Operation Pillar of Cloud (November 14th 2012- ), also called the Pillar of Defence, is Israel’s name for its latest military operation against Gaza. Israel has been thinking about doing this since at least January.
During the first six days:
- Israel killed at least 95 Gazans, wounding nearly 660
- Gaza killed 3 Israelis, wounding about 30.
This does not count the 55 other Gazans Israel killed during the first nine months of the year. The hundreds of rockets Gaza sent into Israel during that time caused 0 Israeli deaths.
Israel says it is trying to take out Gaza’s rockets. But it bombs more than just military targets. It bombs houses, wells, graveyards, government buildings and police stations. It even bombed the old BBC building knowing it had reporters. About 70% of the people it kills are civilians, mostly women and children.
It gets worse: On the first day Israel purposely killed the very person who could deliver a long-term ceasefire and who was in fact working on it with Israel: Ahmad Jabari, the top military commander of Hamas. Hamas is the ruling party in Gaza.
Israel is massing 75,000 soldiers for a possible ground war. Way more than it sent to fight four years ago during Operation Cast Lead – and way more than the 15,000 soldiers Gaza has.
Noam Chomsky:
The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.
Compare: Here is what a Gazan rocket did to the city of Ashdod in Israel:
It left a pothole in the road.
Here is the what an Israeli F-16 did to the city of Khan Yunis in Gaza:
A whole house completely gone.
Eli Yishai, Israeli deputy prime minister:
We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages destroying all the infrastructure including roads & water.
Matan Vilnai, Israeli minister for home front defence:
The more qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves
Shoah is the Hebrew word for what Hitler did to the Jews.
The American president, Barack Obama, put out this statement:
The President reiterated to Prime Minister Netanyahu the United States’ support for Israel’s right to self-defense in light of the barrage of rocket attacks being launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians. The President urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties. The two agreed that Hamas needs to stop its attacks on Israel to allow the situation to de-escalate.
No right to self-defence for Gaza.
See also:
- The war in Gaza – Operation Cast Lead, the last operation against Gaza, in the winter of 2008-2009.
- The Goldstone Report – the UN war crimes report on Cast Lead.
- Israel
- Palestine
- The war in Lebanon – In 2006 Israel tried (and failed) to take out the rockets of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
- Hezbollah
- Edward Said: Permission to Narrate
- the eight stages of genocide – Gaza is at Stage 6: Preparation.
When we listen to the media at the moment the impression is given that the war between Israel and the Palestinians is 6 of one and half -dozen of the other. No context or history is ever given. This detailed account, I believe, provides a more accurate perspective from which to understand the present conflict.
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Thank you for highlighting the horrors the people of Gaza are now enduring in the midst of the world’s silence and fear of speaking in any way that might suggest Israeli incrimination.
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The United States needs to stop coddling Israel. If Israel wants to engage in what should be war crimes, then we shouldn’t try and stick up for them as if they’re the victims here. The hypocrisy of our treatment of Gaza, especially when compared to Israel, is just staggering.
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This is a good post. The Palestinians have the right to defend themselves just as much as anyone else. I think the only long term solution is a unitary state.
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The Israelis have low casualties because of their superior defenses systems not because of any restraint on Gaza’s side. The Palestinians are targeting heavily populated areas, as well.
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I think it’s clear that the casualty statistics were mentioned to show the power balance, the inequality of the situation, and not to suggest that Palestinians have a moral high ground when it comes to killing civilians.
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It wasn’t clear and highlighting the imbalance of military power between the two sides wasn’t the only point of this post. It was also to highlight the immorality of the Israelis, which I don’t have a problem with. I thought it important and fair to mention that Hamas is doing the same, just less successfully.
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“Hamas is doing the same, just less successfully.”
I don’t agree. If it’s significantly less successful then it’s not the same thing at all. Their intentions may be comparable, but the actions, the outcomes are not.
To analyze this, I imagine myself fighting a professional boxer. I could really hate the guy, truly want to hurt or even kill him, but since I probably would not be able to, my situation would be (IMO) clearly different than his. I think the (im)balance of power does change the situation.
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These are bombs targeting thousands of israeli civilians, not punches. While a professional boxer might be arrogant enough to believe you wouldn’t get in a punch in or more likely wouldn’t loose much if you did, the Israeli government doesn’t have the luxury of taking such risks with the lives of their citizens. All it takes is one mistake and many of their citizens will be dead.
Hamas’s intentions and actions are the same. Only the outcome is different.
