Indo-Israel: News and Discussion

[vavinash]

Whatever rationalisations people come up with on this forum, a few facts are in order

1. War crimes are being committed, and some folks probably cannot land in Europe at all for fear of arrest

No one cares about europe. Just wait till suicide bombs start going off regularly in europe. Most europeans have no love for muslims. Its their misguided idea that solving israel-palestine problem will make the muslims love them like giving kashmir to porkis will stop terrorism that makes them support the palestinians. Heck Palestine is a mythical country that was made up to beat israel. The muslims in those areas are mostly syrian or egyptian descendants. More power to israel.

2. The current war is purely election theatrics for Israelis for Bibi and Livni

All rocket attacks from gaza are theatrics of hamas. They know they will never win against israel. So I say Israel has the right to respond with its own theatrics.

3. Getting pogrom'ed out by Europe is no reason to steal Palestinian land. They had nothing to do with the pogroms. Compared to what happened in Europe till the 1900s, Jews/Muslims were pretty much OK in getting along.

Israelis are not pets to be thrown out of europe because europeans wanted it then and now get thrown out of israel because europeans suddenly feel it was wrong. Since the brits and europe are responsible for the mess lets give palestinians land in europe/britain to compensate. That fair isn't it? Muslims never got along with anyone so stop day dreaming since you are not an idiot like me. Israel is doing a good job kudos to them.

4. There is nothing unique about their suffering i.e. Jewish suffering is not special that they should be exempt from rules of war and peace. Heck, by that token, about 3-5 million(and lots dead) people lost their moorings in our Partition. No Indian OR Pakistani is claiming special privileges.

Of course it is unique. They were the first ones to stand up to the muslims and smash them to kingdom come. Indians are too stupid and cowardly (top leadership atleast). lets not even compare the two. I as an indian would be ashamed of it. I already am the way EDITED MMS has handled mumbai attacks. OF course if GOI does something useful at a place and time of its choosing I will withdraw the statement.

5. And the Zionist idealogy is racist. God's chosen people? A Jewish state? WTF are the rest of the world? 2nd class folks under their God? Replace Zionism with Muslim....hey, mad muslims crap.

So is Islam. I would take jewish snobbery over muslim suicide bombing any day. So again more power to israel.

This war itself is a turkey shoot, killing women and children; IDF at its best. Notice, how many hamas fighters were killed so far? Few arent they? This invasion is Sabra and Shatila redux with IDF instead of Phalangists.

Good for israel. Thank god hamas is not powerful else they would have killed thousands of innocent israelis who wouldn't even be used as shields by IDF.
50 % of those killed are HAmas fighters and the rest pawns used by them. So all in all a very good count.

[shyamd]

Heck Palestine is a mythical country that was made up to beat israel. The muslims in those areas are mostly syrian or egyptian descendants.

Mythical country made up to beat Israel? If the muslims are egyptians and syrian descendants, please tell us where the jews are from lol.

Common lets be rational.

[vavinash]

The jews lived on that land for 2000 years before the EDITED was born. The rest were thrown there by europeans because despite the holocaust they did not want jews in europe. The "fakestanians" are all syrians and egyptians that lived in trans jordan. Learn a little history before cooking up vavinash about palestine.{Learn a little bit of forum decorum before posting again} Palestine was cooked up just like pakistan and will meet its demise the same way.

[shyamd]

Lol. You still never answered my question. I ask you again, where did the jews come from? Yes Yes, all Palestinians are from Syria and Egypt onree.

[vavinash]

Lol learn to read the reply again.

[shyamd]

LOL.

Yeah, blacks have lived in the UK for a long time. But where did they originally come from?

In case you missed this part of history, according to the bible Abraham bought the jews from Egypt to an area which is called Canaan.

[SivaN]

This invasion is Sabra and Shatila redux with IDF instead of Phalangists.

Aren't you hyperventilating a bit too much there?

So, what would be an apt comparision then? Warsaw Ghetto? The reason I gave Sabra was the similarity of enclaved people shot at; in Sabra, phalangists rounded up people, here they're bombed from all 3 avenues on a slightly larger scale by the Israelis themselves.

And the dead are about the same numbers.

[SivaN]

There are legitimate questions that can be asked about Jewish 'chosen people' ideology. 'Chosen people' is not always interpreted as a priviege by Jews, often it is seen as a special burden imposed by God. Also, in modern times, Jews themselves have done quite a lot of effective work in reconciling Jewish ideology with ideals of humanitarianism and service.

Well, right now, the nutters in Israel think that the entire Levant is supposed to be theirs because their books(i.e. mention of Chosen Land) say so. I put it to you that they're no different from the muslims in their madness. And they have done precious little in reconciling; no more or no less than other religions. I mean, what they have done is not something special in "reconciliation"; Xianity has, Hinduism has, Islam seems to have regressed but it will break from within.

