brandymac27 Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I wonder out of the 248 people that were killed how many were associated with Hamas? I can only wonder when people are really gonna see what's going on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 https://twitter.com/AP BREAKING: Israeli military says soldier killed in Gaza ground operation 12:43 AM https://twitter.com/SherineT Israel confirms one soldier has been killed. At least 11 Palestinians also killed on the first night of the ground assault 1:04 AM http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/gaza-and-israel-the-road-to-war-paved-by-the-west.html?smid=tw-share How the West Chose War in Gaza AS Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian “national consensus” government that was formed in early June. That government was created largely because of Hamas’s desperation and isolation. The group’s alliance with Syria and Iran was in shambles. Its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt became a liability after a July 2013 coup replaced an ally, President Mohamed Morsi, with a bitter adversary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas’s coffers dried up as General Sisi closed the tunnels that had brought to Gaza the goods and tax revenues on which it depended. Seeing a region swept by popular protests against leaders who couldn’t provide for their citizens’ basic needs, Hamas opted to give up official control of Gaza rather than risk being overthrown. Despite having won the last elections, in 2006, Hamas decided to transfer formal authority to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. That decision led to a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, on terms set almost entirely by the P.L.O. chairman and Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world. Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel’s interests. It offered Hamas’s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel. Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel’s security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace. Still, despite its opposition to the reconciliation agreement, Israel continued to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf, and to work closely with the new government, especially on security cooperation. But the key issues of paying Gaza’s civil servants and opening the border with Egypt were left to fester. The new government’s ostensible supporters, especially the United States and Europe, could have pushed Egypt to ease border restrictions, thereby demonstrating to Gazans that Hamas rule had been the cause of their isolation and impoverishment. But they did not. Hmmm. Interesting take on the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brandymac27 Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 https://twitter.com/AP all this unnecessary loss of life. Such a shame. May God be with them and their loved ones.When will this end??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistertim Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I wonder out of the 248 people that were killed how many were associated with Hamas? I can only wonder when people are really gonna see what's going on here. According to the logic that Israel has always employed in these circumstances to defend their actions, all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 20 missiles found in UN-run school in Gaza UNRWA apologizes to Israel, condemns a ‘flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises’ and promises investigation; Israel calls on UN to ‘act strongly’ Read more: 20 missiles found in UN-run school in Gaza | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/20-missiles-found-in-un-run-school-in-gaza/#ixzz37p5zPD7K Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Anybody really surprised? (I will observe that I cannot state with confidence that the Israelis didn't plant them there. But I will also observe that, even if I were certain that they weren't planted, it still would not surprise me.) (It sure would be nice if there were somebody over there who I would believe, if he told me something about the place. But other than maybe visionary, I can't think of one.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpyaks3 Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 20 missiles found in UN-run school in Gaza UNRWA apologizes to Israel, condemns a ‘flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises’ and promises investigation; Israel calls on UN to ‘act strongly’ Read more: 20 missiles found in UN-run school in Gaza | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/20-missiles-found-in-un-run-school-in-gaza/#ixzz37p5zPD7K Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook You forgot to add this part of the UNRWA's statement This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza. So lets not act like this is an occurrence that happens often, or lets not use this as justification for Israel bombing schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure. Oh and it was also a vacant school.... So yes its a terrible thing to try and hide weapons in a school (if thats what happened) but it seems like it wasn't a large scale thing as the UNRWA regularly inspects schools and its the first incident of its kind (although it sure isn't the first time Israel has bombed a UN run school). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 forgetfull? