• andora said on Jan 06, 2009....

  gaza is a prison camp
  
  prisoners riot when they don't get food, water, bed space, a regular walk much like a dog walking, etc...
  
  your question, on some perverse level, is like asking why the female child refugee's in Darfur don't like their new arab babies that were begotten by rape.
  
  but, on the other hand curmudgeon, I wish those prisoners would just shut up and let us get on with the great depression here at home, after all!
  
  I have a solution!
  
  give a passable corridor between the West Bank and Gaza. Let the folks in the inland reservation hook up with the folks of Gaza by the sea. then we could give each family on the reservation an  'Atmospheric Generator' (these are small water-cooler sized machines that create 7 to 10 gallons of pure drinking water per day, and even has a new solar model on the market for $1500 a piece) - this is much less messier than genocide!
  

• curmudgeon said on Jan 07, 2009....

  Your analogy is way off target, but there is a crumb of truth: Despite a UN presence, the Palestinians are still suffering at the hands of terrorists. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are the ones who put the terrorists in power.
  
  Gaza is a prison camp the size of Detroit. The United Nations and a host of other international agencies have been funneling financial and other aid into this city-state for years. If it is a prison camp don't blame Israel, blame Hamas. They're the ones who are focusing on waging war rather than making something out of what they have.
  
  Even with a naval blockade and closed trade routes, Hamas still finds a way to smuggle rockets in. These smuggling routes could easily be used to import and export goods of every sort. Instead Hamas imports rockets.
  
  It seems to me that since Israel will probably not agree to opening a corridor, a three-state model would probably work best.
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 07, 2009....

  Why is your post is so entirely devoid of the history of actual events? Wouldn't a cronology be more informative?
  
  "rearm themselves with longer-range rockets?" Hardly. They have not the capabilities for importation, purchase or construction of "longer-range rockets." They are under siege so completely additional food and medical supplies have to be brought in by tunnel.
  

• curmudgeon said on Jan 07, 2009....

  Where did they get the rockets, then? Out of thin air? Please. Your criticism is devoid of fact. The plain truth of it is they wouldn't be "under siege" if they hadn't been firing rockets, period.
  
  I post observations and comments. If you want a CHRONOLOGY, look it up.
  

• curmudgeon said on Jan 07, 2009....

  "Hamas, meanwhile, fired rockets, though at a slower pace than previous days, hitting the towns of Ashkelon and Beersheba with the sort of longer range missiles never seen before this war. Rockets were still hitting the cities after midnight, but there were no immediate reports of injury."
  
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
  
  Shelter - your skepticism about Hamas re-arming itself with longer range missiles is without grounds. Too bad your partisanship blinds you so.
  

• andora said on Jan 08, 2009....

  curmudgeon,
  
  you assumed from my words that I was blaming Israel
  
  After 60 years of religious/racial war it is impossible to identify who is the perpetrator. In war the strongest wins, however, in a war with a covert non-state force, such as Hamas, who also uses 'human shields' to survive the David and Goliath mis-match, NO ONE WINS!
  
  I agree with you curmudgeon that Hamas had a tremendous opportunity when they were given Gaza back, unfortunately, Gaza is an island - giving Palestinians a split territory denies Palestinians of a future of self-sufficiency. After Israel razed the extensive Palestinian orchards and isolated the West Bank from Gaza - It was like asking a person to feed his family with hand-outs.
  Like asking a person to mow a lawn with a broken lawn mower...then kicking that person for failing.
  
  I have friends in Israel that were both in the army and the Mossad. Years ago these two Israeli's sat with my around my camp fire and told me story after story about how the army and the Israeli employers of Palestinians were feeding upon the working class of subjegated Palestinians. These were Israeli's telling me about the horrible things their governmant and citizens were doing to the powerless Palestinians. If you like, I will give a few examples, but the point is that having one class as subject to a heartless ruling class is man's inhumanity to man, under the guise of controlling a criminal class - or in other words - criminalizing an entire class of people for your own gain.
  
  
  

• andora said on Jan 08, 2009....

