The Palestine thread

[AZOffaly]

Yes, but Hamas has said, or I am very wrong, that it's aim is the destruction of the state of Israel. That's a fairly hard core position to be coming from , and not a viewpoint that's likely to encourage a sane response from Israel.

A two state solution should be the only solution, under the boundaries drawn up by the UN in 1967. And this needs to be policed by the UN. If Hamas then try to pursue a 'Moslem State' and 'obliterate Israel' (From their covenant of Hamas) then Hamas deserves to be hammered by an international force.

If Israel attempts to again illegally settle, or attack, the Palestinian State, they too should expect military response from the international community. If ever there was a raison d'etre for the blue helmeted UN peacekeepers, Israel / Palestine is it.

[doodaa]

Yes, but Hamas has said, or I am very wrong, that it's aim is the destruction of the state of Israel. That's a fairly hard core position to be coming from , and not a viewpoint that's likely to encourage a sane response from Israel.

A two state solution should be the only solution, under the boundaries drawn up by the UN in 1967. And this needs to be policed by the UN. If Hamas then try to pursue a 'Moslem State' and 'obliterate Israel' (From their covenant of Hamas) then Hamas deserves to be hammered by an international force.

If Israel attempts to again illegally settle, or attack, the Palestinian State, they too should expect military response from the international community. If ever there was a raison d'etre for the blue helmeted UN peacekeepers, Israel / Palestine is it.

Could it be a case of "shooting for the stars to land on the moon" ie "we say we want to obliterate Israel, but really we would settle for the 2 state solution provided we get our land back?"

[AZOffaly]

Might be, but if that's in your covenant, it's a hard sell to say come sit down with us. We had to reword Article 2&3 in the constitution as part of the Belfast Agreement so I'd imagine Hamas will have to move in some way that direction to have any hope of Israel not behaving like cornered animals.

[seafoid]

Yes, but Hamas has said, or I am very wrong, that it's aim is the destruction of the state of Israel. That's a fairly hard core position to be coming from , and not a viewpoint that's likely to encourage a sane response from Israel.

A two state solution should be the only solution, under the boundaries drawn up by the UN in 1967. And this needs to be policed by the UN. If Hamas then try to pursue a 'Moslem State' and 'obliterate Israel' (From their covenant of Hamas) then Hamas deserves to be hammered by an international force.
f Israel attempts to again illegally settle, or attack, the Palestinian State, they too should expect military response from the international community. If ever there was a raison d'etre for the blue helmeted UN peacekeepers, Israel / Palestine is it.

They have said they will work towards 2 states but they won't recognize Israel as the Jewish state because they don't want to shaft the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Israel's long term goal is ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Israel/Palestine is in effect one state with Jews running everything.
I don't know who is going to evict the settlers from the West Bank.

[seafoid]

Might be, but if that's in your covenant, it's a hard sell to say come sit down with us. We had to reword Article 2&3 in the constitution as part of the Belfast Agreement so I'd imagine Hamas will have to move in some way that direction to have any hope of Israel not behaving like cornered animals.

I'm sure they would look at the covenant as part of a post siege process. Israel is trying to beat them into submission and it isn't working. 

[AZOffaly]

UN has to do that seafoid. It has to be. If the Palestinians are amenable to a two state solution, but one of them is not Israel, what does that really mean? A new makey up state called something else, but still run by erstwhile Israelis? What's the difference there?

[AZOffaly]

Might be, but if that's in your covenant, it's a hard sell to say come sit down with us. We had to reword Article 2&3 in the constitution as part of the Belfast Agreement so I'd imagine Hamas will have to move in some way that direction to have any hope of Israel not behaving like cornered animals.

I'm sure they would look at the covenant as part of a post siege process. Israel is trying to beat them into submission and it isn't working.

Agree, but as soon as this crisis is lifted, I mean the immediate war crimes ongoing, this has to be the way forward. A UN led dive straight into a two state solution, with Hamas recognising Israel c1967, and Israel recognising Palestine c1967. That's international law and has to be the basis for a real settlement.

[Hereiam]

It is clear to see on any map. The Israelis want the complete sea front and Gaza is in its way. There will be only one outcome.

[AZOffaly]

But they have a huge sea frontage already no?

[seafoid]

It is clear to see on any map. The Israelis want the complete sea front and Gaza is in its way. There will be only one outcome.

They have Gaza under siege because of the gas offshore. They want everything.

[Mike Sheehy]

It is clear to see on any map. The Israelis want the complete sea front and Gaza is in its way. There will be only one outcome.

Yeah, that's why they withdrew from Gaza in 2005. A very cunning plan indeed. Lets withdraw, allow Hamas to build up its strength and then in 10 years or so we'll go back and secure the gas again.

