Israel is 'nearing Gaza goals'
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Israel is nearing the goals of its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, as he signalled it would continue.
He urged more patience and effort, as Israel's troops reportedly engaged in fierce fighting in Gaza City.
Right, those ‘goals’ huh? The sudden U-Turn has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is about to end the 8 year blank cheque that Bush gave Israel be announcing that he would meet with Hamas? Isn’t it interesting that was all about glorified skyrockets that have killed less than 1% of Israel’s drink driving rate, yet the rockets keep getting fired so really it had nothing to do with the skyrockets did it? Just like their despicable war in Lebanon which used the pretense of the two kidnapped soldiers, the worlds media have been tricked once again into selling the victim as the aggressor. So what ‘goals’ did Israel achieve here then, nearly 900 dead Palestinians, over 3500 maimed, A University bombed, the Parliament building bombed, an attempted forced ethnic cleansing by dropping pamphlets threatening civilians to flee their homes to UN schools and then bombing those UN schools and then lying about bombing them and the illegal use of Phosphorous shells as incendiary weapons which is a war crime - what great goals. See I would’ve thought the goal for Gaza was end the air, land and sea blockade that effectively makes Gaza the largest open aired prison on Earth and end the economic strangulation that is crushing Palestinians into poverty, instead Israel’s goal is ethnic cleansing, massacre of civilians and the audacity to try and sell this all through the media as self-defense.
Can anyone believe how much an apologist for Israel our own media and Kiwiblagh have become, not to mention the National Party itself (none of the new ministers want to risk their personal Israeli wine quotas), but they are getting a lot more quiet aren’t they? When the truth about the Lebanon war seeped out (that the entire thing was pre-planned and the kidnapped soldiers were only an excuse) all the apologists in the media went very, very quiet, and my guess is that once the media get into Gaza and witness the destruction there we will have the exact same thing occur again. Funny how not many apologists or the media are talking about how Israel lied regarding the bombing of that UN school isn’t it, I don’t even think Israel’s representative on-line in NZ, David P Farrar, could gloss over that.
There is no military solution in Gaza.
Israeli Army suppresses film footage.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJaPZLNLBu8
One thing you have to remember looking at that picture though is that alot of the 'V' shaped area is mountainous and (seemingly) largely uninhabited, except for Elat down the bottom there by the red sea, looking all rich and unaffected.
ReplyDelete<3 google maps :p
Wow those 'soldiers' are just kids! Spose thats what you get in a conscript.
ReplyDeleteQuote of the day: "Extremities of acceptance". Seriously, Israeli army official says what their doing in Gaza is at the "Extremities of acceptance", makes you wonder what the average Israeli thinks. Or maybe they just don't know whats really going on, ministry of truth anyone?
Watch the video anon posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJaPZLNLBu8
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (IPS) - Contrary to Israel's argument that it was forced to launch its air and ground offensive against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original Hamas-Israel ceasefire arrangement, according to a U.S.-based source who has been briefed on the proposal.
ReplyDeleteThe proposal to renew the ceasefire was presented by a high-level Hamas delegation to Egyptian Minister of Intelligence Omar Suleiman at a meeting in Cairo Dec. 14. The delegation, said to have included Moussa Abu Marzouk, the second-ranking official in the Hamas political bureau in Damascus, told Suleiman that Hamas was prepared to stop all rocket attacks against Israel if the Israelis would open up the Gaza border crossings and pledge not to launch attacks in Gaza.
The Hamas officials insisted that Israel not be allowed to close or reduce commercial traffic through border crossings for political purposes, as it had done during the six-month lull, according to the source. They asked Suleiman, who had served as mediator between Israel and Hamas in negotiating the original six-month Gaza ceasefire last spring, to "put pressure" on Israel to take that the ceasefire proposal seriously.
Suleiman said he could not pressure Israel but could only make the suggestion to Israeli officials. It could not be learned, however, whether Israel explicitly rejected the Hamas proposal or simply refused to respond to Egypt.
The readiness of Hamas to return to the ceasefire conditionally in mid-December was confirmed by Dr. Robert Pastor, a professor at American University and senior adviser to the Carter Centre, who met with Khaled Meshal, chairman of the Hamas political bureau in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter. Pastor told IPS that Meshal indicated Hamas was willing to go back to the ceasefire that had been in effect up to early November "if there was a sign that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza".
Pastor said he passed Meshal's statement on to a "senior official" in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) the day after the meeting with Meshal. According to Pastor, the Israeli official said he would get back to him, but did not.
"There was an alternative to the military approach to stopping the rockets," said Pastor. He added that Israel is unlikely to have an effective ceasefire in Gaza unless it agrees to lift the siege.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45350
A few months after Hamas' 2006 election victory, leader Ismail Haniyeh tried to start a dialogue with U.S. President George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteHaaretz has obtained a written message from Haniyeh sent to Bush via an American professor who met with Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh asked Bush to lift the boycott of the Hamas government and pressure Israel to maintain stability in the region.
Haniyeh wrote in the missive, "We are an elected government which came through a democratic process."
In the second paragraph, Haniyeh laid out the political platform he maintains to this day. "We are so concerned about stability and security in the area that we don't mind having a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and offering a truce for many years," he wrote.
Haniyeh called on Bush to launch a dialogue with the Hamas government.
