Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill more than 200

Editorial:
The Guardian,
Monday 5 January 2009

There was only one certainty as Israel's tanks and thousands of troops this weekend launched their biggest assault on Gaza for four years: the number of civilian casualties will rise exponentially. Israel may phone, text, drop leaflets and fire warning missiles at Gazans trapped in their homes, but the reality is that there is nowhere for 1.5m people to run. Gaza is a ghetto from which there is no escape.

Just before the ground offensive was launched on Saturday, Israel lobbed a shell into Palestine Square, Gaza City's main shopping area and five Palestinians were killed. Earlier, they flattened the American International School, the one private school in the strip, which itself had been attacked by militants. Another air strike destroyed a mosque in Beit Hanoun during evening prayers killing around a dozen Palestinians. Yesterday afternoon a mother and her four children were killed by an air strike in Gaza City. As Israeli forces battled last night on the outskirts of Gaza City, the killing of innocent Palestinians continued.

The last time the tanks rolled into Gaza in February and March last year, more than half the Palestinian casualties were civilian, according to Human Rights Watch. That pattern is now set to be repeated. After a week's aerial bombardment, the death toll already stands at nearly 500, of which approximately 70 are children and 27 women, according to independent Palestinian sources. Of the 2,650 Gazans injured, more than 270 are women and 650 children. So much for Israel's claim that their targets are Hamas militants. Even if you stretch the term to include policemen, this is a "surgical" operation in which civilians will die in their hundreds.

There are, however, many uncertainties. The ghost of Israel's humiliation at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 hangs over this enterprise and Israel will want to exorcise it. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza have about 15,000 men under arms, of which only 1,000 men form a trained core in the form of Iz al-Din al-Qassam. It is doubtful whether a force of this size could inflict the sort of military casualties Israel suffered in Lebanon. Israel will judge the success of its operation on the extent to which it will have depleted Hamas's command structure, as well as its ability to launch rockets. But even if the Israeli army succeeds in its aims and destroys Hamas both as an army and as an organisation, it will have also destroyed the last remnants of government in the strip. Israel would have fought its way back to where it was in 1994, before the advent of the Palestinian authority, and back in direct control of Gaza. That is plainly not what it wants, because it would mean re-assuming control of 1.5 million Gazans as well. Putting a proxy Palestinian government in place would be just as fraught. Destroying the infrastructure of Hamas's rule in Gaza would also wreck the effective government on which any future ceasefire would depend. To take one small but relevant example, half of Gaza's ambulances have already been destroyed.

Hamas is more than just a guerrilla army. It is a political movement as well. As such, Hamas will have been seen to have borne the brunt of the occupier's might and Hamas's claim to assume the leadership of the Palestinian national movement will have been enhanced as a result. If the United Nations stands by as the ground operation continues, Fatah in the West Bank will increasingly be seen by the Palestinian street as a Vichy regime, fit only for collaboration. The disunity among the Palestinian factions seen last week in the West Bank should not be misinterpreted as acquiescence. There is real anger too, of the worst sort - anger without effective leadership. There is only one way out of the political trap which Israeli forces are now entering, and that is an immediate ceasefire. It would enhance Hamas's credibility, but not as much as a total military victory might.

Quote:

What is the emotion when a rocket is fired, and what is the emotion when an airstrike retaliates. Is it that the Hamas government has a great ability to hate, beyond what many people can understand? Or, is there a delusion that they are doing God's work? Or, is this just avaricious desire for the land that the Jews now inhabit?

No, I don't think it's any of that, Foofie. I think it's an unwillingness to accept a life which is wretched & offers little hope of improvement & some dignity. Gaza looks like one big concentration camp, squashed full of desperate people with little hope of a better future. You can like it or not, you can understand it or choose not to, but the Israeli government is seen by these people in Gaza (& the the Left Bank, etc) as a (much more powerful) oppressor. And it is not surprising, as futile as it seems, & by employing such pathetic means compared to the powerful Israeli weapons of war, that they choose to fight back against those who oppress them. Put simply, life as second class citizens living under such hardship is unendurable. That's what happens in these situations. In the 1960s & 70s it was called guerilla warfare - as witnessed in Vietnam in response to US warfare. I am not glorifying war & conflict in any way, I'm simply saying I'm not at all surprised that people who suffer such indignities choose to fight back. In the mentime, yet more Israeli settlers move into the West Bank & yet more grievances develop ....

Do not compare the Israeli/Palestinean situation to Vietnam when addressing me in a post. You are not an American, and I would like to not hear any misinformation about what the U.S. was involved in.

Quote:

Do not compare the Israeli/Palestinean situation to Vietnam when addressing me in a post. You are not an American, and I would like to not hear any misinformation about what the U.S. was involved in.

Goodness me!

