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Israel Furiously Attacks Gaza — And Braces for Reprisal
The operation came quickly — as did the international condemnations. (Also, Ron Radosh: Answering the Left’s Attacks on Israel in Advance, Richard Fernandez: The Strike on Hamas and Claudia Rosett: The Real Crisis in Gaza)
There was nothing peaceful about the Sabbath in Israel.
Following the launch of Operation “Cast Lead” — a bombing mission and show of overwhelming force from the air in Gaza that killed at least 200 Palestinians — the atmosphere has been tense and fearful.
The mission, in which 60 planes hit at least 100 carefully selected targets in Gaza, didn’t come as a surprise. It has appeared inevitable over the past week, following the end of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.
The initial targets of the attack were Hamas police compounds. A Reuters report said that the casualties included “40 at a police headquarters where Hamas was hosting a graduation ceremony for new recruits. Among those killed was police chief Tawfiq Jabber.”
Israeli television said that other targets included other Hamas targets and locations where ammunition and other weaponry are stored. In addition, Reuters reported that the attacks took place on the Gaza-Egypt border, clearly aimed at the tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Strip.
Saturday was the appropriate day to do it from the Israeli perspective — a day when stores would be closed, schools wouldn’t be in session, and residents of Sderot, Ashkelon and other parts of southern Israel would be in their homes with their families, where they were ordered to stay, close to their shelters.
One of the first casualties of the mission on the Israeli front was the political season. Immediately, the political parties called time out from politics for a show of unity and all events related to the January elections were canceled.
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Allison Kaplan Sommer is PJM's Tel Aviv editor
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130 Comments
1. Eric R.:Screw the European Union. It is nothing but a bunch of Nazis who want to see the Arabs finish Hitler’s work.
But hey, I’ll accept their call for a cease-fire in Gaza, under one condition –Israel changes its targetst to bomb the EU infrastructure in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:02 am 2. Marina:Unfortunately all this operation may be just Tzipi’s attempt to prevent Bibi from coming: “Look, Kadimah has guts too, you don’t need Bibi to survive next years”. But WHY NOW? What about all these monthes and monthes when they could act and did nothing? As history had proven, Kadimah actually has no guts. If elected, Livni will be the same appeaser as Olmert was: let’s give away Golan for nothing, let’s divide Jerusalem for nothing etc. etc. Before they started to plan this operation Kadimah was behind in polls. And now they lead, at least in some polls. F…
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:11 am 3. trangbang68:Lesson to Hamas. You kick the tiger enough. Eventually the tiger will turn around and bite you.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:22 am 4. Alice Finkel:Western media immediately looked for dead civilians to wring their hands over. Never mind that civilians are the chosen target of Hamas. May Israel hold its nerve and give the Hitlers in headscarves a serious bitch-slapping.
The tragedy of Gaza is how closely the fanaticism of Hamas reflects the core feelings of most Palestinians. When hatred is gripped so tightly to the chest for so long, the hatred seeps into the heart. In Gaza, suicide bombing of civilians becomes the highest calling, the murder of innocents to appease the hatred. Each child a potential bomb, each mother a potential bomb factory.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:23 am 5. Lynn:No condemnation from me, 3,000 rockets in this year alone. I hope and pray the Israelis beat the snot out of Hamas and free the Pals in Gaza to make peace and get on with their lives.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:28 am 6. Vaughn:Bravo Israelis! Every dead muslim makes for a safer world.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:29 am 7. Barry 0351:“let the bodies hit the floor.”
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:41 am 8. Fantom:Pound ‘Em Henry ,pound ‘Em.
Israel needs to quit with the surgical strikes and use the Nagasaki knockout.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:54 am 9. Eric R.:Hey Fantom, don’t you remember yesterday’s thread on Gaza?
The Islamonazis will have you brought up on war crimes charges for advocating genocide?
Don’t you know us Jews are supposed to go quietly to our extermination? How dare we upset the Islamonazis and Euronazis by resisting?
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:02 am 10. Gary Ogletree:Could it be possible Hamas provoked this attack to allow the current lame government to demonstrate how security minded they are, fearful that Bibi might win the election? I don’t expect this offensive to last long enough to make Hamas really howl or to stimulate minds in Gaza toward coexistence.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:05 am 11. RV:I am thankful for the surgical strikes, and not the mass murder that so many people on this website call for.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:07 am 12. Xanthippe:It’s about time.
Israel has shown remarkable restraint; of course Israel is held to an impossible standard.
If the Arab world cares so very much about the poor Palestinians, why don’t they use their oil riches to create a Palestinian Marshall Plan? Build schools, parks, industry, hospitals and so on for those poor poor Palestinians?
It’s quite obvious that the Arab world doesn’t really care so very much about the Palestinians, but they do very much hate Israel.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:09 am 13. what is occupation:Excellent start for the day…
180 death cult jackals have been erased….
Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction and has kidnapped, murdered, bombed it’s way into power…
Time for some payback
learn the lesson of all other wars…
KILL the enemy….
if the civilians of the gaza strip dont like it? storm the rafah border and seek refuge in Egypt… After all they stormed the border for ipods and viagra just a little while ago…
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:11 am 14. sxn:For Eight years Israel was the target of these rockets, with very limited response. Israel was the target for over 4000, yes, 4000 rockets. I wonder what country in the world would allow it to happen with very limited response. And guess what kind of targets they selected… Not the military, they targeting Children, mothers, old people. Children in these part of the country don’t even know what is a play ground, they live is in continues fear of the rockets.
Israel doesn’t want to control the area; they literally gave it away to the Palestinian with no condition. Moreover, Israel provides the Palestinian with daily supplies, gas, and electricity. However, the Hamas miss read it as Israel as weakness. Most Israeli (and I think that I can even say most of the Palestinian) want to live in peace with its neighbors, but not the Hamas leadership. It is a simple rule, the one who come to kill you, kill him first!!! Many Israeli families, industries, and schools suffer. The warning was on the wall, Israel asked Egypt and even sent messages through other Arabs countries. The Hamas response was more rockets, and stated that they are not going to stop until they take over the entire state of Israel. To that I say, good luck… Because they know that most Israeli want peace,and don’t want to get into Gaza, they tried to intimidate Israel and scar Israel with more rockets.
So, I would ask you, who is the aggressor here? Why Arabs countries cannot influence the leadership of the Hamas? If Arabs countries really care about the Palestinian, why they are not doing something to help them?
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:40 am 15. David P:do not dance on their graves, it is wrong to celebrate death, even if the deaths are those of your enemies
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:43 am 16. what is occupation:15. David P:
do not dance on their graves, it is wrong to celebrate death, even if the deaths are those of your enemies
Celebrating the death of your enemy is wrong…
Celebrating the death of HAMAN & the Amalekites’s people are required.
DO NOT CONFUSE the TWO
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:51 am 17. Frank:Everyone (around the world) blames America for all it’s problems, using the logic that since Americans elected Bush twice, they deserved what they got. The int. nat. community never seems to use the same logic with the Gazans, however, who elected Hamas by a much wider majority than Bush ever got.
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:01 am 18. Don Kenner:“it is wrong to celebrate death, even if the deaths are those of your enemies”
Enemies? How about executioners? Or Hitler-worshiping child murderers? We celebrate their deaths because putting them down allows others to live. We celebrate their deaths because we are pro-life. And this gentile celebrates their deaths because perhaps it means that Jews will stop tacitly accepting the world’s unwritten code that Jewish lives are not worth as much, and therefore less should be done to save them. A code which, alas, Israeli leaders seem to have internalized.
Your bumper-sticker phraseology sounds like it came from some the Catholic homilies I’ve been forced to sit through. That these same priests had nothing to say about the 3000 rockets and mortars that fell on Jews during the past year makes their sudden lust for peace a hollow prayer.
