Much has been made of Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza’s population by inducing power outages (in addition to closing border crossings, strangling commerce and banking activity, and rendering most workers jobless). But Lawrence of Cyberia has caputured this in the most human of terms with this image.
Do tell, Richard, during which power cut this picture was taken. I am curious, considering there have been no power cuts after Israeli Attorney-General Mazuz decided to block such a sanction while he reviews the legal ramifications.
The only power cut so far was in Sderot, after a Kassam struck an electrical pole in the town.
Please resist the temptation to launch into the usual condescending snark, and answer my question.
Dave: This must be the 14th or is 15th time you’ve returned to this blog after each time swearing you’d never be back. What is it about this blog that you find so irresistible & compelling?? Maybe like those homophobes who harbor closet homosexual longings perhaps you really do find something compelling about the idea of Israeli-Palestinian peace & can’t stay away? No, that’s not possible unfortunately.
Do your homework. Read the links and follow them and your rude demands will be answered. I’m not going to do any work for you since you’re such a sloppy lazy propagandist to begin with.
Silverstein:
You write as though you feel that Israel should continue to demonstrate weakness by offering concessions to the 7th century savages who relish in blowing up their own, as well as Israelis. Are you so blind that you believe that negotiation is any way to deal with these ragheads? While Israel hasn’t yet begun to cut power, I would suggest that she states and executes a policy of 1 day of power deprivation for each rocket fired from the nest of jihadis. Sooner or later Palestinians must control their own sorry assed jihadis. For Israel to appease them at all suggests cowardice, and this non-jew does not believe that Israel is in any way a coward nation. A year and a half old photo does little to emphasize how much the Palestinians show that peace with Israel is not in their plan.
nuf sed
You must be either one of Aussie Dave’s good friends or readers. Do tell us which. It only reflects on the brand of hatred he peddles over there at his blog.
I think what these Jewish wingnut comments tell us is that the haters can’t stand images which make people think about the suffering Israel is inflicting on Palestinians. I guess it gets them where they live.
I’d say it is you who is the “7th century savage” and your hatred matches that of the terrorists you so claim to despise.
Not blind. That would be you. I’m clear-sighted & yes I believe in negotiation.
The only thing worse than Israelis & Palestinians killing ea. other in cold blood is outside idiots like you who have no dog in the fight but who insist on aiding and encouraging the most bloodthirsty of whichever side they happen to be a partisan. God protect us from trogdolytes like you.
Again, the only thing worse than a Jew telling Israelis to fight to the last drop of Israeli blood is a non-Jew telling Israelis to do so. Do us all a favor and bud out. Don’t you have anything better to do? If not, why don’t you stand on yr soapbox & tell yr the rest of us Americans to fight until 5,000 GIs have been killed in Iraq.
And regarding negotiation as a sign of cowardice. That’s only in the mind of someone with a little too much testosterone running through their veins. Pirkey Avot says: “Who is a hero? He who controls his urges.” In this case, the Israeli is a hero who realizes what it will take to preserve and protect his nation in the long run. And military victory will not do so because it is not within reach despite what cretins like you say.
Hello, Richard. . .
I am a new visitor to your blog, and this post has me confused. . . Why would you post this image with such vitriolic captioning when not a single kilowatt of power has been deliberately withheld from Gaza? As I understand it, power cuts were just one idea of how to provide a disincentive to further rocket attacks. . .
You seem to have fallen victim to a syndrome that affects many bloggers, on both sides of any debate: your opinion comes first, and the facts come second, and so any tidbit you come across (I’m assuming) you look for a way to fit it into your preexisting opinion. Obviously, I can’t demand journalistic standards from you and your ilk (as I would from a real news source, rather than a partisan outlet like a politically-minded blog), but I can’t help being disappointed.
Maybe you could include in your caption something to the effect that “power cuts have been discussed but not implements. the photo is from a different time and is included to illustrate what a cute but oppressed child would look like in candlelight.”
. . . A suggestion
I think either you are confused or perhaps you are engaging in some of the partisanship you accuse me of. First, neither you nor any of the earlier posters are anywhere near Gaza and so don’t know what the situation is like there. You’re going by what the Israeli government is telling you it’s done and not by what’s happening on the ground. When it comes to accepting the word of the IDF & Israeli government on matters related to the Palestinians that can be a serious mistake.
I have asked several Gazans to tell me what they’re actually experiencing there on this score. You’ll have to forgive me for trusting their word when they comment here more than yours or the Israeli government’s.
Second, are you arguing that the IDF has not engaged in collective punishment before (in fact, serially) by cutting power to Gaza? I don’t think you’d do so because you’d know you’d be wrong. In fact, the image is taken from just such an episode in July, 2006. And are you arguing that such collective punishment would not be a violation of international law? And are you arguing that there are not many Israelis who are opposed to this stupid policy? Because you’d be wrong again.
Third, nothing in the caption or text indicates that the picture was current nor that I was making any claims about current Israeli policy. In fact, it is very easy to follow my link as you did to the blog where I retrieved the image & see the identifying information about the photo. I’m not hiding anything.
The fact is that were it not for the Israeli attorney general, official government policy would right now be cutting power & water to Gaza. So that image is a reminder of what such a heinous act looks like. As I wrote above, what you are really objecting to is humanizing the Palestinians and their suffering.
Unlike Richard, I actually went back to research the question. Although the caption refers vaguely to a “power cut” it doesn’t say how such a power cut occurred.
Back in June of 2006, Israel did strike Gaza power generators in one of its operations against terrorists. But those generators were back online later.
In the summer of 2006, Israel also on occasion cut power across its own grid to prevent long term blackouts. This affected Israelis as well. It is possible that this is what the “power cut” refers to.
However, there are no reported incidents of Israel simply flicking off the Palestinian lights to punish innocent civilians.
Is Richard lying? Not really. I will assume that there was some sort of “power cut” and that the statement is literally true. But it is highly misleading.
I have only published Josh Parkhurst’s comment to point out the lie that it is (Josh is a longtime troll attempting serially to inveigle himself into the debate here).
First, Israel did not strike Gaza power generators, it struck Gaza’s only power plant destroying it. Saying the plant went “back online later” is quite an understatement since Gaza’s power supply has never fully recovered as this passage makes clear:
Also, to say the power plant was struck in a terrorist operation is stretching truth to the breaking point. Israel deliberately targeted a civilian power plant during its Operation Summer Rain invasion of Gaza. There was no military justification for destroying the target. It was, as happened during the Lebanon war as well, a gratuitous piece of torture directed again the civlian population.
Josh is a lying scoundrel and this passage compared with the one above shows him to be so.
Is Josh lying? I guess propagandists either don’t really believe they’re lying or else they don’t care. Josh is a bit more elegant than Campus Watch or Frontpagemagazine, but not by much. And can you believe this guy claims he’s a member of Americans for Peace Now? Lord protect APN from the likes of Josh.