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12-28-2008, 01:27 AM
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... and now it happened.
Israeli assault on Hamas kills more than 200
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer Ibrahim Barzak And Amy Teibel, Associated Press Writer 52 mins ago GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza Saturday and early Sunday, killing at least 230 people in one of the Mideast conflict's bloodiest assaults in decades. The government said the open-ended campaign was aimed at stopping rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel. Most of the casualties were security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead. More than 400 people were also wounded. The unprecedented assault sparked protests and condemnations throughout the Arab world, and many of Israel's Western allies urged restraint, though the U.S. blamed Hamas for the fighting. But there was no end in sight. The first round of strikes began around noon Saturday followed by successive waves of attacks that continued into the early hours Sunday. Israel warned it might go after Hamas' leaders, and militants kept pelting Israel with rockets killing at least one Israeli and wounding six. Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armored corps troops headed for the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late Saturday that the goal was "to bring about a fundamental improvement in the security situation." He added, "It could take some time." The Israeli airstrikes caused widespread panic and confusion, and black plumes of smoke billowed above the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as students were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children. "My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby. He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned. Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas. Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons. The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year. "There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary. In Gaza City's main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. Civilians rushed wounded people in cars and vans to hospitals because there weren't enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded. "There are heads without bodies .... There's blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting, " said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center. Military officials said aircraft released more than 100 tons of bombs in the first nine hours of fighting, focusing initially on militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been identified in advance. A second wave was directed at squads who fired more than 110 rockets and mortars at Israeli border communities. Palestinians said Israeli bombs destroyed a mosque early Sunday. The military called it a "base for terrorist activities." Another target early Sunday was the Al Aqsa TV station used by Hamas. Its studio building was destroyed, but the station remained on the air with a mobile unit. Palestinians counted about 20 airstrikes in the first hours of Sunday. In New York, the United Nations Security Council debated in a rare weekend meeting whether to adopt a news statement urging Israel to halt its military operations "without delay." The Russian-drafted statement would also call for an immediate cessation of rocket attacks on Israeli territory from Gaza. "This collective punishment is inhumane, immoral and should be stopped immediately," Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour said as he headed into the session. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas' political leaders could soon be targeted. ""Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune," she declared. The campaign was launched six weeks before national elections. Livni and Barak hope to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, and the outgoing government has faced pressure to take tough action. Gaza's political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed. "We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before," Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke. In Damascus, Syria, Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. "This is the time for a third uprising," he said. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territory's border crossings. Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear the offensive would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have never achieved that goal. Late Saturday, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 230 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 were wounded. The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said. Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks. "We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard," said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57. Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks. The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world. The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007. Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank. The offensive also risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel. Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the situation. But the U.S., Israel's closest ally, blamed Hamas. "These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. President-elect Barack Obama was receiving an intelligence briefing Saturday from various security agencies, Johndroe said. Bush has spoken to regional leaders and the administration will remain in close contact, he said. Obama also spoke during the day with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was keeping Bush abreast of the situation.
