The problem here is that the Israelis (those in power) have no regard for a Palestinians life. We need only go back and review comments by Israeli leaders/Generals, etc. about the value of a Palestinian's life vis a vis an Israelis.
That should give one a clue as to why the "manual's instructions" is not followed. This is a war of extermination albeit, a slow one.
Assume additional risk to minimize potential harm.
There's the rub.
The Israelis use the laser guided bombs and cluster munitions we've provided them to do the opposite. They use them in any and every circumstance to REDUCE the risk to their soldiers. (as does the US.) Thus the only dead members of the IDF in this current engagement occurred at the hands of their own forces using their own advanced weaponry. Harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys from thousands of yards away.
War is a god awful thing. Modern warfare has sanitized it for those who can afford it's instruments. Unleashing death from afar is much more palatable to the citizenry than the idea of their young men fighting hand to hand in back alleys.
I guarantee that if the IDF suffered anywhere near the level of casualties that the Palestinians are suffering the mood of the Israelis toward continued conflict with the Palestinians would be much more sour.
Posted by snark at January 8, 2009 08:10 AMParallax,
I think we need to be careful about imputing such broad mal-intent to Israeli leaders. I have no idea whether they have regard or no regard for Palestinian lives. But, to look at actions taken in response to months of shelling by Hamas and assume that the Israeli leaders don't care about Palestinian lives is a strong statement.
Read Jimmy Carter's op-ed today in the Washington Post. The issue is complex and we need cool heads to figure out what makes sense.
Posted by eriposte at January 8, 2009 08:33 AMSnark,
You raise a good point for debate. The question is this - how would you optimize between the need to save noncombatant lives vs. save the lives of your own citizens/military forces? What amount of "risk" should the military take and why? I'd love to hear some thoughts on this.
Posted by eriposte at January 8, 2009 08:35 AMAll one needs to do is see how the IDF treats Palestinians at check points in the West Bank to understand that there is no equivelancy between the lives of Israelis and Palestinians in the eyes of the Israeli military.
Posted by brisa at January 8, 2009 08:54 AMhow would you optimize between the need to save noncombatant lives vs. save the lives of your own citizens/military forces?
By not resorting to military action in the first place. What has been the cost, in both dollars, lives and fear, to the Israelis over the decades of this conflict? Who would wager that that cost is many times over the cost in dollars and inconvenience that biting the bullet (pardon the expression) years ago and making the sacrifices in land and autonomy that the Palestinians seek would have involved?
What amount of "risk" should the military take and why?
It's completely contrary to the objective of a military force to ask it to operate in a way that would expose it's assets (of any form, human or mechanical) to increased risk of destruction. That's why this can't have a military solution. The only way the military is going to play into this situation is if IDF casualties become unsustainable. And that's never going to happen. Because the opponent can't make that happen on it's own and the IDF is never going to operate in a way that puts their assets at increased risk. They don't need to. They have massive superiority. The only other military possibility is for the IDF to totally break the will of the opponents to continue the fight. How many more decades is that going to take?
Posted by snark at January 8, 2009 09:05 AMDoes it not seem strange that Hamas is targeting only civilians with their rockets and yet no one seems to care? Just recently we learn that "One rocket ripped through a crowded nursing home"
Yet were are these Hamas fighters?
Hamas fighters are hunkered down in homes, mosques, schools and even in hospitals, according to Palestinians who can see them...
The Hamas fighters are nothing but terrorist -- Plain and simple – their goal is to cause terror or terrorize the “Joe Average” person in Israel. They are not after the Israel Soldiers – in fact they hide from them. They should be called Hamas cowards – not fighters.
Maybe, the government of Israel should have a better Proportionality and Discrimination policy….BUT lets be real here when these Hamas cowards hide themselves among children and hospital patients – only to show themselves with the next missile strike
Before scurrying away “back to their hole” behind the “real victims”
I for one am more tolerant of Israel’s policy of getting the job done, even at the cost of additional causalities. Those Palestinians should be turning these Hamas cowards, not allowing them to hide amongst them.
