Israel in coordinated missile attacks on Gaza

[Spion]

Any decent left approach has to acknowledge the Iranian Hamas missiles on Siderot etc, no matter how 'ineffective they are, they are just as unacceptable as a terror weapon' as F15's paid for by the U.S.

That's an approach that fails to see that the rockets are response to the imprisonment of an entire population of 1.5 million people and is starving them slowly to death and attacking a virtually defenceless people with one of the msot advanced air forces in the world. The only 'left' approach yours represents is one that is so cowardly and thick that it can't see beyond the propaganda of the powerful and understand there's a genuine situation of deep and brutal injustice underpinning all this.

If I stole your house and evicted you to a 1m square compound in the garden and chucked insufficient food over to you occasionally while I lauded it up in your house you'd be justified in throwing the odd rock at me, even if I did come out and give you a good kicking for it now and then.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But what do they (Hamas) hope to achieve with their rocket attacks? It's like taking a peashooter along to a fight against a bloke with an Uzi.

It's a show of resistance, obviously. It may well be futile, but it's all they've got.

They clearly know they can't beat Israel using force, as Israel has far superior firepower. Is their strategy to provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinians as it can so the 'international community' will exert pressure on Israel to find a peaceful solution?

I doubt it, as they know from past experience that however violently the security apparatus of the state of Israel acts, censure will be weak.

 

[treelover]

What a load of nonsense, so any critic of Hamas (as well of Israel) is a Fascist, you need to bit a bit more circumspect, the protocols of Zion are on open sale in many ME countries

 

[tangentlama]

What a load of nonsense, so any critic of Hamas (as well of Israel) is a Fascist, you need to bit a bit more circumspect, the protocols of Zion are on open sale in many ME countries

Do you honestly think that we can support your Protocols of Elders of Mecca camel-shit in your pathetic attempts to support Israel?? You only contribute to untold damage over the long term.

 

[Spion]

What a load of nonsense, so any critic of Hamas (as well of Israel) is a Fascist

Sorry, who said that? How very dishonest of you. Not only can you not tell fact from fiction you also make things up yourself

 

[treelover]

I'm not defending Israels actions, they are obscene, disproportionate and will indeed be counter productive pushing even more M/E people into Islamic Terrorism ,etc. Yes, of course there are terrible historic injustices. I have been on numerous PSC marches, and one day will do again when they choose their allies more carefully, but at present i now deeply mistrust the far lefts motives and STWC and yes, people like you.,

 

[treelover]

You are spreading far-right wing propaganda that is designed to raise a spectre of fear in Christians and Jews and demonise Islam and dehumanise those who practise Islam.

Eh, it was at Tang, not you, 'far right propaganda' wasn't it?

 

[treelover]

Btw, its Hamas, who are firing the rockets, not Fatah, if the rationale you all give for Hamas to fire them why aren't Fatah also sending them off?

 

[camouflage]

Somewhere in this megathread it's been said that Hamas aren't in fact firing the rockets... I'd like to know if they aren't who is, but can't be bothered to dig through this beast.

 

[STFC]

Another thing that puzzles me is why mujahideen from across the Arab world don't come to the Palestinians' defence. They did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia etc.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The events in Gaza are indeed terrible, and should be comdemned forcefully, but they are not the only atrocities happening around the world, indeed five million souls have died in the Congo. then we have Darfur: I haven't noticed a STWC protest around that, ah, but they will say 'we (the UK) are not involved , no and we are 'not involved' in the events in Palestine. It seems to me the politics of the left in the UK is now dominated by Middle Eastern causes and yes, its seemingly willingly find itself with such progressive allies as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. I'm just waiting for the 'we are all Hamas, placards to appear, an organisation which has just announced crucifixion to be allowed in Gaza and which has close links with the extremists in Iran, etc.

You know what'd be good?
What'd be good would be you to stopping projecting your animus against a few "leftist" groupings, mostly connected to the SWP onto leftists as a whole.

Any decent left approach has to acknowledge the Iranian Hamas missiles on Siderot etc...

Qassam mortars are home-made, as are most of the Katyusha-equivalents. Bearing that in mind, do you care to describe to me what one of these "Iranian Hamas missiles" you're talking about is?

no matter how 'ineffective they are, they are just as unacceptable as a terror weapon' as F15's paid for by the U.S.

Except, of course, for the fact that it'd probably take 8-10 Qassams scoring direct hits on a house to reduce it to rubble, whereas any single item in the missile payload of an F15 would do the same.
Unacceptability appears to be in the eye of the beholder in this case, as I'd actually far rather have Qassams raining down on me, than a single missile from an F15.

On the SU blog all sorts of moral equilvalence 'arguments are being hoisted,

And?

