God this is pedantic and condescending. Palestine is a country which includes those who live under Palestinian Authority.
Pedantic and condescending?
Palestine is a COUNTRY?
Hello!!!!
God this is pedantic and condescending. Palestine is a country which includes those who live under Palestinian Authority.
The fact remains until Israel attacked on the 4th of November. It was reasonably calm by the standards of the region. So the whole rocket excuse is bull, it's all to do with the Israeli elections.
Pedantic and condescending?
Palestine is a COUNTRY?
Hello!!!!
I would disagree on the "reasonable" part of your post. If you want to attack the timing go ahead. In fact I'll attack them on their timing too.
They should have intervened sooner.
Israelis getting used to occasional bombings doesn't pass any natural human response test. Unless you think shock is a normal emotion that people should be exposed to all the time.
The UN (and the US for that matter) consider the West Bank and Gaza to be "occupied territories," not "a country"--that term is generally understood to entail international recognition as a sovereign state, which the Palestinians don't yet have. By definition, anyone who supports a two-state solution (which would be most of the world) holds the opinion that the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to a sovereign state; nonetheless, as of now they still don't have one. Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, which constitutes de facto occupation (whence the UN still considers Israel's Fourth Geneva Convention obligations, as an occupying power, applicable), while the West Bank is occupied outright and effectively carved up into corridors by Israeli settlements, which (along with their access roads and buffer zones) are controlled exclusively by Israel politically.
An 'Islamic fundamentalist' categorical refusal to acknowledge Israel's right to exist is obviously not the sole problem, otherwise previous land-for-peace talks would've succeeded. A stated willingness in principle to recognize Israel's right to exist doesn't mean willingness to accept whatever land-for-peace terms Israel might prefer, nor does it rule out violent resistance to illegal settlements, crippling blockades and just in general the fact that 60 years on the Palestinians still have no state of their own. Now it might be true that the present conflict wouldn't have happened were Fatah still in control of Gaza, but that doesn't mean no more serious obstacles to successful land-for-peace talks would exist. And it certainly doesn't mean that a military response on this scale to missile fire into Israel--a response which has had horrific consequences for Gaza's already traumatized civilian propulation--is going to be shrugged off as Israel's perfect right, no big deal, by non-fundamentalist Palestinian political actors.
So, on average 6 per month over a 3 month period before Israel attacked to something like 10 per day after they attacked. Yet people still blame the rockets for the Israeli aggression.
I would never advocate that any civilian population should happily accept some level of constant danger, but I understand popshopper's point insofar that having 2 or 3 rogue rockets land a month was a significant and laudable improvement and a very good starting point. You never start from the ideal, you work your way to it. To completely dismiss the positive effects of the ceasefire that was in effect does not serve any productive purpose.
The UN (and the US for that matter) consider the West Bank and Gaza to be "occupied territories," not "a country"--that term is generally understood to entail international recognition as a sovereign state, which the Palestinians don't yet have. By definition, anyone who supports a two-state solution (which would be most of the world) holds the opinion that the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to a sovereign state; nonetheless, as of now they still don't have one. Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, which constitutes de facto occupation (whence the UN still considers Israel's Fourth Geneva Convention obligations, as an occupying power, applicable), while the West Bank is occupied outright and effectively carved up into corridors by Israeli settlements, which (along with their access roads and buffer zones) are controlled exclusively by Israel politically.
An 'Islamic fundamentalist' categorical refusal to acknowledge Israel's right to exist is obviously not the sole problem, otherwise previous land-for-peace talks would've succeeded. A stated willingness in principle to recognize Israel's right to exist doesn't mean willingness to accept whatever land-for-peace terms Israel might prefer, nor does it rule out violent resistance to illegal settlements, crippling blockades and just in general the fact that 60 years on the Palestinians still have no state of their own. Now it might be true that the present conflict wouldn't have happened were Fatah still in control of Gaza, but that doesn't mean no more serious obstacles to successful land-for-peace talks would exist. And it certainly doesn't mean that a military response on this scale to missile fire into Israel--a response which has had horrific consequences for Gaza's already traumatized civilian propulation--is going to be shrugged off as Israel's perfect right, no big deal, by non-fundamentalist Palestinian political actors.
Palestine is recognized as a defacto country since 1988. No not in the full sense of Canada or the U.S. since borders haven't been agreed upon. Formal borders aren't going to be assigned until both sides agree to the existence of each other. There's also the problem of what to do with the Jews of the West Bank who look at themselves as Israelis.
