Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, January 5th, 2009 - 85 comments
Categories: International -
Tags: israel
Israel’s latest attack on Gaza, purportedly to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, is an unjustified, immoral, and, above all, stupid action.
I am not defending Hamas’ rocket attacks at all – while many are targeted at Israeli military forces most are simply indiscriminate. I’m saying they don’t justify Israel’s response. Yep, Hamas fires a lot of rockets but they are a ludicrously ineffective weapon used by an oppressed people to make mere pin-prick attacks on their rulers. Most of the rockets fall harmlessly. In 8 years, 27 people have been killed by rockets and mortars launched from Gaza. Israel routinely kills that many civilians in a single day and we’re expected to brush it off as collateral damage.
It’s not as if things suddenly got worse in the last few weeks to justify this latest Israeli onslaught. Not a single Israeli had been killed since May. Before the Israeli attack, the only recent deaths from the rockets were two Palestinian civilians killed by a misfire.
The Israeli invasion has not made things better. Four Israelis have been killed by rockets since the Isreali attack started, more than in the entire previous year. Just as in Israel’s last military foray, into Lebanon, the response is a hail of missiles and more Isreali deaths, not fewer. The idea that the Israeli attack can somehow stop Hamas’ rockets attacks is deadly dreaming. Resistance is inevitable; humans will not acquiesce peacefully to foreign rule. While the Israelis rule Gaza like a giant prison, there will be Palestinian violence in response. That’s not a justification, that’s just reality. Every time Israel goes in guns blazing is just makes the situation worse and ultimately does more damage to itself. Only freedom for the Palestinian people could end the rocket attacks.
So, Israel’s response is futile and unjustified simply from the perspective of the cost to Israel. But let us not forget that it is the Palestinians, the 1.5 million people living in poverty, crammed into the Gaza strip, who suffer the most. Hundreds of entirely innocent people are killed every year by the Israeli occupation. Since last week, another four hundred or more have shared their fate. These people did not deserve to die. And it is a heinous crime that they have been killed by a foreign ruler using massive force in pursuit of an unattainable goal.
I don’t want to spend much time addressing our Government’s response to this international crisis because it is irrelevant to the actual conflict. But it does say something about the quality of our government that it has issued no official statement on the issue. All our great Foreign Minister Murray McCully has roused himself to do is write a whining little press release where he attacks the Greens for their condemnation of Israel’s invasion. He hasn’t actually released any statement of New Zealand’s policy, a soundbite on the news is enough he reckons. It’s pretty obvious that National/ACT backs Israel’s aggression but is afraid to say anything for fear of a domestic backlash and, potentially, getting offside with Obama. Pathetically, they don’t have the courage to come out and say that.
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For the Jesuits here who dance on pin heads here’s a vid over at Travs wider view you really shouldnt miss.
Sorry, I believe that is meant to be $3 BILLION to Israel form the Yanks.
Plus! It doesnt look like Obama will be stemming the flow of $$$ to Israel. Lockheed Martin already sold a huge bunch of F16s to Israel (Paid for by US aid)… Turns out Lockheed are big time donors to Presidential candidates.. Including Obama and Hillary Clinton.Apparently
Obama got the most of any candidate
Thats fucked up.
Christ almighty. The eggsperts are out in force today.
A total lack of differentiation for groups within groups and the true cost of wars. The “armchair warriors” here need to pull their head out of their arse and smell the blood to be quite honest.
I would just LOVE to see them have to witness the horror of this shit up close and personal. To have someone you care about killed as a “accidental” casualty of one of those rockets.
To have them born into it with no real option but to put up with it and tow the line. To be dumbfounded by the sheer stupidity of ANYONE and EVERYONE in power and to be powerless to do anything to make it stop.
To watch your local hairdresser murdered in he street and have her body left there for days because if you take it away they kill you too.
An iraq example from a friend we help raise money for to get out of iraq. We were hoping to NZ to stay with his family, but the NZ government (and those politians we pertitioned) are totally fucking useless in this regard.
Perhaps even to have someone (or more) you love raped and/or murdered so that you are so angry you pick up a rifle and join in.
