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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Punishing civilian populations as an ancillary result of a military attack is the war strategy used in every war on record. We bombed Hiroshima, Nagaski, razed Dresden, bombed villages in Vietnam and half of Iraq.
Punishing civilian populatins is a war crime. It is a war crime when the U.S. does it, it was a war crime when Nazi Germany did it. The Roman Empire was also guilty of war crimes.
The fact that others also did similar things does not exonerate Israel.
This is a "fairly obvious refutation," WinSmith.
Are you urinating on my trouser leg?
First Glenn and now me?
I am honored.
Is holding forth in Ramallah right now, the crawl on the screen says he's the Palestinian President, so I guess he didn't get the memo. He's with the Spanish FM. No Fatah presence in Gaza is anticipated immediately, "national reconciliation" to be negotiated in turn. Ceasefire soon. Sooner the better.
Meanwhile, Israeli bombing of Gaza accelerates, exactly what they're blowing up, who knows? More than 1000 dead, nearly 5000 injured, about 250 have been transferred for treatment in Egypt.
Ceasefire == maybe == Friday.
Punishing civilian populatins is a war crime. It is a war crime when the U.S. does it, it was a war crime when Nazi Germany did it. The Roman Empire was also guilty of war crimes.
The fact that others also did similar things does not exonerate Israel.
This is a "fairly obvious refutation," WinSmith.
Uhm, no it's not. I wasn't talking about "war crimes," I was talking about "terrorism" as Glenn (re)defines it in his bid for false equivalencies between Hamas and Israel.
But since you bring up the term "War Crimes," which you clearly don't know anything about, here's an actual, clearly provable, war crime:
Serb "Human Shield" Ploys Are War Crimes, U.S. Envoy Says
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 19, 1999 – The Serbs have taken the war crime of using human shields to new extremes in Kosovo, a senior U.S. official told reporters May 18 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has a history of putting civilians and other noncombatants in harm's way, said David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues. In Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, Serb forces put hundreds of hostage U.N. peacekeepers and civilians at key military locations to deter attacks.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=42058
I can think of an easily provable war crime that's taken place in this whole mess. Can you?
An armed militia pledged to destroy Israel and drive its people into the sea backs up this pledge by lobbing deadly rockets into civilian centers of Israel. What am I missing here?
They station their soldiers in civilian areas and store their weapons in civilian areas. Is Israel to avoid these areas, which hold the lives of Israelis in the balance?
Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that if Hamas held the balance of power held by Israel that they would hesitate for even one second to launch a murderous attack on Israel?
Again, what am I missing? Sometimes there are shades of gray and sometimes there are murderous fanatics on one side and people trying only to build a permanent homeland on the other. This is one of those times.
I remember when this used to be called the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then it was the Israeli-Palistinian conflict. Now it is the Israeli-Hamas conflict. So Israel has narrowed down the opposition to just one faction of the Arab world. (You can add in Hezbollah as another fraction.) I find that interesting. I think that might be part of what Israel is trying to gain.
As someone noted way back, Egypt doesn't want Hamas mingling with the Muslim Brotherhood. Arab states throughout the region are trying to keep a damper on the fundamentalists. Even the Saudis are worried about the radicals, and the Saudis are about as fundamental as it gets.
Scoot: What muntaba said. And yes, using homegrown bombs against military targets is fine with me, just as using such against civilian targets is not fine. Neither is of much interest to me. The source of the weapons is simply a data point that makes it my business.
Pharisee: Why do you think Hamas will eventually cave?
bignose: The bears are lucky to have us as their overlords, aren't they?
Paul in KY: Thanks for the response---those are actually new ideas to me. And I try not to read the comments of Likud members ... only so much vomit, you know.
LibertyGal: You didn't look up the link, did you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade#2000s
Do you realize I'm mocking your rhetorical overreaction to a few rockets fired by angry people against people who clearly, at best, don't give a shit about them?
And what do you think we do to those bears?
Don't believe me, believe those pro-Hamas scoundrels, Reuters...
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSL7673258
ANALYSIS-Gaza crisis defers dispute over Abbas presidency
Thu Jan 8, 2009 5:40am EST
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent
JERUSALEM, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose original four-year term expires on Friday, faces a legitimacy challenge that Israel's Gaza war has only postponed.