Bottom line: if more of the world had been outraged at rocket attacks on Southern Israel, this operation might not have been necessary. But for now, I’m drinking a toast to the IDF!
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:10 am 19. Jacob:That these same priests had nothing to say about “the 3000 rockets and mortars that fell on Jews during the past year makes their sudden lust for peace a hollow prayer.
Bottom line: if more of the world had been outraged at rocket attacks on Southern Israel, this operation might not have been necessary. But for now, I’m drinking a toast to the IDF!”
VERY well said….
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:30 am 20. Saltherring:I couldn’t agree more with this logic. Why the whole world seems to have a probelm with it, I don’t know…
The real question is what will America’s post-January 20th response be when Israel is again forced to defend herself. Will President Obama display the same courage as President Bush or will he succumb to the latent anti-Semitism that afflicts cowardly European leaders.
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:38 am 21. Ken:Will someone please, please show me a map with a country called Palestine on it. I’ve never seen it on a map and probably for good reason.
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:42 am 22. Fantom:It is not mass murder to stop a murdering people. Dresdan, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, all just use of force. Gaza should join that list. The palistinians have earned it as much, if not more, than the others on that list.
Only when faced with extermination will some peoples, moslem in this case….. palistinian in particular, quit their murdering ways and seek peace. IMHO.
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:44 am 23. Spindok:Astonishing airstrikes.
Unprecented accuracy. Keep in mind these are not sniper bullets here. These are bombs and rockets launched from fighter jets in one of the most densely populated crowded cities on the planet in the middle of the day.
Even the asshats at MSNBC and the BBC are reporting that out of the 153 reported Palestinian dead 140 were ‘militants’ and that info comes from Palestinian Gaza sources.
I cannot think of a single instance in modern military history to compare to this. Forget the histrionics. The Israelis must have had targeting, weapons, planning and intelligence capabilities far beyond anything we have seen until now.
This time watch how quickly the Israeli political-PR apparatus springs to life. They have been included and are a vital part of what is happening this time.
The Brits and French – screw them. Simple politics anyway. Brits and French are terrified of their Muslim populations and for good reasons. That is neither Israels problem nor that of the USA.
Imagine San Antonio, Texas shelled over the course of one year with over 3000 rockets and mortars from Mexican ‘militants’ who had an elected government and total political control over northern Mexico.
How many here vote for ‘restraint’? We would have been done with it long ago.
How many here would care about the silly assed pronouncements from London or Paris when we countered in such an amazing display as the IAF did this time?
Solutions? Those are a long way off. This is war and often by ‘other means’.
Spindok
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:44 am 24. David P:it doesn’t matter, human suffering is the same, we know what it’s like to loose others, and we don’t like it when they celebrate our deaths, especially when they orchestrate it through suicide attacks, rockets and worse….. we are not savages, defensive measures are needed preserve life, not to welcome more death in the future on either side…. basque in temporary victory humbly, and with humility, hoping your actions may achieve the desired outcome…. publicly flaunting your pleasure makes our actions appear no different then those who forced our hand….
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:45 am 25. The Historian:TRIAL LAWYERS AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
What this unfit alliance does is all about self-interest, not the national interest:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/lawsuit-abuse-democrat-holy-grail.html
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:45 am 26. Frank:I don’t agree that it is wrong to celebrate the death of my enemies.
I want my enemies to die, for if they don’t it will be me who does. Therefore, that they die means I get a chance at life. Why shouldn’t I celebrate that I get to live, rather than die? Why shouldn’t I celebrate the annihilation of people who’s very existence is dedicated to killing me, my brother, my people? Why shouldn’t I clap, and cheer, and jump up and click my heels?
Some people I just don’t understand, and you, David P, are one of them
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:04 am 27. Ann:Joining the toast to the IDF…..it sickens to see how, time and time again, the world pays lip service to the right of Israel to exist and yet stands by in silent assent as those who hate her continue picking away in bold daylight at her destruction.
Eric R–if I conclude correctly that you are Jewish–I will say to you individually and to all Jews: NEVER NEVER again “go quietly”. The PR job that the left has done on Israel in the last 50’s is absolutely nauseating, and they have their obedient minions in the UN refusing to take action on clear issues. NOBODY is going to “help Israel” effectively.
Thank God for the internet. The PR machine doesn’t get the final word any more.
Just know there are a lot of Gentiles around the world screaming in fury at what the Jews are constantly asked to tolerate and then told to be nice and just take it. No. No more.
Three cheers for the IDF.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:08 am 28. Bill:Israel should continue with the surgery until the cancer is completely gone.
Iran,Syria, and RUSSIA is part of that cancer.
World conflict is coming, and that is a fact.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:27 am 29. David P:I don’t believe Israel should stop here, I think Hamas needs to be eradicated, but cheering for the job is nugatory.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:32 am 30. kabud:God Bless Israel!
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:39 am 31. Spindok:There is nothing to celebrate here.
What was done had to be done.
We can give some thanks that the number of innocents killed or maimed was as limited as could be possible. This was not a ‘carpet bombing’.
Still peace, though a long way off, is the goal.
Golda Meir said it well, but it chills; “we will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews”.
I mean no disrespect to Arabs or Muslims. Most do love their children more than they hate Jews. I live and work with many folks from those backgrounds every day and no problems over here in fly-over USA.
None of the Mumbai terrorists had ever met a Jew before or knew anything about the religion or people yet what happened did…
Peace is possible and attainable.
That belief is at the core of Judaism as it is in other religions (Love and Peace is translated to Arabic حالة حبّ وسلا ). Some have not found it. Some use their religion to justify their own pathology.
The people Israel have always been a “light unto the nations” though at horrific cost. Terrible that accomplishments should now be measured in better methods of killing enemies. Better to be measured in cancer and other medical research, agriculture, information technology, and other wonders. Israel has excelled in those things far beyond its numbers.
So soldier on Israel.
You have more balls and chains attached to you than any nation on the planet yet you continue to amaze.
Spindok
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:57 am 32. Hoob:Basic Palestinian Human Right – realisation of the sacred script of the holy Qur’an.
The right to worship and practise religion ritual is a basic human right issue of our modern society; and it is a honourable cause to allow anyone to reach their full potential of their religious realisation.
The holy Qur’an is the centre of existence for majority of Muslims in the world, accordingly daily routines, laws and interaction with the people surrounding are mastered. A jihad is a novel cause to reach the higher self of education, religious practice and spreading the word of Allah. Spreading jihad can be both peaceful and more forceful as the holy Qur’an also calls to Kill and be Killed when spreading the word of god to infidels, thus Kill and be Killed is an Islamic Human and Religious Right when following the holy script. Death is an Islamic choice and as such a religious realisation.
Palestinians elected democratically Hamas, which with it’s religious founder the slain Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin preach and glorify suicide bombings by becoming martyrs thus entering paradise. Islamic clerics teach this philosophy not only in Gaza, but as we have seen on TV, in Mosques, community centres all over the world and in Britain as well. We can see on TV young children in Gaza strapped with vest demo explosives put by their own parents at rallies against the West. Women, men and children when interviewed want to become martyrs; they show proudly on TV their ready vests. Death is their purpose of living.
Islamic clerics glorify entry to paradise by martyrdom, suicide bombing and advocating Kill and be Killed. Palestinians have been following meticulously this religious obligation. Palestinians voted in democratic elections their quest to Kill and be Killed; Palestinians kill Israelis, Israelis retaliate and kill them. Palestinians kill and they are being killed and reaching heaven to harvest their promised 72 black-eyed virgins in realisation of the holy script of the Qur’an; Israelis are allowing Palestinians to gratify this democratic choice. Israelis are fulfilling basic Palestinian Religious Right to Kill and be Killed and as such are enabling them to reach their humanitarian and Islamic religious quest – realisation of the sacred script of the holy Qur’an.
