Israel now plans "boots on the ground", says ground attack chances "very high"

[rlogan 2,036]

I am not sure where you are coming from, but it is not irrational, totally logical. You need to take a step back and think about it from the Hamas leadership perspective.

lol. Trying to pretend you are smart while in the middle of playing dumb:

" I am smart enough to frame Palestinians in the worst light possible, but too stupid to understand you pointing out when I am doing it."

Rationalization is pathetically simplistic, not difficult to understand at all: When a Palestinian kills, that's a Palestinian killing. When an Israeli kills, that is also a Palestinian killing.

And what more stupid, stupid framing can you choose than "Hamas wants to harm Palestinians", as if that were their organizational objective. Well of course you only apply that one way: You don't say that the purpose of the Israeli state is to harm Israelis even though a lot of what they do does bring them harm.

I just refuse to be called stupid when people are so overly biased like this. I am not stupid enough that you actually believe what you are saying. Rationalization is not about belief. It is about justifying yourself to others.

I don't favor either Palestinians or Israelis. I wish we would have never gotten involved and wish we would stop being involved now. I object to our overwhelming financial and military support of a side in a war we don't belong in.

[Póg mo 1,749]

Robert Fisk: Media suffers from memory-wipe

Once, we used to keep clippings, a wad of newspaper cuttings on whatever we were writing about: Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Gaza. Occasionally, we even read books. Maybe it’s because of the internet, but in most of our reports, it seems that history only started yesterday, or last week.

For snobs, it’s called the loss of institutional memory. We journos seem to suffer from it more than most. Our readers, I suspect, do not. So here we go…

“Israel has ignored mounting international calls for a ceasefire and said it will not stop its crippling assault on Gaza until ‘peace and tranquility’ are achieved in southern Israeli towns in the line of Palestinian rocket fire… Arab delegates have met the United Nations Security Council in New York, urging members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to the Israeli attacks and a permanent ceasefire.” This is from a Press Association report.

Now here’s an editorial from the right-wing Canadian National Post: “We [sic] have a great deal of sympathy for the ordinary people of Gaza. Israel’s attacks this week on the terrorist infrastructure within the tiny, heavily populated area are undoubtedly extremely hard on them… as Hamas officials and operatives use them as human shields. But remember: all that was ever required to forestall these attacks was for Palestinians to stop their violence against Israelis.”

And here’s The Guardian: “Yesterday, as three of his children were laid out dead on the hospital floor, Samouni was in a bed upstairs in the Shifa hospital, recovering from wounds to his legs and shoulder and comforting his son, Mohamed, five, who had suffered a broken arm… ‘It’s a massacre,’ Samouni said. ‘We just want to live in peace.’”

And, just for good measure, here’s Reuters: “Israel expanded yesterday its fiercest air offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in decades and prepared for a possible ground assault, after a three-day bombardment that has killed 300 Palestinians… The [israeli] planes also attacked the homes of two top commanders in Hamas’s’ armed wing. They were not there, but several family members were among the seven dead.”

And last but not least, here’s writer Robert Fulford in the Canadian Post: “Israel has already proven itself the most restrained nation in history. It has set an all-time record for restraint.”

Now of course you are familiar with everything you’ve just read above. Since last week, Israel has been bombarding Gaza to prevent Hamas rockets hitting Israel. Palestinians suffer disproportionately, but it’s all Hamas’s fault. But there’s a problem.

The Press Association report was published on 6 January 2009 – five and a half years ago! The Post editorial was printed on 2 January the same year. The Guardian dispatch was on 6 January 2009, Reuters on 30 December of the previous year – 2008. Fulford’s nonsense was published on 5 January 2009.

Oddly, however, no one reminds us that today’s carnage is an obscene replay – by both sides – of what has happened before, and indeed before that. The leftist Israeli historian Illan Pappe has recorded how on 28 December 2006, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem reported that 660 Palestinians had been killed in that year alone, most in Gaza, including 141 children; and that since 2000, Israeli forces had killed almost 4,000 Palestinians with 20,000 wounded. But scarcely has there been a single mention of all of this in a single report on the latest slaughter in the Gaza war.

Why? Why do we as readers – let alone us journalists – allow ourselves to participate in what I can only call a collective memory-wipe? Because we are lazy? Because we don’t care? Or because we fear that explanations for the recurring bloodletting in Israel might lead readers to search for deeper reasons and that Israel’s “friends” abroad might accuse us poor harmless journos of suggesting that Israel – let alone the corrupt Hamas – is engaged in a far more pitiless, infinitely more wicked and obscene war than our bland agency-style reportage suggests?

There’s nothing new about memory-wipe. Take this warning of civil war in Lebanon, published in The Independent, no less: “For Lebanon, these are tense times… Since the Alawite community which dominates political power in Syria is in effect Shia and the majority of Syrians are Sunni, it is not difficult to understand the darker nightmares which afflict the people of this region. If the civil conflict in Iraq were to move west, it could open up religious fault lines from Baghdad to Lebanon… an awesome prospect for the entire Arab world.” Alas, this was written by one R Fisk, published on 7 July 2006 – almost exactly eight years ago – and printed on page 29.