It’s more like murder vs attempted murder.
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This isn’t a murder, it’s a slaughter.
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[…] is an excerpt from Abagond’s blog post entitled Operation Pillar of Cloud: Israel Continues To Destroy […]
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Exactly, solesearch, Hamas has fired just as many rockets at Israel. It’s only because of the “iron dome” that intercepts most of the rockets fired at Isreal that their haven’t been more casualties on their side.
Hamas instigated this latest conflict. They were warned not to fire rockets on Israeli land or there would be retaliation, unfortunately they chose not to listen. Isreal has a right to defend its civilians.
The anti-Isreal crowd continually fail to realize that it’s Isreal who ultimately want peace. They have presented generous land proposals to the Palestinians twice which were both rejected. This is because the Palestinians don’t want to negotiate, the only negotiation for them is for Isreal and all of the Jews to be removed.
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“These are bombs targeting thousands of israeli civilians,”
and both sides of the conflict know most of them will not reach their targets and those that will, will cause relatively little damage. On the other hand, every bomb Israel drops is practically guaranteed to cause severe damage. No, I don’t see these actions as comparable.
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There is a HUGE imbalance between Israeli and Gazan firepower:
http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2012/11/inbalance-of-power-understanding.html
Iron Dome just makes it that much more unequal.
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The Gazan missiles are laughable. Israel does not even bother to shoot down most of them. The only Israelis who have been killed so far are those who did not take cover when the air sirens blew – because they wanted to see the rockets come down.
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Shooting rockets on civilians is a war crime. But it does not begin to excuse what Israel is doing to Gaza. Particularly since said rockets had not killed anyone in the run-up to this operation while Israel had killed over 55 Gazans.
People who want to believe Gaza is “just as bad” are overlooking the difference in scale. It is like saying a shoplifter is “just as bad” as a bank robber. Shoplifting is wrong, of course, but it is not “just as bad” as bank robbery.
Gaza is like the wife who gets beat up by her husband and manages to get in a few swings.
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@ tehnoun
I agree. Without American backing and diplomatic cover Israel would be forced to get along with its neighbours and act in a civilized manner.
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Actually Israel started and then escalated this latest conflict.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-ways-america-enables-israels-atrocities
“.. that ignores the fact that the escalation began when Israeli forces killed a teenage boy, and Palestinian armed factions responded.”
“.. just two days before, a 13 year old Palestinian boy was killed in an Israeli military incursion into Gaza. And a few days before that, a mentally ill Palestinian man was killed and another man was seriously wounded due to Israeli fire . Is there any reason why those couldn’t be the starting point of the ‘cycle of violence’?”
You will rarely if ever hear anyone in the US media say that the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. Because that concept doesn’t exist for children of a lesser god, which is by and large how the Palestinians are seen.
If the Israelis wanted peace they certainly wouldn’t be building more settlements, installing more military checkpoints, and tearing down Palestinian homes. The only thing the Israel wants from Palestinians is land.
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Jason Alexander said:
Really? Hamas instigated the conflict? So what do you call killing a Palestinian politician? Hamas and is the governing party in Gaza. They were selected by the people to lead,despite the West/Israel’s claims they are more government than terror organization.
If Israel is so worried about the security of its citizens it wouldn’t bomb government officials and destroy the little land and property the Palestinians are desperately trying to hold onto. Israel has a pattern of provoking Hamas and playing victim when Hamas retaliates.
Do you really believe this? The Gaza Strip along with the Israel “offerings” seem to dwindling year after year. There is nothing “generous” about stealing land and offering some of it back. If I stole $100 from you and only offered $25 back (if that) would you take it? Or would you fight for the rest? The Israeli government has a “What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable” mentality when dealing with the Palestinians. You can not negotiate with people who have this mentality (H/T JFK).
Given recent events and Israel’s history of aggression against Palestinian civilians this looks more like Israel’s position towards Palestine than the reverse. There has been no actions on the part of Palestine to suggest that the want and end to Jews and Israel. Words mean nothing if they are not followed with action. Israel, on the other hand, has taken steps to ensure the end of Palestine.
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Wow Abagond I’ve been busy still doing Sandy cleanups so I haven’t been to up on current events. I’m 100% with you on this on everything you said on post and comments. I don’t like to be labeled as a conspiracy guy but it makes me think about how Zionist people have infiltrated our system of government and may be the ones that make key decisions(Goldman Sachs, Federal Reserve, The Press, CNN, Key advisers, The Cabinet, Big business, etc.) . Obama should just come out and say what’s right and tell them all to go to hell.