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:06 am 33. Ann:Another rhetorical question (which are almost always inherently useless, but interesting to ask anyway): Where were the international condemnations of Hamas–either recently or over the years? Maybe I just wasn’t listening to the 3am bulletin on cbs in 1990 when they happened.
The blatant one-sidedness of the leftist liberal totalitarianist-loving, humanity-hating individuals who hold power in many of the world’s governments is completely predictable, but still completely amazing as well.
The murderous hatred that the Muslims/Arabs feel for the Jews is exactly the same level of hatred they feel for all non-Muslim/non-Arab persons/governments in the world. This IS what is in store for the west if we don’t learn from what the IslamoNazis* and EuroNazis* have already accomplished in Europe. (*phrases borrowed from Eric’s post above)
In this year’s election, those who understood this were outnumbered by those who didn’t. (And I couldn’t care less at this point about Bambi vs. POW–that conversation is over) How will the electorate break down in 2012 after we have gotten, probably, a closer look at “how to appease the Arabs/Muslims in 48 easy monthly installments”? We had better start caring loudly about the sovereignty of our nation. Now.
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:07 am 34. Bilgeman:“Quick on the heels of the attack were calls from European leaders to stop the attacks.”
YooRow-Peon Leedurz? Who?….Where?….said What?
Seriously, who gives a s**t what those gutless turds have to say.
Hamas fires rockets into Israel,then Israel bombs Hamas’ office parks flat…seems perfectly reasonable to me.
When Jews begin flying hijacked airliners into American office buildings, I’ll weep for the Hamas dead, but at the moment, I feel like going out into the street and ululating while handing out candies to passersby.
(Though my neighbors would think I’d gone off my nut and wrestle me to the ground so I could be locked up and medicated)
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:38 am 35. Martge:What I don’t understand about this is, Hamas can pound with bombs, kill innocent citizens and do what they want at will, but if Israel dares fight back they are comdemned…why doesn’t someone have the guts to ask those that condemn Israel why they think it is wrong for Israel to fight back>>>
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:53 am 36. alan:The Torah teaches that when someone comes to kill you; kill him first. About 80% of the Gazan Arabs want to murder Israelis. Wipe them out and start teaching peace and civilization to the Arab primitives. Maybe , in the distant future, there will be a chance for peace.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:04 pm 37. Dave Surls:What the Israelis ought to do is level every last building in Gaza and put the surviving Pals on the road to Mecca.
And, we ought to help them do it.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:19 pm 38. David Gillies:An enemy is defeated in two ways. The first is to take away his material capability to fight, by destroying his military and industrial infrastructure. The second is to take away his will to fight, by visiting horror and death upon him until he realises he is beaten. The first is relatively easy for Israel to accomplish, and it has of course done so, often spectacularly, in the wars it has fought with the Arabs. The second is not so easy, at least if Israel lacks the stomach for it. This current escalation in the level of violence visited on the Islamofascists is welcome, to be sure, but if it is merely a spasm then in a few weeks or months we will be back to the status quo ante. This episode should be used as a springboard to launch a truly devastating punishment on the Gazan Arabs. Any target even tangentially associated with Hamas should be bombed into rubble. Obviously Israel should not go out of its way to inflict civilian casualties, but it should not make too strenuous an effort to avoid them either. After all, those self-same civilians elected a terrorist entity bent on recapitulating the Holocaust, so they are largely complicit in the acts of war carried out against Israel.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:27 pm 39. cedarford:The EU knows deep down it’s ideology is untenable. No way would Greece stand for 3,000 rocket attacks directed at it’s civilians from Albania, no way would France tolerate the same from an elected body of Germans in the Palatinate directed by “revenge” and return of Alsace-Lorraine.
Nor is the European drive to selectively establish moral equivalency and peace at any price working out. By seeking to stop a war from reaching a conclusion and by stating both sides in a conflict are “morally equivalent” all the Euros and the UN have done is suceed in establishing about 40-50 unresolved global conflicts where both sides are told they are morally equivalent (thus, in the right…). Left unfinished, for decades. And both sides arm and anticipate future conflict in peacetime, that can flare up at any time.
Of course Right-Wingers have their foibles too, like screeching about their beloved noble Georgian “Freedom-Lovers!” paying a steep price for stupidly starting a war, that Russia then happily finished.
All I am saying, is give war a chance.
Once started, wars may in fact produce less casualties and a more lasting peace if taken to conclusion. Nor are the civilians that support war or unrelenting conflict and hostility towards another people best left immune to consequences. Geneva and all the vaunted “human rights” crap aside – unless civilians think they will pay a steep price or do so, they will continue to support sending someone else’s sons out as gunfodder to fuel their dreams.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:28 pm 40. Letalis Maximus, Esq.:As far as the press/media is concerned, Israel is internationally what the America’s Republican Party is domestically: they can’t do anything right, and everything that goes wrong is always their fault.
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:52 pm 41. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater:Best.
Christmas Present.
EVAR.
Shoulda driven em into the Jordan or Med in the first place, let ‘em take the Jewish property abandoned in the Arab countries or stolen by the Nazis in trade..
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:58 pm 42. ASlyJD:I tend to agree with David. I’m saddened that more people had to die to protect Israel. But did Israel do the right thing? Hell yes.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:10 pm 43. john galt:this time finish it please. no restraint, no stopping until the issue is resolved. beat them into the ground, teach them the error of their ways, invade, find the rockets and destroy them………… all adults here understand what is at stake; life itself.
and quite frankly, the US media is a joke. we would have lost WWII with the current group around. their thought processes are like children, and this allows them to be manipulated and used.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:16 pm 44. lifeobs:If Muslims want to live in peace they need to modify their behavior or they will be slaughtered.
People are wising up to the liberal apologists and will not tolerate senseless violence much longer.
The day of reckoning is coming soon and it will not be stopped by the collaborators/cowards on the left.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:19 pm 45. Ann:Bilgeman!! If you DO decide to go ululating, PLEASE LET US KNOW!…and give us a sense of what region of the country you in so we can be checking the news feed! (However, I think your sense of neighborhood response is probably something to consider. It might not turn out well for you.)
Good to keep in mind though: in addition to throwing shoes when we get fed up with the Islamist inroads into our culture, we must not forget the ululating at the appropriate moments. Good grief.:)
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:37 pm 46. Rotwang:Hopefully, this means Israel will be too busy to spy on Americans for awhile, and too distracted to create another false-flag attack on an American interest.
In fact, maybe they’ll leave us alone until they need money again. It’s not like they’re exactly helping to advance our foreign relations agenda.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:39 pm 47. Robohobo:It was funny to watch the footage of the car swarm on Fox. The “wounded” being rushed….somewhere. Not a one of them was bleeding. Not one. A man held a shirt to somedudes ‘head wound’ that showed not a trace of blood as they rushed by the camera. That was too funny. For anyone who has seen head trauma would know that the shirt would be soaked and the ‘wounded’ would not be walking to the ‘hospital’.
Pallywood at it’s best.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:45 pm 48. joel:What I find most distasteful about Hamas and its supporters is this: They can dish it out but just can’t take it.
I remember well the joyous celebrations in that place on 9/11. They were just so happy that 3,000 Americans got murdered. Just at random. It made them celebrate.
I wonder what they would think if Americans all over the country turned out to celebrate these deaths.
Then, the Hamas people glory in the slaughter of Jewish innocents. They complain when their victims strike back.
Would the world miss their kind for a minute if they ceased to exist? Likely not, since there a millions of other people like them, full of hatred. Most seem to be Muslim. Must be something in the water.