Most of the posts on this thread are just drivel. Academic drivel with no comprehension of what these things actually mean for real people and thus their conclusions are more delusional than believing the UN will step in. (and to the previous poster – I did not actually believe this would happen becasue the US dictates most of UN policy – or at least vetos what it does not want to happen)
This is just another war perpetrated by a bunch of greedy, evil, rich old men and woman who have managed to convince enough people at some stage to join in and it all reached critical mass. Once the fire is started, it spreads like a cancer as these things always do and this long and protracted war was the result.
And we sit here and rationalise who did what to whom and who is worser and which race should be shot and who should die. And it appears these desensitised arseholes think that if they were in the shoes of these people that they would be defferent? Better? That somehow because they got lucky as to when and where their DNA was formed that they are not the same species as these people?
When was the last time YOU did something apart from blow wind out your arse? Did you write a letter to your candidate and/or party demanding they condemn this war? Did you donate to someone trying to do something positive there?
No? Then I am sorry, then you can just go to hell. You are part of the problem. millions of children die every year from war and famine and we worry about the cost of a tank of gas and interest rates.
PS: Yes I am being emotive here. I am sick to the eyeballs of us putting up with all these wars as “business as usual”. It shames our entire species to not have evolved beyond it.
Oh weally…
What about the mad marriage laws, the pass laws, etc. All of it intended to preserve a racial majority in Israel. It’s all racist nonsense, redolent of Nazi laws.
Such an easybeat.
I’m not surprised Palestinians hate Jews. I’d hate Jews if I had to suffer what the Palestinians did.
Ag: “The rockets have nothing to do with this operation, which has been in the planning for months, during which there was a truce and no rocket fire”
Have you been living in a box for the last year? Your statement is completely false. During the truce Hamas continually fired rockets into Israel completely ignoring the truce. This and only this is the reason we are where we are at the moment.
Andrew:
Checkout the Wikipedia link in the original post re rocket attacks and casualties. Does that line up with what you are thinking?
It’s not an original observation, but from Warwaw to Gaza in two generations is another sort of tragedy.
Very eloquent and impassioned Mr Magoo. You are right, theorising from our safe armchairs while ordinary people have their lives ripped apart, their guts splattered about as so much waste offal… is delusional.
Ordinary people know what is happening here.
“What about the mad marriage laws, the pass laws, etc. All of it intended to preserve a racial majority in Israel. It’s all racist nonsense, redolent of Nazi laws.”
Are you referring to the situation where a Palestinian national married to a Palestinian Israeli citizen is not allowed to live in Israel I’d hardly call that “racist nonsense” and “redolent of Nazi laws” as it’s pretty much the same state of play throughout much of Europe and Britain.
“I’m not surprised Palestinians hate Jews. I’d hate Jews if I had to suffer what the Palestinians did.”
Eh what ? I’d suggest that hatred of the Jews, Muslims, Christians etc in that part of the world has led to nothing but misery and turmoil.
Rave I had a quick look at that link to Eve’s site against my better judgement ….. and I congratulate her on being open to the possibility that she was misled in relation to the video in question.
The messages that the Nats have sent out this issue speaks volumes about how deeply they want the US to love them…it’s like watching some nerdy kid desperately vying for the affection of the ‘cool’ kids (yes, we all know the cool kids were never actually cool, they just thought they were).
And now oil is going back up in price – gee thanks Israel…
RedLogix … Were you infering that there were no rocket attacks during the ceasefire, or just no casualties?
From Wiki: “A cease-fire was agreed upon by both sides to begin on June 19, 2008, however, Palestinian militant organization continued to attack Israeli civilian areas”
This would tend to enforce what i was saying. There was a cease fire, but the Palestinians completely ignored it. Once again, this is the only reason why Israel are launching the operation in Gaza. If the Palestinians had not ignored the cease fire then we would not be in the position we are now.
Andrew.
“There was a cease fire, but the Palestinians completely ignored it. Once again, this is the only reason why Israel are launching the operation in Gaza.”
This is certainly a reason but it is not the only reason there are many more complex and soul destroying reasons why this part of the world seems to be a perpetual cock up.
