BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 04:40 AM

The Israeli state has been butchering the Palestinian people long before Hamas became a political force.
And the attack on Gaza has been quite indiscriminate in that the Israeli leadership has set out to kill,injure and terrorise the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza.
For example the first wave of the Israeli air attack started at 11.30am when the morning and afternoon school shifts of children were either heading to school or going home.
The Israeli political and military leadership with all its intelligence and months of planning for the attack knew that large numbers of Palestinian children would be out on the streets and vulnerable but went ahead with the attack and the slaughter anyway.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 07:06 AM

The problem with seeing this attack as a desperate effort to stop Israelis being killed by these rockets runs up against the probability that the number of Israelis killed as a consequence of this attack will be very much higher than the number killed by these rockets.

Basically that rationale is spin. The rockets provide a cover for an attack that is founded far more on political considerations to do with the impending Israeli elections, and the lame duck presidency in the USA.
.................
There is no point in trying to demonise the other side in this tragic situation, whichever side that may be.

Ehud Barak when asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian said in a press interview "I would have joined a terrorist organization." The founders of Israel carried out actions that clearly fall within the definition of "terrorism" - and the same is arguably (at least) true of many of the actions carried out more recently.

If it were Israelis trapped in the Gaza strip, with a Palestinian state penning them in, there can be little doubt that they would be doing stuff like firing those rockets, futile gesture though it be. And it would be the Palestinians who would be carrying out a turkey shoot in Gaza.

This isn't about one lot of people being worse than the other, it about what happens when a new people take over a country and displace the people who were there before. It's happened before in all parts of the world, in ancient times as well as more recently across the whole of America. The difference here is that it's happening in a world where we know what is happening, and can see it as something that ought not to happen.

There's an analogy with something like domestic violence or child abuse. It's always happened - but now we are more aware of it, and feel a responsibility to do something about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 07:27 AM

"what happens when a new people take over a country and displace the people who were there before. "

This is the part of what you say that I take exception to. The Jews that were in the West Bank, from biblical times, were driven out or killed in 1948- and the world thought that was ok, since the Jewish Homeland ( from 1923, the 25% of British Mandate Palestine that Jews were permitted to live in) was there to take them in- And Jordan ( the Arab Moslim Homeland 75% of British Mandate Palestine) took those Moslim Palestinians that were willing to live in peace.

Israel settled the 820,000 Arab Jews driven out of Arab Moslim nations: Why did the Arab Moslim nations not settle the 640,000 Palestinian Moslims who fled Israel? And why are there so many Arb Moslims who stayed in Israel, and so few Jews that were allowed to stay in the Moslim nations? As for displaced people, the Jews have a greater claim than the present residents of Gaza.

Israel has been trying to trade land for peace- Yet when they give up land, they get no peace. Seems like the world cannot expect Israel to keep giving up safty, and NOT take action against armed attacks on it's citizens, both Jewish and Moslim.




See my post of 30 Dec 08 - 09:40 AM for the Hamas Charter. Now look at the Israeli constitution: Which is a better protection of the "minority " rights of the people of the other religion living in the respective territories?

Oh, thats right- Jews are not allowed to live ( in Moslim Territories).

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:20 AM

I don't think that the Palestinian people will be very impressed by their constitutional rights in Israel or the occupied territories.
They have been hounded,oppressed,humiliated,imprisoned in large numbers,exiled,murdered,beaten up,had their houses demolished,collectively punished,orchards ripped up and an apartheid wall built through their land.
The barbaric air attack on Palestinian Gaza is only going to ensure further conflict and hatred.
Israel has trampled on the humanitarian ,international and civic rights of the Palestinians for several decades and I see no signs of that changing.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:37 AM

Vulnerable Israeli homefront rethinks withdrawals

       Associated Press Writers Aron Heller And Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writers –

13 mins ago AP –

ASHDOD, Israel – As Arab rockets reach ever deeper into Israel, they may be weakening what for years has been a cornerstone of Mideast peace efforts — an exchange of land for peace.

Israeli hard-liners have long warned that any territories Israel vacates will be used to attack it. They can now point to the Hamas missile that slammed into a bus stop in this port city Monday, killing a 39-year-old woman. It was fired from the Gaza Strip, which Israel gave up in 2005 and is now ruled by Hamas militants who reject the very existence of the Jewish state.

