As Leibovich emphasized, Israel dropped leaflets over northern Gaza, signed by the commander of the Israeli military, urging residents to "leave the area immediately" for their own safety.
That's really humane, really. Just exactly where are the blockaded residents of Gaza supposed to go?

"It seems unavoidable." Is that comment supposed to be taken seriously? If Israel had not dropped its bombs on Palestinians and had not erected barbed wire throughout Gaza and had not cut off food and water and medicine and electricity to the Palestinians, then the needless deaths brought about by Israel most certainly could have been avoided.

I'm missing something here. Didn't Bush just use his radio address this morning to say that the Palesinians had to honor a ceasefire?

The self-styled "progressives" here really seem to love Hamas. Why don't progressives condemn Hamas for using their people as human shields in violation of international law?

There is plenty of blame to spread around in this situation. Use of their people as human shields is indeed a violation of international law. But so is collective punishment, and that is what Israel is guilty of when they cut of power, water and food to the occupied territory.

And please...some apologist for Israel bring up the greenhouses...

Why don't progressives condemn Hamas for using their people as human shields in violation of international law?

I assume that they will, as soon as the retrogressives condemn Israel for causing the conditions that require the residents of Gaza to have shields in the first place.

Gaza 2008-09 seems a lot like Warsaw ghetto 1941-1943. It is horrible that Israelis are re-enacting this awful tragedy, this time as bad guys. I'm a supporter of Israeli state, but I don't think it can exist as a current proto-fascist model, and still remain Israel. What bugs me even more are people who enjoy armchair fighting from the USA, cheering on Israelis to keep on fighting their demise. Despicable, that's the word for it.

How do the IDF 'take out launching sites'? The Palestinians aren't using V-2's -- there's no Peenemunde to bomb.

It seems unavoidable.

Just like Iraqi deaths were unavoidable in the Iraq War.

Gaza 2008-09 seems a lot like Warsaw ghetto 1941-1943.

A lot? Do elaborate. How many rockets did the Warsaw ghetto launch at German residential areas? Did the German army concentrate its attacks on weapons depots? Which nation assisted in smuggling rockets into Warsaw?

A lot like the Warsaw ghetto? Not so much, really.

Gregor

Actually, there is absolutely no concrete evidence that Hamas is using human shields while there is certainly abundant evidence that Israel has violated international law as when it broke the truce in November by using force in Gaza and its current acts of aggression against the Palestinians.

Why don't progressives condemn Hamas for using their people as human shields in violation of international law?

I hereby condemn Hamas for using their people as human shields in violation of international law.

Happy? I assume you will now listen to my criticisms of Israel in good faith. Right? I mean, you're not just using the crimes of Hamas as a shield to avoid having to defend Israel's crimes, are you?

Just about everyone focuses on the military/terror aspect: Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel, Israel finally responding with bombs and tanks (with divers permutations, as a sort of perennial cycle in the Near East.) Everyone except people like Juan Cole of course, who brings up the very critical issue of what other things are happening about blockades, water use, food, electricity, ease of travel etc. Much of that reflects poorly on Israel, but OTOH the Arabs indulge in derisive and aggressive imagery (e.g. that jihadist Micky Mouse type that conservatives went ape over) and behavior, and Israel often offers things it would be smart for the other side to utilize. We won't understand what's going on, and especially why the Palestinians do what they do to some extent, until that is clearly reported and appreciated.

MatthewRMarler

Which country has supplied Israel with weapons and missiles and F-16 fighter planes to launch those deadly missiles at civilian targets in order to protect its [alleged] national interests? Which president-elect has remained mute while Israel continues to slaughter innocent Palestinian civilians? It is extremely doubtful if the Palestinians believe that Obama will offer them much hope.

Matthew! Glad to see you! Have you ever cobbled together that evidence to debunk the Lancet study yet? You promised me over two years ago to do so, and I have asked you to repeatedly, but you have (epically) failed to provide it. Can I assume that you retract your previous assertions in the light of this?

BTW, what about the Israeli greenhouses?

Given that Gaza is still blockaded (I think) - where are they supposed to go? Egypt? And if they do leave Gaza, when will they be allowed back - if ever. Or maybe that is the goal all along - clean them out?

(I actually don't claim to know - these are not rhetorical questions)

Remember former World Bank President James Wolfensohn? He preceded Wolfowitz and went to the State Department in 2005 – to be Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. But a year later, he was gone, increasingly marginalized by the administration he tried to serve – like everyone else who truly understands the Middle East. "The view on the American and Israeli side was that you could not trust the Palestinians, and the result was not to build more economic activity, but to build more barriers," Wolfensohn said. "And I personally did not think that was the way forward."

When Wolfensohn went to the State Department he raised $15 million ($10 million of it from a single donor) to buy the greenhouses that the Israelis were leaving behind as they withdrew. Do not believe the plaintive wails of “We even gave them the greenhouses!� from the Israelis. But that is not how it happened. That ignores Wolfensohn’s role, and it ignores the money that changed hands.

But more importantly, it overlooks the fact that those commercial greenhouses were on the verge of becoming profitable, and that the opportunity they represented was an opportunity for peace to flower, too. "Once it was clear the business was viable, threats stopped and the community took tremendous pride in growing flowers, fruits and vegetables for export to Israel," Wolfensohn said. “The absolute tragedy was that within months of the commencement of that activity, issues of security at the border, some proven, some not, led to the border being sealed and everything getting wasted," he added. "There is one inevitable truth in the Middle East: Unless you provide economic activity to young people who are 70 percent of the population, you will have conflict. They will shoot the people they blame and in the end they will shoot each other.�

“Gaza First� failed, because Gaza was cut off. The produce and flowers rotted. Economic opportunity was truncated. Unrest was inevitable.

