Whistling:

The Palestinians, through Hamas and its supporters in Gaza, have continually called for Holy War with Israel, and provoked it with rocket attacks into Israel. They have now received the war that they have craved. As horrible as the deaths of innocent women and children are, and they are horrible, they are the inevitable fruits of war. If Hamas and the Palestinians do not want war they should not call for it. Whining about the gruesome caualties of a war that you wanted makes for wonderful propaganda in Europe and on the Left; however, in reality it is pure hypocrisy.

OH YES, HOW DARE DARE those bloody children, lying by their dead mothers

take advantage of their plight to muddy the Israeli's reputation? They should die and disappear. Like in Jenin.

Yossi Melman is beyond contempt. Beyond compresention except to this own.

Five days ago, I attempted to answer the question put to us, as to the most likely outcome. Here are elements of confirmation from Mark LeVine, professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine, who writes today:

“… Israel's image as an enlightened and moral democracy - is falling apart… The Red Cross… 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.

Additionally, numerous flippant remarks by senior Israeli politicians and generals, including Tzipi Livni… are rightly being seen as admissions of war crimes… (Major-General Gadi) Eisenkot's description of this planning ("this is a plan that has already been authorised.") in light of what is now unfolding in Gaza is a clear admission of conspiracy and intent to commit war crimes… On the ground, the evidence mounts ever higher that Israel is systematically violating a host of international laws, including but not limited to Article 56 of the IV Hague Convention of 1907, the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Convention, the Fourth Geneva Convention (more specifically known as the "Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949", the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the principles of Customary International Humanitarian Law. Israeli commentators and scholars, self-described "loyal" Zionists who served proudly in the army in wars past, are now publicly describing their country, in the words of Oxford University professor Avi Shlaim, as a "rogue" and gangster" state led by "completely unscrupulous leaders".”

Professor LeVine goes on to ask: “Who will save Israel from herself?

Israelis are clearly incapable. Their addiction as a society to the illusion of violence-as-power has reached the level of collective mental illness. Not Palestinians… Not the Middle East Quartet, the European Union, the United Nations, or the Arab League… Not the organised Jewish leadership in the US and Europe… Not the growing progressive Jewish community… and not senior American politicians and policy-makers … During the US presidential race, Barack Obama was ridiculed for being a messiah-like figure. The idea does not sound so funny now. It is hard to imagine anyone less saving Israel… from another four years of mindless violence.” (english.aljazeera.net)

agapn9 : "We need to tone down the rhetoric..." -

agapn9, this is no mere rhetoric (=df language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous).

When Nobel Wole Soyinka writes: "Acceptance of any such violation makes moral cowards of us all, and leaves us in complicity with other cowards of any struggle who lay siege on the helpless…", it is no mere rhetoric.

When Nobel Wole Soyinka adds: "… this assault took place under the nose of the United Nations… the doctrine of “There are no innocents” must be strategically and morally repudiated. To do less is to surrender our self-esteem, deny ourselves all dignity, diminish our own humanity, and indeed forgo our fundamental right to existence”, that is no mere rhetoric.

Wole Soyinka's is the voice that could never be silenced: it is the voice of the human spirit, of the human soul, echoing incessantly through the ages, in all languages and dialects.

That voice of the Great Souls needs not, ought not, will never be "toned down"; it was always, will always be heard, as long as will exist one being to preserve and affirm one's humanity.

Beginning with your first seven words, we clearly do not all agree.

We need to tone down the rhetoric - neither side is innocent neither side are Nazi's - both sides want Justice - both sides love their own children and both sides want a better future for their people. Can we all agree to that?

What we can't agree is what Justice would be!

But getting back to the Clinton plan might be a good first step - but even if you disagree with that:

I suggest we quit fighting and start talking and see if we can get something accomplished besides killing a few more innocent children.

Check this link to find out what honest, decent Jews have to say about the Zionist entity "Israel":

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7pPq1C5s0SY&NR=1

Yossi,

Will you please stop insulting our intelligence with such idiotic propaganda and try once in your life to grow up gracefully? The days when you could poison the minds of ordinary Americans with your dissolute Zionist excuses are over, and it’s high time you realised that.

Ordinary Americans, who until recently embraced Israel in good faith, can no longer tolerate being associated with an illegal entity that continues to have blood on its hands, nor can they sit idle whilst their tax-money is being used to support a murderous regime founded by Zionist terrorists on Arab Palestinian land - a regime that blockades a helpless people for years, drives it to the brinks of starvation and deliberately flouts all the norms of civilised behaviour by targeting schools, mosques and even UN refugee centres, and discriminately shooting at innocent children, men and women, not excluding even domestic animals.

Ordinary Americans know only too well how peacefully Arab Palestinians and native Jews lived side by side in the Middle East and in the rest of the Arab world prior to the founding of this illegal entity you call Israel. They also know of the numerous massacres and ethnic cleansing policies Israel has since carried out in that part of the world, to make room for the European Zionist Jewish settlers of whom you are no doubt one.

Please stop lecturing us on how wonderful your Israel is and apologise to your American readers for insulting their intelligence if you are not man enough to make an avowal your criminal, hidden agenda.

Yossi Melman does his best with the above propaganda [mostly devoid of facts concerning Israel's actions since 1948] to alienate the intelligent observeer of the world's politico-social-ecoenomical situation.