....

"Tel Aviv is the safest place we have," said Ben-Yosef, who works at a clothing store. "But it is starting to feel as if there are no safe places anymore."

At least one-tenth of the country's 7 million citizens and some of its largest cities are now in range of Gaza missiles, and millions more live within reach of Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon.

This has implications for the West Bank, where U.S.-led diplomacy long focused on a withdrawal that would make way for a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.

Israeli opponents of this strategy argue that such a peace would be too fragile to survive, and would bring Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the nation's international airport within rocket range.

Orna Levy, 41, runs a jewelry store in Ashdod. She said she supported the withdrawal from Gaza and used to favor trading the West Bank for peace, even though she has a brother living in a Jewish settlement there.

"If we give them the West Bank too, who knows what will happen," she said.

Cities under missiles are nothing new to Israelis. Tel Aviv, the metropolitan heartland, was bombarded by Saddam Hussein's rockets in the 1991 Gulf War. Haifa, the third biggest city, was hit by Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel, and after Hamas took over Gaza, rocket fire at nearby towns promptly increased.

Israeli historian Michael Oren, a Georgetown University professor and fellow at the Shalem Center think tank in Jerusalem, said the events of recent days, and especially the international criticism of Israel's response, are likely to "compound Israelis' reluctance" to support further withdrawals.

"This has become a recurring nightmare for Israelis and has made them reluctant to give up strategically vital territory," Oren said.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:44 AM

"Staring at the debris was Gabi Aronov, a 25-year-old factory worker, who was sent reeling in his apartment from the force of the blast. He said the Gaza withdrawal had brought his enemies closer to his doorstep.

"If we give them any more, they will eat us alive," he said.

School was canceled in large swaths of southern Israel on Tuesday, many businesses shut and traffic thinned. Newspapers and TV stations displayed color-coded maps informing Israelis that they had 15, 30 or 45 seconds to reach cover after the siren goes off. In Ashdod malls, directions to the nearest shelters were posted.

Israeli hard-liners maintain that every withdrawal brings Israel's enemies closer: They say the Oslo accords negotiated in the Norwegian capital in the 1990s turned parts of the West Bank into breeding grounds for suicide bombers; the 2000 pullback from south Lebanon brought Hezbollah closer to Israel.

In 2006 Hezbollah rockets reached Hadera, a city 27 miles north of Tel Aviv, and Israeli intelligence believes the Lebanese militia now has rockets that can reach 125 miles, far beyond Tel Aviv — meaning the vast majority of Israelis are in range.

"The historical lesson of Oslo, of Lebanon and of Gaza proves that with every concession, every territory we leave is used for attacks against us," said Yaakov Amidror, a former general now with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

"

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 01:05 PM

Olmert says Gaza operation will continue
Posted: 12:14 PM ET

JERUSALEM (CNN) — On the fifth day of airstrikes on Gaza, Israel's prime minister vowed Wednesday the operation would not end until Hamas militants quit firing rockets into the Jewish state.
"We did not enter this operation in order to end it with the firing still continuing," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a security cabinet meeting, according to a senior government official.
"Hamas broke this cease-fire," Olmert said. "If the conditions ripen" and if there is a solution "that promises a better security … we will consider it, but we are not there yet," he said, according to the official.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 01:13 PM

"If we give them any more they will eat us alive."
Gabi Aronov

There we have it summed up.Here is an Israeli citizen who appears to think that the Israeli state has been over generous to the Palestinian people.
And yet the historical record shows the complete opposite.
In the 1880s the Zionists arrived in Palestine with a plan to create a Jewish state at the expense of the majority population ...the Palestinian population which had lived in that land for countless generations.
Everything the zionists did from then on was designed to separate themselves from the rest of the people of Palestine.
And of course as time has past the oppression ,the state terror,the bombings, the camp massacres and the theft of land has become ever more stark and ever more barbaric culminating with the slaughtering of the women and children in their homes and on their streets.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 01:28 PM

Article Thirteen:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:

"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."

http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 01:43 PM

"And yet the historical record shows the complete opposite"

Actually, the historical record shows that the Moslim population has increased, along with the Jewish one. It is in the Moslim nations that one group has been removed, not in Israel.