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Last edited by LaRondo; 12-28-2008 at 01:50 AM. |
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#2
12-28-2008, 01:45 AM
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One missing word sowed the seeds of catastrophe
No one in 1967 thought the Arab-Israeli conflict would still be in progress 41 years later Saturday, 20 December 2008 A nit-picker this week. And given the fact that we're all remembering human rights, the Palestinians come to mind since they have precious few of them, and the Israelis because they have the luxury of a lot of them. And Lord Blair, since he'll be communing with God next week, might also reflect that he still to his shame hasn't visited Gaza. But the nit-picking has got to be our old friend United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. This, you'll recall, was supposed to be the resolution that would guide all future peace efforts in the Middle East; Oslo was supposed to have been founded on it and all sorts of other processes and summits and road maps. It was passed in November 1967, after Israel had occupied Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sinai and Golan, and it emphasises "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict". Readers who know the problem here will be joined by those who will immediately pick it up. The Israelis say that they are not required to withdraw from all the territories because the word "all" is missing and since the definite article "the" is missing before the word "territories", its up to Israel to decide which bits of the occupied territories it gives up and which bits it keeps. Hence Israel can say it gave up Sinai in accordance with 242 but is going to keep East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank for its settlers. Golan depends on negotiations with Syria. And Gaza? Well, 242 doesn't say anything about imprisoning one and a half million civilians because they voted for the wrong people. No one in 1967 dreamed that the Israeli-Arab conflict would still be in ferocious progress 41 years later. And as an Independent reader pointed out a couple of years ago, the Security Council clearly never intended the absence of a definite article to give Israel an excuse to stay in the West Bank. Alas, our reader was wrong. I've been going back through my files on 242 and discovered a most elucidating paper by John McHugo, who was a visiting fellow at the Scottish Centre for International Law at Edinburgh University. He points out that pro-Israeli lawyers have been saying for some years that "Resolution 242 unanimously called for withdrawal from 'territories' rather than withdrawal from 'all the territories'. Its choice of words was deliberate... they signify that withdrawal if required from some but not all the territories". McHugo is, so far as I know, the only man to re-examine the actual UN debates on 242 and they make very unhappy reading. The French and Spanish versions of the text actually use the definite article. But the Brits apparently following a bit of strong-arm tactics from the Americans did not use "the". Lord Caradon, our man at the UN, insisted on putting in the phrase about the "inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war" in order to stop the Israelis claiming that they could cherry-pick which lands to return and which to hand on to. Britain accepted Jordan's rule over the West Back the PLO were still shunned as super-terrorists at the time but it did no good. Abba Eban, Israel's man on the East River, did his best to persuade Caradon to delete both "the" and the bit about the inadmissability of territory through war. He won the first battle, but not the second. That great American statesman George Ball was to recount how, when the Arabs negotiated over 242 in early November of 1967 at the Waldorf Astoria (these guys knew how to pick the swankiest hotels for political betrayal) the US ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg, told King Hussein that America "could not guarantee that everything would be returned by Israel". The Arabs distrusted Goldberg because he was known to be pro-Zionist, but Hussein was much comforted when US Secretary of State Dean Rusk assured him in Washington that the US "did not approve of Israeli retention of the West Bank". Hussein was further encouraged when he met President Johnson who told him that Israeli withdrawal might take place in "six months". Goldberg further boosted his confidence. "Don't worry. They're on board," he said of the Israelis. Ho ho. It's intriguing to note that several other nations at the UN were troubled by the absence of "the". The Indian delegate, for example, pointed out that the resolution referred to "all the territories I repeat all the territories occupied by Israel..." while the Soviet Union (which knew all about occupying other people's countries) stated that "we understand the decision to mean the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all, and we repeat, all territories belonging to Arab states and seized by Israel...". President Johnson rebuffed the Soviets and bluntly refused to put the word "all" in the resolution. Bulgaria, not surprisingly, said much the same as the Soviets. Brazil expressed reservations rightly so about "the clarity of the wording". The Argentinians "would have preferred a clearer text". In other words, the future tragedy was spotted at the time. But we did nothing. The Americans had stitched it up and the Brits went along with it. The Arabs were not happy but foolishly and typically relied on Caradon's assurances that "all" the territories was what 242 meant, even if it didn't say so. Israel still fought hard to get rid of the "inadmissability" bit, even when it had got "the" out. Ye gods! Talk about sewing the seeds of future catastrophe. Well, Colin Powell, when he was George W Bush's secretary of state, gutlessly told US diplomats to call the West Bank "disputed" rather than "occupied" which suited the Israelis just fine although, as McHugo pointed out, the Israelis might like to consider what would happen if the Arabs talked about those bits of Israel which were not included in the original UN partition plan as "disputed" as well. Besides, George W's infamous letter to Ariel Sharon, saying he could, in effect, keep large bits of the West Bank, set the seal on Johnson's deception. McHugo mischievously adds that a mandatory warning in a city that says "dogs must be kept on the lead near ponds in the park" clearly means that "all" dogs and "all" ponds are intended. These days, of course, we use walls to keep dogs out. Palestinians, too.
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#5
12-28-2008, 07:57 AM
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#7
12-28-2008, 12:20 PM
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What's interesting to note is that for all the problems that the "palestinian people" have had to endure "because of the Israelis..." that we don't see any sign of help for the palestinians from the Arab World itself...
