gaza bombing (you knew I was going to bring this up!)
 

Israel bombs university in Gaza
Israeli air force jets have bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip, a significant cultural symbol for Hamas.
Witnesses in Gaza said they saw six separate air strikes on the Islamic University just after midnight, followed by smoke and flames, Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7802515.stm

BULLSHIIIIT

ISRAEL: No civilian casualties in Gaza!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZd3vR6Kzk

BULLSHIIIIT

Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction
Israel has mounted a public relations campaign to convince international hearts and minds that Hamas is to blame for the death and destruction they are seeing on their television screens.
Stung by the wave of international criticism earlier this year when Israel invaded Gaza to stop militants firing rockets, in an operation dwarfed by its current attack, Israel decided to go on the offensive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...ael-gaza-hamas

How convinient for the film "valkyrie" to come out in theaters on christmas day. In fact someone tell me why history channel is showing the jewish halocaust at this hour. The jewish wants peace at their homeland for the holiday and everything will go back to normal within a week.

shut up geggy

I'm sure all of this has nothing to do with the rocket attacks against Israel. The IDF just likes lobbing ordinance at Palestinian buildings.

and what the fuck does a Tom Cruise movie have to do with this? Does it even reference the Holocaust?

and Geggy, you may be watching a program about the Holocaust (that you don't believe happened) because WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF HANUKKAH!

You're not even attempting to have a real discussion about the Israeli airstrikes (and blockade, and supposed plans to invade). You just jumped straight to the paranoia.

:(

What do you really expect them to do? To just sit there while some douche bags lob rockets at their cities all day?

And yes the civilians are always stuck in the middle and end up being the majority of the casualty rate. But that's war for you.


"War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."

"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and defeat"


by the way, what do you expect to happen when a TERRORIST ORGANIZATION was elected as a legitimate government?

yeah. we kinda fucked that up. we said have democratic elections!
and then we act all surprised they pick hamas. c'mon really?

OH I MEAN:
DAJEWZ
DAJEWZ
DAJEWZ

So, Geggy, are you just a spammer now? 5 topics on the front page were started by you, but you only followed up on 1. And in that one, you just made some odd Hitler reference that made no sense.

Come on, sissy, at least try to have a conversation.

Hamas has only started to begin its new "Operation Human Shield".

So Israel saves it's Holocaust documentaries for when they launch major offensives... it all makes sense now.

What do you expect from a terrorist organisation indeed. But then again, with stuff like this going on for ordinary Palestinians, how else would you expect a terrorist organisation to get in power?

As usual I'm going to just stay cynical about the whole thing, with maybe a slight sliver of hope held out for the Palestinians to one day struggle through means that don't include firing rockets at civillians.

You know what would really help the Palestinians? Stop trusting the other Arab nations.

LOL I bet the Isrealis will round up all the Palestinians and put them into a confined area where they could be controlled and slowly eradicated! They could call it a Ghetto or something.

Evil Robot needs to post more

<3

It's been 50something years of this shit. just let em duke it out.

Newsweek says Obama is going to appoint Bill Clinton to a foreign relations job and send him over there, and Clinton is going to single-handedly make Israel and Palestine get alone. He would have when he was President but Yasir Arafat was too much of a dick, but now that Arafat is dead, there's no big obstacle anymore.

I just hope something gives way over there so we can quit hearing about the same shit happening over and over in the same places. There aren't going to be any buildings left to bomb if this keeps up.

Ground forces just entered Gaza. Check CNN for the live feed.

This is gonna be interesting to say the least.

It's too bad for palastine that the UN is closed on sundays.

Do Israelis still use electronics on sabbath in time of war? Maybe that's why they are using ground force.

I think they can do whatever on the sabbath as long as it involves killing the goyam.

France just officially condemed BOTH sides for acting irrationaly LOL France!

I bet France is gonna turn them in to the principle for fighting behind the handball courts.

Didn't Bill Clinton talk all big a week ago about how he's gonna come over their and make love to them until they are too tired to fight.

Isn't that cute, the IDF forces look just like American forces!

Oh shut the fuck up you stupid hate mongering spambots.