Hamas has demonstrated it would rather kill Israelis than have it's own children live.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 02:00 PM

....and there you have it. Serving as background to all the political rhetoric and 'historical' claims from BOTH sides is the religious 'justification' of three different factions.

   "God TOLD us we have the right to be here"...or variations on that theme.

1) since God surely would not have 'told' all factions that THEY are 'favored' over the others.
2)then most likely, no 'God' told anyone anything of the sort!
3)therefore some of the basic premises fueling this conflict are likely false, but still easy to believe, since no one can 'prove' otherwise, and folks want to believe what supports their personal & political interests.
4)** from false premises, ANYTHING follows!**


...and thus, it seems, nothing will change unless one side obliterates the other. (the obvious solution...'share the damned place'... is never even considered, because like two little kids, someone will always be yelling "No fair! You gave him the best share!"

some of you JUST-DON'T-GET-IT, and will continue micro-arguing teeny details about dates and demographics forever!
And because of my points above, I guess you just really can't do otherwise.

......further, deponent sayeth not.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: DougR
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 03:43 PM

Peace: your post dated December 31, 2008, 1:15AM. Excellent.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 03:57 PM

Israel has never sought peace with the Palestinians. Ever since the state of Israel was founded in 1948 on land stolen from the Palestinians it has sought to drive them out of the physical and political arena.
It expelled some 700000 Palestinians from the new state in 1948 and then subsequently harried these refugees in their camps and in neighbouring countries.
They have been slaughtered in their dozens,their hundreds and in their thousands at places like Sabra and Shatilla,Qana ,Jenin and now in Gaza.
Israeli assassination squads have ranged with impunity on the West Bank, mosques have been desecrated,tens of thousands of Palestinian homes have been demolished, international observers have been shot dead, children rounded up and beaten until their limbs have been broken and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian men along with women and children imprisoned and mistreated in the dozens of Israeli prisons built for them.
The Israeli military are serving up more of the same barbarity in Gaza with the smug connivance of the USA and Britain....but it isnt going to work.
The original ideals of the Zionists have long gone and what the workld is increasingly seeing are the brutal, thuggish and short sighted actions of a government that knows nothing except "to send good boys from good homes to do bad things".
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: olddude
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 03:59 PM

When will any of them learn
and eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth
and the whole fucking world ends up blind and toothless
and another generation of kids grows up to learn a path of hate, death and violence.

shame on both sides .... until someone has the courage to change it all nothing will change ... and generations both sides die

We need a statesman on both sides to say enough. Someone needs to stand up and say this doesn't work ... and the people in Gaza. They fire rockets because they cannot feed their kids, cannot have a good school or decent way of life. That is no excuse to abject killing, but it fosters hate ...

build a fucking wall ... that serves a great purpose ...

Nothing changes and the body count just goes on

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 04:19 PM

olddude..Amen!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 04:50 PM

At this point, what is desperately needed is good old fashioned diplomacy...

I hate to keep harping on the "Saudi Proposal" but it was a good working framework for an end to most of the conflicts but the problem was that at the time the Saudis put it out in 2002 it would have gotten in the way of the Bush War Machine....

It still has all the makings of being possibly the only plan that has any chance of working for both the short and long run...

And the beauty is that it is regional... The Isreali/Palestianian conflict is just part of a larger agreement that would put alot of responsibilty for making it work on Arab nations as well as Isreal...

At some point something like this plan will get a second look... Right now, the upcoming elections in Isreal are playing into the equation... Sound familiar???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 05:36 PM

Bobert, I've never heard anyone say that the Arab states, much less either of the main Palestinian factions, think that the Saudi proposal is at all negotiable. If they would float it, or something like it, as the starting point for discussions there might be some chance for it.

Heatherblather, I'm afraid that you have no appreciation for reality, not to mention grammar, spelling or punctuation.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 06:08 PM

Well, Art, is is a "proposal", not a final product... I've never said that it should agreed upon point by point... What I have siad, however, is that it provides a framework for progress in the Middle East, which BTW there seems to be an absence of these days...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: freda underhill
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 07:13 PM

FALSE RELIGION

Those who in the name of Faith embrace illusion,
Kill and are killed.
Even the atheist gets God's blessings –
Does not boast of his religion;
With reverence he lights the lamp of Reason
And pays his homage not to scriptures,
But to the good in man.

