Israeli Air Strike

[pohibaba]

Shit won't pass unanimously in the House. I know of at least one Congressman who actually has the balls to stand up to AIPAC.

[Elvis]

Kucinich rocks.

OHIO REPRESENTTTTT

[Kuya]

Maybe you guys can call up your representatives? Maybe remind them that they represent you and not Israeli interests?

[Elvis]

Wish it were that easy. That's like convincing a car company to stop making profits.

[Beckwin]

my representative is newly elected and I can't find current contact info ; ;

this is some fucking bullshit though, fuck the senate.

[Tyche]

Mitch McConnel is a fucking tool. I wish Lunsford would have knocked his ass down.

[Stiker]

Wish it were that easy. That's like convincing a car company to stop making profits.

I was under the impression they were doing that all on their own.

Yeah, off topic and all, but I had to >.>

[Elvis]

Good point. I meant, hypothetically. Like if we weren't fast approaching the apocalypse. ZINGGGGGG

[archibaldcrane]

Reid said: “When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel, by reaffirming Israel’s inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza, as well as our support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

Wow, that's fucking completely amazing. Just good fucking lord. I've never seen Israeli cock so far up someone's asshole before. It's a new record.

edit: oh man he's golden

Noting that Israel was bent on halting Hamas rocket fire into its southern towns, Reid said: "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States. Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada, into Buffalo New York. How would we as a country react?"

Co-sponsor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican said before the vote: "The Israelis ... are responding exactly the same way we would."

Yes because our relationship with Canada is remarkably similar to the relationship that Israel has with it's own territory the Gaza Strip. They are so very similar and alike, and this metaphor is remarkably apt.

How do you casually say "yeah, that's what we'd do too! We'd shell their international schools filled with people trying to escape violence and kill hundreds of women and children! That sounds just like us yay!"

[Elvis]

Not to mention the Palestinians, don't have a state. They don't have an Airforce/Navy/etc. They were being starved/kept in the dark/without medicine/etc. Oh and the Occupation.

But, that's how it works. Complete and utter sanctimony.

Like history began when Hamas launched those rockets. No context - they just hate Joos.

None of this whitewashing of the conflict should surprise us.

No different from when Bush expresses dismay with an attack on a sovereign nation (spinning the Georgia-Russia conflict) or how he plans to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Alvaro Uribe (President of Colombia).

It's just another day at the office.

Here's a real journalist in action, confronting a ginormous douchebag (Not Kucinich):

YouTube - Dennis Kucinich and Eliot Engel - 07 Jan 09

Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi speaks to two congressman with very different views on the Gaza crisis.

Dennis Kucinich, Democratic member of the US House of Representatives and former presidential hopeful on why he feels Israel is violating international law with its invasion of Gaza. And secondly Eliot Engel, US congressman from New York, on why he supports the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Begins @4:50
I like how Engel completely ignores the November 4th attack by Israel. How can people blatantly ignore the facts? There wasn't a cover-up or anything.

[archibaldcrane]

Begins @4:50
I like how Engel completely ignores the November 4th attack by Israel. How can people blatantly ignore the facts? There wasn't a cover-up or anything.

Excellent clip, I wish we had more reporters like that in America. He wasn't being a dick, but he was pressing on the facts, and it's sadly clear that Engel didn't even know the facts - he didn't even know what the reporter was talking about regarding the November 4th tunnel bombing. He's giving his support, and parroting the idea that Hamas broke the ceasefire, and he quite frankly doesn't know the facts that are easily found in countless legitimate media outlets with a simple 5 minute google search.

This is a representative of the United States. And sadly, it's a representation of how most of Washington views the conflict.

[Seraph]

Noting that Israel was bent on halting Hamas rocket fire into its southern towns, Reid said: "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States. Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada, into Buffalo New York. How would we as a country react?"

That would be awesome. We could rebuild it and actually have a nice city in Western New York for a change.

[Elvis]

Neocon Cliff May versus Pat Buchanan.

Debate begins at 1:00.

Very lively. Pat kicks some ass here. The moderator seems to be debating Pat too though. Unfair of course, but Buchanan was able to hit a lot of important (and profound) issues that don't get in the mainstream here in a very short amount of time.

[Yuri-G]

Meanwhile, in the US...

HOORAY

I'm so disgusted with my own country right now for that resolution, and how damn-near unanimous it was.

I can see both sides to the situation though; On the one hand, Hamas really needs to stop shooting piddly little rockets when they know for a goddamn fact they're outclassed by an order of magnitudes if the Israelis choose to fight back. They're relying completely on international sympathy, not in any small part due to the David v. Goliath syndrome that makes them look like the poor little guys. In my opinion, Hamas is sacrificing their own people to make a point, because they knew exactly what Israel was going to do in retaliation, and they keep firing rockets even as their own civilians and even children are dying by the hundreds.

On the other hand, the Israelis are killing civilians, even children, by the hundreds. And doing stuff like saying "Hey, all you guys go into this safe building, we won't shoot it because you're civilians." Followed a day or two later by "Oops, guess we killed 70 of you at once, why were you all in that building you sillyheads? Gee golly gosh." Not to mention killing U.N. aid workers and blocking the Red Cross from assisting, etc. I think that's one of the things that pissed me off most, it's one thing to kill the enemy, even if they're civilians - it's another thing entirely to kill international aid workers. I expect that from Crazyfuck Mugabe, not so much from a country that's as supposedly "civilized" as Israel.

So yeah. Shit's fucked up on all sides, but that's no excuse for Israel to be doing what it's doing. I wonder if they'd really stop if Hamas stopped attacking them, though. I'm not so sure.

