Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
Rundle: The comic tragedy of Gaza
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When you consider the current attack on Gaza, now in its seventeenth day, it’s hard to know whether to emphasise the horror or the absurdity, the viciousness or the kitsch. There’s no lack of the last of these, the most recent being the arrival of Sam Wurzelbacher, i.e. “Joe the Plumber”, briefly made famous by John McCain, and now resurrected by Pajamas Media, a right-blog/online TV op as a war correspondent. Joe’s first thought after arriving in Sderot, principal target of Hamas rockets? That there shouldn’t be war correspondents. Sam/Joe told Associated Press TV:
Can anyone top that? Oh yes, here’s CNN from a few days ago:
Wonderful stuff, and all we need is Sarah Palin sent as special envoy, to sort out, you know, them gazelles to get the whole team back together. Meanwhile, for the tragedy there’s burning schools and mass death. And for both tragedy and absurdity there’s the whole Israeli attack itself. At the heart of Israel’s justification for the Gaza attack is a paradox. On the one hand Israel claims that the rockets that have been raining down on southern towns represent an intolerable attack on sovereignty, harbinger of an existential threat etc. On the other hand, the fact that this has been tolerated for six years is pointed to as evidence of Israel’s forbearance, etc. Which leads to the obvious question — if the rockets represent an existential threat, why not do what is being done now three, four, five years ago? Yet if they can be tolerated for six years, how can the wantonness of the current attack possibly be justified? Inflicting mass civilian casualties — including the use of terror — is morally justifiable only in situations of defensive total war, a struggle for survival. By the very fact of six years of inaction, Israel has shown what everyone knows: that these attacks are no threat to the country at all. That is not to minimise the effect of rockets falling relentlessly on a civilian population, nor the meaning of the relatively small number of deaths. To say as one commentator did, that the rockets have “nagged” Israelis to misidentify the act (even if you consider the rockets legitimate resistance). But it is to point out that of all the people who really haven’t given a damn about what was happening to southern Israel, Tel Aviv has been uppermost. The low-level fire has been useful to a sense of embattlement, and effectively kept as an ace-in-the-hole by successive Israeli governments, to be played whenever things got desperate — politically, that is. For what makes the Gaza attack such an abomination is that it is being conducted almost entirely for domestic political purposes, just as every crisis in the last five years — Lebanon 2006, Ariel Sharon’s waddle across the Temple Mount — has been about the projection of domestic Israeli politics into external conflict. People are dying in Gaza for no other purpose than so Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak can prevent themselves being politically outflanked by Netenyahu and Likud on national security credentials in the February elections. Like one of those Penn and Teller magic tricks done in plain sight, Tel Aviv barely bothers to pretend that it believes the official justification — Lipni has repeatedly said that the attack won’t stop the rockets, merely lessen their number. How on earth can such a pitiful aim even on its own terms, be presented as a justification for the carnage currently underway? Within this cynical process there’s another act of massive bad faith by many of Israel’s supporters, which turns on Israel’s official desire to both assert its triumphal status and simultaneously use a status of special victimhood to give a moral gloss to indiscriminate killing. On behalf of a country with dozens of submarine-mounted nuclear warheads trained on Arab and Iranian cities, a conscript army, a domestic armaments industry and billions in US military aid, the defence of the Gaza attack is conducted as if it were being undertaken by a beleagured Zionist militia c.1948, with a few borrowed guns. Thus, one noxious lunatic at a Florida demonstration yells out “Jews to the ovens”, and the comment flashes round the world, as a prelude to mutterings of “never again”. Hamas, this pitiful force that Israel helped establish (thinking that a Muslim fundamentalist group would disrupt the ideological unity of the pan-Arabic/Marxist PLO) whose only success has been in intra-Palestinian conflict, is constructed as one step away from being the Wehrmacht eighth army, because its official constitution contains all the dross and kitsch of nineteenth century European anti-semitism. The weird and self-defeating thing about this pose is that the whole point of Zionism was not that this sort of stuff would disappear, but precisely that it wouldn’t. Founded