There is no doubt that the suffering imposed on the Palestinian people is unjust.

Instead of sueing the crap out of Europe, they got played into accepting someone's land. Now the ME has a problem in it's hands. Random people have to suffer.

Understanding the perceptions of Jews and Israel doesn't mean denying the injustice or the suffering. But without that understanding, there can be no communication with Jews; and without that communication, there is no solution to the problem short of what is advocated by Hamas--elimination of Israel and by implication Jews.

So why should Hamas try to understand Jewish suffering when it's not reciprocated? It's been accepted that Israel broke the ceasefire. then cutting off supplies. then assassinating key Hamas people. Provoked, Hamas fired toy rockets. Going by the Israeli accounts 4000 of them have been fired, to kill what? 5 people?

[shyamd]

Well, right now, the nutters in Israel think that the entire Levant is supposed to be theirs because their books(i.e. mention of Chosen Land) say so.

Oh common, you don't believe that from the Nile to the Euphrates conspiracy theory do you? If they did believe that, do you think the Israeli's would have given back Sinai? Do you think they would have pulled out of Gaza? They crossed the Litani river in 2006, why didn't the Israeli's just keep the land up to the Litani?

[asprinzl]

Ok here is a little background on Sabra and Shatila for the deaf, dumb, blind, foolish and plain guilible.

Palestinians were given hospitality in Lebanon by the Christian President after the Jordanian attempted massacre of the Palestinians. This itself was a result of Palestinains provoking the Jordanians in the first place after Jordan had given them hospitality but thats for another time.

While in Lebanon the Palestinians sided with the Muslims when the civil war broke out. A huge contigent of them were based in the vicinity of the Christian enclave of Damour. By the middle of the civil war the Christian population of Damour was wiped out or chased out. Months later when our infantry and armor marched in, we saw the results. The Palestinians and their Muslim allies never bothered to cover up their deeds at all. Too proud of their achievements. In one instance inside a church there was a remnant of a young woman beside a man. She was raped, murdered and then mutilated. The young man was murdered and his sexual organ was cut off and inserted into the mouth of the dead female. Such deprave set of animals. We have heard of other attrocities committed against the by now losing side (the Christians) but such is the fate of the Christians of the Middle East that all the attrocities, murder, mayhem and whatever clamity brought on them by the Muslims never quite made it to the mainstream media.

The Sabra and Shatila camps were not exactly refugee camps. They were also armed camps bristling with armed men. Once the Christian forces in their vicinity were chased away, the young and the female Christians in their vicinity were at their mercy. Imagine the tolerant and humane treatment they got from peace loving Palestinians. More tastier ham producing pigs never flew better.

So the daily murder and mayhem visited upon the Christians from the Sabra and Shatila camps were just minor lapse in judgement of juvenile underaged ghosts that masquaraded as Palestinians. Palestinians were totally innocent in this. Yep...my foot.

After enduring all these attrocities committed by the peachy bottomed, peace loving and tolerant Palestinians who were first given hospitality by the Christians of Lebanon in the spirit of Arab solidarity, the first half chance of an opportunity the Christians got to exact revenge they took it. They didn't care if there were men, women, children or dogs. They did exactly what they Palestinians were doing to them for the last six years. Unfortunately for us, when that happened the place was under our military control and those with pervese agenda never stopped from lapping on us the responsibility for the deed without bothering to find out why it could happen.

Think of the train incident of Godra and think of it happening continuosly for a year. Then two years, then three years and them six years. How would the victims respond if they get a chance.

Leftist monkeys never bothered to do their research. Arab racists exploited these as validation. Now idiots everywhere take that as gospel.
Avram

[munna]

Leftist monkeys never bothered to do their research. Arab racists exploited these as validation. Now idiots everywhere take that as gospel.
Avram

Excellent post Asprinzl! I guess some people just never learn that they are being killed under an ideology/religion and not some real/root cause. Kashmiri Pandits, Jews, Jammu Hindus and Ahmediyyas have all been marginalized and brutalized but everything is swept under the carpet.
FYI what happened in Godhra in 2002 has centuries old history in terms of perpetrating atrocities on Hindus ask any local.

[Sanku]

Excellent post Asprinzl; Israel can do what is right and what is needed because you have no traitors amongst you -- for us our biggest enemies are Indians themselves; no other people can defeat Indians other than themselves.

[Surya]

Palestinians need to be given Jordan

Jordan was part of Palestine before Percy Cox drew the red line - The jordanian royal family is a booted out loser of the Saudi family wars. 50 percent of jordan is palestinian anyway (maybe more). So Jordan plus West Bank plus Gaza and a strip connecting Gaza to West bank in lieu of settlements in West bank should do the job.


