Critics of Israel are holding it to an impossible standard, as usual. Somewhere along the way, the logic fails.

1. They acknowledge Israel's right to self-defense against the rocket attacks.

2. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly allows operations in areas with civilians if military personnel are still staging attacks from the area.

3. Israel's airstrikes have been carefully targeted to hit Hamas men. Often strikes are preceded by warning flares or telephone calls to neighbors.

4. The threat of rockets has not been destroyed yet.

5. They say Israel's response is disproportionate and they are guilty of war crimes.

Does not compute.

I thought Douthat was asking for the US Army to swoop into the Occupied Palestinian Territories and push all the so-called settlers back into Israel. The World - and ALL the Jews in it - would be a lot more secure today had the United States done that in 2003 instead of invading Iraq. Oh, he wasn't - my bad.

It really takes chutzpah for anyone at this magazine to justify Israeli actions qua state when it has spent the last four decades working to deny the Palestinian people the right to a state.

ndmackenzie, no one has worked harder to deny the Palestinians a state than the Palestinians themselves.

rozenson writes:

-- ndmackenzie, no one has worked harder to deny the Palestinians a state than the Palestinians themselves.

41 years in captivity.

Are you so blind that you cannot see?

Are you so deaf that you cannot hear?

Are you so dumb that you cannot speak?

www.youtube.com/watch

I guess we know the answer to the first two questions.

Gee, call me crazy but I don't think the issue people are raising is whether or not civilian casualties are "involved," but the level of those casualties.  

"How we like our leaders"

www.haaretz.com/.../1051028.html

Just war theories:

www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

A "just war" is almost never about justice; it is invariably about just us, instead.

If it is our civillians dying, we are then justified in doing anything and everything we are capable of imposing militarily on others.

Bush even went so far as to insist 9/11 justified invading a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the folks America justly went after in Afghanistan.

Thus to argue over whether Israel is justified to go after those firing rockets at them, is one thing; to argue that the existential threat Hamas [a military minnow to Israel's great white shark] poses to Israel justifies Israel's massive retaliatory strike is nothing short of ludicrous.

And, of course, in no way will this make Israelis safer. It will only boost the recruitment of the next genersation of jihadis all the more.

As I suggested on other posts, my intuitive sense is that this incursion is tied far more to the February general elections in Israel and to the Israeli equivalent of the military industrial complex, than to the danger the qassams rockets pose.

What, did you think only Bush and Cheney play politics with other people's lives?  

george walton

ndmackenzie, the world was not created in 1967. The Arabs of Palestine were offered statehood twice, in 1937 and 1947. They turned it down twice. The United Nations voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the Arabs launched an invasion on Israel and lost. Meanwhile, the West Bank was annexed by Jordan and Gaza occupied by Egypt. After the 1949 ceasefire, Palestinian Fedayeen conducted constant raids against Israel throughout the 1950s. The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964, three years before the Six Day War.

ndmackenzie, the world was not created in 1967. The Arabs of Palestine were offered statehood twice, in 1937 and 1947. They turned it down twice. The United Nations voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the Arabs launched an invasion on Israel and lost. Meanwhile, the West Bank was annexed by Jordan and Gaza occupied by Egypt. After the 1949 ceasefire, Palestinian Fedayeen conducted constant raids against Israel throughout the 1950s. The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964, three years before the Six Day War.

Forget Israel for a moment: the BIble is pacifistic.  Turn the other cheek -- it's hard to get *any* war out of that, so of course a Christian "Just War" doctrine is going to be extremely narrow.  

rozenson -

Pretty much everyone - except deadenders on both sides - understands that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be based on the border as it existed in 1967.

George Walton says:

"Thus to argue over whether Israel is justified to go after those firing rockets at them, is one thing; to argue that the existential threat Hamas [a military minnow to Israel's great white shark] poses to Israel justifies Israel's massive retaliatory strike is nothing short of ludicrous."

