22 thoughts on “Gaza War, Day 22: 10 IDF Soldiers Killed Today, 1,100 Palestinians Killed Overall – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. 87% of the Israeli population is for continuing the operation in Gaza. I have been here close to 50yrs and never has there been an majority like this e.g. 7+ out of 8 citizens for the continuation.
    That’s democracy for you or the Israelis are just a nation of fascists.

      1. I sometimes forget the political stances of some of the regulars here. In “fake” walter’s case (I’m also confused about the “fake”), I wasn’t sure how to read his comment–was he correctly saying that democracies can democratically choose to think like fascists? Judging from your reaction, no.

        Incidentally, would that 7+ out of 8 include the Israeli citizens who are Palestinian?

        1. No, Palestinian citizens of Israel are never included in that kind of poll, if you notice they all go ” (…)% of Israeli Jews think that (…)”

    1. well that leaves room for improvement doesn’t it? with a bit more effort, maybe you can bump that up to 98% approval, the kind of polling results you find in North Korea or Kazakhstan.

  2. So the IDF has lost one and a half platoon’s worth of soldiers (if the IDF has stuck to around 36 soldiers per platoon, that is.)

    Richard was right, the IDF has been dull battleaxe and not the rapier the Israeli government thinks it is…..they’ve killed the equivalent of the population of Boulder, Montana minus eighty-three all for nothing.

  3. Two Americans Killed by ‘Terrorists’ in Gaza

    An illustration how well state propaganda works. Exactly why U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam, I was a kid but an what older Polish immigrant neighbour sent his only son to Vietnam to fight the commies over there. He gave his life for his father’s revenge. In following article, David Siegel from the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles stated: “… to really defend the civilized world against the threat of Islamic terrorism.”

    Americans from Texas, California killed in Gaza

  4. And here the ground is shifting as well. Protests against Israel were thus far virtually unheard of in the Australian parliament but look at the list below. Dr.Danny Lamm. President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, has, in reaction, come up with the usual claptrap about Hamas militants hiding among the population (as if in an area one fifth the urban area of Sydney with a population of 1.8 million there would be any other possibility). He also claims that people don’t understand “the wider context”. How often have we heard that. On the contrary Dr.Lamm. People now understand the context so thoroughly that they can’t bear remaining silent any longer.

    25 July 2014
    We the undersigned members of Australian federal and state parliaments, call on all Australian politicians to condemn the ongoing Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
    We call on Australian politicians to support an immediate cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire deal which includes an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and to the blockade of Gaza.
    We call on all Australian politicians to also support the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision to launch an independent inquiry into purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
    Over 1000* Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, since Israel started its military attack on Gaza three weeks ago. The United Nations says at least 75 percent of the dead are civilians, including an estimated 168 children. In the last two days, Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of one per hour.
    The rockets fired from Gaza are not in any way justified and insofar as they threaten and harm civilians are illegal under international law. However, these imprecise rockets cannot be compared with the broad-scale bombing of Gaza by Israel which has one of the world’s largest military forces.
    Collective punishment is not permitted under the Geneva conventions and is a war crime.
    Hospitals, places of worship, and a centre for people with disabilities have been among the Israeli military’s targets.
    The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is providing shelter to more than 102,788 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
    The international community including Australia has a vital responsibility to put pressure on Israel to end its current military attack on Gaza and broker a solution of justice and peace.
    *updated 27 July 2014
    Signed by –
    1. Maria Vamvakinou MP
    2. Melissa Parke MP
    3. Laurie Ferguson MP
    4. Alan Griffin MP
    5. Sharon Claydon MP
    6. Adam Bandt MP
    7. Barbara Perry MP
    8. Andrew Giles MP
    9. Paul Lynch MP
    10. Jamie Parker MP
    11. Lynda Voltz MLC
    12. Shaoquett Moselmane MLC
    13. David Shoebridge MLC
    14. Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC
    15. Dr John Kaye MLC
    16. Jeremy Buckingham MLC
    17. Jan Barham MLC
    18. Senator Claire Moore
    19. Senator Nick Xenophon
    20. Senator Christine Milne
    21. Senator Lee Rhiannon
    22. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young
    23. Senator Larissa Waters
    24. Senator Janet Rice
    25. Senator Richard Di Natale
    26. Senator Penny Wright
    27. Senator Rachel Siewert
    28. Senator Scott Ludlam
    29. Senator Peter Whish-Wilson
    30. Senator Sue Lines
    31. Tammy Franks MLC
    32. Graham Perrett MP
    33. Senator Anne Urquhart
    34. Terri Butler MP
    35. Julie Owens MP
    36. Lisa Chesters MP
    37. Senator Gavin Marshall
    38. Senator Anne McEwen
    39. Senator Carol Brown
    40. Senator Doug Cameron
    41. Cassy O’Connor MP

  5. Richard:
    Taking your logic further that all Jews are to blame for not standing up to Israel, the follow up is blaming all Muslims for not condemning (ever) all forms of terrorism that were committed by fanatic Muslims like Hamas.
    Why should, as you write, ‘all Arabs.. All Muslims’ be provoked by Israel? Is this war anti Muslim? Is it anti Arab? No, it is not religious as you state over and over but about land-grabbing, no?
    If a Muslim is up in arms as a Muslim, rather than for humanitarian reasons then why ought Jews behave differently?

