By DemocracyRules
From Arutz Sheva, Jersualem Post, Data on File
A few days ago, Hamas declared an end to a six month “cease fire”, and started raining rockets down on areas close to the border with Gaza. These rockets are useless as weapons of war. They are mostly handmade, with construction plans passed around amongst Palestinian terrorists. They’re basically big shooting firecrackers, but they have killed or injured many Israelis.
On Sat Dec 27, the Israeli Air Forces (IAF) started bombing a bunch of strategic targets in Gaza. They selectively bombed known Hamas facilities, including command posts and training grounds. Some of the tunnels which connect Gaza with Egypt reportedly shook as a result of the bombing and sent smugglers scurrying in order to avoid being trapped inside them. So far the IAF have killed about 200 Hamas terrorists, and wounded many others. The IAF are still at it.
Prime Minister Olmert, who most Israelis regard as a toothless wuss, said on TV, "Hamas showed in the past few days that its intentions are hostile... The operation is intended to radically improve the security situation of the residents of southern Israel. It could take time, and each one of us has to exercise a measure of patience in order to complete the mission... it is possible that in the short term, the number of missiles [fired from Gaza] will increase and that these will reach locations more distant than what we have been used to...
On Thursday I made it clear to the residents of Gaza that we are not acting against them. We will do everything possible to prevent a humanitarian crisis... Residents of Gaza - you are not our enemies and we are not fighting against you."
Olmert, who “stepped down” from his post because of corruption charges, is still the leader because the “new leader,” Tzipi Livni, couldn’t get the parliamentary support she needed to form a new government. So Olmert is still the leader until the next election, even though he quit months ago. Sounds like a typical democracy, eh?
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in a statement: "Until now we have shown restraint. But today there is no other option than a military operation. We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza... This is the expression of our basic right to self-defense... Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace. In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace...
We have tried everything to reach calm without using force. We agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel.. and build up its arms."
Most of the Palestinian rockets are useless for war, because they have no real guidance system, and not much explosive effect when they hit. But they work really well as terror weapons, because they can strike anywhere, at any time. The range is short, so there is very little warning, and most of the people of Sderot have moved away. Every year, dozens of Israelis are killed, wounded, or psychologically damaged from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Stupidly, Hamas also targets Ashkelon, Israel, just north of Gaza. Ashkelon has a major power generation facility, and it supplies most of Gaza with electricity.
I know the whole thing seems fabulously stupid, but obviously that’s the way the Palestinians want it to be. Israel puts up with it. Israel is trucking medical supplies, food, and many things into Gaza for the Palestinian people, at the same time Hamas is pounding Sderot and Ashkleon with rockets.
It’s important to note that the Middle East has been a locus of constant warfare for about 5,000 years, so this is a comparatively peaceful period. And there is a miracle hidden inside the present conflict.
The big changes in the last 60 years are:
(1) The Jews returned. The Jews (Judeans) got expelled from Israel by the Romans in 70 AD, because they tried to overthrow the Romans. General (and later Emperor) Titus, got very punitive, and destroyed much of Jerusalem, and took about 100,000 Judeans as slaves. Titus and his father Vespasian rode through Rome in a triumph, leading a huge procession of Judeans. There is a sculpture (bas relief) of it in the Roman Forum. The Ark of the Covenant was carried at the head of the procession. It was mainly those Judean slaves who built the Roman Colosseum. But now the Jews have gone home, to Israel.
(2) The Arabs don’t like this.
(3) The Palestinians are a “virtual people”, because they didn’t exist as any specific ethnic group until the Arabs decided to use “displaced” Palestinians as a festering sore in the side of Israel. After all, it’s hard to claim you’re “displaced” if you were mainly nomadic to begin with. About 99.99% of Arab lands are occupied by Arabs. Israel is tiny, and about 20% of Israel itself is Muslim.
(4) Arabs love the “festering sore in the side of Israel” idea. Palestinians could easily be absorbed into Arabian lands, but Arabs continually block this. For example, Gaza is not an historic area for the Hebrews. Until 1967, is was part of Egypt. In the ‘67 war, Israel took Gaza to stop the attacks that were coming from there.
(5) A few years ago, Israel declared Gaza a semi-autonomous area, to be reserved for Palestinians. The Jews who lived there left. This was Israel’s grand gesture, the beginning of a “land for peace” process. It was supposed to result in a “two state solution”. Instead Arab countries intervened to produce poverty and social chaos in Gaza. Arabs cut off most trade with Gazans, but jacked up support for Hamas. Hamas did what they were paid to do, spend all their time attacking Israel. Gaza’s impoverishment helps keep the festering sore open.
