Israeli Troops Mass Along Border; Arab Anger Rises

[Idealism]

Source: New York Times



GAZA — Israeli troops and tanks massed along the Gaza border and the government said it had called up reserves for a possible ground operation, as the death toll increased to nearly 300 after Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza for a third day on Monday.

Hamas said Israel bombed a government ministry compound and the Islamic University in Gaza, a stronghold of Hamas, late Sunday night. The Hamas-owned television station Al Aqsa was also struck, as was a mosque that the Israeli military said was being used as a terrorist base. On Monday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, Reuters reported, based on a Hamas statement.

The Israeli military reported that a rocket fired Monday from Gaza killed a man and wounded seven people in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. Additionally, three Israelis were stabbed by a Palestinian in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the military said.

The continued strikes, which Israel said were in retaliation for sustained rocket fire from Gaza into its territory, unleashed a furious reaction across the Arab world, raising fears of greater instability in the region.

Much of the anger was also directed at Egypt, seen by Hamas and some nearby governments as having acceded to Israel’s military action by sealing its border with Gaza and forcing back many Palestinians at gunpoint who were trying to escape the destruction.

Witnesses at the Rafah border crossing described a chaotic scene as young men tried to force their way across into Egypt, amid sporadic exchanges of gunfire between Hamas and Egyptian forces. Egyptian state television reported that one Egyptian border guard was killed by a Hamas gunman. A Palestinian man was killed by an Egyptian guard near Rafah, Reuters reported.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html?hp

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Bigger article than I thought (two pages), seems NYT isn't glossing over this like they usually do conflicts

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[Tejas]

7. Bold-faced bias and tinfoil by that author - no thank you

Sorry, not choosing a "side" in the current debacle but simply interested in how it came to this and that author would be one of the last that I'd look to for so-called "facts".

[Behind the Aegis]

5. What you **really** mean is...

"It will only end when The Arab world unites to fight Israel militarily" and destroy them.

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[Lost River Ledger]

8. Nail on the head Aegis.....

Perhaps Anndash meant to say......like Gandhi and Stalin before him/her.....


"that the German Jews ought to have committed collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly." (Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin)

I guess it's true, that if you are not prepared to take life, you must often be prepared for lives to be lost in some other way. Gandhi seems to have accepted this - can I? (Adie)

[ShortnFiery]

9. IMNSHO, both sides are filled with hate and blood lust. We need "an adult" to

babysit and CEASE the carnage emanating from both sides of the spectrum.

How many Israeli and Palestinian babies and young children must die for "the world community" to step in and say *ENOUGH*?!?

[Pavulon]

16. 5 million nine hundred thousand ...

there is a massive slaughter running in DPRC right now. Has killed millions in the last few YEARS, no jets, just AK's and Knives. People get raped to death there.

The world has done jack shit about it. Dont hold your breath for them to walk into gaza any time soon.

[hack89]

13. Why would the Arab governements start caring about the Palestinians?

there may be popular support for the Palestinians (or perhaps popular hatred for the Jews) but Arab governments want nothing to do with them.

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[Fozzledick]

34. No, that's what STARTED it

All you're calling for is more of the same.

[Christa]

10. "I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing."

Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml


All paid for by the US:

The Israel military, including weapons: tanks, missiles, warplanes, artillery, shells, are all funded by the US taxpayer.
More than Fifteen million US dollars is given by US taxpayers to Israel each day for their military use.
Total funding is more than 4 billion US dollars per year.

http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/middle_east/palestine/because_we_are_jews.htm

[bdamomma]

27. those weapons must have the US seal of approval on them.

that the Israeli army is using.

sickening.

[lastliberalintexas]

11. Humans are such assholes

How we can do such horrible things to one another is beyond my ken. I just hope the situation ends soon, with as little death as possible on all sides and that the WWIII the US Neocons and Likudniks* lust after doesn't start.