[seafoid]

It is clear to see on any map. The Israelis want the complete sea front and Gaza is in its way. There will be only one outcome.

Yeah, that's why they withdrew from Gaza in 2005. A very cunning plan indeed. Lets withdraw, allow Hamas to build up its strength and then in 10 years or so we'll go back and secure the gas again.

Gaza is still occupied. the Israelis took out the settlers but they maintained the occupation.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/top-pm-aide-gaza-plan-aims-to-freeze-the-peace-process-1.136686

The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Haaretz.

"And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."

Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Haaretz for the Friday Magazine.

"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," he said. "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."

Asked why the disengagement plan had been hatched, Weisglass replied: "Because in the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support. And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest young people."

Weisglass does not deny that the main achievement of the Gaza plan is the freezing of the peace process in a "legitimate manner."

"That is exactly what happened," he said. "You know, the term `peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."

Sharon, he said, could also argue "honestly" that the disengagement plan was "a serious move because of which, out of 240,000 settlers, 190,000 will not be moved from their place."

[macdanger2]

We have no opinion on mass slaughter

We're truly sorry about the dead children, but we have other priorities in foreign affairs, writes Gene Kerrigan

Last week, Charlie had to stand over the Irish Government's decision to abstain on a United Nations vote on the Gaza slaughter. UN member states had a choice - intervene in the slaughter or stand idly by. Intervening by resolution mightn't achieve much, but there was a stark difference between voting for the resolution and not doing so.

It really doesn't matter how appalled and shocked we say we are about the deliberate slaughter of civilians. If we're asked to allow the UN to hold a formal inquiry and we shrug our shoulders we're saying, yeah, sorry about the dead kids - appalled, shocked - but we have other fish to fry.

As the slaughter continues, the Israelis and their enemies lay down ceaseless barrages of propaganda. Turn on a radio or TV and there's always some wide-eyed zealot from one side or the other speaking with intense sincerity in terms that are only loosely related to reality.

"We are defending our people."

"We are seeking to liberate our people from oppression."

"We have a right to defend ourselves."
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"We want a ceasefire 
but they don't."

"We didn't blow up that school, they did."

"Okay, then, maybe we did blow up that school, but only because the terrorists were standing close to it when we fired shells at them."

The modern media has a deep belief in its own sophistication. Perhaps because of all the whizz-bang technology. Yet its naivety and its fear of offending the powerful compel it to retail the most obvious propaganda.

As long as we have a zealot from each side, we're balanced. Impartiality demands we allow both sides equal time in which to lie.

The history of land-stealing is a footnote, if mentioned at all. The function of Israel as a western outpost in the Middle East is complicated - it treads on too many toes. Besides, the zealots don't want to argue such matters.

Propaganda convinces few. But, it's not supposed to. It has two purposes. First, that of supplying your own supporters with talking points that stiffen their spines. Very necessary when the issue involves criminal slaughter.

That's why we hear the same arguments, using precisely the same phrases, being peddled endlessly, as supporters rehash the talking points right across the spectrum of TV, radio, newspapers, blogs and tweets. If propaganda convinces neutral observers that's a bonus, but it's primarily a spine-stiffening exercise for your own side.

Propaganda has a second, equally important, purpose. It fills the public arena with fake discourse - minor and irrelevant points that can be harmlessly argued while not interfering with the killing.

For instance - you can get hours of safe debate on the precise meaning of "targeting" civilians. And there's no end of shouting passionately to be enjoyed while disputing the finer points of why this ceasefire proposal wasn't acceptable or the precise sequence of events that led to some other initiative collapsing.

In these 24-hour rolling news days, there are vast gaps to fill. Spurious propaganda debates on secondary matters divert the media. Balanced propaganda neutralises the media. Especially when it's faced with things on which we should not be neutral.

And the media plays along. You're balanced as long as you get someone from each side, and allow them to take turns chewing the lies into ever-smaller pieces. Easy and safe.

Israel's cheerleaders tell us that Israel has "a right to defend itself". And Palestinian cheerleaders tell us that Hamas is firing rockets at Israeli civilians in an attempt to liberate their people from Israel's murderous blockade of Gaza.

Really?

In what sense do the Hamas rockets constitute an attack on Israeli oppression of Palestinians?

Hamas is to terrorism what Basil Fawlty is to hospitality. They shoot hundreds of rockets into Israel - thousands of rockets - and as of last Friday they'd killed two innocent Israelis.

Hamas could kill more Israelis by sending a dozen followers into Tel Aviv dressed in Halloween outfits, jumping out in front of elderly Israelis and shouting "Boo!"

If these rockets kill Israelis it's entirely by chance, and the victims will almost certainly be innocent civilians. And if the rockets don't kill many Israelis, what's the point of them? Well, they're an assertion by Hamas of its right and ability to take up arms against Israel.