That leaves only Jerusalem and frankly the third most important site does not get precedence over the most important site for the other 2 religions.


Problem is Jordan is the lackey that suits a lot interests(Saudi,Anglo Saxon etc.) so they need to be kept alive.

And for those who moan the Palestinians losing their homes - a lot of jews got kicked out of Arab countries.
So shit has happened and there is no going back.

Both sides have reasonable claims to the land and there is no perfect solution - one needs to to visit Israel and spend time with professional archaelogists at many of the sites and watch the layer after layer of invasions and change of hands. The Muslims had a good run and for the time being that is over. They will have to deal with it. If they think breeding a billion people will help - good luck!!!.



Someone mentioned the Israeli Arabs.

that is an intriguing question - they have the best life of any Arab in the middle east (barring politics) and Haifa is a beautiful cosmopolitan city with everyone mixing pretty well. I go there on every visit still get my olives , zatar and coffee with cardamon from this Arab shop.

But everytime they elect their leaders - they seem to support the Arabs.

So the fifth column doubts persist.


So taking all this into account - push comes to shove you cannot talk of nuances (we don;t likeothers talking of nuances and being ambigous or doing equal equal to us) - you have to back one side and I would choose the Israelis who for the most part have tried their best to live in peace .

[Aditya_V]

And lets not forget why this issue can never be solved or has a compramise.. All goverments in OIC depend on thier population venting thier anger at the Iserealis rather than themselves..

Not to forget Cpi(m) in this

[Chandragupta]

All the people here about human right violations of Palestinians & their plight are wasting their time. They better try their luck on Burkha Dutt's talk show where they will not only be applauded but might also get a pappi from Padmashri Burkha Dutt.

[sum]

Every channel outdoing itself by putting only toll of Palestanian children killed during the last 13 days and showing visuals ONLY of wounded children.women being evacuated/pulled out from debris.

Wonder where these channels were when Israeli children were running from the Qassams. Cant imagine the DDM conducting shows etc discussing if Paki women and children deserve to die for a terror attack in India with heartrendering visuals thrown in if India conducts a military strike (after the "next attack" acc to PC )

[vsudhir]

Every channel outdoing itself by putting only toll of Palestanian children killed during the last 13 days and showing visuals ONLY of wounded children.women being evacuated/pulled out from debris.

To be fair, such visuals of Israeli victims wouldn't quite have the same effect.

But balanced reporting requires that the Hamas nazi-like rallies and sloganeering be shown - "throw all the joes into the sea' rhetoric be shown, hezbollah's nasrallah's speech translations be shown....

Here in massaland, the coverage is pretty much neutral - they show Palest casualities but also interview Israeli spokespeople. BBC coverage comes across as pretty one-sided though. The Brits at it again, what else.

[Surya]

Last but not the least - for all those in love with the Palestinians

when I went to Jerusalem, while generally well received and got called "Indian, India" (contrary to what Avram said )

one palestinian did yell out "Kashmir Kashmir Gone".

told him "In your dreams" and led to a very interesting shouting match before a Bedouin shopkeeper shooed him way. the dude was lucky because a very ominous looking pair of Israeli border guards were making their way up.

I later found that the joker had actually worked\lived in Bombay for some time.

[shyamd]

Two strategic Gaza towns Jebalya and Rafah within Israeli military sights

Thursday night, Jan. 8, Israeli forces fought their way into Jebalya in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, showing they were not deterred from going forward into the adjoining densely-packed alleys of Gaza City's downtown. Significantly, most Hamas leaders hail from Jebalya.

Rafah, which is split between southern Gaza and northern Sinai, is the key to control of the Egyptian border and the strategic Philadelphi border route with its smuggling tunnels.

Israel's emissary to Cairo, Amos Gilead of the defense ministry, returned home Friday, Jan. 9, reporting he had found nothing in Egypt's ceasefire proposals worth his government's consideration.

DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that Thursday, Hamas leaders and commanders emerged from their underground hideouts for their first look at the devastation wrought in 13 days of Israeli aerial bombardment. They took advantage of the pause in Israel's military operations for supplies to reach the Gaza population to come out of their holes but soon headed back to safety.

IDF commanders hoped their lust for battle would be cooled by the sight of Gaza in ruins and they would be shocked enough to give up and stop fighting. This would settle the serious argument among Hamas leaders in both Damascus and Gaza over Egypt's ceasefire proposals.

Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal flatly rejects them and favors breaking off contacts with Cairo altogether. Mussa Abu Marzouk would accept them. He is backed by Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh who maintains that Egypt is Hamas' only remaining lifeline which it dare not jeopardize.