in the wake of the Dreyfus affair, Zionism’s point was that anti-semitism would never cease, so the only answer was to create a society which meant that it didn’t matter. To have that entity armed to the teeth and in absolute control, and still claiming that any dumb talk of blood drinking Jews or whatever somehow represents an existential threat would seem to defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. At some level a lot of the world understands this, which is why Israel’s Gaza attack has been greeted with something beyond outrage — something approaching disgust. It is the same disgust marshalled against the US bombings in Vietnam and Cambodia — the utter asymmetry of the conflict opens up the space where the superior party becomes first evil and then nihilistic. Thus what plays well to the Israeli electorate — the cold precision of the IDF — and to the world: harm minimisation, treating Palestinian wounded — seems not merciful, but sadistic, the affectless precision of the killer in one of the Saw movies. Israel often claims that it is judged by higher standards than other state actors. At the moment it is falling below not merely the ethical, but the gut instincts of fairness, mercy, the avoidance of cruelty. Why are Israel’s supporters so willing to aid and abet it down this track, to fill out the picture of the thug weeping at past slights as it deals out mass death against a trivial challenge? You can see the answer in something like John Spooner’s Saturday cartoon of a bloodspattered school playground, which was so unctuously desperate to make sure we got a pro-Isrel message that the drawing was footnoted with a ref to Hamas’s beliefs in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Or go back to Sam/Joe’s comments about seeing “our Israeli” soldiers fighting and making us “feel happy”. For millions in the West, watching the east rising, seeing the failure of the Bush years, the moral confusion and futility of western actions, Israel is a dose of existential V-agra, since it combines both concrete aims — defend your people — and a purported belief in the abstract ethical stands of the West. Live in a country where everyone goes to Gallipoli but no-one joins the army? There’s plucky little Israel? Pointyheads offering multiple perspectives on your own society? Israel’s resolve is unitary. It isn’t of course, but it’s the best thing going. Which is how mass death with no clear strategic aim, compromised by cynical party politics becomes the vehicle by which people can approve a massacre in which every adult Gazan male death is officially counted — by Israel — as a “military casualty”. And why Ehud Olmert today spoke of the next wave of attack as an “iron fist”. Or why today Arab Israeli parties were banned from standing in the February elections. Because once you start on this road it only leads to one place. |
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30 Comments
Typical ‘eric a. blair’ fare of highly emotive self-righteous, but fundamentally weak arguments.
Firstly the old tiresome disproportionate response argument.
1. The simplistic (and obviously wrong) conclusion implicit is that the side with the best technology must be in the wrong.
2. Before the six months of cease-fire (when the fire never ceased), Hamas had only primitive and home-made rockets that could hit nearby small towns in Israel. By the end of the six months, they had far more advanced rockets, no longer home-made, that can hit cities 30 or 40 kilometers away. Another six months of the same kind of cease-fire, which is what many nations at the UN demanded, and Hamas would have rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv. And this is an organization explicitly committed to the destruction of Israel.
Secondly, once the fighting begins, who is responsible for putting civilians in the line of fire?
Hamas is not just firing rockets at civilians, but also for firing them from heavily populated Palestinian civilian areas, so that any response would inevitably kill or injure civilians and indeed some of these rockets land in Gaza killing Gazans! Hamas hides & attacks behind the skirts of its women & their children
Thirdly, is the attacking army acting in concrete ways to minimize the risks they impose on civilians?
Never enough for some but the answer is clearly yes.
Fourthly Israel did not start this war and their side alone offers a reasonable way out.
Fifthly The Israeli people fully support their military & gov’t on this issue.
Simplistic diatribes that emanate from this blog help nobody least of all the people your hearts purportedly bleed for.
There are legitimate grievances on both sides but commonsense will need to prevail for the killing to stop.
Loons like Kevboy Herbert equating Israel with the NAZI SS hinder rather than help and such extremism should never be supported even if your sympathies do lie with the Palestinians or even God forbid Hamas.
