gazans responsible for israel killing gazans
Posted on | December 28, 2008 |
Israel begins to bomb the hell out of Gaza. Their defense minister says Isreal is preparing for a ground incursion and will not stop. The death toll is climbing quickly and the victims are mostly civilian–this is an incredibly densely populated area–it is a verifiable massacre.
And, who is responsible? The colonizing government bombing Gaza? That government that barricades the Strip and prevents UN aid, medical help and food from entering? Or, the people who are now being bombed and starved by said government?
Of course the answer is the victims. According to the demented logic of the US government the victims are to blame. Gordon Johndroe “laid the blame for deaths on the Palestinian groups that controls the impoverished territory.” (Al Jazeera)Johndroe is referring to Hamas. “If Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel, then Israel would not have a need for strikes in Gaza,” he told reporters. “What we’ve got to see is Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel.”
This is classic US repeating the propaganda and twisted rationale of the Israeli establishment.
It is sick. The U.S. blames the people of Gaza for Israel killing the people of Gaza. Held in defacto internment camps, slums without access to basic necesities and colonized and bombed by the Israeli government, Hamas responds by ending the ceasefire. No surprise there.
Israel of course, will or does accuss Hamas of using the six-month ceasefire to stockpile weapons, regroup and train. Yes, it would only make sense that they would do that, but it is also true that Israel has more firepower than Hamas could ever hope to amass. Tanks, fighter planes, bomber, submarines, battleships, assorted weapons purchased or gifted from the US, and nuclear weapons against some rockets. The disparity of power is incredible.
The victim is blamed for being the victim. Hamas, of course, has blood on its hands.
For some reasons why this might be occurring (despite some really badly reporting in the beginning that rationalizes Israel’s murderous activity–most of the dead are not policeman see Al Jazeera. Israel bombed a police station, but that is not a military taget and I saw the videos of people bleeding the street) check out this BBC article.
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3 Responses to “gazans responsible for israel killing gazans”
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December 31st, 2008 @ 11:06 am
Wasn’t there a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel that was due to run out soon, Hamas unilaterally ended the ceasefire, began launching rocket attacks on Israel, and Israel has responded in the way they always do- with overwhelming force.
Not condoning anything, but if your democratically elected government decides to break a ceasefire with your vastly superior neighbor by launching rocket attacks, do they not deserve any blame for what ensues?
Josh
ps Although they didn’t have a ceasefire between two governments, I imagine it’s a similar situation as when Georgia invaded South Ossetia in the summer. Many people incorrectly put all the blame on Russia for using overwhelming force to stop the incursion (if you respond, respond to Israel’s situation…Russia’s is different because Georgia didn’t attack Russian territory per se). I agree it is a totally unfair fight but if a puny dude lashes out at a huge bully, isn’t that just a stupid thing to do by the puny guy? If the fight cannot be won militarily, doesn’t it make more sense to change the arena of the fight - ie nonviolent resistance, taking the moral high ground and holding it despite years of deprivation etc. (ie Gandhi & Mandela)? There’s no way Israel could win that fight because the Palestinian cause is in the right in the moral sense (but moral ends can be warped and lost by violent means…ie spreading democracy may be good but not if you preemptively invade a country; i think you’d agree with that). By continuing to engage Israel only militarily, it’s no wonder that nothing has changed for the Palestinians (and yes, if you elect as your government a party that is committed to continuing the fight in the military arena rather than the nonviolent or moral arena, you are responsible for their actions…that’s the whole idea of a republic…).
Josh
ps If any emotions get worked up due to this comment, please read http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/dec/28/dave-barrys-year-review/ to calm them again.
January 2nd, 2009 @ 9:11 am
Josh,
Always making me think. Thanks for the calming link–I had to wait a day before I could respond to this.
I base my arguments not on the morality of weak versus strong, but by who the aggresor is. In this case, the nation who colonizing and ethnically cleansing “its” land.
Only by ignoring the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict can you justify Israel’s actions. Its reasoning for this is Hamas rocket fire. That fact left in a historical vacuum would portend Hamas/Palestine has tanks on Israel’s borders firing indiscriminately at civilians. It would portend Hamas tears apart Israeli families with walls and “security” checkpoints. It assumes Hamas is the aggressor, and Israel is under attack.