However, the military arm in Gaza and its heads, Khalil al Haya, Said Sayam and Muhammad Jabry, are strongly in favor of severing ties with Egypt and fighting on.

Our sources disclose that the Hamas extremists are finding time for the brutal persecution of their rivals, the Palestinian Fatah. Under cover of the general mayhem, Hamas gangs are kidnapping Fatah operatives and executing them. Their bodies are tossed onto the mountains of uncollected garbage and their kinsmen informed where to find them. Hamas leaders are convinced their rivals are plotting to exploit the fighting to overthrow their regime.

[rajsunder]

So why should Hamas try to understand Jewish suffering when it's not reciprocated? It's been accepted that Israel broke the ceasefire. then cutting off supplies. then assassinating key Hamas people. Provoked, Hamas fired toy rockets. Going by the Israeli accounts 4000 of them have been fired, to kill what? 5 people?

yeah this is some thing that i hate about leftists and pro-terrorist PR guys, every time Israel attacks to defend they talk about attacks being non proportionate.
Do you mean that for every Israeli citizen being killed by hamas, ISRAEL should kill one hamas terrorist?? If thats so then Jews would become extinct in Israel.(Considering population of Israeli Jews to be <10 million and world wide population of muslims being more than a billion, that's 100:1 roughly, which i beleive is more of a 200:1). So that means killing 100+ hamas terrorists for 1 Israeli would be equal and killing 10000 for 1 Killed would be enough to teach a lesson to the hamas and its terrorist ilk not to mess with Israel.

[vsudhir]

Its terrible how little sympathy, empathy and ganapathy there seems to be amongst the rightist fascist hundutvists for the poverty-stricken, desperation-driven, innocent, hapless, artless, naive, suffering, oppressed Palestinians.... How revolting, worse, rotating of you chaps!

Which brings me to some zimble questions onlee....

From what I see on tv, the palestinians dont look like malnourished at all....fro a place with 50%+ unemployment, the hijabbed women are stout, the stone throwing teens have good clothes on - jackets, sweaters, sneakers, socks .... every despicable zionist attack brings scores of lights-flashing ambulances to the scene with fancy red-cross and UN insignia whereas our aam aadmi (like the debt-ridden farmers committing suicides in MH and AP) ius more likely to die on the street from accident wounds more often than not.... compare the dreadful material situ of the palests with the hard-working, generally, law-abiding aam SDRE slumdawg and you'll think - shouldn't the latter be the one whining and killing and rocketing and sloganeering and suiciding the class enemy 24x7??

But aah, I digress...... sdre aam aadmi has to earn a living, earn bread, healthcare and edu for his family and work needs to be done... And blaming GoI will yield zilch and zero support/sympathy/aid from the rest of the world's 'con-science'.

[enqyoob]

By the way - Pakistan Army went to Jordan to help mass-murder Palestinian civilians in 1974. One of the great victories of the Pakistan Army.

[ramana]

vsudhir wrote

But aah, I digress...... sdre aam aadmi has to earn a living, earn bread, healthcare and edu for his family and work needs to be done...

Doesn't compute!

sdre= Short Dark Rice Eating

[shyamd]

Found this in yesterday's guardian:


This brutality will never break our will to be free

For six months we in Hamas observed the ceasefire. Israel broke it repeatedly from the start
Comments (398)

o Khalid Mish'al
o The Guardian, Tuesday 6 January 2009
o Article history

For 18 months my people in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated inside the world's biggest prison, sealed off from land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied even medication for our sick. After the slow death policy came the bombardment. In this most densely populated of places, nothing has been spared Israel's warplanes, from government buildings to homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and markets. More than 540 have been killed and thousands permanently maimed. A third are women and children. Whole families have been massacred, some while they slept.

This river of blood is being shed under lies and false pretexts. For six months we in Hamas observed the ceasefire. Israel broke it repeatedly from the start. Israel was required to open crossings to Gaza, and extend the truce to the West Bank. It proceeded to tighten its deadly siege of Gaza, repeatedly cutting electricity and water supplies. The collective punishment did not halt, but accelerated - as did the assassinations and killings. Thirty Gazans were killed by Israeli fire and hundreds of patients died as a direct effect of the siege during the so-called ceasefire. Israel enjoyed a period of calm. Our people did not.

When this broken truce neared its end, we expressed our readiness for a new comprehensive truce in return for lifting the blockade and opening all Gaza border crossings, including Rafah. Our calls fell on deaf ears. Yet still we would be willing to begin a new truce on these terms following the complete withdrawal of the invading forces from Gaza.