*and perhaps some in Hamas, but I doubt it since they don't have nukes

[StudsT]

12. while everyone is distracted by the holidays, it is a perfect time for a massacre

from a Machiavellian perspective, of course and besides with the U.S. on your side (right or wrong) how can you go wrong?

and so it goes...

StudsT

It's the Occupation, Stupid

[Fozzledick]

35. No, it's the terrorist rocket attacks on the civilian population

The war will continue as long as Hamas choses to continue it.

[EFerrari]

39. Tell that to the 22 dead kids and the 235 wounded ones.

What utter nonsense.

[Fozzledick]

41. You mean the ones that Hamas deliberately put in harm's way?

Deliberately putting their own women and children in the line of fire to produce "martyrs" for propaganda purposes strikes me as a pretty stupid "strategy", but unfortunately there are plenty of "useful idiots" who continue to fall for it.

[EFerrari]

42. This attack is about an election, not about anything else.

Shame on the Israeli government.

[Fozzledick]

43. "Shame" for defending civilians under constant attack?

Yeah, what a "shame" the victims get to vote! :eyes:

[arikara]

68. Hamas aren't the ones

"surgically striking" hundreds of civilians, hospitals and medical supplies. Anyone would fight back after all the land thefts, blockades and invasions. Israel is in a long process of committing genocide on helpless people and one would think they would know better after the way they were treated.

Unreal.

:grr:

[LynnTheDem]

37. 100% correct;

It's the Occupation, Stupid.

[Fozzledick]

50. Actually , it's the ending of the "occupation"

Hamas saw Israel's willingness to make peace as weakness and used the evacuated territory to launch new rocket attacks.

[Idealism]

78. Are you purposefully being militantly ignorant?

How would non-guided rocket attacks (that have killed what 9 people in two years?) be a significant enough blow to cripple one of the most advanced armed forces in the world?

Neither side made much attempt to restore peace talks even though they were both aware that the truce was ending. No one is completely innocent here, but Israel's solution of ending the occupation is to wipe the occupants off the face of the earth. Real diplomatic.

[janet118]

14. I want all the US taxpayer money withheld from Israel until

its government gets serious about a peaceful solution. I just saw the photos of the bombing of Gaza. It was disgusting. And now the tanks are waiting outside to finish the job.

I agree that the Israelis are taking advantage of the distractions of the holiday season and the last days of their friend George the Pre-emptor to perpetrate this atrocity. For those apologists for what the Israeli government is doing, put yourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians for a change. You would be screaming bloody murder if Palestinians received military aid from Arabs to attack Israel the way Israel has received aid from the US to attack them. The roots of 9/11 are here, folks.

[humbled_opinion]

17. Seems to me that

Israel has been asking for Peace for many years but like in the movie Independence day..


President: (Isreal) "We can find a way to Co-exist. can there be a peace between us?"
Alien: (Hamas/Iran) "Peace, No Peace"

President: (Isrealy) "What is it you want us to do?"
AlienL (Hamas/Iran) "DIE, Die.....

Lets be honest, when only one side shows up at the Table of Peace, what can anyone Hope to accomplish.

[Name removed]

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[Fozzledick]

48. Israel tried to give Gaza back to Egypt

They didn't want it either.

[humbled_opinion]

52. Following your thought

The mexicans should then be entitled to the western third of this country and if they decided to shoot rockets into our cities we should not retaliate in any form or fashion and should somehow come to some peaceful arrangement... I guess until they want more land..... and then eventually it won't matter because it won't be the USA anyway....:crazy:

[pjt7]

18. Israel has stepped over the line

We need Obama to show the world he is going to be even-handed in this ongoing struggle. Which is @ the root of so many wordly conflicts.

[Pavulon]

20. Where exactly did they step

They are bombing Hamas targets. Hamas it a terrorist organization the world refuses to deal with. They were all over NPR talking about how ready they were to kill and die for their cause.

That is to wipe israel out. So now they get their wish.

