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Gaza Spin and Why Hitler was a Swell Guy

By Larry Johnson on January 2, 2009 at 2:22 PM in Current Affairs

Got your attention? Good. An article today by Alan Dershowitz reminds me why there are some people out in the world who could even find nice things to say about Hitler and all of the “good” he did. Here is part of Dershowitz penned:

Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

These despicable tactics — targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians — can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.

The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality — by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets — is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.

And this guy is (or was) a Harvard professor? Calls into question the value of an Ivy League education. Let’s take this apart systematically.

So “Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it.” Really? Well, tell that to the five little girls killed last week in one of the Israeli bombing run in Gaza. Tell that to the three children playing in the street today. Then there is this from the International Herald Tribune:

A dentist stood at the bed of a doctor, his good friend Ehab Madhoun, 32, who had just died, his shrapnel-pitted body wrapped in a white shroud.

The day before, Madhoun, a general practitioner, was in an ambulance responding to an Israeli airstrike at the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Another missile hit the ambulance. The driver, Muhammad Abu Hasira, died instantly. Madhoun lingered for a day, dying of his wounds on Wednesday in the intensive care unit of Shifa Hospital, where hundreds of people have been brought since Israel began its heaviest assault on Gaza in three decades.

Let me get this straight–Dershowitz claims that Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. But Israel has and is doing exactly that. Let’s add in schools and mosques as well. While Israel continues to insist that the rockets being fired from Gaza is the causus belli, it is not concentrating its military response on those firing the rockets. It is going after political leadership and infrastructure as well.

The depth of Dershowitz’s feeble mindedness is revealed in the following:

The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality — by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets

No, Alan. The principle of proportionality at issue is that Israel is killing scores more Palestinian civilians than have died in Israel from Hamas rockets. Four Israelis have died from rocket attacks while more than 100 Palestinian civilians have been killed. That’s the point nitwit. Too many Palestinian children are being butchered and wounded in this operation. This is only going to fuel the thirst for revenge, not quench it.

The cycle of revenge on both sides must be stopped. Palestinians have their list of grievances and wrongs to be avenged as does Israel. But there is no sign that this cycle will be broken. I wish both sides could learn and live by the wisdom of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, who commented on a call by a neighbor to seek biblical revenge–”An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” Tevye replied:

Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.

People with the education and status of an Alan Dershowitz are enabling this cycle of violence by offering up lame excuses and justifications for killing civilians, especially children. The United States has its own list of shameful acts to answer for during the course of our nation’s history. Put me in the category of people who believe that nations like the United States and Israel have a moral duty to live by a higher standard than your average tyrant, like Saddam Hussein, who murdered perceived enemies without losing a nights sleep. I see no honor in acting like a Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin. I think we can do better.

HC

Alan Dershowitz is an idiot.

That said both sides of this conflict are horrible, and there are decent humans stuck on both sides (fewer in the PA lately in my opinion, its a sinking ship full of rats right now).

Debating the technicalities of how they conduct their business seems somewhat pointless to me.
newbe

Dershowitz is a joke.

After 911 Dershowitz came out in favor of ‘Torture Warrants’ whereby people could be legally tortured by our government.

What a scholar!!!!
HC

Clearly I am not allowed to post in sections dedicated to the Mideast conflict!

ritamary

Why do you say that? I see a post by you above and this post also.

pacificisland

So take Krauthammer apart, please:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101780.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children’s program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey’s path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible — also on both sides. It’s a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza — peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza’s Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base — importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world’s opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire — exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d’etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.

Israel’s only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence — the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.

Hamas’s rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire. If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost yet another war. The question is whether Israel still retains the nerve — and the moral self-assurance — to win.

Idiocracy08

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

Yeah, cause Gaza is sooo big, there are LOTS of places to put stuff.

Patrick Walker

This was a constant refrain back in 2006 when Israel attacked Lebanon as well.

