‘Protective Edge’ has nothing to do with protection

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/protective-nothing-protection.html

I just flew overnight from Tel Aviv to New York. As I dozed in my seat, crossing the Atlantic, Israeli forces killed some 30 Palestinians in Gaza, bringing the death toll up past 80 on the beginning of third day of Israel’s latest air offensive on the Strip.

Among those killed in the night’s airstrikes was a family of eight in southern Khan Younis, a five-year-old boy in northern Beit Lahiya. Another nine were killed when warplanes targeted a cafe on the beach, where locals were gathered to watch the World Cup semifinal match. By the time you read this piece, the toll will have risen over the 100 mark. The majority of the dead will be civilians. Innocents who want to flee to protect their families will have nowhere to go, and will sit in their homes in the thick summer heat, listening to explosion after explosion, praying for their children’s sake the bombs stay far away.

As the bodies pile higher, the unanswerable question “How could anyone do this?” pounds louder in the ears of the observer. An easier question, perhaps, is “Why is Israel doing this, again, right now?” Through the rising smoke of the airstrikes, the answer becomes clear: To keep Gaza isolated, to keep Hamas radical, and to satisfy the Israeli public.

This, of course, is not the official version of the story. Israeli authorities and its military have an official explanation for why they started the escalation. Weeks before “Operation Protective Edge” began on Tuesday, Israel had been increasingly intent on targeting Hamas. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of the Islamist faction were responsible for kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teens — Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah. Israeli forces responded by rounding up and jailing much of Hamas’s remaining leadership in the West Bank. And as tensions soared amid the Israeli army’s military search campaign in Hebron and Nablus, which killed six Palestinians, militant groups in Gaza fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli communities. Holding Hamas responsible for all rockets launched from the Strip, Israel vowed to strike the faction’s powerhouse hard, destroying its military infrastructure and assassinating its key leaders.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

2. The interesting thing with this tragic region is that Netanyahu has done everything to

force the hand of Hamas into retaliation.

I am not a proponent of Hamas, rockets or murder, but if Netanyahu had come forward with the claimed eidence that Hamas was to blame for the three dead Israeli settlers then he would have had more of a case to go after Hamas.

But what is suspected is that Netanyahu either doesn't have the evidence showing the culpability of Hamas or he doesn't believe the world should see it; which is disastrous either way.

In once instance if he doesn't have the evidence, but used the deaths as a callous pretext for war with Hamas, then he got what he wanted: a one sided bloodbath.

If he does have the evidence then he should be under pressure to show it to the world.


Either way this has escalated out of control and the attack on Gaza will only drive more Palestinians to Hamas in the long run.


So it's a win-win for Netanyahu. He gets to keep his bogeymen going for another term.

[shira]

3. Yeah...Israel made Hamas fire rockets & hide behind women & children

Hamas isn't responsible for anything. In fact, it's not just that the Zionists control Hollywood, Congress, and the Banks, they control Hamas too.



Idiocy.

I'm surprised the propagandists at Mondoweiss can drool and breathe at the same time.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. Israel is a catalyst for change in all the wrong directions, and its apologistas

will point in every which-a-way except to the source of the hostilities.

Occupation.

Colonization.

Blockade.

Apartheid.

[shira]

6. Hamas rockets are due to Israel's existence. No need to....

....make excuses for them, as there's nothing can do to make them stop.

[Scootaloo]

14. Kind of proving his point there, Shira.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

15. She doesn't even get the irony of her post.

[Scootaloo]

5. Isn't that exactly the same argument you make for Israel?

That Hamas makes Israel blow up women and kids, and Israel isn't responsible for anything?

"The devil made me do it" is an argument that even children learn early on doesn't free them from responsibility for what they do. But we're to believe it applies to nations and organizations like Israel and Hamas?

[shira]

7. No.

Israel didn't force Hamas' hand. No one would be dying if Hamas ceased its senseless aggression vs Israel.

And your rejection of Israel's right of self-defense is immoral. If you had your way Hamas could fire into Israel at will, until they mass murder 10's or perhaps 100's of thousands.

Real humane of you.

[Scootaloo]

8. You keep trying this argument

I tell you that blowing up a care home full of disabled people does nothing to defend Israel, and you retort with "you reject Israel's right to self-defense."

It's almost as if you believe blowing up helpless people is an essential factor in Israel's "self-defense." And on top of that, you're tearing your hair out about imaginary dead people, while cheering the killing of real people.

[shira]

9. Don't turn this around. You argue that Israelis should just take it....

They're doing well enough behind Iron Dome and in shelters. So Israeli casualties, minimal or not, are acceptable to you. If Hamas imports better weapons in, so be it. If casualties grow in Israel, you will not change your mind. Israel should not reply militarily. Too messy.

So Hamas can fire at will. Indefinitely. While Israelis pile up, forever...

Your plan.

Not.Humane.

=======

Now what other country on the planet would do this in response to rockets?

[IronGate]

10. Seems to be a lot of anti-semitic rhetoric lately. nt.

[Scootaloo]

11. That's not what I said

I said that pounding a captive populace with missiles accomplishes nothing. it just kills people who don't deserve to die. It doesn't secure any strategic goals. It. Just. Kills. People. Israel has been pounding the shit out of Gaza for eight years, the place looks like the set of "The Road", and Hamas is still doing its thing unabated.

Killing those people does not make Israelis any safer than they already were. The problem of security for the people of Israel is absolutely unchanged by the killing of Palestinians in Gaza. The death of a Palestinian child does not increase the security of an Israeli child, except in the minds of the deranged fucks who come up with ideas like this. In fact given the inevitable "return fire" from Gaza - right or wrong, it is inevitable - it even puts Israelis at more risk!

So. Given that Israelis have the same amount of security either way, given that blowing Gaza the fuck up hasn't stopped Hamas, and given that the blowing up of Gaza not only kills innocents in Gaza but increases the danger to innocents in Israel, fuck yes I oppose blowing up Gaza.

[shira]

12. Defensive Shield 2002 proves you wrong...

It's not ancient history.

Israel needed to end all the suicide bombings coming from the W.Bank due to Intifada II, and they succeeded. Israel apparently believes the same can be done in Gaza. If you were in charge in 2002, the terror infrastructure would have gone untouched. There'd be thousands more casualties on the Israeli side. It would continue on today.

[Scootaloo]

13. Defensive Shield was a ground operation intent on capture and dismantling.

I suggest you read what I said to Fozzledick here, about that sort of thing.

My complaint isn't action against Hamas, Shira. Far from it, you know damn well I regard the organization as ten pounds of assholes in a five-pound sack.

My complaint is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, paired with the cheering of their deaths as righteous acts of self-defense, by creepy people on this forum and elsewhere. And yes, deliberate targeting, because as we've covered before, explosions are indiscriminate killers, and setting one off in a civilian area is targeting those civilians. The ethnicity of hte person setting it off doesn't change this, nor does hte ethnicity of the victims caught in the blast.