I guess it was only a matter of time before Hezbollah in Lebanon became involved.
And Sadr wants to "resume attacks on American targets inside Iraq..."
Where the hell has Rice been... absent as always! This is the blow-up that bu$h/cheney want before Obama takes office. And everyone laughed at Biden when he predicted that Obama would be tested in the first six months... try WWIII in the first six days!
I cannot believe that Jimmy Carter is the only American politician who has a decent grasp of the situation involving Israel/Gaza-Hamas?
Pretty embarrassing when AIPAC money blatantly rules American politicians?
There's an old saw about how a functional definition of insanity: doing the same damn thing over and over again, but expecting a different result THIS TIME. Seems that applies to both Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel has always applied disproportionate force. Always...at least as long as it has had the capability to do so. The rationale, evidently, is that by doing so, they will scare their opponents so badly that a repeat demonstration will be unnecessary. We all know how well that has worked out.
Hamas, for its part, is evidently led by people who think that firing badly controlled home-made rockets into Israeli territory will scare their opponents so badly that they'll capitulate. Funny how this has not worked out either.
Mutually assured insanity and mutually assured destruction.
Posted by joel dan walls at January 8, 2009 09:59 AMHamas, for its part, is evidently led by people who think that firing badly controlled home-made rockets into Israeli territory will scare their opponents so badly that they'll capitulate.
I think you're incorrect about the affect that Hamas thinks their rockets will have.
Posted by snark at January 8, 2009 10:03 AMI know that there are far more knowledgeable, educated, and intelligent people reading and commenting here on these threads, and I know it's a very complex situation, but that said, all I can say is violence begets violence....for gawds sake please just stop, please just stop! My patience, sympathy, and understanding I had for the far more militarily superior country toward the other has worn very thin right now (after reading about the Red Cross reports and UN actions) ....joe dan walls is correct... it's mutually assured destruction. And I'm not looking to blame one side versus the other...both sides have responsibilities here.
And once again to those living in the region, those suffering, injured, wounded or lost a loved one , I'm sorry that my country has provided many of the bombs and military equipment used in this conflict. I'm sorry my country is just standing by, watching and condoning these actions ...I'm so sorry. We're suppose to be better than this...sigh. War is not the answer.
Posted by emal at January 8, 2009 02:17 PMLook folks, we have worked our asses off for these people. We continue to work our asses off for them. The Israeli's come to the table, give up territory and lose their people along the way. They sign "treaties" and lose more of their people along the way. Sometime the Palestinians need to make an effort other than making more missiles to launch from their back yards.
Israeli's roughly replace their citizens by birth rate. Palestinians triple their people by birth rate, families of six or much more are common place. Palestinians feel by getting their kill rate down where it's been lately(not the current incidents). They're making progress, the kill rates have come down quite dramatically. This fuels their (Hamas) actions and aggressions.
Palestinians need to to do more, make peace for once. Israel gets along with Egyptians and Jordanians. They can make peace with these peoples. Palestinians efforts haven't been there. Stop the rockets and Gaza can have peace.
Quit launching Rockets Dammit!
Palestinians triple their people by birth rate, families of six or much more are common place.
Sounds like conservatives.
Posted by Seven of Six at January 8, 2009 09:01 PMPeter,
I have to say I have no clue what in the world you are talking about.
Israeli's roughly replace their citizens by birth rate. Palestinians triple their people by birth rate, families of six or much more are common place. Palestinians feel by getting their kill rate down where it's been lately(not the current incidents). They're making progress, the kill rates have come down quite dramatically. This fuels their (Hamas) actions and aggressions.