 

[frogwoman]

i saw an interesting comment on haaretz from an israeli basically saying his disgust with the whole thing, and that israel's priority should be the economy rather than endless military operations over what he called "stupid pointless firecracker quassams"

 

[Spion]

I'm not defending Israels actions, they are obscene, disproportionate and will indeed be counter productive pushing even more M/E people into Islamic Terrorism ,etc. Yes, of course there are terrible historic injustices. I have been on numerous PSC marches, and one day will do again when they choose their allies more carefully, but at present i now deeply mistrust the far lefts motives and STWC and yes, people like you.,

In other words you won't defend Israel and you won't defend the Palestinians because you mistrust the far left. What a sectarian attitude.

With such blind hatred of the left you want to think wehere you'd end up politically if society became polarised

 

[Spion]

Another thing that puzzles me is why mujahideen from across the Arab world don't come to the Palestinians' defence. They did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia etc.

I doubt anyone from this board could get in, never mind a bloke with a beard and an RPG-7. Come to that, actual Gazans have enough trouble getting in.

See how much trouble and beatings this guy got

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/07/06/shin-bet-tortures-gaza-journalist/

 

[ViolentPanda]

What a load of nonsense, so any critic of Hamas (as well of Israel) is a Fascist...

Any critic should have the wit to establish a decent argument before criticising.

you need to bit a bit more circumspect, the protocols of Zion are on open sale in many ME countries

Circumspection be damned.
The Protocols are available openly in many countries, including the USA, so attempting to paint ME nations as uniquely tainted by Judaeophobic attitudes doesn't really fly.

 

[treelover]

'What'd be good would be you to stopping projecting your animus against a few "leftist" groupings, mostly connected to the SWP onto leftists as a whole.'


What i 'would' like to see is an anti-war movement that indeed could argue from a moral and unambiguous perspective about the destruction and injustice in Palestine and indeed around the world, like Darfur where Muslim Arabs are murdering innocent civilians on an unimagineable scale That wasn't selective about its causes as not to offend its friends centered around the Cairo Conferences and the Muslim Brotherhood, whom would like to see Israel wiped off the map. I do beleive such an global organisation would indeed have some 'leverage' instead of the dishonest hijacked' movement we now have.

 

[Spion]

Btw, its Hamas, who are firing the rockets, not Fatah, if the rationale you all give for Hamas to fire them why aren't Fatah also sending them off?

They do, you dick. The Fatah-associated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade also fire them.

 

[tangentlama]

Btw, its Hamas, who are firing the rockets, not Fatah, if the rationale you all give for Hamas to fire them why aren't Fatah also sending them off?

I have only read direct links being made to Hamas as behind rockets until after the ceasefire ended and they did give warning which came from THE Hamas' Izzedine Qassam Brigade. After warning, came the firing. Before the ceasefire, Hamas was NOT firing rockets. Only after the ceasefire ended did they first declare and then fire rockets.

Fatah's (al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade) have always been letting them off from Gaza even when the ceasefire was in operation. Individuals have been doing this too, but not coming from the Hamas brigade.

Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes.

"We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian.

Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets.

The Guardian filmed an al-Aqsa test rocket launch, fired into an uninhabited area of the Negev desert, last month. Despite the crudeness of the weapons, many have landed in Sderot, killing around a dozen people in the last three years and wounding scores more.


Al-Aqsa is one of several militant groups firing rockets, known as Qassams, from Gaza into Israel. A rocket attack by Islamic Jihad on a military base last month wounded more than 50 soldiers. Hamas's military wing, the Izzedine Qassam Brigades, is not believed to be firing rockets.http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/25/google.israel

 

[ViolentPanda]

Btw, its Hamas, who are firing the rockets, not Fatah, if the rationale you all give for Hamas to fire them why aren't Fatah also sending them off?

They are.
Didn't you bother to read the thread properly before adding your invaluable contributions? We dealt with this on the first couple of pages.

 

[Spion]

What i 'would' like to see is an anti-war movement that indeed could argue from a moral and unambiguous perspective about the destruction and injustice in Palestine and indeed around the world,

'moral and unambiguous'? What an empty phrase. What should the unambiguous morals of this movement say about: the Israeli siege of Gaza? The IDF killing of 600+ Gazans this year? The right or otherwise of Gazans to defend themselves?

If you don't put any content into 'moral and unambiguous' it's just hot air

 

[tangentlama]

They do, you dick. The Fatah-associated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade also fire them.

As we understand it, Hamas only began rocket attack AFTER they announced they would make rocket attacks. This was AFTER the formal ending of the ceasefire. Is best to look at rocket-fire pattern over this last 2 weeks.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Another thing that puzzles me is why mujahideen from across the Arab world don't come to the Palestinians' defence. They did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia etc.

