Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
The prevailing topic of discussion here is the Carmel fire and its implications -- at least one political career is in crisis amid the torrent of recriminations and dire warnings about Israel's overall readiness for catastrophe -- but the war to the southwest is still going on. Hamas has kicked things up a notch, in fact.
Things had already begun to heat up last month. On one busy occasion, Hamas spent a full night shooting Qassams into the western Negev, then capped it off with a long-range Grad strike and seven mortars, one of which contained phosphorus.
A few days ago, two armed terrorists were killed by the IDF as they attempted to plant explosives at the border fence near Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Yesterday (Wednesday), during the day, Hamas shot mortars into a Negev kibbutz, damaging a civilian home. In the evening, another mortar barrage from Gaza into the Eshkol border region injured the head of security at one of the area kibbutzim; he was airlifted to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva with shrapnel that landed in his neck while he was standing outside his house. Local Israelis have been instructed to stay indoors until further notice and the IAF has struck three locations in the Gaza Strip, at least two of which are confirmed to have been Hamas training sites.
Now, that wasn't all that happened yesterday. The Israeli security cabinet also voted to ease the blockade on Gaza.
That kind of thing obviously doesn't impress Hamas, so the Israelis are flapping their hands at the rest of the world. "The cabinet announcement," so Haaretz tells us, "stipulated that alongside Israel's efforts to better the economic situation of the population in Gaza, Israel would demand that the international community continue its boycott of the Hamas regime and continue taking steps to prevent Hamas from attaining missiles."
I'll leave the obvious riposte unspoken. Suffice it to say Israeli citizens are now stuck inside their homes -- again -- to protect themselves from Palestinian rockets. Blockade or no blockade, Hamas wants a war. The odds are growing that they will get their wish.
- Comment (31)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
May '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Where's the outrage? Where are the condemnatory UN resolutions? Don't hold your breath.
Aug '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Judith,
A quick question. Where do you get stock photos of what appear to be the bad guys dressed alike in an orchard ( that can't be theirs- they don't have industry do they ?). Does Hamas have a public relations arm that produces these images ? Or is just all Reuters inventions ?
Jul '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
OK. I am outraged. Sufficiently outraged that I can think of nothing light and witty and Ricochet-worthy. I actually fear for Israel under this President in a way that even Clinton and Carter could not inspire. When I see German leadership saying great and supportive things about Israel, I am cheered. But who else is stepping up to the plate?
Dec '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
I used to love the fact of Israel and supported it with my whole heart (I'm part Jewish).
Now? Eh, a lefty loony group of idiots who don't mind having their people killed in drips and drabs because actually stomping on the malefactors makes them feel bad.
They had their chance when Bush was in office to do some serious damage to their enemies but were timid and typically hand wringing.
If you're going to be conquerors, than act like proper SOBs, and quit apologizing for grabbing a piece of the world for your own.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Judith, you know what? You're becoming my principal source of news on Israel--and the only source I really trust. After dropping the kids at school just now, I turned on NPR. The lead story? That Israel had loosened the blockade against Gaza--but not nearly enough. Not a word--not one--about yesterday's rocket attacks.
Dec '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
One would think that after such a storied and depressing history of incremental Israeli capitulation, Israel and the West would understand that there is nothing to be gained from caving to the demands of wicked men.
It's almost maddening how Israel conducts itself against her enemies. The amount of time and effort Israel spends fretting--rightfully so--over civilian casualties and collateral damage is at the same time admirable and almost upsetting. Yet it is Israel who is accused of human rights violations.
On one side there is democracy, respect for human life, rule of law and freedom. On the other, there is barbarism, oppression, tyranny and scant regard for human suffering. Yet it is Israel who is demonized in the media.
Is anyone else as disheartened as I am?
Jul '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
The most galling aspect of the whole situation is the predictable way in which most of Eurabia tuts tuts those awful Israelis spoiling those wonderful boys from the Hamas Rocketry Club but putting their homes and children in the way. And, of course, there is always the UN Peacekeepers that position themselves are hostages at Hezbollah artillary sites. Clearly, the only reason we still bother with the UN is the espionage opportunities.
The truly disheartened occasionally find their way to the editorial page of the Jerusalem Post to decry any number of trumped up Israeli "provocations" and to bad mouth Netanyahu, one of the greatest national leaders in the world today.
Edited on Dec 9, 2010 at 10:38amJun '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Does it boggle anyone else's mind that whenever Israel reacts militarily to bombs falling on its people that it becomes a bully and an oppressor? And no one seems to remember that Iran is the funder of the bombers.
Read Melanie Phillips' World Turned Upside Down, a brilliant take-down of, among other things, the anti-factual, anti-historical, anti-rational attacks on Israel, its existence, and its measured efforts to protect its citizens.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Quite. As the immortal Humphrey Appleby explained on Yes Minister, the UN is a forum for the expression of international hatred.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
flownover: Judith,
A quick question. Where do you get stock photos of what appear to be the bad guys dressed alike in an orchard ( that can't be theirs- they don't have industry do they ?). Does Hamas have a public relations arm that produces these images ? Or is just all Reuters inventions ? · Dec 9 at 6:24am
flownover, those are genuine Hamasniks and they're fiddling around with real Qassams. That picture came from this page on Aerospaceweb.org. As to the orchard, chances are that it was originally planted by Jewish residents who were evicted during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Tony Blair is the only person who comes to mind, and he is vilified for it so brutally that I'm amazed he continues to stand up for us. Believe me, Sisyphus: I share your fear.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Johnmark7: I used to love the fact of Israel and supported it with my whole heart (I'm part Jewish).
