Gaza Crisis
The Israeli air force bombed a civilian Palestinian house that they said was being used to plot out terrorist attacks.
As a home, it contained innocent civilians including at least two now-dead children.
CSM gives further details of the humanitarian crisis into which Olmert's invasion and bombings have plunged the people of Gaza.
See Gaza in the Vise at the always invaluable Middle East Report. Subscribe. Send them money.
Israeli human rights groups protested Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's use of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/12/2006 12:22:00 AM
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"Israeli human rights groups protested Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's use of collective punishment against the Palestinian people."
How strongly do they protest? If we sent them money, would they use it to feed Palestinian children?
There is a problem here that usually escapes notice. Any citizen who contributes to the overall success of the Zionist state, whether they consider themselves Zionist or not, or Likud or liberal, is part and parcel of a decades-long, below-the-radar Genocide of the Palestinian people.
Any citizen who benefits from the overall success of the Zionist state benefits from the decades-long Genocide perpetrated upon its Palestinian victims.
We cannot send money to any pro-Palestinian group, of which I am aware, without becoming subject to Bush's ill-defined definition of "terrorist."
How ironic, donate money to state sanctioned murderers, and one is labeled a man of peace. Try to alleviate death by starvation, and one is a terrorist.
Bush needs to step down. The sooner, the better. The evil he is sponsoring will be with us for generations.
From Israeli corporal to Peace for Galilee-2.0?
Unfortunately, what started as a cheesy media soap opera "Saving corporal Shalit", now unravels into a really serious development with grave consequences for the general ME situation. My best guess is, at this point, the neocons still do not want to understand what current I/P complications mean for situation in Iraq and around Iran. However, sooner rather than later, the ugly truth will come out - and there is not much that they - or anybody else - will be able to do about it.
So, on step 1, certain faction of Hamas captured the Israeli soldier. Next came huge escalation on the Israeli side. Apparently, Kadima and the Labour defense minister Peretz had to prove that they are not soft on the Arabs.
Next, Israel responded by large scale air attacks and ground invasion in Gaza. In addition, they arrested a number of Hamas officials and threatened to kill others. Not surprisingly, this did not help to free the soldier. Quite on the contrary, the real goal of this Israeli move turned out to be turning Palestine into the failed state physically incapable of any meaningful political activities starting from negotiations with Israel and other states.
The irony is, Hamas is, and always was heavily isolationist. Unlike Arafat's Fatah, Hamas does not have any particular interest in diplomatic activities even in the Arab world, not to mention the West. Radical religious orientation anti-Israeli militancy makes them pretty hostile to secular Egypt, neither they are friendly with pro-Western Saudis.
So, all Haniyeh had to do in this situation was to put all dots on i's and point out the obvious. In fact, Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to change the results of elections held early this year. The intention of that strategy was to force the Palestinians to "reconsider" their support of Hamas when faced with deepening hardship. As for Shalit affair, it is just a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.
The next step was for the Lebanese Hezbollah to follow the example of Hamas. They attacked Israeli troops and captured two more Israeli soldiers. Quite naturally, this enraged the Israelis even more, they attacked S.Lebanon from the air and launched the ground attack. As usual, this was done with full US diplomatic support. Not just Hamas and Hezbollah, but Syria and Iran were blamed for escalation of the crisis.
The horrible guess is that those who issued this condemnation never bothered to check basic ME history and find out what it really means for Israel to get involved in Lebanon - considering the ill fate of 1982 Lebanon war aka operation "Peace for Galilee". In fact, now the whole story of recent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after assassination of Hariri can be considered as a preparation for the Israeli return to Lebanon!
Now, in further development of the crisis, Iranian nuclear case moves closer and closer to the UN Security Council. Make no mistake, the Iranians will respond to this with carefully measured escalation on their side.
Not to mention the Korean side of the equation - N.Koreans can always be trusted to counter-attack when attacked. So, we have a handful of their missile tests instead of just one expected before the recent anti-N.Korean diplomatic offensive.
The sad conclusion is, Iraqi, Iranian, I/P crises go on escalating and igniting each other. Anyhow reasonably, any reversal of this process would start from the sound objective news coverage in the mainstream media - simply because there is no way to fix what one can't see. Unfortunately, blogosphere still remains the only place to assess the ME situation.
Is it me or are we seeing the beginning of a general exchange of hostilities?
There is an israeli armoured force in central gaza.
The gentlemen in Tel Aviv have mobilised an infantry division to go North into Lebanon. If they accidentally turn right they end up in Damascus.
The world has apparently decided to refer Iran to the Security Council and Mr Bolton.
Mr Rumsfeld has decided to go to Iraq for a weekend break.
People are happily massacring Riverbend's neighbours
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