Israel's 'measured' response to Hamas...

"An eye for an eye" once more went out of the window.

This generation of Israeli politicians obviously have no interest in ending the conflict. Killing a couple hundred people is not a measured response to some pretty inconsequential rocket attacks. And it will not scare Palestinians into never voting Hamas again.

The conflict in Ireland lasted well over 3 centuries, Palestine v Israel is relatively recent in development. British concessions to the Irish-Catholic, including the promises of self-determination, were primarily facilitated by the active involvement of the United States as a negotiation broker. The United States has absolutely failed to position itself in a similar position in the Palestinian issue.

If the United Kingdom had insisted on walling off Northern Ireland while occasionally dropping a few hundred kilograms of bombs on the Sinn Feine leadership, I seriously doubt the Good Friday Accord would have been anymore effective than 'the Roadmap to Peace.' Conversely, if the PIRA and Sinn Feine were dedicated to the absolute destruction of England it is reasonable to presume the UK would never grant the concessions they ended up having to make.

When Arafat died there was a real opportunity to cultivate legitimate political resistance; instead, Israel walled off Gaza and the West Bank, retreated out, and invaded Lebanon. Bush either let it happen without exerting any real influence or actively supported this disastrous series of events. Now you have Hamas in Gaza poppin off rockets and the Palestinian Authority gutted by economic isolationism directed from Israel. Any hope for real political institutional authority in Gaza and the West Bank was upended by active sabotage and the invasion of Lebanon. Now Hamas, probably the biggest beneficiary of any military action against Gaza and the West Bank, is calling for a third intifada. The difference between this intifada and the two preceding it is that this one will not take place under Arafat: Abbas has absolutely no power to influence what happens in Gaza, and as the violence escalates, the P.A. will lose the little control it has left.

What happens in the next week will determine if this conflict escalates into an all-out shooting war between Israel and its neighbours. There is a real danger that if the P.A. collapses Hizballah will move into the void created, thereby drawing Lebanon into the conflict, and by proxy Syria. Egypt shares a border with Gaza: if things get really bad there Pres. Mubarak will have to seriously consider deploying troops to the border. Also consider the situation in Pakistan, with troops massing on the border with India: if some real shit breaks out to the west of the subcontinent the whole volatile situation becomes even more unstable. Iran will be pressured into movement as well.

There has to be diplomacy directed from the top of the American administration deployed immediately, with full authority to pressure Israel into laying off on the attack. The American preference for Abbas and the P.A., along with its concurrent refusal to actively engage the situation on the P.A.'s behalf, means that America cannot dictate anything to Hamas in Gaza. Every single fucking carrot you could possibly dangle in front of the people of Gaza and the government they elected has been taken away and thrown into the garbage. That only leaves a big pointy stick that runs a real risk of accidentally gouging one of Israel's neighbors, drawing them in. America should be doing something drastic to prevent that possibility. And we're still stuck with George MotherfuckingCocksuckingShitkicking What the fucking fuck Bush as president. Goodness gracious things are looking pretty bad right now.

There is no hope for meaningful negotiations as long as the US are involved. When push comes to shove the US will always take Israel's side, regardless of the circumstances. The thing is Israel knows that and they will never enter negotiations not mediated by the US. The Palestinians know that too and so they will never fully trust any accord.

Add to that the fact that the politicians on both sides made their careers out of trying to out-hawk their rivals and any hope of a North Ireland like resolution is close to zero.

I wouldn't worry about the conflict spilling out, though. For the neighboring governments, Palestinians are at best an excuse for saber rattling and at worst a nuisance that they wouldn't worry to much if Israel took care of.

You're nearly right - it was about 800 years, all told

Insightful post otherwise!

Where do you get 800 years from? I thought it was James 1st in the 1600s who planted the seeds for the current problems.

Don't understand the Lefts blaming of Israel in all such matters. The situation is ugly (no denying that), but responding unflinchingly and aggressively has kept the country alive.

The parallel with the Irish troubles, especially religious, falls away when considered that was a direct conflict. Between two states. The Middle East situation is an entire region against one tiny nation. From Israel's very birth, the goal of their enemies hasn't been a fair settlement, but total destruction.

I'll be honest, I find their victory in the Six Day War truly inspiring. And they've never backed down since.