No infrastructure plans, either new or for rebuilding... No building programs, either new or rebuilding... No grants to help their fellow Arabs... Just business as usual...Arab bankers making loans to dirt farmers and such, and expecting payment back...nothing about donating towards infrastructures, nothing towards toning down the Israeli-hate retoric and such...just pouring gas on the flames...both economically and spiritually...but NOBODY WANTS TO POINT THAT HUMANISTIC FLAW OUT...DO THEY??? If Israel wants to close its borders to Hamas-led people...it has every right...I wouldn't want sworn killers in my neighborhood...keep your spawn on the other side of the wall, if that's what it takes to keep you out... But, when you lob rockets over the wall and at my side of the fence/wall, and I'm abiding by legalistic pieces of paper...you can d**n well bet that the second the paper's time-line for a cease-fire expires, there's a can of WOOPASS flying overhead and it ain't your mother's can... I find it interesting that NO ONE WAS REPORTING THE HAMAS-ROCKETS FLYING INTO ISRAEL, but the minute Israel starts to retaliate AFTER the expiration of the cease-fire... Who's dragging the ignorant around by the noses? Nobody saw this coming? Look how gullible the world's press-corp is...what a bunch of do-nothing yaking-chicken-brained idiots... Too bad for Hamas...but I can bet that the civilians also knew the phrase, "When you lie with pigs..." BTW, the Israeli Armed Forces should FIRST take out any communications outlets that the Hamas have...including their little mobile-cam...find the 4-wheeler and turn it into scrap...and if there's any moron that thinks he's bullet-proof 'cause he has a camera and foreign passport, the Israelis should consider him as expendable as the Hamas garbage that's he's/she's reporting about...if you're in a war zone, no body (and I mean BODY) is immune...
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.  . M. G. Burg'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K .'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K ..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K ...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K ....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K .....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K ......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp .......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125 . I didnt really say everything I said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~ Last edited by mgburg; 12-28-2008 at 12:27 PM. |
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#8
12-28-2008, 01:05 PM
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But we all know that's not the point anyways.
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#9
12-28-2008, 01:09 PM
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#10
12-28-2008, 01:31 PM
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MG, Exactly and very well said. The so-called economic plight of the Palestinians could be solved or at least minimized by directing, say, the money that is pumped into the madrases that fuel anti-American and anti-US sentiments. Most of the Arab world needs someone to hate to prop up their dictatorial govts, and unfortunately, the Palestinians are the pawns in this stupid, senseless game. Bob |
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#11
12-28-2008, 01:40 PM
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Imagine that..after days of enduring endlesss rocket and mortar attacks the Israelis struck back. go figure.
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#12
12-28-2008, 02:25 PM
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. . M. G. Burg'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K .'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K ..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K ...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K ....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K .....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K ......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp .......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125 . I didnt really say everything I said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~ |
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#13
12-28-2008, 02:30 PM
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There is no other way then to say it like this: America is held hostage, ideologically, morally, materially and in most any other way. Spineless. I give you an example, as Burgie was talking about 'neighbors'. Let's say you own a nice junk of land, acreage, all you see is horizon. Some day people settle along the lines of what is your land, your property. For one reason or another, it seems that you can't get along with your 'new' neighbors. Trouble. Next you realize, that those 'new' neighbors are somehow settling beyond the lines of what is theirs, on your acreage. Years of enduring dispute. The new neighbors now claiming to be entitled to what was once your undisputed property, come moving closer to your home, seizing parcel after parcel, section after section of your land. Eventually, those nice peace loving neighbors, even construct a wall around you and the small remainder of what was once your undisputed land. You can't see the horizon anymore, all you know is, you are besieged, nothing comes through to you and you can't get out anymore to what was once your unrestrained property. Also, you know, there is nothing you can debate with those "new neighbors". Regardless, just Nothing. How would you feel? Would you fire a rocket, if you had one, besides having nothing else to loose?
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Last edited by LaRondo; 12-28-2008 at 02:36 PM. |
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#14
12-28-2008, 02:32 PM
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You're welcome!
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#15
12-28-2008, 02:34 PM
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