68 thoughts on “Gaza War Day 8: 180 Palestinian Dead – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. It is a ceasefire agreement which was brokered in 2012 by Egypt’s Morsi. I recall Hillary Clinton flying into Tel Aviv from her Asian Summit with Obama to “Stand by Israel.” Will we get another propaganda show by Bibi Netanyahu with John Kerry?

    Hamas will need assurances the 800 persons taken prisoner on the West Bank be released unconditionally. The aim of Netanyahu most likely is to separate Gaza and the West Bank with PA president Abbas. Transfering West Bank Hamas members to very own Bantustan [Gaza strip]?

    Netanyahu finally speaks his mind

    Netanyahu made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank. He indicated that he sees Israel standing almost alone on the frontlines against vicious Islamic radicalism, while the rest of the as-yet free world does its best not to notice the march of extremism. And he more than intimated that he considers the current American, John Kerry-led diplomatic team to be, let’s be polite, naive.

    [Source last Friday’s press conference held in Hebrew]

  2. [comment deleted: I do not publish pro-Israel hasbara. Since you’ve been doing this regularly, you too are now moderated]

    1. “I think they don’t care about their people.[because they are sending rockets]”

      You mean like Israel doesn’t care about it’s people when sending bombs and killing 180 Palestinians as retaliation for criminals killing 3 jews. Only one side cares about its people when using weapons ? Twisted hasbara? logic.

      1. Please read before you reply… I didn’t write what you added to the quote.. Don’t put words into my mouth..
        They don’t care because this is the chance to stop the suffering of Gazans. Now they put their people in risk of extending the operation.
        Maybe you forget, but the rocket firing never stopped towards the population close to the border and when it escalated, the operation began (not before giving Hamas to cease fire within 48 hours).

        Another thing, before you ask why suddenly I comment here during the operation.. I’m ashamed, but when rockets being fired to my city or close to it, it becomes more relevant to me. I should do this all the time, because rocket firing never stops towards the people closer to Gaza… So no, I’m not typical Hasbarist, I’m just another person directly affected by the situation.

        1. Normally, under shelling, one normal people goes to protect himself, they do not run to write propaganda at silverstein’s. I do not believe a word you say.
          Easy to know by your IP where and who you really are.

          1. I live close to Rishon le Tzion, if you wonder..
            I have no shelter close enough, so I run outside into the deep part of the building and wait until it’s over.
            IP is regional and depends on where the provider is located.
            You don’t have to believe me. My comment was facts only. You can check the facts before you choose to believe or not to believe.
            At this very moment IDF resumes airstrikes according to Channel 10, in order to eliminate the rocket launchers. Bravo Hamas and Jihad almost achieved their goal to escalate again.

            Please, at least don’t be blind to the facts.

          2. Richard.
            Chutzpah is when Israel accepts a ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt and West, and Hamas rejects the ceasefire with lethal rocket attacks.

        2. @Citizen of the World
          Do remember what happened the last time a truce was signed? In November 2012? Hamas respected the terms; Israel violated them immediately and hundreds of times more, with no response from Gaza for many months. The same thing before Cast Lead. It was Israel who broke the ceasefire; it was itching to attack Gaza so it assassinated a half dozen “militants” in hopes of a response. Then used the response as an excuse for a full scale invasion that killed over 1400 people, most of them civilians, and over a third of them women and children.
          Any and every rocket from Gaza is a response to attacks from Israel, and usually only after Palestinians are killed. The Palestinian people have been fooled too many times. They know they can’t trust a word that comes from Israel, so why would they agree to a ceasefire, especially one about which they weren’t consulted? Sort of the same way Palestine was sliced up to make room for Jews from Europe in 1947. Nobody asked the indigenous people of the land if it was OK with them. At this point Obama must be embarrassed and he would like it to go away. The Palestinians (and the Israelis) know a ceasefire won’t make it go away. They know Israel will just invade again in a few months or a year. Palestinians know they have the world’s attention right now, so they likely aren’t so eager to agree to a ceasefire that gives them nothing.

  3. In a comment to the previous post Sam declared “We have many friend(s), they don’t”.

    Sancta simplicitas.

