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.

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]

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.

…if only, as if, sigh.

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

I do not know a solution to the conflict but I cannot condone mass murder.

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 ….

I mean I know you’re completely mental…but come on.

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

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.)

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

PS: will that get me locked up under the Rodent’s anti tewwor laws?

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.

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?

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.