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpyaks3 Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 forgetfull? No, I just realize that isolated incidents tend to get used to whitewash bombings of schools, hospitals and other infrastructure and wanted to point out that it was just that a very isolated incident, the first of its kind actually. The fact is that the Goldstone Report and pretty much every other report from someone other than the IDF shows that this isn't a consistent or systemic practice. In case you forgot The Mission, however, found no evidence of Palestinian armed groups placing civilians in areas where attacks were being launched; of engaging in combat in civilian dress; or of using a mosque for military purposes or to shield military activities Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Pretty Interesting Article... Evidently Israeli friends in the US are trying to threaten the US with not accepting our 3.3 billion annual Aid Package.. Somehow thinking if they don't accecpt our aid package then we won't have leverage over them. Problem with that thinking is whether we give them the cash or not, they still us US weapons, and that gives us more responsibility and leverage than most of our most recent presidents have ever been comfortable in using. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/18/some-of-israel-s-top-defenders-say-it-s-time-to-end-u-s-aid.html# Some of Israel’s Top Defenders Say It’s Time to End U.S. Aid Israel’s economy is booming. So why is the United States still giving it $3.1 billion a year? That’s the question on the minds of some of Israel’s biggest supporters in Washington. U.S. taxpayers have provided the Israeli military that invaded Gaza on Thursday night with more than $121 billion since the state’s founding, subsidizing about 25 percent of the tiny country’s annual defense budget in recent years. That subsidy has increased even as Israel’s economy has experienced a growth spurt and the country has discovered stores of natural gas. Indeed, President Obama last year pledged to begin early negotiations to extend the annual military subsidy to Israel for another decade and has sold Israel powerful bunker buster bombs and helped finance the Iron Dome missile defense system that has protected Israelis from Hamas rockets and missiles in the current war. One would think with that kind of record, pro-Israel conservatives would find a rare bit of common ground with a president they have criticized for being hostile to the Jewish state. But at least for some, the military aid is part of the problem. “The experience of the Obama years has sharpened the perception among pro-Israel Americans that aid can cut against Israel by giving presidents with bad ideas more leverage than they would otherwise have,” said Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI). Pollak’s group has been one of Obama’s toughest critics, running television advertisements in 2012 that blamed Obama for dithering as Iran continued to enrich uranium. It goes without saying that ECI is not the sole voice of the pro-Israel community. The emergency committee does not match the influence in Congress of the much larger American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has shown no signs of ending its efforts to push Congress to pass the annual military aid bill. But getting legislators to support aid to Israel in recent years has not required much effort at all. The committee votes are rarely contested and the money for Israel is rolled into the larger bill for foreign aid. For Pollak and others, this is part of the problem. “Aid to Israel is a low bar for politicians to claim they’re pro-Israel, and it’d be better if there were more substantive things one had to do to earn that title,” he said. “And aid provides easy fodder for critics to claim that the alliance is a burden on the United States or that it’s a one-way street of America giving and Israel receiving. All things being equal, why not remove these falsehoods from the debate?” Pollak is not alone. Elliott Abrams—a former deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush and a leading pro-Israel writer and policy analyst—told The Daily Beast, “My view is over time it would be healthy for the relationship if the aid diminished. Israel should be less dependent on American financial assistance and should become the kind of ally that we have in Australia, Canada, or the United Kingdom: an intimate military relationship and alliance, but no military aid.” That is also the view expressed by leading Israeli politicians. Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of economics and the leader of the right-wing Israel Home party, said in 2013, “Today, U.S. military aid is roughly 1 percent of Israel’s economy. I think, generally, we need to free ourselves from it. We have to do it responsibly, since I’m not aware of all the aspects of the budget. I don’t want to say, ‘Let’s just give it up,’ but our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago.” Today Israel is prosperous. In 2000, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $124.9 billion. In 2013, the Israeli GDP was $291.3 billion. And that is before Israel has seen any real revenue from the fields of natural gas it recently discovered. The country has become so prosperous that legislation is now before the country’s Knesset to create a sovereign wealth fund, a state-owned investment vehicle designed to invest the surplus revenue Israel collects from selling its natural gas. “I have heard discussions of a sovereign wealth fund, by which the Israelis mean they want to handle the revenues carefully the way Norway does and not waste them,” Abrams said. “But I do not believe a country that has a sovereign wealth fund can be an aid recipient.” .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Pretty good high level review of where we are in the ME and what's occured over the last 50 years... It deals pretty much entirely from the Israeli side but does give interesting incite to how Clinton, Barak and Arafat were dealing in Camp David back in 1999. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/18/cursed-victory-history-israel-occupied-territories-ahron-bregman-review Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories – review Ahron Bregman's account of nearly five decades of Israeli occupation is hard-hitting and rich in telling details The purpose of Israel's current offensive in the Gaza Strip is to protect the status quo – with itself in control of the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. In 2005, it carried out a unilateral disengagement from Gaza, but under international law it is still the occupying power because it controls access by land, sea and air. In 2007 Israel imposed an economic blockade, cutting the Gaza Strip off from the West Bank and from the rest of the world. A blockade is a form of collective punishment proscribed by international law. The death toll is a grim reflection of the asymmetry of the conflict. In the past fortnight, the Palestinians have suffered over 220 fatalities, 80% of whom were civilians; in Israel, only one man was killed by a rocket fired from Gaza. Israel claims that its assault is an act of self-defence to put an end to the Hamas rocket attacks against its civilians. Hamas claims it is engaged in legitimate resistance to Israel's military occupation. The chain of action and reaction is endless. But the underlying cause of the violence is Israeli colonialism. Israel's spectacular victory in the June 1967 war was followed by an occupation of Arab lands that was supposed to be temporary but which, with the exception of the Sinai Peninsula, is now well into its fifth decade. For the Palestinians, Israel's coercive rule has been a catastrophe at every level and a tragic sequel to the bigger catastrophe, the Nakba in Arabic, of 1948. But as the title of this new book suggests, the victory has also been a curse for the victors: it has transformed a small, united and predominantly socialist society into a colonial empire. Gershom Gorenberg called his book on the birth of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the first decade after the guns fell silent The Accidental Empire. Israel's postwar policy was indeed muddled, but the end result was one of the most prolonged military occupations of modern times. Within its original borders, Israel had been a democracy, however flawed. Greater Israel, on the other hand, is an ethnocracy, a country in which one ethnic group rules over another. There is another word to describe this situation, a word Israelis do not like to hear: apartheid. Ahron Bregman is an Israeli scholar with impeccable liberal credentials who teaches in the department of war studies at King's College London. He served in the Israeli army for six years, but left Israel because of the occupation and because of the military's violent suppression of the first intifada. He is the author of four books on Israel and its conflict with the Arabs. Two of these – The Fifty Years War and Elusive Peace – accompanied BBC television series that drew on in-depth and remarkably candid interviews with key players from Israel, the Arab world and the US. Full use is made of that earlier oral history in the present book; it is supplemented by additional interviews. Bregman has also enjoyed unparalleled access to high-level sources that enabled him to quote directly from top‑secret memos, letters, and intelligence reports that are unlikely ever to be made public. These include information obtained by Israeli agents from tapping the phones of President Bill Clinton, Syrian diplomats and Palestinian negotiators. There is also a top‑secret memo from the Shabak, Israel's general security service, suggesting that a dead Yasser Arafat would benefit Israel. In Bregman's reading, the zigzags in Israel's approach to the occupied territories resulted from two opposing impulses. On the one hand, there was the de facto annexation of the conquered lands by constructing large-scale Jewish settlements and an elaborate infrastructure to serve them. On the other hand, there was the occasional desire to trade land for peace, at least in relation to some of the territories. Israeli governments sometimes pursued both objectives simultaneously. From today's perspective, however, it is obvious that the appetite for land is far more powerful than the thirst for peace. Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, personifies the triumph of land-grabbing over peace-making. Bregman's account of the conflict born of the cursed victory is intelligent, informative and rich in telling details. His primary focus is on Israel; on the Palestinian side of this tragic story he is less well-informed. But he does deploy first-hand testimonies to show what it is like to be at the receiving end of the occupation with its trigger-happy soldiers, torture of Arab prisoners, systematic abuse of human rights, curfews and blockades. He also notes that a major feature of the occupation is the recruitment of an army of informers and collaborators as well as the insidious effect of this practice on Palestinian society. He is at his best when dealing with the diplomacy surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially in 1999-2000 when Ehud Barak was prime minister. Barak was a former chief of staff, and his country's most highly decorated soldier, but he was no diplomat. In a curious inversion of Clausewitz's famous dictum, he regarded diplomacy as the pursuit of war by other means. For Barak, Syria was a major military threat to Israel whereas the Palestinians were not. By making peace with Syria, Barak hoped to change the entire strategic landscape of the region and to leave the Palestinian Authority so weak and isolated that it would have no alternative but to accept his paltry terms. A peace deal with Syria was indeed possible but it carried a price tag: complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines, which left