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No end in sight in Gaza

By Patrick L. Lang on January 11, 2009 at 10:10 AM in Current Affairs

From my blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis || biography
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gaza20map"In Damascus, Syria-based Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, on Saturday rejected any deployment of international observers or troops in Gaza.

A statement issued by the groups after a meeting attended by Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal also rejected any security arrangement that "infringes on the right of resistance against Israeli occupation."

Palestinian security officials said some of the heaviest fighting Saturday occurred on the strategic coastal road north of Gaza City, home to 400,000 Palestinians. Israeli forces moved to within about 1 mile of the city before pulling back slightly.

While Israel has largely taken control of the road, militants operate from hidden positions in the area. The road is often used to fire rockets into Israel or attack Israeli navy boats off the Mediterranean coast.

At least 15 rockets landed in Israel, the army said. One hit an apartment building in the southern city of Ashkelon, lightly wounding two people and heavily damaging the structure.

The offensive has caused extensive damage throughout Gaza.’  Yahoo News

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If the Kadima Party intention was to demonstrate its toughness, stop Hamas rocketing of Israel and withdraw from the Gaza Strip before the Israeli election, then the plan is not moving along very well.

Occupation of the open areas from which Hamas usually fires its rockets has led to a predictable Hamas change in operations. 

Now they are firing from within the built-up areas.  It should be expected that if the IDF penetrates farther and farther into the city, Hamas will fall back before them firing from farther and farther west until the beach is reached. 

The IDF will have calculated the various ranges and I am sure have some expectation that at some points they will exceed the range capabilities of Hamas to fire into Israel. 

How far that might be is an interesting speculation but it is likely that to reach those points the IDF will have to be well into the city. 

One would hope that the operation ("Throwing Rocks" or whatever they called it) was not launched in the hope that Hamas would simply give up on firing their rockets.  To expect that would have been very poor analysis based on past experience.

It is likely that the IDF will be engaged in occuaption of the Gaza Strip under hostile conditions when the Israeli election occurs.  Will that favor Kadima or Likud?  I do not know.  pl

  • JulieD

    Why would they not want observers?

    “In Damascus, Syria-based Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, on Saturday rejected any deployment of international observers or troops in Gaza.

    • Mr. X

      Because international troops are controlled by the US who has always acted against any peace between the two people.

      • JulieD

        Mr. X-

        My question pertains to international observers, not troops.

        The US has not “always acted against any peace between the two people”.

        Do you seriously believe Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton wanted war in the ME?

        Why do you say such nonsense?

        Where does your hatred of the US come from?

        That is quite a damning accusation you just made.

  • mountainaires

    Israel’s Ultimate Plan for Gaza

    Jonathan Cook

    http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9387.shtml

    • stodgie

      mountgainaires, any day of the week long before this latest nightmare in gaza i can go find any number of writers from counterpunch on and on defaming israel and refusing to take the other side to task for what they have done. i have read where you disclaim that you support hamas and support the palestinian people. you can’t separate the two hamas and the people. sorry! and when you refuse to see both sides of the story, then you have put yourself in a corner that leaves no room for discussion.

      you don’t get any real discussion either just both sides trading insults pretty much like you see on tv. now that is just pathetic. i am sick of it. i have been angry at israel myself and don’t like much of what they have done. but this one sided mantra isn’t going to cure one dang thing. never! if israel rolled over tomorrow and all the people jumped into the sea as many have said they wanted, what the hell do you think would be the next target. please answer honestly! thanks

      • Mr. X

        Sorry, but I have a difficult time holding an oppressed and massacred people responsible.

        • Zeke

          Oppressed by Hamas and massacred at their insistence.
          The ones who maintain this are Hamas. The ones who continue this are Hamas. The ones who perpetrate this are Hamas.
          It is obvious that if both sides were promised peace permanently tomorrow that only one side would accept and it isn’t Hamas. Thus, you are siding with them against Israel by blaming the wrong side.
          You are simply a mouthpiece for anti-Israel sentiment and from your mouth comes only hate. You gather your skewed ideas of truth from one of the most biased websites online and then haver the effrontery to void that bowel you call an opinion on us.
          I know opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. But in your case, your opinion is your asshole…
          You side with evildoers

          • Ferd Berfle

            I’m inclined to agree with you. Hamas does not want peace so, inevitably, peace will only come about by sheer brute force.

            To listen to some people on this thread, one would think that war is supposed to be executed with surgical precision, with no casualties other than those actually taking direct part in the hostilities, just like in the movies. This is unfortunate because war is hell and is, by its very nature, supposed to be grisly so as to keep countries from starting them willy-nilly and to give the combatants impetus to cease hostilities once they have started. When war becomes painless, it becomes too easy to be the first response rather than the last to international difficulties.

