Gaza War Bush's Parting Gift to Middle East
| Tue Jan. 6, 2009 12:29 PM PST
At one point or another, most American presidents concern themselves with bringing peace to the Middle East. Ultimately, all other foreign policy achievements pale in comparison. It's the brass ring of presidential greatness, the elusive key to ensuring kind treatment in the eyes of history. Such thinking must become particularly acute as presidents reach the twilight of their terms and begin in earnest the inevitable consideration of how they will be remembered. Bill Clinton made a last-ditch effort late in his second term to become the great peacemaker. He failed, as had all others before him. But at least he tried. For his part, our current outgoing commander in chief, just weeks away from relinquishing his office, has steadfastly refused to get involved even as Gaza disintegrates into violence.
Not that this should come as a surprise. Bush's lack of engagement this late in the game, says the National Security Network, is nothing if not consistent with the rest of his term. As the group describes in press release issued today:
[Bush's] episodic involvement has been muddled and without coherent vision: supporting Palestinian elections in 2006, despite the very clear possibility that Hamas would win, then refusing to honor the results; asserting that the 'road to Jerusalem ran through Baghdad;' belatedly engaging through the Annapolis peace conference, which has proved to be too little too late. Experts and regional actors with differing views on the road ahead share the belief that the US absence from the scene is counterproductive and harmful to the interests of all concerned. The outbreak of war in Gaza confirms that after eight years in office the Bush administration will leave behind a region that is further from achieving a lasting peace than when it came to office.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
A tough accusation to be sure, but one that enjoys support from an unlikely array of former diplomats and foreign policy specialists across the political spectrum. Bush's own first-term ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, acknowledges the administration's shortcomings. "The sum total is that if you measure Israeli security at the beginning of this administration and at the end of the administration, based on things the president either could have done, should have done or failed to do, the report card is pretty negative," he says.
Several other former US ambassadors to Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, contributed to a policy paper (.pdf) released by the Israeli Policy Forum, which accuses the Bush administration's inaction of enabling the violence in Gaza and damaging the security interests of the United States:
During the past eight years, the United States has appeared to have no sense of urgency about ending the Arab-Israeli conflict... The Bush administration did not pick up where Clinton left off, giving the impression that the United States was indifferent to the worsening conditions (the second intifada) on the ground in Israel and the Occupied Territories. This seeming indifference helped turn public opinion against the United States throughout the Muslim world to the disadvantage of a myriad of U.S. interests.
Bush's apparent lack of interest has run the course of most of his days as president, but it wasn't always so. Early in his first term, he claimed to have it together, to be the bearer of a new vision for the Middle East. "But in practice there was nothing visionary, innovative, or well thought-out," says Yoram Meital, head of the Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben Gurion University in Negev, Israel. "And as a consequence we have been driving full speed ahead on neutral for a very long time." Unless, of course, you consider Iraq to have been Bush's roundabout method of changing things up. Indeed, he once claimed "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad"—a formulation that probably didn't sit well with Arabs already sensitive to any suggestion of a modern Crusade. And rather than clearing the path to the Holy Land, says Shlomo Brom, a former director of strategic planning for the Israel Defense Forces, the Iraq invasion actually caused damage to Israel by "strengthening the radical elements in the Middle East."
While the Bush administration sits on the sidelines waiting out the clock, there are numerous diplomatic efforts underway to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been shuttling around the region meeting with Arab leaders. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is working to organize a peace conference. Indeed, the mantle of peacemaker does not only appeal to American presidents. But based on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement last week that she has no intention of traveling to the Middle East, there seems to be zero prospect of American involvement in brokering a ceasefire, at least until January 20. Then again, history would tell us not to hold our breaths.
Photo used under a Creative Commons license from nagillum.
Comments
Unfortunately, Israel is behaving like the Germans did in treating the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Israel had allowed in some trucks of humanitarian supplies at the start of this offensive but that comes after months of severe economic blockade and major shortfalls in Gaza of food and medical supplies. The UN said it was still well short of what was needed.
One Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the group was open to another ceasefire, but wanted Israel's economic blockade lifted. For more than a year Israel has prevented all imports, except limited humanitarian supplies, and prevented all exports from Gaza ? in effect destroying private business. Israel broke the cease fire over the last 12 months by these war crimes. The people of Gaza could not take it anymore and struck out the only way they could against the world's fifth largest nuclear military.
The President of the United Nations General Assembly 11/28/08 called for
international sanctions to be imposed on the state of Israel.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said that the international community should
engage in a 'boycott, divestment and sanctions' campaign against Israel,
similar to those enacted against South Africa two decades ago."
Israel has engaged in a military occupation of the Palestinian territories
since 1967, with an increase in military presence since the year 2000.