Hamas has killed just as many Palestinians since the IDF operations started, and legalized Cruxifictions on Christmas.....
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

You don't give a shit about Palestinian Arabs living under the oppression of Hamas rule, which they voted on....or the fact that Egyptian born terrorists waging genocide have co-opted the Palestinian cause. You don't care that in one single day, Hamas rockets killed a Jew, a Christian, and a Bedouin inside one Israeli town.....or even grasp what that says... because like I said, you're just stupid, just hateful, and just spamming forums.

You won't form a proper rebutal to this either....because you can't. How does it feel to be so passionate about something you know so little about?

In Beersheba, rockets bring Arab, Jewish neighbors together
By ABE SELIG

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

I didn't say this was a bad thing.

This is what happens when a nation driven by organized religion elects a terrorist regime. :lol

Also know as : To cut off your nose to spite your face.

I never said I didn't support Isreal, I just think BOTH sides should die. I can't wait until Obama nukes the entire region.

Abcd, why do you hate the Palestinians so much?

He hates all brown people.

What's a Palestinian?

Anyway, oddly enough, I'm the one concerned over Arab life under Hamasistan rule.... and I'm as genetically "brown" or semitic as any Arab is.

Come back when you can make an informed argument.

GTFO SANDN*GGER

Abcdx, why are you such an internet hate machine?

Please demonstrate a history (academically referenced) where:

1. There ever was a nation state, kingdom or self governed principality called "Palestine."
2. That Palestine = Arab nation.
3. That the regional renaming of Israel, Judea and Samaria into "Syria-Palistina/Palestine" was not an act of supersessionist anti-Semitism (committed by the Byzantines)
3. That "Palestinians" were not a politically, and anti-Semitically concocketed nation created to delegitimize Jewish claim on present day Israel.

THEY'RE ALL DUNE COONS TO ME

KILL EM ALL LET ALLAH SORT EM OUT amirite

DAJEWZ ARE GETTIN UPPITY. TIME TO THIN THE RANKS AGAIN

It doesn't matter one bit. They're both living there now, and nobody here is really jumping to the defence of Hamas. The general view is that Hamas are awful, but they are going to keep attacking Israel because Israel keeps attacking them. Do you honestly think that a huge campaign into Gaza by Israel, killing civilians and ruining what little infrastructure is left, is going to lead to anything but retaliation? It works vice versa, of course, but Israel is the so called democracy, and people expect them to be civil and just and generally be more ethical than a terrorist group.

So when we see the wildly heavy handed retaliation (and pretty much every attack by either side is always going to be a retaliation to something) we are all going to feel angry that so many civilians have died. I don't jump for joy when an Israeli civilian gets killed, I doubt Matt Jack does either, but being detached from the situation as we are, we look at the one sided statistics rather than anything on a personal level.

You might be more knowledgeable on the history of Israel, and you might know that the Palestinians were created just to piss them off, and I can understand that you feel inclined to defend Israel because of what the state means to you, just as I hope you can understand that a lot of people will have an automatic sense that more civilians killed = wrong, but I do think you have to step back and think of what is going to solve the situation, rather than who is right and who deserves to die more.

There isn't much hope in the region, and nobody seems to have much hope FOR the region either, So instead of this becoming the merry go round that it usually becomes, and ignoring Geggy posts, I'd like to at least know what you think would solve the problem there.

Solve it with genocide. (anti-Semitically-concocketed-nation-cide) Without further Saudi desalinization projects the few viable aquifiers in Gaza will become increasingly briny from incursions by the Mediterranean. As it stands, in 10 years all irrigated agriculture in Gaza will cease, and the population will collapse due to infant mortality and mass exodus.

To a large degree the conflict is already about water. The settlements in Gaza were easy to clear out mostly because the water situation there is so dire, and with regard to the West Bank it's apparent that Israel's long term strategy is securing the best aquifiers in the region.

That makes me wonder what the Isrealis plan to do with all the buildings and infrastructure they just destroyed. Somebody will probably say that water infrastructure is the job of the Hamas without talking about the fact that Isreal has been blockading any type of materials that could be used for construction, or the fact that taxes were paid by people in Gaza to Isreal and got nothing in return.

Also, when Isreal built the wall, they uprooted ALL pipes which were paid for and constructed by people in Gaza only to turn around and say "look, Hamas has not invested in water infrastructure!".

You are defending the right of Hamas to lob rockets into a sovereign state without recourse.

The idea that they're both living there now only works for the side willing to coexist. Jews were removed from Gaza so that Palestinian-Egyptian-Arabs could create a state. They chose Hamas, and Hamas chose war over working septic systems.


