What is there to say:
One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling.
The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled “Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report,” confirmed that the June 19 truce was only “sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by … “rogue terrorist organisations”.
Instead, “the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement” occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day.
According to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
Lies and liars.
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/2009110112723260741.html
Israel’s self-image
The claim that Hamas will never accept the existence of Israel has proved equally misinformed, as Hamas leaders explicitly announce their intention to do just that in the pages of the Los Angeles Times or to any international leader or journalist who will meet with them.
With each new family, 10, 20 and 30 strong, buried under the rubble of a building in Gaza, the claim that the Israeli forces have gone out of their way to diminish civilian casualties – long a centre-piece of Israel’s image as an enlightened and moral democracy – is falling apart.
Anyone with an internet connection can Google “Gaza humanitarian catastrophe” and find the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories and read the thousands of pages of evidence documenting the reality of the current fighting, and the long term siege on Gaza that preceded it.
The Red Cross, normally scrupulous in its unwillingness to single out parties to a conflict for criticism, sharply criticised Israel for preventing medical personnel from reaching wounded Palestinians, some of whom remained trapped for days, slowly starving and dying in the Gazan rubble amidst their dead relatives.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has flatly denied Israeli claims that Palestinian fighters were using the UNRWA school compound bombed on January 6, in which 40 civilians were killed, to launch attacks, and has challenged Israel to prove otherwise.
War crimes admission
Additionally, numerous flippant remarks by senior Israeli politicians and generals, including Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, refusing to make a distinction between civilian people and institutions and fighters – “Hamas doesn’t … and neither should we” is how Livni puts it – are rightly being seen as admissions of war crimes.
snip
“We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases,” he said.“This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised.”
Read the whole thing….I just don’t what to say. Are our politicians blind deaf and dumb, or just blackmailed and bribed?
Causing “immense damage and destruction” and considering entire villages “military bases” is absolutely prohibited under international law.
I don’t have the link but Israel now says a stray mortar hit the UN school. Did they not claim they were fired upon from that school initially? Don’t be fooled. Israel makes no distinction between civilians and Hamas they want them all gone.
Those cowards who won’t fight Hamas face to face like to keep people confused.
I still remember seeing a news report…on the net, where a family was killed in their home, the IDF said they were not their shells….the reporter picked up the pieces and showed on the video they were Israeli.
…and then the incident on the Gaza beach. They are nothing but liars.
I have never seen anyone who can lie with the kind of ease and aplomb that some Zionists can. They make the Bush administration look like rank amateurs in the lying game. They will look you right in the eye, say something you both know is dead false, and dare you to challenge it.
Well look who Bush surrounded himself with.
Obama wants to keep his blackberry so has not to fall in the bubble.
Look who Obama, and Hillary Clinton are surrounding themselves with. :o}
Last week I heard Martin Indyk debating with Norman Finkelstein. Indyk lied his way through the entire interview – big, fat, juicy, blatant verifiable standard hasbara lies. I cannot think of a single claim he made that was not a lie from the standard hasbara talking points, or at best a distortion or misrepresentation of reality. Finkelstein batted away every one of his lies and distortions with verifiable facts backed up with sources. Indyk accused Finkestein of parroting Hamas propaganda.
Oh yeah – Martin Indyk was one of Bill Clinton’s “honest brokers” in that “generous offer” debacle. More significantly yet, he was Hillary’s advisor on the Middle East during her campaign.
More recently I heard Lannie Davis “debating” an Israeli who lives in Beersheba, and who has therefore been having to deal with those infamous rockets, and who has been sleeping in a bomb shelter with his kids the last few weeks. Davis, like Indyk, pretty much lied his way through the entire interview. The Israeli professor, who has been in the line of fire with his family, was knowledgeable, truthful, reasonable, and realistic about the situation and what Israel needs to do, and compassionate toward the Palestinians.
Lannie Davis is senior adviser and spokesperson for the Israel Project, and was a major figure in Bill Clinton’s administration. More significantly, he was a major supporter of Hillary Clinton, and one of her superdelegates.
Obama’s list of Middle East “experts” is taken straight from the AIPAC roster of professional Zioliars. And the best they can do for “balance” to this overwhelmingly Zionist group is Jim Jones, who “sort of knows how to talk to Arabs” – but only in English, of course.
So, the big difference between the Bush regime and the Obama administration in regard to the Middle East “experts” they are gathering around themselves appears to be that the Zioliars are now from the Democratic party.
Do you remember who was it that was living in Iraq when we attacked….that was in the Lebanon 1982 war and his family had been a wealthy family in haifa I think, who lost all of their land? A Palestinian.
That and using guilt. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reminded of family, frienships, history, religion. pffft.
I’m over it.
I told my sister yesterday that I’ll be going to hell before I stop being critical of what Israel is doing.
Good for you!!
Being human comes first.
Yes, they claim it was a stray mortar. One obvious problem with that claim is that they hit the school multiple times.
Did they ever admit to what they did to the Samouni family?
A child in the family said his brothers died after the 3rd strike.
I wonder why they were targeted.
Simply because the are Palestinians in the way.