    Sam, Sam, the number of your “friends” is dwindling by the day. Just a few months ago Daniel Pipes’ baby, the Middle East Quarterly, published an article by David Brog entitled “The end of evangelical support for Israel?”. Brog notes that, until fairly recently, Israel could count on the support of a solid block of 50 – 100 hundred million American evangelical Christians. This is no longer so. He writes:

    “Until the past couple of years … Almost every significant evangelical leader who took a position on the issue came out squarely behind the Jewish state. A center-right evangelical world simply was not taking its political cues from these stalwarts of the left.
    This situation is changing dramatically. With every passing month, more evidence is emerging that these anti-Israel Christians are succeeding in reaching beyond the evangelical left and are influencing the mainstream. In particular, they are penetrating the evangelical world at its soft underbelly: the millennial generation. These young believers (roughly ages 18 to 30) are rebelling against what they perceive as the excessive biblical literalism and political conservatism of their parents. As they strive with a renewed vigor to imitate Jesus’ stand with the oppressed and downtrodden, they want to decide for themselves which party is being oppressed in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
    Well that is not hard to see.
    Middle East Quarterly Spring 2014

    http://www.meforum.org/3769/israel-evangelical-support

    I vividly remember the almost hysterical support for Israel during the Six Day War in the country I hail from, Holland. During the Yom Kippur war the pro-Israel sentiment was still strong. American and Dutch weapons were smuggled to Israel via Holland (a labor Minister of Defence, Henk Vredeling, was instrumental in that) and the country was singled out for punishment by the Arab states in the oil boycot. How things have changed. Just the other day I read the comments column in a prominent Dutch paper, Trouw, which is of a mainly christian hue and I was struck by the fact that these letters were almost without exception critical of Israel. This is not because a long dormant anti-Semitism has re-emerged as an Australian commentator has asserted for his own country. It is simply because obvious spin can no longer hide the facts.

    1. The Dutch government was highly rewarded by the state of Israel. The Netherlands has the highest rate of phone taps, contracted by Israel’s Verint. Airport security at Schiphol is awarded to a security group ICTS run by former Mossad agents. Mossad has established a HQ in Amsterdam to easily spread its tentacles. Much to Israel’s liking as Amsterdam is the most important Internet hub for transatlantic cables. The Dutch most likely have a higher status with GCHQ and NSA with infrastructure in Burum, Drenthe. Minister Plasterk misspoke in a live interview on tv.

      To top off all the appreciation, El Al has established its freight hub at Schiphol Airport with the assurance of the Dutch government, it is Israeli territory and they won’t be bothered by intrusive surveilance. Major cover-up in 1992 :: Crash El Al Boeing 747-200P cargo plane in Amsterdam.

  4. This line leaps out of the page: ….” Israel shall cease all hostilities against the Gaza Strip via land, sea, and air,”….

    Notice that it obligates Israel to cease “all hostilities” directed “against the Gaza Strip” that is “via sea”?

    I am sure it wasn’t intended as such – and I’m certain it isn’t intended to be read in this way by Israel – but that line actually obligates Israel to end its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

    After all, there can be no dispute that “naval blockades” are governed by International Humanitarian Law (i.e. The Laws Of War).

    So if a ship is heading towards the Gaza Strip then Israel would be violating that line of the ceasefire by seizing that ship or shooting it up.

    That would be “hostilities”, and that’s not allowed.

  5. I don’t see what they gain by refusing.

    Of course Hamas wants Israel now to destroy and kill so much as possible. That will lead to the final collapse of the reputation of Israel -the Jewish state- and goodwill, what is left, towards it. The Israeli leadership knows that perfectly well and that is why Netanuahu agreed so fast to this in Israel unpopular ceasefire. A massive attack against Gaza will transform Israel to an enlarged Gaza, people with whom nobody want to be in contact. Israel will win the battle, but will loose the war. That is the only way for Palestinians left. They will not win militarily, the only way to win is a own large human sacrifice, which will make the world, especially the Muslim world, furious. Israeli Jews are now mentally prepared to perform massive massacres, which can be read from so many Israeli comments, and Hamas naturally “exploits” the Jewish sides present racist insanity.

