Another Round Begins in The Middle East

[Imran Siddiqui]

I believe Ezra Klein puts it best:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=12&year=2008&base_name=who_started_it

WHO STARTED IT?

The Israeli Narrative: After the temporary ceasefire ended 10 days ago, Hamas began launching rockets into Southern Israel. This echoed not only Hamas's actions before the ceasefire, but Hezbollah's actions in the weeks leading to the 2006 war. The rockets may have proven harmless, but they posed a continuing threat and were, under any standard, an act of war by the sovereign government of a neighboring territory. Israel's attack on Gaza was a response to this provocation.

The Palestinian Narrative: For the past year or so, following Hamas's victory in the Gaza elections, Israel has sealed the border to Gaza, cutting off both humanitarian aid and commercial traffic. In June, a coalition of eight international non-profits released a report demonstrating that conditions in Gaza were worse than at any point since 1967. 80 percent of the residents were now on food aid, more than 40 percent were unemployed, water and sewage systems were in collapse, and hospitals were suffering power shortages of up to 12 hours a day. The situation has only worsened. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has been unable to get needed medical supplies into Gaza for more than a year because of Israel's blockade on border crossings. It is this enforced poverty and immiseration that Hamas's rocket fire was a response to.

The point is simple: You can argue, as Israel is arguing, that their air strikes are a response to Hamas's missiles. But to the Palestinians, Hamas's missiles were a response to the blockade (under international law, a blockade is indeed an act of war). Israel, of course, would argue that the blockade was a response to Hamas's past attacks. And Hamas would argue that past attacks were a response to Israel's unceasing oppression of the Palestinian people. And Israel would argue that...

The provocations and cassus belli travel as far back as anyone might care to trace. And whether you believe Israel, the Palestinians, or the international partitioners originally at fault, starting the clock on December 10th, when the ceasefire expired and Hamas's missiles crashed into the fields around Sderot, is merely an Israeli press strategy. This is the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle over land and freedom and security and money and politics and religion and elections and oppression. It did not begin with the rockets, and it will not end with this attack.

[Ramo]

So what's the end game here? The political wing of Hamas gains a monopoly of force in Gaza, despite not being recognized by other governments as sovereign, and is able to stop groups like the IJ from firing rockets - after having its conventional forces demolished? Hamas and Gaza's denizens capitulate to Fatah, despite the siege of the past couple years being entirely ineffective? After this little war's failure, the fanatics in charge of Likud these days try to annex the whole region (the guy who recruited most of their Parliamentary slate wants to annex Jordan, among other insane things - for example, he wants to create an Iran-stlye religious judiciary that has a veto on a Parliament that itself has a fixed 80% Jewish composition)?

Seriously, what the hell are Livni and Barak thinking?

Not too long ago, we had a peace process going where Hamas and Fatah would create a national unity government which recognizes Israel's right to exist. We gave that up for this. Madness.

[Naked Gents Rut]

We had a peace process going where Hamas and Fatah would create a national unity government which recognizes Israel's right to exist.

[Ramo]

See my DanS. Prospects were much brighter not that long ago.

Edit: To be specific, a decent deal looked to be shaping up right before the Lebanon War.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by germanos
But let me elaborate: I'm not familiar with the landscape of the Israeli press, and so, in order to satisfy Eli's objection, I would have to first make a study of what the various Israeli news-outlets have been saying in the past on similar subjects, and then compare it to what they say now. That's a bit too much an effort for me to do. Offcourse I would also have to make a study on just how much different the op-ed of asharkh al awsat is different to what they printed in the past on similar subjects.
Thanks but no thanks.

As far as I know ha'aretz is a respectable newspaper, read by many Israelis.

I try to make an informed opinion on the Israeli-Arab conflict, but when reading Ha'aretz is allready considered consulting a misguided source, I'm out of here.

Yeah, call me chicken.

What does that have to do with anything?
No one asked you to make a study on newspapers or op-ed contributors.