This is bad enough, by itself, for the reaction to the propaganda is alienation of Israel by larger and larger segments of the "international community's citizens" [as international community is defined by the USA: including but mostly limited to political leadership of NATO powers and USA supported dictatorial governments as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc]. However, the propaganda above with the added vitrolic bloodlust of Zionism's supporters is leading to the total corruption of the majority of Israel's Jewish citizens. That the rot is deep seated is patently obvious from the numerous tragic scandals stemming from the ruling political alite of Israel.
Whereas this Gaza fiasco could not have hqappened without USA GREEN LIGHT and USA supplied new types of boms, the fiasco has a very ILL reflection on the USA political leadership. The USA being in an economic and politicqal mess thanks to the efforts of Bush and Co. can not afford to get her name deeper into DODO land.

So the result of this fiasco:
1.,Israel's international standing is reduced.
2., The moral corruption of israel's citizens increased - with dire consequences in the future.
3., The USA's government notion of supporting demnocracy and human rights is completely destroyed after the Iraq/Afganistan turtures, secret prisons, wholeswale killing of innocent citiaens, etc.
4., Notwithstanding Nuclear armaments, the future is indeed bleak for the State of Israel, for with the waning power of USA, the politico/military security p[rovided by USA to Israel will decreae, if not completely ended -- THE USA IS BANKRUPT!!!
5., Hamas will survive [Israel's best hope] else be replaced by more radical forces - trained by the USA in her wars in Iraq and Afganistan.

Best solution: the Saudi Peace Plan accepted by Israel, with 6 months to relocate the West BAnk Settlements' residents and leavbing the building and infrastructure in its present form. The other possibility soon is the DEATH OF ISRALE AS A RELIGION BASED STATE - for the only alternative is ONE STATE with all her present inhabitants -- where the religious Jews would be a minority [ a.k.a. Republic of South Africa and the decline of power of the White Minority.

Good luck to all.

Actually, as an American, the Hell with both of them. They squabble and whine like five year old children, "He hit me back FIRST!", with field artillery.

If they killed each other off, the world would be a better place. Certainly, it would more quiet.

We responded disproportionately when we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11. I'm glad we did. The Gazans have supported extremists and terrorists, and danced in the streets when America was hit. We have spent millions in trying to aid the Palestinians, and most of that money went into corruption and theft. Maybe we should have shoved the Israelis and the Egyptians aside and invaded Gaza ourselves after 9/11.

The Gazans certainly hate us as if we did. And they hate the Jews. And they hate the Kuwaitis. And the Egyptians. In fact, they hate just about everyone.

Can't you at least just sit down and shut up, and spare us your self-righteous anger and obnoxious shouting?

ROCKS & SUICIDES AGAINST APARTHEID

Sadly, Israel has two problems to solve.

The first, and perhaps most serious, is the Israeli apartheid government which operates the largest concentration camp in the world. The United Nations defines apartheid as a crime against humanity and ranks it with genocide. Israel knows this, but feels it has little choice since it would cease to exist as a state on the principle of one-man, one vote and full legal and political equality for its Arab population. It is simple outnumbered and therefore, if you are not a Jew, you are not equal. It is racial preservation no different than the apartheid policies of the Afrikaner National Party and for essentially the same reasons.

The second problem is the imbalance of weaponry. Israel will never treat seriously with an unarmed population incapable of adequately defending its interests. The political temptation to define Palestinian interests solely in favor Israel is far too great. Simply put, there is no military reason to make any real political concession. Palestine, in Israeli terms, must be dealt with by diktat. A state too weak to defend itself, let alone its interests, commands no bargaining power in the middle east. Israel will take whatever it wants.

Home made rockets, AK47s, suicide bombers, these are all hopeless against the firepower of a modern military state. Israel, if anyone, knows how very hopeless it is because it was not so long ago that roles were reversed and they were the bomb throwers!

Israel makes certain that the Palestinians remain unarmed and militarily helpless for if they possessed equal weapons, Israel would withdraw or destroy Palestine with its very substantial nuclear arsenal.

In the present Gaza conflict, there is no equality, no true test of arms or honor, no resolution of political questions, it is merely a vicious, unconscionable slaughter - 4 Israeli dead against thousands of Palestinians - a slaughter to maintain supremacy, to maintain apartheid, to maintain a theocracy.

Under these conditions, any people is justified in its use of force to fight apartheid - it is a criminal act under international law. In this Hamas must be supported by all good people who oppose apartheid regimes.

What you mean is the Jews stealing Palestine have no choice but to be butchers! The Jews have learned the means of their oppressors well and have no problem using them whenever and wherever it desires! These henchmen are worse than their Nazi killers, worse than their Soviet masters, worse than the Polish Getto guards, worse than the Vichy collaborators! These Zionists can not be accepted as the "face" of the Jewish people, these crimianl murderers can not be allowed to continue their reign of terror and oppression, these Jews must be treated as the inhuman animals they have become!