Have a look here for comment from the locals which shows that the opinion is many and various on what to do and why.
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3084,00.html
Many have reported that Hamas ended the ceasfire in response to Israeli actions. I think even Britain’s Daily Mail reported this in mid December 2008:
I also seem to remember that Israel launched some action in Gaza at a time the world’s news media was focusing on something else – maybe Obama’s election as president? Anyway more from the Daily Mail article:
Id be cautious using wiki links friends… For pages that are contentious people with opposing opinions are frequently tinkering around with the edit function…
Considering Anyone can edit wiki pages I would be careful.
this is a useful tool for looking at who edits pages on wikipedia (although it looks recently like they’re upgrading the site, have a look nonetheless)
Israel broke the truce.
from Socialist Worker
Another account :
From http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29556
Read this, look at the website and then tell me that Hamas and the Palistinians who voted them into government want peace.
The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”
Ami Isseroff
http://www.midwestweb.org/hamas.htm
HS
Yes Eve acknowledges the video may be misleading. Good on her.
But it is hardly germane to this issue. The 500 or more that have died in Gaza already died in similar circumstances. There is plenty of evidence that this is not happening in our collective imagination. How many videos do you need to wake up?
Or are you wide awake counting your blessings?
Nope. The present trouble began when Israel broke the truce in early November by entering the Strip and killing some Palestinians. Oddly enough they did it on November 4th while the rest of the world was watching the US election. The timing tells you everything you need to know.
Jews can be just as racist as everyone else
Wake up about what Rave ?
That both sides seem incapable of living in peace with each other and that there’s people in the world insane enough to think that suicide bombings, rocket attacks …… and the response from the other side will do anything apart from lead to more death and despondency……… or are you trying to make some other point which escapes me much like the demented rantings on your blog.
My support for the Israelis has waned in recent years especially when Sharon was running things. I have not forgotten his part in the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla.
However, I feel they are totally justified in the response to the Hamas terrorists. If it was anywhere else in the world and it wasn’t the Jews doing the damage there would be no condemnation of their actions.
Regarding the apologists who support the Hamas terrorists in the bombing of Israeli schools I wonder how you would feel if it was your kids being targeted. What would your response be? Also bear in mind the fact that the raison d’etre of Hamas is the destruction of Israel.
The Jews have been very careful in targeting their bombs and minimising Palestinian loss of life. This is why the death count is so low after more than 100 tonnes of bombs. Needless to say, any loss of life in a war is bad but this is the Middle East after all.
I find it hard to understand why anyone in NZ would support Islamic terrorists.
So I see on Scoop at the moment there are Gaza releases by Labour, Goff, Clark and the Greens, but the only statement from National is “Goverment rejects Greens’ sophistry on Gaza crisis”. Well what stunning statesmanship, what world leaders in setting standards. Is this what’s meant by being ‘Fast Followers’ – wait until the big boys say something then quickly shout ME TOO?
NACT has become so addicted to tactical ambivalence on anything it worries might split its support that it’ll very quickly fade into uttter irrelevance.
And the Maori Party? I would have expected a comment from them.
Sprout
Here
“…….the New Zealand government has called on both sides of the Gaza conflict to accept an immediate ceasefire.
That has been our position from the beginning and remains our position today.
Both sides need to step back from the brink. Israel must cease attacks on Palestinian targets and Hamas must cease the flow of mortar bombs and rockets into Israel.”
What else do you want ?
Just a bit of leadership hs. Clearly a lot to ask in these days of the Bright and Shiney New Key Way. A government that makes you think “that’s the right thing to say and do”, rather than “what a spineless flaccid grey non-event”.
And of course you know hs that it’s not just foreign policy that’s been screaming out for a bit of leadership since Mr Key’s election.
Sprout what the feck are you on about ?
What leadership should the NZ government have shown over and above the comment they made ?
perhaps at least pretending to give a shit?
