and the neighbouring countries of Jordan and Egypt. Arab brotherhood becomes mysteriously indistinct whenever it requires solid gestures, rather than words.

The Israelis were told by the UN to leave Gaza. They left Gaza. Their reward has been to have had thousands of missiles fired into half a dozen of their cities from the territory they abandoned. And how many demonstrations have the grisly cast of showbiz anti-Israelis mounted to protest at these deliberate acts of indiscriminate terrorism? Let me ask you another question, with a comparable answer: How many Jews are there in Hamas?

Dear old Hamas, whose foot-soldiers are fed and supplied by EU and UN humanitarian aid, and armed from across the border with Egypt (which, naturally, is otherwise sealed to prevent Palestinians from leaving Gaza). It is admirably honest on one issue: it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and to the extermination of the Jewish infidels in Palestine. So, the bombardment of Israel by Hamas terrorists is not a temporary nuisance, but the first step of a genocidal strategy.

And whereas the overwhelming majority of Israelis would regret the terrible slaughter of, say, the five Balousha sisters by an Israeli bomb, Hamas would rejoice in a comparable massacre of five Jewish girls. Moreover, I suspect I will win few friends by pointing out that the Balousha family had initially left their home, right next to a Hamas-controlled mosque, after the Israelis announced (as they often do, to minimise civilian casualties) that all such mosques would be targets for their bombers. But the girls' father, Ibrahim, then decided to take his chances back at home, where the sisters were killed by falling rubble when the mosque was bombed, just as the Israelis said it would be.

Such pathological and tragic fatalism in the face of an almost certain outcome defies all rational analysis. However, it does make stunning propaganda for the global anti-Israeli lobby. Moreover, all the arguments about the "proportionality" of the Israeli response are meaningless. Hamas can do what it likes, without serious rebuke or protests from the western intelligentsia and assorted celebrities: it is only when the Israelis reply to the insufferable provocation of Hamas-missile attacks that we suddenly hear the endless recitation of the P-word.

But 'proportionality' is a meaningless and largely theological concept: what is a proportionate reply to 8,000 missiles being fired into the defenceless civilian populations of so many Israeli cities?

Israel's current problems exist because its founders largely behaved like enlightened Jews, rather than as Communists and Nazis, or even as earlier generations of Americans or Australians had done. The Israelis didn't expel all the defeated peoples from their lands, but instead, let many stay. In other words, they didn't seek the kind of outcome which the Romans inflicted upon Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War. And that's the real point about that much-maligned thing, a Carthaginian Peace. For one tended not to hear very much from the Carthaginian Liberation Organisation thereafter.

gordon2007 said:

Sure, it's easy to say that because you cannot change history. You cannot possible be 100% sure of that.

You're passionate on this subject chops, and that is a good thing. But there is a fine line between being passionate and blindly obtuse.

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Would have thought being passionate about something would make me more inclined to be too acute than anything.

I should have qualified why this single event was such a crushing blow to the peace effort. I am not naive enough to think that this was the only event leading to breakdowns in peace, but it was perhaps the most significant.

At that moment in time, moderates were in control of the Israeli parliament, with defined links to external human rights concerns.

At the same time, Arafat had more control over the military groups within Palestine. Probably more so than any time since.

After Rabin's death, the lack of progress meant that many of the partially under control militant groups could not be sated, with the prospect of a lack of trade offs for a significant amount of time. Netanyahu's election, the result of none other than Hamas' actions , put in place a process where Israeli parliament is not likely to be controlled by any other than the far right for the foreseeable future.

The rapid expansion in settlers and settlements, under Netanyahu and Sharon, and the structure of Israeli parliament, means that the far right look to have control for quite some time to come. And that now is a very dangerous double sided sword. Settlements and expansion are the biggest issues with Israel, yet they are needed for a party to be elected.

Couple that with the radicalisation of the muslim world earlier this decade, the complete breakdown of any authority that the militant groups will respect, and you now have two sides that wont accept peace. Palestinian areas strike me as anarchic, which means there is virtually no authority to deal with. Maybe that's what Israel intended... who knows?

But it's almost like having Fred Nile and Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, and trying to get them to agree to a charter on the way society should operate. It's never going to happen.

On both sides of the fence, it is fundamentalist religion that is the problem. And why I'm attributing that single event as the most crucial. As at the time, both sides were largely controlled by an ideology not completely overrun by fundamentalism.

I mean, this is a pretty rudimentary explanation of my thoughts, but as you can see, the conditions at the time were the most ideal for a more acceptable outcome. They certainly don't look like appearing any time soon.

Cheers.

roland said:

Rather than get in amongst the debate on who's right or wrong, I'm having trouble understanding something.

If you were a parent, and your city was under attack with bombs, missiles, tank mortars, armed soldiers shooting at stuff - would you be sending your kids out to school?

