Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East Conflict

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

btw, hello all, long time no see..

Hello!!! I've been thinking of you lately and wondering if you'd ever post again! So nice to see you - how are you?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Gaza Strip is not just a civillian city, there's enough barren territory in this area (the former Israeli settlements for instance).

Correct, the Gaza Strip is not a city. But Gaza City is, and that is where most Gazans live. Civilians in Gaza cannot simply walk out of the city in the hundreds of thousands, most were trapped the moment Israel began its offensive and were not have been able to leave the area. There have been no reports of any widespread attempt by Hamas to keep the civilians in the city. Hamas has committed a war crime by blending into civilian populations and launching rockets and artillery pieces from positions that are close to civilians, and for that they should be held responsible.

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

I disagree; it's not a war crime, it's simply war. Israel has no choice but to shoot artillery into densely populated areas because Hamas shot rockets from these same areas, and that's really the only way to retaliate fast enough to hit the launchers.

Under international law the use of white phosporous in heavily populated civilian areas is banned. The Israely army first denied, then admitted that they had used white phosporous, which maimed a refugee camp. I'm sorry, but that is a war crime.

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Israel never claimed the goal was to eradicate Hamas, and it really didn't try to.

According to the Jerusalem Post the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations stated just that: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1230456524000
"Israel will push forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip until it "completely destroys" Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said Monday, saying that the operation will continue as long as necessary to reach that goal."

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

I agree, we "maimed yet another new generation of Gazans from the youngest infant to teenagers".. but I feel we had no choice. How would any other country respond to such an attack? For over a month Israel didn't retaliate at all and tried to reach a cease fire agreement. Unfortunately there's no point to negotiate with Hamas, it seems, as they never compromise; and they tried to pressure Israel by shooting rockets, believing Israel wouldn't respond (Hence the success in the initial attack).

Oh come on. It is one thing to act in self-defence, quite another to kill 1,400 people, including 400 children. That is completely out of proportion!
The Israeli government knew perfectly well what would happen when they enforced a nearly 6-month long blockade on Gaza. Along with several incursions into Gaza to take out high-level Hamas leaders during the cease-fire, the Isreali army actually built a mini-version of Gaza City in the desert: The invasion of Gaza had been planned for many months in advance.

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

I think it's plainly naive. If Israel lifts the blockade, who knows what kind of weapons Hamas would import from Iran or Syria. Since we don't want rockets to fall in Tel Aviv, we must have a blockade on Gaza Strip, at the moment. This indeed means no ships nor airplanes landing in Gaza.

It's one thing to lift a trade blockade, quite another to stop checking imported goods. The Egyptians stopped, yesterday, a top-level Hamas leader with millions of dollars, stating they would deny the person access to the Gaza Strip until further. Clearly the Egyptians are not interested in Hamas going on some arms-shopping spree. And as you state, inspectors could be an option. I believe so too.

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

I feel both nations realize now what the final solution would be, more or less. '67 borders, splitting Jerusalem, no right of return to Palestinian refugees. Two countries for two people. Yet in recent years it seems like neither side really wishes to sign a peace treaty that would end this ongoing war..

It seems one of the tragedies of this conflict is that, when polls are conducted monthly, annually, they show that a majority of the people on both sides of the conflict want an end to hostilities, and end to the war. It seems the problem lies with the leadership, particularly Hamas whoms actions are more counter-productive than anything. Israel also has leaders who seem unwilling to take a brave step forward. Look at the settler policy, new illegal settlements popping up in the West Bank every week. It's disgraceful.

[HOBBIT]

Oh come on. It is one thing to act in self-defence, quite another to kill 1,400 people, including 400 children. That is completely out of proportion!
The Israeli government knew perfectly well what would happen when they enforced a nearly 6-month long blockade on Gaza. Along with several incursions into Gaza to take out high-level Hamas leaders during the cease-fire, the Isreali army actually built a mini-version of Gaza City in the desert: The invasion of Gaza had been planned for many months in advance.

What would you have have had them done? What would acceptable self dense be?

[Coffeehouse]

Evenig!

Yeah well it s a bit more complicated than that. This is why.

[Coffeehouse]

Okay i need to copy a table forst before I can answer you=)

[Coffeehouse]

I think it's time to dispel the misconception that the conflict between Hamas and Israel, officially beginning on the 27th of December 2008, somehow was a clean-cut result of unprovoked Hamas rocket and mortar attacks into Israel.
It is wrong, it is non-factual, to claim that Israel's invasion of Gaza was an act of self-defence in which the Israelis were left no alternative but violent conflict.