Oops. Meant to drop in the link to the post that previous comment is lifted from.

Interesting story on the greenhouses. Hadn't heard that one. It's probably not the most important issue. Things like not having electricity, fuel, medicine, food or water are probably bigger. But it is certainly one more for an already long list of grievances.

"It seems unavoidable".

It could well have been avoided had the U.S. demanded Israel dismantle their settlements and get serious about peace, or suffer a cutoff of U.S. funding. Why we continue to permit a foreign power to call our shots is something I cannot fathom.

In defense of Steve, I took that sentence as saying it's the increase in deadliness, from house-to-house fighting as per Shachtman, and not the invasion per se, that's described as 'inevitable'.

Thanks BG. Just overall, I wouldn't be too impressed with someone on their way out leaving their greenhouses (with or w/o help from a philanthropist) for the indiginees. I suppose both peoples used them while the Israelis were still there, I don't know. What would they do otherwise, destroy them for spite, or haul them to Israel on flatbeds? The more important issue is how the economic blockade and those kind of greater issues make this what it is. It is still true IMHO, that if the Palestinians had renounced terror acts they would have so much sympathy built up Israel would have to accommodate them.

Can I just point out that Israel has also used Palestinians as human shields in the past, literally?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18058725/

"that if the Palestinians had renounced terror acts they would have so much sympathy built up Israel would have to accommodate them."

You sure about that? When Arafat renounced terrorism, Israel did not accommodate him, they sought to isolate him. Ironically, they backed Hamas to undermine the PLO. And Israel doesn't have much of a track record of bowing to international pressure, unless that pressure come from the US. They certainly bowed to us in the Suez Canal crisis, but we were actually shooting at them.

Given that the greenhouses were in settler hands before the settlements were disbanded, the Palestinians weren't using them beforehand, and I have no difficulty believing that they would have destroyed them for spite as they left.

The economic blockade just as the first crops were ripening was the impetus from which today's strife directly flows.

As I have said before, and will continue to say:
Both sides/all sides are demonstrating ignorance and stupidity.
If I were violent and trapped as the Gazans are, I would be recruiting suicide bombers in Israel, or wherever I could, and targeting civilians, marketplaces, synogogues, hospitals and schools. What other choices do they have? Israel apparently thinks that if they kill enough Palestinians and destroy enough of their infrastructure and cripple further their society, the Palestinians, Hamas and whoever else they consider their enemies, will just lie down and surrender.

Hamas and the Palestinians must think that by lobbing bombs and missiles into Israel, they, too, will get some concessions from the Israelis.

I don't really care whose God is being called upon in support of either side. The God I know does not take sides. It is up to us to resolve our conflicts, without blaming or crediting God for the outcome. Does God suspend gravity for the good guys and double its strength for the bad guys? Not as far as I know. So, why would God help one side and not the other?

So, all the arguments on who is right and who is wrong; who is justified in killing over property rights and human rights, is a waste of time and energy. As Gandhi said: An eye for an eye makes all of us blind. Open your eyes and see humanity as one human family.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

The word renounced can mean saying your going to do something, but I meant actually doing it. And the sympathy I meant, was from the rest of the world beyond Israel pressuring them (and it would include the US, since the tipping point of voter sympathy wouldn't be dragged down - as it should be - by the terror acts. Things like Munich 1972 turned off lots of people and should have. The Israelis have a lot of self-interest in the territory there but even enough of them would have a different view without terror acts as stimulus, to throw elections in other directions. Remember that many of the peace agreements and rapprochements came close, so a tipping could have done the trick.

But it is true there is much creepy irony in all this, including the US role in bolstering Hamas, according to alternet:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/116855/america%27s_hidden_role_in_hamas%27s_rise_to_power/
Money quote [a phrase Sully has tickled me with]:

Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount of settlers over the next dozen years.

How many rockets did the Warsaw ghetto launch at German residential areas?

Had they had rockets you can be damn sure they would have used them.

Did the German army concentrate its attacks on weapons depots?

Given that the Israeli army designates any and every structure as a weapons depot at any given time - houses, government buildings, mosques, apartment buildings police stations, et al- the question is hardly relevant.

Given that you and people like you have suggested that "leveling" Gaza is a potential solution to the conflict, the execrable hypocrisy inherent in the question is outrageous. Only pressure from other nations and humanitarian groups prevents the carnage that you would prefer form taking place.

Quite a few people have hit on the point that Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go, so the "humane warnings" to leave are just window-dressing intended to invoke the rhapsodic adoration of pundits like Charles Krauthammer. When you have that many people jammed into such a tiny space, they literally cannot leave their homes for somewhere else.

Ditto the "human shields" argument. It's pretty hard to find someplace, in such a crowded country, to set up and launch a rocket where there are no people. Tactics-wise, it'd be pretty stupid, too. Those stovepipe rockets might be unguided, but Israeli weapons are not, and the "Hamas Rocket Brigade's" announcement that their forces would muster in a huge abandoned field with no other people around for a mass launch against Israeli civilian areas would certainly be welcomed by Israel. A little like the suggestions that the Iraqi Republican Guards should have "come out and fight like men" when there was no cover at all, and marching out in a body would have been an invitation to have the US Air Force make hamburger of them before they ever saw an enemy soldier.

Don't waste your breath on inviting people to do something stupid so they can lose faster. They're no stupider than anyone else.

And if the Israelis had stolen, say, Utah, ghettoized the original inhabitants, treated them like dirt and bombed them for being ungrateful, would they have as many defenders? No. They instead stole the land of a bunch of brown people whom nobody gave a particular shit about at the time so now people can debate about how many brown people Israel can legitimately blow up.