(6) Egypt could easily resolve the problem by returning to its 1967 borders, and re-opening its border with Gaza. Then Gazans could freely come and go, and reclaim their Egyptian citizenship. But Egypt refuses to do that, because it would fix the problem.
(7) One key bad guy here is the MSM. They love to help keep the festering sore open, by portraying the Palestinians as victims, and the Jews as murderers. For example, as you read this, have you ever read this type of common-sense analysis before? Why not? It’s based on clear empirical evidence, but this story rarely gets told. How, exactly, does the MSM have the right to rob people of the truth, for decades on end?
(8) After the 1973 war, the USSR worked hard building strong ties with the Arabs. The Soviets used the “festering sore” to their advantage, by helping the Arabs, while the US helped Israel. This was a strategic front for the Soviets that was cheap and easy to do. Inflaming Arab hate isn’t very hard. Most of the Soviet (and now Russian) influence has been done through Soviet weapons sales, the encouragement of Socialism (e.g., “Baathism”), and fostering terrorism. The KGB claims credit for inventing airline hijackings. They sponsored many terrorist actions in the 70's.
(9) Many Americans, Canadians, and Israelis think the Jews are nuts to put up with this. Just bomb Gaza into powder and be done with it. Or just load all the Gazans on ships and dump them on an Egyptian beach somewhere. Many Israelis think their leaders are psychotic. But people forget what Jews are, even Jews forget this. The old testament is full of stuff about forgoing, forbearing, forgiving, and putting up with suffering, and trying to be a good person even while your enemies are trying to destroy you.
(10) Jesus was Jewish. He took the basic Jewish faith and developed and extended certain ideas. He emphasized certain things, and de-emphasized others. And for sure he was very big on peace, forbearance, and forgiveness. He even made a new commandment. Before he died, he said, “Love each other and don’t fight amongst yourselves, and I mean that literally, now goodbye.” Long ago, Arabs figured out that Jews and Christians feel terrible when they kill others out of hate or anger. We try hard to avoid doing it because it’s against our faith, and the Arabs know it.
(11) So the Arab strategy is to get Jews and Christians to commit gratuitous atrocities against human life. That’s what the whole festering sore idea is all about. The sore only festers because Jews and their Christian backers refuse to just kill all the Palestinians. We could do it in less than a week, but we won’t.
(12) But in a strange way, the Jews and Christians have a winning strategy. There is the story of the Iraqi woman, who saw the compassion and caring that American soldiers showed for injured Iraqi children and adults. They took care of the sick, and fought to save the lives of wounded terrorists. She converted to Christianity.
DR, a really good analysis of the equivalent history of Israel and "Palestine". I remember when Palestine was starting to become a key or festering wound in the side of Israel. I was old enough to know what was going on over there after the war and the flow of Jews to Israel because of the treaty and permission from Britain. I remember it because I am over the age of 60 and it happened "in my time".....
There were NO Palestine peoples (just at that time a bunch of nomads in the desert all over that area, ruled by fiefdoms of larger nomadic tribes), before Israel became a State (again), justified by the breaking down of the Concentration camps in Germany and Russia immediately after the war and a huge amount of people that survived the Holocaust having no where to go to call home and Britain allowing them to move to Israel.
There was a very good movie put out in the early 60's called Exodus, staring Sal Mineo as Dov. It gives a really good perspective of the State of Israel right after the WWII and tells how the State of Israel came into being "once again".
In the region, Israel has always been put down as the bad guy and used as the whipping boy for the Arabs of the area, much the sadder as that is. They came back to the area and made it productive and rich in culture and history, as it was a very long time ago, and have taken beating after beating for doing that.
For bringing humanity and community to a nomadic desert area that basically had no rule, no governance, no business, no culture, no schools, and really no stable populations. Israel is one of the best sources of developments, invention, medical discoveries and technologies for healing that is on the face of the earth, and their colleges are some of the best in the world.
They took a barren desert and made it re-bloom under their kind and benevolent hands and labors of love. They grow much of the food for that region and don't get distributive credit for it at all. They have made great strides in farming and production of food stuffs that only American has come close too. They produce a lot on very tiny small plots of land and feed millions in a very small state. And they modeled themselves after American forms of justice and democracy, and for that they are in a continual fight to stay alive as a country.
Read some books by Leon Uris or James Michner and you will find a great source of information about Israel, even though the books themselves are fiction, they are based on truth.
Posted by: Claudia | December 27, 2008 at 08:05 PM