Anitram was trying to be pedantic to avoid my point that the governments in Gaza and West Bank are not helpless in curbing terrorism.
First of all, don't tell me what I was trying to do. I was not being pedantic.
Second, you're flat our wrong on this, but thanks for posting it, now everything you say makes a lot more sense. I guess if you believe that the Palestinians have a country, then obviously they must be murderous savages who are attacking Israel only because they don't believe that Israel should exist. Why else?
By the way, the rest of the world, Israel included, disagrees that there is such a country as Palestine, de facto or otherwise at the moment. But I suppose you must know better.
Maybe border discussions could happen if Hamas wasn't a terrorist group and didn't fire into Israel
Defacto means in practice but not in law.
On the days before the attack dozens of rockets were fired by Hamas.
Obama: 'Much more determined' to break Mideast deadlock
(CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday the suffering on both sides of Gaza's borders has led him to ramp up his commitment to working for a peace deal in the Middle East.
"When you see civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, harmed, under hardship, it's heartbreaking. And obviously what that does is it makes me much more determined to try to break a deadlock that has gone on for decades now," he told ABC's "This Week."
Rejecting criticism that he has been relatively quiet on the violence in Gaza, Obama said he believes "the one area where the principle of 'one president at a time' has to hold is when it comes to foreign policy. We cannot have two administrations at the same time simultaneously sending signals in a volatile situation.
"But what I am doing right now is putting together the team so that on January 20, starting on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole, that are going to be engaging with all of the actors there, that will work to create a strategic approach that ensures that both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations," he said.
Asked whether he will be building on President Bush's policies toward the region or offering "a clean break," Obama responded: "I think that if you look not just at the Bush administration, but also what happened under the Clinton administration, you are seeing the general outlines of an approach. And I think that players in the region understand the compromises that are going to need to be made."
Dealing with Iran, Obama said, will be "one of our biggest challenges. ... Not only is Iran exporting terrorism through Hamas, through Hezbollah, but they are pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
Iran insists it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, only nuclear energy. But the Bush administration has said Iran's nuclear energy program is a guise to build nuclear weapons. European officials -- some of whom share the U.S. concerns -- have repeatedly tried to broker a resolution to that stalemate.
During the presidential election, Obama vowed to meet with leaders of Iran and several other nations without preconditions during his first year, though his campaign later added that there would be "preparation."
Obama said Sunday that his commitment to "engagement" early on will help send a "signal that we respect the aspirations of the Iranian people, but that we also have certain expectations in terms of how a international actor behaves."
While vowing quick action on a host of issues, the president-elect warned that some major tasks will take time. Among them is the closing of the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where about 250 men considered by the government to be suspected terrorists continue to be held.
Asked whether the closure will take place in his first 100 days in office, Obama responded, "That is a challenge. I think it's going to take some time. ... But I don't want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution."
Since winning the presidency, Obama has been given intelligence briefings on top secret information that he did not have access to as a candidate or as a U.S. senator.
Asked whether he's been shocked by anything he's learned involving U.S. security, he responded, "There hasn't been something that was eye-popping. But, you know, the situation still requires vigilance."
Why are you guys still talking about this?
There are plenty of other conflicts -like for example the Sri Lankan -Tamil conflict, and yet not a word!
Sorry, not enough Jews.
Carlos Alberto Montaner
Madrid, Spain
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born writer, journalist, and former professor. He is one of the most influential and widely-read columnists in the Spanish-language media, syndicated in dozens of publications in Latin America, Spain and the United States.
Gaza's True 'Disproportion'
Israelis are being accused of suffering too few casualties in their confrontation with the Hamas terrorists. Those who reason thus usually speak the words "disproportion" or "asymmetry" in an indignant tone. While at this writing close to a thousand Arab Palestinians have died or been wounded as a result of the bombings, the Israeli losses amount to just over a dozen.
Tel Aviv's critics -- from whom an anti-Semitic stench often rises -- do not say whether Israel should increase its quota of cadavers or if it must reduce the Arabs' quota to achieve the reasonable proportion of blood that will soothe the peculiar itch for parity that afflicts them. Nor do they specify the morally permissible number of casualties to end the rain of rockets that for years has been constantly falling on the heads of Israeli civilians.
