Babies under siege
The latest round of false US indignation over continued Jewish-only settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank masks another criminal Israeli policy that has the full support of the Obama administration: the illegal siege and mass imprisonment of Gaza’s 1.5 million people,half of whom are refugees. The siege is around 1,000 days old now and of those who care, many have become numb to the reality of life in the Gaza ghetto. I came across this report by Aljazeera’s Casey Kauffman last year, a heart-wrenching reminder of the cruel game Israel plays with the lives of Palestinian men, women and children. The report is about 3 minutes long, but is well worth your time:
I always think it is suspicious when politics and babies collide, like I wrote about here:
http://laurelharig.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/more-...
Feel free to link if you want. I read KABOBFest every day. You guys are hilarious. Keep up the great work!
-Laurel
As noted before — Egypt can open the border with Gaza whenever it likes.
To the extent the situation in Gaza is really a problem (and I'd argue that Hamas has largely brought this on itself — it's a multilateral one. No single country can blockade Gaza completely, and no single country has a moral obligation to open its border with any other country.
The real question is — why has Hamas been such a failure that it can't make friends with either of its neighbors?
It's not like this is a 'Palestinian' issue — there's nothing that says the Palestinians inherently can't make friends with their neighbors. The West Bank and Jordan used to be open to one another, until some people (not on the Jordanian side, mind you) screwed that one up.
It's a Hamas issue.
If Israel is the problem, great — Hamas should have shown it can play nice with secular Islamic governments, like Egypt. But no… when it comes to governance, Hamas just keeps fucking it up.
How has Hamas fukd it up?
Hamas agreed to the 67 borders as a basis for a FULL peace with Israel.
Hamas called for an end to suicide bombing in 2005 when they became a full political party.
Hamas agreed to the terms of the Arab Peace Proposal of 2002 THREE times now.
Hamas, the most extreme of the mainstream Palestinian groups is willing to accept a solution in which the Palestinians would receive JUST 20% of historic Palestine.
Hamas abided by the truce in 2008, and did not violate or break the truce in November of 2008, despite the fact that Israel had killed several Palestinians, failed to lift the blockade, and continued to shoot farmers in the Gaza strip.
So seriously wtf are you talking about? This blaming the victim argument is getting really old.
Arayus:
Apparently you are not aware of what Hamas has been saying: Hamas In Their Own Voices
Hamas are not interested in peace with Israel. Hamas promotes suicide bombings. Hamas do not agree to peace. Hamas would call you a useful idiot. You are a clown.
The UN Security Council understood the ‘67 border was not secure or defensible, when it adopted Resolution 242.
Since the war, Israel has consistently said that in the context of a peace agreement it was prepared to withdraw to the 1967 border "with modifications"; that is, to a new border that meets Resolution 242's requirement of being secure.
After the 1967 War, President Lyndon Johnson also rejected the idea that Israel should withdraw to the pre-war frontier: "There are some who have urged, as a single, simple solution, an immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4….this is not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded in 1967: "From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders." More than three decades later, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, reiterated Israel's strategic concern: "It is impossible to defend Jerusalem unless you hold the high ground….An aircraft that takes off from an airport in Amman is going to be over Jerusalem in two-and-a-half minutes, so it's utterly impossible for me to defend the whole country unless I hold that land."
Seriously wtf are you talking about?
Taking Exception: Terrorism Prevents Palestinian State
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Second Generation Teenage Terrorist Killed in Attack at Beit El
Published: 09/01/09
From IICC report: Rocket and mortar shell fire from the Gaza Strip continues as the Palestinian terrorist organizations' preferred form of attack.
1,750 rockets and 1,528 mortar bombs fired from the Gaza Strip struck southern Israel in 2008.
Hamas rockets a war crime: Human Rights Watch
Hamas called for an end to suicide bombing in 2005 when they became a full political party.
Three Hamas women arrested for plotting suicide attack against Fatah
09/06/2009
By The Associated Press
Arayus is a clown.
Hamas refuses to recognize the right of Israel to exist. The terror group's official charter calls for the murder of Jews. Hamas is responsible for scores of shootings, suicide bombings and rocket launchings against civilian population centers.
Hamas' charter calls for the murder of Jews. Among its platforms is a statement that the "[resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: 'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!'"
Hamas' charter calls for Muslims to "pursue the cause of the Movement (Hamas), all over the globe."
Abdul below me answered a number of your points, but for starters:
THEY FUCKED IT UP BY NOT FORMING AN ALLIANCE WITH EGYPT.
YOU KNOW, THAT COUNTRY THAT CONTROLS THE OTHER BORDER WITH GAZA.
An alliance with Egypt is the single best thing they could POSSIBLY do for their people. And they fucked it up, big time.
Why play blame the victim game?
The issue at hand is the life of two years old child whose life was hanging in ballance.
He does not have to die. This was heartless and cold blooded murder. He was his parent's only child.
Listening to his parents greaving in Arabic breaks my heart.
Don't get wrong the treasionist government of Egypt is equally guilty as well in prolonging the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Yes, Mobarak of Egypt is a puppet and traitor. Like his Israeli counterpart, he guilty of war crime and crime against humanity, by imposing collecctive pusnishment against 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
Saldly, the latest vicim of this illegal and inhumane siege is: Faris Mazloum, two years old.
May his soul rest in peace.
May God deprive those responsible for the death of this child of having any children of their own.
Why do Palestinians do collective punishment against Israelis and their babies with all the rockets and terrorism?
The Palestinians are always trying to use their babies for political gain.
So do the Israelis, in case you haven't noticed.
(And if you go there, it's impossible NOT to notice.)
It is terrorism that prevents Israel from leaving the West Bank entirely in Palestinian hands today, for Israelis learned a lesson after leaving Gaza and South Lebanon. A negotiated settlement is still possible, and it does not require a settlement freeze; instead it requires that Palestinian terrorists stop trying to kill Israelis, or that a Palestinian government be in place that is ready, willing, and able to prevent them from succeeding.
Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. It DOES require a settlement freeze. It also requires a dismantling of the pervasive, racist institutions that control Israeli society (Such as the JNF).
Seriously, have you actually BEEN there? I'm an American Jew who's been to both Israel and Palestine. The people fucking up any hope of peace in the future are largely within Israel's borders.
"Palestinian terrorists trying to kill Israelis" certainly exist, but they're almost solely in Gaza. When it comes to the West Bank, you mainly have Israeli terrorists — fanatical cult settlers on illegal land who are willing to die for their 'god' and who respect nothing other than force — attacking innocent Palestinians.
Seriously, please stop swallowing the goddamn kool-aid on this.