  Christiane Amanpour did a magnificent job detailing the incidents that led to the current miasma between Jews and Muslims in Palestine. She was able to do a sort of CSI in regard to the events that led up to this Hatfield and McCoy stand off that the world is held hostage to. The bombs first came from extremist Zionists. So, I do not blame Israel or Hamas, I blame those who are willing to commit atrocity in the name of any religion. I hate violence, so does everyone else. Yet, when the quality of life sinks below the percieved quality of death, then you get suicidal/homicidal tendencies.
  
  unfortunately, Iran, who is a victim of US hegemony, has designated Hezbollah and Hamas as their proxy army. Iran is giving vital monies for social services in both Lebanon and Gaza/Wbank. this will secure their interests in eliminating Israel. The West is known for creating wasteland ghetto's with the strange idea that the poverty stricken among us are impoverished beause of their own poor decisions, rather than understanding that underserved ghetto lands breeds rebelllion. This is something that the US just does not get, why we have powerful gangs that run prisons and US streets. Poverty and subjegation are the real culprits here, and the impoverished are the scapegoats!
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 08, 2009....

  The article you reference:
  
  Gaza fighting rages despite cease-fire proposal by IBRAHIM BARZAK and STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writers
  
  No matter how you play with the thing they are still crude compared to the firepower deployed by Israel.
  
  The Qassam rocket
  
  The Qassam rocket (Arabic: صاروخ القسام‎ Ṣārūkh al-Qassām; also Kassam) is a simple steel rocket filled with explosives, produced by Hamas. Three models have been used. They are all free-flying artillery rockets lacking any guidance system.
  
  The rocket has gained significant notoriety through its development and deployment by Hamas against Israeli targets in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
  
  Guardian reporter go to Gaza to see launching Qussam rockets
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 08, 2009....

  And now... collateral damage:
  
  
  Iraq's Sadr urges reprisals against US over Gaza raids 07 Jan 2009 The Shia radical movement of Moqtada al-Sadr, which fought two wars with US troops in 2004, threatened on Wednesday to resume attacks on American targets inside Iraq over Washington’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. 'I ask the Iraqi resistance to engage in revenge operations against the United States, the biggest parter of the Zionist enemy,' Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the central shrine city of Najaf.
  
  Babies cling to life in stricken hospital --The fate of 600 patients rests on four ageing generators keeping blackouts at bay, reports Kim Sengupta 08 Jan 2009 Even with the glimmer of hope that a ceasefire may finally be under negotiation, the situation at Gaza's biggest hospital remains desperate, with more than 70 life-support patients now precariously dependent on generators because the main power supply has been down for five days. The 596-bed Shifa hospital in Gaza City was struggling yesterday to cope with the latest casualties of war – the injured victims of the bombing on Tuesday at a school in the Jabalya refugee camp which left 42 dead. But the shortage of fuel to run the generators, after months of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, is now the biggest problem facing Shifa and other medical facilities in Gaza.
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 09, 2009....

  And the rest of the story:
  
  
  War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields
  
  The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
  
  This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
  
  [...]
  
  The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under "Operation Cast Lead" was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:
  
  

  "Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

  
  That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza's natural gas:
  
  

  "Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel's wish to renew the talks.
  
  The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel's request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials." (Globes online- Israel's Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

  
  The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 09, 2009....

  More collateral damage:
  
  
  Israeli troops kill U.N. truck driver at Gaza crossing
  
  By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers
  
  JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers opened fire Thursday on a truck attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip, killing one United Nations-contracted driver and seriously wounding another, U.N. officials said.
  
  The shooting occurred at the Erez checkpoint, the main entrance used by relief agencies to funnel badly needed food and medical supplies into Gaza, where Israel is waging a devastating, 13-day-long military campaign against the militant Islamic group Hamas.
  
  U.N. officials said that they had contracted the truck to deliver supplies into Gaza, and that the Israeli military had approved the delivery. But Israeli ground troops, which control the Erez checkpoint, fired on the truck. It wasn’t clear what caused the Israeli soldiers to open fire, and Israeli military officials weren't immediately available for comment.
  
  Relief officials said that as a result of the shooting, Israel closed the Erez checkpoint. It was unclear whether any relief trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza on Thursday, despite what humanitarian agencies describe as a worsening humanitarian crisis.
  
  "It's a tragic example of how impossible it’s becoming to deliver assistance here," John Ging, the top U.N. refugee official in Gaza, told the Al Jazeera television network. "We cannot continue in these circumstances where aid workers…are being killed and injured, even when they are in direct coordination with the Israeli liaison people, who are supposed to ensure their safety."
  

• curmudgeon said on Jan 09, 2009....

  Andora - the assertion that poverty leads to violence runs afoul of the reality that there are billions of poor oppressed people who do not resort to violence. As well, some of the richest nations in the world, most of all the US, are exporters of arms and frequently resort to violence to achieve their ends.
  
  I've heard this sociological explanation before. It's really just a lot of hooey. Violence is a choice humans on all points of the socioeconomic spectrum have available to them.
  