    If Hamas now accepts the truce it has not achieved nothing except showing some increase in its military capabilities. Israel would certainly continue its slow mode killing of Palestinians and land theft in Jerusalem and West Bank and we would be in this same position after one year – again. In a way it is “better”, that Israel now destroys a quarter of Gaza totally and kills some 1,000 to 10,000 Palestinians. After that Israel has no friends, Hamas and Palestinians will have. Israel’s own past has shown, that the usage of past massacres (WW2 – which do have no direct relation to the today’s wars) is a extremely “lucrative” way of getting support, money and weapons.

    1. SimoHurtta: “Of course Hamas wants Israel now to destroy and kill so much as possible. ”
      This attitude only fits when some people try to dehumanize others. Comments such as these are no different then, “They kill their own to blame Israel” or, “ther teach their children to hate” and “We have no partners for peace”.
      I am sure you did not mean your words like this, all the more reason to be aware of whose frame you use when you speak..

      1. @Hamas don’t need “dehumanising” -they do it well enough to themselves.
        Try and remember how they threw their fellow fatah friens out of high-rise buildings before they took control by terror of Gaza. Now they indiscriminately fire rockets at civilians, luckily for Israel they have become so dehumanised that their technology is also sub-human.
        About time the people of Gaza rise up against their dictators, the rest of the world is waiting

        1. Schmuel. Your attitude reminds me of how the Nazis would dehumanize the Jews in order to justfy the genocide and claim Germany is only defending itself from the “less-than-humans, TB Bacillii, Treacherous Jews, Primitive Jews”
          You seem to have learned well from the Fatherland.

  6. All of you who out there who feel the need to criticize Israel/zionism/israeli government no matter what ought to read this article in its entirety. Not because every thing there is necessarily correct (I think most is) but rather because it gives a deep and accurate understanding why the majority of Jews all over the world act and believe as they do irrespective of logic or proven fact. Here is a summation of the deep-rooted Jewish psyche.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-letrsquos-see-the-criticism-of-israel-for-what-it-really-is-1624827.html

    For those non-Brits, the Independant is a serious newspaper and not tabloid or “Israel-biased”. It is true to its advert campaign of a few years ago “It is – are you? the Independant”

    1. Dear shmuel

      Regarding your “deep-rooted Jewish psyche” let me introduce you to reality—–>No one cares any more about your vicitm psyche….the world is tired of it.
      You dont have the right to spew your personal or group psyche and nightmares and grudges and revenge and violence and “others’ blame all over the universe.
      Because of your ‘nuturing and feeding of your jewish psyche’ you are a ‘self fulfiling prophecy’. It has kept the Jews riding to one appointment in Samaar after another.
      No victim group has been more coddled, pampered, compensated and protected than the Jews and by people and nations that had nothing to do your Jewish travils, owe you you nothing and have no moral obligation to you.
      Its going to be over in the not too distant future by popular demand. Move on. Take responsibility for your own actions/attitudes and reap the rewards or suffer the consquences.

      1. “No one cares any more about your vicitm psyche….the world is tired of it.”
        Hear, hear ! Perfectly illustrated by the Mysh-cartoon in the slideshow above.

        1. Well actually it seems that many still do care, and are not “tired”. See the poll that Richard placed on facebook about USA citizen’s support of Israel. To you and Richard it may be surprising, but then you probably think the whole world thinks like commentators here and on Mondoweiss, etc.
          And now Israel has probably even more support since Hamas rejected the ceasefire.

    2. Sorry, that piece was written three wars ago. What a bs.

      “It’s really anti-Semitism, not anti-Zionism”

      Reprinted at Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council by Howard Jacobson

      It’s time Gerald Steinberg send in some graduate students from the hasbara school. Are we to accept an author of exaggeration and comical fiction as a serious writer about Palestine?

      (Book review) ASHamed Jews: The Finkler Question

      In article Jacobson defends the IDF version of events where 43 children died in shelling of UNRWA school in Jabalya refugee camp on January 6, 2009. Indeed, the school wasn’t hit and the children died outside the school. Contrary to the IDF blog, there were no Hamas fighters inside the school.