This cross-talk is like sports-talk radio, only less coherent. "My Team" vs. "The enemy", where each side is the good guys to themselves. Mr Melman, it really doesn't matter who's "more right" or "more justified". Unless you kill all your enemies, plus the enemies you create by killing the first batch, plus the next batch of new enemies, ad nauseum, you cannot win by slaughter. You will die, and Israel will die, along with untold thousands of other human beings who are just like you and your friends, but happen to be Palestinians. You can rationalize it all you want - call them sub-human; heck, why not call them Unter-mensch, if that makes you feel any better. I do not know what the solution might be, but you and your enemies have been trying to solve your mutual problem at least from the dawn of recorded history this way - it hasn't worked yet, which makes me suspect that it's unlikely to suddenly work now. Hamas is led by vicious murderers, but then so was the Stern gang et al, until they became the leaders of the new Jewish state. A pox on both your houses. The people you claim to speak for deserve better than you.

what are you saying is that those who are being killed don't have the right to try to deffend them selves . well sir it israel who had come to our land and started killing our people and it is targeting the children and we will fight back we never give up and palestine willl be free again whatever you try to do it is our land we will never foget what happened in 1984 . God is with us and GAZA will the tomb of the israelies soldiers

Mr. Melman, allow me to correct your text:
Hamas had no choice but to launch its crude home made rockets against Israel. No nation on earth would have tolerated constant harassment, imprisonment, starvation, shelling of its small narrow land for eight years. Only three years ago, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip while dismantling settlements, destroying houses and farms , burning cultivated lands, and relocating their 8000 plus another 4000 Jewish settlers on other Palestinian grabbed land in the West Bank.
Israel is a state build on a religious myth which goes thousands of years back. Are we in the 21st Century? And it is called a democracy!
Hamas are fighting for the freedom of their people, for a normal peaceful life and a country where they can work –and not depend on relief organizations, raise their families and have hope for the future.
If Israel is serious about peace, it can show it by discussing with the Palestinians and their democratically elected representatives, i.e. Hamas.
Violence will breed violence, and massacres will bring fury and vengeance. Can’t this vicious circle be broken? Aren’t there any intelligent leaders around (especially those who have the power to do so)to work out a just and durable peace?
Now the massacre has to stop and journalists have to show a certain intellectual honesty. They do have an impact on the events of the world.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor who said don't overreact this country really belongs to the Indians? Who called for a measured response? When Hitler retreated to Germany who called for a truce? The Russians wiped out the German people because Hitler was still alive, kicking and he had started the war in the first place. Hitler not the allies was responsible for the deaths and destruction of Germany. He too ordered a fight to the death.
If someone across the street from your home was shooting at you after they took the family hostage would you want SWAT to stop the shooting at your family? Israel is employing SWAT tactics to prevent innocent hostages to Hamas from being killed. They could have just wiped out the entire Gaza but they will not. They send in humanitarian assistance instead and put their people at risk.
Israel is a great ally of the United States and supplies us with logistics, airfields, intelligence and does our dirty work like removing Saddam's nuclear plant in 1981. The most ignorant posts on this board are from the Jew haters. They have always been envious of the family values, the education and genius of the Jews who have won 18% of all Nobel Prizes while being only .25 of 1% of the population in the world.

RIDDLE ME THIS:

What do you call thousands of Palestinian children lying dead in the Gaza slums?

Answer: Jewish porn

If Mexico had invaded and annexed Texas and herded all former US citizens into a cramped refugee camp in the desert, and then those US citizens had the nerve to fight back, firing homemade rockets at the innocent Mexicans living in the Texans' former homes, who could question to right of Mexico to crush the terrorists and their refugee camp utterly?

What passes for morality from Israel's defenders these days is truly reprehensible.

If USA had not created Isreal at the expense of the Palestinians, the conflict would not have happened.

In all the years of it's existence, Israel has always claimed that they were willing to negotiate in good faith if only the Palestinians had leadership they could accept. When the Palestinians behaved peacefully, Israel annexed their land. When The Palestinians rose up, the Israelis killed them at ever-increasing rates of retaliation, (now exceeding 100 Palestinians killed by the IDF for every Israeli killed by Palestinians) and in the meantime continued to take the land. The same year 8,000 settlers were removed from Gaza, 12,000 were introduced to the West Bank, but the Palestinians fail to show sufficient gratitude.

It is now clear that Israel will not negotiate in good faith under any circumstances. They have broken every promise every made to the Palestinians, and continue to this day to lie openly and blatantly about their own military actions and objectives.

The saddest thing is that Hamas is Likud's dream come true, an excuse for collective punishment on a massive scale. Doing the math in human lives lost, I say shame on Hamas, and 100 times more shame on Israel.

Treat people with respect and they will stop shelling you. End apartheid in Palestine. One man, one vote; whether you live in
Gaza, West Bank, or TelAviv. If you can't treat the people within your borders with respect, give the West Bank back to Jordan, and Gaza to Egypt. Until then , viva la resistance! You will never make people respect you, by bombing them.

Dismantle the settlements in the West Bank.

Let's see an Israeli talking head take this up for once.

Instead it's the usual lip service, Israel only wants peace. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, solely on its terms.

Palestinians should continue to fight, they have nothing else to bargain with. Either Israel allows for a single state solution and allow for a real democracy (arabs, muslims, christians at the table), or attempts ethnic cleansing or continues with this apartheid state.

A two state solution is the only option Israel has. But keep building those settlements in the West Bank, slicing up the West Bank. There is no peace with those settlements. And there shouldn't be.

It begins to be obvious for more and more people around the world that Israel actually don't wan't peace. Look. Each time it had a potential interlocutor it either shuned it, discredited it, or tried to favor its opponents.

Thus Israel refused to talk to Arafat, humiliated the moderate Abbas for years to the point he was becoming less and less relevent, then pulled out of Gaza uniterally so Hamas could take over and definitely ruin his autority . And then Israel, helped by Bush's administration, made all its best efforts to further divide Palestinians, radicalize Hamas and never even tried to have it as an interlocutor.
Hamas is a movement that represent a good half of the Palestinians and is growing by the day. trying to ignore is illusory and stupid. And for the record, Hamas only became an Iran proxy when west and israel decided together to isolate it and cut all its ressources to govern.