The thing that really bothers me about this conflict is how israel can claim it wants to negotiate with palestine. In reality israel wants to “negotiate” in the sense that palestine makes concessions and israel doesn’t destroy them. The election of hamas made this perfectly clear. they dont want to deal with the palestinians now because they no longer have a puppet government. A similar thing happened in nz in the 1890′s the current strike legislation was constrictive so the workers registered under old law to get the freedom to strike. but the bosses made a few strikers sign up under the current law then these few men became the “legal’ union and they gave large concessions to the bosses. the point im making is that the israeli government will negotiate with whoever will do what it wants, and use force against anyone else. It put the blockade down on the palestinian people after they elected hamas like one would put a choke chain on a disobedient dog. Palestine will never be free until goverments like ours take a stand.
Sprout – like Goff and Clark ?
“In reality israel wants to “negotiate’ in the sense that palestine makes concessions and israel doesn’t destroy them.”
Israel wants the rocket attacks to stop, which I think it is entitled to. Hamas wants complete destruction of Israel. So yeah negotiation would be hard, but not because of Israel. You are doing the same thing as Clinton and all the other ignorant Liberals here by ignoring the actions of Hamas, i.e. starting the whole conflict and using their people as human shields by basing themselfs in civilion neighbourhoods to concentrate on the actions of Israel.
Poppycock.
The IRA acted in much the same way, but you didn’t see the UK clusterbombing schools and police stations. If they had done, the condemnation would have been overwhelming.
What is happening here is that Likudniks and other right wing Jews are using the accusation of anti-semitism as cover for their own policies of ethnic cleansing. Israel trying to play the victim here is ridiculous.
“Palestine will never be free until goverments like ours take a stand.”
Go and have a wank and clam down.
Testing
HS
Gee your reading Trav and me, wow a lot of time on your hands.
Do you get paid to do this?
Idest
Clam down yurself
Nick C
I want the compete destruction of Israel myself.
My pick is that the majority of the world’s population would rather see Israel destroyed than Palestine.
Of course before you accuse us of genocide, the destruction of Israel could happen much more peacefully than its construction. Israelis could vote for the right of return and wait for the majority to rule democratically.
Fat chance however when the Zionists rule backed by the US ruling class committed to a chain of military regimes to pacify the natives across the whole Middle East so they can prepare for the next surge into Afghanistan and the filthy rich oil reserves of Central Asia.
Call me cynical and lets see who’s crazy at the end of Obama’s first term.
Raving
“Gee your (you’re) reading Trav and me, wow a lot of time on your hands.
Do you get paid to do this?”
On holiday at the moment and off to the bach tomorrow so I won’t have the singular joy of peeking at your blog – I doubt anyone would be paid to read your respective blogs… . but they’re certainly informative in relation to the lunatic fringe at the margins of society.
Don’t you get tired off pouring forth the same old drivel all the time ?
HS
C’mon how do you know its the sameold, same old?
Seems like the Zionists are pouring out the same old evil weaponry.
Several points here:
1. If there had been similar international condemnation of Hamas for their deliberately provactive actions then the current situation may never have arisen. Something to think about next time “peace” is declared and Hamas deliberately provokes Israel for their own political ends.
2. Hamas radicals intentionally hide themselves amongst the general population in order to maximise the political fall-out when Israel eventually decides to respond. Therefore, in a sense, they are getting what they want.
3. I don’t condone all the action taken by Israel here. However, put yourselves in their situation. What would we expect from our government if their was some rogue nation on our doorstep continually lobbing rockets into our general population?
tsmaithfield, we have already quoted evidence up-thread that shows it was Israel that ended the truce (while the world’s media were focused on the US elections) and provoked the Hamas rocket attacks.I don’t agree with this use of rockets, but Israel was counting on them being a predictable Hamas response to their provocations. This followed 18 months of starving Gaza of supplies and freedom in what amounts to a large pison camp.
You are just repeating the propaganda lines from the Israeli directorate of (mis)Information. They masacre civilians in Gaza, for strategic and political reasons, then blame it on Hamas:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7809371.stm
See also, for the extent of the Israeli propaganda machine, which is flooding the MSM with its lies and distortions, as well as the blogosphere and other online arenas.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090104/FOREIGN/882042198/0/SPORT