    3. You can also find this article in the independent, you should read.

      Friday 11 July 2014
      Why I’m on the brink of burning my Israeli passport
      I can no longer stand by while Israeli politicians like Ayelet Shaked condone the deaths of innocent Palestinian women and children

      http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-im-on-the-brink-of-burning-my-israeli-passport-9600165.html

      By the way, the author in your cited article uses the same usual excuse to justify criminal acts : ancient prejudice.
      It happens that for a lot people all over the world including Jews like this woman, we just don’t buy it anymore.

    4. @ shmuel: Oy, Howard Jacobson? That lib Zio apologist for Israel? If you wouldn’t recommend A.B. Yehoshua to us, why would you recommend someone like this? And if you haven’t read the story, don’t waste your time unless you want to get steamed by someone who doesn’t understand anything about Israel or the Middle East, but who’s a smooth talker with an outsized literary reputation. This is the opposite of cultural boycott, it’s cultural hasbara.

    5. Let’s not seek to fall back on things like “deeply-rooted Jewish psyche”, existentialsm or who started what and when, to justify Israel’s CURRENT atrocities.
      Time enough to understand the past, let us put a stop to the present slaughters first.

      1. It’s actually very simple Jafar – to end the “slaughters” all Hamas has to do is say “ceasefire” to its soldiers and it’s all over.
        Everyone agrees to this, Israel, USA the quartet, UN Egypt etc etc
        Who doesn’t agree? – Hamas and Turkey
        Indeed let’s put a stop to it. Can you hear, Hamas?

  7. Richard Silvestein:

    You dont understand why they dont want truce?!
    So if I steal your bike and call truce would you agree to it or reject it?

    1. Don’t know what Richard would do, but if you’d stolen my bike several times before, agreed to a truce & then continued to steal my bike I would tell you where to shove your truce. That’s typical zionist thinking. YOU are the thief, apparently, so what right dl you have to make any demands? Just return my damn bike or I’ll whip your ass.

  8. “Irrespective of logic or proven fact” (your words Shmuel) is correct. I couldn’t do much with this rambling and rather self-pitying piece. I don’t buy the suggestion that the present criticism of Israel is mainly a matter of anti-Semitism. I can’t speak for Britain (though I lived there for a few years in the sixties and early seventies) but I think that in Holland the change in attitude (which is still quite moderate) has mainly to do with a greater knowledge of the facts. “You can’t fool all the people all of the time.”

    Here is a video of a Dutch UN observer who saw what happened on the borders of Israel in the prelude to the Six Day War. When he came home the army paper (he was a military officer) didn’t want to publish his story “because it didn’t fit in with the sentiments of the people” which were, at that time, as I said, almost hysterically pro-Israel. That feeling was so much at variance with the facts that it couldn’t last. To attribute the change to anti-Semitism is too easy and self serving..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YorwoqFGCn4

    1. Flashpoint Hebron, not much has changed in Israel’s rationale …

      Demolition of Jordanian village Samu in Operation Shredder

      Israel’s rationale for the cross-border assault was to avenge the three Israeli deaths in the recent land mine incident. A further goal in the operation was to demolish houses in Palestinian villages located south of Hebron as a show of force to preempt future Palestinian violence. Israel hoped that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame al-Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups.

      Ariel Sharon, commander Unit 101 and the Qibya massacre

      In late 1953, a mother and her two children were killed by Palestinian infiltrators at an Israel Kibbutz. Sharon responded with a raid on the Palestinian West Bank of Qibya, which was then under the Jordanian rule. Forty five houses were razed, sixty nine people were killed, most of them were women and children.

      He also played an important role in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel occupied the West Bank from Jordan, Sinai from Egypt and Golan Heights from Syria. He was named in Israel as the “King of Israel”. Sharon was also named “Bulldozer”.

      1. Oui – you forgot an important point, the “palestinians” you mentioned were Jordanians who crossed the border from Jordan into Israel with the sole purpose to attack and slaughter Israeli civilians (and succeeded), flagrantly violating Israeli sovereign territory. Israel had every right to respond by crossing the border into Jordan in retaliation. And if the response was tougher than the original attack then boohoo, stop whinging and think before you act in the first place.