The aim is to say to the rest of the world : "See ? we are full of good will and we want peace but we have no valid interlocutors !"
The truth is Israel don't want peace. It don't want it because it would mean making concessions and giving back lands. This is out of question for this spoiled state, used to violate all international laws for years, to crush any opposition by overwhelming force and used to see the slightest of its caprice granted.

And this is getting old very fast.
I wish Obama will have an impartial view when he come into power and seriously review the relations with Israel who took so much from united states economically, diplomatically, politically and gave very little in return.

Honestly, the expression of so much inhumanity on PG makes me feel utter despair. Please allow me to try and contribute as positively as I can to this discussion. This is from Nobel Wole Soyinka’s Reith Lectures, delivered at Oxford, “Climate of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World”. *

“There has to be a guaranteed zone of the sacrosanct, even among the self-righteous, a zone that, when breached, draws down a sustained universal response. The one of children is one such, and remains beyond expediency. Acceptance of any such violation makes moral cowards of us all, and leaves us in complicity with other cowards of any struggle who lay siege on the helpless….

… this assault took place under the nose of the United Nations… If we have to look for defining moments of despair and desperation within the Community that embraces the Palestinian people, its consciousness of the disdainful dismissal of its worth in international opinion, this surely must rank as one of the foremost --- and there have been, alas, uncountable numbers…

The time for tergiversation is over, it is time for a holistic confrontation of a global dilemma.
No Community, true, dares succumb to an arrogation of power over the lives of its innocents, and the doctrine of “There are not innocents” must be strategically and morally repudiated. To do less is to surrender our self-esteem, deny ourselves all dignity, diminish our own humanity, and indeed forgo our fundamental right to existence.”

----

“I consider it perhaps of some value, however limited, to co-opt… the following excerpt from a letter I recently received… “I am glad that for once I can send good news from Palestine… Reading your Reith Lecture “The Quest for Dignity”… was certainly an uplifting event and certainly an evening where the dignity and nobility of man reigned supreme… You might be interested to know that a relative of ours… sent your article to the commander in chief of the Occupation Israeli forces in our area.”” (Wole Soyinka, Introduction, May 2004)

Let there be hope.

*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2004/lecture4.shtml

I don't think there's one sentence in that piece that doesn't approach absurdity. A coup d'etat against the Palestinian Authority?

How can the WP publish this?

The writer Michael Oakeshott captured Israel’s quandary in a famous passage: “In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbor for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.”

"8 months ago, we witnessed an armed and ruthless coup d'etat by Hamas, which toppled the legitimate regime of the Palestinian Authority."

More distortion. Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians, and IS the legitimate government. The PLO is the usurper, a stooge of the US an Israel.

Commentators and others might do well to remember the following:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, now is the time for the Palestinians to replace those troublesome warrior chiefs with hang around the fort chiefs who are easily bought of with shinny trinkets. Once they accept their role as Israel's stoop labor, everything will be fine. For a nation with the motto, "Never Again," it is hard to fathom Israel's lack of understanding of a people that won't willingly accept being dispossessed and relegated to an inferior status (untermenschen).

My heart goes out the Palestinian children who have suffered so long under the brutal Israeli regime's apartheid policies.

The entire world now cringes at the very mention of Israel. A nation, or military enclave, that has just now garnered a spot in the grim pantheon that includes all those states who sponsor terrorism. Nazi's. Pol Pot. The Armenian Genocide, and Darfur. That is where Israel stands now. Killing civilians for political ends is terrorism. And we in America have been taught that ends do not justify the means. Read Darknees At Noon to feel the evil that emanates from Isreal.

The right to defend argument is for stooges, suckers who are a party to the same practices that their 'never again' mantra was intended to stop. Israeli is a criminal nation now. One that must be stopped. The same way we stopped the Nazi's.

I see some folk here have posted some videos of homemade rockets being shot at Israel in the midst of this barbaric invasion. The rocket plumes gives me hope. Hope that freedom will ring in Palestine someday, it’s people free of the yoke of the Zionist terrorists.

It reminds me of the Star Spangled Banner, which stayed up through the darkest of nights, a beacon, small, and yet more powerful than any despot.

Free Palestine!

And if there are any Palestinian's out there that see this, please know something, many Americans are with you, far more than you realize. We have been muzzled by Israeli lobbying dollars, but know that you are the freedom fighters now. The same as our own forefathers were, George Washington and Company.

We, the American people, who truly want to help those who cannot help themselves, wish you well in making the peace.

Israel wants land, not peace. And it's time for the American people to rise up and cut the terrorist state off.

It is ridiculous to lay blame on Israel for this...it seems the PC thing to do these days..yet how many of us would tolerate shells falling on our towns or cities from either Canada or Mexico...the first responsibility of any government is protection of its citizens...if mortars were falling on NYC from some "hideout" in New Jersey, you may be damn sure there would be screaming from the roof tops if our government failed to respond. The Hamas was warned well in advance of the impact of their continuing to shell Israel. The fact so many innocents are dying is certainly a deep tragedy but perhaps the time is now for Palestinians to "overthrow" the Hamas government and its insistence on wiping out the state of Israel and all Jews living there. It is past time for both parties to agree on a binding end to all this and work toward establishing a democratic Palestinian government and all nations to help rebuilding a viable Palestinian society. It can be done but it will never happen until Hamas is rejected by Palestinians.