"We are not warmongers, we are peace makers and we call on the American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government," he wrote. Haniyeh also urged the American government to act to end the international boycott "because the continuation of this situation will encourage violence and chaos in the whole region."
Upon his return to the U.S. several days later, Segal gave State Department and NSC officials the original letter.
In his own letter, Segal emphasized that a state within the 1967 borders and a truce for many years could be considered Hamas' de facto recognition of Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037258.html
Published on Thursday, January 8, 2009 by The Washington Post
ReplyDeleteAn Unnecessary War
by Jimmy Carter
I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.
After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.
Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.
We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.
Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.
After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.
Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).
We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/08-11
Bomber, aside from the "right wing blogs" can you provide any evidence that the New Zealand media have become "apologists" for Israel.
ReplyDeleteA quick glance of the online editions of the papers yesterday showed the only "Pro-Israel" piece was an op-ed piece by Michael Laws.
Lukas
ReplyDeleteOne simple way to ascertain this is to search for traces of the articles I have posted here containing the frequent Hamas peace proposals.
Have they been reported?
If not, why not?
"when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza."
ReplyDeleteNow is this a city boundary wall, or a Palestinian boundary wall? Agree with the embargo or not, digging though the boundary wall, if it was between states, could be reasonably seen as hostile.
To the Editor:
ReplyDeleteI feel compelled to note, and cordially insist that the (Policy) term 'Ethnic Cleansing' not be employed when describing attempts to eradicate groups or populations through aggressively determined
(Policies of) systematic decimation.
We do not predominantly consider the term 'The Final Solution' (Policy) as a legitimate description of the events that took place; the event is described and known from the perspective of the victimized as 'The Holocaust'(surely not the first time and sadly not the last time for all people.)
I think that to employ the terminology of Tyrants cannot be an accurate, let alone properly informed description of the consequences derived from those Policies.
I have noticed this term 'Ethnic Cleansing' creeping into the general lexicon more and more, and I consider it to be a disservice to the innocence of the dead.
Respectfully
Aaron
'Ethnic cleansing' is an entirely appropriate description of what Israel is doing.
ReplyDeleteHe's either being sarcastic, or saying that they cannot be cleaned if they weren't unclean in the first place... maybe both...
ReplyDelete"I feel compelled to note, and cordially insist that the (Policy) term 'Ethnic Cleansing' not be employed when describing attempts to [cleanse the land of particular ethnicities]" :p
edit:...implying there is something dirty, 'impure' or wrong that needs to be fixed or cleansed 'regarding' that group.
ReplyDeleteSyria's First Lady:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYtq79yEzWY&feature=related
I think the core issue here for both neighboring parties is the question and legitimization of their respective States. That there exists and was established a State of Israel should logically infer the simultaneous establishment of a State of Palestine. That there exists no legitimized State of Palestine proper, is a gravely unjust tragedy to my mind.
ReplyDeleteWorst case scenario (and it is):
If there were two States, each with a State Army, there could be Declarations of War. With two States at War, it can be determined who is a Soldier and who is a Civilian-distinguishing between Combatants and Non-Combatants in each party, as well as evoking Conventions as to the treatment (not torture!!) of Prisoners Of War.
Right now, while it occurs to me, I want to highlight the terms 'Collateral Damage' and 'Friendly Fire'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do these terms mean, and what events do these euphemistic terms refer to?
Article A: 'Collateral Damage'.
Collateral Damage - This is a term used to describe the haphazard killing of innocent non-combatant civilians in a War between two State Armies.
*Oops sorry about the kids mum*
Article B: 'Friendly Fire'.
Friendly Fire - This is a term used to describe the unfortunate event of a Soldier killing a fellow Soldier of his own Army or Allied Army.
*Oops sorry mate...bro' are you o.k...bro'??*
Oh the language!!
Yes, I am sure the civilian-majority of the Palestinian population are crying out: 'Why are you killing us? We have done nothing wrong yet you take everything from us...why...why do you give us reason to fear you?'
ReplyDeleteParticularly terrifying for the Non-Combatant Civilians in each Party.
State = State
Army = Army
Civilian = Civilian
Property = Property
"What ever is going on in Gaza it isn't Genocide, it it was why aren't Israel trying to kill everyone on the West Bank too?"
ReplyDelete"Of course the Israelis see Hamas as something wrong with the Palestinians, which they're trying to remove. Therefore ... ethnic cleansing"
:p
Some words and meanings...
ReplyDeleteethnic cleansing:
"A euphemism to describe the forceful removal or genocide of minority ethnic groups (see ethnicity) during the breakup of Yugoslavia. It was used mainly to describe the Serbs' attacks on Muslims in Bosnia and Albanians in Kosovo. (See Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo War.)"
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
genocide:
"1944, apparently coined by Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" [p.19], in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews, lit. "killing a tribe," from Gk. genos "race, kind" (see genus) + -cide, from L. -cidere "kill," comb. form of caedere "to cut, kill" (see concise). The proper formation would be *genticide."
Online Etymology Dictionary,
© 2001 Douglas Harper
and
"the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
race:
"the human race or family; humankind: Nuclear weapons pose a threat to the race. "
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
species:
"the species, the human race; mankind: a study of the species."
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
-Yes, absolutely words and meanings matter.