the Syrians with access to the north-eastern shore of Lake Tiberias. A meeting between Barak and the Syrian foreign minister under American patronage at Shepherdstown, in January 2000, collapsed when Barak refused to pay that price. Despite this failure, Barak persuaded Clinton to do his bidding at a make-or-break summit with President Hafez al-Assad in Geneva two months later. It was a fool's errand. Once again Barak got cold feet, fearing the electoral consequences of withdrawal from the Golan Heights. On the morning of the meeting, he gave Clinton a script that insisted on Israeli sovereignty over a 400-metre-wide strip of land between Syria and the lake. So the summit was doomed before it even started and themuch-vaunted breakthrough turned into a spectacular setback. Clinton discovered to his cost that there was no sweet-talking Hafez al-Assad. Having implicated the US president in two entirely predictable failures on the Syrian track, Barak belatedly and grudgingly turned his attention to the Palestinian track, to "the other woman". Once again, he prevailed on the US president to embark on a make-or-break summit, and once again the president tended to behave not as an honest broker but as Israel's lawyer. Arafat warned Clinton that the positions of the two sides were too far apart, that more time was needed to prepare the ground, and that failure at the top would make matters worse. Clinton urged Arafat to come anyway and promised that, in the event of failure, there would be no finger-pointing. The summit convened at Camp David on 11 July 2000; it lasted 14 days. Honouring a secret pledge, the American peace processors did not present to the Palestinian delegation any papers without consulting the Israelis first. The first American paper tabled at Camp David had Israel's fingerprints all over it and only served to confirm Arafat's suspicion that the whole summit was an Israeli-American ruse to trap him. His suspicions were not eased by Barak's refusal to meet with him face-to-face to negotiate over the "final status" issues: borders, security, the right of return of the 1948 refugees, and Jerusalem. The sticking point was Jerusalem. Arafat insisted, as he had done all along, on Palestinian sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) in the Old City of Jerusalem. Barak's rejection of Palestinian sovereignty over the Muslim Noble Sanctuary sealed the fate of the summit. Violating his pledge to Arafat, Clinton immediately blamed him for the failure. Although Arafat contributed to the diplomatic deadlock by his aggressively passive posture, the additional evidence unearthed by Bregman confirms the view I have long held – that the two principal reasons for the collapse of the summit were Barak's intransigence and Clinton's mismanagement. In the heady days after the resounding victory in the six-day war, Israel's spokesmen used to boast that theirs was a liberal occupation. But a liberal occupation is a contradiction in terms, like a quadrilateral triangle. The occupation turned Israel into a colonial power and colonialism has the habit of brutalising not only the occupied but the occupier as well. Some colonial powers, such as the British in India and the French in the Levant, learned the value of building schools and providing other amenities for the colonised. Israel, by contrast, never really thought it had any duty to protect the people under its rule or to improve the quality of their lives. Bregman describes Israel as "a heavy‑handed and brutal occupier". He regards the four decades of occupation chronicled in this book as a black mark on Israeli, and indeed, Jewish history. He finds it depressing that a people that has suffered such unspeakable tragedies of its own can behave so cruelly towards another. The only sign of hope in this otherwise bleak picture is that the occupation may carry within it the seeds of its own demise. By forcing the Palestinians to live in squalor, Bregman concludes, Israel has "hardened those under its power, making them more determined to put an end to the occupation, by violent means if necessary, and live a life of dignity and freedom". 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visionary Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 https://twitter.com/kristenchick I'm sitting with a colleague who has the rocket siren app for Israel. His phone keeps going off and the booms keep echoing here. 2:38 PM Huge airstrike just now now really really near my hotel. Hurt my ears, broke glass. gaza 2:44 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Contemplating the mental image that there's a rocket siren app for Israel. (And is he saying that there's rockets hitting Israel?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 It's a female reporter in a hotel in gaza. I guess a colleague there has an app telling him when sirens go off in Israel to warn of incoming rockets. The airstrike though is in gaza. The Israeli army has been hitting some hotels and nearby areas where journalists are. In other news :http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/diana-magnay-cnn-pulled-israel CNN Pulls Reporter From Israel-Hamas Coverage Over 'Scum' Tweet CNN correspondent Diana Magnay hasn't tweeted since Thursday, when she referred to a group of Israelis who cheered the bombing of Gaza as "scum." And on Friday, the cable news channel said she's no longer covering the conflict. Magnay wrote the tweet shortly after she filmed a live shot from a hill near the Israel-Gaza border. During Magnay's report, cheers could be heard off-camera as a missile descended upon the Gaza Strip. "And it is an astonishing, macabre and awful thing really to watch this display of fire in the air," she said. Not long after that on-air report, Magnay sent the tweet before deleting it a short time