The people of Palestine continue to live under martial law, with no control
of their land, sea or water. In his remarks, d'Escoto said that Israeli
policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories appear similar to the
apartheid of an earlier era, a continent away.
He said that the United Nations should not be afraid to use the term
apartheid to describe what is happening in occupied Palestine.
Former US President Jimmy Carter came under fire for using the term
'apartheid' in reference to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He was even
prevented from speaking at the Democratic National Convention this year
because of his position on the issue.
Why do the American people send Israel $5billion a year of taxpayer money to commit war crimes?
Where is the voice of the American peace activists that voted for Obama and change? GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? "I live alone in my office. My wife and two young children moved in with her father after our apartment was shattered. The neighborhood mosque, where I have prayed since I was a child, had its roof blown off. All the government buildings on my beat have been obliterated.
After days of Israeli shelling, the city and life I have known no longer exist.
Gaza City, with some 400,000 people, stopped supplying water when the fuel ran out for the power station driving the pumps. We listen to battery-run radios for news, even though the outside world watches what's happening to us on television. Grocery stores are closed and food is scarce.
Hospital officials say more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military operation to crush Hamas. Many are civilians."
Submitted by elianita55 (not verified) on Mon Jan. 12, 2009 7:51 AM PST.
We must begin to wonder whether it is viable to have the United States involved in negotiating peace in the Middle East at all.
The United States continues to hamper all international efforts that could potentially be unfavorable to Israel through use of vetoes and abstentions.
A sorry illustration of this trend came last Friday, when the the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution urging a cease-fire between Hamas militants and Israelis, with the United States deciding to abstain from voting. The US abstention considerably weakened the resolution, of course, and the result was that the resolution was hardly noticed at all by Israel and the Hamas.
In fact, the most important Arab?Israeli breakthroughs, such as the Oslo agreements, occurred without U.S. involvement, as did Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
The United States' blind support of Israel, along with its reckless action in Iraq, not only impedes any progress of peace talks, it also fuels the growing instability in the Middle East. So perhaps the United States must ask itself, when does an allegiance become a liability?
Why do people keep making this claim that the US and Israel haven't honored the Gazan elections? They have. The Gazans had a choice between voting for war and voting for peace. They chose to vote for war and so they have gotten war that they chose. Isn't that what they wanted? I'm quite certain that if they voted for peace they'd get it too. They might try it sometime, see if it works. They know now that choosing war didn't help. But as long as they wage war, naturally Israel is going to respond. Any other country would as well, and under international law they have ever right to do so. No government could stay in power if it stood by while its children are being attacked.
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Tue Jan. 6, 2009 1:29 PM PST.
Mike, you're grossly oversimplifying. Hamas had morphed itself partly into a social service agency, while Fatah was seen as corrupt. They felt their government had let them down, and that's hardly the same as voting for war. Did the people who voted for Bush in 2000 intend to invade Iraq?
Actually, President Bush has taken a stand in the Mideast. He stands with the forces of modernity and democracy against the crazed Muslim fanatics who represent darkness and tyranny.
Allah must really hate the Arabs - they get their butts kicked on a regular basis.
Bush was not inactive at all! You won't believe this Asia Times article. Know how everyone says it's a pity the Palestinians aren't united, that no peace can come until they're united. Well, guess who had a major, undercover role in the split between Hamas and Fatah? That's right, the Bushies. PLEASE read this. It's just unbelieveable.
Bush Plan Beat Obstacle To Gaza Assault, Gareth Porter, Asia Times
Well, Pete, you won't find me recruiting for Hamas, even though they are the democratically elected government for Palestine, but there is plenty of blame to go around. Launching missiles into Israel was stupid and should have been stopped, but Israel's response has been totally disproportional. Bombing schools and hospitals is totally unacceptable, as is Israel's refusal to allow in humanitarian assistance, but Hamas does carry its share of burden of blame. If fault Israel, however, for allowing life to become unbearable for those crammed into Gaza. Would this war have happened had Israel and the US accepted Hamas? Who knows? But I do know now that Israel is the aggressor and that innocent civilians are being killed daily in the reckless bombing of any and all targets of opportunity. And the airbursts that we're seeing look more like cluster bombs to me, which kill alot more civilians than they do combatants. I want this war ended today and I want all aide to Israel suspended immediately. I call upon the UN to immediatly deploy forces into the Israeli occupied regions with full authority to respond should Israel's inhumane incursion continue.
We Americans can't get our own political house in order but we keep trying to unravel the complexities of the Middle East which date back millennia. The Arab-Israeli conflict goes all the way back to Abraham; the progeny of Sarah against the progeny of the Egyptian servant Hagar. Since about 600 AD, it now involves two opposing religions with two very different gods; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the tribal moon god Allah. There's nothing more intractable than a religious war.