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:09 pm 49. cubanbob:Israel should have bombed the Hamas leaders compound in Damascus as well. Now for once and for all they should stop all supplies going in to Gaza and let imminent starvation clarify the mentality of the Hamas supporters. Die, make peace or immigrate. Negotiations are for business partners and allies, enemies have terms dictated to them.
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:15 pm 50. Mike K:An interesting suggestion from another blog seems to me to have merit. Every time Hamas fires rockets and refuses to stop, move the Gaza border 5 kilometers further south. The whole strip is 41 kilometers long. It shouldn’t take long for them to get the idea. Even one kilometer at a time would get the job done.
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:26 pm 51. Random_moods:It is digusting to see how many criminals commenting on this page.
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:29 pm 52. David:What took do long? Israel should have done this the day the first rocket came over and no authorities arrested the scum (I toss my shoe at you) that did this.
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:05 pm 53. Muslims Against Sharia:Hypocrisy in Action:
Where were Egypt, Russia, OIC, EU, Britain, Sarkozy, US & Austria when Hamas was pounding Israel with daily barrage of rockets?
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/12/hypocrisy-in-action.html
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:18 pm 54. Spindok:43 J Gault.
I have read your posts here for some time. We are often on the same page. You write well.
“this time finish it please. no restraint, no stopping until the issue is resolved. beat them into the ground, teach them the error of their ways, invade, find the rockets and destroy them………… all adults here understand what is at stake; life itself.”
Maybe you can understand that “no restraint” is not an option. To do so would destroy something barely understood by those with the means to do so. Brave sir… give the order. Now deal with what happens.
This will play out. Israel will live. Hamas will lose and many of them died in the past 24- hours. The remaing are cowering in bunkers and know that IDF knows exactly where they are. Good nights sleep for them.
Shalom,
Spindok
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:19 pm 55. Gozer the Carpathian:Good work by the IDF. It showed remarkable talent, training, and RESTRAINT to do what they did. My hat’s off to them.
Unfortunetly I fear this will not be enough, and in the end this will be just another blip on the ‘Violence Meter’ in the middle east.
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:30 pm 56. Marina:@ ROBOHOBO AND ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE HERE – that wasn’t only on Fox, it was everywhere, on CNN, BBC, other Euro-channels – they hope for the PALLY-OSCAR nomination in PALLYWOOD:
- a TOO ORGANIZED chain of cars brining the “wounded” (a kind of magic?)
- crowds of Palis having nothing to do but wait for the “wounded” to come, without knowing WHEN the actuall atack will take place: they just stand there, in front of a “hospital”, all day long, day after day, month after month, year after year, hoping some chain of cars will bring some “wounded”… and everybody knows exactly which arm or leg will he grab to carry the “victim” (gosh, I bet people in Bangladesh wish such a medical service!)
- at least one person WITH A CAMERA having nothing to do, standing there, in front of EVERY “hospital”, awaiting the “victims of Israeli atrocities” to come, always ready, all day long, day after day, month after month… oh, whatever! (I swear, no one in Bangladesh can afford such a luxury, but who cares? they’re not from Palestine!)
An OSCAR for this? Sure! And an Emmy! And a Peabody! And a Pulitzer! And a NOBEL PRIZE for ECONOMICS (for incredible technical achievements while swearing to be the poorest nation of the world). And a NOBEL PRIZE for PHYSICS (for incredible breach of the rules of gravity, time and space in order to trick those Israelis and be ready for their attacks before they themself know about it).
Who says Pali-nation has no future? PALLYWOOD FOREVER!
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:50 pm 57. DAISNAID:What 18 and 19 said, doubled down !!!
Dec 27, 2008 - 5:30 pm 58. cedarford:Dave Surls:
What the Israelis ought to do is level every last building in Gaza and put the surviving Pals on the road to Mecca.
And, we ought to help them do it.
Why exactly should we be Zionist stooges and help them ethnically cleanse?
What is in that for the average American?
Dec 27, 2008 - 5:39 pm 59. Fantom:cedarfool@58 What is in that for the average American?
Justice, and peace. Stopping moslem/arab ethnic cleansing. Same thing is in it for us as stopping hitler/tojo.
Dec 27, 2008 - 5:56 pm 60. Robert:David P. said:
There is nothing wrong with prey celebrating the deaths of their predators. Humans are animals whether you like it or not. An animal must defend itself from predators and must be joyful when such threats to its survival are destroyed.
Dec 27, 2008 - 6:50 pm 61. shmuel:58 what is it for the average American? These crazy Arabs are after you too. We are Allies in this war.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:31 pm 62. criminal?:The UN would have it both ways- Don’t kill the Palestinians that are trying to kill you.
This is war!
The Hamas have attacked with rockets almost every day for the last 3 months.
I do not understand why Israel waited this long to attack?
If the leaders do not clean out this filth they should be impeached.
And you might call it ‘criminal’- but by-God even a criminal will attack you if you attack him.
Keep it up Israel- Pound the hell out of them!
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:07 pm 63. thegre8_1:Israel do what you have to do to whomever before January 20. This needs no further comment.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:29 pm 64. Tom W.:For those of us who want to celebrate the deaths of the terrorists, check out this truly hilarious photo.
http://www.blackfive.net/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/27/hamasdeadtangos_2.jpg
It needs a recorded “Oh, no!” in the high-pitched Mr. Bill voice.
For those of you who find such celebration distasteful, don’t click that link under any circumstances.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:01 pm 65. Vinny F.:As usual, Israel bombs innocent woman and children and no one cares about the Arabs that are killed because of the world’s foremost human rights violators, the Israeli government. Israel is getting their killing in now because come January 20th, the Jewish lobby and their puppet are being kicked out of the White House. Obama understands that Israel is a monstrosity that needs to be put out of business permanently.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:23 pm 66. jsallison:The only problem with ’surgical strikes’ is that your enemy doesn’t receive the intended message. You may remove capability temporarily but it has little to no impact on the decision making processes of irrational actors. Wishful thinking is a powerful force.
The UN and various nations have pulled islamofascist chestnuts out of the fire so often and for so long that it’s clear they have no clue that things could ever work out otherwise.
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:13 pm 67. poul:Vinny F.:
“As usual, Israel bombs innocent woman and children and no one cares about the Arabs that are killed because” – these arabs chose to lob thousands of missiles into israeli cities, constantly and indiscriminately.
fixed that for ya.
i hope you wet dreams about obama’s antisemitism are as wrong as your analysis of the current events.
Dec 27, 2008 - 11:31 pm 68. Dave Surls:“Why exactly should we be Zionist stooges and help them ethnically cleanse?”
For some reason my earlier response didn’t appear, so forgive me if this gets posted twice.
We should help because Pal terrorists have killed many Americans. That makes them our enemies.
Another reason is is that the Israelis served as our catspaw to counter Soviet influence in the region, back in the cold war days, and they proved to be staunch allies, doing pretty much everything we asked them to do. Honor demands that we provide them with assistance, IMO.
Dec 28, 2008 - 12:11 am 69. SpideyTerry:Way to go Israel for finally hitting Hamas hard. With any luck, this is the first small step in the end of Hamas.
Civilian deaths on either side are, of course, unfortunate. Still, any civilian that died in Israel’s attacks died because of Hamas. Does anyone truly think that Israel would’ve done this if not for those terrorists constantly attacking and provoking them?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – the only thing I fault Israel for in this situation is that they waited this long to hit Hamas this hard.
“Quick on the heels of the attack were calls from European leaders to stop the attacks. The European Union wasted no time in calling for an immediate ceasefire.”
Hey, speaking of mangy animals, it’s the European Union. Sheesh, these jokers may be even worse than Hamas. They’re just as anti-semitic as them and other terrorists, but not as honest about it.
“The U.S. reaction harshly criticized Hamas and asked the Israelis to do their best to limit casualties.”