With all of his huffing and puffing, invocations of God, Satan, Vietnam, and a lot of other mumbo-jumbo, Mr. Walton has yet to offer his ideas of the tactics Israel could employ successfully to stop Hamas rocket attacks other than the tactics it is employing.  Thus, while stating rhetorically that Israel is justified in going after those who fire rockets -- I suppose he means punitively -- Walton blithely denies Israelis the right actually to defend themselves and keep themselves safe from harm.  Punishment is not condoned by international law.  Self-defense is.  The strike is not "retaliatory."  It is intended to end the willingness and/or ability of Hamas to continue its assaults on Israel.  Walton seems to think that the Jews owe it to the world, the Arabs, or to him to sacrifice themselves to Arab attacks rather than kill Arabs as necessary for their own security from Arab attacks.  I don't.  Neither does the law of war.

If the Palestinians do not want to suffer the costs of their attacks on Israel, all they have to do is desist from violence.  They will be safe.

You might also note, rozenson, that when the PLO was created, it did not have as a goal the liberation of either the West Bank from Jordan or Gaza from Egypt.  It's goal was only to destroy Israel.  And this was, as you say, three years before the Six Day War.  

mackenzie invents whatever lie he imagines will further his little propaganda war.  That's why I compare him to Lenin and Goebbels: the truth is completely irrelevant to his little political project, and it doesn't bother him in the slightest if the concrete results of propaganda such as his is the deaths of many Arab men, women, and children, the people about whom he purports to be concerned.  Our little Robespierre, Lenin, and worse.  The only thing that prevents mackenzie from doing vast damage is that his reach is so limited.  If he had any power in the world, there would be more deaths to be sure.

-- Robespierre, Lenin and Goebbels.

roidubouloi needs to spend less time thumbing the International Dictionary of Biography and more time understanding the roots of his own stupidity - which he can take as a euphemism for mendacity if that pleases him better.

Right you are, roid.

ndmackenzie -- yes, of course the final borders will resemble more or less the 1967 boundaries. What I'm saying is that the Six Day War explains a lot less about Palestinian history and statehood than you make it out to be. A lot of important history happened before 1967.

Actually, mackenzie, pretty much everyone understands that the armistice line of 1948, what you intentionally and incorrectly refer to as the "border" of 1967 as part of your personal propaganda war, will not be the final border between Palestine and Israel.  The Israeli fanatics have finally, thank God, surrendered their fantasy of a "Greater Israel."  The Arab fanatics have not yet surrendered their fantasy of return to a status guo ante June 1967 that no longer exists.  And there are even Arab fanatics who continue to imagine that they are going to destroy Israel completely.  Hamas.  Your contribution is that you are all too happy to encourage such fanatics to further violence in pursuit of their fantasies.  Had you been living in the US in the Sixties, you would likely have been a member of the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers or at least a sympathizer, advocating violence in pursuit of an admirably just agenda.  Fortunately for the world, people like you are a relative handful.  Unfortunately for the world, people like you exist.  Your advocacy of violence is a pestilence.

Isn't "mendacity" an awfully big word for you, mackenzie?  While we cannot be rid of you without being advocates of just the sort of political violence that I abhor and you lust for, I do take pleasure in watching you descend into blubbering incoherence when your pretensions to intellect and argument are challenged.  Perhaps your difficulty is that, as a member of the academy, you are surrounded entirely by individuals such as yourself who applaud your every infantile thought.  You imagine yourself a sophisticate.  Then you are shocked to discover that, out in the real world, you are not respected or thought sophisticated and intelligent, but seen clearly as the crude, vicious, anti-Semitic propagandist that you are, unable to muster even a trivial argument without endlessly spewing lies unworthy of a simpleton.    

iambiguous said:  "A "just war" is almost never about justice; it is invariably about just us, instead. "

Spare me your cliches.

Find out about the history of the theory of just wars and why it was necessary to formulate it before shooting off your mouth.

The hypocritic jihadist ndmackenzic says:

"The World - and ALL the Jews in it - would be a lot more secure today had the United States done that in 2003...."

Yea, the Jews in the world are waiting with baited breath for this antisemite to tell them what is "good for the Jews."

Go fuck yourself mackensic.

"It really takes chutzpah...."

Using words like Chutzpah doesn't make either knowledgeable about Jews.  It's another one of your sick jokes.

roidubouloi writes:

- The Israeli fanatics have finally, thank God, surrendered their fantasy of a "Greater Israel."

I think the 400,000 so-called settlers would disagree.

Jihadist-nazi mackenzie says about Palestinians:

"41 years in captivity."