For the record, you can get population stats at the CIA Factbook - for Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As it stands today, the population growth rate of West Bank (2.2%) is only slightly higher than Israel's (1.7%). Likewise, West Bank's birth rate (26) per 1000 population is only slightly higher than Israel's (20). The comparative fertility rates for women are also only slightly different (2.8 in Israel v. 3.3 in West Bank). This, despite the fact that infant mortality in West Bank (16.5) is almost 4 times as high as Israel's (4.3). The Gaza Strip has higher fertility rates (5.2) but this is integrally tied to the fact that the infant mortality rate (19) is ~4.5 times that of Israel's. I suggest you get yourself a bit more schooled on the strong positive correlation between fertility rates and infant mortality rates in developing or poorer nations which are not wealthy or not growing as fast as developed nations. Some historical data for South Asia is here and data for sub-Saharan Africa is here. This is a very classic example of demographic transition. Poorer regions often tend to have higher infant mortality rates (and for that matter lower life expectancies at birth) and higher fertility rates that go with that. As countries or regions get less poor or more wealthy, they tend to slide down the demographic curve. (In fact, for a rich country, I find Israel's fertility rate to be a bit higher than I would have expected given its fairly low infant mortality rate - in comparison, the US has a fertility rate of about 2.1 and an infant mortality rate of ~6.3 deaths/1000 new borns).
So, to your point. No population simply wants to stay in misery and make themselves more miserable by killing another population just because their population is growing fast. These actions are not prompted by such stupendous nonsense - there are fundamental socio-economic reasons driving the vast majority of conflicts. If you want to solve this problem, you can start by focusing on the reality of the economic situation within the Palestinian territories rather than spreading gibberish.
Posted by eriposte at January 8, 2009 10:10 PMKJS,
The fact that Hamas targets civilians is not an excuse for Israel to behave recklessly unless Israel wants to emulate Hamas. If I were Hamas' enemy I would do everything I can to show the world I will not use Hamas as my role model when it comes to war.
Posted by eriposte at January 8, 2009 10:17 PM"I understand that pretty much all conflicts lead to unintended civilian casualties."
With respect, I have to take extreme issue with this, particularly in terms of Israel's actions n Gaza for the last three years at least, and particularly now. In fact, harming the civilian population is entirely intentional, and there are explicit statements that reveal that very clearly. The purpose of the blockade was precisely to adversely affect the civilian population, ditto many of the various bombardments of urban areas, the attacks on fishermen trying to make their living, the destruction of the boats they depend upon for their living, the attacks on farmers who go into their fields to work, and the attacks on children walking to and from school, or playing in the only open areas available to them. All of this is entirely deliberate. It is called, among other things, collective punishment.
"That's an unfortunate consequence of war of any kind."
All the more reason to avoid war of any kind.
"I am even willing to give the Israeli Government the benefit of doubt when they claim they are not deliberately targeting civilians."
Again with respect, and also with considerable anger, how can you doubt, when the Israeli military herded about 100 members of the Samouni family - men, women, children, infants, elderly into a house, and forced them to remain there while they repeatedly shelled the house that they were deliberately targeting civilians? How can ou doubt, when, after committing a massacre, they stand around for five days listening to the cries of the wounded orphaned children doing nothing and refusing access to rescue teams that they are not deliberately targeting civilians? How can you doubt that when they scheduled the very first bomb attacks on December 27 at exactly the time that children would be walking home from school that they were targeting children? How can you doubt that when they bomb neighborhoods at a time when they know families will be sleeping in their beds they are targeting civilians? How can you doubt that when they admittedly target well-marked U.N. schools which they know are serving as shelters for the very people whom they urged to evacuate their homes - schools of which they were given the GPS coordinates - that they are deliberately targeting civilians? How can you doubt when more than one third of those they have murdered are children that they are deliberately targeting civilians? Given the facts, reported even by the deeply biased mainstream media, there is no doubt of which they can be given the benefit.
Posted by Shirin at January 9, 2009 01:09 AM" to look at actions taken in response to months of shelling by Hamas..."
This is directly counter to the facts as reported by the the U.N. and various other entities, including the Israeli Ministry of Defense, .