I agree with every word of this article. I grew up in the fifties and sixties feeling so much sympathy for Jewish people because of the Holocaust and the preceding centuries of Western prejudice towards them (and read all the Leon Uris books) but for most of my adult life I’ve watched the Israeli Defence Forces killing Arabs and Palestinians with absolute impunity. Clearly Israel performs a useful function for the U.S. and equally clearly Israel is prepared to completely ignore the U.N. and nuclear weapons treaties. Israel is in no danger but it has a pretty corrupt political system and its politicians and military have little problem with the concept of collective punishment. They should be ashamed of themselves and so should we.
> Whoever knew that making yourself a “punching bag” and causing great destruction, poverty and suffering on your own people by your own irresponsible actions was a great way to rule?
It’s all relative. It sounds a lot better if you phrase it as:
“we are a besieged people, surrounded by religious fanatics who want to destroy us - we must show them that we can hurt them just as they hurt us or we will never be allowed to live in peace! But we have a secret weapon; we have no alternative. The only place we can run is into the sea, and before we do that we might as well fight. When they love their children more than they hate us, we will have peace.”
Whatever they say in public, both sides must privately know that they cannot force the other into submission, or out of existence. Each side is going to make concessions. But they have no motivation to rush to do so, moving quickly would undermine their own negotiating positions. And the cost of this war is mainly falling on civil society - the military is going to be stronger afterwards, not weaker.
Regards, Ben
[With apologies to Ms G. Meir]
Why not try honesty ‘eric a blair’ just to try something different for a change?
Presumably you are referencing this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/12/171532/997/144/683274
“Over 700 Israelis (mostly Arab Israeli citizens and East Jerusalemites, who are not allowed citizenship) have so far been arrested for anti-war protests (including over 200 minors).”
What about the most leftist daily in the U.S., The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13israel.html?_r=2&hp
Headline: “Israelis United on Gaza War as Censure Rises Abroad”
“Almost 100 percent of Israelis feel that the world is hypocritical. Where was the world when our cities were rocketed for eight years and our soldier was kidnapped? Why should we care about the world’s view now?”
Israel, which is sometimes a fractured, bickering society, has turned in the past couple of weeks into a paradigm of unity and mutual support. Flags are flying high. Celebrities are visiting schoolchildren in at-risk areas, soldiers are praising the equipment and camaraderie of their army units, and neighbors are worried about families whose fathers are on reserve duty. Ask people anywhere how they feel about the army’s barring journalists from entering Gaza and the response is: let the army do its job.
Israelis deeply believe, rightly or wrongly, that their military works harder than most to spare civilians, holding their fire in many more cases than using it.
We need to get the hell off this planet and leave the bastard warmongers (and “Joe”) behind to do whatever they want to each other - WHO’S WITH ME???
…if only, as if, sigh.
It seems that another point missing is that the Israeli population do not all support the actions of it’s govt or the IDF, there have been thousands of people at anti-war demonstrations. It seems that the supporters of the Israeli zionist govt (anti-zionist does not equal anti-semitic) always seem to bring forth the same ‘blame the victim ’ argument whilst claiming to be the victim at the same time. There needs to be a different path to peace with intelligent peace loving people on both sides of the conflict. With this current distressing situation we must look back at what Israel has done to Gaza ever since the Hamas Govt was elected with over 70% of the vote. Blockading basically supplies, building the illegal apartheid wall, targetted assassinations. It isn’t all as easy to fob off as a previous writer has put here. Robert Fisk put it really well in this article about some history. Let us hope that Israel will finally acknowledge a UN resolution on Palestine and stop the killings now. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html
LIST OF GLOBAL COMPANIES TO BOYCOT WHO INVEST HEAVILY IN ISRAEL;
check out the following link for a start:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-brands.html
Most of these companies operate in Australia.
However, we need a detailed list of those Israeli companies who export to Oz, as well as those Oz companies who export to Israel. The Australia Israeli Chamber of Commerce lists are not working at present…….I wonder why?
Heres’ an even better resourced site re those goods & services to boycott:
http://www.mylinkspage.com/israel.html
NOTE:
Any goods with a bar code beginning with 729 are Israeli manufactured.