Gee, what a shocker – the only sane reaction came from the American government. Oh, wait, that’s to be expected (at least when Bush is in the White House).
“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also urged an immediate halt to the violence, condemning what he called Israel’s “excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians” – (Palestinians)
and “the ongoing rocket attacks by Palestinian militants”.”
Anyone else ever notice that the international community (with the exception of competent nations like America) are always quick to call for an end to violence when Israel rightfully defends itself, but can’t be bothered to do so when the terrorists repeatedly strike? … Oh, you noticed that, too, huh?
My advice to Israel – don’t negotiate, don’t make deals, don’t listen to any unwarranted condemnations from the international community. Also, don’t stop until Hamas is dismantled once and for all. Feel free to be as brutal as possible against those terrorist slimebags, too. They certainly earned it.
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:22 am 70. criminal?:Israel gives the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.
The Palestinians give their government to Hamas.
Hamas declares war on Israel 2 years ago, and starts major long range rocket attacks 3 months ago. Now they are getting new rockets from Iran that can hit much further into Israel.
Israel asks the UN for Peace- nothing-no sounds, ‘crickets chirping.’
Israel attacks a legitimate government Hamas- that has declared war on them and the UN starts screaming ‘PEACE.’
The UN is a worthless organization unless they work in your favor.
The only thing missing from the picture of the dead shown by Tom W. above is their automatic weapons and rocket launchers.
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:33 am 71. fear Obama:I knew this attack was coming.
Many of the major TV stations began showing Paul Newman films,
Cast a Giant Shadow
and Exodus.
I told my wife to get ready for an attack on the Gaza Strip, and the Hamas rocket launchers.
She didn’t believe me.
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:44 am 72. Kirk:If I lived in Detroit, and the Canadian government was hiring and equiping rocket teams to shoot randomly into Detroit and the surrounding suburbs, I would demand a disproportionate response. Move the border, bomb anywhere two bricks were stuck together, find the government and put them in the “loser pays” trial system. Once Hamas fired the FIRST rocket into random civilian areas they have to accept any response they get. That’s the nature of war and fighting.
As an American though, my first instinct is “not my problem.” I don’t understand enough of the crazy monsters who live over there to judge or recommend anything. I’m happy and thankful we have the US military to protect us.
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:54 am 73. Scott M:I think Israeli leadership fails to notice the strategic message of their recent military efforts. Their enemy, and the population under the enemy’s influence, recognize that each bomb dropped from aircraft is a signal Israel is trying to avoid the enemy as much as they are trying to kill their enemy.
This particular enemy of Israel and Western Civilization needs to learn clearly that destruction of any conceivable threat to Israel is more important than pinpoint accuracy. If you make that point obvious enough for all to recognize, you will force the enemy to reevaluate their ideological commitment to the war. Think Gen. Sherman marching to the sea versus the previous few years of non-decisive battle between North and South. Sherman turned the tide and started the war’s end.
This enemy of the world views standoff precision strikes as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve for a long and dirty fight. Their one true strength is commitment to a fight however long it will take. The enemy must be destroyed so thoroughly that any survival for any of them is hardly possible. I don’t mean genocide but I do mean full devastation and less concern for reading the minds of the people around the enemy. Bombs and bullets can’t read minds so stop trying to focus only on the most guilty of the guilty. Make the craters big enough to get the enemy and his capacity to fight and let the “civilians” get out of the way on their own.
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:50 am 74. theonethatknows:G_D be with you Israel! We love you!! Do what you are required to do…Take YOUR land back.
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:53 am 75. poul:long overdue. but israel should stop using expensive smart bombs and start using cheap artillery shells, and much more of them.
Dec 28, 2008 - 3:35 am 76. Jo:Since when is it wrong for a sovereign nation to defend itself? When Israel was being bombed, the silence was deafening! Nothing from the EU, nothing from the press in the US, in other words, the situation was ignored. Now, Israel has finally decided they have had enough. Good for them. I, and many others, hope they get their point across. Also, thought MIKE K. (50) had a great suggestion.
Dec 28, 2008 - 5:09 am 77. RW:Somewhere in a cave, Osama is crying for his friends at Hamas. May all the Hamas friends cry together. And may Israel cleanse Gaza of the stain that brings misery to the people there.
Maybe one day they’ll get it. But hatred and the desire to destroy Israel is all that matters to too many both in Hamas and around the world.
Don’t forget the roots of hatred against Western civilization. They are all one and the same.
Dec 28, 2008 - 5:25 am 78. fear Obama:Now we begin to see who the real animals are!
Dec 28, 2008 - 5:40 am 79. 625-Gold:Let them die for the cameras.
The Great Peaceful Religion of Islam….may Israel
Dec 28, 2008 - 6:47 am 80. Brian Richard Allen:use tons of Napalm so they may burn in the hell they so desperately seek.
8. Fantom: Thank you.
That’s all it’ll take.
Served with a tossed Tokyo, a hint of Hiroshima and a dash of Dresden!
Anyone for “Uncle!”
Brian Richard Allen
Dec 28, 2008 - 6:48 am 81. SAF:Los Angeles – CalifUBAMAcated 90028 — & the Far Abroad
The current and former Israeli governments have been totally ineffective at protecting their citizens from attack. Now that they are doing something about it the Europeans are busily condemning the Israelis and calling them criminals etc. Of course this is totally backwards. The Israeli government was criminally negligent for not defending their citizens.
There will never be any peace in the middle east ever. The Palestinians have invented toy suicide bomber belts which they gleefully put on their two year olds. The Palestinians will never give up their war on Israel until every Jew is dead. Unfortunately for them the Jews have proven to be bad diers this time around. The Israelis will never kill enough Palestinians to get them to give up the war.
Eventually someone will give the Palestinians a nuke which they will deploy.
And the sad thing is if all of Israel left tomorrow and moved to Dayton Ohio there still wouldn’t be peace as the rest of the states in the middle east have shown over time a propensity to kill themselves and fight between themselves.
Dec 28, 2008 - 8:05 am 82. fear Obama:Now we have some new photo shopped images from the Gaza Strip.
The fire would have lit him up like a candle.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45330000/jpg/_45330507_ap_man226×260x.jpg
When will we see the Old Woman looking up at the sky and Israeli jets destroying her 20th house?
Or the refrigerated dead children put into ambulances?
Dec 28, 2008 - 8:10 am 83. Tonto (USA):@71. I been saying the same thing for 30 years….when you see Jewish sympathetic stuff on TV, the arabs are going to get their asses kicked.
Dec 28, 2008 - 8:20 am 84. Chuck Pelto:@32. Hoob, you’re right. I wish we had open season on muz here in the US. I know where there is a lot of them that I would love to help see their moon god. Kill ‘em all Israel. God will sort them out.
@73. Scott, I agree. Splatter hell out of all of them. They support covertly or overtly….if they’re muz, they support and that’s the bottom line. I really don’t think it’s Israel’s obligation to discriminate. Kill them all! The ones against Hamas should run and hide.
TO: cedarford
RE: Why?
Because the ‘average American’ is not a barking ‘Daily Kos’ moron.
We tend to get tired of being put upon by mass murderers after a while.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 28, 2008 - 10:30 am 85. Chuck Pelto:P.S. Hope that helps….but….well…..YOU know…..
TO: SpideyTerry, et al.
RE: Stop Me If….
….you’ve heard this one before….
And the Palestinians are only JUST BEGINNING to realize the truth in that old adage.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 28, 2008 - 10:35 am 86. Chuck Pelto:P.S. I wonder what US will realize with the coming Obama ‘administration’…..
P.S. And for the ‘ignorant’ here….
….the Palestinians ELECTED Hamas into their government.
Now they reap their just rewards.