On June 17 began a six month Egypt-brokered mutual cease fire. During the first week of that cease fire Israel violated it multiple times per day, mainly by firing on fishermen trying to fish, and farmers trying to farm. There were only three incidents of fire from Gaza, one by Islamic Jihad, which is not controlled by Hamas and was not a party to the cease fire, and one by the military wing of Fatah, the party favoured by Israel and the U.S., and one Palestinian source undetermined. Hamas fired no rockets in response to the Israeli violations. I believe I posted a detailed accounting of incidents for that week in an earlier thread, so will not post it again here unless requested to.
After that Israel calmed down, and joined Hamas in keeping the ceasefire for four months. Then on November 4, quite coincidentally, I am sure, while the world was riveted on the U.S. elections, Israel committed a serious violation of the cease fire by attacking deep into Gaza, killing 6 (or possibly 7) Palestinians. In subsequent attacks Israel killed a total of around 25 Palestinians. It was not until this point that Hamas resumed rocket fire. Revealingly, on its own web site Israel's Ministry of Defense describes Hamas' November resumption of rocket fire as retaliatory.
It is also extremely significant that the current Israel assault on Gaza was, as reported in the Israeli media and admitted to by Israel officials, planned in March, months before the cease fire.
And the sequence of events that lead up to the current attack is part of a consistent pattern of Israeli behaviour as shown in this analysis by MIT professor Nancy Kanwisher who used, among other things, statistics available from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Among her findings are that in 75% of the case a pause in violence has been violated by the Israelis, and that the longer the pause has been the higher the probability that the Israelis will be the ones who break it. I strongly encourage people to read Kanwisher's piece. It will certainly change some of your assumptions about the conflict.
Posted by Shirin at January 9, 2009 07:03 AMpp pete thats just more of your GOP fostered racism at work...they use the same line on minorities here...pete get the message...you moronic fools had your chance and blew it big time...now go lay down and STFU
Posted by headxray at January 9, 2009 07:41 AMShirin,
I read the article you posted and assuming the statistics are correct, I don't see any analysis of why Israel might have attacked or killed a Palestinian in the first place. You talk about Israel attacking fisherman and farmers as if they attacked them just for the sake of attacking a bunch of people. With due respect, this is very superficial and only makes it easy to paint one side or the other as extremists. I'd also like to see an analysis of why it was perfectly reasonable for Hamas to forcibly overrun Gaza and kill a bunch of Palestinians (Fatah activists) as well - or does that not matter?
As for the specifics around November 4th - there are other articles available discussing what happened and why. You can choose not to believe Israel, but unless we want to merely advance propaganda from Hamas, we need to take the trouble to go beyond sound-bites about "Palestinians" and "attacks" to see what the triggers were for specific attacks.
Here are a couple of articles discussing what happened on November 4th and beyond and the reasons given by both sides.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225715342045&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081104/israel_gaza_081104/20081104?hub=World
Posted by eriposte at January 9, 2009 07:58 AMShirin,
Another point. Kanwisher's article at the HuffPo is also interesting in that if fails to examine why Israel, despite being hit by a total of 11 rockets (at least) during the ceasefire period never launched an invasion of Gaza. After all, if 8 rockets hit Israel during August and Israel didn't launch an invasion of Gaza as a response, then does Israel get any credit for that or does their non-response prove they are intent on exterminating civilians? This is what I mean by the tendency to use superficial propaganda from one side.
If 11 rockets were not enough to prompt an Israeli invasion, then we can easily ask, why would Hamas unleash a barrage of rocket attacks because Israel launched a very specific operation to destroy a tunnel that Israel claimed was to be used for abducting Israeli soldiers (a claim whose veracity I have no idea about)?
If you really want to advance the state of this issue meaningfully, I suggest you stop simply buying propaganda from either side and stop equating Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians as if they are one and the same. Israelis did not kill a "Palestinian" on Nov 4th - they killed an Islamic Jihad activist as admitted by Palestinian officials. Israelis also did not kill "Palestinians" during the tunnel operation - they killed Hamas militants. You are free to claim that Israel should not have killed those people, but to make it all look like assaults on "Palestinians" doesn't advance the debate.
