Gaza's on-going Palestinian civilians Killing

[David Anderson]

There was a spokesman from the Palestinians on the radio the other night and when pressed about militants hiding amongst the civilians
his response was where else can they go ?
Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth and it's citizens are not free to come & go and there's no where for anyone to hide.

[Manoli]

<
The Israeli military said it had targeted more than 4,100 sites in Gaza since the start of the conflict on 8 July. The death toll in Gaza rose above 1,300 on Wednesday.  Three soldiers were killed in fighting around Khan Younis, bringing the total IDF death toll to 56. Three civilians have died in rocket attacks on Israel.

Support for the military operation among the Israeli public remained solid. A poll published by Tel Aviv university this week found 95% of Israeli Jews felt the offensive was justified. Only 4% believed too much force had been used.  
>

The US condemned the school shelling but did not specifically blame Israel. [/read with a note of incredulity]

[stamper]

The US has given Israel over 100 billion dollars since it's inception so it isn't neutral.

[Schewe]

Master of the understatement, Jeff.

Well...what about this: Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Israel as Better Than Hamas. (requires a NYT's log-in)

It ain't cut and dried...I regret the loss of human lives for any reason...(including Malaysian flight 17) but nothing is easy...but I don't think LuLa is the best place for solving the world's problems.

[Manoli]

The US has given Israel over 100 billion dollars since it's inception so it isn't neutral.

Anything but.
Put the latest carnage into perspective - 1300+ dead (large percentage women and children).
Almost 1/2 the death toll (2977) from 9/11.
And the best they can do, so far, is just 'condemn' the shelling ..

Well...what about this: Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Israel as Better Than Hamas. (requires a NYT's log-in)
It ain't cut and dried...I regret the loss of human lives for any reason...(including Malaysian flight 17) but nothing is easy...

Nothing I've posted supports any form of terrorism or Hamas. That's not the issue here, 'war crimes' is.

but I don't think LuLa is the best place for solving the world's problems.

Agreed.

[mezzoduomo]

I suppose if Israel didn't have the Iron Dome defense, things would be more 'proportional'. Would that be preferable to some posting here?
Only one faith calls for the eradication of all others, and only one party to this calamity vows the annihilation of the other. Capabilities aside, it seems pretty easy to see the deep animus that underlies all this carnage.

[RSL]

Although the global situation in the middle East if very complex, what we have in front of us is extremely simple and no amount of wicked rhetoric will change that.

Every hours that passes by, the Israeli gov has the option to stop bombing or to continue bombing. Every time they decide to continue bombing, they are de facto deciding to kill innocent children on top of the hundreds they have already murdered these past 2 weeks.

Those who have an influence on the Isreali government and are not succeeding in making them stop have blood on their hands too.

Cheers,
Bernard

That's quite a rant, Bernard, but you didn't answer the question.

[ripgriffith]

Anyway you look at it Israel is the historical agressor in Gaza.

Today they are the ones deciding hour after hour to kill Palestinian children. On purpose.

Is Hamas innocent? No, they are not, but sticking a terrorist naming to them doesn't reduce the least bit the atrocious nature of what Israel, and the people supporting their positions, are doing/letting them do.

Cheers,
Bernard

+1

[mezzoduomo]

There was a spokesman from the Palestinians on the radio the other night and when pressed about militants hiding amongst the civilians
his response was where else can they go ?
Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth and it's citizens are not free to come & go and there's no where for anyone to hide.

Yes, it's very crowded there. Thus Hamas has no choice but to put tunnel entrances under people's homes, and no good place to store rockets except the mosques and UN schools.

[ripgriffith]

The Israelis have been at this off and on since about the thirteenth century BC, when their ancestors invaded Canaan and, according to their propaganda, "God" told them to kill everything that moves. "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them" Deuteronomy 7;1,2

[RSL]

Well, it really isn't so easy...unless you understand the history of the middle east and the struggles between Sunni & Shiite Muslims and how that impacts Jews and Christian in the middle east, you really can't arrive at an easy solution.

Hamas is a radical terrorist organization funded by Saudi Arabia which is in long standing bitter fight with Shiite Muslims (since Mohammed wrote the Quran). The Shia–Sunni problems go back to battles caused after Mohammed's death. The Palestinians have been used by both sides of the Shia–Sunni conflict...