Isn't it a little hypocritical of all of us to lecture them on how they should defend themselves? Especially those of us in the United States or Britain- who live in countries that have been known to go above and beyond the measured response from time to time? (who's very homes are probably built on land snatched away from other peoples or cultures)

Israel (especially their Intelligence community) has been an invaluavle ally throughout the Cold War and during the post-9/11 "war on terror". They've had our back. Why don't we have theirs?

Immediately after the six month truce ended on Dec 19th Hamas began firing rockets into Israel. As many as 50 per day. Why on earth would a sovereign nation tolerate that? And better yet, why would Hamas authorize it? Why indeed? Resistance? Or because they knew they could cry foul at Israel's disproportionate response, whatever it may have been. I'm not agreeing with Israel's show of force here, whatever shock and awe lite they're trying to do could literally blow up in their face but you have to be semi retarded to think they're unjustified in bombing Hamas targets.

Let's face it, everyone is to blame. The Israeli's and the Palestinians are assholes. The Israeli's don't relent, somewhat understandably, and the Palestinians elected Hamas, somewhat understandably. And for it's part the United States does both too little to support Palestine and to criticize Israel. If Obama, as President, would come out and speak about this in the same measured and fair manner in which he spoke about race, and did so continually and in concert with substantive diplomacy I think it might provide enough grease to at least get both sides back to the table.

I don't recall reading any official Israeli spokesmen categorizing their actions as a measured response. I think they're categorizing their actions as kicking ass.

Well, I don't know if I'd consider 100-200 missles and mortars a day to be "inconsequential" . If you mean they didn't kill anyone, well I doubt that was by design.

Also consider that Hamas placed their key military assets in the middle of civilian population centers. A cold blooded strategy to garner sympathy and outrage from the Arab World and Liberal West IMO.

It's true the US is not an "honest broker" in this case. I'm wondering where Tony Blair is, since he seemed to feel that peace in the Middle East was his new life's work.

Someone that had a long career in the military and a BA in Political Science once told me that it is possible for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, unfortunately it requires someone to send in troops to keep the two factions apart for a whole generation and, let’s be honest, no one has the patience for that.

An interesting fact from all of this is that Hamas was in part an Israeli creation. They basically backed and helped formed that organisation as a sort of opposition to the PLO 20 years ago. As with all things this has come back to bite them.

Given that Hamas' charter since its inception has included the destruction of Israel, I'm not sure this is true.

Perhaps but then again they probably did this when the PLO was their biggest headache. Better to have the Palestaniens fight each other and keep themselves destabilised than have them all directed their energies back at Israel.

Otherwise I can't see how Hamas as an organisation could have gained such power in the region without Israel trying to nip in in the bud beforehand.

The idea that Israel has bravely stood alone against the aggressions of belligerent Middle-East nation-states clamoring for its destruction is tired and flat out wrong.

Israel has always had the explicit support, both fiscally and militarily, of the United States. The Middle East nation-states that supposedly threaten Israel were in piss-poor shape in 1947, having only recently been cobbled together from the shattered Ottoman Empire and the failed imperial mandates. The first war of Pan-Arab aggression, immediately following Israel's unilateral declaration of independence, occurred only after nearly a million Palestinians had been forcibly evicted from their homes. Every war involving Israel since then has seen Israel as the aggressor*. Perhaps we can argue that this aggressive stance is necessary to secure Israel's continued existence, regardless of the overwhelming American muscle backing that country up. Strategically, it seems to me, the seizing of Gaza and the West Bank and the invasions of Lebanon have only served to further instability in the region.

It is possible to discuss the political situation in the Middle East in a reasoned and rational fashion, but first you have to possess at least a passing grasp on the actual historical interactions that have given rise to the current flare-up. Israel as a vulnerable fish surrounded by marauding sharks is a fiction. The only actor in this entire saga deserving of any potential sympathy would be the million or so generational refugees created in 1947. That Gaza and the West Bank are made up almost entirely of millions of overwhelmingly poor landless refugees is absolutely the most important point in this whole shitstorm, and it is absolutely the one most often ignored.