I think the warnings to leave mean the literal building, just before attack. It doesn't justify Israel's oeverall posture there but is still better than not. As for the basic stimulus for the trouble at this late stage, it is the settlers IMHO. Most Arabs and Palestinians could have accepted an Israel inside pre-67 borders as a practical given and moved on, making some deal for statehood etc. It came close, REM Bill Clinton's efforts. Some say Arafat should have taken the deal.

Ditto the "human shields" argument. It's pretty hard to find someplace, in such a crowded country, to set up and launch a rocket where there are no people

Oh what ignorant nonsense. Hamas is deliberately storing rockets and launchers in mosques and apartment buildings.

As opposed to where Howard?

BTW how do you know that? Let me guess, you saw it on Tee Vee when they repeated what Israel had said.

Maybe Iran with a nuclear weapon isn't such a bad idea. Let's face it, who's had them and used one since we did? It sure would leverage the residents of Gaza against these meaningless, murderous invasions and overt criminal occupation. Blockades, airstrikes and invasions will not save you Israel. Humanity still can.

It was certainly avoidable. I wonder why the IDF is pretending that the folks can just leave where they live.

I wonder how everyone who condemns Israel's response would react if say groups in Mexico were firing rockets into San Diego or Los Angeles? I wonder how long the US would take to react and if they would listen to other world groups telling them not to?

Not to say that Israel is perfect, far from it, but its much easier to condemn others for reacting with overwhelming force when its not your cities being attacked.

"It seems unavoidable?????????????" Are they thne going to turn it into a prison camp with "civilian" residents...where just the militants will be prisoners.

It will get deadlier? These are human lives they are so casually referring to. With all that has been done to the Jews in the past, their history of suffering...one would think they would exhaust every possible means of dealing with the situation before they start killing people with US weapons and bombs.

One or two Israelis have been killed as a result of Hamas' rockets and Israel has killed how many...420 (besides all the wounded) so far. I wonder how Israel would react if the roles were reversed and say the US put up a blockade preventing medicines and supplies from entering the country..allowing no Jew out unless they go through Palestine.

They are justifying insanity....it would be just as costly to work out a peace plan as to go to war. Like most others I have a really bad feeling about the results they expect to accomplish. No doubt American Bushies have sent them our new secret weapons...and they just can't wait to use them. Here comes 'shock and awe' and disaster capitalism...the state of permanent war for the war profiteers and the fanatics always fall right into line.

The insanity is they believe that destroying each other is the only way to live together in peace.
It will never stop until you just refuse to do it.

Not to say that Israel is perfect, far from it, but its much easier to condemn others for reacting with overwhelming force when its not your cities being attacked.

That is certainly true. But for your analogy to be remotely sustainable, we'd have to have the Mexican group bottled up on, say, Coronado island, minus not only multi-mil homes, but also food, clean water, medicine--oh, and the bridge and ferry.

yaramah

Read this

http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/palestine-report-131207

Then try to fit that picture into your analogy of Mexico

Shortstop, I agree. I don't want to get into chicken and egg arguments over who started what. But even in your scenario, don't you think that the US would attack and with disproportionate force?

Well, you've got two different questions there, Yaramah: would we and should we.

Do I think the U.S. would? Yes. Would I be denouncing my own country's action in this place and doing everything I could to protest it? Absolutely.

Sorry, that should've been:

...my own country's action in this case.

Yaramah

I would like to think that if a group from Mexico began to suddenly firing rockets [perhaps antiquated rockets like the type that Hamas has?]into the U.S., that the U.S., unlike what happened on Sept.11, 2001, would engage in introspection as to why Mexico was lobbing missiles into what was once their territory. You make it appear as if Palestinian rockets are being fired into Israel capriciously. As I tried to point out in an earlier comment, apparently to no avail, there is barbed wire running throughout Gaza. Israel has cut off Gaza's food supply. They have cut off its water. They have cut off its electricity. They have severely restricted medical supplies coming into Gaza. Yet you and so many other Israeli apologists make it appear that the Palestinians have absolutely no reason to resist, just as the Iraqis and the Afghans are doing, against their occupiers.

In short, Israel, who for so many years were the oppressed, have now, with the blessing of the United States, become the oppressors.

Not to say that Israel is perfect, far from it, but its much easier to condemn others for reacting with overwhelming force when its not your cities being attacked.
Posted by: Yaramah

Also much easier to cheer the overwhelming reaction from your comfortable civilized living room when it isn't your cousin being ethnically cleansed.

Neil,

"Most Arabs and Palestinians could have accepted an Israel inside pre-67 borders as a practical given and moved on, making some deal for statehood etc. It came close, REM Bill Clinton's efforts. Some say Arafat should have taken the deal."

There was never a "deal". Nothing for Arafat to take.

Yaramah,

"I wonder how everyone who condemns Israel's response would react if say groups in Mexico were firing rockets into San Diego or Los Angeles?"

Does America have Mexico under illegal military occupation in your scenario ?

Gonads, I am so sorry. And I say that as one who, the odds are very good, has cousins doing that cleansing. Please accept my apologies. If there was anything more I could do to put a stop to this insanity, I would pay any fare to take that ride.

btw...why isn't the US just as adamant in sending peace negotiators and try8ng to establish peaceful solutions as we were about making sure Iran had no nuclear program. Why are we so quick to send weapons to Israel but hesitant about sending food and medicine to Palestine and Gaza?

Who stands to gain from instigating this conflict. Is congress really just "Israeli foreign territory"?

How can we even claim to be even handed when we are supplying arms and money to one side only?

Like many others, I believe the Palestinians are entitled to an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel is entitled to a secure existence.