  6. The IDF is not promenading throughout Gaza as it had in the 2008/09 fiasco, but has been checked and confined to the borderlands. This latest fighting also proves the IDF has not consolidated the areas it has been fighting in, because its still subject to HAMAS counter operations, H & I fires, cross border raids and rocket mortars.

    Israel has rudely learned to its humiliation and cost that its not fighting a bunch of terrorists, but a highly trained and competent military. If the IDF can’t break out of the current trap HAMAS has laid for it, Israel is facing an infinitely far greater strategic “disaster” than it suffered from Cast Lead. Nor can they just pack up, leave and claim victory. At this stage of the game no one is going to believe it, even the US.

    The old tactic of blasting to smithereens everything in sight with naval, air and ground firepower is as dead a tactic in Gaza as it is in Lebanon. HAMAS is forcing Israel into a ground fight it wants to avoid, but must wage if its going to claim any measure of justification or success from this latest invasion.

  7. I ran into this really interesting article about the smuggling tunnels from 2007 to 2012. It’s a great read. Things of note were by 2011 160 kids have died in their construction and a really depressing paragraph about how mursi was going to make rafah a free trade zone but the army put the kibosh on it. Moreover it goes on to say that even if the blockade was lifted tomorrow the tunnels would still be used. I highly recommend reading this
    http://palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=11424&jid=1&href=fulltext

  8. “Israel’s enemies should distinguish between Israeli and Jews.” This is problematic. A decent case could be made that such a distinction really begs the question. Zionist Israel is, as much as anything else, a project of the Jewish people. It could not have started, progressed or grown economically and geographically without the support of the Jewish people worldwide. In this regard, Jewish Americans must figure exceptionally large. Sure – some Jews are opposed to the very idea of Israel and some opposed to particular policies of that state like the occupation, etc. For that matter, some Israeli Jews (however few) are also opposed to the Israeli Government’s policies. Nonetheless, Zionist Israel is a product of the Jewish people just as National Socialism represented, for better or worse, the German people at one time. The dissenting Israeli is nonetheless an Israeli and a “proper” target for any Palestinians looking for revenge for the murder of their people. It is not hard to envision how a Zionist Jew living in Europe might also be an appropriate target as they too are a positive source of Palestinian misery. And still further, a dissenting Jew in the EU or the US might also be a sensible target as the State of Israel is, has been, a collective project of the Jewish people as a whole in any case and Jewish life is apparently so precious to the Zionist state.

    There’s more to say about all this, but my point is that it is wrong to suggest that Israel’s enemies should have to make a distinction (between Israeli and Jew) that is really not so much of a distinction. Technically, I am not an Israeli or a Zionist. Yet, I am a Jew and my coreligionists have perpetrated this calumny on another people and therefore we are, each of us, morally responsible for Israel’s policies, even though we may eschew the Jewish nationalism that built this state. If all Jews are held liable for the Zionist disaster we might find some fervent American Zionists coming over to an anti-Zionist position. After all, many of them are erstwhile Zionists, declining to relocate even though demographics remains the overriding central problem of the Zionist Jewish state. One does certainly wonder why these Zionist Jews do not add their bodies, move their families, relocate their professions and businesses to the state which needs them so and which they worship. Yet, they do not.

    In any case, I think there is a sense, perhaps it is a moral sense, in which the identification of Israeli and Jew is appropriate and right and I wanted to lay it out here. I feel some responsibility for the crimes of Israel and I never ever supported the enterprise: I just stayed deaf and dumb for decades.

  9. Another piece of information that might be interesting from 29.07:

    “In a related development, UNRWA said that a cache of rockets was found today at one of its schools in central Gaza. The discovery came during a regular UNRWA inspection of the school, which was closed for the summer and not being used as a shelter. All the relevant parties have been notified.”

    1. “UNRWA said that a cache of rockets was found today at one of its schools in central Gaza. The discovery came during a regular UNRWA inspection of the school, which was closed for the summer and not being used as a shelter.”

      If it isn’t open as a school and it isn’t being used as a shelter then the accusation that Hamas is hiding its weapons AMONGST THE CIVILIANS is incorrect.

      It is using the school as a weapons warehouse, sure, and that’s grim news for the UNRWA.

      But that in and of itself is not a violation of the laws of war.

      It would be if that school was being used as a school – or as a shelter – but it isn’t if that school is….. empty.

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