But just to finish off, here’s a Reuters report from Mosul that will sound all too familiar to readers these past few weeks: “Insurgents have set police stations ablaze, stolen weapons and brazenly roamed the streets of Mosul as Iraq’s third largest city appeared to be sliding out of control...” A little problem, of course. This Reuters dispatch was filed in 2004 – 10 years ago! On that occasion, it was the US military, not the Iraqi army, which had to recapture Mosul from the rebels (for the second time, by the way).

I’m afraid it’s about context, this memory-wipe. It’s about the way that armies and governments want us to believe – or forget – what they are doing, it’s about ahistorical coverage, and it’s about – and here I quote the wonderful Israeli journalist Amira Haas – “monitoring the centres of power”.

The question we should ask – a question many readers and televison viewers have been asking – is: haven’t we been here before? And if so, why the repeat performance?

The Independent

http://gulftoday.ae/portal/a54935ca-0e8a-45a6-8887-bbf1a447f77e.aspx

[Boiler 45,557]

Israel accepted the ceasefire.

Hamas did not.

[OriZ 3,157]

A message from Israel to all the boneheaded protesters around the world as well as some people who like to waste their breath and our time on VJ:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152546450793270

Edited July 21, 2014 by OriZ

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

A message from Israel to all the boneheaded protesters around the world as well as some people who like to waste their breath and our time on VJ:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152546450793270

That was cool. Thanks for sharing

[Karee 4,190]

A message from Israel to all the boneheaded protesters around the world as well as some people who like to waste their breath and our time on VJ:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152546450793270

Seems they left a few things out. I didn't see anything about the Israelis building walls, evicting people from their homes, taking land illegally, or imprisoning people without trial. I'm sure I left a bunch of other stuff out as well.

[JoBri 548]

"Yeah, I have this weird thing where I refuse to support the Israeli refusal to recognize a people, whose land it's occupying...''

"Whose land it's occupying"? And where do you get that notion from?

[Expat1 971]

"Whose land it's occupying"? And where do you get that notion from?

That notion is the notion of the UN security council, of which the US is a permanent member. Which makes the notion official. Let's clear it up though.

This land (no comment on terms of a "truce with Israel" - it's like terms in a pawnshop): On September 22, 1948, during a truce in the war, the Provisional State Council of Israel passed a law annexing all land that Israel had captured in that war, and declaring that from then on, any part of Palestine taken by the Israeli army would automatically be annexed to Israel

This land: Israel has continued to claim a nominal strip on the border between the West Bank and Jordan, and between Gaza and Egypt as its border with those countries. This is viewed as a legalistic device to enable Israel to control the entry of people and materials into the Palestinian territories. A legalistic device that controls the entry of people and materials is a chokehold

Also this land: In 1980, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law, declaring Jerusalem to be the "complete and united" capital of Israel. The purported annexation of East Jerusalem was condemned by the United Nations Security Council as "a violation of international law" and declared "null and void" in United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 and has not been recognized by the international community; no country has its embassy in Jerusalem

OH and this land: The boundaries of a future Palestinian State, vis-a-vis Israel, are subject to ongoing negotiations in the Israel–Palestinian peace process. Israel's West Bank Wall, which encompasses almost all Israeli settlements, including all three major cities, and only a minor Palestinian population, was declared by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as running roughly along the future borders of Israel

The proposed solution: Trade this land (that they do not own) for that land (that they do not own) and then convince the world that they are offering a "treaty"

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed that the Arab-Israeli border region known as the Triangle be removed from Israeli sovereignty and transferred to the Palestinian Authority, in exchange for the border settlement blocs.

[Expat1 971]

Israel accepted the ceasefire.

Hamas did not.

On September 22, 1948, during a truce in the war, the Provisional State Council of Israel passed a law annexing all land that Israel had captured in that war, and declaring that from then on, any part of Palestine taken by the Israeli army would automatically be annexed to Israel

Cost of a truce with Israel. Of course they didn't accept it.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Expat1

[Boiler 45,557]

I was talking about the truce brokered by the Egyptians last week.

[Expat1 971]

I was talking about the truce brokered by the Egyptians last week.

Hamas leaders have said a ceasefire must include an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza and a recommitment to a truce reached in an eight-day war there in 2012. Hamas also wants Egypt to ease restrictions at its Rafah crossing with Gaza imposed after the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July.

At least share both sides. They offered terms, Israel rejected them. Why miss a chance to clear out some more homes right?

Edited July 21, 2014 by Expat1

[Boiler 45,557]

I think you do not understand what a ceasefire means.

Ceasefire is something you put in first to stop the fighting.

If they have issues with Egypt then perhaps they need to talk to the Egyptians?

Edited July 21, 2014 by Boiler

[OriZ 3,157]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=782863961723959

[decocker 7,198]

finally, a facebook video showing the real face of hamas.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yeah... That's just as one-sided and propagandist as everything else.

Is anyone really under any illusions what Hamas are?

The issue I have with the situation is the appalling loss of life and civilians being terrorised. I don't really have any interest in anyone trying to find justifications for it. It's all grotesque.