The bigot insults his own religion
When he slays a man of another faith.
Conduct he judges not in the light of Reason;
In the temple he raises the blood-stained banner
And worships the devil in the name of God.

All that is shameful and barbarous through the Ages,
Has found a shelter in their temples –
Those they turn into prisons;
O, I hear the trumpet call of Destruction!
Time comes with her great broom
Sweeping all refuse away.

That which should make man free,
They turn into fetters;
That which should unite,
They turn into a sword;
That which should bring love
From the fountain of the Eternal,
They turn into poison
And with its waves they flood the world.
They try to cross the river
In a bark riddled with holes;
And yet, in their anguish, whom do they blame?

O Lord, breaking false religion,
Save the blind!
Break! O break
The altar that is drowned in blood.
Let your thunder strike
Into the prison of false religion,
And bring to this unhappy land
The light of Knowledge.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 07:16 PM

To Artbrooks
The Palestinian people have experienced the "reality" that you mention.
They have been experiencing it for decades and it is an ugly and desperate reality...and that has nothing to do with my grammar or lack of it.
IFOR

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 07:28 PM

A letter from "Jews For Justice For Palestine" to Gordon Brown the Prime Minister of the UK condemning the attack on Palestinian Gaza can be read on Indymedia UK.The letter condemns the carnage inflicted on the residents of Gaza who are being killed in their hundreds and wounded in their thousands as apartment blocks ,streets ,mosques and markets are targetted by F16 bombers and Apache helicopter gunships flying above this city of a million plus people.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:16 PM

"There's an analogy with something like domestic violence or child abuse. It's always happened - but now we are more aware of it, and feel a responsibility to do something about it."

And where was YOUR voice when Hamas was pounding Israel with rockets?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Peace
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:39 PM

Or your voice, Ifor.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,hatherblather
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:57 PM

If you don't want peace,

You won't get it.

Israel evacuated Gaza not two years past, left some developed areas and commercial developments. Israel had to use Israeli police and soldiers to remove unwilling Israeli civilians.

Arabs living in Gaza have concentrated on activities that are less civilian and more sanguine (bloody). And have elected a government where one part took over by force, killing more fellow Arabs than Israel.

Violence begets violence

If you don't want peace,

You won't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 08:58 PM

Same place it always is. I'm against doing stuff like that. But I don't actually think there are many people around here who think that it is a good idea to do that kind of thing.

Unfortunately it's not quite the same when it comes to blowing up people in Gaza - there always seem to be a few who think that is a good idea...

Happy New Year anyway - I hope it will turn out a better one than it looks like being for the various people who have got themselves tangled up in the Holy Land through no fault of their own. On both sides and in the middle.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 09:00 PM

Hey, if ya' ain't into getting blowed up then don't pick gettin' born in the Middle East...

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Peace
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 11:38 PM

I do NOT think it is a good idea to bomb Gaza. (And I have registered my protest--which has never done any good in the past as I expect it won't in future. However, the usuals seem to nail Israel yet they do not nail the violence that has been carried out by Hamas. Strange, huh? These people like Israeli blood I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:11 AM

It is completely untrue to say that Israel "evacuated" Gaza two years ago.
While the Israeli state pulled out the zionist paramilitary settler groups Israel kept control of the land,sea and air borders in and out of Gaza and started to impose a military and economic stranglehold on the city with the most terrible consequences for the civilian population which has been reduced to hunger,poverty and terror.

Palestinian fishing boats have been prevented from fishing in coastal waters,power stations have been blown up so that there is scarcely any electricity,The sewage system has been destroyed by Israeli shelling so that raw sewage is flooding streets and the mediterranean itself,hospitals and clinics are operating with only the barest of necessities,children on the beaches have been blown up by Israeli shells fired from a naval warship,women and children have been massacred in their homes by huge bombs.

Israel stands accused of collective punishment against the Palestinian people in Gaza.The UN representative, denied entry by Israel into Gaza, has accused Israel of war crimes against its civilian residents.