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 10:41 AM PST.
"Never mind" refers to the response post I put up to fred t that got censored.
I guess it's OK to insult people but you have to follow guidelines.
Speaking of "outta here...", that's where I go when my posts get censored.
Wexler: I agree with your censorship objection. It's kinda hard to carry on meaningful dialogue when other responses have been hidden from those of us involved. One of my posts has disappeared as well - I guess because I called god a bozo. What do you have to say Mother Jones?
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 11:26 AM PST.
I'll admit that what I posted may have been in questionable taste. But I would never agree that calling god a bozo is censorable.
We're all bozos on this bus.
Ha! Indeed, we are all bozos on this bus! But when it comes to something as serious as war, that is not the time to mince words or conform to political correctness. That's reserved for more civilized and peaceful times and, from where I'm sitting, summertime's done come and gone bye, oh my....
It seems to me the Isrealis are going above and beyond to avoid civilian casualties by sending in ground troops to attack these Hamas terrorists. It would be much easier for Isreal to indiscriminately use artillery without risk to soldiers or risk of kidnapping. These terrorists must be killed. (how's that for politically incorrect?)
And let's not hesitate to use the term 'terrorists' with respect to Hamas. They are funded and armed by Iran. They have both before and after the Isreali withdrawal from Gaza launched 8,000 missiles and mortars at Isreali towns, aiming EXCLUSIVELY at civilians. And they have launched these attacks from civilian locations such as hospital rooftops, schoolyards, mosques, etc. This is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
Now, if Hamas were a bunch of thugs who took over the territory by force, you might take the view that the civilian population is hostage to them. But these are the elected representatives of the Gaza population who have approved their ongoing attacks on Isreal. Sorry, but there are consequences when your elected officials launch a war against a neighboring country.
I'm as sympathetic as the next guy to human suffering, but I have never seen a more clear case of justifiable force than Isreal is using in this situation. Frankly, I think Isreal is undermining its future deterrent powers by being so careful.
So Mother Jones, as a loyal reader for many years, I urge you to remove the anti-Isreal reflex. There are clear good guys (Isreal) and bad guys (Islamic terrorists) in this conflict. And the fact that there are innocent victims in the middle does not change that reality.
Russ: In any war, there are some targets that can be taken out with rockets and missiles and others that should be taken out with ground troops. I argue that schools and hospitals fall into the latter category, especially considering the fact that Israel has ground troops in Gaza.
Hamas was elected because they were the only ones actually inproving the quality of life for the average Palestinian. They were the ones rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals, etc. I do reject their more militant factions, but Israel chose confrontation before even trying the alternative of recognition. Arafat was a militant who was never democratically elected, yet they negotiated with him. Israel and the US flatly refused to deal with Hamas and this war is the result of their refusal. And your last statements hint of genocide - that would alleviate the problem forver, now wouldn't it...
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 12:44 PM PST.
Enough with the screwing around. Clay is right, the time for mincing words has past.
What Israel is doing right now is criminal. It is being done while the US looks the other way, and I don't give a flying f*ck through a rolling doughnut if those are flares or incendiary weapons or whatever, they are ON FIRE when they hit the ground. I'm sure if those aren't the weapons I'm talking about then we just haven't seen a picture of them.
And it has nothing to do with what "lefties" know about military weapons, because I know something that numbnuts righties will never understand... that it's NOT OK TO USE THOSE WEAPONS ON WOMEN AND KIDS.
-Wexler
How can anyone blame Israel. Hamas has been hurling rockets into the Southern parts of Israel for well over a year - One small town received over 8000 of those rockets. Hamas is an Islamic Terrorist grp and receives these war materials from Iran, who is now developing nuclear bombs.The holy jihad declared by these Islamic Muslim terrorists also will destroy us if they could. So Hamas breaks the peace treaty by sending rockets and for the first time Israel retaliates. Would we or any other country protect their citizens? How many innocent Iraqi's have perished? How many men and women in our military have been killed? And we were attacked by Islamic Terroists, not Iraqi citizens. Give Israel a break - they need to do what they are doing.
Good grief, Ann...you seem to have bought into everything Bush and Cheney have claimed over the years. Are you saying that Israel can attack Gaza because you think Iran is developing nuclear weapons and that Gaza gets all their weapons from Iran? The US sells more weapons to developing countries than any other nation in the world - we surpassed Russia this year. And I've yet to see any evidence supporting your claims that Iran is directly involved in either Gaza or Iraq.
Best comment I have seen !!!
A war?
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder."