The rockets - ineffectual though they are - affirm Hamas's status as the primary and foremost defender of their people. That is the sole purpose of the rocket barrage.

Hamas knows that this ineffectual posing will result in an Israeli campaign of murder in which innocents will die - but Hamas deems this to be an acceptable price for getting to assert its primacy.

And, in what sense is the Israeli onslaught on Gaza "defending" Israel? A state obviously has a right to defend its citizens from rocket attack. And the ability of the Israeli military to knock rockets out of the sky before they can do damage is indeed defending Israel.

The assault on Gaza is not. It may kill some Hamas members, perhaps knock out some paramilitary infrastructure. But that's a pinprick. And the murder of children lays down the seeds of the massacres of the future.

The primary function of the assault on Gaza is not to defend Israel but to ruthlessly demonstrate Israel's total domination of the area. Croppy lie down.

We don't target civilians, say the Israelis. And that's true, in that they don't have a policy of targeting children and other innocents.

What is beyond doubt is that Israel deliberately and knowingly kills children. In a crowded enclave such as Gaza it is not possible to assert your total military dominance without killing lots of children. When they lock their super-duper weapons onto a target, repeatedly there are children plainly in view. They know they are about to kill those children.

They go on to demonstrate their total dominance, in the full knowledge that children will be shredded by their weapons.

Meanwhile, their American patrons wring their hands and send John Kerry to whisper, "Please, you're embarrassing us - kill slightly fewer children, can't you?"

And into this moral swamp steps Charlie Flanagan, representing the ethical stance of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.

It's 27 years since Charlie was first elected to the Dail. He's waited a long time to serve as a minister. And while he's still trying to remember the names of the officials who tell him what's expected, a United Nations committee on human rights proposes to investigate whether Israeli actions constitute war crimes.

In the second paragraph above we referred to "the Irish Government's decision to abstain on a United Nations vote". In truth, there was no such decision. We are a client state. In fiscal matters we take our orders from Frankfurt. In economic policy we serve the needs of multi-national tax dodgers. In Foreign Affairs, oh, we can close or re-open the Vatican embassy for political effect. And we're welcome to stage all sorts of trade promotions on St Patrick's Day.

But child killing - that's grown-up stuff. We don't even have to ask Washington and Brussels how to vote. We know what's allowed.

The EU told us to explain it away by saying the resolution didn't equate Hamas's Basil Fawlty rockets with the deliberate slaughter of the innocent. The morality of the weighing scales. But, really, that's just the excuse.

It's not Charlie Flanagan's fault. At 57, he's learning that his job largely consists of endorsing decisions made elsewhere.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/we-have-no-opinion-on-mass-slaughter-30462142.html#sthash.kN3qsZ2U.dpuf

A surprisingly good article from the Indo!! Would agree with pretty much all of that. Ireland's abstention was a disgrace

[macdanger2]

It's the one where he is interviewing the Israeli government guy and really puts hard questions to him. He basically says to the guy they didn't talk to Hamas on first ceasefire and only talked to Egypt who were mediating and then didn't even talk to Hamas. There are various other hard hitting points too.

He's very pro Palestinian which is very rare in the media!

I didn't know that. However Hamas keeps firing the stupid rockets, even when Israel pauses the slaughter. There can be no question that the Hamas strategy is simply to get Israel to kill Palestinians. That Israel complies so enthusiastically is sickening, but imho they should all be done for war crimes.

My understanding of the offer of a ceasefire was to stop the shelling but for Israeli soldiers to continue searching for the tunnels, etc. So not exactly a straight up ceasefire and perhaps offered knowing that it wouldn't be accepted??

The sooner they can agree a proper ceasefire the better, life must be terrible in gaza

[imtommygunn]

It's the one where he is interviewing the Israeli government guy and really puts hard questions to him. He basically says to the guy they didn't talk to Hamas on first ceasefire and only talked to Egypt who were mediating and then didn't even talk to Hamas. There are various other hard hitting points too.

He's very pro Palestinian which is very rare in the media!

I didn't know that. However Hamas keeps firing the stupid rockets, even when Israel pauses the slaughter. There can be no question that the Hamas strategy is simply to get Israel to kill Palestinians. That Israel complies so enthusiastically is sickening, but imho they should all be done for war crimes.

My understanding of the offer of a ceasefire was to stop the shelling but for Israeli soldiers to continue searching for the tunnels, etc. So not exactly a straight up ceasefire and perhaps offered knowing that it wouldn't be accepted??

The sooner they can agree a proper ceasefire the better, life must be terrible in gaza

You wouldn't bloody know macdanger as in this whole situation it seems you can't rely on what the media are telling you at all.