[Elvis]

BBC NEWS | UK | UK protesters call for Gaza peace

20,000 to 50,000 (BBC est.) protest in London.

Apparently, they trashed a Starbucks. Such a tragedy. :\

I have no doubt that these protests can/have gotten violent but I don't think the press tells the other side of the story.

*
The YouTube vid is either from an earlier protest (Jan. 3rd) or the BBC article is just now covering said protest.

[Churchill]

Shit won't pass unanimously in the House. I know of at least one Congressman who actually has the balls to stand up to AIPAC.

*2

[Neosutra]

Just hypothetically guys, but what would you have isreal do? Or do you think attacks (however "minor") would stop if isreal kept to itself?

[Elvis]

When I put it all in context, if I were Israel, I'd end the occupation.

The cease-fire (which was initiated on June 19th, 2008) was working. Israel acknowledged in a recent intelligence report released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) :

A period of relative quiet between June 19 and November 4: As of June 19, there was a marked reduction in the extent of attacks on the western Negev population. The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by rogue terrorist organizations, in some instance in defiance of Hamas (especially by Fatah and Al-Qaeda supporters). Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.

However, the report isn't completely objective - obviously. There's plenty of loaded language/etc. Israel does not acknowledge that their November 4th, 2008 raid on the tunnels in Gaza constituted a break of the cease-fire.

Instead, Israel - in my opinion - resorts to a semantic ploy as I explained 2-3 pages ago. Hamas/Egypt/Israel negotiated the truce months in advance. However, since February, Israel was reportedly planning a "big operation" - the Gaza attacks.

The MFA intelligence report stated that Hamas wanted to formally end the truce on the 19th of December. Upon this time, Hamas wanted to renegotiate an extension and better terms. It was to evolve from a truce to a peace treaty that would extend to the West Bank.

Johann Hari of The Independent (UK), writes:

According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

As I already said, Israel broke the cease-fire on November the 4th. After the initial flurry of media bias - in spite of the fact that the Nov. 4th attack was widely covered - the narrative that Hamas broke the cease-fire had taken root.

You have Condoleeza Rice and George Bush blaming Hamas - as expected. But it's just not true - at all.

After 6 Hamas militants were killed on the Nov. 4th attack and the subsequent skirmishes in the days that followed - the rocket fire resumed at normal levels. Israel went on a successful PR campaign to play the victim:

Israeli officials have also enjoyed a clear edge with coverage. An Israeli foreign ministry assessment of eight hours of coverage across international broadcast media reported that Israeli representatives got 58 minutes of airtime while the Palestinians got only 19 minutes. Speaking for the Israeli military, Major Avital Leibovich said: "Quite a few outlets are very favourable to Israel, namely by showing [it] suffering ... I am sure it is a result of the new co-ordination."

[...]One of the challenges of Israel's media offensive has been to counter the disturbing images of Gaza in the conflict. "In the war of the pictures we lose, so you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways," said Aviv Shir-On, foreign ministry deputy director-general for public affairs. "Support doesn't mean the world is standing behind us, but it does mean people understand what we are doing and why."

Israel stated that the tunnels being built by Hamas were to be used for kidnapping Israeli soldiers. No proof was provided - as far as I know. However, in former-President Jimmy Carter's recent Washington Post article, these tunnels were 'defensive'. They were not being built outside of Gaza:

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

So in summation, If I were Israel, I would have negotiated another truce. I would have refrained from breaking the truce. I would have met the terms of the truce. Israel did none of these things because it's not part of their strategy.

This terrorism bit is just a pretext to annihilate the democratically-elected government of the Palestinians. Since the fighting has begun, at least 260 women and children have died. 830 total deaths.

The fighting can only be resolved peacefully. Israel has the capacity to do so since they are vastly more powerful.

They should lift the blockade which has turned Gaza into a 'concentration camp':

Cardinal Renato Martino, a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations and now Pope Benedict XVI's top official on issues of peace and justice, said in the interview that Gaza now resembles a "big concentration camp."

Commenting on Israel's two-week military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Martino told the online newspaper Il Sussidiario.net that both sides were concerned only with their own interests.

"But the consequences of this selfishness is hatred, poverty, injustice. It is always the defenseless populations that pay," he was quoted as saying. "Look at the conditions in Gaza: It looks more and more like a big concentration camp."

[Yuri-G]

According to cnn.com,

"Meanwhile, Palestinian medical sources said four Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks Sunday, including a pregnant woman. This would bring to at least 828 the number killed in Gaza since the start of the fighting, according to the medical sources.
The sources said the dead included 235 children, 92 women, 62 elderly people, four local journalists and 12 medics."

235/828 = .28

(235 + 92)/828 = .39

28% of the casualties have been children.

39% have been either women or children.

There is no possible excuse, under any circumstances, for a first-world nation to commit war crimes of this nature. I try so hard to see both sides of the issue, to acknowledge the terrorist activities of Hamas and how they launch their rockets from civilian buildings, making the civilians into targets but... those numbers are horrific. Damn near 40% of the casualties are women and children. Over a quarter are kids.

I can't even read about this anymore in the news, all it does is make me sick. And I bet you anything a damn large percentage of the surviving children will grow up to be anti-Israel terrorists because of this. I would never say it's right, violence begets violence, etc. - but I don't blame them either. I think I would if I were growing up in Palestine right now.

[Yuri-G]

Just hypothetically guys, but what would you have isreal do? Or do you think attacks (however "minor") would stop if isreal kept to itself?

I'd sure as shit figure out a way to stop killing so many kids, even if I didn't care about the little brats, simply because it looks really really bad. How? I don't know, I'm not a military expert, I don't have the training or the education to tell you that, but I can't believe there isn't a better way for them to go about this.