Re-read what you wrote. Years later you're still viewing this conflict from the perspective of a child. Hamas will keep attacking Israel because that's their goal, genocide. To remove Jews from what they view as Islamic soil. It does not matter if Israel is passive or not, Hamas will keep attacking. It's in their charter.




Yes. If successful it will also stop the rockets and put Gaza back into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, who while no better, are being championed as supposed martyrs. This benefits Israel because they refuse to negotiate with Hamas, and the Obama/Clinton administration is going to force their hand. It also shows that Israel will start using the force available to them, despire world opinion. Are you aware that when polled, Ariel Sharon of all people was the name Arabs came up with for which world leader they'd want as their own. Not because they liked him, but because they thought he was crazy enough to fear....



You're an enabler.

Why is it you only express remorse when civilians are KILLED?
Why not when they are put in danger of being attacked? Why not when Hamas puts their military centers in schools, and mosques, and why not when an entire community allows this, or worse, supports this?

It's laughable that you're that manipulated by statistics by the way....and what the hell is heavy handed in this case? This is big bad human rights violating Israel.... if they wanted to be heavy handed, they death tolls would reflect, you know, tens of thousands, like the ones Syria and Jordan racked up on Palestinians.

It's not lost on me that you're someone who also claimed the security barrier Israel built was also an atrocity.


Nobody deserves to die.

Israel's approach, and death tolls minimized to 500 prove they are not looking to cause massive death tolls. That's the whole idea of sending in ground troops.

See, I don't think you give a flying shit for Palestinian lives anyway.... and neither does the Arab world. Screwy as it is, Israel is the only state who has really provided them anything constructive, but they also fucked that up by allowing the PLO and Hamas to represent Palestinian Arabs.


Gaza, and the WB must be returned to their last legal owners under international law, not a 3rd party. Israel has already agreed to give back land, and do it unilaterally, but this must occur between sovereign nations with treaties. Handing over land for further dispute between various feuding Arab factions isn't going to lead to peace.

Palestinians must agree to coexist. The UN must drop their permanent refugee status for Palestinians, which is the only one which includes 3rd and 4th generations, purposely meant to keep this conflict going and going.


Otherwise, it's very simple. The Arab side refuses to coexist, and wants a war... denying this is a war doesn't help either side....denying this war is blossoming into a proxy war with Iran that nobody needs, isn't helping either side....brute force is historically the only thing which has earned respect in the region, and Israel has made the mistake of showing weakness. NO efforts towards peace on Israel's part have ever resulted in peace, or made anyone happy....

This is false.
Anything which was removed was at the demands of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel left the irrigation systems, and septic tanks. They offered to train someone to work it, and nobody took them up on it. The water systems are still there, and Hamas never requested the butane.

There's no shortage of construction in Palestinian territories.

It's true that water is a huge part of the conflict, and one which is often neglected, but the 9,000 Jews residing in Gaza which some of you call "settlements" were part of communities that had created very successful organic farms. The glass houses were left for Palestinians, and they were set to inherit the industry. Unfortunately, once Israel left, the glass houses were destroyed by Palestinian riots, along with the synagogues, and several Holy Sites.

it's a shitty piece of desert, i don't see what the big deal is :rolleyes

It's not about land, or religion. It's about tolerance.

Abcdx, are you sexually frustrated?

Me too buddy :(

Abcd, I don't care about the conflict in the middle east one bit, but it was fun making you get butthurt.

MattJack is a Scud missile.

I was butthurt long before you came along dumb ass. Let me know when you're gonna bitch and moan for MY forty acres and a mule.

Ain't gonna happen, just like you're not likely to add anything to this conversation.

At least Ranxer is a mental retard, with a disability. What's your excuse?

Shouldn't that tell you something about thier "efforts"?

Yup, it tells me the world community will not be happy until Israelis lay down on their backs.

Anyway....

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articl...650517,00.html

I'll add that 400 of the 500 killed were Hamas fighters.
That's about 40% of the reported 1000 Hamas soldiers, and represents a very low tally for civilian casualties.

Gazans should be so happy Israel is the enemy, with Hama, Black September and Anfil in mind. (Google it if you don't know what I'm referencing).

This would be all over already if I had my bunny army.