Some captivity.  Jordan has an overwhelming Palestinian population.

From 48 to 67 the people of Gaza and the West bank lived among their Arab brethren in Jordan and Egypt.

Since 1967 they spent most of their time and resources killing Jews.

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza they spent all their time and money acquiring rockets to shoot at Israelis.

Captives don't usually have either freedom of movement or the means to mount ferocious military style attacks on othe peoples.

This is another example of an antisemite trying to excuse and justify Palestinian’s desire to annihilate the Jews.

Roid writes

If the Palestinians do not want to suffer the costs of their attacks on Israel, all they have to do is desist from violence. They will be safe.

George responds:

What do I [or you, or most others in here] know about concocting detailed alternatives Israel might pursue instead? Are we military strategists? What matters more is the extent to which the arguments made in support of the road Israel is on now in Gaza are deemed by others as the only one available to them. Leaders around the world are calling for an end to the violence because they do not believe it is the only way. And Dozens and dozens of demonstrations have erupted around the globe in protest to the magnitude of Israel's response.

But then all of these reactions are nothing more than anti-semitism, right?

And when folks like you argue that "all the Palestinians have to do is....", you create this monolithic Demon in which every single man, woman and child in Gaza is thought to be 100% in support of Hamas. Babies no doubt pop out of the womb there cursing the Zionist Satan

At the same time, for months on end Israel has been opening and closing the portals that bring food, medicine, oil into Gaza. The aim being to make life as miserable as possible for the civilians who, in a democratic election, chose Hamas to lead them because Abbas and the PLO largely consist of corrupt and weak buffoons.

From counterpunch's website

"....the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water."

George:

Indeed, it was reported last week that some in the Hamas militia who were killed when Israel first struck back were really Gazan civillians who had no choice but to join Hamas because it was the only place they could go to garner an income for their families.

All conflicts like this are summed up or nailed down based largely on propaganda. It's just that some are more willing to admit that than others. I don't pretend to fully grasp the all the numbingly complex historical factors that ignite wars like this. What I care most about is minimizing the suffering of innocent civilians...and especially the children. Is Israel not concerned with this as well? Yes, some Israelis are. But some Israelis are not. The same with Hamas. My point is still the same: the gap between the harm Hamas can inflict on Israel is miniscule compared to the harm Israel can inflict on the Palestinians in Gaza.

george walton

You're right, Mr. Chait, that is an interesting article.  

I was about to add that Nelson Mandela should be insulted by the appropriation of his legacy for this sordid conflict, but then a little google told me that Mandela has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians: progressiveaustin.org/mandelap.htm.  Learn something new everyday.  I have to say I was a bit disappointed.  I'm generally on the side of the Israelis, and I support them in the current fight (by analogy, if, say, Mexico was rocketing the southern US, I'd want the US to do exactly what the IDF is doing).  But when someone with Mandela's moral chops speaks, I listen.  He's heavy on Israel's supposed misdeeds, and disturbingly light on the Palestinians' many crimes (not to mention their total failure to develop their own society, oppression or no), but I think his point might be larger.  Correct me if I'm wrong (there's always an expert on any given subject in here), but Mandela seems to be saying that justice is more important than security.  

I can't say I'm totally behind Mandela on this (his version of "justice" for the Palestinians would lead to the end of Israel) but I do sometimes wonder what would happen if Israel simply withdrew completely from Gaza and the West Bank, cut all support for the settlers, rebuilt the fence *on* the 67 border (and not 100 yards over it, for pete's sake) dismantled the blockade, etc.  I'm old enough to remember the first rush of optimism after Oslo -- and how it collapsed.  I have even less faith in Hamas' goodwill than in Arafat's (if that's possible).  Even so, worth a try again?  Not for me to say, it's not my country.

ndmackenzie said:  "Pretty much everyone - except deadenders on both sides - understands that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be based on the border as it existed in 1967."

Now she is using language from Rumsfeld.

Not everyone understands that at all.

Iran doesn't understand that and they have been arming Hezbollah and Hamas with deadly rockets.

Hezbollah and Hamas don't understand that.

Arafat didn't seem to understand that when  he refused to sign an accord with Ehud Barak and launched instead an intifada.