Knowing that Hamas are drawing fire onto sensitive targets with firing missiles from school grounds etc, wouldn't you be doing something a little different in protecting your loved ones?

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slim pickins said:

Amazing point. Just goes to show the blatant disregard for human life by the Palestinians. You have to blame their leaders for that.

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I surely hope you guys are only pretending to be that stupid. Because if you aren't, I wonder how you are able to cognise day to day goings.

In a tragedy, which has provoked international outrage, Israeli strikes overnight killed Palestinian civilians sheltered in a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The school and other facilities run by the Agency provide education, healthcare and emergency aid to close to 500,000 refugees in Gaza.

A short while ago I spoke with Christopher Gunness from the UN Relief and Works Agency in Jerusalem.

Christopher Gunness, what have your people told you about this strike on your agency's school in the refugee camp.

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS, UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY: Well, the latest news is that after an initial investigation, we at UNWRA are 99.0 per cent certain that there were no militants at that school when this instance took place.

I can also say that the death toll overnight- overnight here has risen from 40.

Yesterday 55 people had been injured - 15 of them critically - sadly 10 of those have now died so the death toll has risen to 40.

SCOTT BEVAN: What was happening at the facility at the time of the strike and, if you can recount for us, the immediate aftermath?

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Well, there were over 1,000 people who'd taken refuge from the fighting, mainly in the north, who'd taken refuge in the school.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2461130.htm

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How can you be 99% certain no militants at the school? That is an irrational statement if there ever was one. He obviously doesn't really know.

lucas said:

How can you be 99% certain no militants at the school? That is an irrational statement if there ever was one. He obviously doesn't really know.

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Because he would most likely have workers on the ground there...

From the same interview:

There are large explosions, for whatever reasons, in which 40 people are now killed. And that is why we, in UNWRA, are calling for an impartial investigation as part of the process long-term of ensuring the neutrality of United Nations installations.

We have to investigate. And of course we at UNWRA are not being defensive about this. We want to know ourselves if there were militants within our facilities.

If there were, let's investigate, let's find out why this - if it is true - went wrong. Though as I say, we're 99.9 per cent certain it didn't. But, you know, in that 0.1 per cent of probability of whatever, if something did- if something like that did happen we want to find out to stop it happening again.

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Now come on. Simple reasoning. You either know something or you don't. If you are very sure of something, very very very sure of something (it's now 99.9% and rising!) then you admit that you don't really know what you know...if you allow that 0.1% to dissuade you from believing wholeheartedly.

This sort of comment is unhelpful when trying to ascertain the truth of the matter.

lucas said:

Now come on. Simple reasoning. You either know something or you don't. If you are very sure of something, very very very sure of something (it's now 99.9% and rising!) then you admit that you don't really know what you know...if you allow that 0.1% to dissuade you from believing wholeheartedly.

This sort of comment is unhelpful when trying to ascertain the truth of the matter.

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Rubbish. All it would mean was that they have had contact with some of the workers there, and not all, or all there, but not from their workers nearby.

I know if I was a civilian there, if I knew militants were near me and firing, I would **** off faster than you could say, "Death to Israel". I'm sure the people taking refuge there, fleeing from exactly that, would be smarter than that.

It means he will be highly embarrassed if it is found to be the case and he's covering his ****. It's just a moronic statement. Mind you, he's had a worse day than most of us.

lucas said:

It means he will be highly embarrassed if it is found to be the case and he's covering his ****. It's just a moronic statement. Mind you, he's had a worse day than most of us.

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I don't see why he would feel the need to do that.

In the same interview he was absolutely scathing of Hamas.

Good night!

The tactic is a “win-win” for Hamas

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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129267
Hamas uses the populace as human shields according to the article.

Interesting that the Israelis know everything that goes on in Gaza....definitive info on human shields ,arms cachments...but were never able to stop militants firing rockets.
Maybe their information falls well short of their propaganda?
If we want any info on human shields it would have to come from an independent source eg the UN...certainly not from Israelis.
They have,and do,use any tactic to justify their slaughter.

robert toms said:

Interesting that the Israelis know everything that goes on in Gaza....definitive info on human shields ,arms cachments...but were never able to stop militants firing rockets.
Maybe their information falls well short of their propaganda?
If we want any info on human shields it would have to come from an independent source eg the UN...certainly not from Israelis.
They have,and do,use any tactic to justify their slaughter.

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They don't know everything, but I'm sure they know a lot.

MOSSAD and Aman are possibly better equipped, trained and informed than MI6 and the CIA put together.

You probably haven't heard about the multitude of attempted attacks on Israel that were foiled because of intelligence secracy.

However, they will make mistakes.

The UN providing intelligence of where human shields, weapons cahes, and rockets are? LMAO.