Yeah, I hate Israelis, support Hamas and also Hate Arabs. Your biggest problem Abcdx (apart from putting words in people's mouths and deciding what they believe for them) is that you've got your cause and effect around backwards.

Hamas isn't the root of all the problems, it's the cycle of violence that moves what would otherwise be ordinary, normal, working people to become enraged and want vengeance. Hamas wouldn't exist, or at least, wouldn't be politically important if the Palestinian people didn't feel threatened, and didn't feel the need to defend themselves in such a way. Yes, Hamas manipulates people and is a hugely negative force in people's lives, but they came into power based on a fear of Israel.

Even if this attack did manage to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian people will still hate Israel, most likely even more people will be driven to revenge. They'll just create another Hamas.

I think it's absurd to think that excalating the violence will solve things. Since it hasn't really worked in the past. I mean, it might. Killing every single Palestinian would probably go a long way to reducing rocket attacks. But that's not very adult, right?

Also, :lol

I don't know, but aren't you the one concerned about a proportionate response? That would mean you're okay with Israel sending about 6000 rockets randomely into Gaza, and blowing up a civilian bus. Nobody is putting words in your mouth, you're just not connecting your own dots.

Hamas didn't originate out of fear of Israel. It may sound good, but it's false. It's also insulting to suggest Palestinians found religion only out of fear of Israel, which is what you are inadvertantly implying. Look into the origins of Hamas. It predates the intifada, and even predates Israel's initial support for the group.

Likewise, you are aware pogroms against Jews in the region predate modern Israel, and formalized Zionism right? Israel isn't the source of hatred, it's just an excuse.

Unfortunately, there has never been peace in the Mid-East without an escalation in violence, the likes of which the Palestinian Arabs have never engaged in.

no, it is about religion and the stupid things people do because of a few verses from an old fairy tale

The original founding PLO members were not religiously based, and included both Christians and Muslims.

The majority of Israel today is secular, and the largest Zionist movements including the most recent, were not religious.

Take away the eligious arguments, and you still have an argument.

It has to be about religion. Because the Palestinians are oppressed in Jordan even though they're the majority. But they don't care about the Jordanians shitting on them do they?

Maybe they're just pawns in someone elses strategy?

Come on people, it's about power. Don't kid yourselves.

That is exactly it.

Well. Willing pawns. Using religion is just a motivational aspect of this strategy.

religion has always been a tool of those in power. the basis of the conflict is that two religions claim the same little shitty strip of sand as their cultural point of origin. it doesn't matter if the people controlling the armies believe or not, and they probably don't, if the people actually fighting the fight think they are fighting on the side of god.

Serious question for abcdxxxx: Why do you think the Israelis didn't do more to curtail Hamas throughout its history? Surely there were segments of the Israeli power structure who could have forseen that a bottom-up, grassroots religious movement who took great care to eliminate internal corruption would become a far more formidable opponent than the crumbling, hated and notoriously corrupt Fatah party?

On a larger scale, wouldn't you agree that true socialism is vastly preferable to the absolutely insane division of wealth and the islamofascist paradigm nurtured by the west ever since the third reich sent advisors to cairo?

Someone told you that's the basis of the conflict, or you watched a CNN special....but that doesn't make it true. Israel was established in 1948, and existed for about 20 years without Jerusalem or it's holiest sites. Hebron is the second holiest site in the bible, and Israel will be unilaterally handing it over to Arab control, since it has been an Arab dominated town ever since they ran Jews out during the pogroms in 1929.

You may also be unaware that the religious parties in Israel have always been exempt from fighting, and until recently did not serve in the army.

There is far more important things going on in the world than this ongoing bullshit. Like the eminent doom of every one younger than me.

Israel's always had a bunch of nutjobs in the government who were desperate to make peace in the most self defeating manner possible. So at the time it was illegal to even negotiate with the PLO, there were groups like Peace Now pushing to find Arab leadership amongst the Arabs who would act as peace partners, and still have some control.

Initially the shortsighted idea was that religion would be a good influence on the Palestinians, and that Israel could help bolster some opposition to the Marxist revolutionary splinter groups under Arafat & Co. The support was very short lived, and Hamas turned out to be a monster.... but it's all relative. Marwan Barghouti is a name Israel still dances around as a possible moderate they can support...and he's in an Israeli jail.