A final point. To get an Israeli-tilted view of what happened, you can read the other link posted by Kanwisher:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e011.htm
or better still this more detailed PDF:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/hamas_e017.pdf
You will notice that it is not entirely biased against Hamas. It acknowledges Hamas' attempts to maintain the ceasefire and prevent even more radical organizations from violating it - but also provides a bunch of additional background information.
For the record, I don't hold either side blameless in the violation of the ceasefire, but I also don't simply buy propaganda that might conveniently reinforce any biases I might have.
Posted by eriposte at January 9, 2009 08:32 AMEriposte, I have seen your responses, but there was no time today to answer. It was pretty wide-ranging, and full answers to some of the issues you raised would require a fairly lengthy discussion. I will try to prepare an answer over this weekend, and use the short answer whenever possible.
Posted by Shirin at January 10, 2009 12:49 AM“… assuming the statistics are correct, I don't see any analysis of why Israel might have attacked or killed a Palestinian in the first place.”
You are criticizing the author for not including analyses that were beyond the scope of the paper? I shall remember that from now on when reading your blog entries and comments. :o}
The point is that Israel chose to break the cease fire (as it has the overwhelming majority of cease fires) despite the fact that from the start of the cease fire rocket fire from Gaza had plummeted suddenly from an average of about 190 per month to 2.75 per month – nearly a 99% drop, and there had been only a single Palestinian rocket fired during the previous month and four days. Surely those who made the decision to begin major attacks on Gaza under those conditions knew that their action would inevitably bring about a resumption of regular rocketing of southern Israel, therefore they chose that for their citizens.
“You talk about Israel attacking fisherman and farmers as if they attacked them just for the sake of attacking a bunch of people.”
Come on! That is not at all what I said or implied. Please reread what I wrote.
With due respect, this is very superficial and only makes it easy to paint one side or the other as extremists”
Talking down to people is disrespectful, even when you preface it by saying "with all due respect". Mischaracterizing what they have said and then using that as an excuse to talk down to them is even more disrespectful. What I stated was entirely factual.
Israel’s practice of harassing and attacking Palestinian fishermen and in many cases confiscating and/or destroying their boats has been well documented by human rights observers and third party witnesses, including Israeli witnesses, some of whom were on the boats with the fishermen when they were attacked. I can discuss this issue in more detail at some future time if you like.
“I'd also like to see an analysis of why it was perfectly reasonable for Hamas to forcibly overrun Gaza and kill a bunch of Palestinians (Fatah activists) as well - or does that not matter?
The short answer is that Hamas did not “forcibly overrun Gaza” (“interesting” way for you to put it, to say the least). They found out that Fatah was about to stage a coup against them, instigated by and with money and arms supplied by the U.S. and Israel, and they beat them to it. It was a matter of survival.
I am surprised you did not know this – or maybe I am not so surprised, since despite conclusive (and in some cases very public evidence to the contrary, the “received truth” repeated constantly on the media and by U.S. and Israeli P.R. machines remains that “Hamas overthrew the legitimate, democratically elected government and took over Gaza”.
You shall have the analysis you requested. This one is probably the most comprehensive you will find in a mainstream publication.
“As for the specifics around November 4th - there are other articles available discussing what happened and why. You can choose not to believe Israel, but unless we want to merely advance propaganda from Hamas, we need to take the trouble to go beyond sound-bites about "Palestinians" and "attacks" to see what the triggers were for specific attacks.”
How terribly interesting that you assume that I go only by sound bytes. Again, talking down to your interlocutor is rather disrespectful, yes?
I know why Israel SAYS it attacked on November 4th and beyond. And no, I do not find their story credible at all. More importantly, even if true, I do not find it sufficient explanation for the actions they took, knowing full well what the consequences would be for their citizens in southern Israel.
However, it is beside the point how they try to justify breaking the cease fire. The point is that it was very clearly Israel, not Hamas, that broke the cease fire, and did so despite the fact that for 4.5 months Hamas had been keeping the cease fire very well, and doing a creditable job of reining in other groups not parties to the cease fire, and not under their control.