I can see what the Palestinians could do to achieve their independence. But I can't see what Israel could do to ensure its secure existence.

The Palestinians' opponent is a united state, whose public is amenable to compromise and a negotiated solution.

The Israelis, on the other hand, face a population dominated by several militant groups, some of which reject any compromise.

Israel has surely hardened its heart over the last 60 years, in its grim determination to survive. But Israeli society has no bloodlust, no nihilistic culture of martyrdom, of the kind seen in Palestine.

When reports of attacks on Israeli public buses, killing dozens of civilians were announced in Palestinian towns, ordinary Palestinians whooped and celebrated.

So back to the main point. Agression doesn't work, negotiations don't work, walled separation doesn't work. If you're the prime minister of Israel, what *do* you do?

I don't understand the comparison to Warsaw. There was nothing the Jews in Warsaw could have done to stop the Germans from killing them all. That was the German goal, their primary purpose. They didn't want anything from the Jews except for them all to die.

Is that the Israeli goal in Gaza? To kill all the Palestinian Arabs? I can understand how the Arabs and their sympathizers might believe this, given how powerful the psychological mechanism of projection can be. But back in the real world, the Arabs could stop this war today by renouncing their so-called war of "resistance" against Israel - no more rockets, no suicide bombings, no attacks against Israel. Once that happens, once the Arabs lay down their arms, the war will stop, and no more Arabs will be killed, at least not by the Israelis. That's because, in the real world, unlike the fantasy world of Paliwood, the Israelis have no interest in killing all the Arabs and would prefer to live in peace with them.

How do I define peace? Like the relationship between the US and Canada. When the Arabs want to have a relationship like that with Israel, there will be peace.

And don't give me that crap about Gaza being too small to be economic. It has one of the premier beach fronts in the world, is strategically located, and could easily be a successful city-state like Hong Kong or Singapore if the Arabs wanted that instead of revanchism.

Gonads, I am so sorry. And I say that as one who, the odds are very good, has cousins doing that cleansing. Please accept my apologies. If there was anything more I could do to put a stop to this insanity, I would pay any fare to take that ride.
Posted by: Blue Girl

Thanks ... but there's nothing to apologize for.

The statement was more in response to Yaramah's insinuation that we're naive limousine liberals condemning a response we can't possibly understand ...

My girlfriend's Israeli ... she has several uncles, cousins, nephews who served and are serving in the IDF. If I don't hold it against her, I don't against anyone else.

Yarameh's rationalization of lopsided, collective punishment is antithetical to the peace process, and should be rejected without consideration of its supposed merits. That's all.

Chris,

"I can see what the Palestinians could do to achieve their independence. But I can't see what Israel could do to ensure its secure existence."

I see just the opposite.

The Palestinians have tried EVERYTHING, nothing works.

Israel could try ending the illegal military occupation.

"The Palestinians' opponent is a united state, whose public is amenable to compromise and a negotiated solution."

Too bad their RightWing leadership are not as amenable.

"The Israelis, on the other hand, face a population dominated by several militant groups, some of which reject any compromise."

Untrue.

I'm no fan of Hamas, but even they have stated that they're willing to come to terms with Israel if Israel is willing to withdraw up to the 1967 borders and end totally the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

Instead Israel is continuously illegally annexing more and more land.

DBL, if you don't understand comparison to Warsaw Ghetto, you ought to read a bit about it, it is widely available online. If you pretend not to understand, than there is little I can do to explain it to yo. I was referring to Warsaw/Gaza to point that Jews were kept in ghetto over there in order to have Germans exterminate them easier. As I see it, this is what is going on right now in Gaza, and Israels are doing extermination. Use of overwhelming and indiscriminate force against civilian population is a war crime, and no amount of glossing over will change that fact. If the response to this is that Hamas should stop first, one would do well to remember that this fight is so unequal to render this argument nothing but a cynical cover up for Israelis. Besides, friends do not help friends commit war crimes.

shortstop: Yes, perhaps it is a given that the US would. Should is always another matter.

The broader point I wanted to make is I don't think there are too many countries that would tolerate attacks on their civilian population and not react disproportionately if they had the option. Hopefully India wont after the Mumbai attacks, and I agree that in principle retaliating is not a good long term proposition, but I also think its very hard to say no and much easier to criticize from those decisions from afar.

As for the broader Palestinian question I agree that Israel's policies must change and are causing harm to the civilian population of Gaza. Egypt should open up their border with Gaza and allow civilians to leave and aid to flow in.

DBL

You do realize that the ceasefire that was in place since July was actually working until Israel killed some Hamas guys using tunnels (I wont say for good or evil because there are conflicting stories) in November right? Well it was working in the sense that Hamas was enforcing it and there was less than one rocket attack a day from Gaza on average. Thats something nobody is pointing out for some reason or other. I guess maybe its because they want people to think the Palestinians are all barbarians who can't be rasoned with. But the truth is in return for the cease fire being enforced Israel actually tightened the restrictions on good passing through the border to Gaza.

Shorter explanation, in return for fewer rockets being shot off the Palestinians got to suffer a little more than they were before.

Maybe some of you guys who think its just morally wrong to question Israel ever should try using "the google" every now and then to actually learn about, ya know, teh facts.

Ohhhhh they burnnnnnnnnnnn

Yaramah,

"The broader point I wanted to make is I don't think there are too many countries that would tolerate attacks on their civilian population and not react disproportionately if they had the option."

True, given your rigged Straw Man argument, but you leave out the CRUCIAL aspect that the party counter-attacking is under illegal military occupation.