I don't realy have an answer for you, because I suppose your question is meant to suggest that Israel allowed Hamas to rise to power purposely so that the Palestinians would adopt the most extreme leadership possible. I'm sure that was one of the 1000 strategies tossed around and never commited to along the way. In between world outrage over targeted killings of Hamas spiritual leaders, etc. What more could they have done? How should they be handling Islamic Jihad for example? Or the more regional problem of Muslim Brotherhood for that matter?


Actually that happened the other way around. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem went to Germany, and advised on their Jewish problem.

Who was offering a true Socialism though?

Right, but The Left, Jimmy Carter, and the UN all claim this is the forbidden topic nobody talks about.

I'm not convinced. I still think this is either the single most tragic case of blowback in the entire region, or, more cynically, an attempt to divide and de-legitimize the Palestinian government in the eyes of the world.

If the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the largest regional threats to Israel, why would Israel actively, though mostly indirectly, support it's Palestinian front organization al-mujama, that would eventually become Hamas?

It seems to me that those in power on either side care not the least about the people actually dying: Israeli generals and politicians don't care any more about their own people than Hamas care about theirs, just so long as they're the ones winning.

It was the peacenik Leftist Israelis who vaguely supported Hamas, just as they supported Arafat. The great blowback would be the outcome of Oslo, where Israel provided the PA with guns, and training only to have it turned back on them. Hamas was not built up by Israel, unless you consider the 70+ trucks of aid meant to go to Palestinians as somehow supporting Hamas. http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/Art...651783,00.html

None of these so called Palestinian groups should have ever been legitimized in the first place.

The divisive climate within the Palestinian factions traces outside the conflict. It's not an Israeli fabrication or manipulation, even though Israel has thought they could use it to their advantage at times. Pan-Arabism has never worked for obvious reasons.

Begin and Shamir were Prime Minister during the formative years of Hamas, both members of right wing political parties.

I'm not saying that Hamas was created recently because of Israeli attacks, I was implying that they have political weight because of Israeli attacks.

Jews might have been a target for past hatred, and Israel might have just been an excuse for that hatred, and probably still is to an extent, but you said yourself that it's not about religion, and that Jews and Arabs are capable of getting along together.

That's incorrect. Israel has it's first unity Government in 1984...and the name Peres is absent from your list. Sure, Wiki says Islamic Resistance Movement/Islamic Center started in 1973, but that's not entirely true. It's like Al-Banna and Qutb never existed, though Yassin quoted them almost exclusively, and was a formal member of the Muslim Brotherhood. In effect, what became Hamas started as a Gaza chapter, funded by Saudi, Kuwati and Jordanian money.


Begin introduced the original plan to create a Palestinian Gaze State sometime around 1975'ish.... but that was also the same period when Peace Now organized, and introduced their iniatives, which are basically what we got stuck with. Peace Now pushed for negotiations, when there was nobody to negotiate with. The Palestinians had no leadership, and nobody in their right mind would have pretended the 10,000 members of the PLFP represented 600,000 refugees interests when they sought to overthrow the entire neighborhood.

Israeli attacks have little to do with the Hamas rise of power. Gaza was Islamicized back during the early 80's. Look into the Islamic University actions in 1980.

The idea that a sovereign nation fighting guerilla armies who seek to overthrow only strengthens militant terrorists is just a spin. You were questioning why Israel even allowed Hamas to get to this point, which is a good example of Israel being damned if they do, or damned if they don't. Mind you, it was your theory that kept Arafat out of Israel targets.

See, the tendency to think Israel is masterminding, and pulling the puppet strings from both sides is a bit silly. In truth, they've really just made bad choices in the face of unparallaled scrutiny. They've always doublt dealt with enemies, and tried to be shrewd...as have the Arabs on the other end.

Well remember, Islam was politicized and went through a reformation, which is the real roots of a group like Hamas. The Pan-Arab/Pan-Islam program attempted to create a common enemy to bind them.

How exactly were the Left involved with the approval, under Menachem Begin, of Yassin's application to start the "humanitarian" organization Mujama?

You mention the Islamic University of Gaza, which was Islamicized only after an administrative coup, aided by Israeli authorities, who then tacitly permitted its use as a training grounds and armory for suicide bombers and anti-secular thugs. It's inaccurate to say that the radical muslim brotherhood enjoyed widespread support at this point in time.