Because they are fucks they shoot rockets blindly at civilian populations. They refuse to let wounded go to egypt, because it takes a card out of their hand.

They have the option to run and gun on Israeli troops, which would make them soldiers. They are not doing that.

This has sights, can be aimed. A man would use them. I see hamas with rifles, lets see them start using them for something that shooting into the air for camera men.

[pjt7]

22. 7 People have died in Israel over the last 2 + years

from Gaza'a homemade rockets. Why I think that whomever launched those rockets, should be dealt with. Israel's all out bombing of Gaza is way overboard. 60 F-16's & Naval ship bombings for three day's, has killed X10 as many innocent people.

& Like 'em or not Hamas was freely elected to hold positions of power.

[Pavulon]

23. Like has nothing to do with anything

this is a situation where a weaker force has refused negotiation, from the clinton administration on down. All last week they were spouting we are ready to die, we love death, blah bullshit all over the media.

They started firing more rockets and got bombed. They will continue to be bombed.

The X factor is irrelevant in war, we killed more in 20 minutes in the forst gulf war when we used combined artillery and air strikes on iraqi divisions in the open desert.

Hamas fucked up, they are terrorist scum shooting unguided weapons into cities and now are being killed.

BTW your numbers are off by a factor of X2
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=883997&ct=3887857

[pjt7]

26. My numbers come from when Hamas came into power during

the voting elections of 2006.

& there were no rockets fired during the past 6 months of peace agreements.

Israel choice to attack in-between American President's. That's not a "trusted" partner in my book.


I know we supply them with the F-16's & I believe $8 Billion a year. With our financial situation & (IMO) the abuse of weapons & force by Israel, I am going to voice my opinion to have that money stay in America & do some good.

[Pavulon]

29. We supply egypt too, and hamas shot rockets

during the cease fire. They never stopped.

Twice I have corrected your statements. Use google to check your claims. There are numerous articles about hamas breaking the cease fire.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2961

[pjt7]

31. Thanks for bringing up Egypt

I'd like to curb our $$$ to them as well.

Even-handed.

Your posts have a tone of prickness to them. Ease up.

[Pavulon]

32. Just be accurate with numbers.

I get called out when I make inaccurate claims, so will you. Any real forum supports that. Keeps us honest.

Egypt is a stable regional power. It is beneficial and worth 2 billion to keep them on our side, generally.

Israel is responding to hamas attacks. Hamas has been cut off because they are terrorist fanatics and the world refused to pay them.

Sure they were elected, but so was bush. Consequences of free choice, you have to live or die with them.

At the end of the day without the drama, this is a land scuffle. Like those in africa, but with a teeny fraction of the numbers of deaths.

[pjt7]

33. OK

But going by you're link, 9 Israeli's have been killed by rockets since Hamas took over in early 2006.

Do you think Obama will be that much different than George W in his dealings with Israel/Palestine?

[Pavulon]

55. Not with HAMAS.

note the rest of the world cut off funding as well.

[The Stranger]

75. Forcibly intercepting food, water and medicine from civilians crosses the line.

It was and remains an very serious error.

[High Plains]

47. Who is the terrorist scum here?

Israel locks the Palestinians into an open air concentration camp for decades and mass murders them at will. When it comes to terrorist scum, Hamas is no match for the IDF, whose atrocities are orders of magnitude greater than Hamas's.

[Pavulon]

60. Hamas, pretty simple. Weapons have sights

to graduate from being scum they could use those to shoot their enemies. Uniformed soldiers are fair targets. Currently they use them to celebrate weddings and funerals.

When they kill them all call it a concentration camp. It is a city, and they should just hand it to egypt and let them sort it out.

[humbled_opinion]

61. Simple Solution

Let the Palestinians move to Iran.... Amadmanjihadi seems to want them to be taken care of and all. Solves everything....RIGHT?

[Name removed]

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[ronnie624]

76. I've often wondered about the criteria for being labeled "terrorist scum".

Apparently, all that matters is whether or not you use "unguided weapons". You can murder ten times as many people as your opponent, and still not be labeled "terrorist", as long as you are using modern military hardware and sophisticated electronics to do it.