The point of my post is to show that Hamas did not act in some uncontrollable, provoking manner throughout the ceasefire, but was on the other hand for once more interested in keeping its part of the agreement. The Israelis have every right to act in self-defence. But the latest conflict was, and I can't express this clearly enough!, not inevitable.

But before I lay out why I argue this, I will spell it out again, to make it (Monty Python voice) absolutely clear!: I don't have a microscopical, not even sub-atomic, shred of sympathy or tolerance for the type of warfare Hamas engages in when it sends rockets towards civilian areas. On the whole they're actions are contradictory and self-defeating.

That said, Hamas is also a political organisation, democratically (yes, really, democratically) elected by the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza and therefore it's as impossible, as self-deluding, as fruitless for the world and for Israel to somehow ignore them and shun them from any peace process. Hamas has shown in the past, albeit very seldomly, that it is interested in becoming a part of the solution and not the problem. A wise actionby all parties interested in a peace negotiation would then be to give not just stick, but carrot. Or put otherwise: Armed conflict won't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, let's look at what exactly did happen from the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas went into effect on the 19th of June 2008 until the outbreak of a full-scale invasion of Israel on the 27th of December at the end of the year.

Last month a summary-type report was issued by the Israel Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center detailing the number of rockets and mortars that flew into southern Israel in the course of 2008. Here's the report: http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/mal...f/ipc_e007.pdf, which consists of mostly raw data.

From the onset of the cease-fire on June 19th the agreement between Israel and Hamas was of course that no hostilities would take place. There would be no provocating shooting, no maiming, no killing. Hamas would cease it's rocket barrages, Israel would cease killing Hamas militants, and the Israelis were to loosen the blockade that they had enforced around the entire Gaza Strip.
The cease-fire, coming in effect on 6 AM Israeli-Palestinian local time on the 19th of June, was reported on by the BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7462554.stm.
Here are some highlights from the article that I've taken the liberty to quote

Hamas:
"Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which controls Gaza, said it was confident all militants would abide by the Egypt-brokered truce, which is supposed to last six months."
"Hamas's leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said the truce would "bring stability to Israel if they commit themselves to it"."

Israel:
"Speaking on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the truce would be fragile and could be short-lived.
He said Israel would abide by the ceasefire, but its armed forces were ready to act if cross-border rocket attacks continued."

"Israelis in the south of the country will appreciate the relief from daily missile fire, says the BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem, but many fear that a ceasefire could give Hamas the chance to rearm and strengthen itself further"

"Under the terms of the new agreement, Israel will ease restrictions on the trade of certain goods between Gaza and Israel on Friday morning, and open up the crossings for all commercial goods next week."

Let's move now to the 27th of June, a little over a week after the ceasefire was agreed. Hamas has in this period not fired rockets into Israel, but the militant wing of Fatah, the The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, went ahead and did so. Published in YNet News.com, an Israeli online newspaper, was a condemnation by the Hamas Prime Minister. Here is the article in it's full length:
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articl...561133,00.html;
"Hamas wants quiet in Gaza: Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called Friday on Palestinian factions to adhere to the Gaza Strip lull agreement with Israel.

"The factions and the people accepted the lull in order to secure two interests – an end to aggression and the lifting of the siege. Therefore, we hope that everyone honors this national agreement," he said following Friday prayers.

Earlier Friday, two mortar shells were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip. One landed near Kibbutz Kfar Aza in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, and the second one hit an open area. There were no reports of injuries or damage in the latest violation of the fragile ceasefire.

On Thursday, a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel exploded near a gas station in an open area in Sderot's industrial zone. There were no injuries.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing, claimed responsibility for firing that rocket. Sources in Gaza estimated that the incident was aimed at embarrassing Hamas and harming the efforts to maintain the truce with Israel.

Following the attack, a spokesman for the Hamas government, Taher al-Nunu, called Fatah's actions "unpatriotic." He said Hamas was considering the possibility of taking action against those perpetrating the attacks against Israel."

Carrying into August, September and October, the trend was unequivocal, Hamas did not fire rockets or mortars into southern Israel. It respected the ceasefire, but was unable to keep radical parts of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade and Islamic Jihad from carrying out attacks. Yet they too were few and far-between. Looking at the report issued just last month in Israel, the numbers speak for themselves. Here I've cut out the raw data for period before the ceasefire was signed, during the period when the ceasefire was meant to be in place, and after, when the Israelis invaded Gaza.