You do not have to have a PhD in political studies to realize that arab journalism would have an active anti-Israeli bias.

The press in Israel is a little bit more complicated, since Israel has a free press, and many political sides to the argument. Haaretz especially is the more liberal leaning paper, and offers press to a very wide spectrum of views, including very differing ones.

As far as I am aware, while Sharq Al-Awsat is also a more western leaning newspaper, it certainly does not intentionally host views that are contra-popular in the arab world.

I understand you may not know the Israeli newspapers, and excuse me if my sarcastic response was offending. However, from the tone of your response to Eli, it seems you're not really willing to put in 2 minutes to defend your argument.

You said "There used to be a time when people actually discussed on this board". The tone of your response to Eli does not suggest to me you actually want to discuss an issue, but more like you offer your two cents and now you're upset that people present a rebuttal.

Feel free to respond to anything Eli or I say in this thread, but if you are not willing to defend your opinion, how seriously blame others of not wanting to discuss things?

Eli's point was that even arab press, which certainly can't be called pro-Israeli, is blaming Hamas for the hostilities.

To counter Eli's point successfully, you'd have to bring a source that is as vividly pro-Israeli as Sharq al-Awsat is vividly pro-Arab.

There was recently published a CIA census of Israeli media outlets. I'll see if I can find it.

[muxec]

A word on Hamas and their expectations. Maybe they lie about not expecting massive retaliation. They are probably dumb. Israel is a democratic regime (mostly). Why did they terminate ceasefire 3 months before the elections? And it is absolutely guaranteed that the Prime Minister changes in 3 months. Israel can do absolutely everything now, even real genocide, in 3 months we have new government which is technically not responsible for anything done by the old PM.

Smart bombs cost starting from 80K$ each. Don't forget the cost of maintaining the aircraft. That's how you know that Israel values lives of Palestinians.

[Naked Gents Rut]

To be specific, a decent deal looked to be shaping up right before the Lebanon War.

Don't be naive. There isn't going to be peace until one side either kills the other or drives them into the sea (or over the Jordan). They hate each other too much.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Ramo
See my DanS. Prospects were much brighter not that long ago.

Edit: To be specific, a decent deal looked to be shaping up right before the Lebanon War.

I should remind you that the Lebanon war started shortly after the kidnapping by Hamas, of Corp. Gilad Shalit from a base within Israeli soil.

This act of war was done by Hamas specifically with the intention of undermining the deal, which was already hugely unstable due to sharp disagreement within Hamas leadership regarding the deal, and the fact that Hamas was taking political fire because it refused to most of the points.

You are selling inaccuracies and illusions, and that's a shame.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Ramo
So what's the end game here?

Seriously, what the hell are Livni and Barak thinking?

I'll disregard the nonsense regarding likud. I have no idea what you are talking about and that is topic for a different thread anyhow.

The end game is to
a) severely reduce Hamas' military capability to pose a threat on Israeli forces
b) change Hamas' perception that they can continue shelling Israel daily with little serious consequences.
c) get a cease fire from a weakened Hamas that is reminded of it's force ratio to ours.

The strategic reasoning for this operation is solid


Mind you, I don't think we are doing it perfectly. Far from it.

Personally, I think we should have publicly declared a cessation of war this morning, and waited for the Hamas response, with a severe retribution prepared for the worst case.

I think we won't have the guts to seriously clean house, which leads to the conclusion the management of this operation as a continuous one is not smart.

Anytime that the conflict is declared active, but that is between peeks of military attack is time that we are losing initiative and appearance of might. As long as we haven't physically confronted the Hamas forces, we now only stand humiliation by crappy yet agile Hamas rockets.

I fear we don't have the guts to respond seriously enough to the Hamas response, and now we stand only to dilute the success of the first 2 days.

Not too long ago, we had a peace process going where Hamas and Fatah would create a national unity government which recognizes Israel's right to exist. We gave that up for this. Madness.