Not everyone understands that.

ndmackenzic again"

"roidubouloi needs to spend less time thumbing the International Dictionary of Biography and more time understanding the roots of his own stupidity - which he can take as a euphemism for mendacity if that pleases him better.'

This is what a mackensic would do look up Goebbels in a dictionary. He projects his own monumental ignorance on other posters.

Goebels is what mackenzie would be all about if he was honest enough to admit his Jew hatred.

Like other contemporary Brits he can't seem to bring himself to admit his hatred of Yids.

ndmackenzie said:

"I think the 400,000 so-called settlers would disagree."

Wrong the settlement around Jerusalem are not the problem since Israel is willing to offer an equal amoung of comparable land to the Palestinians. These people live on land adjacent to Israel.

The problem sre the settler outpost deep in the West bank as well as those who live in areas like Hebron.  These are  a fraction of the total number of settlers.

In any case, this is something for Palestinians and Israelis to resolve through negotiations and not for haughty British Jew hater to tell the Yids what is good for them.

Mackenzic doesn't get. He is an obstacle to peace. He and his comrades in Britain and other parts of Europe who think after having colluded in the murder of millions of Jews that they are more moral than the Yids and have a right to decide where and how they should live.

No self respecting Yid would ever pay any attention to he and his ilk say about Israel.

jacksondyer writes

:

iambiguous said: "A "just war" is almost never about justice; it is invariably about just us, instead. "

Spare me your cliches.

Find out about the history of the theory of just wars and why it was necessary to formulate it before shooting off your mouth.

George respnds,

Ah, yes, the "theory" of just wars!  No doubt as objectively rendered as, say, the theory of evolution? Or right up there with the theories scientists have conflated over the centuries to help them grasp the nature of chemical and biological interactions, matter and gravity, electro-magnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces, special and general relativity.

So, why don't you elaborate by noting the most just war and the least just war in, say, the last one hundred years. And by all means be certain to include the empirical and phenomenological evidence so that others can make predictions about new wars right around the bend...and allowing others in turn to replicate them so as to facilitate those even further down the road when wars will be fought for things and with things we can't even begin to imagine today.

george walton

gwolfjr, South Africa is a work in progress and there is no guarantee that Mandela's leadership there will allow that country to avoid the fate of many of its northern neighbors.

Everyone it seems is blathering about Israel's aims in this war when it seems obvious to me, to end the rocket attacks. Can anyone, I am looking at you mac, explain what Hamas' aims are. As I have said previously, if the rocket attacks are designed to get attention, it is pretty damn self defeating. I will tell you what, if Hamas takes a cue from Mandela, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, etc. and renounces the use of violence, and recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist (with final boundaries to be negotiated peacefully) then they will get the worlds attention, and even my sympathy (provided the violence actually stops)

And Mac, coming from a Brit like yourself, a wanker nation that essentially raped 1/4 of the globe you should spend most of your time making up for what injuries your nation has inflicted and shut your face about Israel.

Little by little, the truth emerges from your obfuscation, George.  You pretend to object to Israel's tactics in defense, although you have been unable to suggest any alternative that might plausibly work.  But this is really just the head-feint.  Your real view, as you finally come clean, is that Hamas attacks on Israel are justified by the Israeli embargo of Gaza.  As you put it, there is no "cease-fire" so long as the embargo is in place.

But then things get ludicrous.  We are supposed to accept that world leaders object to Israel defending itself because they all "see another way."  Yet no one will say what this other way is other than for Israel to endure the attacks and engage in pointless, but "proportionate," tit-for-tat that does nothing to protect Israelis. Then you set up the straw man that they must "all be anti-Semites."  No, they are not all anti-Semites, although many are, but they are many of them corrupt and all of them find it politically expedient to placate, at the expense of Israel, Moslems who threaten them with violence and oil exporters on whom they depend for oil and capital.  Gee, George, you purport to see a military-industrial complex hiding under every bed in Israel and motivating its defense policies, yet you believe that world leaders are all good, honest souls who care only about the suffering of innocent people.  They would NEVER sell-out the Jews for purposes of their own, would they?  You are some funny cynic.

Now as to your charming naïvete, check out this article by the BBC, no friend of Israel, routinely accused, even by its own investigation, of anti-Semitic bias.  news.bbc.co.uk/.../7459200.stm:

"Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, driving out forces loyal to Fatah, the political faction led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Since then, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international community have sought to isolate Hamas.