I’ll be passing this information onto the couple of dozen persons on my personal email list who will pass it on to the the couple of dozen on their lists etc etc….within a month or two we have the potential to censure Israel for its genocide against the Palestinian people……..GO TO IT, ALL
As I understand it the Hamas rockets have increased in range so that Tel Aviv is now on the menu. Previously the rockets were hitting mainly the appalling “settlers” on territory taken from the Palestinians. Please correct me if am in error. Is the reason to act now a concern that genuine Jewish targets can be attacked or is it that the Isrealies have another week before the lunatics are driven from the White House?
I do not know a solution to the conflict but I cannot condone mass murder.
I know what it is …it’s Little Jimmy Koward…how appropriate
Ah Kevboy …… ever reliably rabid.
I guess I should be grateful to you for confirming the point I made in the previous post.
‘eric a. blair’ demonstrates yet again a strong scatological bent to his gibberish which says so much ….
Who, exactly….did Karl Marx kill, John??
I mean I know you’re completely mental…but come on.
please James K that was fuckalogical not scatalogical gibberish
since you love statistics “James K” here are some for you:
2 weeks
970 Palestinian civillians killed 275 of them children
4,300 injured
3 Israeli civillians killed 1 of them a child
10 Israeli Soldiers killed (4 by the IDF in friendly fire)
700+ Israeli citizens arrested protesting the war
Just to say Hamas didn’t fire any rockets from July to October 2008. That was when the truce held. But they have argued in the press that the ongoing blockade of medical and food and humanitarian supplies was a constructive breach of the truce. This supply can be distinguished too from the contraband via the tunnels. There was a flash of conflict which is controversial in early November 08 with Israel winning hands down.
However Israel failed to allow Hamas Govt to operate via the blockade for 4 months. I think that’s the truth of the matter. Under cynical right wing politicians in Israel who have to accomodate the 30% who sympathasise with Yigal Amir murder of Rabin, to form a majority Coalition, and under cynical hawks in the outgoing US Govt, under W Bush.
Now that’s what is really “pathetic” about the Israeli and USA Right and their slaughter in Gaza.
(Oh and if it’s alright could the great Interweb God please return my email for the last 24 hours after you’ve checked them all. Thanks ever so much.)
I can’t disagree with the essence of Guy’s comments, especially the concluding lines to the effect that Israel’s actions cannot bring peace. My problem with Guy, and so much of the commentary, is the completely one-sided expectation that the onus of peace is on Israel alone. Sorry, wrong. If the regional history is somehow held to explain the fanatacism of Hezbollah, or Hamas, then it also explains the violence of Israel. If oppression and insecurity can breed violence in Arabs, it can do it in Jews. Most particularly, if Guy thinks it’s only the Jews within the Middle East conflict who are prepared to countenance suffering within their own people and inflict damage on surrounding nations for political purposes, then either he really has no idea of the world (which I don’t believe for a moment) or he follows a seriously unbalanced agenda.
And the arguments have, as usual on this topic, devolved into ad hominem attacks. Sad.
“Just to say Hamas didn’t fire any rockets from July to October 2008” says Tom McLoughlin.
Where does he get his information?
Two I could find quickly make a lie of that suggestion:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e007.pdf
http://www.israelpolitik.org/2009/01/07/how-did-the-cease-fire-end/
In 2008, the peak year of rocket fire and mortar shelling, a total of 3,278 rockets and mortar shells landed in Israeli territory (1,750 rockets and 1,528 mortar shells). That is a significant increase compared to 2007 (the number of landings in 2008 more than doubled) and compared to the previous years of the Palestinian terrorist campaign.
The ‘lull’ of the six months spanning June 19th – December 18 saw 215 Hamas rockets and 150 mortar shells land in southern Israel. That does include the mortars and rockets that land on their own Gazan people:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
LittleJimmyK: I’ll go that one step further little fella…you’re just another dimwitted Zionist bigot…..the IDF are the NAZI SS equivalents…purposefully killing unarmed civilians in an illegal war against the democratically elected HAMAS government……..long live the Hamas & may they prevail !!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: will that get me locked up under the Rodent’s anti tewwor laws?