Chris Hedges
New York Times correspondent.
IF Chimpy and his criminal entourage even knew where Gaza was that would be a major step forward. No brush to clear for chimpy and no shoe stores for condi so why worry??
These are clearly the most incompetent people in these offices the US has ever seen.
Submitted by tf gray (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 1:43 PM PST.
Let's start with a nickel tour of the history involved. The Jews suffered horribly under Hitler's Reich prior to and during World War II. This gave them serious clout when they demanded that their historic homeland be returned to them, although, as Achmadinejad pointed out, with genuine logic, "Why not give them land in Germany?" (Seriously, how many Palestinians worked as death camp guards?)
They wanted their own land, their home land, the land of the Bible. I can't argue with that logic, either.
The end of World War II marked a major shift in the global power structure. The European nations, a.k.a. "The Major Powers," had battled each other to exhaustion and were no longer able to enforce colonial dominion over their subject nations. India and Pakistan slipped the leash in 1948, providing the British Empire with a wake up call. France was forced out of Indochina after Dien Bien Phu in 1953. Africa stood up in the 1960's. While the French and Belgians fought to preserve their possessions, the British took more strategic measures. One of these was to give Palestine to the Israelis. The large elephant in the room of Israeli-Palestinian discussions is the fact that the humanitarian reasons were primarily P.R. The geostrategic reason for the existence of Israel is to be a toehold of Western Power in the Middle East. This proxy status,along with highly justified concerns for their survival, has led to the official US blindness to Israel's ugly treatment of the Palestinian population.
Israel has, from the beginning, engaged in shabby treatment of the native Palestinians. For example, shortly after establishing a Jewish state, they invaded entire neighborhoods, drove out the residents, and then offered to allow those who could show their property deeds to move back in. Catch: when you're being driven from your home at gunpoint, normally you grab the kids, your wallet, and Mom's jewelry box, if you're lucky. Look for the deed to the house? Not likely. Be allowed back in to look for it? So sorry, no way. Thank you very much. Don't bother dropping off the keys. We've already changed the locks.
Who wouldn't be pissed?
And, I will have to note, that for geostrategic reasons of their own, the Arab nations have essentially hung the Palestinians out to dry, feeding them crumbs of humanitarian aid and enough munitions to create problems for Israel, using them as pawns, (their proxy vs. our proxy) allowing them to become a powder keg rather than extend them hospitality in their own lands. (And yes, as they would ask, "Why should we have to pay for Europe's sins?" Good question.)
Yeesh. Where to start on this hairball?
First, by acknowledging that nearly everyone in this tragedy grinds their ax on the whetstone of religion, which makes rational discourse and compromise difficult, if not impossible.
Second, by asking the question: If Germany and the other members of the Reich started this problem, and Europeans decided to solve it by dumping it overseas, why aren't they being asked to pony up?
Third, by noting that, religious and political considerations aside, everyone in the Middle East seems to be highly motivated by financial considerations.
Fourth, therefore, could not Germany, Austria, and the other nations that participated in the Holocaust make reparations not to the Jews, or to Israel, but by financing real estate for Palestinian families? (within Palestine or elsewhere, as those families choose)
Fifth, what about a swap: Jewish West Bank settlers leave, Gaza becomes the Israeli Riviera?
And, just in the interest of removing one major issue and annoying the bejasus out of everyone involved, why not make Jerusalem a World Religious Heritage Site, an independent territory under the jurisdiction of the UN, belonging to God and all humanity, not one nation or another?
Just a thought.
Submitted by Harvey (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 1:54 PM PST.
Israel the "poster child" of Jews Worldwide the out of control Nuclear Super Power killing machine waging a war on Islam supported by "we the American people" with money and arms.
Just who in the World can think Jews/Israel who compose 0.02% of the World's population can kill Muslims at will as in Gaza and Lebanon and anywhere when Islam is 23% of the World's population without expecting a huge wave of Anti Semitism and Anti Americanism "Blow Back" violence ?
For the last few years Israel has maintained its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease with children reduced to eating grass to survive.
Yes over the last 2 years Palestinians in Gaza have been reduced to eating grass to survive !!!
Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Hamas is the Democratic --freely elected - Government of the Palestinian people but the USA who called for the free elections has refused to recognize the result and continues to support the over 60 years of brutal treatment and occupation and theft of Palestinian land by Israel !!!!
Nowhere do we hear the Palestinian side.
Gaza ,often compared to the "Warsaw Ghetto" (WWII) is a disgrace to Jews,Israel and the USA.
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Wed Jan. 7, 2009 2:33 PM PST.
Worth RE-READING.
A war?
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder."
Chris Hedges
New York Times correspondent.