*[Some argument can be made that the October War of 1973 was initiated by Egypt and Syria. However, the '73 War started only after Israel refused to acknowledge or implement UN Resolution 242. Egypt said it would negotiate a peace with Israel when the territories lost during the 6 Day War were returned, and Israel responded that it would not return those lands, in defiance of the UN (which we all know results in immediate invasion by U.S. armed forces, haha). As a result, a conflict became imminent. So for that one aggression becomes a lot harder to define. As for the 6 Day War: the less said about that one, the better. Stealing water in the Middle East can be an act of war; actually attacking the Suez Canal (in 1956) and, later, Syria can also be construed as acts of war (obviously).]

I might very well mean to kill everyone in the neighbourhood by shooting my BB gun out of the window. I doubt I would actually succeed in hurting anyone. And it certainly wouldn't justify a neighbour blowing up my house and killing most of my family.

Not to mention that the surviving members of my household will be pretty pissed off and some of them will buy a gun and try to take out the guy who blew up their home and family.

Anyway, killing 300 people because some of them were related to the guys who fired rockets at you- rockets that mind you, cannot really harm you- is evil.

And the whole bullshit of Israel being alone and surrounded by those who will destroy it is just that, bullshit. We are not in the 1960's. The neighbouring states have better things to do than engage in a war that they can't win -at least not without paying a massive cost. And there's no USSR for them to act as proxies. Hamas doesn't have the means to destroy the state of Israel. Which, by the way, means sending the jewish population packing and not nuking the Middle East. Remember that the Palestinians are also living there and the whole struggle is about the land. "Destroying" Israel is pretty much an empty threat, something they say to keep the people happy. And the people are happy when they hear that someone will "destroy" Israel, because Israel blockaded their land, meaning that Ahmed no longer had a job. And when Ahmed finally managed to get a job in the public sector, joining the local police, Israel launched a hellfire missile on Ahmed's graduation ceremony.

Not to mention that Hamas has pretty much hinted in the recent past that they can sidestep this altogether and cut some kind of a deal. And of course the US is so much into protecting Israel that the issue of unquestionably aiding a foreign state was a hot issue during the recent presidential election. Which is bizarre.

There's no justification for ethnic cleansing and this is what's happening in Gaza right now. They are just making it impossible for people to live there, first by blockade and then by massive airstrikes. The Israeli forces are trying to coral the Gaza Palestinians into Egypt.

That is amazingly naive. Those aren't bb guns Hamas is lobbing into Israel. You are arguing that becuase the missles and artillery have not yet killed anyone, that Hamas must not intend to kill anyone with them.

The correct analogy would be "your neighbor starts firing a shotgun randomly towards your house, but becuase he has lousy aim, he keeps missing! Nope, not a threat! It would be wrong to take him out!"

I assume that you are saying that killing innocent civilians as collateral damage is evil. I agree. I'm waiting for the Tech that will allow us to only kill Bad Guys

HAha "The people are happy when they hear someone will 'Destroy' Isaral..." So Anti-Semitism is a great politcal tool! Don't believe a word! And when exactly did the Arab states decide they didn't want to destroy Israel anymore?

And you can find an Israeli who's lost a relative to a suicide bomber, or one of those innocent Arab soliders in the many skirmishes since the 40's, for every "Ahmed" out there.




This I agree with. The problem is, the US is the only nation that overtly supports Israel. Look at France, Russia even the UK, etc. They are all more sympathatic to the Palestanians.

So maybe this is where China can become an honest broker, since they have no horse in this race

Of course, they are cutting deals left and right with African and South American nations to get oil, so maybe not....[/QUOTE]


But Eygpt is also blockading their frontier with Gaza. This is where I have a real problem with the whole Palestinian situation. The Arab nations could take in the Palestinians. But no, they've forced them into camps since the 40's, a mass of human weapons and cannon fodder. You can't point all the fingers at Israel alone. The Arab counties have a lot to answer for as well.

This ignores quite a bit of extremely crucial information. Egypt has an exploding population and no economic infrastructure with which to supply jobs. So sure, take in a couple million Palestinian refugees. Lebanon is precariously balanced in its power structure: a huge influx of refugees would destabilize the country to a grave degree. Discounting that, the country was occupied for a good decade and a half by Israel, meaning accepting Palestinian refugees was an absolute no-go. Jordan's population is about 40-45% Palestinian in origin, so I don't know how you can say they haven't done anything. And now, you have a huge number of Iraqi refugees further complicating the issue.