            • JulieD

              Bravo!


              thunderous clapping

  • pd

    Are all you folks this susceptible to all the Hamas propaganda? Three years ago Isreal withdrew its troops and its settlers (many by gunpoint), and gave it to the Palestinians to self rule. Rather than have a stable, growing area, Hamas came in and made it their playground for rocket launching, hiding within cities and around terrified citizens. Somehow I doubt every Palastinian welcomes death as much as Hamas wants you to believe.

    Sure, innicent citizens are getting killed, but when they store weapons in schools, hospitals, etc, how can you not have citizen deaths? What does Hamas do at each and every one of them? Stage a Youtbe event of it, and quite often adding thir own hoaxes to what really happened. And you folks are falling for it.

    Let the fight play out, and allow Israel to clear out as many terrorists in the gaza strip as they can. It is not Israel that has lobbed 7000 plus rockets into the strip, nor do I read much of Jewish suicide bombers going into the strip to blow up Arabs.

    • stodgie

      pd, i have mixed feelings about all of this but the one sided total blaming of isael for the whole thing leaves me saying wth! larry makes excellent points about the mistakes in stragedy as he see it. the right in both countries haven’t helped. they had the power when both countries have been attacked and often misused that power. i can speak more to bush here rather than israel as i have more knowledge of it. so what to do? i has noticed all these protests the media is pushing down our throats are simply people from the middle east doing it for the media display. i can’t find myself impressed with that either.

      first of all the people of palestine need someone who can be an honest broker for them. so far they haven’t had it. hamas? please! fatah? they are corrupt but there is more of a chance with them. problem is i think hamas would rather see gaza go up in flames than to have peace talks. bargain with extremists? hmmmmmmm

      • ces

        There are some of us that are pissed off at the any “one-sided, my side can’t EVER be wrong” comments, regardless of which side they come.

        And this labeling of people (making honest and sincere points) as wholesale bigots is insulting, to say the least.

        If I say, or anyone else says, they don’t want more people to die it does not mean we want Israel to be pushed into the sea.

        Blind hatred born from fear makes people irrational.

      • Zeke

        Stodg,
        What ever happened to “people get the government they deserve?”
        Since Hamas was actually elected, they reflect the generic will of the people unless one asserts that they are in power illegally and thus should be overthrown by their own people.
        This thing could be stopped a number of different ways.
        Many see the only viable solution being the cessation of combat by Israel as it is their weaponry doing the killing.
        The myth is that it is a solution.
        Someone has opened the gate to hell and innocents are being shoved through. The proposed plan for Israel to stop does nothing to alter the fact that innocents would still die. Since they would be Israeli innocents and everyone would say that they shouldn’t be there anyway, then their deaths are acceptable. Does murder become less murder when the number of victims is lowered?
        No, the gate to hell remains as open. Any “solution” which doesn’t completely close off the evil, is just fooling itself.

    • Mr. X

      Stop spreading this rumour. It’s not true. Israel never gave back Gaza. It was still under quarantine.

      • Idiocracy08

        Nor was it their’s to give

  • Darian

    What is the damage, then, to the Israeli government in chosing to move forward with this attack?

    Hamas will certainly continue to pick, in addition the Arab groups will continue using the atrocities committed against the Paesltinians to further bolster anti-Israel sentiment, world wide, causing greater Israeli isolation.

    My feeling is of a definitive shift, however slight, in US sentiment toward Israel — including that of the Pentagon –how will Israel’s current action affect the support it derives from the US, if in fact this is true?

    (These are general questions, sorry, but I’m trying to get an overall feel for the situation as it is, not as others wish it were).

    • Mr. X

      The US government couldn’t be happier with what is going on. If you know the background, this would all be crystal clear.

      • Darian

        Bush is not the US government.

        Best not to attempt to muddy waters one is incapable of understanding.

        Why, look at Israel…

  • rw

    And: “JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Sunday the job of stopping arms smuggling from Egypt to the Gaza Strip should be done by Egyptian forces and rejected the idea of an international force.”

    The argument could be made that both sides have been hijacked by extremists. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. have no interest in peace since their goal is to remove the presence of an Israeli state from Palestine. The extreme religious faction on the Israeli side (which is politically strong and keeps Israel in a quasi-theocracy)has no interest in peace, since their goal is to recreate Israel in biblical terms. Keep shifting the borders/boundaries, keep shifting control of the land, keep it all very undefined and wait for the opportune circumstances….again.

    “From Beirut to Jerusalem” is a really good book to acquire a base on which to attempt to understand it.

    I don’t think the US could exist in peace if ONE of the extreme factions (the Christian right, the Neocons, the Saul Alinsky left, etc.) had a strong control of government and its agenda had to be contended with no matter who won the election, no matter which party ruled congress, no matter which party won the White House.