I can always depend on you to throw light on a subject. Thanks for the clarification.

[The Stranger]

74. Denying a civilian population food, water and medicine -- forcibly -- clearly steps over the line.

This line, that line, international law, morality, religious morality, secular morality, you name it.

A catastrophic error in judgment.

[jkappy]

19. Obama fiddles while Gaza burns

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama said. "And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."


This is absolutely horrible. He also said there can only be "one president at a time" but has butted in on countless other issues. SOME PROGRESSIVE--about time the word "progressive" either be taken back or relinquished.

[totodeinhere]

21. So I take it then that you wouldn't mind in someone fired rockets at your house. n/t

[ProudDad]

46. Straw Man Alert!!! (n/t)

[Pavulon]

24. What is a progressive response

please explain what he should do, EXACTLY. Start with the clinton peace initiative, a negotiated settlement. The PLO told him to cram it, and had an intifada. That should be your starting point.

List it.

[ShortnFiery]

25. Keep it simple - stop these blood lust assholes from killing each other's CHILDREN.

Killing innocents (both sides are doing NOW) is not ever OK.

[Pavulon]

28. Agree there.

Evac civilians and let them slug it out. Problem is the hamas folks realize they are weak force and only have a chance if they fight among people. If they tried house to house, they would just be killed.

So they set up rockets in civilian areas, fire them (cep 2 miles or some shit), this draws radar counter battery 155 (cep 3m), that 155 takes out the launch guys and the people around them.

Even if a helicopter shoots the guy with 20mm they could still injure or kill the crowd watching the guys shooting.

Those are the rules being used now.

The civilians need to be removed, leaving men who can fight and die.

[Idealism]

36. Why are you promoting a genocidal war?

The Israeli military is one of the best, well-equipped and well-trained in the world (thanks largely to our tax dollars) whereas Hamas security forces are mismatched and inexperienced. You are advocating a slaughter, but I guess this is the popular opinion in Israel at the moment.

[The Stranger]

49. I'm with you in my sheer amazement at what this poster is supporting.

[Pavulon]

57. I am supporting assholes aim their fucking fire

been the standard for hundreds of years. Rifles come with sights. I have witnessed sheer idiots pick up an M16 and hit a target at 300m.

Shooting rockets blindly is a terrorist act and is being met with a violent response.

[The Stranger]

66. Firing hundred lb. high explosives from high-tech jet fighters into civilian areas - that's Terror.

And everyone knows it. Everyone.

[Pavulon]

67. Hamas building

is a target because it has hamas in it. 100lbs is about right for that application. Guided weapon. That means AIMED.

How else should they kill them?

If israel starts dropping firebombs or firing 155 and wiping out map grids then you have parity.

[Idealism]

69. Actually, they bombed 2 school winter graduations

Hamas militants? Hardly, they were students.

And did you ever think WHY Palestinians would be firing rockets into Israel? How about the blockade that cuts of food in a country where 75% of children are malnourished and on the verge of starvation? But that isn't a "terrorist act" hell that isn't even news. That is a "humanitarian indifference," I suppose, nothing more huh?

[oberliner]

81. They were Hamas police officer graduation ceremonies

That part always seems to get left out.

[EFerrari]

44. Gaza is among the most densely populated places in the world. n/t

[Pavulon]

58. Good point, maybe hamas

should pick a better spot to use as a FIRE BASE. Ya think?

google radar guided counter battery fire.

[tigereye]

77. he's not the president yet!

what could he do at this point? :shrug:

[Javaman]

30. didn't condi, I have never ever had an original thought ever, rice, say something to the effect that

moron* would have a peace plan in effect and working by the end of the year?

well, moron* has 2 days left, maybe he* can cram it in!

fucking miserable colossal failure of a questionable but living organism*.