To have intelligent conversations which will hopefully bring about solutions we need to first realize that this is not an Arab/Israeli conflict, but problem that the Jewish community created by creating an illegal state in the country of Palestine, and with military force moving the Palestinian people into refugee camps in their own country, and furthering the problem by expanding their own agenda throughout the country with no regard to what is morally and ethically correct. How short memories they have!
The only good thing that has come from the Bush Administration is that the world is looking in other directions than the U.S. to solve their problems-France and Egypt have stepped up instead of Condi Rice with a possible way of ending the conflict.Yeah, Team! It is about time that the U.S. stopped being the "Big Gun" in foreign affairs and let the neighboring Nations that have had to accept the refugees and suffer the economic setbacks of our interference have their say!Hope Obama is bright enough to keep the ball rolling!
You're right. Fatah was corrupt and did nothing for their own people. Having said that it's tragic that Hamas is a fanatic organization that will never give up the goal of destroying Israel. I don't see a solution anywhere on the horizon. That's the sad saga of the Middle East.
How do you negotiate with an organization that you have labelled as a terrorist organization and made it illegal to support in any way?
From various Israeli statements and actons it is obvious that they don't want peace, they want to destroy Hamas and replace it with an organization that will sell its soul to remain in power.
If Israel had not kept Gaza under siege for the last year and a half Hamas maybe would have had good reason to stop the rockets.
Unfortunately, Israel is behaving like the Germans did in treating the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Israel had allowed in some trucks of humanitarian supplies at the start of this offensive but that comes after months of severe economic blockade and major shortfalls in Gaza of food and medical supplies. The UN said it was still well short of what was needed.
One Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the group was open to another ceasefire, but wanted Israel's economic blockade lifted. For more than a year Israel has prevented all imports, except limited humanitarian supplies, and prevented all exports from Gaza in effect destroying private business. Israel broke the cease fire over the last 12 months by these war crimes. The people of Gaza could not take it anymore and struck out the only way they could against the world's fifth largest nuclear military.
The President of the United Nations General Assembly 11/28/08 called for
international sanctions to be imposed on the state of Israel.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said that the international community should
engage in a 'boycott, divestment and sanctions' campaign against Israel,
similar to those enacted against South Africa two decades ago."
Israel has engaged in a military occupation of the Palestinian territories
since 1967, with an increase in military presence since the year 2000.
The people of Palestine continue to live under martial law, with no control
of their land, sea or water. In his remarks, d'Escoto said that Israeli
policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories appear similar to the
apartheid of an earlier era, a continent away.
He said that the United Nations should not be afraid to use the term
apartheid to describe what is happening in occupied Palestine.
Former US President Jimmy Carter came under fire for using the term
'apartheid' in reference to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He was even
prevented from speaking at the Democratic National Convention this year
because of his position on the issue.
Why do the American people send Israel $5billion a year of taxpayer money to commit war crimes?
Dec. 28, 2008: Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world, including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.Israel's slow strangulation of Gaza through blockade has caused widespread suffering to the 1.5 million people of Gaza due to lack of food, electricity, water treatment supplies and medical equipment. It is a violation of humanitarian law and has been widely condemned around the world.
In resisting this strangulation, Hamas resumed launching rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel, directly targeting civilians, which is also a war crime. Over the years, these poorly made rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 15 Israelis since 2004.
Massive Israeli air strikes have proven an indiscriminate and brutal weapon. In just three days, the known death toll is close to 400, and the attacks are continuing. By targeting the infrastructure of a poor and densely populated area, Israel has ensured widespread civilian casualties among this already suffering and vulnerable population.
This massive destruction of Palestinian life will not protect the citizens of Israel. It is illegal and immoral and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. And it threatens to ignite the West Bank and add flames to the other fires burning in the Middle East and beyond for years to come.
The timing of this attack, during the waning days of a US administration that has undertaken a catastrophic policy toward the Middle East and during the run-up to an Israeli election, suggests an opportunistic agenda for short-term political gain at an immense cost in Palestinian lives. In the long run this policy will benefit no-one except those who always profit from war and exploitation. Only a just and lasting peace, achieved through a negotiated agreement, can provide both Palestinians and Israelis the security they want and deserve.
The international community is cutting a pretty sorry figure in this affair. Which is unfortunate. And not only for the Palestinians. Democracy is getting pretty much blown to hell. It's almost as if the world is saying "We don't like the way you Palestinians voted, so we're going to let Israel bomb some sense into you."
Within the borders of Israel, I think there are some who have realized for a while that their security depends on the existence of a stable independent Palestinian state.
The odds may be 200 to one that an Israeli mother will lose her child to this conflict compared to a Palestinian mother, but if an Israeli mother's child gets killed, she doesn't really care about odds.