Idiocracy08

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

I guess they just learn this from Israel:
“Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan…[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland…[Dayan stated] ‘They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land…We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was…The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.’” The New York Times, May 11, 1997

Idiocracy08

Yep…

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict.

Idiocracy08

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.

We tend to forget the West Bank. This is to be considered Palestine too, is it not? There are still settlements there, and Israel is still approving money for new settlements there. So there goes the “it can’t be the settlements” theory. Why do people conveniently forget the West Bank settlements?

Also, even if all the settlements were gone, what about the money it’s supposed to give back to Palestine? How about giving some of that money to them, instead of approving new funds for new settlements?
Idiocracy08

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

do you know if your neighbor or the guy in the apartment next to you MIGHT have a stash of weapons?

do we know these people got these messages? or was it a “hey look up” boom! kind of message?

AND, where are they going to go?

JulieD

Idioc’s Guide to Loopy Logic:

1. Room – there’s no room to hide rockets!

2. Nosy Neighbors? Rockets? There’s too much space – who knows about the making, keeping and launching of rockets! IT’S TOO BIG!!

3. No where to run to baby – no where to hide…

Comment by Idiocracy08 | 2009-01-02 16:46:31

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

Yeah, cause Gaza is sooo big, there are LOTS of places to put stuff.

Idiocracy08

if it makes you feel better, that’s fine.

No where to run to baby – no where to hide…

i see you mocking the fact that they have no where to go. if that makes you feel better…more power to you.

the actual point i was getting at was this:
near the homes

again…do you know what all your neighbors are up to? or MIGHT be up to?

and the other operative word was “stashed”. not launching. this doesn’t really look like the neighborhoods that are being blown up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/world/middleeast/25mideast.html?em

JulieD

I can state with 100% certainty that my neighbors have not used mortar rockets to wit:

6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

The color of our homes must be approved, so over 6,000 rockets in a 3 year period would be impossible.

After the first one or two, we would LOOK for them and we would REPORT them.

From what I recall of my urban days, it would have been equally unlikely. Of course, I wouldn’t vote for Hamas or be in favor of veils and polygamy either.

WE CARE ABOUT OUR CHILDREN. We are more interested in caring for them than in some insane religious fervor to launch rockets.

Idiocracy08

I can state with 100% certainty that my neighbors have not used mortar rockets to wit:

again….stashing. do you know what your neighbors have STASHED in their homes?

The color of our homes must be approved, so over 6,000 rockets in a 3 year period would be impossible.

well good for you, you get to deal with home owner’s association. i don’t, and am glad. not everyone in America does, and not everyone knows what their neighbors are doing. You picking out the ONE point of my other arguments and twisting it to make fun of it is not impressing me.

After the first one or two, we would LOOK for them and we would REPORT them.

are you in America? because you can’t go searching each home to try to find something you don’t know where it’s hidden or who has it. a little something called illegal search & seizure. and what if it’s an apartment building across the street? can you go into those apartments? No. are the Palestinians firing them from the rooftops of these homes or in neighborhoods?
http://www.mererhetoric.com/images/hamaskassam.jpg

From what I recall of my urban days, it would have been equally unlikely. Of course, I wouldn’t vote for Hamas or be in favor of veils and polygamy either.

Yeah, cause there are no gangs in America. No one owns guns or anything.

I wouldn’t have voted for Hamas either. Not everyone did. Did those Jews in Florida really vote for Pat Buchanan in 2000?

Polygamy? Breaking news…it happens here in America! Mitt Romney was a governor and even ran for president.

WE CARE ABOUT OUR CHILDREN. We are more interested in caring for them than in some insane religious fervor to launch rockets.

EVERYONE EVERYWHERE CARES ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN. JEWS DO NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY ON THIS! however, there are people like me that not only care about American children, but everyone else’s children too. i’m not taking away people’s land and claiming it as mine. that would be taking children’s inheritance and would make them homeless.

was it not a religious ferver that made Israel today?