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What a load of crap, Hamas had the power to make this not happen. All they had to do was not shoot at Israel.
Don’t shoot at people; they tend to shoot back
It’s the same old story, it’s okay to kill Jews and they’re just supposed to take it and walk into the gas chambers for the world’s convenience
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@dave
You are not a conspiracy guy on this topic. AIPAC is one of, if not, the most powerful PAC in the nation. Its just boggles the mind that an organization who’s main objective is to protect in interests of a FOREIGN NATION is so powerful in the USA. One has to ask would a Saudi PAC be allowed to ascend to power the way AIPAC has? How about a Nigerian, Russian, or other foreign nation PAC…Muslim PAC with AIPAC’s power? No one would dare to try it.
Its to the point were anything short of unblind support of Israel is seen as anti-Israel, and by extension anti-Semitic. Questioning or criticizing Israel’s tactics is akin to believing “it’s okay to kill Jews and they’re just supposed to take it and walk into the gas chambers for the world’s convenience” (BadWolf)
Spare me.
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Hamas is still targeting civilians. Using the analogies of trained boxers or shoplifting dismisses the severity of what we’re talking about.
It’s so easy dismiss the danger hamas rockets pose when they aren’t shooting hundreds of said rockets at you. Israelis aren’t so fortunate.
I only meant that Hamas and Israel were the same in this aspect: targeting civilians. Israelis targeting of civilians was explicitly mentioned in this post and I found it misleading to not mention that Hamas was doing the same.
This is not any attempt to excuse Israel. Take my comment for what it is instead of adding to it and then trying to discredit it based on what you’ve added.
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BadWolf
Bombing Gaza’s military bases is one thing, but Israel is intentionally targeting civilians. There is no excuse for that, under any circumstances.
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Failed mass murderers are “just as bad” as mass murderers.
They might not be mass murderers yet, but it’s not from a lack of trying.
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Hello Agabond,
Please make a post about what is happening in the east of Congo, yesterday the M23 rebels took the town of Goma and our president Kabila is asking the population to “resist”!!! He isn’t even pushing harder his soldiers who fled like chickens, he is asking the population to fight for him.
That whole situation is a shame, congolese people are being murdered for coltan and other hi-tech valuable minerals below our soil but nobody dare even talk about it!
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Abagond: it has nothing to do with scale. Of course the Israeli army is superior, everyone knows that. It’s not a matter of who has the most casualties or does the most damage.
The fact is Hamas instigated the latest conflict. Do you know why? Why are they upset.
Explain to me why the Palestinians started this conflict and then maybe we can have a conversation.
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Us, here in southern Africa know that an unjust, apartheid regime like the Israeli one will eventually come to its knees! America won’t always support Israel. When there is no more oil interest in the Middle East, America will scale back its support of Israel (as they abandoned the Apartheid regime)
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[…] Operation Pillar of Cloud (November 14th 2012- ), also called the Pillar of Defence, is Israel’s name for its latest military operation against Gaza. – MORE – […]
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We get so carried away by the misleading euphemisms used to distract the problem at hand. First off, imagine someone came into your house…and never left. You would forever behave in a retaliatory manner. Why should it be called instigation. The word instigating validates the treachery that is being committed on the Palestinian people. Lets study that word Palestinian because that the derivative of the problem. Palestinian (Region) was partitioned by the British in 11947. Something that the inhabitants rejected. Israel has since taken, and pushed back the Inhabitants of the land and left them refugees not agreeing to the terms literally of a divided state. They consider the land alwasy promised to them by GOD. The constant war is for the regain of the land once occupied by the rightful owners of the people who are called Palestinians. Where is the instigation to get back home???? Cut the play on words.
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@BadWolf
“Don’t shoot at people; they tend to shoot back”
Don’t steal their land and imprison them, they will not have a reason to shoot at you.
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Leaving aside the meta issue that to claim that the Palestinians started the conflict is like claiming the Comanche started the conflict with whites, in point of fact the Israelis started and then escalated the latest violence, by shooting children playing soccer in their front yard, killing a mentally challenged man who allegedly wandered too close to the military zone, and then killing more children and women in an attack on a village. And the final straw was evidently the assassination of a Hamas leader AFTER Israel had delivered the outlines of a truce.
One doesn’t have to think that Jews are horrible people or Arabs are just swell (neither is the case) to see who is the oppressor and who is the victim in this particular case. Palestinians have just as much right to defend themselves as Israelis do. Palestinians are not the ones blockading Israelis, placing Israelis under a never ending military occupation or constantly demolishing Israeli homes and giving the land to Palestinians.