Those who claim that we should stand on the sideline, since Palestinians and Israelis are fighting since Abraham, should temper their habit of watching Fox News with some objective media sources. Abraham had never received 6 billions of American taxpayer funds annually to kill Palestinians; the Israelis do.
And for those who claim that Hamas broke the truce and lobbed thousands of rockets at Israel should investigate the objectivity of this Israeli propaganda. The last 10 years of Hamas rockets have killed 20 Israelis; regrettable, but much less than those died in traffic accidents in a small Israeli town. In eight days of willful and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of Gaza; 650 Palestinians were torn to pieces and over 3000 wounded mostly women and children. In the last 10 years the Israeli occupying army has murdered 7000 Palestinians and wounded 50,000. And contrary to all attempts by the Jewish Media in the US to blame Hamas for breaking the truce, facts point otherwise. During the six months of truce, the Israelis have had 135 incursions into Gaza, murdering 30 Palestinians before Hamas fired a single rocket.
America is no position to act as an even-handed broker in the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict. The White House, our Congress and mainstream media are occupied Israeli territories in dire need to be liberated. Maybe then, we could have the moral standing to opine on the right and wrong of the Middle East.
You have to hand it to the Arab PR machine for successfully redefining this conflict as Israel-Palestinian instead of Arab-Israeli. Quite an accomplishment.
Old maps used to show Israel, population 4 million, surrounded by hostile Arab nations numbering 300 million (Egypt alone is 70 million). So the world was sympathetic to little outmanned, outgunned Israel.
So why the flipflop? First, the Christian world forgot their guilt and in fact resented the Holocaust guild they carried. Also, the Western World needed to sleep at night with their dependence on Arab oil. Throw in a bit of baked-in anti-semitism and it didn't take long for the victim (Jews, Israel) to turn into the oppressor, despite the facts.
There are many points one can make, but let me just make a few:
1) there is no such thing as a 'Palestinian.' While there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel literally for millenia in Jerusalem, Safed and Caesaria, the so-called Palestinians are entirely composed of laborers imported in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Zionists. It was a tragic mistake but it must be understood to realize that the Gaza and West Bank Arabs have no long-term claim to the land. There has never been a Palestine. Period. Read Mark Twain's reports of the barren land he saw before the Israelis transformed it into an oasis.
2) There are many muslim Arab and non-Arab (e.g. Persian) countries where the 'Palestinians' can settle. 875,000 Jews were brutally driven from these countries in 1948. 600,000 Arabs left Israel when it was established at the urging of the 7 Arab armies who were intent on exterminating the Jews.
3) Jordan is 85% Palestinian and should be the home of the Palestinians. It is presently run by the Hussein clan, a Bedouin minority, but why should there be multiple Palestinian homelands? Palestine I, II and III? Come on.
4) Israel has consistently offered its Arab neighbors peace in exchange for peace. The Arabs have consistently responded with the infamous "Three No's." Think the dispute is territories Israel won in the Six Day war in 1967? Hah! Then why the wars before then? Even in 1948, 1956 and 1967 wars when Gaza was controlled by Egypt and Jordan controlled the biblical areas of Judah and Samaria, including half of Jerusalem, the Arabs attacked Israel incessantly though the War of Attrition.
5) Arab hostility to Jewish presence in the biblical homeland did not start with the creation of Israel. Brutal attacks (pogroms) occurred repeatedly during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Read up a bit. Whereas Israel gives Israeli Arabs full citizenship and far more rights than Arabs living in any Arab country, Jews living in muslim lands are mistreated. Whereas Israel respects and maintains muslim holy sites, desecration of Jewish holy sites was the rule prior to 1948.
6) The Arabs treat their own people like dirt. Due to huge birthrates, the Arab populations throughout the Middle East are poor, disenfranchised and without hope for the future. Income is not distributed fairly. Education is poor. The minority gov'ts in Syria, Egypt, Jordan, etc. desperately need Israel to exist to demonize. Without Israel, the rage turns inward. This is important. There are ABSOLUTELY NO CONCESSIONS ISRAEL CAN OFFER THAT WILL BRING PEACE. NONE.
That last point bears repeating. Israel is hated not for any substantive issue that can be resolved (e.g. the return of territories). It is hated because it exists and there is a pathological hatred and desire to exterminate the populations. That concept is so foreign to western minds that many of us cannot get our arms around it. If you hate me because I did something to you or took something from you, then we can resolve the issue. If you hate me because I am me, there is nothing I can do about that.