[Having sown the wind, they reap the whirlwind.]
Dec 28, 2008 - 10:51 am 87. American Jihadist:Israel is dealing with these terrorist in the only way a terrorist understands.
They have never accepted the existence of Israel. They teach hateful, racist propaganda to school kids ensuring the next generation keeps up the slaughter. They have launched hundreds of rockets during a “cease fire” which now has lapsed. The Israelis kept weapons tight until the official “cease fire” ended.
The Palestinians are an artificial creation of the hard liners who decided they didn’t want the Jews in their neighborhood. There is no question both groups have historical claims to the area but when the UN made a compromise, the Israelis were attacked multiple times by their Arab neighbors.
They have created a stable, liberal democracy and even allow Israeli Arabs to serve in Parliament.
The Palestinians have murdered innocents wholesale and threatened to push all the Israelis into the sea and claim all the land. They have spent countless billions of other peoples dollars to train terrorists and let their own people starve. they are reprehensible and only marginally civilized. They can learn to live like decent human beings or they can die and be stacked like cord wood.
Dec 28, 2008 - 10:57 am 88. MIke Reynolds:Vinny – if you think Obama will be pro-Hamas, boy, are you in for a surprise!
Dec 28, 2008 - 11:07 am 89. thegre8_1:Since (by your standards) every and any US govt is a puppet of the Jooos, why don’t you find a nice fascist country to emigrate to? Belarus would be good. Just think! No more having to live under the Zionist Occupation Govt! Think of the freedom, Vinny, and get the f–k out of my beloved America.
Screw you UN. Screw you Europe. You all did such a good job negotiating with Iran and with your pathetic peacekeeping force in Lebanon. You couldn’t find your @ss with two hands and a flashlight.
Dec 28, 2008 - 11:11 am 90. John B:To quote an old adage: “Get us out of the UN,,, and get the UN out of the US.”
What a bunch of morons…
Dec 28, 2008 - 12:50 pm 91. cedarford:Dave Surls:
“Why exactly should we be Zionist stooges and help them ethnically cleanse?”
For some reason my earlier response didn’t appear, so forgive me if this gets posted twice.
We should help because Pal terrorists have killed many Americans. That makes them our enemies.
Very, very few bona fide Americans, and Westerners in general, have been targeted by Palestinian groups in recent years. Americans safely work and travel in the West Bank, Pal refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan.
Where Americans have been killed in the Palestinian Infitada and other actions in the last 20 years is indirect. Jewish Americans deciding to become Israelis or live there – hit by the Pals as residents of Israel, or colonizing Settlers, and a few students. Simply with the happenstance of US citizenship along with their Israeli one.
And not a few Palestinians and Lebanese with US citizenship were killed by Israelis in the last 30 years……
Palestinians are not our “friends”, but they are not on our present enemy’s list. Much to the chagrin of the last Neocons, who want about 40 countries declared our “enemies” and cold or hot wars launched at them.
That happenstance of killing a few dual citizens living with and even bearing arms of the Palestinian’s enemy – doesn’t make Palestinians our ‘declared enemies’ anymore than the happenstance of Indians killing Pakistanis with British citizenship in the last 60 years of intermittant Subcontinent conflict makes India the enemy of Britain.
Not surprising, we ourselves killed a few dozen “Americans” recently with our military and it was no big deal. Basically, Iraqis who had accidental or deliberate US citizenship who had returned “home”, in both the Gulf War and Iraq War.
And even if the Pals did become our enemy, it would be a huge, portentious step to go past allied effort in conflict to defeat them to then go past legitimate military action – becoming any country’s stooge to end up smearing our image and reputation, as both dumb stooges and ethnic cleansers …. By doing some other country’s dirty work with no gain whatsoever for us, only long term damage.
Americans in uniform acting like Nazis ethnically cleansing Muslims in return for Israeli real estate developers, AIPAC’s bribes given Congress Reps, etc? I honestly don’t see the will to do it. I’d like to think that would be an order any decent US soldier would refuse to carry out as a war crime. We can help Israel, we have, and should continue to – but never serving as proxy Nazis for “sanitizing” Arab neighborhoods for eager Zionist landgrabbers. Such a role would ill-serve the average US citizen and betray our country’s ideals.
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:00 pm 92. venividivici:cedarford,
Unless you like Islam, Palestinians and all Muslims are the enemies of all mankind. I guess you just like sticking your butt in the air five times a day. Hmmm, I wonder why?
Dec 28, 2008 - 1:49 pm 93. Sybil:Some photo shots of the Israeli targets inside the Gaza Strip
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129055
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:07 pm 94. photo shoppin hobby:More pictures of Palestinian children being forced to lie next to a wounded Hamas rocket scientists.
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//081227/481/44ad1a82842747eea1f87f3770ee9f58/
I would have cried also.
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:43 pm 95. Dave Surls:“And even if the Pals did become our enemy,”
They’re already my enemy.
And, Al Aqsa (Fatah) and Hamas are on our list of terrorist organizations, so we ought to rain death down on them.
The sooner, the better.
Dec 28, 2008 - 3:02 pm 96. Chuck Pelto:TO: cedarford
RE:
Show US your evidence supporting your allegation.
I’m particularly interested in the namse of the Israelis who are land-grabbing in Iraq.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 28, 2008 - 3:23 pm 97. Chuck Pelto:P.S. If you’re thinking about Gaza, are you going to suggest that the Palestinians who fired rockets and mortars into Israel were REALLY Israelis in disguise?
Dec 28, 2008 - 3:25 pm 98. Spindok:Cedarford,
But I think you agree that nobody resonable here has called for US armed forces to serve in Israel. IDF will do just fine.
There is tight cooperation, and I think we both know that most of that is under the table. I doubt you have a problem with that.
Sure, a call for ethnic cleansing or mass bombing is stupid and reprehensible. Israel could have done that anytime in the past 40+ years, yet has not.
They have asked for critical guns and ammunition at times, political support at 1:100 odds, hard cash, emergency loans…what else?
I do not think the American people are done with this. Israel will stand and Hamas will fail.
Spindok
Dec 28, 2008 - 3:42 pm 99. venividivici:Sure, a call for ethnic cleansing or mass bombing is stupid and reprehensible. Israel could have done that anytime in the past 40+ years, yet has not.
Sorry, but as a pragmatist, I disagree that it’s either stupid (which, for a pragmatist simply means “It can’t be done”, which it clearly can) or reprehensible (which, for a pragmatist simply means “It’s less practical than another option”, which it clearly isn’t).
They don’t call the world “a vale of tears” for nothing.
Dec 28, 2008 - 5:28 pm 100. Rubicon:Every army has soldiers who go off the deep end. So does every peaceful society. Its a fact of life. None like it, but none have figured out how to stop it since none know who the nuts are. That said, American soldiers are NOT indiscriminately killing anyone. Murtha said this & now three independent investigations & military tribunals have proven the Marines are INNOCENT. One left & he will be vindicated. Enough with the killing innocents thing. Its getting old hat. Its a tired line from an apologist!
Dec 28, 2008 - 5:35 pm 101. cedarford:Israel has a right, like any human being, to defend itself. Any who say otherwise are demonstrating obvious discrimination & bias. Israel tried to hit where Hamas leaders were. America attempts to do the same when & if they must bomb. Terrorists attack anyone & everyone & try to do as much killing & damage as possible.
Thousands of rockets brought almost no comment or response from the Un or European leaders (sic). Yet Israel targets attackers & their leaders & there is an immediate call for a cease fire & peace. There are immediate comments calling Israel’s actions, “disproportionate.” That is pure PC liberal drivel. None of us want to shed blood. However, there comes a time when only the shedding of blood gets an enemy to listen o reason & back off from their despicable attacks on innocent civilians.