That's because, in the real world, unlike the fantasy world of Paliwood, the Israelis have no interest in killing all the Arabs and would prefer to live in peace with them. ... How do I define peace? Like the relationship between the US and Canada. When the Arabs want to have a relationship like that with Israel, there will be peace.
Posted by: DBL

Meanwhile ...

"The ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas last June and has been in force since then. It has been the single most important factor in reducing civilian casualties and attacks on civilians to the lowest level since the outbreak of the uprising (intifada) more than eight years ago."

"The ceasefire has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza, where before the ceasefire residents lived in fear of the next Palestinian rocket strike. However, nearby in the Gaza Strip the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire. Since June 2007, the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians has been trapped in Gaza, with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 percent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in."

How do I define peace? Like the relationship between the US and Canada. -- DBL, @19:34

You mean... We should stop resisting them and stop sending rockets into "their" territory, even if they don't withdraw back to their side of the Great Lakes? We should let them keep Wisconsin and Michigan because, hey, we still have the rest (think of the Canadian-free beaches in Florida!)? Even though they control all of our airspace *and* all of our ground entries to the point where developing and sustaining those Canadian-free beaches into a Dubai-like paradise is not a viable proposition?

Yeah, I see the wisdom of your course of action...

"Shorter explanation, in return for fewer rockets being shot off the Palestinians got to suffer a little more than they were before."

To me, that's the real argument here. If Israel insists on punishing Palestinians for cooperating, what incentive do they have to cooperate? Israel controls this game, and they can offer real incentives in exchange for Palestinian cooperation. So far, they have not done so. Instead, the Israelis have made it clear that the West Bank will never exist as a viable state. They will never give up their settlements or the "Jew only" roads that connect them. The effect of that is that the West Bank can only ever become a series of non-contiguous city-states (or, more accurately, "outdoor jails"). As for Gaza, it will be blockaded until Israel is allowed to choose Gaza's government. So why should the Palestinians even bother cooperating? What's in it for them? Eternal subjugation?

I voted and rooted for Obama. It is very disappointing to watch his say nothing about the aggressive Israeli attacks on a poor, hapless population imprisoned in the Gaza strip. Hope he will do something different and more humane than Bush when he takes office.

WW2 was actually a Jewish genocide of the Germans.

No it wasn't.

In Philadelphia, we managed to get our demonstration in just hours before the ground assault began.

Nice to see the Jewish Waffen-SS now assaulting the Warsaw Ghetto after the Jewish Luftwaffe softened them up.

Chris S asks "what can the Israeli prime minister do?"

For starters, he could start honoring agreements Israel has never lived up to - like NO SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK EVER. He could take out the Jewish storm troopers of the Kahane Kach movement and send them back to Crown Heights where they came from before they start another pogrom (which is what the Israeli prime minister called their latest outrage last month).

The Israelis could stop 40 years of stealing the West Bank by hook and by (mostly) crook. That's what they could do.

As an Israeli friend once said "for the first 20 years of Israel's existence, they proved Jews weren't cowards; for the past 40 years they've been proving Jews can easily be morons."

And our bought-and-paid-for-by-AIPAC politicians, from Obama on down, stand silent since they are bought-and-paid-for-by-AIPAC.

I voted and rooted for Obama. It is very disappointing to watch him say nothing about the aggressive Israeli attacks on a poor, hapless population imprisoned in the Gaza strip. Hope he will do something different and more humane than Bush when he takes office. -- rational, @20:50

He *and* Hillary will be in the cleft stick, come the end of January. OTOH... I'd rather he stayed mute for a while, than make himself a fool (like McCain did, on Georgia) with great speed.

DBL: I had a riposte prepared, but exlibra has already delivered it in my behalf. The residents of Gaza cannot turn it into a cash-cow resort because every brick, every flashlight battery brought into the country has to be approved by Israelis and pass through Israeli-controlled checkpoints. It is not in Israeli interests to have Gaza become a prosperous city-state, it IS in Israeli interests to make it a place of misery and privation that the current residents will finally vacate, allowing it to become part of the Jewish homeland. The very money donated by other citizens of the world for the relief of the Palestinians is controlled by Israel, who stops its distribution when the spirit moves them; do you remember Dov Weisglass suggesting that Israel was going to "put the Palestinians on a diet"?

Israel abuses the Palestinians because Americans encourage them to do so, and provide them cover by vetoing every resolution that would censure their behaviour. America vetoed a draft resolution offered by LIBYA today, of all people. I remember when America did nothing but squall about Libya's human-rights record.

Jewish leaders throughout Israel's brief life have offered boasts about their intentions to push the Palestinians into the sea, to colonize their land and to appropriate it for their own use. These statements are easy to find, as they took no pains to disguise them.

Read a little, before dubbing everything with which you disagree "ignorant nonsense. Thanks, exlibra.

While the rest of you debate the nuances of who is right and who is wrong, based on the premise of who is less right versus who is more wrong (which, to me, seems pretty much the same stupid thing here), I will simply sit back and wait for someone (with a smidgen of tactical sense in that collection of gray-matter usually found between one's ears, commonly called a brain) in the Hamas hierarchy to finally figure out that two men with a rocket launcher, having a fully-loaded IDF troop carrier in their sites (from a carefully-crafted bunker created from the piles of rubble left from the air assault), at point blank range, can do much more damage to Israeli aggression than, for example, trying to hit something twenty-five miles downrange with an unguided stovepipe missile.

And Israelis think that the Lebanon fiasco was tantamount to having their military's "Viagra prestige" taken away....

Due to strict entrance into Gaza, UNRWA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency), UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council), Red Cross, journalists, & others, finally there is some light shed on Gaza.

Apparently, in early December, Libya tried to send food, powdered milk, blankets but was turned away by Israelis at the border because of no diplomatic relations with Libya - Israel.