Israel declared the territory a "hostile entity" and has blockaded it in an attempt to pressure Hamas into stopping rocket fire from the strip into Israel.

.  .  .

Palestinian and Egyptian officials say the truce is to come into effect at 0600 (0300 GMT) on Thursday. As well as a halt to all hostilities, this stage of the deal also envisages a partial reopening of Gaza's borders [did happen, although interrupted every time the Gazans broke the cease-fire], they add.

A second stage would focus on the return of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit [never happened] and on a deal to reopen the main Rafah crossing into Egypt [never happened which according to you, George, means that Egypt is also "at war" with Hamas], they say.

In the talks process until now, Israeli concerns have centred on whether all militant groups would adhere to a truce, and what Egypt would do to stop arms smuggling into Gaza [never happened], says our correspondent."

The quid pro quo for Israeli desisting from violence against Hamas is that Hamas desist from violence against Israel.  The quid pro quo for the end to the embargo is for Hamas to abandon arms smuggling and its illegal arms caches.  You don't seriously believe that when a government of a territory declares its ambition to make war leading to the destruction of its neighbor and illegally smuggles arms for that purpose and then uses them that the neighbor is supposed to assist in its own destruction by allowing normal commerce across the border, do you?  No one, certainly not Israel, is that friggin' stupid.

Finally, as to your wondering out loud whether Gazans would be safe from Israeli attack if they desisted in word and deed from violence against Israel, on what earthly basis, other than rank speculation, do you suggest otherwise?  What possible interest could Israel have in Gaza other than being secure from attacks originating in Gaza?  Go ahead, make something up.  But don't just fantasize aloud that Israel has malign intentions toward Gazans unrelated to its own security.

Yes, propaganda is a part of war.  Are you like mackenzie, George, engaging in your own propaganda war?

"And Dozens and dozens of demonstrations have erupted around the globe in protest to the magnitude of Israel's response. "

Dozens and dozens of demonstrations have erupted around the globe in protest to the Danish cartoons, or to the rumour that a page from the Quran was flushed down the toilet. What do those

dozens of demonstrations signify, exactly, that would make them more important than just a periodic mass tantrum?  Do you consider the mobs that yell "Jews to the ovens" or "We are all Hamas" a credible indicator of moral outrage?

"But then all of these reactions are nothing more than anti-semitism, right?"

Of course the mobs who yell "Jews to the ovens' and "We are all Hamas" are just expressing legitimate criticism of Israel's policies.

Yes, George, Israel can inflict much more harm on Gaza, and now it is.  So why don't you urge Hamas to abandon violence as the tool of its political ambitions?  Then there would be no reason for Israel to inflict harm upon Gaza and you can be sure, as sure as you live and breathe, that Israel would not be attacking Gaza.  All they need to do is give up their violence and they will have peace and Israeli assistance toward their own prosperity.  But that's not what they want.  They even tell the whole world, unashamedly, that they prefer to maintain their campaign for the destruction of Israel to their own peace and prosperity.  You just aren't listening because you prefer to concoct some fabulous, convoluted story that makes Israel responsible for Palestinian violence, babbling about God and Satan to give yourself moral cover.  It isn't Satan; it's Hamas.

Brave resistance:

"Report: Hamas hiding most potent missiles under Gaza hospital

Israel's Channel One News reported on Monday evening that Hamas is hiding its most potent missiles under Gaza City's main hospital. "

www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx

What does the Geneva Convention say about this, I wonder/

noga1, I'll tell you exactly what:

Art. 28. The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

Art. 29. The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred.

"Confronting Hamas' Genocidal Jew-Hatred"

www.jewcy.com/.../confronting_hamas_genocidal_jewhatred

“Gaza: Counterpunching the Jews”   Published by Ben Cohen

www.hurryupharry.org/.../gaza-counterpunching-the-jews

“Before today, I hadn’t come across the name of Brian Cloughley. But he’s writing for online rag Counterpunch  - which stubbornly insists upon its leftist credentials despite being a fount of antisemitism - in terms that are indistinguishable from Klansman David Duke.

