You will be buried in the same box as a killer.
Back in the good old days of the Cold War, the estimated time between the warning a Soviet ICBM was heading towards your area and the actual strike itself was four minutes, although most think even that was a tad optimistic. It certainly didn't leave long to get to anywhere that might be safer, unless say you lived within running distance of an underground station and weren't knocked over and trampled to death by all the others with the same idea.
Fortunately, our good friends the Americans remain the only people to have decided to go nuclear. Less fortunately for the Palestinians, the latest humanitarian gesture on the part of the IDF is to fire a "warning" missile at houses they intend to destroy, not just leaving it to chance the occupants will answer the phone. Caught on film is one house getting a "knock on the roof", then being struck by the following, far more destructive projectile. The time between the warning and the attack? Four minutes.
We shouldn't feel sorry though for the owner and his family, or indeed any others living in the building as multiple families usually do in the crowded Gaza strip. The owner's sons are apparently Hamas members, therefore completely justifying the razing of his house. Moreover, as the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, since Hamas rejected the terms of the proposed Egyptian ceasefire everything that happens in Gaza from now on is solely their responsibility.
Not that it wasn't already. A hospital struck by an Israeli missile was clearly a Hamas hospital, while the 55 UN installations either damaged or destroyed (since June 1st) were UN/Hamas installations. The water supply infrastructure the UN warns is in danger of collapse due to the damage inflicted on it is a Hamas water supply. How can it not be when Hamas members use it? The four cousins between the ages of 9 and 11 killed by an Israeli shell today were on a Hamas beach, inside a Hamas fishing shed, and it was witnessed by Hamas journalists who treated the survivors. All 47 of the children killed so far have been Hamas children, still terrorists, just smaller.
Israel doesn't just have the right to defend itself, it has a responsibility to do so. The Palestinians by contrast don't just have the right to die, they have a responsibility to. Hamas might rule the Gaza strip, and they might be responsible for everything that happens there, but they don't have the right to defend their territory, to resist. Their use of rockets is a war crime, as they are too indiscriminate to properly target anything or anyone that could be considered as legitimate, not that there is anywhere in Israel that could be considered a legitimate military target anyway.
To step back from rocking the snark for just a second, Hamas was far too hasty in dismissing the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. You can understand why they did; it only offered further talks rather anything substantive. When we've been here twice before, Israel making promises to loosen the siege of Gaza that have subsequently come to nothing, it's not a surprise Hamas wants something this time they can hold the Israelis to. In both previous examples it was also Israel rather than Hamas that broke the fragile peace. Nonetheless, when the option is on the table to halt the suffering of the people Hamas claims to represent, to not at least give it a chance is close to unconscionable.
True, it's far easier to sell a ceasefire when the number of casualties on your side is 1, rather than 200 as it was yesterday for the Palestinians and there's little to show for it. It doesn't however absolve Hamas of continuing with a policy which failed in the past and is going to again this time. Israel has no intention of lifting the siege of Gaza, nor does Egypt under Sisi have any intention of making life easier for a movement that grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. The only way of putting Israel under pressure over the Palestinians is to threaten and if necessary introduce boycotts, just as John Kerry warned Netanyahu were on the horizon if he continued to refuse to countenance even the slightest gestures needed to keep the talks with Fatah on track. Netanyahu's response was to "wag his finger" at the US secretary of state. Responsibility, as we've seen, is something only the Palestinians fail to exercise.
Fortunately, our good friends the Americans remain the only people to have decided to go nuclear. Less fortunately for the Palestinians, the latest humanitarian gesture on the part of the IDF is to fire a "warning" missile at houses they intend to destroy, not just leaving it to chance the occupants will answer the phone. Caught on film is one house getting a "knock on the roof", then being struck by the following, far more destructive projectile. The time between the warning and the attack? Four minutes.
We shouldn't feel sorry though for the owner and his family, or indeed any others living in the building as multiple families usually do in the crowded Gaza strip. The owner's sons are apparently Hamas members, therefore completely justifying the razing of his house. Moreover, as the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, since Hamas rejected the terms of the proposed Egyptian ceasefire everything that happens in Gaza from now on is solely their responsibility.
Not that it wasn't already. A hospital struck by an Israeli missile was clearly a Hamas hospital, while the 55 UN installations either damaged or destroyed (since June 1st) were UN/Hamas installations. The water supply infrastructure the UN warns is in danger of collapse due to the damage inflicted on it is a Hamas water supply. How can it not be when Hamas members use it? The four cousins between the ages of 9 and 11 killed by an Israeli shell today were on a Hamas beach, inside a Hamas fishing shed, and it was witnessed by Hamas journalists who treated the survivors. All 47 of the children killed so far have been Hamas children, still terrorists, just smaller.
Israel doesn't just have the right to defend itself, it has a responsibility to do so. The Palestinians by contrast don't just have the right to die, they have a responsibility to. Hamas might rule the Gaza strip, and they might be responsible for everything that happens there, but they don't have the right to defend their territory, to resist. Their use of rockets is a war crime, as they are too indiscriminate to properly target anything or anyone that could be considered as legitimate, not that there is anywhere in Israel that could be considered a legitimate military target anyway.
To step back from rocking the snark for just a second, Hamas was far too hasty in dismissing the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. You can understand why they did; it only offered further talks rather anything substantive. When we've been here twice before, Israel making promises to loosen the siege of Gaza that have subsequently come to nothing, it's not a surprise Hamas wants something this time they can hold the Israelis to. In both previous examples it was also Israel rather than Hamas that broke the fragile peace. Nonetheless, when the option is on the table to halt the suffering of the people Hamas claims to represent, to not at least give it a chance is close to unconscionable.
True, it's far easier to sell a ceasefire when the number of casualties on your side is 1, rather than 200 as it was yesterday for the Palestinians and there's little to show for it. It doesn't however absolve Hamas of continuing with a policy which failed in the past and is going to again this time. Israel has no intention of lifting the siege of Gaza, nor does Egypt under Sisi have any intention of making life easier for a movement that grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. The only way of putting Israel under pressure over the Palestinians is to threaten and if necessary introduce boycotts, just as John Kerry warned Netanyahu were on the horizon if he continued to refuse to countenance even the slightest gestures needed to keep the talks with Fatah on track. Netanyahu's response was to "wag his finger" at the US secretary of state. Responsibility, as we've seen, is something only the Palestinians fail to exercise.
Labels: Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza, GazaUnderAttack, Hamas, Israel, Israel-Palestine, John Kerry, Palestine, politics, US foreign policy
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