Why the Israeli people have finally had enough

So, it's genocide now, is it? Or is it actually another holocaust, something which one typically restrained Palestinian analyst described as "worse than Hitler's war against the Jews"? Are we watching the ethnic cleansing of an entire people? Are we witnessing the deliberate eradication of a race?

Well, no actually, we're not.

Yet the conventional dinner party wisdom which we've had to put up with in the media, both here in Ireland and generally across Britain, is that somehow Israel is the aggressor in the rapidly worsening situation in Gaza.

Footage of air strikes with the ensuing photogenic explosions and dramatic plumes of smoke, quickly followed by clips of collapsed buildings and enraged mourners, makes far better copy than actually looking at the reasons why Israel has done what it's done.

Anyone who devotes only a cursory glance at the news, both print and television, would be forgiven for thinking that, out of spite, might and malice, Israel has decided to destroy the Palestinian people.

The problem with that conclusion -- and it's not something you're going to learn from the BBC and most other outlets -- is that, contrary to the currently popular belief, Israel is actually acting with a ridiculous degree of restraint.

Over the last couple of years, thousands of rockets have been landing on Israeli soil and, finally, they have had enough.

But behind that statistic there is a human dimension which tends to be rather ignored.

I know many people in the southern Israeli town of Sderot and what is remarkable about their stories is not the number or make of rockets which have fallen on them on a daily basis for years, but the psychological carnage this wreaked upon them.

One woman freely admitted to me that she hasn't had a proper night's sleep in more than two years as she and her family now basically live in their bomb shelter and it's hard to tell who she hates more -- the Muslim terrorists of Hamas or the Israeli government which she thinks has abandoned them.

It's a common feeling amongst residents of southern Israeli towns who have been the silent victims of a long campaign of violence, intimidation and murder carried out by Hamas. And now, finally, that the Israelis have said that enough is enough, they are somehow meant to be the aggressors?

There are people of good conscience on both sides of this argument, but one of the main problems in this debate lies in the cowardly tendency of the Western media to apply equivalence to both sides.

Thus, Hamas is seen to be as legitimate a government as the Israelis, and its rocket attacks across the border from Gaza are seen as being part of a yet another, intractable, interminable Middle Eastern dispute.

There's just one problem with that approach -- it's completely wrong.

Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation intent on the eradication of the state of Israel and all its citizens; a violent fascist regime that allows honour killings and the execution of homosexuals to continue in its sphere of influence. Bankrolled by Iran, it manages to make even Hezbollah look like a moderate organisation.

But Hamas is clever.

As a friend of mine from Sderot pointed out, one of its favourite tactics is to launch Qassams from Palestinian schoolyards -- while the schools are still in session.

Hamas does this, you see, knowing that the IDF can't immediately strike back (they can vector a rocket launch site within 90 seconds) because the last thing the Israelis need is footage of a devastated Palestinian school with dead kids.

And, over the last week, we have seen carefully manipulated footage of dead civilians, with the fact that they were effectively used as human shields conveniently ignored. When Israel pulled out of Gaza -- ironically, the last battalion of IDF troops to leave Gaza contained some people from Sderot -- they were acceding to international and internal pressure. The doves on the Left said it was to prove to Palestinians that they wanted to give Palestinians independence, the hawks on the Right -- and there are some truly scary right-wingers in Israel, even as ardent a supporter of the country as I am will freely admit that -- prophesied that it would lead to carnage.

And, lo and behold, virtually as soon as the last jeep left Gaza the rockets started. And then the blockade began, and the whole damn mess started all over again.

"artificial distinction between fighters and civilians"
Wow. go to the holocaust museum sometime

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK -- When Usama Abu Nahel looks at the conflict in Gaza he feels nothing but contempt. He is one of the people who hate Hamas more than the Israelis do. It was 19 months ago when Mr. Abu Nahel, then 25 and a member of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Gaza, was dragged from his house by a group of Hamas militants, taken to one of their warehouses and "kneecapped." He was shot 30 times in the left leg, doctors said; then in the right leg six times. "As I lay on the ground in agony, they ran over me in their jeep," he recalls. He'd like to spit as he says this, but not in the neat room he keeps in a house for victims such as him in Ramallah. ..... "Hamas works for Iran. They brought us back to the Stone Age," says Mohammed Abu Zakari, 48, who lost one of his legs after a Hamas shooting in the civil conflict. He has left his wife and 12 of his 13 children behind in Gaza. His 13th child, 19-year-old Ahmed, is with him, another Hamas victim whose ankle has been reconstructed. "I'm happy to see them eradicated," he said, blaming Hamas for the carnage and destruction now taking place in Gaza. Mahmoud as-Shatat, 23, a former student leader for Fatah, agrees. "Hamas consider us infidels," he said. "They brutalized us, their own people. I have no sympathy for them." And what of the pictures on TV showing the ordinary people of Gaza being shelled? "Hamas shoots from between houses," Mr. as-Shatat said. "They hope Israel will fire at them and kill some civilians." An uneasy quiet then settled over the room. Mr. Abu Nahel broke the silence: "I want those who shot me to die," he said. "But those are our families being shelled," including the fiancée he left behind in Gaza City. "It's more important now that Israel stop the shooting."

I should also point out that Leftist Israeli author Amos Oz, "progressive", "peace lover", member of MERETZ, supporter of Oslo, anti-settler, etc, etc, also said that HAMAS wants there to be as many civilian casualties as possible on their side.

