Israeli Attacks Gaza Strip, Killing 200+

[GabberMan]

Just a question...

As far as i know, palestinians tired of the whole mess they live in cannot ask to be refugees in other countries, right?

I mean, i have no clue regarding this issue, but i doubt that any country could open it's door to palestinians in fear that a Hamas terrorist member could slip in...

Do someone knows if any country offers to palestinians to become refugee? Maybe other Islamic states?

I kow they've got 'em in Finland so I suppose some other Scando countries must have them. Egypt aren't very interested as far as I know. And neither are Syria nor Jordan.

 

[GabberMan]

I kow they've got 'em in Finland so I suppose some other Scando countries must have them. Egypt aren't very interested as far as I know. And neither are Syria nor Jordan.

Seems I was wrong - these figures don't add up, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people#Demographics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees#Scale

 

[Dawn]

Seems I was wrong - these figures don;t add up, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people#Demographics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees#Scale

Great links regardless. :hatsoff:

I should have thought to look on Wiki for that. :o


According to the first link, there is 58,000 refugees in America and 388,000 in Other Countries (which seems to exclude Middle-East). The second link distributes the 58,000 refugees in America between USA and Canada... I didnt even know we had Palestinians refugees in Canada

The whole picture of palestinians refugees indicates clearly that most of them stayed there or migrated to close countries (from where, i assume, some of them support the Hamas economically...).

Europe doesn't seems very welcoming to them.

Note, i was asking the question about refugee because if i was a palestinian myself, who isnt involved in the War and who doesnt share the Hamas radical views, that would be the avenue i would choose. I'm still wondering if it's a real possibility for palestinians.

 

[GabberMan]

I read a couple of articles in The Guardian yesterday that shook me. I'm going to post the text here rather than the link alone as I think it's better to have it here on the Board than people skipping back and forth between windows picking random parts of the article to take issue with! (Hope this doesn't get me into trouble!)

Avi Shlaim is a professor at Oxford University and an Iraqi-born Jew. He left the IDF in 1967.

I'll post these in "Bite-size" pieces.

1/3

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.

 

[GabberMan]

2/3

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".

 

[GabberMan]

3/3

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 did 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.

(end)

 

[GabberMan]

... and the link to the article is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

 

[Dawn]

Thanks timbo666 for the article and the link :thumbsup:


Interresting read. Harsh towards Israel, very harsh. While it's hard to comment point by point Avi Shlaim's argumentation, it makes sense. His critics towards Israel make sense.

His neutrality towards palestinians - he barely critics Hamas militaristic, fundamentalist and terrorist movements (while showing the legitimity of the elected Hamas politicians) - is lacking... So I can't wait to read the pro-Israel arguments regarding that article that should follow from other members.

While the critics are harsh and severe (true, in most cases), the main flaw of the argumentation is the lack of criticism towards Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations. I'm aware of Israel faults but i don't think blaming Isreal as much as Avi Shlaim is doing portrays the reality of the Palestino-Israelian conflict.

 

[Dawn]

I just heard on radio that rockets have been fired from Lybia (Hezbollah)... to Israel.

The situation is degrading... But aren't we on the 13th day of bombing over Gaza now?

Maybe someone at the UN will wake up and see the obvious: UN peacekeepers are now a necessity there before it ends up with a total war in the area...

Maybe i'm a bit too tired to keep commenting on this War... i just feel for the civilians living in those areas and i feel lucky to be able to live in a peaceful part of the World. If i had faith, i think i would pray

 

[GabberMan]

Thanks timbo666 for the article and the link :thumbsup:


Interresting read. Harsh towards Israel, very harsh. While it's hard to comment point by point Avi Shlaim's argumentation, it makes sense. His critics towards Israel make sense.

His neutrality towards palestinians - he barely critics Hamas militaristic, fundamentalist and terrorist movements (while showing the legitimity of the elected Hamas politicians) - is lacking... So I can't wait to read the pro-Israel arguments regarding that article that should follow from other members.

While the critics are harsh and severe (true, in most cases), the main flaw of the argumentation is the lack of criticism towards Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations. I'm aware of Israel faults but i don't think blaming Isreal as much as Avi Shlaim is doing portrays the reality of the Palestino-Israelian conflict.

Thanks. I wanted to make the identity of the author clear before someone jumped on me for anti-semitism!

Also I wanted to find a link to the whole interview that the BBC did with Yonotan Shapira (former IAF captain) that was on TV on Monday and should've been given a lot more publicity/repeats.

In the interview he talked about being a Jew, an Israeli, a citizen of the region, his thoughts on the future of Israel and his concerns for Palestinians' and Jews' future in that region. He also spoke about a significant minority of Israelis who are against this conflict.

All I could find was this, which is only a part of the interview:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y5PmXj2dSLk&feature=related

 

[GabberMan]

I just heard on radio that rockets have been fired from Lybia (Hezbollah)... to Israel.

The situation is degrading... But aren't we on the 13th day of bombing over Gaza now?

Maybe someone at the UN will wake up and see the obvious: UN peacekeepers are now a necessity there before it ends up with a total war in the area...

Maybe i'm a bit too tired to keep commenting on this War... i just feel for the civilians living in those areas and i feel lucky to be able to live in a peaceful part of the World. If i had faith, i think i would pray

Libya? Get your ears waxed! I hope they only meant Lebanon.

Yep, looks like Hezbollah (Party of God) are up to their old tricks - with Iran's backing of course!! Not that that will help the people in Gaza one bit...

 

[Dawn]

Libya? Get your ears waxed! I hope they only meant Lebanon.