    • stodgie

      well speaking only to the part of the comment about the extreme religeous right and bush, yes indeed they scared me. i also never appreciated the right in israel playing them. both sides played each other really. it was the neocons that got us into iraq however with the applause of the religeous right.

  • Darian
    • stodgie

      the vatican really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when they go back in history talking about death camps. go read your history about what the vatican didn’t do in ww2. they have creds when asking for peace and taking both sides to task. beyond that this particular series of comments are political and crude. it doesn’t help the situation but inflames it making it in my mind pure bullsxxx!

      • rw

        “the vatican really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when they go back in history”

        If we bring in the HISTORY of any country, institution, regime, tribe, etc, their isn’t one that would have much of a leg to stand on in terms of moral authority. Let’s start from now.

  • apishapa

    I read recently that Hamas had worked a deal with Britsh Oil for offshore drilling in the Mediterranean and that oil had been found. I believe Israel is attacking Gaza at this time to keep them from having any kind of income that doesn’t come from Israeli sources. The only way to keep a confined and starving people in check is to keep them confined and starving.

    • stodgie

      if you had added that might be one more possible issue in the mix, then that is fine. to each his own, however asishapa you are ignoring a number of rockets that have been aimed at israel for quite awhile.

      • apishapa

        I acknowledge that Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel, however, I never hear Israeli supporters acknowledge that Israel made some promises in that cease fire, too. They promised to remove the blockades. They did not. They left 1.4 million people starving with no recourse.

        Hamas did honor the cease fire for a long time, but those people need food and they need another way to pobtain food rather than wait for Israel to dole a little out when they are feeling generous. They are kept like zoo animals, and I would revolt, too whne my children starved.

        Israel has no intention of ever even working toward peace. They do not want peace and they never will.

    • rw

      “to keep them from having any kind of income that doesn’t come from Israeli sources”

      insures de facto sovereignty over the people/land, controls the destiny of the Palestinians, guarantees no peace, results in only verbal acquiescence to a two state solution and pacifies the Zionists.

  • EWard

    Pat Lang

    I have a tremendous respect for your commentary having seen you many times on the Lehrer News Hour.

    There was an article in The American Thinker by James Lewis that the current Gaza operation and the Lebanon attacks in 2006 are “proxy campaigns” against Iran. Its goal is to neutralize and scare Israel’s local enemies in order to face Iran if push comes to shove. The IDF has no intention of reoccupying Gaza because Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah are far more dangerous enemies.

    Furthermore, it is estimated that Hamas has 15,000 trained gunmen in Gaza plus another 5,000 belonging to radical jihadist groups. Israel cannot afford to wage a costly guerilla war where the defense has the edge.

    However, as Lewis states “the big unknown is the outcome of this punitive campaign, both politically and militarily.”

  • NoBamaNoWay

    oh please, now it’s israel’s fault that hamas is firing rockets from built up areas, because israel hit them back when they were firing from other areas???!! jeezus christ; is there anything that the palestinians do that *isn’t* Israel’s fault?

    • Mr. X

      Israel and the US do not want the Palestinians to develop. The Gaza strip should be enough proof of that. Saying that Hamas is firing rockets is like a slave owner complaining that their slaves aren’t happy.

  • LDW

    Here, in its entirety:
    http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=f555be7f-dd65-4941-bfa7-a5197b5e8bbe

    Liberate The Palestinians From Hamas
    What to remember once the fighting stops.

    Bernard-Henri Levy, The New Republic Published: January 9, 2009

    Not being a military expert, I will abstain from judging whether the Israeli bombardments of Gaza could be better directed, less intense.

    Not being able for decades to distinguish between the good dead and the evil dead or, like Camus used to say, between “suspect victims” and “privileged executioners,” I’m also deeply disturbed by the images of the Palestinian children who have been killed.

    This being said…I would like to remind everyone of certain facts:

    1. No government in the world, no country other than the vilified Israel–dragged through the mud, demonized–would tolerate having thousands of shells falling on its cities year after year. The most remarkable thing in the affair, the true surprise, is not Israel’s “brutality”; it is, to the letter, its restraint.

    2. The fact that Hamas’ Qassam and, now, its Grad missiles have caused so few deaths does not prove that they are artisanal, inoffensive, etc., but that the Israelis protect themselves, that they live burrowed in the caves of their buildings, under shelter: a nightmarish existence, suspended, with the sound of sirens and explosions. I have been to Sderot: I know.

    3. The fact that, inversely, the Israeli shells create so many victims does not mean, as protesters have angrily proclaimed, that Israel is engaging in a deliberate “massacre,” but that the leaders of Gaza have chosen the opposite attitude and are exposing their populations, relying on the old tactic of the “human shield.” Which means that Hamas, like Hezbollah two years ago, is installing its command centers, its arms stockpiles, its bunkers, in the basements of buildings, of hospitals, of schools, of mosques. Efficient but repugnant.