Zeke

I have had it with this ridiculous “logic.”
Palestinians ELECTED the sonsofbitches who are firing the rockets. It bears repeating..
Palestinians ELECTED the sonsofbitches who are firing the rockets.
Hamas never told them they were going to play nice so they could be elected. They said they would continue their fight to the end… AND GOT ELECTED!
Palestinians got the government they deserved and are getting their asses kicked because of it.

Germans elected A.H.
Iraqi’s originally elected Saddam.
Italians… The Great Train Conductor

If any of you who are opposing Israel’s actions now because children are being sent into the streets to be victims, and you kept your mouth shut when Saddam was gassing Kurdish kids, or when refugee children in Darfur starved to death, then perhaps you might try explaining to yourself just what value human life truly has. Apparently, from what I’ve read here only Palestinians have value.
From a personal standpoint, If you were to mess with my loved ones, I would eradicate you simply
to ensure that my loved ones would survive.
It might not even get personal. I would ensure that you never got another bite of the apple.
Many of you would do the same thing if you had the abilities.
Why is it so hard to understand that Israel wants to be left the fuck alone… nothing more.
Those of you who understand military issues and have read any history of the late twentieth century should understand that twice Israel ground its military foes to dust in its own defense and didn’t keep hardly any of the land they took.
If you checked up on it, Israel would now be one of the largest middle east countries if it had kept all the land it took.
They want to be left alone. Their neighbors have wanted them dead since their nation’s inception.
Since they have NEVER been left alone, they have always had to fight. It does something to you to have to fight all the time.
That they haven’t ever just said “Fuck It! Lets just blow everyone to hell,” is a wonder to me.
To some people the words, “Never Again!” really mean something.

Idiocracy08

http://campusprogress.org/features/1204/get-me-a-draft-card

Idiocracy08

Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006.

I just called to say I love you…

Talk to the UN peacekeepers that were killed about that one.
Idiocracy08

Israel has but a single objective in Gaza

Then why were there settlers there in the first place up until 2005, when they were MADE to leave? Why were so many Israeli leaders against Sharon doing this? Their objective is getting rid of all the Palestinians. I do see a lot on this board people saying “why don’t they just go to Egypt or Jordan?” making it seem as simple as that.

Zeke

If they went to Jordan, half of them would be going home…

elise

What is your source, Zeke?

NoBamaNoWay

word, pacificisland. intentions matter, and the truth is that palestinians and their arab/muslim supporters WANT to kill civilians and wipe israel off the map, while israelis at least make some effort to target only military/terrorist related facilities and give civilians an opportunity to get out.
Mar

If you were to do a google search on the topic of the “USS Liberty,” you would see that Israel was not too scrupulous to attack a US ship that was in the Med. and was monitoring Israeli communications.

The attack occurred in spite of the ship being clearly American and having only defensive armaments.

workingclass artist

“While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel’s military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community…”
this is a quote from the Op-ED by Dershowitz Larry linked.
Israel is also treating Palestinians in hospitals.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1230733148165

elise

The site you linked to isn’t exactly a non-partisan source. For over a year, Israel has refused to allow Palestinians to pass into Israel for any reason including health care, food or employment. That is the reason so many have used the tunnels into Egypt for the basic necessities.

Israel claims the tunnels are used to smuggle terrorists and arms through Egypt from Syria, but by destroying the tunnels, they will block the only way out for Palestinians.

After Arafat died, the west picked his successor, Abbas, and they and Fatah refused to recognize the elected Hamas members of parliament and tore down the flag of Hamas from the parliament building. Immediately after the election, Hamas said publicly they wanted a coalition government with Fatah.

There is no way to justify suicide bombers because they result in civilian deaths, but I have seen pictures of Palestinians fighting Israeli tanks with sling shots while their homes are being bulldozed.