I see the bashing of Israel is going full stream, but, I see it as self defense against another terrorist organization trying to take over a UN recognized nation. Should Israel stop - No. They should instead inform all Palestines who want to leave Gaza City that they have 24 hours before the carpet bombing of the city begins. Then Hamas has no civilians to hide behind to launch their rockets or mortars. Or maybe Israel should do the same as Hamas and just launch missiles into Gaza like Hamas does.

Israel must understand that the Palestinians in Gaza, like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, have no choice but fight because they are slowly being strangled to death by Israel.

Jews claim that they had to wait thousands of years to get back to Israel. Palestinians have no choice but fight for thousands of years to get back Israel.

Until Israeli extremists accept that they must come to a democratic one-man-one-vote solution
with the Palestinians Palestinians will continue
attacking, at any price.

Finally. Some truth. Thanks for the article. Is it in the print edition? If so, is it prominently displayed?

Congratulations on your very stretched attempt at creating some sort of pity for Israel right now. That would have worked BEFORE the deaths of over 600 people including children and their families. You will not be able to take those images out of my head. And you will not convince me that this horrific attack was the only way to go. I feel bad for my Jewish friends who will now be the victims of the bad decisions of its governors, and will have to endure years of continuous violence and hatred that will follow this slaughterhouse episode. And shame to the current leader in my country of the US for not condemning this. It´s a disgrace to our good name.

What country in the Middle East jails American Christians for five years if they give a bible to it's citizens?

And which country's laws dictate that it's citizens would be jailed for 3 years if they converted to Christianity?

Israel....which we have been duped into thinking was a democracy.

One more question: Israel wants to be an All Jewish State. Is that not discriminatory by nature?

The world must stop Israel, a religious military fort stuffed by colonial powers into Crusade country. When Israel fades away, the world can have some peace.

We can b

That's a good one.

Hamas is the result of Israel's genocidal approach to those who oppose Eretz Israel. (where is Rabin?)

Jimmy Carter called you land grabbers, Nelson Mandela Aprthied-ists. Israel is a terrorist state now. Sad, but true.

The world must stop Israel, the new nazi's, now.

It's a sad state when terror manages to earn sympathy, but it has with some. Hamas and the leading terror exporter in Tehran care nothing for the Palestinians. Their cause is murder, their mantra is hatred.

Yossi Melman has been soundly and properly excoriated by most of the commenters, but his claim that Hamas seized power in Gaza through a vicious coup got off too lightly. There is no ambiguity about Abbas' dismissal of the legitimately elected Hamas government. It was illegal because the Palestinian constitution required that such a dismissal be followed by new elections, which of course Abbas didn't bother with. So Hamas' alleged "coup" in Gaza was really successful resistance to Abbas' illegal attempt to seize power by force.
bobmossnj@bestweb.net

To washington Post
I wrote a comment wher it is?

A MASTER LIER
Dont fool yourself if it was not for the support of USA, Israel will never survive.
A terroris artificial state built on USA grants
and people like Madoffs, given free hand to kill
occupy ans steal PALESTINIAN land everyday and build settlements on it by american money.
Dont fool yourself Israel is the real enemy of JEWS. Nothing stays the same for ever .ONCE upon atime
there was GERMAN, austrian,Britsh, impires and they are finished.
Israel is strong because of USA ARMS AND FINACIBG,
but it cannot fight a long war.
And beleive me this is the futue for Israel as long as it is run by stupid hawks.

Poor enough article and short on truth and long on lies.

The usual lying article from the military securocrat industry "expert".

Israel had no choice - the old canard. Every country has a choice and to say it does not negates individual free will.

Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed and continue to be so by the State of Israel, the IDF, the Israel judicial system and the semi state settler movement. No amount of lying will exclude the facts which are there to be seen.
The abuse of the Jewish religion is shocking - God gave us this land, we are the chosen people, it is in the Old Testament. You people claim you are on God's side but is God on yours.

Hamas won the election - Israel wanted Hamas barred from participating in the election but the US said they should participate but they would not win. Dangers of democracy for the US in countries they do not like - the people might elect someone who the "right and just" do not like.

Ethnic cleansing will continue under the benign gaze of the US//UK axis. The reality of the world we live in is that the people of Europe, USA, Africa, Asia see the corruption and brutality of Israel via the Internet, the new TV channels. The fatality of the the Israeli/USA position is that this bloc represents less than 5 per cent of the world's population and only a small percentage of the remaining 95 per cent believe the guff and rubbish they espouse, print or produce on TV. Even within the USA, the true believers in the Israeli position are on an ever diminishing slide. Also many respected international Jewish rabbis, Jewish political thinkers and domestic Israel peace people have decided they can no longer support the Israeli government positions as regards the treatment of Palestinians.

In the mean time - dream on in your ever apartheid and settler mind.

Israel, Israel, weeping for Israel in The Gaza Offensive. Weep not for Israel, weep for the children of Gaza:

"JERUSALEM, Jan. 8 -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children -- emaciated but alive -- in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days."

Starving children with their dead parents, isolated by the 'valiant' IDF.

If Israel were to spend as much energy making sure the families of Gaza were well fed, well housed and well educated, as they do plotting the downfall of Hammas, I believe they would be in a much better position. The predicament of Palestinians in Gaza is so tragic it is little wonder they turn to the equally tragic Hammas organization for leadership.
This isn't an altruistic appeal to Israel, it's a pragmatic one. People who have full bellies and something to look forward to in life tend to have less time and fewer motives for retaliation. I don't mean to reduce the Palestinian cause to a simple case of hunger pains, rather I mean to argue that carrots work better than sticks.
So Israel put down the gun and pick up a bread stick.