Israel is not an innocent bystander in the conflict but it is also a victim. So is the USA...

Most people don't know the history of the US vs. radical Islamists...the US has been at war with radical Islamists since Thomas Jefferson was President. He was the first President to field a navy to fight Islamist pirates off the coast of what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Outposts of the Ottoman Empire.

Back in Jeffersons presidency, radical Islamists following the mandate of killing infidels used piracy in the Mediterranean Sea to steal goods being shipped to Europe. At the behest of shipping companies, Jefferson armed the first US navy to go over to the Mediterranean Sea to protect US ships and fight radical Islamists. That started the Barbary Wars.

The first armed ships carried "Marines" that carried out attacks on pirate bases. In the Marine hymn, the term "to the shores or Tripoli" is mentioned...that would be Tripoli in Libya. The term "leather necks" came into play because the Marines were outfitted with leather collars to make it harder for the Islamists to behead the Marines with scimitars...

The "West" has been at war with Islamists since the early 1800's.

England is also not without fault in the Middle East...boundaries were drawn though out the Middle East that were "convenient" but totally screwed up tradition tribal/religious boundaries...

There's no question that the middle east is totally screwed up...look at Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, and all the "countries" in the region. The countries are all artificial and that has lead to long standing conflict (thanks to England).

There will be no peace until radical Islamists quit trying to kill infidels (any non-Muslim religion including Jews & Christian). Heck, even trying to get Shia–Sunni Muslims to talk is impossible let alone Jews and Christians.

Sorry, but this is a much deeper historic conflict than what sadly is going on in Gaza at the moment. I only caution people here on LuLa to to be very, very careful picking sides and it's a far more complicated discussion that what I've seen here so far.

Muslims (non-Islamists) must seize control of their religion and stop the radical Islamists from taking control...I had hopes during the Arab Spring....but sadly, many Muslims were too terrified to stand up and reject the radicals. Can't say I blame them...the middle east is a really tough place where the value of human life is vastly under valued.

Just really grateful I live in the USA...

Hi Jeff,

Yes, Israel always has been surrounded by enemies, and your history is correct: western "powers" have screwed up consistently when they've interfered in the middle east. But if we're talking about stopping the war in Gaza I stand by what I said. If Hamas stops shooting rockets and if there's a way to make sure the rockets remain stopped, Israel will stop attacking in Gaza.

But of course that doesn't end the war against Israel. They'll still be surrounded by people who want to wipe them off the map. And let's assume those people eventually are successful. If that happens, the Sunnis and Shiites will go back to killing each other as they have for centuries and the United States will be in greater danger than it has been since before our intervention in Afghanistan.

Yes, ultimately Muslims must seize control of their religion. But it's not going to happen. Have you ever read the Quran? If not, take a shot. You might see why it's unlikely that what we call "radicalism" isn't going to stop. It's not just a matter of being scared.

Yes, as you said, it's a far more complicated situation than this discussion has indicated, but the way to stop the Israeli incursion into Gaza is pretty simple and straightforward.

Yeah, I've spent several years in Asia and I too am forever grateful I live in the USA.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The conflict that's been going on in the Middle East for centuries is truly mind-boggling. I literally can't get my mind around it. I can't find an explanation, and I'm generally pretty good at finding explanations...

Hey Ray, judging by how successful you were in explaining lens perspective, I can't wait to hear your Middle East explanation. Or your perspective on Middle East

[Manoli]

[/quote]
I am a Zionist because the story of my forebears convinces me that Jews needed the homeland voted into existence by United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947, calling for the establishment of two states — one Jewish, one Arab — in Mandate Palestine.
[..]
What I cannot accept, however, is the perversion of Zionism that has seen the inexorable growth of a Messianic Israeli nationalism claiming all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River; that has, for almost a half-century now, produced the systematic oppression of another people in the West Bank; that has led to the steady expansion of Israeli settlements on the very West Bank land of any Palestinian state; that isolates moderate Palestinians like Salam Fayyad in the name of divide-and-rule; that pursues policies that will make it impossible to remain a Jewish and democratic state; that seeks tactical advantage rather than the strategic breakthrough of a two-state peace; that blockades Gaza with 1.8 million people locked in its prison and is then surprised by the periodic eruptions of the inmates; and that responds disproportionately to attack in a way that kills hundreds of children.

