H19321
Headlines : "War on Terror"What Israel’s really afraid of
The conclusions of this article have already been making the rounds in the GNN forums, but I figure it’s nice to have things summed up for easy viewing once in a while.
There are a lot of other possible reasons for Israel’s invasion, and there’s bound to be endless speculation on the topic. It cannot be ignored, however, that Israel has mostly lost the PR fight with the rest of the world in trying to frame its situation as desperate. It stands to lose a whole lot more prestige once this war ends, either with the survivors recanting war crimes or the corpses leaving behind evidence of genocide.
[Posted By zephid]Republished from Scholars & Rogues
It was while reading Gareth Porter’s latest piece at IPS News, Israel Rejected Hamas Ceasefire Offer in December — Israel at its peremptory best — that it occurred to us. Porter wrote:
In the first days after the ceasefire took effect [in June 2008], Islamic Jihad fired nine rockets. … In August another eight rockets were fired by various groups [and] only one rocket was launched from Gaza in September and one in October.
Contrary to Israel’s argument that it was forced to [retaliate] against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original. . . ceasefire arrangement.
Porter adds that Hamas even tried to make other Palestinian groups abide by the ceasefire, detaining and confiscating the weapons of those in violation.
Posted by zephid
I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also was a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
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Is Israel rocketing itself?
Show Me the Rockets – a Google challenge
The title’s lead is in the article’s last paragraph, and since people often don’t click through, here it is :
First, admitting that the prospect of Hamas popping out of a tunnel, snatching an IDF member, and then scurrying back into the tunnel with him or her in tow is cause for scuttling a truce is a stunning admission of fear. Such willingness to cast the IDF in a frightened light only shows the length to which Israel will go to continue the conflict. Even more telling: Israel violated the ceasefire, as Porter wrote, “just when [it] was most effective.”
It’s not Hamas launching rockets (and certainly not Hamas emerging onto Israel soil from beneath the earth) that Israel fears –- it’s Hamas not firing them.
On a conscious level, Israel seeks to crush Hamas. On an unconscious level it needs it to remain the Hamas it knows and loves (to hate) in order to comply with a militarized state’s imperative to perpetuate itself.
I actually think Israel’s problem is that it thinks it has nothing to fear. Except the push for a one state solution. Which isn’t to say that that’s all Israel has to be afraid of.
The people who control Israel’s fate don’t care about the lives of Israelis anymore than they cared about the lives of the German Jews that preceded them.
Microdot has hit onto an important theme. It is of course not simply a fear of Hamas NOT launching rockets, but rather the possibility of some kind of real peace that would naturally and eventually have followed. Make no mistake, as Microdot suggests, this will go down as the “war to end all peace”...
Hamas has understood that the current campaign will not be won by weapons. I salute the understanding they have with their population; taking the path of martyrdom isn’t an easy one.
With the time they had to prepare the terrain, Hamas could have wreaked havoc with buried IED’s which they haven’t. They are taking in the blows until a resolute bigger player steps in, on their side.
Hamas is winning the media war. Jewish unconditional support around the Globe is splintering.
Sounds like a repeat of Irish Americans stopping funding the IRA when pubs and theatres were taken for target in Belfast.
Make no mistake, as Microdot suggests, this will go down as the “war to end all peace”...
Looked at from Israel’s point of view, they really would only lose power in peace. I don’t find it particularly surprising that they’ve dogged down and exacerbated the peace process, but it’s nine kinds of stupid what they’re doing now.
With the time they had to prepare the terrain, Hamas could have wreaked havoc with buried IED’s which they haven’t. They are taking in the blows until a resolute bigger player steps in, on their side.
jeez – you haven’t got a fuckin’ clue, have ya?
Do you?
If they have oxidizer for their rockets then they can make anfo. Seen any mining? The biggest non-nuclear explosions recorded in history involved ammonium nitrate.
If Hamas was inflicting significant casualties to IDF forces then they would loose it all; they’re aiming at a replay of Alamo and turning Israel’s play on holocaust guilt into potato salad.