Qatar is alleged to have been put under pressure from the Israeli government to back down from sending in Cancer medication thereafter.

Make no mistake in the matter, I am not pro-Israel, nor am I pro-Palestinian, I am pro-humanity.

But to have about 80% of the Palestinian population living off of humanitarian aid, living in refugee camps is wrong.

This is not quite related to the thread, but, I think might prove related.

CNN has an investigation special called, "Out of Gas," referring to 2009.

Hopefully this won't prove true. According to CNN, Arab leaders are blaming the U.S. for not agreeing to the cease-fire agreement.

We do not have strong ties to oil producing countries like Russia, Iran & Venezula. Now that we didn't sign on to the agreement at the emergency meeting (I am aware, the agreement lacked a cease fire for Hamas), will they (Arab, oil producing countries) retaliate.

We are at other countries mercy. We have lost manufacturing jobs. We import more than we export. Yes, we still have Mexico & Canada. On the other hand, China, Russia & Iran are going through the back door making deals with the countries we do not have strong ties with.

China is pretty much taking over the African continent. Russia is selling arms to Venezuela...

Well this is one progressive who says the Israeli's have been too lenient, which is why the damn Hamas folks have thousands of rockets. They don't give a rat's ass about human life, about the people they govern (and who ELECTED them) or Israelis.

Israel can't make peace without a side that wants peace, and Hamas does not.

Don't tell me if rockets were falling on your heads you wouldn't try to preserve your country.

I am sick to death of this "oh, the POOR Palestinians." They make the wrong choices decade after decade, the other Arab countries won't take them in (in fact, kicked them out, that's how nice of a people they are), and only stir up trouble for everyone.

Yes, there are innocent Palestinians caught in a squeeze, yes. But by and large I don't feel sorry for these people who live to kill Israelis and don't care about their own civilians.

And I AM a liberal, to my way of thinking.

>And I AM a liberal, to my way of thinking.

And I am the ruler of the universe to my way of thinking. But for some reason nobody else agrees with either of our self-evaluations.

Since the launching areas are fields reached by pickup truck, how does this work ? Why don't the Israelis just admit to the world that this is all local politics, and the one with the biggest dick wins ? What the hell, if you have to kill or maim a couple of thousand, why, there's plenty more where they come from.

Gonads: Since June 2007, the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians has been trapped in Gaza, with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 percent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in.

For what it's worth, that isn't the "entire population" of Palestinians. As pointed out by others, there are Palestinians in the West Bank as well.

For what it's worth, the economy in Gaza was ruined by the Palestinians who live there, most of the destruction completed after the Israeli withdrawal. For all the talk about the horrors of the Israeli "occupation", Palestinian life is worst where there have been no "occupying" Israeli forces for 3+ years. What you call a "trickle" of international aid is quite substantial. Equally impressive has been the smuggling of rockets into Gaza through the tunnels that the Egyptians were unsuccessful in closing.

Some writers have been calling this a "genocide" and a "holocaust". There have been about 450 Gazans killed, at least 80% of them Palestinian fighters and the rest near the arms depots. To kill 450 out of 1.5 million, most of them fighters and the rest near (and frequently in) the weapons depots is neither "genocide" nor "holocaust." If you have watched any of the videos posted by the IDF you are aware that Gaza has many open spaces. When the Israelis warn the Gazans to leave the target areas, there are places for them to go; Gaza has a larger area, more open spaces, and smaller population than Manhattan; out of the whole area, Israel targets a few small areas at a time. Warning civilians to leave the target areas is not a "genocide" or a "holocaust". It is dramatically different from the way that the German army systematically rounded up Jews, gypsies, and other targets during WWII and murdered them by the thousands, as at Babi Yar and the Warsaw Ghetto.

Israel is not "punishing" Palestinians for "cooperating". Israel is destroying the weapons aimed at Israelis.

What literally is happening is bad enough without the grossly exaggerated language.

VMR wrote: "I was referring to Warsaw/Gaza to point that Jews were kept in ghetto over there in order to have Germans exterminate them easier. As I see it, this is what is going on right now in Gaza, and Israels are doing extermination. Use of overwhelming and indiscriminate force against civilian population is a war crime, and no amount of glossing over will change that fact."

I take it from this that you believe that the Israelis really do desire to kill all the Gazan Arabs. It's pointless to reason with someone as delusional as you (as noted above, you seem to be suffering from the malady of projection), but I'll try anyway.

In over a week of air attacks, less than 500 Arabs were killed, the overwhelming majority of whom were Hamas military men. If the Israelis were engaged in the "Use of overwhelming and indiscriminate force against civilian population," i.e., carpet bombing of civilian populations in an area as crowded as Gaza, the numbers of dead civilians would be in the tens or hundreds of thousands, as you could easily determine by examining what far more primitive air forces were able to accomplish in WWII. The fact that in a week of bombardment so few have been killed is proof positive that the IDF is not attacking civilians indiscriminately, but is using extraordinary measures to target specific buildings with military value.

The loss of civilian life is due primarily to two things: (1) Hamas's deliberate positioning of soldiers, weapons and other military material in mosques and apartment buildings and (2) Hamas's refusal to permit residents to evacuate buildings when the Israelis call and tell them to get out. These are war crimes, all right, but they are war crimes committed by Hamas for the purpose of generating sympathy from the "useful idiots" of the left. And don't say that Gaza is too small for such evacuations; Israel is not engaged in area wide bombardment, but is targeting specific buildings: all you have to do is seek shelter across the street or a couple of doors down.