[newtothegame]

38. Regarding this situation, for once my neocon dad was right...

He was talking all last week about how Hamas had dramatically stepped up rocket launches into Israel, and how Israel was warning them and the story was nowhere in the press. He guaranteed that if Israel DID respond, THAT would be front page news...

[EFerrari]

40. Your father is Bill Kristol?

Amy Goodman interviewed a retired doctor in Gaza City today over the phone and the video is unbelievably horrible. Maybe you should have your dad watch it and see if he thinks this is a good enough "response".

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/29/israeli_attacks_kill_over_310_in

[Fozzledick]

51. Has it stopped the rocket attacks yet?

If not then it obviously hasn't been enough.

As long as Hamas still wants war and is able to attack, the war will continue.

[totodeinhere]

53. You are right. It's up to Hamas now.

If Hamas would stop the rocket attacks, then the bombing would stop.

[EFerrari]

54. Goliath whines about David. How disgusting and how cowardly. n/t

[Fozzledick]

59. The Philistine aggressor whines about his victim defending himself

How cowardly and hypocritical.

BTW, you've got them backwards.

[EFerrari]

63. Israel will live with the shame of this aggression for a long, long time.

And every image of dead and injured children, every image of women crying, every video of a funeral procession will fuel the resistance. The warmakers will get exactly what they want and their own children will suffer the consequences and their grandchildren, too.

[Fozzledick]

64. Why do you blame Israel for the results of Hamas' policies?

[EFerrari]

65. Why don't you hold the Israeli government responsible for its behavior?

They've tried this "response" many times and it has never worked. In fact, it's not a response at all, but a political decision just like those cluster bombs now littering the residential areas in southern Lebanon are. Sorry, kids!

[fascisthunter]

79. because political/nationalistic fanatics

don't think. They are told what to think and told to defend the indefensable. Perfect tools.

[totodeinhere]

56. War is hell. It always is. I feel for the innocent Palestinian civilians.

But if Hamas wants the violence to stop, all they have to do is to stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

[EFerrari]

62. Right. Like the residents of the West Bank who enjoy peace.

Oh, wait.

[IndianaGreen]

72. Spoken like someone that drinks lotsa Israel Lobby's Kool Aid

You have the same incomplete view of Israel and her cruel Occupation, as you did when all those Democrats stood alongside Bush in the Rose Garden in October 2002 in support of the Iraq War Resolution. You people didn't listen to the Left then, and you are not listening to the Left now.

Here is tonight's Rachel Maddow show on the Gaza genocide

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#28427276

Interesting comment by Richard Engel about a portion of Baker-Hamilton Report (Iraq Study Group) that proposes an out-of-the-box strategy to resolve the I/P conflict.

[totodeinhere]

80. And you of course have no biases on this issue.

:sarcasm:

[IndianaGreen]

70. Here is tonight's Rachel Maddow show on the Gaza war

Here is tonight's Rachel Maddow show on the Gaza war

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#28427276

Interesting comment by Richard Engel about a portion of Baker-Hamilton Report (Iraq Study Group) that proposes an out-of-the-box strategy to resolve the I/P conflict.

[RCinBrooklyn]

71. It's akin to shooting fish in a barrel.

[fbahrami]

73. "Arab Anger"

I love/hate how language frames our thoughts.

On another note, I'm slightly surprised at the support for military power on DU.

[and-justice-for-all]

83. fucking outragous to say the least...

the shit both sides pull is disgusting and the amount of 'poor Israel' is absurd, because they are just as guilty, if not more so, than Palestine.

If someone was annexing you property, little by little, you would be bloody furious too. Israel is taking land that does not belong to them and doing so violently. do you expect Palestine to just sit back and let it happen? I don't, I would push back if some one was taking my property/land with force and illegally.

Israel needs to be split in half, Israel to the north and Palestine to the south or vise-verse. With Jerusalem not being owned by either Israel or Palestine.

[ronnie624]

84. Your logic is impeccable. n/t