Hmmm. Intel’s on the boycott list. If you’re serious about this, remove all the Intel branded CPUs from your PC and get AMD equivalents. But they probably sell to Israel too, but just haven’t made it to the list. And there’s the problem with such lists, they aren’t complete.
Re non de plumes Kevin, there’s no way to tell that Kevin James Herbert is not a pseudonym. Indeed, there’s nothing to stop someone else from posting under that name. The web owners can tell if this happens, but the readers can’t.
Don’t be silly Tom. I was not being deceitful. Nor should you suggest that I was.
I asked a question which you noticeably failed to answer.
I suppled two addresses with pdf files giving figures that demonstrate that the ‘ceasefire’ was a relative one. They both also give graphs demonstrating mortars and rockets fired into Israel in the different-from anybody else- arbitrary time you picked. You obviously did not even bother to look at them.
Your primary assertion is wrong and your suggestion that it was Israel that was responsible for this war on the basis of your ‘blockade’ is nonsensical.
Provide evidence for your assertions and then provide a rational argument. So far ‘nil’ on both scores.
Common sense needs to prevail if this tragic cycle of violence is to end. Don’t expect any to come from Hamas who exhibit a governing strategy of provoking military conflict with the far more powerful Israeli military, get beaten up badly in war, but then appeal for sympathy among the Palestinians and the world community, but that’s been their political strategy for many years and doesn’t look about to change anytime soon.
Whoever knew that making yourself a “punching bag” and causing great destruction, poverty and suffering on your own people by your own irresponsible actions was a great way to rule?
Tip to the ever foaming Kevboy to help your ‘campaign’…….it’s b-o-y-c-o-t-t
classy, Kevin. Any more potty-mouth comments?
Unless you can quote from the links you suggest then your statistics are deceptive. I said from July to October, the first 4 months of the truce. You have referred to figures outside that window. Why would you do that except to deceive?
Ah Michael, forward to that utopia, along those trails emblazoned by those peace loving lads, Marx, Lenin,Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Kim IL Jong, Fidel and that old Left wing war horse, fighting the forces of imperialism, Robert Mugabe. How about Havana? Its quiet!
I suppose Israel should just “live’ with those rockets raining down. Hamas’ stated position is that Israel should be annihilated, so I suppose they should just wait for Hamas to acquire bigger and better rockets? Warmongers that they are, those Jews!
I’ll bet the Jews in Florida will be watching Obama and saying fairly soon, in the words of that old ‘Who song’, “we don’t get fooled again” .
As I understand Hamas are very reliable in what they say. If they mean end of ceasefire then it is. If they agree to truce then again. JamesK argues vehemently above that there was no ceasefire of rockets in the first 4 months of the truce.
This is a critical question. I’ve read generally the peace held, as per implications of later in this ezine by Keim QC referring to rapporteur Law Professor Falk. It may be there were some rockets in the first 4 months that’s not what I’ve read. I’ve also read this was the case via some UN/general press commentary.
One thing is very clear - the blockade was never lifted as “economic sanctions” by the IDF and reportedly 45% of children are anaemic as a result in a population of 1.5 million 50% of whom are minors, as per the Falk story below in the ezine.
I’m not avoiding those two pdf files JamesK claims are references. But they are just claims. He can’t cut and paste any proof from them and my judgement is there isn’t any proof, rather an aggregation of statistics before the June ceasefire and after it went to crap in November, including fatal incursions by Israel. But I’m not going to search them out either. If he can quote from them with credible referencing them do so.
Otherwise it’s just more sophistry, and tendentious claims of Israeli innocence, while 30% of voters there fully support annexation of Greater Israel from remaining Palestine.
By continually overplaying the ‘war on terror / clash of civilisations’ card, Israel hopes to permanently rust onto the US military strategy ( and therefore budget )and always be a frontline ally. A scenario where Osama Bin Laden et al were captured / assassinated would be detrimental to the Israeli cause, as the US citizenry may see that as ‘mission accomplished’ and would be less inclined to shed blood / resources on a situation made intractable by relentless catastrophisation and mischievous word weaselling. The binary ‘with us or against us’ doctrine allows for all manner of brutal means to be deployed to justify .. what end exactly ? Could Israel exist without US assistance ? We already have one religiously based nuclear country going pear shaped.