Yitzhak Rabin won the Nobel Peace and was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli radical who was opposed to Rabin’s signing the Oslo Accords. There are many militants in Israel who oppose any kind of peaceful settlement of the conflict with Palestine. Their hatred is as deep and wide as Hamas and they have influence in Israeli Foreign Policy. When Olmert leaves office people like Netanyahu will have even more influence and there will be more violence.

The 1967 war was preemptive. The second war with Lebanon began because a soldier was kidnapped by a Palestinian militant group. Recently, Israel unilaterally bombed Syria and it’s possible they will soon bomb Iran while the IAEA has said there is no proof Iran is any where near atomic capability. It is only recently, Israel has acquired the capability to deliver bombs to Iran and their Air Force is much more sophisticated.

Rachel Corries was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement who was killed in Gaza by a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Forces during a protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes in March, 2003.

I’m not defending Hamas, but it is unreasonable to justify every thing the Israeli government decides to do and question nothing. I won’t do that with the government of our own country and it makes me unhappy to see this reduced to a Public Relations problem for Israel. They are losing the support they have always enjoyed in western countries and, worse, they continue to to make more enemies in the Middle East. One more question: What if they fail again the way they failed in Lebanon?

Mar

The 1967 war created the problems for Israel that have endured.

In Israel could have fought to defend itself. In taking and keeping territory, Israel has left itself open to attacks by the people living in the captured territory.

One of the theories behind the attack on the USS Liberty is that the CIA had “given” Israel a green light to fight, but to retain its current boarders. The USS Liberty was monitoring communications and reporting back to Washington. (Remember that this was during the time of the Cold War and the US & USSR avoided direct conflict, but supported different players in the Mid-East, just as they did in Vietnam.)

The ship became a target and orders were given for it to be attacked after pilots confirmed its nationality. Sailors on the ship observed Israeli jets flying overhead for hours before the attack started.

JulieD

1. Alan Dershowitz is not stupid.

2. Tell Hamas to stop firing rockets at civilians.

3. Tell Hamas to stop treating women like shit.

HC

What people dont like knowing is that the PA is going hardcore islamic (no, it wasnt always).

Blame whomever you like for this, debate the technicalities of how to kill the way that makes you feel happy. Its entirely possible there is no good answer to any of it.

Women will come out the big losers, as always.
elise

Julie, Dershowitz is not stupid, but he is an arrogant fool.

HARP

Where were the demonstrations when children were blown to pieces on buses? Where were the demonstrations for the last year, after Hamas started lobbing bombs into Israel? While we are contemplating the past, I seem to remember Palestinians dancing in the streets on 9/11.
Cry me a river. If the average person in Gaza is fed up, then get off your collective asses and take back what is yours. Your Government.

workingclass artist

Yes HARP….Silence…
This is a WAR on the WEST…manipulated and paid for by the Saudis and the Persians to keep it located in Israel.
x

A-fucking-men.

workingclass artist

This is a WAR on all things WESTERN…currently located in Israel and paid for by the Saudis and the Persians.

http://NoQuarterUSA.net Larry Johnson

Working Class,
You betray your ignorance. The Saudis are Sunnis, the Iranians are Shias. Sunnis and Shias don’t see things eye to eye.

workingclass artist

That is true Larry. I was alluding to both countries using the palestinian conflict to further the interests of both.
It seems to me the Saudis want to keep the extremists out of Saudi Arabia.
The Persians want to inflame Jihad and gain solidarity. This is what I meant.
If there was not unified cause of Anti-Western sentiment wouldn’t there then be increased conflict between Iran (Shia) and the Sunni nations?
HC

Workingclass didnt say anything about the flavor of Islam.

Neither Iran nor Saudi particularly likes the West, although one is our ally because we do not care if they treat women like farm animals.
http://firefox AnnieCollier

Their commonality is hatred of US. They can continue to hate each other after they take care of the Jews and the USA.
TeakwoodKite

So the proxy elements of those that seek advantage are less important?

