Comments on: Gaza

By: Liberating - Chicken Yoghurt

Liberating - Chicken Yoghurt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:54:16 +0000

[...] (as Gordon Brown and his UN diplomats can tell you). We need a moral philosopher of the calibre of David Miliband to decipher this for us. Posted on January 7th, 2009 at 10:53 [...]

By: Andrew Adams

Andrew Adams — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:36:22 +0000

I have to say I had high hopes for Blair in his role as Middle East Envoy. I expected that by now both the Israelis and Palestinians would be screaming “Look, we’ll sign any kind of deal you want, just send that fucker back home”.

By: septicisle

septicisle — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:37:17 +0000

This has nothing to do with Hamas and everything to do with Israeli domestic politics. The ending of the ceasefire is simply an excuse for Kadima and the IDF to show that they can still give a pounding to a weakling after being humiliated by Hizbullah. Likud was going to win the elections in six weeks’ time; now the nutjobs that would have voted for war have been given it by Kadima, so they can vote for them instead. This is murderous cynicism, nothing more, nothing less.

By: bb

bb — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:29:00 +0000

According to Daniel Levy, this was:

A disaster was waiting to happen, and no-one was doing much about it. There was of course a date for the end of the ceasefire – December 19th. As that date approached both sides sought to improve their relative positions, to test some new rules of the game. Israel conducted a military operation on November 4th (yes, you had other things on your mind that day), apparently to destroy a tunnel from which an attack on Israel could be launched, Hamas responded with rocket-fire on southern Israeli towns. That initiated a period of intense Israeli-Hamas dialogue, albeit an untraditional one, largely conducted via mutual military jabs, occasional public messaging and back-channels. Again though the main reliance was on Egypt – by now in an intense struggle of its own with Hamas. When Hamas pushed the envelop with over 60 rockets on a single day (December 24th), albeit causing no serious injuries and mostly landing in open fields (probably by design), Israel decided that it was time for an escalation. That happened today – on a massive scale – with an unprecedented death toll.

http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2008/12/what_next_on_gazaisrael_and_wh.html

(via Juan Cole, who is a great source of info, as ever)

Another link from Juan is on Israel’s funding of Hamas as a counterweight to PLO in the 70s onwards,

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10456.htm

By: CP

CP — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:04:10 +0000

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Hamas voted in in US backed elections?

By: Fellow Traveller

Fellow Traveller — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:08:15 +0000

We can only dream of the US President’s plane crashing in the centre of Gaza.

“I don’t give a fuck about your war or your President.”

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:23:48 +0000

In the sense that they voted for Hamas, yes. But I wonder if the election manifesto promised what’s starting to look like suicide by cop on a national scale.

By: Mike Power

Mike Power — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:53:28 +0000

Hamas need to remember that if you’re going to include thousands of people in your insane deathwish by going up against a massively more armed and resourced nation in a fight you can’t win, it’s maybe an idea to consult them first.

They did!

By: richard hannay

richard hannay — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:01:36 +0000

Hmm, let me see now. The Palestinian authority has no air force, no navy, no mobile armour, no submarines, no WMDs …. so you have to ask why the Israelis are so scared of them. It’s like a sadistic father keeping a dog chained up in a cage and encouraging his children to stab it with hot pokers every few days, just for laughs. That’s Gaza today, a cage full of almost defenceless people being bombed and shot from above.