In defending his nationalist friends in Serbia, Duke has written of “the cadre of Jewish globalists who control American foreign policy.” Spurred to anger by the voice of a British rabbi, whom he doesn’t name but who defended Israel’s operation in Gaza in a BBC interview, Cloughley sounds just like Duke when he declares: “There are thousands like him in the UK and the US. They unconditionally promote Tel Aviv’s plans and policy and wield amazing influence over politicians and businesses. Killing Palestinians is Israeli policy, and these people spare no effort to justify it.”

That final flourish - “these people” - could have been written just as easily by someone satirizing antisemitism as by someone promoting it. At any rate, Cloughley couldn’t be clearer: the US and the UK are littered with wealthy Jews peddling influence on behalf of Israel.

These rootless cosmopolitans cannot be expected to be loyal citizens of the motherland. The offending rabbi, says Cloughley, “isn’t really British. He is an Israeli religious propagandist of British citizenship whose main allegiance is to Israel.” Just as the Soviet Communist newspaper Pravda, in 1949, railed against “profiteers with no roots and no conscience…non-indigenous nationals without a motherland.”

Soviet propagandists became experts in conjuring up euphemisms for the term “Jew.” So, in its own modest way, has Counterpunch. With both, the point is the same: Jews aren’t really like other people. They are disloyal, slippery and much too powerful.

When it comes to their own history, Jews are forever learning the wrong lessons. Elsewhere on Counterpunch, the musician and producer Brian Eno asserts: “By creating a Middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they’ve forgotten it.”

The “Jews-should-know-better” line is one we come across frequently. In terms of the tropes available to anti-Zionists, it is becoming more unoriginal with every passing day. Which is why it’s a shame to see someone like Eno, who has created music of stunning originality, sounding tiresomely like your average concerned celeb. And doing so in a journal that hates Jews to boot.”

George:

This is my rejoinder to Liberal Reformer on the Truth about Gaza thread. It pretty much encompasses my feelings about this conflict. We will just have to agree to disgree about sonething that no one can resolve without recourse to all the accummulated prejudices we have been piling up over years. And I don't exclude myself either.

Liberal writes:

I wonder if Mr. Walton would tolerate my firing rockets into the Sderot of his backyard with as much aplomb as he urges upon the Israelis. I know, I know, atrocities were committed against the Palestinians, a fact that I have forever known and learned in ever more detail after reading "The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited" by Benny Morris last month. Still, no country in the world would tolerate a neighboring entity to fire rockets into its territory and kill its citizens with impunity. Armchair moralists - at a safe distance - we have ever with us.

George responds:

Or to rephrase it, you can try to imagine the terrifying fear that citizens in Gaza endure day after day after day now.

For example:

Below is an account from Dr Eyad Al Serraj, a practising psychologist in Gaza City.

"The bombing went on for about 10 minutes. It was like an earthquake on top of your head. The windows were shaking and squeaking. My 10-year-old was terrified, he was jumping from one place to another trying to hide. I held him tight to my chest and tried to give him some security and reassure him. My 12-year-old was panicking and began laughing hysterically, it's not normal. I held her hand and calmed her and told her she would be safe. My wife was panicking. She was running around the apartment looking for somewhere to hide.

"We live on the ground floor so we headed to the basement.

"Not very far from our home is the headquarters of the police and there was a massive bomb. The chief of police was killed. Two streets away there was another bomb and more people were killed. The office of the president is about one kilometre from our house and it was also bombed.

"We went downstairs to the basement and tried to hide ourselves from the shelling. The child of one of our relatives, who lives in our building, finally came home from school. We hadn't been able to find her. All the phone connections were jammed. She came home and she was in a very serious state of shock. She was pale and trembling and she was describing dead bodies in the streets. On her way home she passed Hamas people in uniform and they were dead.

"I had been very apprehensive when I woke up this morning. I had some bread, some cheese and a glass of tea. Like all the people in Gaza I felt that something was going on and something very serious. When Israel allowed the delivery of food and fuel [when it ended the blockade of Gaza yesterday] I said to myself and my friends that Israel is really planning a massive strike. They don't want to be blamed for starving the people."

George:

Yes, yes, you can pile up evidence showing the manner in which Israelis north of the Gazan border also have had their lives impacted by the qassam rockets. But to compare the two experiences is nothing short of obscene to me.