When Israeli partisans can actually admit the immorality of such actions then there will be a road to peace. But since they can’t and appear to have gotten drunk with power, peace is unlikely anytime soon.
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Thank you for this post, Abagond. The bitterly ironic horror of what Zionist power has long been doing in the largest open-air prison on earth needs all the exposure we can give it.
I’ve been feeling like I live in a dream world here in the U S where virtually no one in the mainstream, including Obama, seems to regard Palestinians as human. The lack of explanatory context is astounding. Hamas did not instigate this conflict; Palestinians also have a “right to defend themselves,” and it makes me sick that Obama and other U S leaders won’t even say that.
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Thanks for that video, Kwamla, great context from a very legitimate source.
This quote from his father is also good and true —
“Terrorism is a terrible thing, but the fact remains that when a small nation is governed by a larger power, terrorism is the only means at their disposal.”
That and now, pea-shooter rockets as well. And I would replace “governed” with something like “continually and brutally oppressed.”
As Seumas Milne wrote in the Guardian yesterday, “It’s Palestinians who have the right to defend themselves.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/20/palestinians-have-right-defend-themselves
What would Obama say if a reporter were to ask him, like the boy who sees that the emperor has no clothes, “Don’t you think Palestinians also have a right to defend themselves?”
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America used to protect the apartheid regime in South Africa at the UN. It even broke its own trade sanctions against South Africa. The ANC was considered a terrorist organization by the American government. So was Nelson Mandela.
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@ Jason Alexander
If I, as a grown man, was beating up a six-year-old child, no one in their right mind would take me seriously if I said “He started it!” or “I have a right to self-defence,” or “He needs to stop first.” But this is the obscene logic that Israel and its American enablers are using.
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@ Jason Alexander
Just when and where did Israel say this? Links please.
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@ solesearch
It is clear from the post that Gaza was sending rockets into Israel before the operation and continues to do so. There is even a picture of the destruction one of their rockets wreaked on Ashdod.
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@ Aspergum
That Milne piece was excellent. Thanks.
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@ Aspergum
Thanks for your acknowledgment and contribution to bringing some form of rational perspective to this ongoing conflict.
abagond’s post for once seems to have the right balanced perspective!
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@ abagond It wasn’t clear that they were targeting civilians. It wasn’t clear that Hamas was failing to kill many Israeli’s because of Israel’s defense system, not because of Hamas’s restraint. That’s what my comment was about. It needed to be stated, explicitly.
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I also believe the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves, as well.
I’m still trying to understand the full history of this conflict, so I have no clue who is more right or more wrong. From what I do understand about the current conflict is that Israel has a blockade on Gaza’s ports. Some of what I read states it’s only prevents weapons from getting into Gaza other’s say it preventing food from getting to the people and they are starving.
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@ solesearch
From 2007 to 2010 the Israeli blockade limited food but not enough to cause starvation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/17/israeli-military-calorie-limit-gaza
Since 2010 Israel has allowed consumer goods to freely flow in. It still blocks weapons and construction material. Medicine still seems to be in short supply (but that could be because of the increase in patients due to Israeli violence).
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A truce took effect an hour ago (1900 GMT)! It was brokered by Egypt. Thank the Arab Spring for that.
Unclear how long this truce will last: Operation Pillar of Cloud was started by Israel breaking the last truce when they killed Jabari. It has broken at least two other truces in the past year or so. (Something the New York Times never seems to talk about but which I have pieced together from other sources!). This truce, however, is way better known, so it will be harder for Israel to break it so easily.
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Numbers of Israelis killed by Gazan rockets before Operation Pillar of Cloud:
2004: 4
2005: 2
2006: 4
2007: 2
2008: 8 (4 of them during Operation Cast Lead, which killed 1400 Gazans)
2009: 0
2010: 1
2011: 2
2012: 0
When the operation was started no Israeli had been in killed in over a year. Thus the “provocation” by Hamas.
Source:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dissecting-idf-propaganda-the-numbers-behind-the-rocket-attacks/5312184
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[…] Operation Pillar of Cloud: Israel continues to destroy Gaza. […]
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What baffles me is that it’s like “HAMAS” has become this big- bad- guy– spooky monster- in the press… so it’s ok to fire tank weapons and megaton bombs from advanced planes when you are doing it to “HAMAS”.