No rockets have ever been fired from the West Bank. But 50 died and hundreds more were injured there last year at Israel's hands, while its expansionism proceeded relentlessly. We are meant to be content with shrinking scraps of territory, a handful of cantons at Israel's mercy, enclosed by it from all sides.The truth is Israel seeks a one-sided ceasefire, observed by my people alone, in return for siege, starvation, bombardment, assassinations, incursions and colonial settlement. What Israel wants is a gratuitous ceasefire.

The logic of those who demand that we stop our resistance is absurd. They absolve the aggressor and occupier - armed with the deadliest weapons of death and destruction - of responsibility, while blaming the victim, prisoner and occupied. Our modest, home-made rockets are our cry of protest to the world. Israel and its American and European sponsors want us to be killed in silence. But die in silence we will not.

What is being visited on Gaza today was visited on Yasser Arafat before. When he refused to bow to Israel's dictates, he was imprisoned in his Ramallah headquarters, surrounded by tanks for two years. When this failed to break his resolve, he was murdered by poisoning.

Gaza enters 2009 just as it did 2008: under Israeli fire. Between January and February of last year 140 Gazans died in air strikes. And just before it embarked on its failed military assault on Lebanon in July 2006, Israel rained thousands of shells on Gaza, killing 240. From Deir Yassin in 1948 to Gaza today, the list of Israel's crimes is long. The justifications change, but the reality is the same: colonial occupation, oppression, and never-ending injustice. If this is the "free world" whose "values" Israel is defending, as its foreign minister Tzipi Livni alleges, then we want nothing to do with it.

Israel's leaders remain in the grip of confusion, unable to set clear goals for the attacks - from ousting the legitimately elected Hamas government and destroying its infrastructure, to stopping the rockets. As they fail to break Gaza's resistance the benchmark has been lowered. Now they speak of weakening Hamas and limiting the resistance. But they will achieve neither. Gaza's people are more united than ever, determined not to be terrorised into submission. Our fighters, armed with the justice of their cause, have already caused many casualties among the occupation army and will fight on to defend their land and people. Nothing can defeat our will to be free.

Once again, Washington and Europe have opted to aid and abet the jailer, occupier and aggressor, and to condemn its victims. We hoped Barack Obama would break with George Bush's disastrous legacy but his start is not encouraging. While he swiftly moved to denounce the Mumbai attacks, he remains tongue-tied after 10 days of slaughter in Gaza. But my people are not alone. Millions of freedom-loving men and women stand by its struggle for justice and liberation - witness daily protests against Israeli aggression, not only in the Arab and Islamic region, but worldwide.

Israel will no doubt wreak untold destruction, death and suffering in Gaza. But it will meet the same fate in Gaza as it did in Lebanon. We will not be broken by siege and bombardment, and will never surrender to occupation.

• Khalid Mish'al is the head of the Hamas political bureau

Khalid Mish'al is the guy that Israel attempted to assassinate, but the operatives were caught. He is pro-war unlike PM Ismail Haniyeh.

This has been doing the rounds among the community:
CNN Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First

Finally!
Congress deplores Hamas violence as well

Without naming Hamas, the party at the same time made clear its disapproval of the terror outfit's rocket attacks on people within Israeli territory. "The Indian National Congress categorically rejects the use of violence and terror in any form by any organisation that deliberately targets innocent men, women and children," the party said in a statement.

This is the first time that any section of the ruling UPA coalition deplored the Hamas attack on civilians in Israeli.

The party, however, denounced once again the "land invasion of Gaza by Israel which has resulted in a grave humanitarian catastrophe".

It called upon the international community to "rally together to protect the Palestine people and also to mobilise and pool resources to provide immediate relief".

The Congress disapproval of Hamas and its violent ways seems to have been prompted by the comparison made by the US between the terror group operating out of Gaza and Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Engaged in gruelling diplomatic wrangling with Pakistan over the custody of the terrorists wanted for their role in the Mumbai attack, India at this stage could ill afford to overlook the Hamas activity.

However, Congress balanced this by sharpening its broadside on Israel asking it to "halt its action which has crossed all norms of civilised behaviour". The party also recalled its historic position supporting the Palestinian cause and aspirations for peace.

[vsudhir]

Suicide by Israel (Spengler)

For the moment, Israel is treating Hamas as a state rather than as a state actor. As in any war, economic pressure on the civilian population, as well as military operations that kill civilians as collateral damage to the pursuit of military objectives, are legitimate instruments of warfare. It is hypocrisy to pretend otherwise.

To insist that Israel desist entirely from military activities that have a high probability of causing civilian casualties is doubly hypocritical. That would demand, in effect, that Israel value the lives of Palestinian civilians more than those of its own civilians, who are subject to rocket bombardment. That is something no state in the world can do, and it is silly to ask it. Israel has less reason than any other on Earth to heed such a demand. Never has the state of Israel been offered mercy by its enemies, nor has it any reason to expect it. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain by following the almost-golden rule: "Do unto others before they do unto you."