  Which brings me to shelter's assertion that this fight is really about natural resources off the Gaza coast.
  
  If that is truly the case, firing rockets at Israel is perhaps the least likely and most absurd method of obtaining exclusive mining or drilling rights. Far better to have a European (as Europeans tend to take the Palestinian side during these conflagrations) natural gas company argue the case before the United Nations or an international court than to import missiles that can't hit anything. And since when does lack of accuracy justify attempted murder?
  
  I just love how both of you are so quick to lay blame on the United States and the West and "wealth and power" while excusing your favored side of its own brutality and greed on clearly irrational grounds.
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 09, 2009....

  curmudgeon: 'I just love how both of you are so quick...'
  
  Thanks friend.
  
  Like I said. You have to look at the cascade of events. Not an isolated event. YWhy did the rockets fly?
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 10, 2009....

  For what it's worth:
  
  In Pictures: Carnage in Gaza: Warning - Viewers discretion advised

• andora said on Jan 10, 2009....

  you are skewing my words curmudgeon.
  
  I blame both Israel and Hamas for this violent stand-off
  
  I hate that Hamas uses human shields - I think they are the lowest of the low for using their power to martyr their citizenry...and, I do not agree with the way Israel has conducted herself.
  
  I see this war as a modern day representation of the poor treatment of indigenous people everywhere in the world. I do not see religion, nation or race as part of the conflict, even though these are being used to divide the citizenry of the Middle East. What is the issue at hand is the fact that mechanized societies are gluttonous when it comes to natural resources. They rarely care for their own resources and after defiling thier own nests, much like a rat does, they go after pristine third world lands to extract the needed items to manufacture throw away goods. In this, we, in the developed world are the source of disturbance and we use religion, race and nationalism as a veil to obscure the real reason for being a military presence in places that do not belong to us!
  
  What I see here curmudgeon is your unwillingness to acknowledge the mercinary behavior of our government. The same government that has sent violent thugs into non-violent rallies as a way of justifying heavy handed tactics. Our government has become more of a corporate police force in the world, than it is a representative Republic. this is demonstrated by the fact that the Bush administration has kept all Whitehouse visitor lists concealed from the public.
  
  Yesterday a federal judge declared that the Secret Service could not conceal public business, such as visitor lists to the big house. But Cheney does not believe we have the right to know what our paid officials do on our dime. Is this the type of representational gov you want to pay for?
  
  Our reasons for being a military presence in the Middle East is simply to keep the gulf of Aiden open for our oil tankers. Most Americans do not wish to know what is really going on and Dick knows this, it is peops like you curmudgeon that sanction war crimes in the name of democracy and genocide in the name of self-defense.
  
  While in Israel I had the chance to be with both sides of this conflict and they are both delusional, which is why the US should withdraw from the Middle East completely! But, then again Ray Hunt would be left without his armed force to make sure he can get that Kurdish oil to the gulf of Aiden!
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 11, 2009....

  Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress. Gandhi. Anyhow. A chronology:
  
  
  War of Choice: How Israel Manufactured the Gaza Escalation: Israeli actions played a major role in instigating this very avoidable war, says Steve Niva.
  
  
  "I hate that Hamas uses human shields..."
  
  I assume you refer to reports that Hamas is copying the Hezbollah human shields example?
  
  
  No Evidence Found for Hezbollah human shields
  
  Investigations by independent human rights groups during last summer’s fighting did not find clear evidence that Hezbollah deliberately used civilians to shield their personnel or equipment from Israeli strikes. For example, a detailed study published at the end of the fighting in August by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that they had found “no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.” Similarly, Amnesty International, in a well-documented report published in November observed, “While the presence of Hizbullah’s fighters and short-range weapons within civilian areas is not contested, this in itself is not conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as ‘human shields’, any more than the presence of Israeli soldiers in a kibbutz is in itself evidence of the same war crime.”
  
  Israel’s Use of Human Shields
  
  Ironically, while Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other reputable human rights organizations–including the Israeli group B'tselem–have demonstrated that... the Israeli Defense Forces have used this illegal maneuver as a standard practice, particularly earlier this decade following a right-wing coalition coming to power in Israel in early 2001. A recent HRW report  notes how “Human Rights Watch and Israeli and Palestinian organizations documented numerous cases of Israeli forces using Palestinian civilians as human shields.” Similarly, Amnesty International has reported how Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank “have often used Palestinians effectively as human shields, endangering their lives in violation of international humanitarian law.
  

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