Just the opposite is true, my friend. Look at a map of Israel over the last 60 years. Geographers have a peculiar term for this sort of growth–Lebensraum. Its a German word used during the Nazi period that means the natural growth of a nation, reclaiming their “natural land.”
The historical process of Israel’s growth, justified not by a crude Nazi lebensraum, but a only slightly-less-crude religious lebensraum based on a pathetic (literal sense) appeal to past suffering. Remember Palestinians were driven out in the hundreds of thousands in 1948 and have gradually and in spurts of war been enveloped by a hostile, racist militaristic society. Palestinians are not afforded basic civic rights, let alone the resources or structures to survive. (Just as ironic as the Israeli doing unto Palestinians as Nazis did to the Jews, is the odd fact that Israel used Nazi munitions in the 1948 war against the Arabs!)
This is ethnic cleansing by deprivation, starvation, bombing, construction of walls, intermittent war, and an international PUBLIC RELATIONS campaign.
This is not Russia against Georgia. Not even close. This is the United States massacring the Indians. A foreign force (white Pilgrims/US or Israel, in that case justified by the powers that rightfully feel bad for them because of the holocaust) forcefully stealing land and purging the native population. (You can make an argument about Moses and the Canaanites, but you would be wrong to do so. That argument never ends and only works to regress the conversation into a “no, I was here first” religious tussle.)
Would you dare to blame the Indians for lashing out at the “settlers”? No, those settlers were racist colonizers who saw the fertile land of the frontier as theirs. We shouldn’t blame these people who have lived in desperation and in the dark for lashing at out their over-militarized colonizers either.
Now, if I raised your heart rate with that, mull it over and get back to me. Read Robert Fisk in the meantime.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/
See past post also for specific links.
I don’t have a funny link for you, but I do have a movie rec. Check out The Edge of Heaven. Gorgeous film, perfect ptich, perfect continuity with a really nice story line.
un abrazo,
Jared
January 10th, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
In your original posting, you refer to Gordon Johndroe’s quotation:
“If Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel, then Israel would not have a need for strikes in Gaza. What we’ve got to see is Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel.”
You then dismiss this statement as propaganda and draw the intellectually dishonest conclusion that “the US blames the people of Gaza for Israel killing the people of Gaza.” You circumvent Johndroe’s comments in favor of launching an emotional diatribe which ignores the realities of international politics. You accuse the Israeli establishment of having a “twisted rationale”, yet you take Johndroe’s accusations of Hamas and somehow twist them into “blaming the people of Gaza”, as if Hamas and Gaza civilians are one and the same. Clearly they are not.
It is indeed tragic and heartbreaking that so many innocent Palestinians are dying in this current conflict. Yet if Hamas had not continuously fired rockets into Israel, then Israel would not have had justification to launch these military operations. The Palestinian leadership has failed its people for decades, placing its self-interest above the interests of its people. If the government of a territory is either unable or unwilling to take action against internal elements which are directly threatening the security of another territory, then the territory under threat has the right to intervene.
I’ve heard many people argue that Israel’s response has been disproportionate. In other words, Palestinian rockets have killed dozens of Israelis over the years, and Israel has killed several hundred Palestinians in retaliation. Yet if one were to follow this principle of proportionality, neither side would ever gain an upper hand and the status quo would be hard-pressed to change.
You speak of the injustices experienced by the Palestinian people. I agree they have suffered greatly. However, it has never been stated Israeli policy to target and kill civilians. On the other hand, Hamas openly advocates the killing of Israeli civilians:
“Hamas: Israel has legitimized the killing of its children”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece)
Although I recognize that both sides kill civilians, there is surely a moral difference in these two policies. It also must be noted that Hamas deliberately places its rocket launching pads in densely populated civilian areas, in the hopes that innocent people will shield those sites from Israeli attacks. So who is more morally culpable for civilian deaths when Israel strikes those rocket launchers? The current conflict proves that the Palestinian leadership is failing its people once again.