Care to substantiate that statement? I think you're mistaking Jordan's role as Israel's, so if you're going to implicate Israel's role beyond humanitarian aid you're going to have to give some evidence. Hamas registered with Israel as an Islamic Association, and Israel supported it passively. That's all we know.

It was Israel's peaceniks who pushed for ties to Palestinian groups while Begin's government formally attempted a different approach, such as his rejected plan offering Gaza up back in the 70's.


Where'd you get that idea?

It's unlikely you would have supported Israel closing a school down, especially a religious school, the way they did with Birzeit University. I'm also not going to validate the idea that not intervening is the equivalent of perpetrating or aiding the act. There was no indication any group would prove to be more hostile then Fatah, and it's militant wing didn't arrive until 5 years later. The UNRWA is the only foreign body which has support Hamas continously, not Israel.

See, Sadat punished the Palestinians by cutting them off from his Universities. Long before Islamic University was "Islamicized" (terminology which didn't even exist at the time), turned into a militant hotbed, Gaza has become a hotbed of religious extremist thugs enforcing a street vigilante version of Sharia law.

To summarize:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/476393

Lebanese Army finds rockets near Israel border
By BASSEM MROUE The Associated Press
Thursday, December 25, 2008; 12:49 PM

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanese army officers say troops have discovered seven rockets set up with timers that were on the verge of firing near the border with Israel .

Two senior officers say troops are dismantling the Katyusha rockets, discovered Thursday near the border town of Naqoura.

They say the rockets' timers were activated, and one of the officers says the rockets were to have fired overnight. They would not say if the rockets were directed toward Israel. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of military rules.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122500485.html

Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel amid Gaza offensive

An Israeli cabinet minister blamed Palestinians in Lebanon, not Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas -- with whom Israel fought a war in 2006 -- for firing the rockets.

"I think these are isolated incidents," Rafi Eitan, a senior minister in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government, said on Israel's Channel 2. "We expected this."

A Lebanese minister also said he doubted Hezbollah had fired the rockets, which came from an area controlled by U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army, 3 km (two miles) north of the border. Hamas sources in Lebanon denied involvement.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/0...tinians_israel

Who is behind Lebanon rockets?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/7817408.stm

So israel have decided to retaliate even though nobody knows who fired these rockets into northern israel?

Israel fires missiles at Lebanon

Tel Aviv has launched five missiles at Lebanon claiming the assault was in retaliation to rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns.

According to Israeli officials four rockets landed on northern Israel early on Thursday, a Press TV correspondent reported. Israeli sources said 4 settlers were injured in the attack.

Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rockets landed around the town of Nahariya, 8 km (5 miles) south of the Lebanese border. Tel Aviv claims the rockets were launched from southern Lebanon.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, however, says it is not responsible for the alleged firing of rockets at Israel.

Palestinians really need Jew haters around the world to start pushing convoluted and false stories from Iran's notoriously free press.

It's not like Iran, one of the States sponsoring the katyushas, didn't just send a delegation to meet with Hamas leadership in Syria this week.

As of 12:30pm EST the only Israeli retaliation, according to reports in the mainstream press (filed by a reporter very sympathetic to Hamas) was a few rounds of gunfire.

By stating Hezballah, and Lebanon aren't responsible, Israel has decreased the opportunity for a larger front on the war.

I posted this on my facebook titled "understanding gaza"

A friend of mine who is jewish himself had made it clear for me that while its antisemitic to promote hatred and destruction of judaism, it is not antisemitic to speak against the jewish state, Israel's policies. Their brutal bombing campaign toward gaza strip, west bank/palestine, lebanon, etc is clearly not for purpose of national security to protect their homeland from the enemies' rockets but driven by politics, economy and territory expansion. The rockets that were fired into Israel by their enemies, whether real or a false flag, presents an opportunity for Israeli politicians to implement their counter-attack plans to roll back the population, economic and education system of their enemies' lands. If anyone disagrees, don't hesistate to leave a comment. This article that summarizes Israel's genocidal actions toward Palestinians was written by an Iraqi-born Jew who moved to Israel and served in IDF so you'd know there is no serious case of bias.

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

Avi Shlaim
The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009

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.

Yeah well as the son of an Iraqi Jewish refugee let me call bullshit.

Avi Shlaim has in fact questioned the States legitemacy, you Geggy are in fact a blatant Jew hater, but clearly it was the Zionists who stole your brain.