9) Finally, with respect to the Hamas operations, what do you expect Israel to do in the face of repeated (8,000) attacks, kidnappings, weapons smuggling, etc. Yes, they have better weapons. But they did not start this conflict. They absorbed attacks on civilians for YEARS! Finally, they had enough. If you are a little guy and you provoke a big guy, you don't get to yell 'foul' when he comes back at you.
There is a saying which is absolutely true. "If the Arabs and terror groups were to lay down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel were to lay down her arms, there would be no Israel."
While I agree with the knee-jerk reaction to empathize with the civilian casualties, this board is a blame game and it is important to identify the culprit. Terrorists who hide behind civilians to launch missiles, hide explosive munitions in schools and hospitals do not deserve your sympathy or your advocacy.
The forced evacuation of Jews from Gaza presented the residents with an opportunity to prove to the world they could create a peaceful society. Instead, they began with a year of executions of Fatah loyalists and initiated ceaseless attacks on Israeli civilians.
Sometimes the guy losing the fight deserves to lose. We all reflexively root for the underdog. But sometimes the loser gets the beating he richly deserves. This is one of those cases.
Fred t,
It seems that your memory is short on recent history. It was 2006 when few hundred Hezbollah fighters kicked the Israeli's Butt to submission in Lebanon. Few more of these so-called fanatics kicked your ass and your modern war criminal idol's ass to near submission in Iraq. Then it was your civic hero, Bush, who ordered Phosphorus bombs dropped on Fallujah, then went on his criminal rampage of torture at Abu-Ghraib. This must have made a military expert like you very proud.
So Russ, you claim that God has given the Biblical land to Israel and ordered them to build hundreds of Jewish settlements on confiscated Palestinian's land. God, further, ordered his chosen people to build a racist wall in the West Bank, splicing 20% of the most fertile land of the West Bank to be annexed to Israel. Then God went on his rampage asking his chosen Jewish settlers to steal 80% of all the West Bank's water resources. God, then, allocated for every Jewish settler in the West Bank 8 times more water per capita than their Palestinian counterparts. When the poor Palestinians protested this shabby treatment by God, he ordered the occupying Army of his chosen people to demolish 75,000 Palestinian homes; as collective punishment.
Then God went on his Gaza plan; he ordered his Jewish settlers to pull out, then withheld the holy status from Gaza and ordered the chosen people to impose the most inhumane siege on Gazans. He, then, ordered the Israelis to splice 25% of Gaza and declare it as security zone; barring Palestinians from entering that zone. God, also, wanted the Israelis to control Gaza's airspace, ports and territorial water and all border crossings. And God called this an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and ordered the US news media to publish this lie.
God, then appointed a Zionist like you to manifest his wishes and lie on his behalf. In 1917 when the British Army colonized Palestine, 50,000 Jews lived there. Before the British left in 1948, the Jewish population went up to 600,000. All were European Jews helped by Britain to move to Palestine. The Chosen Children of God went on massacring and terrorizing Palestinian natives out of their homes and lands to be handed over to the newly arrived European Jews. Now why don't you tell us a little more about this cruel God of yours?
Israel is the aggressor here. They have occupied the Palestinian's lands illegally for years. They control the water, the roads and the lands. They want the land but they don't want the people. They have divided the neighborhoods by check points. Palestinians can not travel freely in their own land. With the wall farmers can see their land but can't get to it without a permit. After a while because he can't get to his fields and the land stands unused It then reverts back to the Israeli government. So make permits difficult to obtain.create checkpoints that require landowners to go miles out of their way requiring travel up to 3-4 hours or more instead of 15 minutes. Allow some of the family to cross borders but not everyone. Allow crossings if you feel like it. Bulldoze houses and olive trees. Allow access to water 2 hours a week. Build settlements in the hills for Israeli citizens. Build roads that Palestinians can't use. Detain people at check points for hours. Make access to medical facilities impossible if allowing it at all. Palestine is like a huge open air prison. The American media controls the coverage of the conflict creating sympathy for the Israelis but not for the Palestinians. If you really want to learn what this conflict is about, educate yourself. Don't believe everything you read in biased newspapers and videos reports.Israel is fourth in world power.
This conflict would not exist if the US didn't supply millions of dollars of weaponry to Israel. Create media confusion call Palestinian leaders terrorists. Criticize Yassar Arafat for breaking the peace treaty and refusing to sign in 1992. The reason he didn't sign was because no where in the treaty did it call for the withdrawal of Israelis from Palestinian land. Do any of you know what it is like to live in occupied territory? Israel was given almost 78% of Palestine to begin with. Now they want the remaining 22% but without the people. So bomb UN schools, kill women and children and then pretend to be the victim.