Neither side is innocent here, but the Israelis seem to be selecting military targets based on some sort of intelligence. Hamas seem to be firing rockets TOTALLY indiscimanetly into civilian targets.

That is where the difference lies in this conflict.

One is a military organisation conducting war according to the Geneva Conventions. (From what I've seen)

One is a declared terrorist organisation.

Worth a read -
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/...isoned-homeland/2009/01/07/1231004100045.html

An interesting read.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford 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

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

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With regards to the UN school shelling/bombing;

I understand that the UN has people on the ground and for the most part displays neutrality, so their version of events has to be respected and thought of as truthful. This does not mean the version given by the UN observers is whole in nature, or completely correct.

What I don't understand is the logic behind the IDF's decision to shell the compound if there was no provocation from the area.

Hamas is unable to inflict military defeat upon Israel, I think everyone can agree on that. Hamas will have victories, but the superior military will win the day. So I ask myself, what kind of victory can Hamas achieve? A victory based on perception of course. Try and paint the IDF and Israel as a whole as an evil monster that does nothing but bombard innocent civilians, and you get international condemnation and a whirlwind of hatred towards Israel. A very good strategy. How would one go about painting Israel as such a monster? Do things like fire upon advancing Israeli troops from compounds containing civilians/children, and fight the war from densly civilian populated areas. Israeli troops will fire back, and thus civilian casualties arise. This strategy makes complete and logical sense to me. Hamas can only win this round of incursion through outside condemnation of Israeli actions, and through further build up of hatred towards Israel within the immediate region. (Much the same as their method of continual provocation through the firing of thousands of mortars and missiles into Israeli cities and towns)

What does not make any sense to me is that the IDF would, for no reason, fire upon a UN compound/school. Ask yourself what would Israel gain from such actions? What would they be hoping to achieve? There isn't a logical explanation for such an attack, it does not help the IDF to obtain it's objectives for this incursion, if anything it hinders it's objectives by placing further pressure on the Israeli Government to withdraw from Gaza. Now this attack could have been human error, but I doubt it. I don't see a logical reason behind why the IDF would fire on a UN school if there were no immediate threat coming from that area.

I would expect further events like this, because to me it looks as though there may be in place a concerted strategy employed by Hamas whereby they will try and stir up as much rage/condemnation directed towards Israel as possible. One way to do this is draw fire upon areas where civilians are congregated. An Israeli tactic of firing indiscriminately upon civilians and killing/wounding them doesn't seem a logical tactic, I don't see what positives Israel would gain from such a tactic, it would be more to their detriment so I don't see why they would actively follow that train of thought.

mayk's link to the Guardian is interesting, but you get the gist of where this guy is coming from when you read this paragraph:

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.

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Polemics anyone?

roland said:

Rather than get in amongst the debate on who's right or wrong, I'm having trouble understanding something.

If you were a parent, and your city was under attack with bombs, missiles, tank mortars, armed soldiers shooting at stuff - would you be sending your kids out to school?

Knowing that Hamas are drawing fire onto sensitive targets with firing missiles from school grounds etc, wouldn't you be doing something a little different in protecting your loved ones?

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This is an amazing point. So you have an army bombing the hell out of a city and the ones to blame are the people sending their kids to school during this bombing campaign. What a twisted view on the matter. For Your Information Roland - no schools were in operation during this bombing campaign, people, children were camped in these schools as many of them are run by the UN and they were seeking shelter there rather than staying at home which is in theyre minds far riskier than staying at home and rightly so. Do you seriously believe that they intentionally were sending theyre kids to school to potentially be killed to elicit sympathy from the international community? This is a warped viewpoint - you are actually implying that these people are almost sub-human.

It's yet to be determined why the UN school was attacked. Any fair-minded person would not leap to judgement before the attack was fully investigated.

The Muffin Man's point, meanwhile, is valid. There has to be motive/incentive in any deliberate action. It's hard to see why this would be a deliberate target.

I don't believe Palestinians are sub-human per se, but certain acts both sides have committed are inhumane. Teaching your children to "eat Jews" must be one of them.

lucas said:

It's yet to be determined why the UN school was attacked. Any fair-minded person would not leap to judgement before the attack was fully investigated.

The Muffin Man's point, meanwhile, is valid. There has to be motive/incentive in any deliberate action. It's hard to see why this would be a deliberate target.

I don't believe Palestinians are sub-human per se, but certain acts both sides have committed are inhumane. Teaching your children to "eat Jews" must be one of them.

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Well the bottom line is that for every israeli child that is killed in this conflict 10 palestinian children are killed. Again, I am not diminishing the importance of lives on either side, to me 1 life lost is too many. However on the balance of suffering and brutality alone, israels infliction is much greater and more horrendous. So you can provide a whole lot of quotes but as I have said before, the stats speak for themselves.