I remind you that the number of rocket attacks had dropped almost 99% on average during the 4.5 months of the cease fire. That must have been a nice break for the shattered nerves of the people of Sderot. And yet, their government chose, among all the options open to it, to take actions that would inevitably lead to a resumption of the rocket fire that, while it is mostly harmless physically, takes a major psychological toll.
And then Israel proceeded to claim that it was Hamas that broke the cease fire – a very, very familiar pattern. Hit him again and again until he hits back, and then cry that he has attacked you. That is the pattern we have all come to recognize.
Unfortunately, the URL you provided to the Jerusalem Post article does not work. As for the CTV article, I wish I had time to analyze it and show the ways in which it creates a misleading impressing by the manner in which it presents the information.
For now I will just point out that Israel chose to make a serious attack deep inside Gaza during a cease fire, killing six or seven Palestinians (not one as the article states), knowing full well that it would cause the terrorization of its citizens to resume. And then, when the Palestinians engaged in defensive actions, Israel cried that it had been attacked. Once again, Israel has a right to defend itself, but Palestinians do not. What else is new?
Posted by Shirin at January 10, 2009 09:35 PMSorry, looks like my link does not work. Try this one
Posted by Shirin at January 10, 2009 09:40 PM“ Kanwisher…fails to examine why Israel, despite being hit by a total of 11 rockets (at least) during the ceasefire period never launched an invasion of Gaza.”
You appear to be fond of criticizing authors for not addressing questions that are beyond the scope of their topic. :o}
“if 8 rockets hit Israel during August and Israel didn't launch an invasion of Gaza as a response, then does Israel get any credit for that or does their non-response prove they are intent on exterminating civilians?”
This question is incoherent, particularly given the gratuitous addition of that incongruous little inflammatory whiny bit at the end. Don’t know why you felt compelled to throw that in there, but I will ignore it even though it trivializes Israel's ongoing slaughter of hundreds of civilians, and try to sort out your question.
Let’s see…
• During the first six months of 2008 an average of around 190 Palestinian rockets hit Israel per month, and Israel did not launch an invasion.
• The cease fire began in mid-June, and in August eight rockets hit Israel, a rather dramatic drop of 96% below the pre-cease fire monthly average, and Israel did not launch an invasion (for the record, one rocket hit Israel in July, a 99.5% drop below the pre-cease fire monthly average).
• During September and October two rockets, one each month, hit Israel, a 99.5% drop below the pre-cease fire monthly average, and Israel rewards this this dramatic, and consistent reduction by making several major attacks deep inside Gaza, killing a total of around 25 Palestinians, including several children, and predictably triggering 126 rocket attacks in November, an increase of 126% above the number of attacks during each of the previous two months. Israel’s own Ministry of Defense describes the resumption of rocket attacks as “retaliation”, thus acknowledging that Israel initiated the hostilities.
• Israel then claims the admittedly retaliatory resumption of rocket attacks constitute Hamas breaking the cease fire, and uses that as an excuse to launch a massive, extremely destructive and deadly bombing and ground invasion of Gaza during which it systematically destroys the civil infrastructure, terrorizes a captive population of 1.5 million human beings, and kills hundreds of Palestinian human beings (close to 800 so far by the official count), more than one third of whom are children, and maims thousands, again more than one third children.
• In the mean time, Israeli citizens in southern Israel, after 4.5 months of being close to 100% free of the nerve-shattering, and occasionally deadly rockets, are once again forced to endure daily attacks.
Yeah, that makes really good logical sense if your goal is to protect your citizens from rockets, and if you are seeking a permanent cessation of hostilities.
“This is what I mean by the tendency to use superficial propaganda from one side.”
For the third time you disrespect me by making demeaning assumptions. Interesting. I have seen people use this as a tactic when they do not feel confident of their argument, but I am sure that is not the case here.