Yep, looks like Hezbollah (Party of God) are up to their old tricks - with Iran's backing of course!! Not that that will help the people in Gaza one bit...

Yeah, don't get my word for cash on this... It was a quick resume on the radio and i might not have heard clearly. It's either Syria or Libya (I'm still looking for links on the web about this)... and it's Hezbollah, that's a 100% sure thing.

 

[GabberMan]

Yeah, don't get my word for cash on this... It was a quick resume on the radio and i might not have heard clearly. It's either Syria or Libya... and it's Hezbollah, that's a 100% sure thing.

Yeah, looks like there are some factions in Syria that are supporting Hezbollah as well as the Iranian system. The Syrian president worked with Frenchman Sarkozy to broker an immediate ceasefire over Gaza but they mostly failed. Now the Syrian President must be looking a bit stupid if anyone attributes Hezbollah activities to him (which I don't - I think he's cool).

None of the Arab nations have actually turned against Israel over this (yet) but they may support Israel against Hezbollah as they did a couple of years ago because none of them get on with Iran. All the Arab states are fearful of Iran bar Syria (who have the closest allegiance, and aren't entirely Arab anyhow).

 

[Dawn]

Rockets from Lebanon it seems... i'm sure i have heard the announcer saying Lybia or Syria in the newsflash tho...

All the news around the world speak about those rockets shot from Lebanon, nothing about Syria or Lybia.

I've rarely been so glad to be mistaken.

Again, my appologies :o


BBC article and videos

 

[GabberMan]

Rockets from Lebanon it seems... i'm sure i have heard the announcer saying Lybia or Syria in the newsflash tho...

All the news around the world speak about those rockets shot from Lebanon, nothing about Syria or Lybia.

I've rarely been so glad to be mistaken.

Again, my appologies :o

No worries at all, Dawn.

These Hezbollah people get there cash/arms from Iran but Syrian factions have also been alleged to be involved. There are Syrian factions that have interests in Lebanon and wish it to be less Western - they are probably associated with Hezbollah and hence Iran. I don't think they like the Syrian President much. Hezbollah in Lebanon also has a minority of Christian supporters would you believe! It's a menace and the Arab world doesn't like them - they are supported by Iran - but their motives are appratently "on behalf of the Palestinians." It's bloody complicated.

All I can say is that if the rocket attacks in Northern Israel are something that Israel will have to respond to... well, the outlook is bleak. I don't think that Iran will make a direct strike any time soon because they probably believe Israel has enough nukes (amongst all the other things the US and Europe sell to Israel) to wipe them out. But if Iran DID do anything then I can't see the Arab world running to help them (the Iranians, that is).

 

[jamrak]

I heard that Hezbollah declines its participation in this attack. They say that it gonna be an investigation, and that they suspect palestinian radicals from a refugee camp in Lebanon. They also say that they gonna nip in the bud such like attacks from their territory. It sounds good.

So this time Hezbollah does not seem to be involved in the conflict.

 

[GabberMan]

I heard that Hezbollah declines its participation in this attack. They say that it gonna be an investigation, and that they suspect palestinian radicals from a refugee camp in Lebanon. They also say that they gonna nip in the bud such like attacks from their territory. It sounds good.

So this time Hezbollah does not seem to be involved in the conflict.

Hope so - makes you wonder where they get these rockets from though, eh?

 

[jamrak]

Hope so - makes you wonder where they get these rockets from though, eh?

If they can smuggle weapons into isolated Gaza, no wonder that they can find a way to do it in Lebanon. Illegal traffic and black market of weapons is highly developed even in more calm countries. You can buy almost anything, so it doesn't surprise me.

Anyways, official position of Hezbollah is important, even if some of its radical members help those palestinians from a refugee camp to get rocket launchers (though I think that there are numerous other ways to get it). Officials said that they gonna obey 1701 resolution - otherwise it could be another big war.

 

[Dawn]

If they can smuggle weapons into isolated Gaza, no wonder that they can find a way to do it in Lebanon. Illegal traffic and black market of weapons is highly developed even in more calm countries. You can buy almost anything, so it doesn't surprise me.

Anyways, official position of Hezbollah is important, even if some of its radical members help those palestinians from a refugee camp to get rocket launchers (though I think that there are numerous other ways to get it). Officials said that they gonna obey 1701 resolution - otherwise it could be another big war.

We have read the same articles, jamrak. You summed up very well.

I'm still suspecting Hezbollah to play a double game in that - but they indeed condamned the incident officially. Nothing so far could let us think they are responsible.

The freakin newsreader over the radio here haven't spoke again about those rockets and Hezbollah in following newsflashes... I think it was a big mistake at the news section over here. Again, sorry... I should have double-check the info before posting. My mistake.

 

[bodie54]

[*]Limit restrictive access to resources like water, food, and medical supplies so that "new" Hamas members are not generated.

The ball is in Hamas' court on this one. If they want the restrictions lifted they must grant Israel one most basic and fundamental right; to live in peace.

[*]Limit retaliatory action to less than 7000% so that "new" Hamas members are not generated.

I could see the logic in this premise if the children of Hamas et al weren't being wholesale indoctrinated anyway, even to the point of strapping bombs to some of them, whether in times of greater or lesser conflict.

As Golda Meir once famously stated: “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

While, like most other members of this board, I don't condone the actions of Hamas , I don't think this type of language is productive.
Sociologists widely recognize this type of comment as an attempt to dehumanize a group of people.

That's utter nonsense. My condemnation is of their philosophy, which (and it seems the irony is lost on you) completely dehumanizes Israelis in exactly the way you describe.