It has to be said that the tactical similaries between the leveling of the Gaza ghetto and those of wartime Poland are getting eerily stronger.
I was right and James K was wrong.
The second reference he gives http://www.israelpolitik.org/2009/01/07/how-did-the-cease-fire-end/
discloses that in July, August, Sept, October the rocket fire was 1, 8, 1, 1, respectively compared to 149, 149 and 87 in April, May, June respectively, and 126 and 98 in November and December to the 21st of that month.
Allowing for splinter groups and human vagaries that’s an impressive recognistion of the truce. It all turned to crap in November with the blockade still severley in place, and reportedly early Nov Hamas tunnel and blowback by the IDF.
A very similar pattern for mortars at 8, 3, 3, 1 for July Augut Sept October compared with 373, 206, 158 prior in respective months and 71 and 78 in Nov and Dec.
The pathetic averaging exercise to cover up gravity of Ehud Barak’s escalation in early November stands a genuine criticism and the charge that Israel were in constructive breach of the ceasefire also looks to be borne out by JamesK’s own figures.
James K - again you miss the point, you are full of absolute shit, you go on and on with your pompous repetition of lies and distortions yet fail to answer any of the questions, fail to acknolwedge any of the REAL issues going on.such bullshit comes forth from you
points like -is the occupying army doing it’s all too minimise casualties -YES -ahem, thats a distinct NO fuckhead - you fail to address he elementary school, the targeting of ambulances or even refer to the article about the journalists father being murdered. the IDF is not an army of restraint -it uses maximum force, it has 2 Storey High US made D9 bulldozers designed to level houses - come on James K at least acknowledge some history or do you just continue to troll thru news sites to spout of your moronic zionist right wing claptrap. and of course how dare we be emotive aroudn the ongoing massacre of civilians, no we need to be more likethe IDF , cold & precise with no heart. fuck off.
“JamesK argues vehemently above that there was no ceasefire of rockets in the first 4 months of the truce” says
Tom McLoughlin
I did no such thing Tom:
“I suppled two addresses with pdf files giving figures that demonstrate that the ‘ceasefire’ was a relative one”
That opinion is not unique to me I would suggest that the majority of commentators & observers would agree with my backed-up-with-data observation.
You said: “Hamas didn’t fire any rockets from July to October 2008” and that is false.
In the six months of the ‘ceasefire’ spanning June 19th – December 18, 215 Hamas rockets and 150 mortar shells land in southern Israel.
Hamas ended the ceasefire and recommenced war not Israel. You are endeavouring to construct the quite remarkably imaginative argument that it was Israel who broke the ceasefire because of their border restrictions. Egypt had border restrictions as well. With your line of ‘reasoning’ Hamas should be bombing Egypt as well. But whether Israel or Egypt border restrictions are not an excuse to launch missiles at civilians of a neighbouring sovereign country.
JamesK you can justify anything mate but as the old saying goes you can’t polish a turd. you my friend are deep in the bowl and can come up with all sorts of justifications on this and that yet seem to avoid the fact that the MURDER count from the Israeli aggression is ratio ed at 100 Palestinians to 1 Israeli (and 4 of those got killed by there own fire). Indiscriminate bombing of UN relief convoys, the horrific bombing of the girls elementary school, that Israeli warmongers continue to claim had Hamas terrorists in it when there IS NO PROOF and UNWR claims as such. The school was filled full of people who went there because they were told by Israel their neighbourhod was being targeted. Not to mention the attack on Red Cross workers, the targeting of ambulances and the indiscriminate murder of anyone who moves. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-the-death-and-life-of-my-father-1225793.html)
come up with all the lies and distortions you like, keep getting you news from pro-israeli sources, keep on salivating over the Oz’s coverage, keep on getting the news from journalist who aren’t even in gaza as Israel has banned coverage, yet perhaps you could take some time out and read what is really happening there on the ground from the people who live there. but that would be too much to ask for