This demand for "proportionality" can only be called surprising. Until this conflict began, history books everywhere always expressed great satisfaction and a certain chauvinistic pride when a nation's army inflicted on the enemy a large number of casualties, vis-à-vis a trifling price paid by "our boys." Israel is the only country expected to behave differently and, in fact, it does; I know of no other nation that announces where and when it will drop its bombs, thus enabling civilians to evacuate the territory. Of course, in this it behaves asymmetrically, because the Hamas terrorists, forever eager to cause the greatest damage possible, never announce when or where they will launch their rockets against Israel's civilian population.
In turn, Israel has not the slightest interest in causing casualties. All it wants is to stop Hamas' attacks the only way it can: by eliminating the terrorists and destroying their arsenals. There's no other way to deal with them. Hamas is not a political organization with which agreements can be reached, but a fanatical gang intent on wiping Israel off the map. To achieve this objective, its members are even willing to turn their own children into human bombs, just to kill the hated Jews.
Here's another very important asymmetry. The Jews build underground shelters in all houses near the border; they close the schools and hide the children at the least sign of danger; they treat the death of a single soldier as a national tragedy; they do everything possible to rescue their prisoners, and protect the civilian population from the consequences of war. In contrast, the authorities in Gaza, drunk with violence, fire their machine guns irresponsibly into the air to express joy or grief (causing numerous injuries), do not hesitate to install their headquarters or hide their guns in schools, mosques or hospitals, use human shields to protect themselves, turn to suicidal terrorists and reward the families of such "martyrs" with money.
One week before Hamas broke the truce and stepped up its rocket attacks against the Jewish state (the spark that set off this conflict), I was in Israel, where I had been invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Tel Aviv. As part of the contacts organized by my hosts, I visited the Wolfson Medical Center to learn about the program "Save a Child's Heart." I was very moved. It is a foundation devoted to providing heart surgery for very poor children, most of them from the Arab world. As it happened, I witnessed the hurried arrival of a tiny 5-day-old girl, who had to be operated on at once to keep her from dying. She was brought in by her mother, a woman in a black head covering that allowed me to see only her tear-filled eyes, and her husband, a small, bearded man who watched with amazement the indescribable kindness with which a group of doctors and nurses treated the baby. The family came from Gaza.
Since the war erupted, I have asked myself constantly what became of them all.
The Bush administration was a gigantic failure when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian problem, so my feeling is that whatever Obama does will be better. The Clintons also do have some clout in that area so that may be helpful.
Not the president's job to intervene in foreign wars.
Sure, which is my point. We shouldn't be aiding at all.
interview with deposed Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar, Aug. '07
I asked [Zahar] why Hamas chose to stop suicide bombings two years ago. The conventional wisdom holds that Hamas gave up suicide attacks because they made a decision to run in the 2006 elections and participate in Palestinian politics as a legitimate political party. I have also heard, though never from Hamas itself, that the movement feared the tough Israeli countermeasures such as the wall and the roadblocks would cause a popular backlash against the movement.
Zahar said it was simply a tactical decision that rockets were a more effective way to disrupt Israeli society: “You are now a military advisor for Hamas, which do you think is more effective, martyrdom operations or rockets against Sderot?” I didn’t answer. He did. “Rockets against Sderot will cause mass migration, greatly disrupt daily lives and government administration and can make a much huger impact on the government. We are using the methods that convince the Israelis that their occupation is costing them too much."
"We are succeeding with the rockets,” he said. “We have no losses, and the impact on the Israeli side is so much.”
'A Visit to a Gaza Rocket Factory', Der Spiegel, January '08
The production of the fuel may be delicate, but the real danger lies in the Israeli helicopters, Abdul says. "We know that we are easy prey." His thumb flashes a nervous Morse code with his flashlight onto the floor of the hut. "We are ready to die; that is the price of our freedom." He says that the Palestinians are left with no other choice but to fight the Israelis with weapons. "Either we resist, or they treat us like slaves."
He has thought about who is hit by his rockets. "If we kill soldiers, then we are more than happy," he says. "If it hits a child, then naturally we are not happy." The simple fact of the matter is that you can't aim a Qassam, he says. "And look at the Israelis. They have F-16s and Apache helicopters and can shoot with amazing accuracy. And they still kill our women and children." He reflects for a moment. "Children shouldn’t be killed in any war in this world," says Abdul, who has no children of his own.