Now? Eh, a lefty loony group of idiots who don't mind having their people killed in drips and drabs because actually stomping on the malefactors makes them feel bad.
They had their chance when Bush was in office to do some serious damage to their enemies but were timid and typically hand wringing.
If you're going to be conquerors, than act like proper SOBs, and quit apologizing for grabbing a piece of the world for your own. · Dec 9 at 7:01am
Johnmark7, you've gone straight to the heart of the matter. For Israel to have any real security she would have to do exactly as you say, but there are many reasons why she cannot. The army is constrained -- no matter what twisted slanders are hurled at it in the teeth of the evidence -- by the principle of purity of arms; to act like proper SOBs and stomp on the malefactors in any effective way would be not only a doctrinal inversion but an ethical one. Israel is also a parliamentary democracy; those in favor of...
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
...really serious stomping will always be constrained by those members of the government who oppose it. (The American president, too, is learning how very difficult it is to avoid a drift to the center when in power in a democracy.) I understand exactly how our situation looks to you, but please try to understand in turn that no one here, not even the loony idiots you refer to, are oblivious to the human cost. The point you raise about acting like conquerors is exactly what rends the Israeli national psyche. Everyone wants security, but many, many people here don't want to feel like conquerors. They're desperate for this long, painful, ugly chapter to end, and they're tired of being despised for refusing to die.
I hope we haven't lost your support forever, John. Frankly, we need all the support we can get.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Yeah, it's maddening. Israeli casualties are either irrelevant or our own fault (since Palestinian aggression is all ultimately our own fault), and even when we do what the world tells us to, we're still wrong. This morning I read several fire-breathing pieces scattered around the internets about the way our easing of the blockade proves our duplicity -- all we want, apparently, is good p.r. (If we had any idea how to get some, we'd grab it.)
This kind of thing can get seriously ugly. When we sent teams of doctors to Haiti to save lives after the earthquake, a Liberal Democrat politician in Britain said the only reason we would have done such a thing must have been to harvest organs from the victims. It's enough to make me despair sometimes.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Yes, although I'll repeat something I've said here before: it's far, far easier to see and experience all this from here than from there. Here, I can take in the whole incredible pageant of Israel in all its glory. We have serious problems, but also some serious joie de vivre. It might not be enough to save us in the end, but it makes the journey a heck of a lot easier.
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
I will. Thanks for the suggestion. Just the other day I watched a video of Melanie Phillips on the Encounter website. She's a smart and brave woman.
Dec '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
I can't help but keep hoping Israel will survive and thrive, but I'm beginning to wonder if the Jews don't find themselves in the similar position of the Christians who conquered the Holy Land on the 12th Cen.
The byzantine politics eventually destroyed their unity and the oriental nature of the region sapped their strength to the point that they could only hold onto the land about 100 years.
The Jews, especially the Ashkenazi who control the country, are the elite, don't want to be warriors. It is antithetical to their self-image. Warriors are vicious, conscienceless oppressors in their eyes, and low status people.
It's an amazing thing, though, to find the murder of your own innocent people less alarming than the death of possible Arab innocents.
Dec '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Of course, the elite of my own country think it is of no consequence how many Americans are murdered, raped, robbed by illegal aliens, mostly Hispanic.
Some family wiped out by a drunk Mexican on the road who'd been arrested for DUIs previously? What do they matter?
MS-13 gangs metastasizing around the nation, wreaking havoc? No big deal. We lose 35K to violence every year. What's a few more thousand in a populous country?
I wonder why we give a damn about 9/11 as a people when we don't about the cumulative deaths and damage to so many Americans.
Well, we know why, and the PC elite and media are at the root of it.
Edited on Dec 9, 2010 at 1:30pmAug '10
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Judith
At the risk of sounding like some Missouri goyische, which I am, does Israel suffer the same self-doubt and confusion that seems to affect the Jewish community in the US ? I have been confounded for years by the overly progressive attitudes of the most educated group of Americans that spill over into such issues as Israel and Zionism and they come off sounding like the Brits or something ! I wonder whether these people are angling for an invite to a UNESCO mixer in some Parisian salon to hear about "little s****y countries".
Without much knowledge of the internal politics of Israel, is there the wrenching debate among people there that resembles the weird chorus of Jewish voices in America that can't sing the praises of Israel any longer ?
I remember alot more pictures of Moshe Dayan on living room walls forty years ago. Have the hawks turned into ostriches ?
Re: Israel Eases Blockade; Hamas Steps Up War
Whoa, there. Hold on. The Ashkenazim are as much warriors as anyone else in the IDF -- Bibi was in the Sayeret Matkal, remember -- and many young people here of all backgrounds aspire to be warriors. I've heard many stories from mothers of teenagers approaching army age whose kids not only are itching to get in there but want to try out for elite (and from a mother's perspective, terrifying) combat units, and my circle is almost entirely Ashkenazic. It's dead wrong to call being a warrior antithetical to the self-image of the Ashkenazic Israeli. What they don't want to be are what you call "vicious, conscienceless oppressors," which is not synonymous with "warrior". That's what purity of arms is all about: you use your power as you must to protect your people and your land; you do not use it indiscriminately. The Israeli army exemplifies this principle: the nobility of the honorable soldier.