How it plays out will affect Abbas's ability to pursue peace talks with Israel. These have so far proved fruitless, earning him only derision from Hamas, which preaches armed resistance.
The Israeli onslaught on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has temporarily eclipsed the dispute between Abbas's secular Fatah faction and its Islamist rivals over whether he must quit now.
"Currently we have a bigger problem than Jan. 9," Gaza-based Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said. "Our priority is to fight this war imposed on us and to defend our people."
For his part, Abbas, who contends that legal changes mean his term ends in 2010, has deferred plans to set a date for parliamentary and presidential elections, which he hoped would pre-empt any Hamas effort to depose or replace him.
A senior Palestinian official in Ramallah said Abbas was now preoccupied with ending the Gaza war. Once a ceasefire was in place, he would ask Hamas to renew reconciliation talks.
But with Palestinian emotions raw, the conflict over the presidency has not gone away -- and may get more personal.
"Hamas officials are pointing their fingers at Abbas as if he was the one who decided to launch the war on Gaza," said Ihad Zahdeh, a 32-year-old actor in the West Bank city of Hebron.
"It's hard for Abbas to gain support because he can't do anything for his people in Gaza and can't stop the aggression. Is this what he achieved from peace negotiations with Israel?"
Mustafa Barghouti, an independent former presidential candidate, said Palestinians saw the Gaza war as one aimed at all of them, not just Hamas. Israel would thus wind up weakening the Palestinian Authority, rather than its Islamist foes.
"What happened in Gaza has exposed the struggle between factions for an Authority that doesn't really exist because it is under occupation," he told Reuters. "It deepened the feeling that we are all under occupation and must unify against it."
But Palestinian unity has proved elusive in recent years.
A governance crisis erupted after Hamas won a January 2006 election and widened when the group drove Fatah forces from Gaza 18 months later, leaving Abbas's Palestinian Authority in partial control only of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
"SENSE OF FEAR"
Abbas's revamped security forces, already repressing Hamas activity in the West Bank, have acted to limit solidarity rallies with Gaza in case these turn into anti-Abbas protests.
"There is a sense of fear in the West Bank. People are lying low," said International Crisis Group analyst Nicholas Pelham.
"The psychological impact of the Gaza campaign is going to be major in the West Bank, but at the moment it is being held in check by security measures. The pressure is mounting."
Hamas has also taken tough measures against remaining Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip, even as Israeli bombs fall. It is trying to combat Israel's military might in a lopsided struggle, hoping its defiance will enhance its political prestige.
Bassem Ezbidi, a West Bank political analyst, said if Hamas emerged stronger, it would spell trouble for Abbas, who would be squeezed between the demands of Israel and the Islamists:
"And if Hamas loses, it might go underground ... But it will remain problematic for Abbas and try to ruin his project."
After Israel began its assault on Dec. 27, the Palestinian president echoed U.S. and Egyptian leaders in blaming Hamas for provoking it by scrapping a truce and firing rockets from Gaza.
That jarred with many Palestinians who argue that Israel had already shattered the six-month, Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with its punitive blockade of Gaza and raids on militants.
Abbas adjusted his tone and has since pressed hard for an immediate ceasefire, but the impression of indecision lingered.
"He has tried to look which way the wind is blowing and go with it," Pelham said. "There were advisers around him who saw benefits to be gained out of a humbling of Hamas in Gaza."
He said the viability of Abbas's statehood negotiations could depend on how the Gaza struggle turned out.
"You have to ask what is the scope for a peace process if the carnage continues in Gaza for many more days," he said.
"How achievable is this going to be in the aftermath of Gaza? If it is not, how will this affect Abbas's legitimacy?"
The outcome of Israel's election on Feb. 10, which will replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and the attitude of the next U.S. administration under Barack Obama will also weigh heavily on the chances for reviving peace efforts.
"We don't know what Obama will do," Palestinian political analyst Ali Jarbawi said, adding that Abbas should avoid the same kind of talks that undercut his credibility last year. "If it is just to kiss Olmert on the cheeks, he should refuse."
It is hard to see how Abbas could "deliver" the Palestinians in any peace deal as long as the Hamas-Fatah rift persists.
"It was difficult and it will remain difficult," said Nasser Sharawi, 25, a student at al-Quds University in Hebron.
"Abbas wants peace and negotiation. Hamas wants fighting and liberation. They don't have a common goal." (Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah, Haitham Tamimi in Hebron and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
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