But "collective punishment" is not a new strategy.Only two years ago in Lebanon the Israeli military set out to destroy the infrastructure of the country and flattened apartment blocks,bridges,town centres,markets,roads.car convoys of refugees etc. In the process it killed and maimed thousands of civilians.Israel got a bloody nose then from Hezbollah despite its overwhelmingly superior military firepower.

In Israel itself there have been very brave demonstrations opposing the carnage which shows that there there are some in Israel itself who see the criminality of the actions of the Israeli state towards the people of Gaza.

On saturday the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called a major demonstration against the bombing of Gaza in central London.Assemble at 12.30 outside the Embankment tube .
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 09:45 AM

I always find it interesting that no one ever mentions the Egyptian blockade of Gaza, which is just as tight as the Israeli one, and which is imposed by a nation with which Hamas is not at eternal war.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:03 AM

I don't recalll where Eqypt bombed Palestianians or drove tanks thru anyones house...

But I recalll that last time this happened, it was the Egyptians who opened the barracades and provided humanitarian aid to the Palestians...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:14 AM

"the operation would not end until Hamas militants quit firing rockets into the Jewish state."

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:37 AM

That really wasn't the point I was trying to make, Bobert.

The Israeli's are letting aid through. Per Reuters earlier today: Israel has allowed in around 100 trucks loaded with humanitarian supplies on each of the past two days, but that comes after months of severe economic blockade and big shortfalls in Gaza of food and medical supplies. The UN said it was still well short of what was needed and described the humanitarian situation in Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, as "alarming".

Yes, it is insufficient, without question - but why is the "enemy" helping rather than the Palestinians' fellow Arabs? Why can't Syria, Iran, the Saudis and so forth land massive levels of supplies, not only for the crisis but on an ongoing basis, at Port Sa'id and move these along the coast road (Route 30) along with Egypt's own contribution? Why is Israel responsible for the economic support of Gaza rather than anyone else? The answer, by all reports, is that the mainstream Arab nations are just about as unhappy with Hamas as the Israelis are, but are perfectly willing to sit back and let them take the rap for the deplorable situation there.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 11:49 AM

So, Peace, we are agreed that firing rockets at Israel is the wrong thing to do, and that bombing Gaza is the wrong thing to do.

And also, I hope, that the people doing those things are not particularly wicked people, but sincerely, though mistakenly, think they have no alternative, and that their actions will somehow make things better or stop them getting worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:27 PM

The following is the lead from "Haaretz", from a story, today, in the liberal, left (you choose your adjective) daily Israeli newspaper. You can read the whole article at Haaretz.com:

One wonders how many wounded Israelis would be so treated in Gaza, or southern Lebanon,by Hamas and Hezbullah respectively, if such an opportunity arose.


"Last update - 18:00 01/01/2009                         
12 Palestinians hurt in Gaza fighting being treated in Israeli hopsitals
By Fadi Eyadat and Dana Viler-Pollak
Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel News, IDF

Twelve Palestinians have been evacuated to Israel for medical treatment since Operation "Cast Lead" began last Saturday in the Gaza Strip, as the hospitals in Gaza strain to accommodate the hundreds of wounded. For one Gaza boy, being treated in an Israeli hospital should increase his chances of making a full recovery."

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:45 PM

The fact that it is being reported that 12 Palestians are being treated in Israeli hospitals sounds to me like some PR stuff on the part of the Israelis... Like how did these Palestinians get injured in the first place???

Well, I'll tell ya' how... The guy shootin' at 'um missed the shot an' accidently wounded them rather than killing them....

Hmmmmmmmm???

Me sniffs a little Karl Rove at work here...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:52 PM

When the facts don't fit your perception, Bobert, mention the ubiquitous Republican. That's a really cogent argument.

I notice you ignored the other comment I made in that post....hmmm!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:40 PM

Well, John...

Seein' as the Palestinan hospitals are allready overflowin' I doubt very much that an injured Israeli would get poster-boy status in those over-packed hospitals...