    … it is not only the Israelis, but the Palestinians, who will need to be liberated from Hamas’ somber shadow.

    Copyright © 2007 The New Republic. All rights reserved.

  • Ellen D

    Israel warned Bush about the danger of pushing for a quick election in Gaza but Bush and Rice in their “Bringing Democracy to the World” fog wouldn’t listen.

  • Mr. X

    One would hope that the operation (“Throwing Rocks” or whatever they called it) was not launched in the hope that Hamas would simply give up on firing their rockets.

    Gah! It’s disturbing when authors don’t even know why Israel broke the truce. Hamas had agreed to the 67 borders. But Israel, the US and Australia still oppose it and have always opposed it. The rest of the world is supportive of the 67 borders. Instead of making Israel as appearing to be against peace, they broke the truce in order to wage a PR campaign where they could at least confuse the issue so as not to have to deal with the 67 border issue.

    The more I find out about this entire ordeal, the more I’m starting to hate the Israeli leadership.

    Say what you want, but this is a massacre.

    • Idiocracy08

      Mr X, I’ve been putting a link up for Jews for Justice in the Middle East. It has many quotes from Israel’s past leaders. Very interesting. I think the reason Israel doesn’t want peace with the Palestinians is because that would mean they would be represented. Since the Arabs are a majority, it would mean “an end to Zionism”.

      http://www.cactus48.com/OriginMSW.pdf

  • Patrick Henry

    Col. Lang..

    Sir…I appreciate that you put these interesting pieces up here at NQ…for us to chew on..

    This one again was intweresting and thought Provoking…you always Really INFORM, and in My Case…Make me want to DIG even DEEPER for more BACKGROUND of Your Material..

    In this Case, your Commentary and ending Question made me realize I really know little about Historical Backgrounds.. Political Partys…etc of Isreal…ad Gaza and the Palestine Relationships..

    So, I have been doing WIKI Searchs ever since on topics like Israel …Government, Partys, (The Ones you mentioned, the Beginnings of Conflicts in 1948 and the Creation of both an Israeli and Palestine STATE which Israel Violated by Beginning thier WARS of Expansion against Muslims and Nieghoring Countrys and Palestenians One year Later in !…1949…even through acts of Terrorism against everyone in thier Way including the BRITISH…

    Wiki has Interesting article alone on the Gaza Strtip…the PLO…HAMAS…etcf..

    I would recommend everyone do some similar Research to Educate and Inform them selfs..

    Thank You Col. Lang for Stimulating Me to want to be MORE Informed…

    you are a Good Teacher..

    • Barium

      I’d like to know more about the comparisons between Israel and Russia, not understanding before the extent to which Israel was influenced by the Russian Jews.

      (Col Lang mentioned this in his earlier essay).

      How does that affect Israeli military thinking, the choice in military response?

      Is this a carry over of that Russian mindset?

      I understand my questions are academic in nature, but it IS fascinating, to me, to see the comparison, ie theoretically, how would Russia respond militarily, (say v an Israeli response), even in terms of a war game?

  • Patrick Henry

    Interesting Question BARIUM..Really..

    Since the IDF is Muti National in composition…and Subject to Idelogical Backgrounds and thinking…

    They have been very militant in thier Own way since 1948 if you read Israel history on WIKI or on the gaza Strip etc..I just started and its interesting research..

    Basically Israel moving into that area and Occupying it ..is what I compare to when theunited sates startedmoving the American Indians Out..puting them on reseervations and Moving West…It was now THIER Land..and They (The US Government) had the SUPERIOR Military Force..and SUPERIOR “ATTITUDE”…

    The same Attitude that Our neo Con President Bush uses to justify making up Excuses to Attack and Occupy IRAQ and Hang Saddam Hussein..and Overthrow His Government..

    Because BUSH Didn’t like HIM..He HAD The POWER..and the OPPORTUNITY…and he feels good that He at least fufilled his “DUTY” to Start One war and create ONE DEMOCRACY and Stay Loyal to the Neo Con Plan and be a Loyal Skull and BONER Guy..

    You want to do something and you got the POWER..Use it…Justify it…Alibi it…Exploit It..Profit from It…and Thank God for Swiss banks and Off shore Accounts..

    They all do..

    So…Our Buddies Israel…are still our favorite “Democracy” in the Middle east…and do alot to finance Folks back in the USSA..

    so..Good By Hamas…and hello state of Palestine..no matter how small you are..or how many Folks you got on the “RES”…

    Just My Perspective..But that was an Interesting Question…

    Oh, I forgot…we are Not Suppose to Question..

    There is alway the GULAG…

    What do i care…I am not Looking for campaign donations…and i hang onto the last Thread of support left from the Constitution of the United States of America…

    Land of the FREE…