Russ wrote "First, the Christian world forgot their guilt and in fact resented the Holocaust guild they carried." Russ this is hate speech. You are anti-Christian and anti-Christ. You know that the Talmud says the most unkind things about Gentiles and never advises one of G-d's chosen to help a dog. It is Jews like you that contribute to anti-Semitism. Look how the Jews are treating the Palestinians(just like the bad Germans treated them). Look at history, when the Jews got power, too often, they acted like bad Germans(just read the Torah).
Where is the voice of the American peace activists that voted for Obama and change? GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) "I live alone in my office. My wife and two young children moved in with her father after our apartment was shattered. The neighborhood mosque, where I have prayed since I was a child, had its roof blown off. All the government buildings on my beat have been obliterated.
After days of Israeli shelling, the city and life I have known no longer exist.
Gaza City, with some 400,000 people, stopped supplying water when the fuel ran out for the power station driving the pumps. We listen to battery-run radios for news, even though the outside world watches what's happening to us on television. Grocery stores are closed and food is scarce.
Hospital officials say more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military operation to crush Hamas. Many are civilians."
"Dropped" phosphorous bombs? Really? The Air Force does not have phosphorous bombs. The Army uses phosphorous artillery shells as markers rounds so that the correct fire can be adjusted on targets. They may have used these shells in Fallujah (and rightly so) but no bombs were "dropped".
My comment stands about American leftists and military knowledge and about the relationship between Allah and the Arabs. No Arab Army or force has ever defeated Israel or the United States.
Israel became home to the largest Jewish population on earth in part because American Jews in the 1990s fell in number from 5.5 million to 5.2 million, a loss of 300,000, or 6 percent of the U.S. Jewish population.
According to Charles Krauthammer, by 2050, the U.S. Jewish population will have shrunk another 50 percent to 2.5 million(out of 440million). American Jews are slowly vanishing. How and why is this happening?
It is the collective decision of American Jews themselves, who have led the battles for birth control and a woman's right to choose.
According to the United Nations, by 2050, Israel will have 10 million people.
By then, the Arab population, at present birth rates, is likely to be close to 30 percent of the Israeli population. On the West Bank and Gaza, today's 4 million Arabs are to explode to 10 million, far outstripping the growth in Israel. Jordan's population of 5 million, 60 percent Palestinian, will also double to 10 million.
Thus, not even counting Palestinians in Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the Gulf states, Israel's 7 million to 8 million Jews in 2050 will be living with 13 million Palestinians in Israel, Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. If Israel is to survive as a Jewish state, a separate and independent Palestinian state would seem an imperative.
Fred t.
If you just get out of the Propaganda circle around you; the Jewish-Controlled American Media, you could have found plenty of pictures of the ashen bodies of the Iraqi civilians killed in Fallujah. They died by their so-called American liberators. Maybe it was phosphorous bombs shelling and maybe napalm, I leave the details of these war crimes to experts like you to pontificate.
How about the relationship of the Christian Right in America; leaders like Pat Robertson who advocates the assassination of foreign leaders, and God? How about the relationship between the orthodox Jewish movements in Israel, which encourage the murder and expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, and God? What makes you think that one God is better than other Gods; is your bias driven by the civility that you claim to posses? Crimes against humanity have a single definition, whether committed by Muslims, Jews or Christians and can't be condoned
Thank you all for your comments. I appreciate vigorous dialog on these issues. One minor point....Please limit criticism to what I actually wrote.
I did not mention God at all nor did I state that God gave the biblical land of Israel to anybody. I merely stated the fact that there has been a continuous Jewish presence for millenia. There are census reports conducted by the various occupiers to confirm this.
I did not mention Christ or hatred for Christians at all. I did reference Christian resentment at feeling guilty for the holocaust as one of several reasons for sympathy for Israel's enemies. To say that makes me a hater of Christ is ludicrous.
I did not assert that Israel existed before 1948. I am well aware of the UN vote by the majority of the world for the creation of the state of Israel and of the immediate declaration of war on the nascent state by the surrounding countries. I did state that there were many pogroms on Jews living in places like Hebron and Jerusalem. It's a historical fact. Not sure why this is debatable.
I am happy to hear legitimate criticism of what I wrote and to be corrected if any of my assertions are inaccurate. Since I do not engage in personal attacks, I would ask for the same consideration.
Thank you.
The "civilians" you mention were terrorists. They do not wear uniforms, or haven't you heard? Napalm is not used in urban areas. I'm all for the assasination of foreign leaders if they are enemies of America (or do you have a problem with Castro, Ho, Kim, Hitler, Stalin, etc) being killed? What "murder" of Palestinians? Is English your second language? Where did I mention God, except to draw the obvious conclusion that Allah really, really hates Arabs?
So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?
Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead - almost all civilians, most of them children and women - in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.
What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description?