America has a moral responsibility to accept these Iraqi refugees, but of course that isn't going to happen. It is massively hypocritical, then, to point the finger at Arab nations and tell them to solve Israel's mess.

jeez, he didn't say he agreed with them.

I agree the US has a responsbility to Iraqi refugees. I also think we should welcome Palistinians etc.

Your comments on the countries surrounding Israel are well taken, but I have to ask: has that been the case for the last 60 years?

The answer to that would be: when Egypt signed the peace treaty with Israel. Of course, it's ignorant to presume anything as factually inconsistent as 'the Arab states.' Pan-Arabism was a balance of power theory, not an actual ideological continuum.

Lebanon has never committed itself to destroying Israel, although I would imagine they're not on the best terms, given the two invasions. Egypt, as noted, signed a treaty with Israel. Israel did bomb a nuclear reactor in Iraq, and Saddam launched a few SCUDs during the first desert war, but nowhere was out and out genocide presented or considered by either side. Iran's president was misinterpreted in regards to his comment that Israel should be 'wiped from the map.' Not to excuse the dude, who is obviously batshit insane, but the destruction of Israel has never been a platform in any Iranian government. True, Iran supports Hamas, but Hamas isn't a country or a real government. It's a petty fiefdom that rules over a crushed piece of land. It is incorrect to confuse the more extreme pieces of Hamas ideology (the destruction of Israel) with the Iranian position.

So we are left with Syria and Jordan. Syria has it's own thing going on, but it seems clear they are more worried about internal Islamists and instability in Iraq. I don't know what Jordan's official position is, but considering that almost half of its population is of Palestinian refugee origin, I doubt they are too pleased with Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights.

Even given those two exceptions, which are murky at best, there is no overarching Pan-Arab desire for the destruction of Israel. It's a nice talking point you must have picked up somewhere along the way, but it has no bearing on the actual situation at hand. It's about a massive refugee population that is perceived by many in the region to be grossly oppressed by Israel and, by proxy, America. True, you will hear a lot about 'Death to Israel' in the media, but that no more reflects the assumed policy positions of those countries leadership than the 'nuke Mecca' crowd in the U.S. has on our foreign policy.

As of now, there is no legitimate threat, coming from any 'Arab state', towards the continued existence of Israel. Israel has somewhere between 300-500 nuclear warheads.

israelity bites

A blogger on the ground in Gaza describes the aftermath of the attacks

http://israelitybites.blogspot.com/2...irstrikes.html

The comments section is very interesting...

The last 60 years has been characterized by social disruption and political instability throughout the region. I don't really see any point during that time frame when integrating anywhere between 1 and 4 million refugees (depending on the point in time) becomes any less impossible. Those refugees came from somewhere. For the most part (save for in Jordan and some camps in Lebanon) they are still there. Even if one of the neighboring countries agreed to take in the whole of the population (which is wildly unrealistic, regardless of when you think it should have happened within the last 60 years), there would be the very difficult problem of convincing the Palestinians to actually leave. Those who could, and those who wanted to, have already left for the most part. Those remaining are either dedicated to staying in their homes, however awful the conditions may be, or are desperately poor (making the possibility of integrating them into a host society that much more difficult). You are left with the option of forcible eviction, which historically causes way more problems than it addresses.

I also find the comments section in Redstate and Dailykos to be very interesting as well. Your point?

My point is what I typed. The comments are interesting, Mr Childkiller

Zing! Damn my inappropriate user text.

For clarification: I haven't proposed that the Arab nation-states are good guys in any way, shape or form. They are historically weak actors, for whom the integration of a massive multi-generational refugee population remains Israel's problem, not theirs.

I do not propose that Israel is unjustified in attempting to secure its borders (I do suggest that the refusal to reconfigure those borders in a more meaningful fashion contributes to the long-term instability).

I do not suggest that Hamas is a legitimate political party, only that it is not surprising that such an unreasonable thing would arise out of such an unreasonable situation.

My points of contention are: Israel is not the helpless 'little guy' described by some people commenting here, there is no dedicated policy of 'destroying Israel' in the wider geo-political region, and that the underlying issue (which will continue to generate conflict so long as it is not directly addressed) is the persistence of a landless stateless refugee 'nation' living side by side with a militarily superior, demographically limited, nuclear armed state.