The PLO and Hamas don’t see eye to eye.
News reports, last year, of cells in Gaza trained by Iranian military and Sunni jihadist .
Syria and Iran fortifying positions in So Lebanon.
Iran taking Jihad volunteers.
Iran using Iraq for trans-shipment of arms is next.
Hamas waiting for the ground war to start.
Israel knowing this is a suckers errand will not want to occupy Gaza, when it is more concerned with Iran.

It will not take much to change the range and accuracy of rockets or what payload they carry or where they are launched from.

Ignorance is a perpetual human condition, I wish I could escape its bonds.
So in that spirit, I am wondering how you got to
“Sunnis and Shias don’t see things eye to eye” from Workingclass Artist’s comment?

Thanks and Best Wishes Mr. Johnson.

TeakwoodKite

An Imposter Artist? say it ain’t so!

pacificisland

This is an Isreali man’s comment about Krauthammer’s article:

I was away at work and my children and wife were at home. Suddenly i recieved a phonecall my home had been bombarded by Hamas Rocket launched from Gaza. My 2 years old daughter, my wife and two children are now in the hospital recuperating from the ordeal and all the world( or a section of it) wants is for Hamas to keep doing this to others and Israel just keep looking on and not protect her citizen. I ask my self if those people who protest in favor of terror in peaceful part of the world dont face reality of the situation. Gaza was left in 2005 despite all our protest against this. We left Gaza a prosperous agricultural and growing commercial city. Now it has become a place where labyrinthine passage ways of tunnels are now built to inflict terror. All the greenhouses have been left abandoned.Hamas is a destructive agent; it does not build only destroy. Hamas has held civilians ptive and yet still scores praise for doing so from ignorant people and Jew haters. What do you people want of us, i ask. we do not kill civilians except in error- which is a constant in any war siuation.This much we`ve demonstrated by the letters and phone calls and announement made to civilian populations before invasion. Think world, dont let terror dominate the globe like they intend….
Steve1

Would you take the same stance if rockets were falling upon your home? Yes, this is very complicated issue. One which I’m hoping Senator Clinton will bring her skills to bear. Its easy to condemn from afar. Who is doing the condemning? The Europeans, they sure held a solution tot he Jewish problem! Hamas, Iran, El Queda, every cheap-horn dictator in the Muslim world, North Korea, African dictators…shit! We need to be fair and balanced with our anaylsis of this conflict. Yes, both sides need to give and take. Soon, rather than later. I will continue to monitor situation. But will not condemn either side. I say, stop the killing and settle. Why did Palestiaians in Gaza elect Hamas???

Steve1

Palestinians
goldengrahme

Steve, Hamas was elected in Gaza because the PA was so corrupted by the previous Yasir Arafat administration, they wanted change. Hamas offered the hope of bettering their marginalized existance.

Millions and millions of donated dollars went to pay off Arafat officials but most went into European bank accounts–now controlled by and large by Arafat’s widow and friends. There is a very ugly argument between former PA officials and the present Abbas administration in the West Bank rangling over the monies that should have financed all the necessities Gaza needed to prosper and advance.

So, it is indeed a murky, complex and unhappy situtation. Naturally, anyone with a sense of
humanity is appalled by death on either side;
but to date, no one has offered a solution other
than to say, please stop the killing…easier said than done. The backstory goes far beyond the
borders of the Holy Land.

Thanks to all for at least caring enough to listen,
to research and to respond. It is a beginning.

nycvoter

This is where I sign out Larry. Go on pretending you believe Israel has any right to defend itself. Your disgusting title shows you for the IDIOT you are. Dershowitz is right and while I never agree with krauthammer he has it right too (see below).