Mark - When Israel evacuated Gaza, there was no blockade. Israel was prepared to live in peace with a peaceful Gaza; the residents of Gaza, by "electing" Hamas, chose war instead. Even today, if Hamas were to lay down its arms, renounce the provision of its charter calling for the destruction of Israel, end the anti-Semitic propaganda in its schools and mosques, and announce that it was prepared to live peacefully side by side with Israel, there is little doubt that Israel would lift the blockade and, as trust developed over time, move towards open borders in the fashion of the US and Canada.

Speaking of which, not even those Arab countries that theoretically are at peace with Israel actually have peaceful relations. Is there open trade between Israel and Jordan/Egypt? Can residents of Israel visit Jordan or Egypt? Why is this? Can you name even one Arab leader of any country who says that he longs for the day of full, peaceful relations between Israel and his country?

MatthewRMarler,

I like reading your comments. Sometimes I agree with what you say, and then there are times I don't.

I'm sure there are maybe some good things you can say about mine, and then there are times you can say I am probably way out there and too much of shooting from the hip.

I believe the problem here, is lack of complete coverage. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but, it just seems that Israel has something to cover-up.

It would be better if both sides had equal access to the media to clear everything up. What do you think?

So the two state solution is over. I guess we move on to the only solution left.

The international occupation of Israel. The secular state of larger israel with a return of the refugees. Israel becomes a proper democracy of the people who are and have been the occupants.

I suggest that the countries that had the fool idea of setting up Israel in the first place, should pitch in some money to buy the property back from the jews and give it back to the poeple it was taken from.

I suggest the security of Israel be run by the UN forever. Israel has failed. And the holy sites are simply to contentious for anyone to hold in the bound of a nation state.

I started out feeling that both sides in this conflict had lost the right to live in this so-called holy land. But Israel's behavior is so far over the line that I would have to consider myself to be anti-zionist, absolutely. I guess we're just going to have to sit by and wait for the Israeli government to kill a total of 6 million Palestinians. The problem is that the Israelis may not be able to balance the holocause books, because there may not be enough Palestinians to kill, even if a bunch are imported. So what is it going to take before there is enough blood to wash away the holocaust ? Would a quick 4 million do the trick ? Exactly how many is it going to take ? I'm fed up with people whose thought process appears to be: you stepped on my foot, so now I'm going to burn down your entire town.

And of course we will help them in their project by giving them billions of dollars. How Arab makes any sense of this I do not know. If I were Arab I would say that the christians and jews were evil and mad. Two state solution? Right. And pigs will fly.

We have to stop funding Israel immeadiately.

There is no "two-state solution;" there never has been, and there never will be. How the United States can proffer such a silly proposal to the world, when it has within its own history the bloody outcome of a "two-state solution" (it's called the American Civil War, you nattering ninnyhammers!), should be beyond the intellectual comprehension of a recently-deceased quadriplegic groundhog in the midst of a freshly-plowed soybean field.

Gaza will only accept the value of a one-state solution---a state where "Palestine" and "Israel" are just two linguistic forms of saying the same word, the same way as we say "black" and the French say "noir,"---when Tel Aviv finally gets around to stamping out their radicalized fringe elements; Israel will only accept the same thing when Palestinians drive their own radicalized fringe elements into the Med.

Until that day comes, however, I'll stand with the Palistinians in Gaza, because using "smart" weapons to turn an eight-story apartment building into rubble; when the pilots making the attack run know full well that the building is full of still-asleep civilians, including children, and their "target" is nothing more than one radicalized cleric---then the IDF is nothing less than the reincarnation of the Nazi military garrison at Auschwitz.

Period.

Interesting start to a morning - First, reading the insightful and intelligent Juan Cole at Informed Comment about the history of this micro war. Then, reading the polar opposite from the Bund in Del Mar, Herr Marler.

DBL asks:
Can residents of Israel visit Jordan or Egypt?

......

Yes.

There have been about 450 Gazans killed, at least 80% of them Palestinian fighters and the rest near the arms depots. To kill 450 out of 1.5 million, most of them fighters and the rest near (and frequently in) the weapons depots is neither "genocide" nor "holocaust."

There have been over 500 killed and 2000 wounded and that number grows by the hour.

So the 500 dead (and the thousands who've preceded them over the years) out of 1.5 million are no big deal -- but 3000 dead out of 300 million is reason enough to invade two countries, shred constitutional rights, and establish policies of torture.

Why do brown people NEVER get the same consideration from you?

What is the end game here? I doubt that invading Gaza will end well.

DBL:
Israel is not engaged in area wide bombardment, but is targeting specific buildings: all you have to do is seek shelter across the street or a couple of doors down.

DBL - Take a breath, you clearly need some more oxygen in your brain.

Explain to me how you target Hamas members, residing in buildings, at the same time you call everyone in the building and tell them to get out. Do you think maybe they just don't call the Hamas guy, so he doesn't know? Maybe the phone message says, "Please evacuate the building; it will be bombed shortly. And don't mention anything to Samir in 14E."

From reports in Gaza, people get the call and the building doesn't get bombed. And buildings get bombed without the call. I'd say the phone calls are a brilliant act of terrorism that disrupts life in Gaza while simultaneously giving cover to Israel for being concerned about civilian casualties.

Excerpt from mail from a friend living in West Bank.

Now I just read in a Yahoo article that the Israeli government shoots a warning missile so people clear the area. You know, when we hear bombs in the neighborhood, we do not run out of our houses.....I have never heard of a warning missile, have you? And even if this myth was true and they did send a warning missile, how can you tell a damn warning missle from a regular missile? Even sound bombs sound just like bombs (they are used to terrorise people; used to make kids sick with terror firing sound bombs all night)

The Israelis say they make warning calls to neighbors or people whose houses they want to blow up. Friends from Gaza say EVERYone gets these calls, it is a form of psychological torture. A recording is calling every home in Gaza saying get out of your home, we are going to blow it up!