Israel is in the unenviable position of mopping up a problem created by the inertia of the international community. Fourth-generation "refugees" living in towns officially designated as "camps" never have existed under international law until the world community found it expedient to defer the "Palestinian problem" into the indefinite future. The Gazans cannot be economically viable on their 139 square miles of sand, and the humiliation of perpetual dependency and poverty makes a political solution unattainable.

Otherwise, the default recommendation is what I offered five years ago, (See see More killing, please! Asia Times Online, June 12, 2003). As I observed at the time,

A recurring theme in the history of war is that most of the killing typically occurs long after rational calculation would call for the surrender of the losing side. Think of the Japanese after Okinawa, the Germans after the Battle of the Bulge, or the final phase of the Peloponnesian War, the Thirty Years War, or the Hundred Years War. Across epochs and cultures, blood has flown in proportion inverse to the hope of victory. Perhaps what the Middle East requires in order to achieve a peace settlement is not less killing, but more.

That is horrifying, but nonetheless true, and the international community simply may have to raise its threshold of horror.

[AKalam]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish ... 4209.shtml

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel in 1963 and had his musical training at the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem (Composition and Jazz) A multi-instrumentalist he plays Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxes, Clarinet, Sol, Zurna and Flutes.

http://www.gilad.co.uk/

[samuel]

I would love to see Gilad Atzmon wander a while longer. It enriches his music.

[Chinmayanand]

After spending millions of dollars (my guess) so far in the war against Hamas in the last few days, Israel has managed to liquidate only 804 terrorists and their supporters combined...not a good return on equity ...but compared to Indian response to terror strikes on its citizens...its a sheer BLISS...
War on terror must go on...

[John Snow]

to liquidate only 804 terrorists and their supporters combined...]

some times deflation is better than inflation

[enqyoob]

Point is, they are still unable to stop the rocket attacks (or do they really want to? )

From Hamas' pov, its all win-win. Whole duniya is screaming against Israel, and they are still firing rockets. In any event, governing the territory is not compatible with Hamas' long-term aims - govt. officials have to be in announced locations at announced times, which is bad news when there are Predators etc. above. Also, international support to develop Gaza is not materializing as long as Hamas does not abandon its "principles".

The lesson here is stark - "surgical strikes" against terrorist organizations don't work, as in stopping terrorist attacks. The only way is to ensure that a government in the place does the dying, meaning the ground-level security and law-enforcement to keep the terrorists from ever getting organized. This is, of course, the strategy adopted by the US with TSP.

So why doesn't THAT work? Trouble is that the government is 50 to 90% on the side of the terrorists. 50 in the GAZA PLO case, 90% in the TSP case.

But note that we don't hear of rocket attacks from, say, Jordan. Why is that? Is it because the Jordanians decided after the 1973 war that the best way to avoid having their kingdom destroyed every few years, was to kick the Palestinians out entirely? IOW, they made it very clear that Jordan was not to be used for terrorism against Israel (well.... at least not for silly irritants like rocket attacks).

The Kuwaitis, for different reasons, did the same after 1991. But you don't hear of a lot of terror attacks originating or occurring in Kuwait - their terrorists go to Pakistan to do their stuff (like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed).

This is why splitting TSP into 5 is the best course - each govt. then has to worry about 4 neighbors in addition to India, Iran and Afghanistan and NATO and Russia and China. Ensure that the 4 neighbors are bigger worries than the larger nations are, and "law enforcement" as in stomping on conspiracies, will become an extremely high priority in each micro-pakistan, no matter how much they still love Indians and Americans and Russians.

[Chinmayanand]

If Israel could carry out a nuclear explsion just underneath Gaza.right in the centre of Gaza,resulting in an earthquake measuring 9 on rechter scale, they might get rid of this Hamas problem, it can be reported as an earthquake disaster, no terrorist rights rona-dhona, is it doable?

[enqyoob]

That might strike oil, and then Gaza will become richer than KSA and be able to hire the Pakistan Army to run their terrorist enterprise. Just a practical point...

[shyamd]

Some norwegian doctors were in Gaza. They were interviewed by BBC. The guy was saying that the hospital had received 800 wounded. The journalist asked whether Hamas fighters have been bought in. He said off the injured and dead that were bought in, only 2 were fighters, rest all civilians, mostly women and children. This was before Israeli army allowed the 3 hour humanitarian ceasefire. He was saying that Israeli army was stopping humanitarian aid to that particular area and hospital because it was not in a war zone. The doctor was like "look around, how do they know this is not a war zone? Did they come and see? We are going to run out of medicine in a day".