There is nothing the Israelis can do right to defend their citizens and win the support of other nations. alerting Palestinians to their coming attacks or doing what they can to prevent civilian casulaties at risk to their own soliders, it’s never enough.

other comments are correct, let the Palestinians stop the violence. Why don’t they insist their gov’t use the international aid to build schools, hospitals and roads, to put people to work and take care of their futures and stop the ongoing rocket attacks rather than encourge them. Maybe then the Palestinians could live in peace

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/a_real_ceasefire_needed_in_gaz.html
HC

I spent the better part of my early life in the areas being discussed.

Stirring this pot of filth is unproductive and hopefully won’t become a huge focus of this othewise witty and wonderful blog.

Of course its Larry’s blog so this is just my $.02 and my heartfelt wish.
Mort

They’re so kooky, they can no longer tell right from wrong.

Good luck.

No matter the spin, one still has to deal with reality, Israel is a failing state.

Why?

And why the should the US go down, with it?

I mean, they’re so irrational, why bother anymore?

They see nothing but themselves.

Israel, like the US, and other civilized nations, is held to a higher standard, in the end it is our civilization that has led to our standard of living.

Why is Israel hell bent on reverting back to the stone age?

I see little difference in the reasoning process of Dershowitz, and the Iranian president.

Time to get off this train, the hardcore Israeli kooks are out of their MIND, losing touch with reality.

http://www.peacenow.org/

Wisewoman

This is an appropriate quote by Dr. Martin Luther King. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

TorchWood

I’m sorry. I don’t know the specifics of the current conflict but the one thing I am sure of people are dying over there.

That said. This is the f-ing 21st century! We, as human beings aren’t supposed to behave in this manner. Frankly, I’ve been disgusted with the blah-blah-blah and actions of Israel for a very long time.

And if that makes me anti-semitic, then F-U! I say cut ‘em off. NO WEAPONS, NO MONEY. Then see if they want to sue for a lasting peace.

Same goes for the Palestinans. Sue for peace or get cleared out and scattered to the four corners of the region. God knows the United States has experience doing that (a la Trail of Tears).

I’m just sick of it. At least I know Hilary will be on the case soon if not already. Maybe she and Bill can make a difference there. Only problem is that O-shit will get the credit.

Mort

The more I research, the more I see the Israeli peace process hijacked by their neocons, similar to OUR neocons, those who have lost two wars, and destroyed the American ecobnomy.

The neocons are a state of mind, unto themselves, no talent men and women, insane, IMO. There is no reasoning with them.

But just as the neocons don’t represent America, I would say the Israeli neocons don’t necessarily represent the true Israel.

Idiocracy08

It’s called New World Order.

Wisewoman

I have been trying to post these comments and quotes from MLK for several days. There is nothing wrong with them so I guess a few of his words (some that apply to us, and others to Israelis and Palestinians) are being blocked. I am trying again after breaking up the quotes. MLK said:
1. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
2. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com judith weingarten

Is it just worth mentioning that Hamas managed to bring in huge numbers of rockets, guns, and ammo, through the Egyptian tunnels — but the hospitals have no supplies. Wouldn’t a decent government at least try to bring in needed medical stuff?

Nonetheless, Israel will certainly be condemned for destroying the tunnels.
http://noquarter foxyladi14

very sad ,and as always it is the innocent that suffer the most..

Diana L. C.

My reaction exactly–

There is no use arguing about who is more right about killing (and I have a hard time making the distinction between killing in battle or as premedidated killing in a peaceful community).

My response on an earlier post holds: Until mothers learn to raise their children NOT to be soldiers or fighters, we women and children suffer the most and don’t worry about who did what first or what their strategy was or how they justified it.

The world/universe is abundant and there is a way for us all to have what we need if we ever got to that point.

I find myself more and more angry at the Augustinian (since I come from a Christian tradition) that we are all “born in sin” and will always have war. That may be true, but can’t we still strive to follow the Pelagian concept of rising out of “sin” by good works?

I get very sad at this time of year since we as humans have made so little progress in getting along.