“If 11 rockets were not enough to prompt an Israeli invasion, then we can easily ask, why would Hamas unleash a barrage of rocket attacks because Israel launched a very specific operation to destroy a tunnel that Israel claimed was to be used for abducting Israeli soldiers (a claim whose veracity I have no idea about)? ”
You are asking the wrong question. The eleven rockets fired during the 4.5 months before Israel broke the cease fire was 1% of the number fired during the preceding 4.5 months - a reduction of 99%. If Israel really is interested in protecting its citizens, and if it is really seeking peace, should it not treat this very dramatic and consistent reduction in attacks with the greatest possible care in the hopes of prolonging it, and perhaps even making it permanent? And assuming for the sake of discussion that their unlikely tunnel story is actually true, why would Israel choose to handle it in a manner absolutely guaranteed to result in a disruption of the near total peace and quiet that the people of southern Israel had enjoyed for 4.5 months when there were a number of alternatives that were less likely to provoke retaliation?
And I find it curious that even though you admit you have no idea whether the tunnel story is true, you argue consistently as if it were. My analysis leads to the conclusion that whether it is true or not, the Israeli government made a clear choice to take actions that were guaranteed to provoke a retaliatory resumption of rocket fire, and that if the tunnel story is true, there were less provocative actions that Israel could have taken.
It is late, and I have spent enough time on this for one day, so will defer the rest until later, but one more thing before I sign off.
You have failed to consider a very critical factor. You have not asked how many, if any, of those eleven rockets were actually fired by Hamas. As I am sure you know, there are other “militant” Palestinian groups that are known to fire rockets and mortars at Israel, and those groups were not parties to the cease fire or under the control of Hamas. And, just for the record, one of those groups is the military wing of Fatah, the party of Israel’s and Bush’s very own boy in Ramallah, Mahmoud `Abbas. Hamas did a very creditable job of reining them in, but could not reasonably be expected to prevent any and every action of anyone but their own people. Therefore, they can only truly be held culpable for the rockets they themselves fired. So, out of the eleven rockets that you seem to think Israel is so virtuous for not using as a pretext to invade, how many were Hamas rockets?
Posted by Shirin at January 11, 2009 12:18 AMAfterthought:
In order to have this argument with you I have had to accept your fundamental premise that Israel's attack on Gaza is about rockets. I ought to make it clear that I was accepting your framing of the argument only for the sake of having this discussion. The attack on Gaza is no more about rockets than the 2006 33 day Israeli horror on Lebanon was about two "kidnapped" soldiers*. And almost no one outside the United States, and no competent analyst inside the United States believes that it is about rockets (contrary to your convenient, demeaning assumptions, now and then I pay attention to something other than Hamas propaganda sound bytes). Just wanted to make it clear that I accept your premise only for the sake of argument.
*It just occurred to me to wonder whether you know that Israel has long made a practice of kidnapping Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and holding them hostage to use as "bargaining chips" (one of many Israeli crimes the U.S. has copied in Iraq) - an unequivocal violation of international law. Kind makes their complaints about "kidnapped" soldiers kind of ironic, doesn't it?
Further afterthought:
I occurs to me that if the tunnel story is true, then Israel put protecting at most a tiny handful of their soldiers against a suspected "kidnap" plot above the safety and security of hundreds of thousands of their civilian citizens living in the southern part of the country.
Wait - isn't the military supposed to protect the civilian population against outside threats?
Posted by Shirin at January 11, 2009 02:03 AMShirin,
I don't have time to respond to all of your points but I'll say a few quick things.
First I wasn't "criticizing the author for not including analyses that were beyond the scope of the paper?" - I was pointing out that the analysis does not look at the root causes behind what is considered a cease-fire violation. Unless you look at root causes, it is easy to trivialize the conflict and paint a picture of one side wantonly violating a ceasefire for no reason. If people should work to understand the conflict in more detail, it's going to require more engagement to understand underlying issues that might have caused the violations of ceasefires.
Second, you have a habit of writing things that most people understand in a certain way - as an insinuation - and then claiming that those who read your words are simply misrepresenting you. I'm not going to have a debate with you on this because it is futile.