And the crucial lesson again is that when you out to hunt down and kill monsters, the last thing you want to be perceived as is a monster yourself.

And that is exactly how millions around the world are reacting now to Israel's brutal assault. And it sure as hell isn't because they are anti-semitic.

george walton

January 6, 2009 5:14 AM  

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Here are some of the people Mackenzic supports:

Nizar Rayyan of Hamas on God's Hatred of Jews by Jeffrey Goldberg

jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/.../nizar_rayyan_of_hamas_on_gods.php

"Nizzar Rayyan, the Hamas leader who was killed, along with two of his wives and several of his children, in an Israeli bombing raid earlier this week, was one of the more bellicose Hamas leaders I have known. I saw him last in Gaza two years ago, at a mosque in the Jabalya Refugee Camp, where I spent quite a lot of time (my book Prisoners explains why).

He was one of the more Islamically-learned Hamas leaders I've met (Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was learned as well, I think, but he was very hard to understand; Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was the least pleasant of all the Hamas leaders I've known, was not very learned at all). In particular, Rayyan was interested in the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, with a special interest in hadith that painted Jews in a negative light.  Rayyan and I discussed the writing of Ibn Taymiyya, the Muslim scholar who lived seven hundred years ago, and who is the intellectual forefather of Sunni radicalism today (it was Ibn Taymiyya who elevated jihad to a kind-of sixth pillar of Islam). Like Ibn Taymiyya, Rayyan was preoccupied with Muslim apostasy. He never quite said so, but I could sense that he thought of Abu Mazen and the other leaders of the Palestinian Authority as traitors not only to the cause of Palestine, but to Islam itself. "You cannot be loyal to Allah and to the CIA at the same time," he said of his P.A. enemies.

There are things I didn't know about Rayyan, such as that he had four wives - a fact that tells you something about the culture of Hamas - but I knew that he was sincere in his devotion to the cause of Israel's annhilation. The question I wrestle with constantly is whether Hamas is truly, theologically implacable. That is to say, whether the organization can remain true to its understanding of Islamic law and God's word and yet enter into a long-term non-aggression treaty with Israel.  I tend to think not, though I've noticed over the years a certain plasticity of belief among some Hamas ideologues. Also, this is the Middle East, so anything is possible.

There was no flexibility with Rayyan. This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel." There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. "Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."

I asked him if he believed, as some Hamas theologians do (and certainly as many Hezbollah leaders do) that Jews are the "sons of pigs and apes." He gave me an interesting answer that reflects a myopic reading of the Koran. "Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce. So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people."

What are our crimes? I asked Rayyan. "You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah," he said. "Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.""

"Or to rephrase it, you can try to imagine the terrifying fear that citizens in Gaza endure day after day after day now.

For example:

Below is an account from Dr Eyad Al Serraj, a practising psychologist in Gaza City."  George

You really are pathetic.  Why is it that all Hamas apologists come up with the same excuses for Hamas and the Palestinians.

Yes the Gazans leave in fear, but as Roi has indicated the fear they experience from Israeli retaliation can be easily remedied.

Stop shooting at Israel and the Israelis will stop their retaliatory actions.

However, there is another feat that Gazans have that they will not shake off very easily, it's the fear of Hamas:

"Gazans fear clashes in Hamas-Fatah security dispute

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - A new Palestinian police force being set up in Gaza by the governing Islamist Hamas movement has raised fear of violence.

Tensions between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Fatah group have soared since Hamas swept to power in a January election.

Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades will be the backbone for the 3,000-member force. Fatah, which opposes its formation, has announced plans for a 2,000-strong militia of its own...."

www.redorbit.com/.../index.html

and this:

"Hamas moves on Fatah 'collaborators'"

www.jpost.com/.../Satellite

And this:

"Gaza Arab Girl Blames Hamas For Family Members' Death"

by Baruch Gordon

www.youtube.com/watch

Hamas is the cause of war in Gaza it is the cause of fear. It has consolidated power and has instituted shariah law as well as executed women for adultery, union members, etc.

I am not impressed by the words of the hypocritical Dr. Dr Eyad Al Serraj.  Let him tell us about the Hams reign of terror in Gaza.

That people like George dance to the tune of a Dr, al Serraj shows how ready they are to blame Israel for every aspect of the Arab Israeli conflict.