I dont think the Israeli's have been able to cause major damage to the fighters in the initial strikes, according to Debka, Hamas has still put up a co-ordinated response.

-----------------------------------------------
First signs of Hamas cracking, Israel lets Gazan delegates leave for Cairo

As Hamas showed first signs of cracking under Israel's massive 14-day assault, three Gaza leaders were allowed by Israel and Egypt to make their way secretly to Cairo for a second round of ceasefire talks – this time without conditions.

DEBKAfile's military sources report Jemal Abu Hashem, who rarely appears on public, Salah Bardaweel, leader of Hamas parliament faction, and Heiman Ta'a, member of the military wing's command were allowed to exit Gaza, Friday, Jan 9 and make their way to the northern Sinai town of El Arish. From there, an Egyptian military flight flew them to Cairo. They were permitted to leave after consenting to an unconditional ceasefire, dropping their demand for open Gaza crossings and accepting that Israeli forces would hold their present lines.

US consigns 3,000 tonnes of "ammunition" to Israel

January 10, 2009, 11:22 AM (GMT+02:00)

The US Navy's Military Sealift Command is hiring a merchant ship to carry the arms on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to Israel in mid-to-late January, according to Reuters. A 'hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details. One broker said that the size of a shipment of this kind has not been seen for years. DEBKAfile's military sources note that the Israel's air, ground, tank and sea offensive against Hamas in Gaza entered its 15th day Saturday, Jan. 10.

[vsudhir]

x-post

Mark Steyn holds fort :

Link

In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell “You are the brothers of pigs!”, and a protester complains to his interviewer that “Hitler didn’t do a good job.”

In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!”

In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!”

Freakin' hell...my jaw dropped reading that onlee... Where's the phamous media of the west when you need them? Saudi doesn't have fiunds to buy you off anymore with crude at $38 a barrel, so why don't ya open up at least now??

Then, there's dhimmedia perfidity taht goes beyond greed via bribery:

In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year’s Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from January 1st 2009 but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast “accidentally.”

NDTV, CNN-IBN etc can learn a lot on how to damage India now by broadcasting scenes from Swat and PoK as Indian Kashmir ....

Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let’s take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift.

Not in BRF, you won't!

[Surya]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cac_1231550967

[Anujan]

Leftist monkeys never bothered to do their research. Arab racists exploited these as validation. Now idiots everywhere take that as gospel.
Avram

What you said is true. Most people talk about it as Israelis actually going in and doing the killing, without any regard to truth or accuracy. In any case Avram, I think that the whole Israeli-Palestinian issue is a mess and I have quite a bit of unease about Israeli actions. Let me explain why.

1. On the one hand, Israelis have not forgotten the atrocities heaped upon them for centuries (and most recently during WW-II), and take every threat seriously. "We will not recognize Israel's right to exist" by various Palestinian groups is rightly being interpreted as a coded message.

2. On the other hand, all the arab countries are quite fond of shouting hoarse about the "Palestinian condition". But none of them want to rehabilitate Palestinian refugees, it suits them to keep them rotting in the camps. So they are no friends of Palestinians either. In any case, they lost their right to appeal to the sympathies of the world audience when they ganged up to force a military solution on Israel. (I shudder to think what would have happened if they had won).

3. The third factor is Iran. By attacking Israel though its proxies, (and by developing nukes) it wants to demonstrate to the faithful that Iranian/Shia leadership is the most potent and powerful force capable of leading and protecting the faithful.

4. The fourth factor is Palestinians. With their economy ravaged, they look upon militant Islam as the solution. The extremists spout bile. The opportunists do organized thuggery. The moderates get murdered, the voices silenced, and are quite fearful.

With these as background, I feel that all of the Israeli action is entirely justified if you consider the immediate objectives and short term effects. Hamas fires rockets at Israel, so Israel is completely within her rights to flatten the staging areas, kill the leadership responsible for it, attack the smuggling tunnels, destroy the rocket stockpile. What makes me uneasy is that, in the process, there is collateral damage and Israel is losing the war of perception, the shadow boxing with the rest of the middle east is kept alive, so funds flow to Hamas and Hezbollah, the misery of people is compounded, so they have a steady stream of recruits and no leader to unite them and follow the middle path.

Yes it is considerable progress towards the security of Israeli citizens for next year. But dont you think that it is a huge blow to the eventual settlement of the problem ?

[asprinzl]

We have to understand that Islamist forces have no second thoughts about killing. They never tire off killing or trying to kill. For them there is only one solution to the "Kaffir" problem. That is the military solution.