The second para above is also part of the message:

The Israelis say they make warning calls to neighbors or people whose houses they want to blow up. Friends from Gaza say EVERYone gets these calls, it is a form of psychological torture. A recording is calling every home in Gaza saying get out of your home, we are going to blow it up!

clem,

"Well this is one progressive who says the Israeli's have been too lenient"

Yes, they should be lining the Palestinians up, machine-gunning them, and pushing them into mass graves, as any good occupier does.

That'll teach 'em for fighting back against Israel's illegal military occupation.

"Israel can't make peace without a side that wants peace"

Israel is the side that does not want peace. They want the land.

"Don't tell me if rockets were falling on your heads you wouldn't try to preserve your country."

Don’t tell me that if you were living under illegal military occupation you would not fight back.

annjell: MatthewRMarler,
...
I like reading your comments. Sometimes I agree with what you say, and then there are times I don't.
...
I'm sure there are maybe some good things you can say about mine, and then there are times you can say I am probably way out there and too much of shooting from the hip.
...
I believe the problem here, is lack of complete coverage. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but, it just seems that Israel has something to cover-up.
...
It would be better if both sides had equal access to the media to clear everything up. What do you think?

One of the reasons that I read Political Animal is for links to sources that I would not come across on my own, or wouldn't likely come across on my own. All of the media are biased, but they are not all biased in the same way. With equal access to the media, some of the media would continue to call this a "holocaust" or "genocide", some would fail to report that the Palestianians kill other wounded Palestinians in the hospitals, or fail to report the use of the tunnels for smuggling weapons into Gaza, or call Gaza "occupied" even when it was not occupied by the Israelis. In like fashion, other media would neglect to report, or deny outright, that the Israeli practice of warning civilians to abandon targeted buildings was actually psychological warfare, that some targeted buildings actually contain no weaponry, or whatever seems to harm the reputation of the IDF.

Despite the launching of about 7,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel, the press in Gaza, and the humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, have managed never to report anything about how the rockets have arrived in Gaza, except for the occasional (usually right-wing) glee about a bomb accidentally exploding in a home during its manufacture. Right now, it is reported outside Gaza that water and sewage facilities in Gaza are being ruined, and that around 20% of the dead are unarmed civilians.

So my answer to your question is basically: No, I do not think that unequal access to the media is a serious problem, as each "side" is able to get its story told.

The fundamental problems are: Does Israel have a right to exist? Given a right to exist, does Israel have the right to sovereignty to territory given it by treaty? (Gaza, from which Israel withdrew, was ceded by a treaty with Egypt; the West Bank was ceded by a treaty with Jordan; both of those treaties followed a conquest of the area by Israeli forces after Syria, Jordan and Egypt tried to annihilate Israel in 1967.) If granted a right to exist, does Israel have a right to defend itself? Do the Palestinians (formerly called "Egyptians" in Gaza and "Jordanians" in the West Bank), have a right to attack Israel? Given the right to attack Israel, do they have the right to ignore outright the Geneva Conventions that require them to separate military assets from civilian assets?

If you reread these threads from the start, I think you'll find more disagreements on the fundamentals like these (and more can be listed) than there is disagreement that results from awareness of different facts on the ground. For example, look at trex's response to my comment that 20% of 450 (now 500+), the number of innocent civilians killed by the IDF in the current fight, is neither a "holocaust" nor a "genocide." The disagreement is not really about the exact number of civilian casualties necessary to define a "holocaust". But a question remains: If there is "blame" or "fault" for those deaths, whose "blame" or "fault" is it? I don't think that the answer to that question depends on who has better access to media.

Sorry for the length. Everyone who posts here has opinions that are much more complex than can be expressed in the sort of short posts that we actually write. If we all wrote out our opinions at full length, no one would read any of it.

wikipedia: The Gaza Strip as it is known today was the product of the subsequent 1949 Armistice Agreements between Egypt and Israel, often referred to as the Green Line. Egypt occupied the Strip from 1949 (except for four months of Israeli occupation during the 1956 Suez Crisis) until 1967. The Strip's population was greatly augmented by an influx of Palestinian Arab refugees who fled from Israel during the fighting.
...
Towards the end of the war, the All-Palestine Government (Arabic: حكومة عموم �لسطين hukumat 'umum Filastin) was proclaimed in Gaza City on 22 September 1948 by the Arab League. It was conceived partly as an Arab League attempt to limit the influence of Transjordan over the Palestinian issue. The government was not recognized by Transjordan or any non-Arab country. It was little more than a façade under Egyptian control, had negligible influence or funding, and subsequently moved to Cairo. Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip or Egypt were issued All-Palestine passports until 1959, when Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt, annulled the All-Palestine government by decree.
...
Egypt never annexed the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military governor.[5] The refugees were never offered Egyptian citizenship.

So the people of Gaza were probably never called "Egyptians" as I wrote, but "Arabs" or "Palestinians".

MatthewRMarler,

Okay, I accept that, and you're right. I try to keep my comments brief, at the same time, I try to be clear and concise.

We do have something in common, looking for other links or search for information.

However, you know as well as I do, that our education system some times falter when it comes to history. Depends on who has written the history book, or who is teaching the class. For example, Cal State L.A., there are professors from Latin America that have an entirely different teaching curriculum.

MatthewRMarler,

Let me clarify what I said, "professors from Latin America..." There are professors there teaching students that America belongs to Mexico, and insinuating the America was stolen from Mexico.

Maybe that's why we hear, "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."

Professors are able to choose their own textbooks, sometimes it is done for political reasons, sometimes for monetary reasons.