        1. Shmuel you sicken me. This is the same Sharon who was the leader of Force 101 whoe sole purpose was to slip across the border at night, kill a whole lot of people and when they attacked, claim “defense”. He killed so many sleeping people that it became an embarrassment and he had to be fired. The policy was called, “Provoke & Retaliate”.
          “boohoo” indeed.

          1. Sorry to have ruined your appetite Jafar, but you seem to have some morality of “turning the other cheek” and expect that Israel must always measure exactly how much ordinance and damage was done against it and only retaliate accordingly if at all.
            Well this is the Middle East, if you hit me or steal my bike I’ll beat the f*** out of you until you realise that you shouldn’t mess with me. Actually where I grew up in England we would do the same in the school playground

          2. Shmuel.
            So, according to your justifications for Israel’s “Beat the ** out of you” tactics, it was okay for the Nazis to slaughter entire villages if one of their Aryans was killed? Lidice was deserved, eh?

          3. Using the Nazi example is typical in order to annoy.
            What should have the Nazi regime have done in your opinion? Not responded? Investigate and find the culprit and hang him?
            Why use the Nazi example? What about:
            USA in Iraq, Afganistan
            Europeans in Iraq, Afganistan
            Indians and Pakistanis in India and Pakistan
            China in China
            Ussr in Ussr
            Etc etc

            Everyone does it, it’s natural revenge and retaliation. It’s just that we don’t like it when it happens to us as then it somehow becomes immoral and unfair and slaughter and massacre etc

          4. if we can call this justice, his end of life was not glorious. years ans years like vegetable.

        2. Shmuel. I absolutely agree with the examples you gave of US and the West in Iraq and Afghanistan and with your examples of India, Pakistan, China and a host of other countries. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it. I am from Pakistan and I would not dream of defending Pakistan when there are atrocities committed there, either by the people or by the government. Nazi tactics do not get sanitized just because US, India or Israel is use them.

          I feel particularly incensed when Israel does things like it is doing and has been doing to the Palestinians because of what the Jews suffered through the Shoah and before. My God, did you Israeli Jews and your Jewish supporters only learn how to be successful Nazis?
          I would have thought and hoped, that Israel would be a beacon of humanity for the world and in its example of how to work with an indigeneous population, not an expert on Apartheid, oppression and genocide.
          Just my thoughts, PLEASE do not hammer back with how the Palestinians did this or that and how they force Israeli Jews to murder the Palestinians.

    2. Thank you for that. I’ve just finished part 1, and I’m definitely going to see the rest, just a comment: wow, the younger Michael Oren, not the Israeli ambassador or CNN-commenter, but the historian for once not lying through his teeth. declaring that the Jordanians didn’t want war in 1967.

  9. Re: Yr tweet ‘unbelievable poll’

    Pew Research: Mid-East sympathies 1978 — 2014

    The Palestinians are backed by a low percentage of Americans which peaked before the Rabin assassination. The sympathy for Israel reached a low after the First Gulf War when president George Bush Sr and Secretary James Baker III pressured Israel for the Oslo Accords. Bibi Netanyahu and Neocons realized the danger and set out a policy to undercut peace talks, promote incitement and hatred towards the Palestinians and formulated the PNAC design for regime change and upheaval in the ME region. Israel embarked on a policy for major investments for espionage in the coming digital age, risk capital for entrepreneurs in handling security and created the global market place by introducing the West to business in terror related industry called ‘homeland security.’

    When the expected attacks by OBL and his AQ reached the eastern shore of the U.S., Israel had a headstart and profited from the booming business. Just this week PM Cameron of Britain has promised to invest in security measures and data harvesting to battle the blowback from returning jihadists of a failed ME policy in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

    The numbers also show the increased sympathy for Israel is fully debit with the Republican electorate, from 49% in 1978 to a high of 73% today. AIPAC and all the institutions funded by the Prime Minister’s Office and his billlionaire friends do make miracles happen. The Islamophobic policy of affiliated domestic parties like Geert Wilders are an extra bolt on the door for Gaza operations to continue with impunity. By unanimous vote, the U.S. House of Representatives backed Israel in its attack on the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Obama has his hands tied by the likes of Susan Rice and Samantha Power, the humanitarian hawks.