Different reasons.
Afghanistan was the first war to attract "foreign fighters", and so has an established place, even now, on the itinerary of most would-be Mujahs.
Iraq gives plenty of possibilities for perfecting urban small unit tactics that Afghanistan doesn't.
Bosnia was a case of protecting a minority.

IMHO one of the reasons (besides the state of Israel's tight policing of entry to and exit from the occupied territories) that the Mujahs haven't shown up there in any numbers is because even though HAMAS are overtly Islamic in motivation , the Palestinian people still follow a secular turn of mind, a little similar to the Turks. They may be brother and sister Muslims, but they're not amenable to the lure of Wahhabism (yet).

 

[Spion]

Somewhere in this megathread it's been said that Hamas aren't in fact firing the rockets... I'd like to know if they aren't who is, but can't be bothered to dig through this beast.

Interview with an Islamic Johad rocket maker

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531578,00.html

'"We are ready to die; that is the price of our freedom." He says that the Palestinians are left with no other choice but to fight the Israelis with weapons. "Either we resist, or they treat us like slaves." He has thought about who is hit by his rockets. "If we kill soldiers, then we are more than happy," he says. "If it hits a child, then naturally we are not happy."'

 

[ViolentPanda]

i saw an interesting comment on haaretz from an israeli basically saying his disgust with the whole thing, and that israel's priority should be the economy rather than endless military operations over what he called "stupid pointless firecracker quassams"

I agree with him.

The trouble (for the Gazans, anyway) is that it's far easier to distract people with patriotic tub-thumping and the slaughter of "enemies" than it is to engage with a difficult set of economic realities, especially when your economy wasn't doing too well even before the "credit crunch".

 

[tangentlama]

Interview with an Islamic Johad rocket maker

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531578,00.html

Video series: Inside Gaza: 'Resistance is our strategy'
In the second of his three exclusive films for Guardian Unlimited, Clancy Chassay witnesses the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades launch a rocket into Israel and finds the militants using Google Earth to prepare their attacks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/video/2007/oct/25/inside.gaza

 

[frogwoman]

I agree with him.

The trouble (for the Gazans, anyway) is that it's far easier to distract people with patriotic tub-thumping and the slaughter of "enemies" than it is to engage with a difficult set of economic realities, especially when your economy wasn't doing too well even before the "credit crunch".

Tel Aviv's stock exchange certainly took a nosedive after the recent attacks. It's a good point though - why don't they try and tackle the economy and living conditions of Israeli voters rather than these increasingly suicidal rampages? Given the crisis in the world economy, the rate of poverty in Israel and the general revulsion for Israel across the world, leadign to many people who would otherwise be consumers of its goods actively avoding them, companies pulling their investments, etc, no doubt leading to the loss of lots of jobs, surely that must be the priority here?

 

[ViolentPanda]

'What'd be good would be you to stopping projecting your animus against a few "leftist" groupings, mostly connected to the SWP onto leftists as a whole.'


What i 'would' like to see is an anti-war movement that indeed could argue from a moral and unambiguous perspective about the destruction and injustice in Palestine and indeed around the world, like Darfur where Muslim Arabs are murdering innocent civilians on an unimagineable scale That wasn't selective about its causes as not to offend its friends centered around the Cairo Conferences and the Muslim Brotherhood, whom would like to see Israel wiped off the map. I do beleive such an global organisation would indeed have some 'leverage' instead of the dishonest hijacked' movement we now have.

Whoosh.

I suspect that you've missed the irony of your reply completely.

 

[frogwoman]

if you were a company wanting to create a headquartes or a factory in a country providing jobs for twenty thousand or so workers, Israel would hardly be your first choice, would it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Tel Aviv's stock exchange certainly took a nosedive after the recent attacks. It's a good point though - why don't they try and tackle the economy and living conditions of Israeli voters rather than these increasingly suicidal rampages? Given the crisis in the world economy, the rate of poverty in Israel and the general revulsion for Israel across the world, surely that must be the priority here?

I think there are different factors.
WRT the poverty rate in the state of Israel, I think it's fare to put at least part of the blame on the shift, under Fat Bennie, from a European-model welfare system to a US-model system, which kicked a whole stratum of low-paid Israeli workers below the poverty line. That can't be addressed without re-visiting the political choices that were made.
WRT to the rampaging, war, even on the scale in Gaza, generates business and profits. If not for companies like IMI, then for their American friends at Lockheed and general Dynamics.

 

[ViolentPanda]

if you were a company wanting to create a headquartes or a factory in a country providing jobs for twenty thousand or so workers, Israel would hardly be your first choice, would it?

That'd kind of depend (as it nowadays increasingly seems to) on the incentives the government were prepared to offer me.