This, as a Zionist, I cannot accept. Jews, above all people, know what oppression is. Children over millennia were the transmission belt of Jewish survival, ... No argument, no Palestinian outrage or subterfuge, can gloss over what Jewish failure the killing of children in such numbers represents.

The Israeli case for the bombardment of Gaza could be foolproof. If Benjamin Netanyahu had made a good-faith effort to find common cause with Palestinian moderates for peace and been rebuffed, it would be. He has not. Hamas is vile. I would happily see it destroyed. But Hamas is also the product of a situation that Israel has reinforced rather than sought to resolve.

This corrosive Israeli exercise in the control of another people, breeding the contempt of the powerful for the oppressed, is a betrayal of the Zionism in which I still believe.
[/unquote]

Roger Cohen - Int NYT [30-July-2014]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/opinion/roger-cohen-zionism-and-israels-war-with-hamas-in-gaza.html?_r=0

[Vladimirovich]

According to the Roman/Jewish historian, Josephus, about 1.1 million Jews were slaughtered

reminds me the proverbial "6 million" figure that appeared just before 1948 (what a coincidence, you might ask yourself... by 1948) and nobody can explain how it was calculated when most of those who died or survived were in Eastern Europe which was naturally under Soviet control or in xUSSR itself... so how it was counted back then remains a mistery...

[Vladimirovich]

And your point is?

my point is that USA should stop hiding the advancing of their business' (United Fruit's of the time) interests behind "radical islamists" label

[PeterAit]

Hi Jim, Actually there IS an easy solution. All Hamas has to do is stop sending rockets into Israel. That'll stop the whole thing. But history tells us that that's not likely to happen.

But, Hamas WANTS Israel to attack. Their rockets do no real harm, but Israel's predictable response is, well, predictable. Tap your knee, your leg jerks up. Hamas, not popular in Gaza, strengthens its position because of the Israeli slaughter of innocents and destruction of infrastructure. Any Palestinian moderates are shouted down and Hamas remains in power. Hamas is to be sure a vile bunch, and I don't think they really care about the Palestinian people, but why does Israel keep playing into their hand? Israel certainly has a right to exist and defend itself, but please tell me how the 200+ Palestinian kids Israel has killed were a threat. Just because your enemy is horrid is not an excuse to be more horrid in return. Any claim that Israel had to the moral high ground is long gone.

[RSL]

Hi Peter, Let me ask you this: If you lived in a small country next to a neighbor who's fired more than 2,600 rockets from facilities deliberately located in schools, hospitals and other civilian centers toward your populated areas in the past month and who's built tunnels into your country in order to kidnap and blow up your people, what would you do?  Would you take what you call "the moral high ground" or try to stop them? If your answer is "try to stop them," how would you avoid killing the civilians they're using as shields? I know, there's a world-wide sea of bullshit surrounding the whole situation, and any path is going to be painful, but that's what it boils down to: an existential threat that simply gives you no alternative. "You gotta do what you gotta do," as Bill Clinton once famously said.

[Vladimirovich]

Their rockets do no real harm

come one... 2 people killed 34 injured... that certainly calls to kill 1400 and what is the ratio of killed:injured ? 1:5 ? ~7000 injured... I 'd say it's time for parties in Ukraine to start nuking each other, as USA clearly thinks that 2:1400 is a good, allowable ratio for one side to retaliate 

[Vladimirovich]

Hi Peter, Let me ask you this: If you lived in a small country

may be you shall ask the little country to stop occupation in the first place ?

[Jeremy Roussak]

come one... 2 people killed 34 injured... that certainly calls to kill 1400 and what is the ratio of killed:injured ? 1:5 ? ~7000 injured... I 'd say it's time for parties in Ukraine to start nuking each other, as USA clearly thinks that 2:1400 is a good, allowable ratio for one side to retaliate 

Good point, in keeping with the tenor of your contributions thus far. What world opinion really needs in order to accept Israel's right to defend itself against an opponent implacably committed to its destruction is more dead Jews. Not six million, of course. Would a few thousand satisfy you?

Jeremy