Not content with trying to starve out an entire population with the blockade on Gaza, Israel has now used the cover of the Christmas period to attack the Gazan people directly with massive air strikes.
Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, 9 Israelis have been killed, while 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces during the same period. But casting all sense of proportion aside, Israel is the terror state that slams missiles into blocks of flats, killing civilian residents just because it believes an enemy is living there. It is now using US supplied F-16 fighter aircraft and state of the art technology to further crush civilians who voted in a way that displeased it.
The death tally is pushing 300 including 40 police cadets at a passing out parade (picture below).
Their excuse is that, since the end of the six month truce on December 19th, Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel territory. Reports vary with up to three Israelis killed. While any innocent death is one too many, there’s something pathetic and symbolic in these attacks. Yet every day Gazans are dying from lack of medicine and food denied them by the Israeli siege.
One Palestinian voice quoted at Socialist Unity website points out:
“Any response to Israeli attacks — whether peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Bilin and Nilin in the West Bank is met with bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel’s attacks, killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never ceased for one single day during the truce. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has acceded to all of Israel’s demands, even assembling “security forces” to fight the resistance on Israel’s behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian or her property or livelihood from Israel’s relentless violent colonization.”
Another post at SU reminds us:
"A sobering thought to consider that 60 years ago 530 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed, and that 750,000 men, women, and children were forcibly expelled by Zionist terrorist organisations like the Stern Gang and Irgun in the process of 78 percent of historic Palestine being expropriated."
Israel has turned from David fighting Goliath into Godzilla, mindlessly smashing through a people already weakened by a two-year blockade preventing deliveries of food, fuel, printed materials and medical supplies. There are battery chickens treated better than this.
BTW, you know who created Hamas? Israel did as a religious counterweight to the secular Al Fatah. A bit like when the US backed the Mojahadeen against the Russians in early 1980s Afghanistan and sowed the seeds of Al Qaida.
STOP PRESS
Israel broke ceasefire 5th November. Story here
Obama on holiday in Hawaii says, "No comment".
Iranian leader Khamenei tells all Muslims to defend the women and children of Gaza against Israeli raids. More here.
Times online article on Hamas
Israeli trade unions protest against the bombardment.
"We know from our members that they have to travel 200 kilometers each day, like the nine who were injured in Ashkelon , just to find a place that is willing to hire them. ..."
Delicious
6 comments:
Yep and the next person who says to me please remember the Holocaust before duck.
that should be "better duck".
Hey Robert - Remember the holocaust.
I'll never understand how those who defend terrorists like Hamas can ignore the daily Kassam rocket attacks and disregard for the ceasefire and with a straight face blame Israel for defending itself. I know the simpletons on the left like to make "David v. Goliath" comparisons and decide morality based on who the underdog is - which means you support Jew hatred, the distortion on Islam by fanatical killers and the education of children in hunting and murdering innocents (with cartoons, no less!). The IRA murdered innocents - are you fans of them as well since they were numerically inferior? What kind of moral compass guides you? It's a culture of death you celebrate - and the fact that Hamas fires off missiles from civilian areas and hides it's weapons and ammo among them as well ought to tell you something about your heroes.
No one wants war, but what is a country to do when the land they gave to their enemies with promises of peace is instead used against them to endanger their people? The Gaza Strip needs to be scrubbed clean of terrorists - I hope this war continues until that goal is realized.
Shane, aren't the Palestine people allowed to defend themselves?
Firing rockets into civilians is wrong whoever is doing it. But look at who's actually doing the dying. Nine Israelis against 1,400 Palestinians. Home made rockets against F-16s and Apache helicopters.
Under the current siege of Gaza, Palestinians have been dying every day. If this was happening to you and your family and your community, wouldn't you reach a point where you said enough is enough?
This quote: "But look at who's actually doing the dying." I seriously don't understand your thinking - in fact, it scare the hell out of me. Please ponder the vacuous logic behind your statement. It invariably has you supporting terrorist groups around the world who are murdering innocents to acquire land, power or prestige, simply because they are underdogs. It's not about the numbers - it's about the intent.
The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip know why Israel is attacking them. They've watched the terrorist gang they put into power to protect them loft rockets into Israel daily - before, during and after the truce. I would never put my family is such as position as to sacrifice them to an enemy I know can easily obliterate them. I would be one of the Arabs living in Israel, working to feed them rather than raise them to hate and kill. My focus would be on my children's safety. Look at the difference between the two cultures. Read what they have to say! How they educate their children!
Within Israel there are parties for peace and even the noxious notion of trading land for peace - but you'll find none of the same in the Palestinian territories. Why? Because to announce that publicly would have you executed as an Israeli sympathizer. You want to join the peace movement? Then support the one country that has already shown a willingness to have it.
Guardian: During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/30/israel-and-the-palestinians-middle-east
How would you respond, Shane, if your family was facing these sorts of odds?
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