later. A screenshot of the tweet can be viewed at Mediaite. "Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to 'destroy our car if I say a word wrong'. Scum," she wrote. A spokesperson for CNN said in a statement to the Huffington Post's Michael Calderone that Magnay has been removed from covering the conflict. She has been re-assigned to Moscow. The spokeswoman said that although the reporter regrets the language, she said Magnay felt threatened by the group that had gathered to watch the Israeli bombardment. "After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” the spokeswoman said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I would say that she had sufficient support for her statement, to present it as fact. IMO, reporters should have to back up what they say. (It's kinda their job.) But, if they can, . . . . There's a whole comedy exchange at the begining of one of Greggory MacDonald's Fletch books, where Fletch's editor is going through all the various departments Fletch has been assigned to, at the paper, and how he has done something outrageous at every one of them. And Fletch is responding to every one of them by pointing out that he successfully established that every one of them is true. One of his first assignments was supposedly writing headlines. Where Fletch created "Doctor Saves Life In Accident" And one of them had Fletch writing wedding announcements. Editor points out that this ought to be an assignment where nobody can mess up, since all you're doing is publishing things that the wedding party tells you. In fact, you're writing about something that hasn't even happened yet, and people understand may not happen. So, what does Fletch do? "Bob and Lisa Something, first cousins, were married Tuesday in a ceremony restricted to family" Fletch: True! Absolutely true! They told me! Editor: They told you they were first cousins? Fletch: I commented that they both had the same last name. And they told me that their fathers were brothers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Contemplating the mental image that there's a rocket siren app for Israel. (And is he saying that there's rockets hitting Israel?) of course there is rockets hitting Israel,and yes they do have a app for that http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/world/meast/mideast-israel-rocket-app/ For security reasons, the developers won't say how they get their notifications of rockets being launched. But they tell CNN the time delay is less than a second of when the audible sirens are sounded. At one point Tuesday, a rocket was being launched every six minutes. Life in Gaza: Search for safety, or wait for destiny Once the app is downloaded, users can select which Israeli cities for which they want to get alerts. Most users select "all areas." Israeli officials and the Israel Defense Forces have publicly supported the app, and encourage people to download it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/business/media/nbc-correspondent-ayman-mohyeldin-is-returned-to-gaza.html?_r=1&referrer= NBC Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin Is Returned to Gaza Only days after NBC removed him from its coverage of the fighting in Gaza, the correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin will be reinstated and sent back into the region, the network said Friday evening. The decision to pull Mr. Mohyeldin off the story, after he witnessed an Israeli air attack that killed four young Palestinians and then posted remarks on Twitter about it, prompted a round of questions, and much criticism of NBC among Internet commenters. Some accused the network of reacting to pressure from the Israeli side of the conflict. Mr. Mohyeldin is an Egyptian-American who previously worked for the cable news channel Al Jazeera English. Other commenters speculated that NBC might have felt that Mr. Mohyeldin showed too much empathy in his social media comments. At one point he wrote, “just spent 45 min see family relative after relative learn that their children have been killed in #Israeli shelling of #Gaza port #horror.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s0crates Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I'm happy to see public opinion these days shows greater sympathy for the poor people in Gaza. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Section106 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I just don't understand why Hamas keeps firing rockets. Israel will continue to defend itself. They have the support of the US and have our weapons systems. It ain't like Israel is going to run out of bullets. If Hamas really cared about the people of Gaza they would stop the rocket attacks and sit down to negotiate the Egyptian brokered ceasefire. I think they want to destroy Israel more than they want to protect their people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 I just don't understand why Hamas keeps firing rockets. Israel will continue to defend itself. They have the support of the US and have our weapons systems. It ain't like Israel is going to run out of bullets. If Hamas really cared about the people of Gaza they would stop the rocket attacks and sit down to negotiate the Egyptian brokered ceasefire. I think they want to destroy Israel more than they want to protect their people. The ceasefire was pretty useless and obviously set up horribly (going by the various articles about it so far) It wouldn't have lasted or accomplished anything, nor was it handled well by those who brought it to them. I don't really get the rockets either, but I assume it's either about getting some measure of retaliatory satisfaction to make them feel like they aren't powerless, or to try to waste a lot of Israeli resources and annoy them enough to give in on some demands that the people in