Indeed, whoever thinks that Hamas' sensibilities are similar to Western ones should ask himself some hard questions. Such as: Why don't the Arab residents of the Gaza strip set up protest demonstrations against the Hamas "government"? What? Are they afraid of being murdered by their own leaders? Hmmmm.... That doesn't jive with Western sensibilities. Or what happened to all the money sent by the international community to the Palestinians to help them develop their state-in-process? Was it used to pay Egypt or Iran for weapons? Or socked in a Swiss bank account? Hmmmm.... Where is the financial accountability that exists in Western countries? Or how about this one: Why does Hamas train their children to become suicide bombers? Hmmmm.... You mean there are no laws protecting the rights of children? Western civilizations provide basic rights for their citizens while the Hamas government feels they can do whatever they want with theirs. They want to be a state? They first have to provide their own people with rights, just like the Founding Fathers did in the U.S. when the American government was first set up. Until then, as a person who supports human rights, I have to say that it is the Palestinian government who are acting as uncivilized barbarians, and I don't see much hope in their setting up a "democratic" state.

Regarding the myth that has been repeated recently here at TPM that says "Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth", well, here are the facts:

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According to the US Census Bureau's 2008 Statistical Abstract, Gaza is less densely populated than Gibraltar, Singapore, Hong Kong, Monaco and Macau. In fact, Macau (population 453,000) is four times more densely populated(42,271 per square mile) than Gaza (10,665 per square mile). Area Population Density (persons/sq. mile) Gaza 8666District of Columbia 9176Gibraltar 11,990Singapore 17,751Hong Kong 17,833Monaco 41,608Macau 71,466Cairo 82,893Calcutta 108,005Manila 113,810 Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2004-2005, Tables 18 and 1321; Demographia -- Population Density: Selected International Urban Areas and Components

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It is important to note that many of these densely populated places are quite prosperous. If only the Gazans had turned their attention to working on that aspect of their society as opposed to firing rockets at Israel....

What Israel is doing is a classic example of how to go about making, and increasing the number of, enemies for a lifetime.

Attacks on Israel does the same thing, as does our attacking in Iraq.

You cannot intentionally or unintentionally, kill innocent non combatants and get away with it.

More pity from the jailer with the key.
Just open the gates. You'll feel better.

Frank went further in an interview with New England Cable News, and I’m excerpting his remarks at length not only because they are a brilliant distillation of the situation (and of the nuttiness of J Street’s prescriptions), but because they sound not altogether different from the “neocon Likudniks” J Street and its capitulationist supporters frequently malign. Reporter: …I want to talk, first about the situation in the Middle East, a happening situation right now. It continues to develop. Three hundred more people dead as a result of Israel [pause] sending in, ah, air attacks into the Gaza strip. …[Livni clip]…Now we’ve heard the President of the United States, George Bush, call on Hamas to stop its attacks before any kind of process can begin here. What’s your impression of what’s going on over there, and what needs to be done? Rep. Frank: Well, I essentially agree with that. It’s a terrible thing to have happen but I think Americans ought to think about this frankly, as analogous to what we did in Afghanistan… But Congress voted with only one dissent in the House and none in the Senate to go to war with Afghanistan and what we did in Afghanistan is analogous to what Israel is doing in Gaza, namely, responding to that area where people were attacking us. America went to Afghanistan because Osama Bin Laden had been murdering people from Afghanistan, attacking America. We said to the Afghan government, “Give him up.” They refused. I then voted to go to war… Israel under Ariel Sharon, a great hawk, withdrew unilaterally from Gaza and said lets have some negotiations. People then took over in Gaza who say they shouldn’t be in Israel and who said we have a right to attack it whenever we want to and who in fact had been firing rockets into Israel. And I don’t think frankly if this had been Mexico or Ontario, firing rockets into America, that we would have sat back. Now I think that’s unfortunate. I do think Israel should be accompanying this by making clear that it’s ready to make peace. They should be at this point even more dismantling settlements in the West Bank where they have a more reasonable group of Palestinians to deal with. Reporter: Do you think that will come? Rep. Frank: I hope it will…But, ah, here’s a country, and remember that had been at truce and Hamas said, “no more truce,” and began to fire rockets into Israel. I don’t think America would sit back and not retaliate and they did; look, unfortunately in war, not unfortunately, tragically some civilians get killed. Israel does seem to have done a better job here frankly then we’ve done in Afghanistan in targeting combatants. They were aiming at the people who were firing the rockets and providing the physical security for the rocketeers.” Frank draws a direct analogy between the near-universal support among Americans for the war against the Taliban and Israel’s current operation against Hamas. That would make J Street the Barbara Lee of American Jewish politics. As I wondered about Schiff and Wexler, why did Frank accept the endorsement of this organization, and why has he not renounced its support? The only way that the J Street crowd can believe its pretension of representing the “broad, sensible mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews and their allies,” as Jeremy Ben-Ami once had the gall to claim, is by lying to themselves. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Wow. It's always the Holocaust, isn't it? Why not Darfur or the Congo?

I was speaking specifically about nations or societies in which civilians directly support military action, either through the ballot box or through economic activity, such as manufacturing munitions, providing food and uniforms, etc.

The Holocaust analogy seems to me deeply flawed because the Jews were not a nation or a society in the way Hamas-led Gaza is; they were citizens of different states, with no connection other than a religion or shared ancestry. If The Protocols of the Elders of Zion had been true, and the majority of European Jews actually supported a vast conspiracy to undermine and destroy Christian Europe, then I suppose Hitler's genocide would have been at least partially justifiable. If Palestinians in the West Bank massacred a large number of Messianic settler nutjobs, I think they would be largely justified, except in the case of the children. My argument is similar to that made by Hamas in justifying its attacks on Israeli "civilians," most of whom serve in the Israeli military at some point and remain in the reserves, and who have benefited from Palestinian oppression economically, and who regularly elect hawkish politicians who represent their views.