Israel aimed, the terrorists did not! Israel was effective by killing over 150 terrorist Hamas people. Even the Palestinians admitted those numbers, unless media people tell them to adjust the numbers to make the attacks look bad on TV! The facts are obvious unless one supports the Palestinian cause with no view toward reason. Palestinians have been dumped by their Muslim brothers. They have not been permitted for over 50 years to become citizens, like any other refugee group in history, to become citizens of the nations their grandchildren are now part of. Most have never known the Palestinian territories. In America we are to legalize those who have been here five years, but in Muslim nations, Palestinians are not allowed to become citizens. Some nations have passed laws to prohibit citizenship of Palestinians. Why?
Spindok – Agree.
There is a faction of ultra-Right Zionists in Israel and ultra-Right Neocons and Fundies here in America, though, that extoll the virtues of ethnic cleansing. They give the Muslims and Euros ammunition.
Dec 28, 2008 - 7:21 pm 102. Dave Surls:“Sure, a call for ethnic cleansing or mass bombing is stupid and reprehensible.”
On the contrary. This is the only way to revenge the deaths of the many Israelis and Americans murdered by Pal terrorists, to put a stop to further murders, and also to halt the never-ending attempts of the Pals to destroy the state of Israel.
Dec 28, 2008 - 7:50 pm 103. Judy, NYC:israel can get rid of hamas, the palestinian authority under abbas can take over in gaza. they can have their state and make it productive and wholly their own, giving their people a future, sans the hate filled madrassas (there can be madrassas that don’t elevate hatred of jews or the west to a suicidal degree – teaching history as normal people understand it, instead of growing psyhotics).
of course, there will be reprisals. but this is it. the arab world has to come to terms with the future instead of being stuck in a medieval swamp. or they’ll drown in crap, without israel’s help. and so will we.
if reprisal comes, they won’t like the response to that. nor will syria, libya, the hezbollah that took over lebanon, and most especially the mad king of persia. this is a war that has to be fought and finished. hamas and hezbollah have to dissolve into molecules. they are much too dangerous to be so close to the world’s shipping lanes, oil, israel, the bomb and macy’s.
every american has as much to lose as every israeli. we cannot continue to be terrorized and focus on being threatened. instead, our nations must be able to return to productivity and prosperity and continue moving forward. israel is the center of the world’s most advanced technology, medicine and science. this is where our paths cross. american innovation will rebound and again we will be the great producers as well. a beacon of light that outshines the darkness.
Dec 28, 2008 - 7:51 pm 104. poul:cedarford,
“There is a faction of ultra-Right Zionists in Israel and ultra-Right Neocons and Fundies here in America, though, that extoll the virtues of ethnic cleansing.”
citation needed, badly.
Dec 28, 2008 - 8:56 pm 105. myth buster:Do not rejoice in the deaths of your enemies, but do rejoice in the fulfillment of justice. Do you want peace? There shall be no peace without unconditional surrender. If I were charged with negotiating with them, I would tell them that we shall offer them nothing, and that we demand their complete and total disarmament and that they turn over all their leaders to stand trial for the following war crimes: deliberately targeting civilians, mistreatment of prisoners of war, use of human shields, and placing offensive weapons inside hospitals and places of worship. Failure to meet these demands will be punished by unrelenting bombing and a total blockade enforced by air patrols and unrestricted submarine warfare. Anyone attempting to enter or leave Gaza or smuggle supplies or weapons in or out will be shot on sight (or torpedoed in the case of ships). Exceptions will be made only for Christian missionaries and the Red Cross, who must enter by sea and be subject to boarding to confirm that they are indeed who they claim to be. We’ll smoke them out and starve them out.
Dec 28, 2008 - 9:10 pm 106. lgkick:Israel turned Gaza into a prison. It stopped humaniterian assistance from entering Gaza. It was Israel who pushed Hamas. Israel has been plannin for this assault for months much before Hamas fired any rockets. The war has just begun. Israelies have tried similar mass killings before. It just doesn’t work. You only turn the public opinion around the world against yourselves. Just get out of occupied territories, end the settlements, and stop killing babies. Otherwise there will always be a couple of gusy with home-made rockets who will make your life miserable and your centuries-old dreams shattered.
Dec 28, 2008 - 9:54 pm 107. Gary Rosen:“TO: cedarford
Show US your evidence supporting your allegation.”
Bwahaha. C-fudd doesn’t have evidence of anything, because he is an ignoramus. He still doesn’t know who the British PM was 1951-55.
Dec 28, 2008 - 11:20 pm 108. Gary Rosen:“There is tight cooperation, and I think we both know that most of that is under the table. I doubt you have a problem with that.”
Oh yes he does. C-fudd calls Gentiles who support Jews and Israel “ball-licking Christian Zionists”. He blubbers over the “heart and courage” of Hezbollah. His views on Jews are most fairly represented by this (see #51):
http://minx.cc/?post=66320
Dec 28, 2008 - 11:25 pm 109. preemptive strikes:America preempted Iraq.
The Russians preempted Georgia.
And now Israel is preempting Hamas (Palestine).
The UN did nothing when American and Russian troops invaded smaller countries.
Why worry about it now?
Israel is only doing what they saw the big boys do.
I said it 10 years ago and I say it again- We already have a New World Order.
The Bible tells all about it-
Dec 29, 2008 - 1:17 am 110. vivo:The strong will take over the weak!
It’s all very simple:
Israel and their enemies will not stop fighting until they kill each other completely.
The idiots are the ones who support one or the other: let them do it alone.
Dec 29, 2008 - 2:27 am 111. poul:lgkick,
“Israel turned Gaza into a prison. It stopped humaniterian assistance from entering Gaza.” – that would be quite impossible because gaza has a border with egypt, and israel doesn’t control it.
why is it that antisemites are always so ignorant? rhetorical question.
Dec 29, 2008 - 4:23 am 112. lgkick:poul,
The egyptian and Saudi governments are accomplices in Israel’s crimes against the gazans. The Palestinians truly have no friends just like the jews did not have any friends 60-70 years ago when they were collectively wiped off in Europe.
It is also interesting how you label whoever that criticizes Israel of Anti-semitism. Don’t you think that trick is not working anymore?
Dec 29, 2008 - 8:44 am 113. Don Kenner:May I just say that it is SO NICE to come here and read the comments of sane people who support Israel and consider toddler-targeting Islamic Nazis worthy of destruction. We are in a minority. Between Baker/Buchanan/Rice on the right and virtually all of the left there very few real supporters of Israel out there.
If only the Jooish Lobby had as much influence as brain-dead nut jobs like cedarford believe it does!
As for Igkick: Israel allowed into Gaza between 3 and 4 thousand tons of aid during December. Jews must be forced to fund, feed, and water their executioners.
Dec 29, 2008 - 9:02 am 114. cedarford:lgkick:
poul,
The egyptian and Saudi governments are accomplices in Israel’s crimes against the gazans. The Palestinians truly have no friends just like the jews did not have any friends 60-70 years ago when they were collectively wiped off in Europe.
To be fair, the Palestinians in Gaza HAVE created a culture of blind hate and opposition that all but mandates that Israel make them even more miserable in Israel’s self-defense and for Egypt to keep them at arms length to avoid compounding their own radicalization problems. At one time, when the Gazans were more reasonable, they had a better standard of living than either Egyptians or West Bankers. No more.
As for KSA, they subsidized Pals for decades then saw Arafat and Fatah turn on a dime and stupidly back Saddam as he invaded Kuwait and threatened the Saudis. Surprise, surprise – the Pals ended up in the Saudi doghouse…and are presently making matters worse yet for themselves with blind opposition to the Prince Abdullah Peace Plan and playing footsie with Iranian Shiites.