The seem to be a major problem in the west especially in the democratic/secular west, Israel and even in India. In these places with progression of time people are having less and less stomach for killing. I mean killing even the most depraved monsters. People give up too easily in the face of resistance. Thus even the most decorated soldier gives up his hand and cry "there is no military solution to this problem" while the Jihadi in his war against the Kaffir finds only the military solution and is willing to wage war even if that takes a thousand years. While the westerners, Israelis and the Indians give up after a decade or two and cry "there is no military solution".

Look at India. With a billion people, there should be almost endless supply of manpower to wage war against the Jihadi especially in kashmir. But how often have we heard from generals to politicians to bureauc-Rats to journalists who keep weeping that there is no military solution. Hypotetically if every day for one soldier dies for every jihadi killed- in the long run the Jihadi factory would run out of manpower long before India runs out. What is seriously lacking is the will to endure and will to kill that is equal to the fervor of the Jihadi to endure and kill. Otherwise, there was, is and forever will be military solution to any conflict.

And the outcry coming from the international watch dogs and other assorted groups of rich and spoilt brats who dont want to find a job but depend on public and other types of fundings or grants to be professional protestors.....ignore them long enough and as much as they may shout and scream....they would eventually get tired once money runs out, give up and go away silently if nobody paid them attention. Yet it is these same small fringe groups with disporpotionately loud mouths are the ones everyone wants to pay attention. These groups dont have significant constituencies. They usually want to exagerate their influence and power by their noise making. Politicians get intimidated by these nonsense.

I believe there is only one solution to get rid of those who want to kill you. That is to kill them before they kill you. They may keep sending soldiers to kill you. As you keep killing them sooner or later they would have to give up and cry "uncle". Trick is you must have the stomach to endure and persevere longer than them. Right now America does not have such a stomach. Nor Britain nor the French nor the Israelis nor the Indians. Everyone wants to get off early Friday and party till Sunday. While the Jihadi is willing to forgo the partying until his goal is reached. This is a battle of wills and the secularists are fast giving up by telling each other mind boggling scary stories of bad consequences while the Islamists are telling each other to keep fighting because victory is within sight because Allah wills it.

MacArthur once said, "Only those who are fit to live are brave enough to die". This seems to be the case of the Jihadis. If you are not brave enough to kill then you don't deserve to live. That is the only constant parameter in the entire history of mankind from the dawn of the caveman to present time. Every other happy happy philosophy and other feel good mumbo jumbos are just that of those wimppies. I am not saying that everyone should become a bullheaded violent moron but if your tribe wants to survive in a hostile environment they better be ready to kill before being killed.
Avram

[Yogi_G]

Came across this very good video...Dint realize there was so many similarities....

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iF5FwQBLBuM

[sureshm]

Let's stop kidding ourselves that Israel-Palestine problem revolves around religion. It's fight for land, pure and simple. And Palestinians, like Muslims, find in Islam an efficacious method to inspire people with heaven and all the fairy tale stuff. So religion is being used for a political purpose, it'd be too simplistic to say otherwise.

Nor is the problem essentially an Islamic one. These Islamists succeed, because they're getting all the support they need from non-Islamic countries as well. How else would they succeed? So it's not as if non-Muslims (and that includes Hindus, Jews, Westerners etc.) are angels who're being attacked by the bloodthirsty Muslims. These bloodthirsty Muslims were their best friends, when they were fighting other enemies. But now that these Muslims have turned against them, they've suddenly become fanatics and NOT the freedom fighters they were made out to be, whenever they were fighting other nations (such as Serbia, Russia etc.).

[rajsunder]

Let's stop kidding ourselves that Israel-Palestine problem revolves around religion. It's fight for land, pure and simple. And Palestinians, like Muslims, find in Islam an efficacious method to inspire people with heaven and all the fairy tale stuff. So religion is being used for a political purpose, it'd be too simplistic to say otherwise.

Nor is the problem essentially an Islamic one. These Islamists succeed, because they're getting all the support they need from non-Islamic countries as well. How else would they succeed? So it's not as if non-Muslims (and that includes Hindus, Jews, Westerners etc.) are angels who're being attacked by the bloodthirsty Muslims. These bloodthirsty Muslims were their best friends, when they were fighting other enemies. But now that these Muslims have turned against them, they've suddenly become fanatics and NOT the freedom fighters they were made out to be, whenever they were fighting other nations (such as Serbia, Russia etc.).

If Israel palestine fight is not a religious one, why was there not a case made by islamic countries for palestine as a nation comprising west bank and gaza strip before the same were in Israel's hands(i beleive it was during 6 day war that these came under israel control).
Gaza strip was with Egypt and West bank with Jordan and Islamic world was fine with it, until they were captured after the 6 day war. What is happening is now the continuation of war in another form.
Its a pity that educated people like you do not understand the nuances of the whole situation.