Gaza have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Section106 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 The ceasefire was pretty useless and obviously set up horribly (going by the various articles about it so far) It wouldn't have lasted or accomplished anything, nor was it handled well by those who brought it to them. I don't really get the rockets either, but I assume it's either about getting some measure of retaliatory satisfaction to make them feel like they aren't powerless, or to try to waste a lot of Israeli resources and annoy them enough to give in on some demands that the people in Gaza have. Or it could be that Hamas wants to force Israel to defend itself and therefore kill more innocents in the process. Thereby further raising the pressure from the International community on Israel to cave on all Hamas demands. I was watching "All In with Chris Hayes" and he interviewed the spokesman for Israel's PM. I know very little about the recent history of the conflict so I will assume that his facts are correct. He stated that Israel withdrew from Gaza, removed all the settlements, and reopened trade. And that it was Hamas who started firing rockets again. Chris Hayes didn't challenge him on it so if this is correct then I can't understand why anyone is really blaming Israel. It seems to me that Hamas is willfully placing innocent people in harm's way. The fact that they can't shoot straight shouldn't cloud the fact that they are ultimately responsible for this round of reprisals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Israel has continually been building more and more settlements, not removing them. They've also been displacing Palestinians and destroying their trees and houses to make way for their own settlers. That isn't to say I like Hamas or think they're ethical, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koala Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 It's a female reporter in a hotel in gaza. I guess a colleague there has an app telling him when sirens go off in Israel to warn of incoming rockets. The airstrike though is in gaza. The Israeli army has been hitting some hotels and nearby areas where journalists are. In other news :http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/diana-magnay-cnn-pulled-israel I don't get it. The commented was directed at those who had threatened to burn her car. Have things really gotten to the point that American reporters can't even describe israeli **** as smelling like ****? Sad really what we've let hapen to our press... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/mena/556448-gaza-toll-passes-300-as-uns-ban-heads-to-region Gaza toll passes 300 as UN's Ban heads to region Fresh Israeli air strikes killed 11 people in Gaza on Saturday, hiking the death toll above 300 as UN chief Ban Ki-moon headed to the region to bolster truce efforts. The new peace push came as Israel's campaign against the besieged Palestinian territory entered day 12 in the bloodiest conflict for several years, and the Jewish state stood poised to intensify a ground operation inside the Strip. US President Barack Obama has supported Israel's right to defend itself against Gaza rocket fire, but urged it to work harder to avoid innocent deaths in an operation with a high civilian toll, including many women and children. In the face of Israel's land, sea and air offensive, Islamist movement Hamas, which is the main power in Gaza, has remained defiant as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas traveled to Egypt and Turkey for truce talks. An early morning air strike outside a mosque in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed seven people on Saturday, including a woman, emergency services spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said. Other raids shortly afterwards killed another four, bringing the total death toll to 307 Palestinians and two Israelis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpyaks3 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Or it could be that Hamas wants to force Israel to defend itself and therefore kill more innocents in the process. Thereby further raising the pressure from the International community on Israel to cave on all Hamas demands. Or you could blame the side that is killing innocents rather than throwing all the blame on the side resisting occupation.Also Israel isn't defending anything. They are the occupying power, they are the ones colonizing, they are the ones that set up the blockade of Gaza. I was watching "All In with Chris Hayes" and he interviewed the spokesman for Israel's PM. I know very little about the recent history of the conflict so I will assume that his facts are correct. He stated that Israel withdrew from Gaza, removed all the settlements, and reopened trade. And that it was Hamas who started firing rockets again. Chris Hayes didn't challenge him on it so if this is correct then I can't understand why anyone is really blaming Israel. It seems to me that Hamas is willfully placing innocent people in harm's way. The fact that they can't shoot straight shouldn't cloud the fact that they are ultimately responsible for this round of reprisals.How are they responsible for Israeli attacks? Once again you try to remove all blame from Israel and place it all on the victims. Yes they withdrew from Gaza but they implemented a blockade shortly after Hamas won elections. They also continued to restrict movement and colonize the West Bank. That is the root of the conflict. The rockets and the resistance are just reactions to that oppression.Also surprised there isn't more discussion of Israel's refusal to even discuss the 10 year truce that Hamas offered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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