And, yeah, I do put alot of this blame on the Bush/Rove administration... Thay made their choices in 2001 to not be part of a continued effort that goes back to Jimmy Carter of every administartion, including other Republican ones, to abandon trying to broker peace between the Israelis and the Palistinians...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:58 PM

There are no grounds for thinking that Palestinians would be any less or any more humane in their treatment of their opponents than Israelis, if their situations were somehow switched around.

Typically medical staff in all circumstances will treat whoever they are in a position to treat.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:02 PM

..."Hamas has taken up rockets as its main weapon because they make such walls irrelevant and enable it to cause casualties without sacrificing fighters in ground raids. Also, while rockets cannot match the firepower of Israel's military, they are highly effective in spreading fear among residents of Israel's southern cities.

Hamas has fired at least 5,500 rockets since seizing Gaza in 2007, killing four Israelis before the air campaign was launched, according to the Israeli military.

But the impact goes far beyond casualties. Fear of the rockets pervades Israeli border towns, constantly sending residents dashing to bomb shelters, hampering businesses, disrupting schools and causing stress-related disorders, like anxiety and bed-wetting. Experts say industries in Israel's south have lost up to $2 million a day because of disruptions from rockets.

Since Israel launched its Gaza offensive, the Hamas barrages have intensified, with hundreds fired, killing four more Israelis, including a soldier.

More significantly, the range of Hamas' rockets has increased, with Katyushas reaching as far as Beersheba, 22 miles from Gaza, nearly twice the range of the Qassams. Israeli officials say at least a tenth of the country's 7 million people and some of its largest cities are now in range of the missiles.

Even more of Israel is within reach of Hezbollah's rockets, but so far that group has stayed out of the conflict. It is widely thought to be reluctant to start hostilities with Israel because it does not want a repeat of the widespread damage to Lebanon from the 2006 war and because of its new place in Lebanon's unity government.

Israeli defense officials estimate that Hamas had 3,000 rockets before the fighting began Saturday and that around 1,000 of those have been either fired or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

"Rockets have come to symbolize asymmetrical warfare, but they are more about just symbolism in the Arab world," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Hezbollah expert in Lebanon. "They are not designed to defeat the enemy, just to wear it down." "

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:05 PM

..."Hamas' homemade rocket, known informally as the Qassam, is grossly imprecise, carries a small warhead of about 22 pounds of explosives. They have caused casualties but more often just spark panic.

The imported missiles, Katyushas, are better guided, travel farther and cause more damage because they have a warhead of up to 44 pounds, roughly the weight of a cannon shell from one of Israel's Merkava tanks.

Such rockets were at the heart of the monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Hezbollah fired up to 4,000 rockets at Israeli towns even as Israel's warplanes pounded launch sites and its troops took large swaths of southern Lebanon.

Now, it's the turn of the Palestinian militants of Hamas. Israel's air assault in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday, will be a major test of the military's ability to stop Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.

Israel vowed to destroy Hezbollah's rocket capabilities in the 2006 war, but while it inflicted heavy losses on the movement's fighters, it couldn't stop missile firing. And Hezbollah's leaders boast the group has rebuilt its arsenal to some 30,000 rockets."

-------------------------------------------------------------

And the UN ceasefire terms were that Hezboallah would not be allowed to get more rockets- is there any reason Israel should stop before it destroys Hamas, since it knows the UN will not enforce any ceasefire terms on anyone other than Israel???

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:50 PM

I don't think you'll find much arguement that Hamas ain't like a menatlly ill next door neighbor.... Firing rockets against unknown populations is a purdy screwed up thing to do...

What bothers me is how Hamas came into power and it's kinda like we're having to eat our own cooking here... Turning our backs on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and then trying to starve out innocent Palestinians will get ya' some rather messed up folks any day of the week...

There seems less desperation and less radicalism in the West Bank and whereas the West Bank is no model for how to create any level of justice and equality in the region it is an example of what happens when people aren't starved out...

We will not see any progress in Gaza until we realize that poverty isn't the greatest motivator to act right... Just pisses people off...

So, I am looking forward to seeing a return to diplomacy and more carrots and less sticks.... Seems it has been forever since we've had a more pragmatic approach...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 05:49 PM

The Saudi suggestion is just as unlikely to be accepted by Hamas as by Israel. Hamas' covenant states that "so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences" are "in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement", stating "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad".