That there is a doubt about Israel's right to defend itself and remove Hamas, admitted terrorists makes one wonder why anyone other than terrorist supporters would think otherwise.

Mr Melman says "Israel had no choice but to launch a military strike against Hamas. No nation on earth would have tolerated a constant shelling of its towns for eight years. Only three years ago, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip while dismantling settlements and relocating their 8000 Jewish settlers. It was a painful decision which almost brought Israel to the brink of a civil war."

If this rocket fire was going on for eight years why did Israel withdraw from Gaza three years ago. That doesn't seem to make much sense !!

Perhaps it's just another distortion of the truth that Israelis indulge in. Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories for over forty years now and have treated the people in an appalling way. No young person in Gaza or the West Bank (and more than half the population are children) can have cause for hope for their future. If people have no hope, how can there be peace ?

Yossi Melman's argumentation reminds me of a similar one by Shimon Peres, when interviewed on the BBC about the shooting to dead of Palestinian children by the Israeli army. His comment was: "Of course we have to kill them, they throw stones at us. If they stop throwing stones, we will not have to kill them." In civilised countries, riot police have a plastic shield to protect them from stones being thrown at them. But this killer Shimon Peres was awarded a Nobel Peace Price.

As it is pointed out in the column, Hamas leaders do not seem to care about the well being of the people the claim to represent or serve. But that is the critical part of the problem. They don't care about building a nation, only tearing down Israel.

The brute force response from Israel, even if it killed "only" 150 civilians and 450+ Hamas fighters, has by and large destroyed almost all the infrastructure in Gaza. Even if Israel succeeded in militarily suppressing Hamas this time, it takes only a few of them to resume lobbing rockets at Israel, even if much fewer in numbers. Then what is Israel going to do? Resuming the bombing and ground invasion again? Then the story will repeat.

My question therefore is: regardless who is right and who is wrong, is the issue really tractable? Has any one come up with a real solution in all these years? It is, fater all, much easier to destroy than to build!

And quit using the analogy of Cuba firing missiles into the U.S. - the missiles that would have been installed in Cuba were ballistic missiles the size of a freightcar, that could have flattened a 20-mile circle. Look at the pictures of rocket damage in Israel - I imagine they're using the most devastating wreckage they can find, and it's like a 4-foot hole through one wall. The rockets Hamas is using are literally pieces of pipe with crude explosive charges, and have no guidance at all. Ballistic missiles such as Cuba would have hosted would have a city's coordinates programmed into them before launch. You're not comparing apples and oranges, you're comparing apples and dumptrucks.

These shrill responses are typical - no criticism of Israel is allowed, period. We should just trust them, because they're such a good ally. Google "USS LIBERTY" if you want to see what kind of ally they can be when they're crossed. I don't hate the Jewish people, but they will never be held accountable as long as they can bully the Middle East with unconditional U.S. support. If they want to stop the rocket fire, why is it the other side that has to drop their weapons and accept Israeli terms? Why not agree on borders, and keep them? Israel wants it all its own way.

Wow. Turns out I finished making my last comment too soon. Here's an interesting snippet of information from Mahmoud Sabit's PostGlobal column:

"Possibly one of the more sinister aspects of this tragedy is the clumsy attempt through media 'spin' to portray Israeli civilians as victims in this crisis. When we see on our TV screens and computer monitors the effects of Hamas 'rockets' on Israeli communities, compared to the sheer havoc wreaked by Israeli high explosives on the Gaza urban landscape and its civilian population, the educated and informed can safely put this fiction aside. As of a couple of days ago, in an TV interview with the BBC, Dr. Mars Gilbert at Dar el Shifa hospital in Gaza informed us that the overwhelming majority of casualties he had treated were civilians and that of the 900 casualties that they had so far cared for at Dar el Shifa, 25% of the fatalities and fully 45% of the wounded were women and children."

Meanwhile, in the New York Times yesterday there was an article about how the Israeli army and government had effectively cut off contact with the press and reduced its interaction to a list of talking points. Here is the link to Israel Puts Media Clamp on Gaza:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/middleeast/07media.html?scp=3&sq=Israel&st=cse

So please bear that in mind when rereading Mr. Melman's article. You cannot take his words as face value.

I believe the premise supporting the author's conclusions is false, namely that Hamas has been constantly firing missiles at Israel and that is the reason for Israel's invasion.

Hamas did not fire any missiles at Israel throughout October and early November of 2008. It was Israel who broke the cease-fire by killing six Hamas soldiers in Gaza on 04 November 2008 (using missile strikes and Special Forces). In response to that attack, Hamas resumed firing the rockets into Israel. The author neglects to mention this.

So when the author states "No nation on earth would have tolerated a constant shelling of its towns for eight years," or "Hamas has constantly fired at Israel," or "Hamas unilaterally decided to break a fragile cease fire with Israel," I believe he is being misleading.

I suggest anyone reading do their homework, look at the recent history, and come to their own conclusions. All the best; I welcome any thoughtful response.

You're right. No nation would tolerate their city being peppered with rockets.

Equally, no nation would tolerate a city being commandeered by another population group who then go on to evict, slowly but surely, the present inhabitants and then attack them when they resist.

If Israel is justified in a full-scale invasion due to these rocket attacks, the level of justification for resistance by the dispossessed must be even greater, especially when they are bottled-up in suffocating cantons under absolute control. If Israelis think that is a just solution, then trade places. I won't hold my breath waiting.

If Tijuana was throwing rockets into San Diego, the US would definitely retaliate. If the Mexicans crossed the border and annexed San Diego, the US would go ballistic. Why does anybody think the Palestinians should just roll over and let it slide by?