I was not comparing, or even suggesting the two situations are exactly identical, or whatever it is you might be suggesting ...
I was referring to a tactical response employed by (much less) powerful people in response to attack/invasion/oppression by a much more powerful military power, like Israel. But I think you know that's what I meant.

Btw, even though I am not an American, I think I do have quite some insight as to what the US was involved in, in Vietnam. It may surprise you to know that Australia was, in fact, an ally of the US in that (mis)adventure. You may not have noticed that (sadly) Australia was also involved in the US invasion & occupation of Iraq & is currently involved in Afghanistan as a US ally. And, believe it or not, we actually followed what happened in these places & have actually formed opinions! Please do not talk to me about "misinformation" about US involvement. It is simply information & opinion which does not match your beliefs.

Now can we get back to the Gaza invasion, please?

You don't want to talk about the Gaza invasion?

I thought that's what this thread was about.

You don't want to talk about the Gaza invasion?

I thought that's what this thread was about.

msolga wrote:

You don't want to talk about the Gaza invasion?

I thought that's what this thread was about.

It's embarrassing for the Zionists to discuss. Too many moral quandaries.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

msolga wrote:

You don't want to talk about the Gaza invasion?

I thought that's what this thread was about.

It's embarrassing for the Zionists to discuss. Too many moral quandaries.

Cycloptichorn

You are giving "all" Zionists too much credit. All Jews are not California liberals.

Try talking to some old Holocaust Survivors, with a number still tatooed on a forearm. You might get a different viewpoint.

Nothing to really rehash. It is no different than as a child I played "Cowboys and Indians." Everyone knew the cowboys would win, since they had the technology. Today I do not believe boys play that game, since someone would be upset that the Indians lose.

Try talking to some old Holocaust Survivors, with a number still tatooed on a forearm. You might get a different viewpoint.

Quote:

Nothing to really rehash. It is no different than as a child I played "Cowboys and Indians." Everyone knew the cowboys would win, since they had the technology. Today I do not believe boys play that game, since someone would be upset that the Indians lose.

Gaza is no "game".

I can't believe your flippancy over such a serious situation.

Foofie wrote:

Try talking to some old Holocaust Survivors, with a number still tatooed on a forearm. You might get a different viewpoint.

You know, I'm sure there were people back in the 30s and 40s who argued that many countries had done things that were considered excessive, and that the German Reich was a country that was still young and that it had to do some things that "proper" people could not condone if it wanted to continue to exist...

Try talking to some old Holocaust Survivors, with a number still tatooed on a forearm. You might get a different viewpoint.

Israel must end its brutal assault

WE ARE Australian Jews who condemn the military attacks on Gaza. Israel has the right to protect its citizens and demand an end to the crime of Palestinian rockets targeting civilians. However, this cannot be used as a pretext for the grossly disproportionate military assault on Gaza because it was Israel that violated the truce in November.

The home-made rockets have caused relatively few Israeli casualties. By contrast, Israel's bombardment has caused about 400 deaths and 2000 casualties. Civilian targets include a university, television station, factories, mosques, ministry offices, parliament and refugee camps.

The war comes after the Israeli blockade that created a humanitarian crisis under which the Palestinians suffered from lack of food, electricity, medicines and hospital equipment. The blockade was condemned by the UN and, like the Israeli airstrikes, constitutes illegal collective punishment prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

We call for an end to attacks on civilians by Palestinians and Israelis. However, since Palestinians have no means of self-defence against the Middle East's most powerful force, we particularly call on Israel to end its assault and reconsider its rejection of the UN Security Council's call for a ceasefire.

There can be no solution without Israel being a willing partner to dialogue.

Antony Loewenstein (author), Linda Jaivin (writer), Moss Cass (former Labor MP), Ian Cohen (NSW Greens MP), Andrew Riemer (writer and critic) and 108 others

Are these crimes?

WHAT have been Israel's "crimes"? Not "stealing Palestinian land", but making that land productive. Israel's crime is not striking back at terror, but demonstrating that a Middle East country can be governed without resort to terror. Its crime has not been denying Arab rights, but insisting on human rights for women and minorities.

Israel's crime has been making democracy work where tyranny prevailed for 5000 years, and survival against overwhelming odds while legions of Arab nationalists, Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead. But Israel's greatest crime was to expose the global cult of victimhood, to prove that hard work, fortitude and courage could overcome even history's grimmest disaster.

Was it a crime to hand Gaza back to Palestinian authorities, to give peace a chance? Look what Israel received in return for trading land for peace. While Israel longs to live in peace with its neighbours, those neighbours openly profess the desire to eliminate Israel and exterminate its people.

Tamir Aloni, Caulfield South

You do not like my metaphors? So then we should not continue this discussion, if you might have a need to stand in judgement of my metaphors, regardless of how you perceive them.