Comments on: Meretz USA Calls for Lifting Gaza Siege

By: amir

amir — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:01:14 +0000

For example, Hamas could have had Awad al-Qiq arrested. He “was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.”
“In interviews with Reuters, students and colleagues, as well as U.N. officials, denied any knowledge of Qiq’s work with explosives. And his family denied he had any militant links at all, despite a profusion of Islamic Jihad posters at his home.

But militant leaders allied to the enclave’s ruling Hamas group hailed him as a martyr who led Islamic Jihad’s “engineering unit” — its bomb makers.”
From Reuters.

By: amir

amir — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:29:43 +0000

Most of the credit for the missiles fired was taken by Islamic Jihad which was also a party to the tahadiya. Hamas could have had them arrested and persecuted. It could have dismantled their plants. They could have made an effort. Bu they didn’t.
About the starving Palestinian, pictures speak better than, words.
Link: http://www.daylife.com/photo/02uy2JZ8Uw445/gaza

By: fiddler

fiddler — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:03:57 +0000

A point could be made that the siege even contributed to Gazan militants acquiring more weapons in that it created a compelling incentive to dig that many tunnels for bringing in food, fuel, medicine, and other vital items. If the flow of civilian goods had not been wilfully impeded, most, if not all of the tunnels had never been dug.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:24:25 +0000

@amir:

They violated the tahadiya 38 times

That’s boloney. THEY didn’t violate the ceasefire. Other parties did. Hamas cannot possibly prevent every person who wants to fire a rocket from doing so. It can certainly prevent most of them and has done so. But those 38 rockets caused precisely NO Israeli casualties. While Israel’s single military (I use that word to distinguish from its ongoing economic violations via the siege) violation of the ceasefire caused the death of 5 Hamas members.

Israel is not going to agree to an end of “the siege” and allow…Hamas to bring in even deadlier weapons

Ridiculous. Israel was monitoring all the crossings when they were open. No weapons could be smuggled in via the crossings. Maintaining the siege has NOTHING whatsoever to do with protecting Israel from weapons. If you don’t know this then you should.

Gazans weren’t starving.

To make such a statement shows that either you are willfully ignorant or a liar. Every major humanitarian agency serving Gaza says that Gazans are starving. Yet you, in yr infinite wisdom, choose to believe otherwise. They are there. You are not. Yet you sit blissfully unaware of suffering happening almost right under your nose. It’s shameful really for someone to be so callous. But this is what being an Israeli must mean these days for far too many Israelis. Cut yrself off fr. the suffering of everyone but yr own kind–Israeli Jews, that is.

By: amir

amir — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:42:24 +0000

The terms of the Hudna were that the Hamas would not fire rockets nor would they allow the other groups to. They violated the tahadiya 38 times. The reason there was relative quiet was that the Israelis did not respond to these provocations. The one time Israel violated the tahadiya led to increased violations by the Hamas. So it is Hamas that chose when and to what extent the fire would rise. The reason few Israelis have been killed is not only because some of the rockets are inacurate but also because of he many precautions Israel and Israelis have taken to safeguard themselves. The first rocket violation of the tahadiya hit a home right in their living room. Fortunately, nobody was in the room.
Don’t forget that wheb the crossings were open the Hamas and their aallies would target them with their mortars. In any case, it was the Hamas who declared an end to the tahadiya and they did not use the tunnel attack as the pretext. Israel sent a representative to Egypt to renew the tahadya but Hamas refused.
Of course Israel is not going to agree to an end of “the siege” and allow the Hamas to bring in even deadlier weapons. Until their is a peace agreement, Israel will want full control or supervision of what goes in or out of Gaza.
Also, Gazans weren’t starving. Write malnutrution in google images and you will see what starving people look like. Then look at the people gathering around in Gaza and you will see well fed, well nourished people and well dressed people. The so called humanitarian crisis (before the present war) is a propaganda hoax. Look at the pictures on your blog. There’s a picture of a guy wearing a nike hat holding a baby with colorful socks with flowers on them. Now look at pictures of people in Africa in famine and war ravaged regions, and you will see the difference.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:58:09 +0000

@amir:

the crossings were open most of the time

When 80 truckloads cross the border you claim that constitutes the border being “open???” 80 truckloads to feed 1.5 million people? And that’s open?

“Open” is when truckloads of food, medicine and emergency goods can arrive & cross freely.

Not to mention the fact that terminally ill patients could not cross nor could anyone wishing to leave or enter unless the stars were alinged properly in the firmament, which they almost never were.

The Israeli siege is a great shande. One that you’re perfectly content with.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:51:56 +0000

@amir: “Massive violations?” Howso? Those missiles, while heinous, didn’t kill or injure anyone. You bleed for Israeli children running to air raid shelters but seem to lack basic human empathy for over 100 women & children murdered by Israeli missiles. I wonder why that is?

The reason there were only a few missiles attacks during the ceasefire was precisely because Hamas was intensively policing such attacks & preventing them. If it had not been there would have been many more. And Hamas did not violate the ceasefire as you state. Hamas observed the ceasefire. There are other elements in Gaza who did not observe it & they were responsible for the rockets.

You don’t seem to remember that the barrage of attacks was a direct response to the Israeli tunnel attack. Perhaps that’s a bit of “tunnel” vision on yr part??

Hamas made perfectly clearly what it would take to renew the ceasefire: end the siege and end the rockets. Those were the terms which Israel refused. Israel acquiesced in the end of the ceasefire by neither negotiating the new terms or accepting them.

YOu claim that Hamas’ demand that Israel end its strangulation of Gaza is “bullying??!!” Bullying to demand that a foreign power stop starving your children and allowing your sick & elderly to die without proper medical care. Bullying??? You’ve truly shown yr colors.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:19:30 +0000

@amir: “Merely” one bombing by Israel which had more of less been honoring the ceasefire. When there is calm and you drop a bomb on a tunnel & it kills 5 Hamas people that isn’t a “mere” anything. BTW, Hamas had controlled the rockets and things were relatively quiet until the Israeli bombing.

The IDF incursion is not at all “self-defense.” If Israel really wanted to ensure the security of the south it would negotiate a real ceasefire with Hamas in which rockets would stop AND Israel would completely lift the siege. That is the ultimate act of “self-defense.”

I repeat once again, even Israeli journalists & security analysts questioned the idea that the Nov. 5th bombing had any serious security objective or served any meaningful purpose.