I do not support Hamas or its attacks. I also know that Israel will never achieve peace by subjugation of others. An accommodation must be reached that is fair and just. What exists at the moment is patently not. This view has a name; it is called common sense.

If anyone ever thought that anti-semitism was dead all they would need to do is come and read blogs such as these where it ranges from self-deluded vitriol (markensop) to no holds barred Jew-baiting and hatred (telsawy1 & simplicio).

I would like to thank batigol85 for making perhaps the most concise and reasoned post that tells it like it is.
I would also like to thank the author of this article for also speaking the truth about the current situation. Sorry Jew-haters and Jew-baiters, your lies will be revealed.

Yossi:

Interesting point; if no nation would withstand shelling in a small area of its land for 8-years, why would a people put up with a brutal occupation fo its entire territory for 40?

Moreover, I'm sick and tired of people saying things like: poor Abbas was overthrown in a "ruthless coup." Gross hyperbole.

First of all, Hamas' Haniyeh was the legitimately appointed prime minister after democratic elections. As such, he was the head of government. Israel and the West immediately began placing artificial demands on Hamas just as they had required a "gesture of peace" from Abbas when he came to power. Anything to throw a monkey wrench in the works.

It is true that Abbas was head of state, but in most parliamentary systems this is a largely ceremonial position. Under Arafat it wasn't, and the Americans and Israelis wanted a strong prime minister to weaken him. They essentially foisted Abbas on him. After Arafat died, all of the sudden they changed course--but Abbas never earned the power like Arafat had.

In addition, Abbas made a bald faced power grab after the elections and before Hamas took power by taking over the security forces in a legally questionable move. What happened next was predictable. Fatah and PLA security forces gave as good as they got in the fighting, mounting numerous armed attacks and committed numerous atrocities, as did Hamas.

Abbas was hardly innocent--you could even argue fairly that he started it. If anything he has looked as if he is on Israel's payroll. He has not been a leader of his people. He constantly attends meaningless meetings, never taking a principled stand in confrontation, just to make Bush look good (post Annapolis) and to keep the US money flowing. Israel gets the PR benefit of saying that they are "negotiating" when they are, in fact, not.

Why is it that every one of these people who speak about Israel leaving Gaza, never mentions the fact that they then proceeded to blockade it, with the collusion of the US, the EU, the feckless FATTAH Organization of Mahmoud Abbas, as well as the all too pliant Arab States and, indeed the whole, so called "International Community"?

Hey marknesop- please get a clue

"I'm just sick and tired of the mantra that the Palestinians have to stop firing rockets at Israel"

That's an interesting thought. I have a question for you. If Cuba started launching missiles into FLorida and they were getting steadily closer to Miami, what would you suggest to Robert Gates? Just wait it out and see if they stop? Are you kidding? Heck, the United States attacks countries even if they only SUSPECT based on faulty information that they have weapons.

The reality is that the missiles that Hamas is firing, while crude, are becoming more advanced and are closing in on big Israeli cities. Israel is probably one of the few countries in the world that would be critisized for returning fire when fired upon. Yes, it's a sticky situation. But Israel has the right to defend themselves, just like any other country. Especially against groups sworn to their destruction.

Also, you might not know (or choose to ignore) that Israel drops pamphlets over Gaza to let the Palestinians know where they are bombing, mostly suspected weapons facilities. They are trying to minimize civilian casualties

The fact of the matter is that once Hamas stops sending rockets into Israel, Israel will stop as well. Hamas has clearly been the instigators, as they refused to sign the truce in December, despite being urged by Egypt, that would end all this and instead decided to send countless rockets into Israel. I can only hope that a truce will be found ion the next couple days and the death and destruction will cease.

Infinite retaliations deeply muddle who, in fact, is to blame for violence at any particular time. Instead of continuing with this endless game of finger-pointing ping pong, lets simplify the debate for the sake of clarity.

1. Israel has established permanent peace with many formerly hostile Arab neighbors, including Jordan and Egypt. This is proof positive of Israel's authenticity in seeking peace with her neighbors.

2. The West Bank has been spared from this current conflict and much of the preceding tensions (e.g. blockade). All assertions of Israeli aims to cleanse/remove/oppress the Palestinian peoples are therefore absurd.

3. Israel met the greatest Palestinian demand when it pulled out of Gaza and the WB. Hamas has failed to reciprocate in any way since, and now cites the blockade as its major grievance. Why would anyone believe the organization would curtail aggressive activity if the openings were lifted?

If the Gazas wanted peace, they would have it.

As usual in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Washington Post prints an apparently endless stream of pro-Israeli pieces more appropriate to the POST in Jerusalem than the Post in the capitol of the nation, dedicated,as Abraham proclaimed, "to the proposition that all men are created equal." How now do the relatives of the 700 or more Palestinian dead from Israeli bombs and bullets view the storied Land of Lincoln? And how now do millions of the world's Muslims view the land of the Great Emancipator? Even within a few days of their departure, George Bush and Condi Rice continue to wreak havoc throughout the world with the priceless image of humanitarian America.

Hey, Ellen - get a clue. Did you hear me say anything about killing Jews, or did I express any hope that Jews would be killed? Did I express any empathy with the Hamas charter? Hardly.