In contrast if you said something like “There was a border dispute at the Israeli Palestinian Border, and Israel forces rained fire on a bunch of Innocent Palestinian civilians that included many women and children.”………That would sound a little different wouldn’t it. We need to start to ban this bought press.
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Abagond… Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your “500 words or less” on this topic. Even more encouraging are the number of folk who also see the imbalance of power and wholeheartedly reject it!
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You know what is the most ammusing part of this post? To watch all, yall line up with Stormfront and David Duke. I’ve suspected it before but confirmation is always nice.
Most people if they found themselves agreeing with Stormfront and David Duke they might double check their math but I don’t think there is much chance of that happening here.
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@BadWolf
Were you implying that not being pro-Israel is wrong simply because Stormfront and David Duke think it’s right? Being wrong about many things doesn’t automatically make them incapable of being right about something else.
Also, the fact that some people do not support Israel because they are biased against Jews doesn’t mean that every person who doesn’t support Israel is biased against Jews.
Your comment is basically an example of smearing by association.
Do you like socialized health care? You know who really liked it? HITLER! 🙂
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BadWolf
Seen this kind of strawmanning and failed arguing a million times. Move on, it’s just embarrassing everyone.
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When Israel moved out of Gaza some years ago the razed every building and dwelling place it had constructed during it’s occupation. The world said nothing about this scorched earth policy. The Gazans were left with piles of concrete to clear away. Also, later on, the only airport in this territory was rendered inoperable by this same lot and ditto for the global silence.
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Keep in mind that Hamas militants are firing from school yards and other places, so when Israel fires back, they hit these locations. They also don’t remove their people to safer areas even though the Israelis give them prior warning. I don’t feel like Hamas really cares about its people, but they do love to see their children in the Western news, bleeding from the head so they can say the Israelis are trying to kill children. Look up some of the fake injuries and deaths that the Palestinians have done to invoke sympathy from people who don’t know much about the conflict- such as a guy who was featured in several different “death” pictures, or the guy who was carried on a funeral bier, but was seen getting up and running off, or the guy who was supposedly injured in his legs, but the cameras caught him running around minutes later. Israel is not blameless, but I think both sides need to be evaluated fairly.
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What ever helps you sleep at night BellaSparx . Anyone trying to justify or rationalize the murder of civilians is a murderer in my book. All those murdered souls of Palestine and all the little children killed in cold blood will get justice in this life or the next.
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I don’t need anything to help me sleep at night. I don’t justify or rationalize, but I do want people to understand that Israelis are not setting out to kill children- which is not something that is fully explained on the news. No one wants to see anyone die- least of all kids.
I’m sure if Mexico were sending rockets at the Southern portion of the United States, we could all sit on our hands and say: well what harm could it do? They are less technologically advanced and, after all, as Americans we are guilty anyway. Mexicans used to own land in parts of the US, as did the Native Americans. Should we direct them to attack American families because of this history?
Many people also don’t know that the Jews bought up much of the land that the Palestians claim is theirs and that Israel was officially created under the Balfour Declaration- No Israelis came in with machetes hacking up Palestinians and taking their land. *No independent Palestinian or Arab country existed in Palestine, just so you know. Ever.
Do you think that Palestinians care if their missiles hit Israeli kids? They haven’t yet because Israelis do not hide behind their babies- they put them in bomb shelters.
Also, I think that many Black Americans are for the Palestinians because they believe that they are socking it to the White man in some way or rooting for people of color, forgetting that they want to wipe out the Jews- which also includes Ethiopian and other types of Jews, with skin like yours! We ARE people of color. They think the Palestinians are the underdog. How many times have Muslim countries banded together to try to kill all the Israelis or drive them away? How many allies does Israel have? Who is the underdog?
And what do you think will happen if the Palestinians do finally kill the Israelis? Will you cry for Israeli dead kids? Will the land be peaceful finally or will the Palestinians begin fighting with their Arab neighbors?
I hope for the best for EVERYONE involved in the conflict, including the Palestinians- I hope they get their own state and are content.
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And PS, Palestinians have killed Israeli civilians as well- I missed seeing the tears from Hamas during their gloating about how well they did and how Iran congratulated them for launching the attack- an attack that ultimately resulted in the deaths of over a hundred of the people they are in charge of protecting.
But you know, it’s big bad Israel blockading the Palestinians that has done it. I hope they remove the blockade so the Palestinians can more easily import weapons for the next attack. It gets hard sneaking things across.
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Obscene!
(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/middleeast/israelis-watch-bombs-drop-on-gaza-from-front-row-seats.html?_r=0)
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