Third, the reason why I cautioned you against falling for Hamas propaganda is because of the one-sided stuff like this:
If Israel really is interested in protecting its citizens, and if it is really seeking peace, should it not treat this very dramatic and consistent reduction in attacks with the greatest possible care in the hopes of prolonging it, and perhaps even making it permanent? And assuming for the sake of discussion that their unlikely tunnel story is actually true, why would Israel choose to handle it in a manner absolutely guaranteed to result in a disruption of the near total peace and quiet that the people of southern Israel had enjoyed for 4.5 months when there were a number of alternatives that were less likely to provoke retaliation?
I agree that Israel should not have been reckless, but where is your concern that Hamas should not have been reckless and use an incident from Israel to send hundreds of rockets into Israeli civilian areas, especially after Isreal had shown considerable restraint in the prior period?
You also said:
I occurs to me that if the tunnel story is true, then Israel put protecting at most a tiny handful of their soldiers against a suspected "kidnap" plot above the safety and security of hundreds of thousands of their civilian citizens living in the southern part of the country.
Hopefully it will also occur to you at some point that by releasing a barrage of rockets into Israel, "Hamas put protecting at most a tiny handful of their soldiers against an Israeli operation above the safety and security of hundreds of thousands of their civilian citizens and Israeli civilian citizens living in the southern part of the country".
Finally, just so you know, I accept your premises also "just for the sake of argument". And I am sure there will be a lot more debate on this topic but I don't have time to respond to every comment.
Posted by eriposte at January 11, 2009 10:19 AMEriposte, I spend hours of my Saturday composing a coherent response to what were, in some cases, very incoherent questions. I appreciate that you do not have time to discuss my response in detail, but for you to dismiss my analysis for the fifth time as based on "falling for Hamas propaganda" is hardly conducive to a mutually respectful discussion, is it?
Posted by Shirin at January 11, 2009 10:55 AMShirin,
OK, let me start over. If my statement offended you, my apologies. Also, you are making a good faith attempt to marshal facts to support your viewpoint and I applaud your effort even if I don't necessarily agree with all of your viewpoints.
I am perfectly willing to acknowledge Israel's response was reckless and over-the-top. I have said so even in one of my earlier posts. However, the criticism of an over-the-top and reckless response is equally applicable to Hamas and your criticisms appear largely one-sided.
When you claim:
Surely those who made the decision to begin major attacks on Gaza under those conditions knew that their action would inevitably bring about a resumption of regular rocketing of southern Israel, therefore they chose that for their citizens"
...it reflects to me that you are buying into the premise that somehow Hamas had no choice but to retaliate against a relatively small scale assault by the IDF against its militants with hundreds of rockets fired into Israeli's civilian areas. The fact that you believe Israel should always expect Hamas to fire hundreds of rockets on its civilians for even the smallest military action suggests a great willingness to ignore a big part of the reason why that region is a mess.
Posted by eriposte at January 11, 2009 11:20 AMEriposte, I appreciate your apology.
You are still basing your argument on the faulty premise that Israel's devastating two week (and counting) attack on Gaza is about rocket fire. As I said, virtually no one outside the United States believes this, nor does any competent American analyst. It is not an "over the top" response to 126 rockets in November. This attack was planned months before the cease fire began. Hamas provided a pretext by reacting to Israeli provocations, and if Hamas had not provided a pretext Israel would have found one by hook or by crook. That has historically been Israel's SOP as documented since its earliest years, and as admitted to by a number of prominent Israelis, including no less than the hawk Moshe Dayan.
As for your attempt to divert this discussion from Israel's conduct to that of Hamas, it won't work no matter how many demeaning assumptions you make about my superficiality and gullibility to Hamas' propaganda. There are plenty of uber-one-sided (and often less than fact-based) discussions about Hamas' conduct, and very few fact-based, realistic, rational discussions at all of Israel's. Right now we are discussing Israel's conduct.
And I most certainly will not be diverted by your attempts to compel me to prove to you or anyone else that my knowledge and understanding of this episode in particular, and the conflict in general are neither superficial nor based on naively "falling for" anyone's propaganda.
Posted by Shirin at January 11, 2009 11:56 AM