I'm just sick and tired of the mantra that the Palestinians have to stop firing rockets at Israel, that this is the cause of the whole conflict. As I've pointed out before, about 20 times as many Israelis die every year in car accidents as have been killed by rocket fire from all the rockets ever to be lobbed at them by the Palestinians. Also, except for suicide bombers, it's the only form of violent protest the Palestinians have. The Palestinian territories have no army, navy or air force. Israel has all three, the best-equipped military in the Middle East, not to mention Israel is protected by nuclear weapons. Peaceful protests go nowhere, nobody listens, because nobody cares to stand up to Israel - including the government of Mahmoud Abbas.

If Palestinians protest the theft of the West Bank (and as to its being originally part of Israel, how far back do you want to go? Once NONE of it was Israel), nobody pays any attention, in spite of the fact that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal according to the Israeli government. Are you arguing that Netanyahu never said he intended to annex further areas of the West Bank, and isolate them with extensions of the security wall? I assure you he did, and there's no reason to wonder if he's serious. Israeli leaders from ben Gurion to Sharon have made statements regarding pushing the Palestinians into the sea. Is it your position that they were all joking?

It makes no more sense for you to imply that I am a Jew-hater, just because I expect them to be accountable for their actions, than for me to suggest you are a Jew-lover just because you defend their contention that they only do what they must.

The author over simplifies but it remains true that too many call out Israel for war crimes when civilians are killed in an offensive while ignoring the war crimes of Hamas that brings on the Israeli offensive.

What I don't understand is what happened to the Israeli intelligence organizations, the ones that tracked down and destroyed Nazis for years, even on cold trails. Surely the Israelis could infiltrate Hamas and take out the important persons? Find the tunnels and destroy them? Plant GPS on munitions sent in to Gaza via spies and use them to find the militants?

I ask this because the blunt instrument of the army has been shown to be ineffective and is used successfully by Hamas for propaganda purposes. It seems there must be another route to take out the enemy.

I agree wholeheartedly with the statement that no other nation on earth would let anyone send deadly rockets into their country for years, or even weeks without retaliation.

As for the routes in/out of Gaza being restricted by Israel and causing hardship, that is a strawman. Israel tried to restrict those routes to avoid direct battle with Hamas in civilian territory and it did not work. Now with military intervention they are being trashed for past attempts to use a peaceful tactic to show the Palestinian people that they need to break away from Hamas.

"Israel had no choice but..."

"Israel had no choice but..."

"Israel had no choice but..."

Well, it would seem that time has come to teach our children and grandchildren that we always have the choice; for we always do. Our children and grandchildren need not, therefore, consider themselves victims for eternity. Nobody but they will ever be responsible for their own actions. Nobody but they.

Who wrote that "old arguments are no longer valid here"? They still very much are. More than ever.

I guess the truth is that Israel will never be a viable state if they are unable to maintain neither peace nor a self-sustaining economy.
Perhaps the UN or EU can establish a non-secular care-taker administration for the region.
The Israeli attitude of just killing for the sake of it is apparently 'unavoidable' to Israelis. Presumably the Palestinians and Lebanese also find conflict unavoidable. Goodness we've put up with 60 years of this stupidity and left to themselves they seem hell-bent on destruction.
Time for the International community to step in.

If Hamas would quit firing rockets, this incidence would have never happened. I think it's the culture of violance bred by the Islamic terrorists across the world without the value of the human life. For the Hamas like terrorists, human life means nothing. They are happy to showcase deadbodies of the innocent people on the TV for the world to watch and gain hllow sympathy. Have you ever seen Hamas leaders' children dying? Never. They want everynone elses children & women to die to advance their cause. Whatever it might be!!!!!! I hope people like Hamas meet their fate. Do not back down Israleis. Learn from India, giving land for peace never works. Muslims are never satisfied what they have. They want it all, at any and all cost.

Sounds like Markensop won't be happy until every living Jew in Israel has been murdered. Just like the Hamas leadership. Does he deny that Hamas is bombing Israel? Does he deny that Hamas is targeting the humanitarian supply routes into Gaza? Does he deny that Iran is supplying Hamas with weapons? NO.

He diverts the issue to the West Bank, which WAS a part of Israel as it was first set up (and is actually on the east side of Israel, the "west bank' refers to the west side of Jordan).

Sounds like the Republicans in the US. Divert attention to the issue of gay marriage instead of fucusing on balancing the budget--which, thanks to their astoundingly inept administration, will now not be possible for many years.

Nice try, Yossi; another apologist for Israel's blunt-instrument tactics. If there's any other opinion, you'd never know it, because Israel's opinion is the only one that's easy to get these days - no shortage of interviews there.

The Palestinian people elected Hamas because they wanted somebody who would stand up to Israel, not that invertebrate jellyfish Mahmoud Abu Mazen Abbas. They had the choice of a radical government who would pursue a violent solution, or a quisling bootlicker who would wring his hands and make distressed noises while Israel annexed the West Bank. Of course Israel doesn't want to occupy Gaza - there's nothing there worth having except ocean frontage. It's the West Bank Israel covets, and Bibi Netanyahu (for one) has made no secret of his interest in grabbing as much of it as the rest of the world will allow him to get away with. He spoke recently regarding how the security wall must protect (and therefore encompass) both Israeli settlements and roads leading into Israeli settlements. His intentions are to expand rather than contract the Jewish state. Israelis seem to be foursquare behind that plan. Why wouldn't they be? The Palestinians are only vermin anyway - it's not like they were people.

Of course the Palestinians will be allowed to keep Gaza, provided they stop firing rockets (which usually hit nothing anyway) to protest Israel's annexation of the West Bank. Otherwise they can complain as much as they like; nobody pays any attention. Maybe they can get Mahmoud Abbas to write a letter.