CentralMass

Son of Hamas Leader Gives Glimpse Into Terror Organization

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475226,00.html
Jim

The fallacy to your argument is in assuming that response during wartime should be “proportional.” War should be fought to win, and winning requires a disproportionate response. Should the allies have counted the number of Germans in Normandy and sent only that many to invade on D-Day? Twice as many? Or an overwhelming number? Should the allies have refrained from fire-bombing or using the atom bomb in order to shorten the war because civilians were likely to die? You can argue that the arab-israeli wars do not have a moral equivalence to WW2, but that is beside the point … if you are fighting a war ( a good one or a bad one), proportionality will certainly lose it for you.

Mort

War should be fought to win, and winning requires a disproportionate response. Should the allies have counted the number of Germans in Normandy and sent only that many to invade on D-Day?

But where is the objective analysis of the Israeli neocon response?

War should be fought to win, but only within the parameters of the neocon mind?

You know how many go down to defeat, insisting they’re right?
ritamary

Israel has been acting on your disproportionate response theory for a long time, Jim. Where has it gotten them?

Patrick Walker

More land.

ritamary

More land? Which land exactly?

Jim

I am not opining on whether Israel is right to go to war or not (I think the reality is that they have been at war since 1948, and their worst enemies have not shown any intention to consider peace until Israel is destroyed), or whether war is the best means to achieve their objectives. My point is that once a nation decides to go to war, trying to do it in a limited fashion is a recipe for disaster, as just about every war since WW2 has shown.

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.
Sun Tzu

Patrick Walker

Here’s some very good news concerning the Muslim world.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/top-ten-good-news-stories-in-muslim.html
bert

Since the 6-Day war in 1967 I hoped for peace in the Mid-East. Since 1967 there have been numerous skirmishes, wars, statements and counter-statements from both sides, and summits and accords. Always there is hatred, distrust, and bloodshed on both sides.

After the breakdown of the 2000 Camp David summit it is hard for me to get upset or even care much about anything going on between Palestinians and Israel any longer. I know that sounds cold and even cruel.

Here in America compromise is second nature to us. Our country, our Constitution, our laws are born of compromise. I think we are born with an understanding of compromise. It is in our genetic makeup. When we do not like who is elected to power we don’t kill each other. If we don’t like a law we march, file lawsuits, work and vote new representatives.

The people of the Mid-east just have too many grievances and simply cannot compromise. It is not in their history, their blood, or in their mindset. It is an alien concept. It has been so since before Christ. It has been so for 5000 or more years. It seems they much prefer to nurse their grievances then to solve them.

I am tired of our country trying to broker a peace in these circumstances. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. Neither side is going to give up any thing. If I have a leaning toward either side it lies with Israel. Yet I also believe that Palestinians should have a homeland.

I pray and hope that SOS Hillary Clinton can do some good there. And President Clinton will be able to give her much background and insight as she goes to work there. I wish her success because I can no longer look at pictures of bleeding children or the aftermath of suicide bombers. After 50 years of it I am numb.
Wisewoman

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
4. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
5. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall all be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
Wisewoman

3. “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
4. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
5. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall all be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
Quotes by MLK.
http://vbonnaire.wordpress.com vbonnaire

This remind me of a trend in Corporate America regarding layoffs so heartless you cannot imagine.

I was there. It was the NYT and Wendy McCaw — but shusshh! No one is supposed to tell? Right?

This time it is bullies except death is all they care for. On both sides. Americans cannot be in league with this post WWII. The perception of us?

We will lose our stature.

Broker peace, while standing firm. We have to.

We cannot condone what they are doing.

It is the soul of the world that is at stake.

We as Americans will be seen as abetting them.

They have no right post WWII, not after what we all know happened. We as Americans have to broker peace. We have to, or all is lost. We cannot be hated as we are, Larry. Not by the world. At the same time we have to show we are American. We are the cowboys, and we do what is right — like in Bonanza. Or High Noon. I have never been this scared in my life, as an American. Ever.
xax

You guys need some serious help.
Freddy

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