Hamas targets Palestinian "moderates" as harshly as it targets Israelis. Hamas regards Fatah members as its enemies once Fatah moved towards a position of being prepared to negotiate with Israel. Hamas has been detaining Fatar supporters as it detains Israelis. There have been allegations of torture of unarmed Palestinian protesters who object to Hamas methods. In October 2008, Hamas announced it would release all political prisoners in their custody in Gaza. Several hours after the announcement, 17 Fatah members were released.( Hamas frees Fatah prisoners, Al-Jazeera, October 30, 2008.)

Human Rights Watch has cited a number of summary executions of Palestinians by Hamas, including the case of Muhammad Swairki, 28, a cook for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, who was thrown to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City.

Tensions between Hamas and Fatah is called Wakseh among Palestinians, meaning humiliation, ruin, and collapse as a result of self-inflicted damage.

On November 12 2007, a large demonstration dedicated to the memory of late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was organized by Fatah in Gaza City. With over 200,000 participants, this was the largest Fatah demonstration in the Gaza strip since the Hamas takeover. The demonstration was forcibly dispersed by Hamas gunmen, who fired into the crowd. At least six civilians were killed and over 80 people were injured, some from being trampled in the resulting stampede.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:20 PM

Fatah have always been notoriously corrupt...they are to the Palestinian cause as Tony Blair was to Socialism.

A fair settlment will never be achieved by negotiations, compromise will mean an end to Palestinian aspirations..... and they know it only too well,having been forced to live and bring up their families in the worlds biggest prison. Sometimes people have no option but to fight to the death.....as in the warsaw ghetto....ironically!

A settlment must be imposed by the major world powers in tandem with the United Nations, but agreement for this will be nigh impossible while American policy is determined by Jewish interests..Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:26 PM

"Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 08 - 04:50 PM

At this point, what is desperately needed is good old fashioned diplomacy..."





"Even as it pursued its bombing campaign, Israel kept the way open for intense efforts by leaders in the Middle East and Europe to arrange a cease-fire. Israel said it would consider a halt to fighting if international monitors were brought in to track compliance with any truce."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090101/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians




Article Thirteen:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:

"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."


Hamas Charter

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:28 PM

The state of Israel was born 60 years ago through the massacre and exiling of Palestinians....many of whom fled to Gaza.Today they and their children and grandchildren are still being massacred and maimed in their hundreds including many women and children. The horror of the air bombardment can be seen on many news channels including Al Jazeera.
There is a difference however between 1948 and today...now the Palestinians are penned in with Israel controlling the air ,land and sea routes in and out of Gaza while its bombers and helicopter gunships fire off their shells and bombs with almost total impunity.The Palestinians cannot escape even if they want to.
The bitter irony is that many of these Gazan Palestinians actually come from just north of Gaza in what is now Israel.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:29 PM

I agree, Freda, that the Sauid Proposal is not a panecia for the Middle East... Nothin' could be that... But it does put some pressure on the Arab states to police their own behaviors... That would give Israel some level of security and if that occured then and the rest of the worls tried to re-engage the Palestianians, especially in Gaza, then the paradym would have a chnace to change where people in Gaza wouldn't feel so helpless and thereby not vote for radicals...

It's going to be a long process but it isn't impossible... Getting the basic's of the Saudi Proposal into the discussion is a great first step...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: pdq
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:34 PM

"Fear of the rockets pervades Israeli border towns, constantly sending residents dashing to bomb shelters, hampering businesses, disrupting schools and causing stress-related disorders..."

That is exactly what a terrorist group is supposed to do. Hamas is a terrorist group. Gaza must be returned to Fatah and the Hamas leadership must be made to face serious consequences.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:59 PM

Be nice, pdq... How ya' gonna achieve that???

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: pdq
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:08 PM

If the people of Gaza want it badly enough, it will happen.

That is the pourpose of the current bombing campiagn. Make it painful enough and the people will throw out the troublemakers.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:11 PM

The method chosen by Israel for changing the minds of Palestinians in Gaza is through bombing and destruction.

One side has far more powerful weapons - but both are relying on the same method. Terror.

On both sides the civilian population have placed their trust in organisations which are engaged in terrorism.