Poul – Citations on the Israeli Ultra-Right Zionist’s policy of “Transfer” and it’s endorsement by some American Neocons and some ball-licking Christian Zionists like Rev Hagee? Surely you are just pretending to be stupid.
lgkick – It is also interesting how you label whoever that criticizes Israel of Anti-semitism. Don’t you think that trick is not working anymore?
While vein-popping hatred of Israel is indeed a mask for anti-Semitism, the value of the charge of “anti-Semitism”, like “Racism!” as a debate-ending polemic – is sharply diminished by overuse by people that seek to use either charge as an immunity amulet from all criticism.
So too, the overuse of “Terrorist” by the Jewish Lobby for 40 years to describe and “brand” anyone with the temerity to resist land&water-grabbing Settlers or occupying Israeli forces. In the absence of any peace treaty.
“Native terrorists attacked Israeli forces in Lebanon…”
“In a terrorist attack, Settlers in 3 illegal outposts came under fire from local Palestinian terrorist villagers…”
Overuse of terrorist to describe one’s enemies routinely as such diminishes the force of the charge when complaints are directed at the world community of actual terrorists. Israeli disingenuity on this “who is a terrorist?” matter has cost them diplomatically, as has the Israeli habit of provoking armed resistance through invasions, Settler grabs.
Dec 29, 2008 - 11:30 am 115. poul:lgkick,
“The egyptian and Saudi governments are accomplices in Israel’s crimes against the gazans. ” – the point you’re missing is that israel does not control egypt or its border with gaza, and therefore cannot stop anything entering or leaving gaza.
israelis are closing *their* border with gaza, and they have a full right to do so seeing how much violence is directed toward them over this border.
you’re not merely criticizing israel, you are outright lying, which justifies accusations in antisemitism.
Dec 29, 2008 - 12:08 pm 116. poul:cedarford,
Poul – Citations on the Israeli Ultra-Right Zionist’s policy of “Transfer” – the only people promoting this policy i’ve heard of are advocating a voluntary transfer – i.e. israel pays palestinians to move elsewhere. that is hardly “ethnic cleansing”. and even those people are on the far extreme of the political spectrum, next door to the insane asylum, and number in low tens. presenting them as any kind of force in israeli politics is deceptive.
Dec 29, 2008 - 12:14 pm 117. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: ‘Ethnic’(?) Cleansing??!?!?!?
Interesting. A political group is considered an ‘ethnic’ group?
I wonder if the Democrats will consider people going from their camp to some other political camp ‘ethnic cleansing’. And outlaw it as well.
The Islamofascist Muslims have a program for dealing with people to ‘convert’. Amongst US it’s called murder.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 29, 2008 - 1:42 pm 118. Chuck Pelto:P.S. Heh….
I think it an interesting indicator that cedarford was the first one to use the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ in this thread…..
If cedarford thinks that the elimination of a murderous political organization is ‘ethnic’, then cedarford obviously supports the Nazis, as they were an equally murderous political organization that US shed hundreds of thousands of lives to ‘cleanse’ from the face of this Earth.
[The truth will out....and people like cedarford are not going to like it....]
Dec 29, 2008 - 1:46 pm 119. Kevin:Here is the road map to peace.
Dec 29, 2008 - 8:42 pm 120. Erasmus:1. Kill all the militant Islamic terrorists – bomb them back a few decades to the stone age.
2. Reload.
3. Kill the ones who get up.
4. Reload.
5. Kill the ones who may be twitching.
6. Reload.
7. Peace.
Very, very amusing some of these comments.
For instance “Israel gives the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. The Palestinians give their government to Hamas.”
I always thought that it was the other way round. Israel founded itself on land lived on by these same Palestinians.
Did the UN charter about the right to self-determination not count for the Palestinians?
Did Israel ever make any attempt to compensate the ‘cleansed’ population in these sixty years?
Dec 29, 2008 - 9:17 pm 121. Gary Rosen:“cedarford obviously supports the Nazis”
You nailed it, Chuck. C-fudd has been parroting Pat Buchanan’s latest Nazi apologia, blaming Poland for starting WWII. That’s like blaming Megan’s Law on Megan. But it’s not surprising that they take their ethical cues from NAMBLA.
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:13 am 122. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: The Hamas ‘Rservists’
I see, via Drudge, that Hamas has called up its ‘reservists’.
Does that mean they’re going to start throwing women and children into the fray? If so, then I think it is an excellent idea that the Israeli Defense Force has started their own YouTube-esque system. We’ll be able to see, first hand the what I suspect will be scenes similar to that sequence in Iron Man where Tony Stark in his flashy Gold and Hot-Rod Red ’suit’ encounters some similar gutless wonders using women and children as human shields.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 30, 2008 - 7:30 am 123. Markus:[The Truth will out.....and Cynthia McKinney isn't going to like it.....]
My question is, what is best for my country? Same question I think that is being asked by this guy here:
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/12/gaza-crisis-check-out-the-isra.html
But I suspect a different answer.
Dec 30, 2008 - 5:40 pm 124. Modern solutions:Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted December 16, 2008.
Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.
“This is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality,” I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the U.S. Council for the National Interest Foundation to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. “I am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago.”
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”
Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that “such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”
“It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,” Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. “This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.”
Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
“It is macabre,” Falk said. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”
“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”
The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.
“This is a crime of survival,” Falk said of the rocket attacks. “Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.”
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.
“Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,” Falk said. “They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.”
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/113143&title=Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. His latest book is Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.
Dec 30, 2008 - 6:09 pm 125. david meyer:I am shocked. I am an Israeli. We are not all happy with this further stupid move by our government. The tone of most of the responses here does not even warrant a lengthy discourse because it is evident how ignorant most of you are. You sounds like Muslim terroists yourselves..go look in the bloody mirror, yes bloody because that is how barbaric you sound.
Dec 30, 2008 - 6:37 pm 126. Chuck Pelto:TO: Modern solutions
RE: Heh
Maybe you should read more—of this thread—and violate copyrights a bit less.
Or do you have the authorization to copy and republish Hedge’s article in toto?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Dec 30, 2008 - 6:43 pm 127. Cybergeezer:P.S. The Palestinians have sown the wind. Now they reap the whirlwind.
When the smoke clears in Gaza, who do you think is going to be standing there? Old, helpless Palistinian men, women, and children with healthy militant mullahs and Ahmadinejad ready to parade them in front of their media and the worlds media to promote their suicidal agenda of conquering Western civilization.
Dec 31, 2008 - 9:04 am 128. Seth:This is not really a war; It’s a skirmish. Check the true interpretation of these words. In a REAL WAR, there is a conqueror, and the vanquished. In a real war the vanquished suffer severe destruction and death; What the mullahs and Ahmadinejad are trying to achieve.
The current war is taking place here on the internet by the Islamic media and sympathizers. The intellectually capable shall overcome the intellectually frail or decrepit.
The hate in so many of the comments here is just horrendous. The death and destruction on all sides of this conflict is horrendous. The Israeli government may or may not be doing the right thing – but the reason for taking some action was very real. But any conflict like this, especially one with so many civilians caught in the middle, is horrible – even if it was needed. Denying the humanity of your opponent is not a path to peace, god or happiness.
Jan 3, 2009 - 12:48 pm 129. Paul - Indiana:Re post 120. In 1948 the UN [read, useless nations] defined a Palestinian state alonside the state of Israel.
Jan 5, 2009 - 8:45 am 130. maather zaki ismail:The Pals went to war rather than build a viable state.
dear sir
If we read carefully what the wholly quran said on page 282-283 we will know that the muslems will definitely enter jerusalem especially east jerusalem so this is our destiny,the god create muslems jews and others but who is jugde jerusalem this is the problem that we are fighting for.
Thank you
Jan 10, 2009 - 2:07 am