You used to think you were a smart kid, not a delusioned one.

Hamas was having none of that recognizing Israel and that was among the main reasons which made them kidnap Gilad Shalit - to move the public spotlight away from the uncomfortable political dialogue.

The Gaza leadership was doing everything it can to publically present a positive attitude while infact rejecting each and every point in that agreement.

There was even a huge rift between Gaza and Syrian leaderships regarding the severity in which the clauses regarding Israel should be condemned.

And it's not like clauses regarding the unity government were going anywhere.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I believe Ezra Klein puts it best:

The Palestinian Narrative: For the past year or so, following Hamas's victory in the Gaza elections, Israel has sealed the border to Gaza, cutting off both humanitarian aid and commercial traffic. In June, a coalition of eight international non-profits released a report demonstrating that conditions in Gaza were worse than at any point since 1967. 80 percent of the residents were now on food aid, more than 40 percent were unemployed, water and sewage systems were in collapse, and hospitals were suffering power shortages of up to 12 hours a day. The situation has only worsened. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has been unable to get needed medical supplies into Gaza for more than a year because of Israel's blockade on border crossings. It is this enforced poverty and immiseration that Hamas's rocket fire was a response to.

This is a joke, right?
This text is ridden with inaccuracies and lies.

Hamas won the general elections in January 2006.
After several failed attempts at a Hamas / unity government the kidnapped Gilad Shalit to reduce public pressure from their poor political performance.
The Israeli response to that was a harsh attack and a sealing off of borders.

Mind you, humanitarian and commercial aid were not completely ceased, but Hamas continued intentionally to attack the border crossings with Israel, with intentional desire for provocation and a creation of a dire situation to be abused for political gain. This has caused Israel to close the crossings completely several times.

In summer 2007 Hamas has undemocratically overtaken Gaza in a bloody coup, executing their "unity government to be" (according to Ramo) Fatah rivals, in a way Israel never did. Those who managed to escape ran away to Israeli custody, and were later transferred to the west bank.

The Hamas coup has cost hundreds of lives of fatah loyalists, and their families and dozens of innocent civilians who got caught in the fighting.

After the coup they increased their fire on Israel, trying to justify their coup by an appeal to an "outside enemy". Israel responded repeatedly until a cease fire agreement was hacked away under Egyptian supervision.

The largest and most significant disruption of the cease fire agreement was a Hamas operation to kidnap another soldier from within Israeli soil, via means of underground tunnel, like they did in 2006 with Corp. Shalit).
This was foiled in the last minute after critical intelligence led Israel to attack the tunnel and a platoon was sent on a mission in the area adjustant to it. this happenned 2 months ago IIRC.

Ever since that plan was foiled, Hamas began increasing rocket fire to disrupt the cease fire, and prepared for a new round of bloodshed to renegotiate the cease fire on better terms.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

it's sad state of affairs when the only way out is murder... if you live by the sword you ...

[Naked Gents Rut]

Don't be a hypocrite. Croatia wouldn't even be a country now if it wasn't for murder, you Nazi-loving ****s.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
Don't be a hypocrite. Croatia wouldn't even be a country now if it wasn't for murder, you Nazi-loving ****s.

Last warning... discuss the topic and NOT the posters.
Enough of your presonal crap.

[TCO]

I like it when he slams the other posters. Plus it really was more directed at a group than a person.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hamas coup?! Didn't Hamas win a majority of the seats in parliament? And Fatah's leadership was unwilling to hand over the reigns.

As for:

humanitarian and commercial aid were not completely ceased

All you need to do is click on the link, which has the UN's RWA saying it cannot get medical supplies to people in Gaza due to Isreal's blockade.

I believe them far, far more than I believe you.

And don't be silly, as soon as Hamas won the general elections, Israel (as well as the rest of the Western world) was saber rattling. The only inaccuracies and lies I see are coming from you and Eli.