EDIT: my apologies if my responses are out of proportion (a 'measured response,' in the parlance). Those comments are, in fact, interesting.

I mostly agree with you. But the religious issue (and perhaps you could say the Race question) underlies all of this. It' a large part of why the US supports Israel so strongly. And why Israel is hated. Sadly these are issues that can't be solved on an Internet message board

Since I'm Jewish, I feel like I'm forced to side with Israel but abhorrent behavior like this just makes me wonder how they can possibly think that killing civilians is prudent military policy. What, they're going to stop hating you tomorrow because you killed one of their loved ones today?

I guarantee that for every militant that is killed in these strikes, at least two more are created by every innocent civilian that dies needlessly.

Joe Bob Briggs once wrote the best solution to this conflict that I have ever heard...

-It is the Peace Process itself which is causing the conflict. Everytime they start negotiating, some religious nut blows up a pizza place or shoots up a mosque.

Just give the fucking Palestinians a sovereign state, with NO PRECONDITIONS.

Then you can discuss a fucking peace process with a Independent state which can control its citizens. The semi-independent state of Palestine isn't working right now.

How are you going to give a fully sovereign state, which will bring with it the power to build airports and import weapons at will, when the de facto ruling "party" is a terrorist organization hell bent on destroying its neighbors?

I'm surprised we made it this far without someone mentioning that one of the core problems here is religion (on both sides).

Well, it starts with putting a ruling elite into place that doesn't consist of unreasonable religious zealots.

Which, and quite possibly rightfully so, will be regarded as someones lackey/pawn anywhere, basically just a tool by whoever had enough power to put it in place.

I am on neither side of this conflict, though I consider the virtually free-pass mentality towards anything Israel does, to be one of the most retarded political stances of the western world. Being german myself, I am well aware of certain parts of not-so-glorious history, and of course there are a lot of jews in the USA, which have their right to champion any cause they deem ok, but by this time I am absolutely sure that the only thing thats preventing Israel from being the next target of "peace-keeping" western troops is the fact that its Israel.

The problems there cannot be solved, because neither side wants to, and the third party, in this case USA, UN or whoever else wants to interfer, is already pretty firmly in bed with one side, or just keeps their hands off this barrel of political explosives.
The surrounding nations, especially Iran, are overblown straw men at this point. Which work very well, creating this illusion of the poor tiny bullied kid Israel, but reality is simply not like that.
One way or the other, this is going to end violently. There are too many people behind both sides of this conflict who have a very real interest in it, too many people caught up in this bloody vendetta of "eye for an eye" that do not WANT it to end.

I hear Israel bombed a University. I don't think very highly of that.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Oh. Well if Israel said it's okay then I guess that's settled. Much like how Bush saying invading Iraq was justified settled that matter.

No, it's not settled Seabass but typically such targets, including the bombing of a university, are more complex than you're allowing.

Couldn't care less.

Somebody is grumpy again ...

Who said it's easy? The whole situation is a nightmare.

Well, there is a vocal minority amongst the Palestinian populace that espouses violent attacks on civilians, carries out such attacks, and manifests religious beliefs that are incompatible with modern society. Subjugated or not, these folks are a huge problem that nobody seems to have a solution to. For this minority, I'm not sure ANY amount of concessions are going to placate them. If something is going to be done about it, it has to be by the Palestinians. But most of them are so pissed off at Israel's treatment of them they have little incentive to do so.

And they need it, considering it's the only thing keeping them from being run off the map.

Israel's polices of putting their foot on any "independent" Palestinian territory was doomed from the beginning, and inflamed the very people they were trying to placate. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but giving the Palestinians a truly independent homeland may have worked.

Stealing someone else's joke (long ago forgot the source): At what point do we stop calling it the Middle East Crisis and start calling it the Middle East Culture?

When it's no longer politically incorrect to ascribe a populace's problems to systemic cultural defects.

I alway thought it was Oliver Cromwell's Irish Campaign: 1649–1650. which started the whole irish thing.

This whole thing is the fault of England and the Nazis. We should just move all the Palestinians to Europe, to England and Germany. Then the Problem would be solved. The Nazis get the blame for the Arab League and the Bath Party. England get the blame for the different treaties to both Arabs and Jews, and their whole handling of Palestine.