    1. Oui wrote “When the expected attacks by OBL and his AQ reached the eastern shore of the U.S., Israel had a headstart and profited from the booming business.”

      No response to this Mr. Silverstein? None of the assertions made in this comment were supported by credible or any sources. It’s difficult for me to respond further with this hateful tripe steaming up my glasses.

      1. @ Canuck: What response should I make? SHould I point out all the IDF ex generals who’ve founded security consultancies using the 9/11 gravy train? All the Israeli seurity contracts at world airports to import Israel’s racist screening techniques? All on the backs of 9/11. This is a clearly accurate statement.

        Nice try, but save your outrage and steamed glasses for something that merits it.

        1. My apologies. Perhaps I should have been clearer. When Oui wrote “head start” the implication was that Israelis had advance notice of the “expected” 9/11 attack. Of the top 30 international security companies in the world, only ICTS (ranked at #29) was founded by Israelis and that was in 1982 – way before 9/11 and their revenues pale in comparison to UK’s G4S or Sweden’s Securitas. See this article for source.

          1. On her 25th visit to Israel in 2012 …

            Rice: Israel is where the US learned about homeland security

            (Times of Israel) – The world changed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told an audience in Israel, and so did the relationship between the United States and Israel.


            “We realized that Israel, our good friend, was very advanced in this area. Security has been a concern of Israel’s since the day it was born.”

            Israel, she added, has successfully developed many technologies and methods to fight terror and enable day-to-day life to go on, and the US turned to Israel, and companies like Motorola Solutions — much of whose technology is developed in Israel — for help.

          1. Yes. The very same Stephen Harper who has eviscerated our socialized health care system. I can’t be held responsible for him. Yes, there’s a JDL in Toronto, so what? You’re from France right? No hate groups there (Hello Front Nationale! Hello quenelle!), no horrible politicians (Hello Marine Le Pen!) either. Now Oui, can we get back to substantive and relevant issues? Do you have an authoritative link to prove that Israelis had advance notice of 9/11 and used that advance notice to position themselves advantageously in order to secure lucrative contracts? For the record, I am in Quebec.

          2. @Canuck

            “.. to prove that Israelis had advance notice of 9/11 and used that advance notice ..”

            That’s your own interpretation. I have chosen my words very carefully.

            The threat of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden was felt during the 90s. Bombing of WTC in 1993, Bojinka Plot was a planned large-scale terrorist attack by Ramzi Yousef, hijack Air France flight 8969 Algiers, terror bombing Oklahoma City in 1995, US barracks in Riyadh, US Embassy in Tanzania and Kenya, the USS Cole in port city of Aden. Fatwa issued in 1998 OBL threatened the U.S. with a retaliation.

            The intelligence community had their ‘hair on fire’ in August 2001 and in Israel press warned of an imminent terror attack. Both the German BND, Israel Mossad and CIA were tracking the Saudis involved in 9/11. Israel was already preparing for terror attacks. Egypt’s president Mubarak warned the U.S. of an impending attack and my brother living in Dubai heard of plans for an attack as early as 1996.

            Similar to the analysis in 2012 that Syrian fighters will cause blowback in Europe. No surprise, most events are predictable, that’s what experts are paid for.

  10. See an article by William Saletan from Slate

    … In other accounts, Israeli briefers have said that they also send text messages and that the final warning shot, known as a “knock on the roof,” can be a mortar strike that hits just hard enough to scare everyone out. “According to the procedure,” says Ynet, an Israeli news site, “it is only after the IDF makes sure residents have evacuated the premises that the missile that could destroy the house is launched.”

    In the history of warfare, this kind of systematic warning—direct, specific, double-layered—is unprecedented. It lets the enemy military officer escape in order to avoid killing his family. But how strictly is the IDF adhering to this policy?

    In some cases, there’s video evidence of targets being warned or knocked. In other cases, Gazans have confirmed that they received calls or warning flares.

    1. @ Tzorer: THe stupidity of your comment is in maintaining the premise that destroying the homes of civilians is an act which can be made acceptable by Israel’s delicacy & nobility in warning residents to flee. How do you know whose house is being bombed? How does the IDF know? I’m certain that many of the homes destroyed had nothing to do with fighters. The IDF’s sorry intelligence record guarantees this. In fact, it hardly cares whose house it destroys. If it’s Palestinian, that’s good enough.