Here is one blog's impeachment of Avi Shlaim's bullshit:
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2...vi-shlaim.html

I'll cut to the quick though. There is a segment of the population in Israel who didn't arrive in Israel out of choice. They were forced out by events like the Farhud in Iraq, when it had fallen under the influence of a Nazi + Pan-Islam marriage. They miss their lives in Iraq, and resent having to live inside Israel. I have family who are bitter and identify more with Arab culture too... but ask them if they want to live under Arab rule again? Hell no they don't. Anyway, who really gives a shit what this clown has to say about Gaza? The essay is riddled with errors and the entire notion that this incursion was what set him off is ignorant of this frauds body of lies and revitionist history. If anyone thinks he's made a single good point, I'd be happy to refute it with factual evidence where possible.

Im no expert on this subject. Im not even going to pretend to know a lot about the history of Palestine. However... didnt the area know as "Palestine" belong to Israel and in the mid 90s they sat down and agreed to basically hand control over to the PLO in hopes it would lead to peace? Only to get spat in the eye?

Don't mind me, just dropping by to see if the ABC was still around to explain the IDF's right to defend itself against the UN and the Red Cross to the less enlightened readers of this forum.

Personally, I can understand their plight. Some dipshit kid is throwing rocks at your head while you are holding a rifle, that kid deserves to get his head blown off. It's evolution at work.

But I was hoping ABC could put it more intellectually.

They're surrounded by countries that want to destroy them any little attack could be a precursor to their complete destruction. Can you really blame em for kicking ass and not giving a shit about the rules?

I'm surprised Belgium never snapped from constantly being overrun by the French and Germans between 1810 and 1945.

Middle East be crazy

Does anyone actually agree with Vaportrail? Not to minimize the obviously psychologically jarring effect that the Qassam rocket attacks have on Israeli civilians, but how exactly do primitive WWII-era munitions consist of an existential threat to one of the strongest militaries in the world?

As for Israel's other neighbors, trade with Israel is a central part of many middle eastern countries' economies, and an attack on Israel would open them up to a devastating air assault, possible nuclear strike, as well as a highly unfavorable military or economic response from the United States and/or Israel's other allies.

I agree with his statement of just letting them duke it out. As long as Americans aren't dying over there I could give a damn. Israel does reserve the right to defend itself, and I hate chicken shit tactics. If you target civilians you deserve to get punched in the fucking mouth.

I always wonder just what the hell Israel is exporting anyways.
But anyways, it's like the Balkans or The Caucuses they're just gonna keep fighting forever.

to put it in perspective.
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

They're not aimed at military targets, they're aimed at population centers, and kindergartens with a range effecting over 1 million Israelis.

Qassams didn't exist in WW2. They're about ten years old. The Katyushas are modified versions.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...mas-qassam.htm

Not sure where that question came from, but chances are the chips in your computer, the cell phone technology you use, and any instant messenging programs you use were Israeli exports. They're pretty advanced in terms of medicine, agriculture, and technology.

and banking :lol amirite guys?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Qassam rockets modified versions of Katyushas, which is the name given to the weapons system used in WWII?

Well I know the Israelies are modern techwise, I was just wondering what they're primary export was.

As for exports, you could say they "export" bombs and artillery rounds! Zing!

Any of this is better than Israel's ground assault? :confused:

Well, looks like they've both told the UN to fuck off.

No. It wouldn't be accurate.

And by the way....Bullets are pre-Civil War era technology, but they're still deadly.

:lol Great point.

The Qassam is a half-assed home brewed knockoff of the Katyusha. usually contructed out of sheet metal and old piping. It would most accurately be described as an airborne pipe bomb.

And for the purists, a real Katyusha must also be launched from a Dodge flatbed.

Hamas rocket capabilities have hit a range of 22 miles, forcing Israel to evacuate entire cities (shutting down schools, banks, etc.)....but hey, if you want to downplay that.....

http://idfspokesperson.com/2009/01/0...es-9-jan-2009/

They're also using Chinese made long range missiles.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/1...chinese-a.html

Mind you, we don't really know what they have. It's a proxy war at this point.
[qoute]Hezbollah says Israel would be surprised by Hamas rockets [/quote]
http://en.ce.cn/World/Middleeast/200...17857320.shtml

Well, they probably do have modern military rockets as well, but the Qassam is a homebrew.