During this period there were virtually no rocket attacks. Apart from the rare rocket fired, 11 in total, in the months July, August, September and October, there was an end to hostilities by Hamas and as the Israeli media reported, the Israeli civilian towns clustered in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip hadn't experienced such peace in years.

Now, during the period the agreement between the two sides was that Israel lift its trade blockade. On the 19th of August, two months after the ceasefire had been agreed, the BBC reports that the blockade is still in place and barely altered save for an increase in a few basic neccessities, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7570605.stm.
As the BBC pointed out back then there was a real risk of the ceasefire being spoilt.

As the months went by the number of trucks that entered Gaza from the Egyptian border went from about 70 to about 90 trucks a day. The actual number of trucks that Gaza could take in each day is closer to 400. Israel in this period did next to nothing in alleviating the sense of isolation that the Gazans felt and one can just wonder what Hamas was thinking. But for once Hamas has seemed to have kept its cool and acted relatively intelligently. They did not fire rockets or mortars and bar the ones that were fired by other parties, which Hamas were unable to stop, they actually kept their part of the agreement.

The ceasefire carried into November, and that's when things began falling apart. Accusing Hamas of digging a tunnel for the intent of kidnapping Israeli soldiers, which Hamas maintains was for defensive purposes and not offensive, the Israelis go into Gaza on the 4th of November and kill 6 Hamas soldiers. While the ceasefire wasn't shattered by that Hamas responded by firing 30 or so Qassam rockets into Israel. During this period, between November and the mid of December both sides began hostilities again, yet a few days before the ceasefire was to officially end Hamas offered to continue the ceasefire. Guess who refused and went ahead with a long planned invasion instead.

I'm not going to write more on this post or I'll never get my sleep, but the Israeli government and military establishment needs to do a very serious make-over of how it deals with Gaza. It seems they know all the tactics of war, but none for peace, and that has got to change.

[inked]

CH, send it to the UN to correlate with HAMAS using children as human shields...

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

wonderful government, that!

[GrayMouser]

From the report:

"We have not yet dealt directly with the human shield issue, but we will now mention it in our reports," Radhika Coomaraswamy said in an exclusive interview following a four-day visit to the region.

"It is still very difficult for us to say that it was actually happening and we still need to conduct a full investigation into what exactly took place... but we are not denying that it happened; it is absolutely possible that Hamas was using its civilians as human shields," she said.

So, she's saying that they don't know if it happened but they'll look into it.

She also said this, which somehow didn't get into the Jpost article:

"In Gaza, where 56 percent of the population is below 18 years old, grave violations against children were committed such as killing and maiming, and denial of humanitarian access.

"During the recent hostilities, there were no safe spaces for children and the crossings out of Gaza were, and remain, virtually sealed," she said in a statement.

"Many children have witnessed unspeakable violence against their family members and are severely distressed," the UN official said, adding that the extensive destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure "also has a devastating impact on children."

[Coffeehouse]

Bar the mis-rule of Hamas it is clear that elections in Israel tommorrow won't yield any actual change in policy towards the Palestinians. Kadima the centrist party is on the heels of Likud, the largest right-wing party (though they are in reality both right-wing). http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/me...lls/index.html

What has really surprised me today though is finding out the hypocrisy of Likud, the largest party in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament).

It does not recognize the right of a Palestinian independent state. That is disturbing!!! The things they write on their party platform verges on fascism. http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/...5/elikud_m.htm.
I hope anyone in Entmoot who somehow does not understand the lack of unquestioning favour Israel has in the world reads this and thinks real hard about it:

Under the section Self-Rule the following is declared by the Likud party charter:
"The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel's existence, security and national needs."

It is then a ridiculous hypocrisy to bring out a charter of Hamas and not do the same thing about Likud. (Hamas, which by the way has not included it's rejection of Israel's right to exist in their Government platform)

[Jonathan]

That was Likud's platform for the 1999 elections. Although much of the policies are surely still supported by Likud today, the political program probably looks different for these new elections.

Coffeehouse, not to be mean or anything but I can't seem to understand what is the hypocrisy here exactly. Could you explain further? And what's so surprising with the fact that a far-right party like Likud rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

That was Likud's platform for the 1999 elections. Although much of the policies are surely still supported by Likud today, the political program probably looks different for these new elections.

Coffeehouse, not to be mean or anything but I can't seem to understand what is the hypocrisy here exactly. Could you explain further? And what's so surprising with the fact that a far-right party like Likud rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state?