      As for your affirmation of the humanity of the “knock on the roof,” one family, not associated with any militant group, received a telephone warning to leave & ONE MINUTE later the home was destroyed killing eight family members. Now that’s humane!

      If you publish more bullshit like this you’ll be moderated. Knock off the hasbara.

  11. Richard, you say that “Egypt has brokered a deal”….

    So sorry, but if that deal had been “brokered” then both sides would have accepted it, since it is axiomatic that part of the “brokering” involves gets the people you are talking to to agree to it before announcing it to the public.

    That Israel accepted the deal and Hamas refused it is all the evidence you need that Hamas was never consulted before the “deal” was announced.

    Think about it..
    Think about it..
    Think about it..

    If the “brokering” had involved Israel AND Hamas then BOTH sides would have said either:
    a) No, in which case Egypt would not have announced this “deal”, or
    b) Yes, in which case Egypt would have announced it and both sides would have accepted it.

    This is pure theatre i.e. Sisi cook up this “deal” with Netanyahu (some reports say with Bibi’s poodle Tony Blair), and then announced it purely so that Israel could “accept” an “offer” that it had, essentially, written itself.

    But Hamas knew nothing of this “brokered deal” until it was announced to the press, which left them no choice but to reject it.

  12. If I were a Palestinina leader….
    I would hold a public conference (outside Israel’s bull’s eye), recognize Israel and it’s right to exist and the right of Jews to live there in peace with Christians and Muslims as EQUALS, renounce the right to an independent state and assert that we are all citizens of ONE Israel/Palestine.
    I believe most Blindly Isrtaelis would have a collective heart attack, but the war would be won by the people who want peace.

    1. Jafar finally we agree!
      I suggested here a couple of years ago that the Palestinians ought to concentrate all their efforts into a campaign for “one man one vote” instead of terror and rhetoric.

      1. I HATE the word “terror” and its derivatives! Israelis always use it for anyone who resists Israel’s occupation and oppression…just about any Palestinian so PLEASE lose the word!

        If one were to compare “terror” by Palestinians with “terror” by Jews of Israel, the Palestinans would emerge looking like kindergarteners. As for “Rhetoric”, there is enough hot air coming out of the Jewish leadership to float the Earth. inally, before you decide to take my comments as another opportunity to bash Palestinians, ask yourself why Even Israeli Arabs are treated like dirt and Palestinians are treated like vermin. Under those circumstances, do you really believe Palestinians would be thinking of joining with their torturers?

        If you want to make “suggestions”‘ try working on those who have the power, not on those upon whom the power is being used.

        1. You guys really confound me! Jafar, I agreed with you that Palestinians should call for one state with equal rights ‘one man one vote’ and instead of showing understanding you start talking rubbish about vermin and dirt.
          There’s a parable in the bible about how the Israelites saw themselves as grasshoppers as against the Canaanites and assumed that the Canaanites must see them as such as well.
          They are not vermin or dirt. If they seek to kill me they are my enemy but still most of them remain human.

          1. My response was to your statement, Shmuel. “You guys”…Jews in Israel, are always referring to Palestinians as “terrorists” even as you conduct the greatest terror. You accuse Palestinians to be murderous liars even as you make agreements and then kill off as many Palestinians as you can. I was not talking about you agreeing with me, but HOW you agreed with me; you still could not resist taking a bash at Palestinians.

            Enough about insults clothed in the Bible, if you cannot have a civil exchange, then don’t get into it.

  13. As far as I know, Hamas was not consulted on terms here and this makes the offer unilateral, a subterfuge of the Egyptian-Israeli axis perhaps to legitimize a ground assault now that there are no more targets for the IAF. Hamas risks whatever moral high ground it has now by disregarding the gesture, but it has clear objectives in the conflict which are not yet met and are not on anyone’s table. We will see.

  14. ‘warn & knock’ – I remember in the 2006 Israel – Hezbollah war that civilians in southern Lebanon were warned to flee to the north.

    This didn’t stop the Israelis attacking their vehicles when they did flee.

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