That's correct, and as far as I can see there has been no renewed charter since then, but I'm happy to be presented one. Though judging by Likud's own party website the attitude seems to be the same. They don't mention the possibility of an Arab Palestinian state with one word, but what it telling is their stance on Jerusalem, which any peace agreement will insist that the Palestinians get a share of. They write: "The government headed by the Likud will keep Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty."

It doesn't come off as mean Jonathan, no worries, questions are good
The hypocrisy is this: The Palestinians must be scratching their heads and think: "Wait a minute. It's not okay that Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, but it's perfectly alright that Likud does not recognize a Palestinian state to exist? "

Now it is both surprising and troubling that Likud, Israel's largest party, believes that the people Israeli is in conflict in do not have a right to form their own country.

The bottom-line is that it's hypocritical by us in the West to set one standard for the Palestinians and one for Israel. You can't tell Hamas to do this and that politically if the other side are happily refusing to acknowledge Hamas, acknowledge a Palestinian state to exist and the right of return of refugees. If the conflict is going to be solved there needs to be consistency, one standard for all.

[Jonathan]

Much clearer now, thank you

[Nerdanel]

(nerdanel, who mostly just reads this thread, says:
well put, coffehouse. )

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

The right of return? It'll NEVER happen.

The house I grew up in is less than a mile from here. I pass it on walks. I'd love to live in it, but someone ELSE lives there now. And if my town, or anyone else, decided to give it to me, the current owner would resist.

A separate Palestinian state...maybe, if everyone works REALLY hard.

Right of return? NEVER.

[inked]

Gee, how many times does Hamas have to steal aid from the UN and not give it to the Palestinians for which it was intended to have it be Israel's fault?

How many times do they have to cover the launch of rockets by their uncontrollable insurgents from hospitals, schools, and UN compounds so as to maximize the death of their peoples in the response?

One wonders at the levels of credulity maintained by some folks in only one direction as far as I can tell.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

The bottom-line is that it's hypocritical by us in the West to set one standard for the Palestinians and one for Israel. You can't tell Hamas to do this and that politically if the other side are happily refusing to acknowledge Hamas, acknowledge a Palestinian state to exist and the right of return of refugees. If the conflict is going to be solved there needs to be consistency, one standard for all.

But isnt it generally agreed by most western players (including the US) that a two state solution is the best possible solution in this? I don’t think the Likud speaks for other countries necessarily. And what the Palastinians hear from the US (and the west) is much more important than what they hear from Likud who they expect to be firmly against them.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

One wonders at the levels of credulity maintained by some folks in only one direction as far as I can tell.

Yes I agree whole-heartedly, some seem to just refuse to take it in on themselves that the story actually has two sides. Let's hope such uninformed one-way views remain the minority. As an advocate of this I'm sure you want to set an example Inked

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

But isnt it generally agreed by most western players (including the US) that a two state solution is the best possible solution in this? I don’t think the Likud speaks for other countries necessarily. And what the Palastinians hear from the US (and the west) is much more important than what they hear from Likud who they expect to be firmly against them.

Yes, that's true, most Western actors, EU, US, Norway, do want a two-state solution and don't take their views from the party charter of Likud. But the point wasn't what the Palestinians hear from Likud (which does matter, but they will of course not find Likud's anti-Palestinian statements surprising).

The point was that when Western nations lecture Palestinians and Hamas about their political statements, such as the pre-2007 charter stating that Israel did not have the right to exist, they can't simultaneously ignore similar statements by Likud, denying the right for a Palestianian state to exist. What credibility does that leave any peace-broker when different standards are set?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

What credibility does that leave any peace-broker when different standards are set?

Is there someone on this board who's a 'peace broker"?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

(nerdanel, who mostly just reads this thread, says:
well put, coffehouse. )

Thank you Nerdanel

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/me...lls/index.html
It seems some (relatively) good news is coming from the Israeli election. The centrist-party Kadima is leading in the exit polls, and in the votes, and although I was opting for Ehud Barak's moderate Labour, it's still a whole lot better than Netanyahu's Likud party winning.

Sadly Labour seems to be doing its worst election, potentially coming fourth, behind 3rd-placed Yisrael Beiteinu, an ultra-right wing party lead by Avigdor Lieberman. Israel definitely is going far right in this election.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

The point was that when Western nations lecture Palestinians and Hamas about their political statements [...] they can't simultaneously ignore similar statements by Likud, denying the right for a Palestianian state to exist.

I'd say yes and no. When Likud had only limited presentation in the Knesset whereas Hamas was in a governing position, it actually made perfect sense to criticise the latter more openly.

Of course now this is subject to change, especially if Netanyahu is asked to form a government.