Hugh ..if Israel will stay the course..if only they will finish the job.

Wasn`t this George Bush's favorite phrase, stay the course, in 2003-2006?

So far the IDF have killed about 300 Palestinan children in incidents/cold-blooded murders/war crimes, take your pick. 'UN human rights chief accuses Israel of war crimes'.

Is that the sort of world attention that Israel and its supporters want? Because that is what they are getting (certainly everywhere but in the USA)....probably

Unfortunately, the attempt to turn the planet, particularly the Middle East into planet America, has ended with Bush/Cheney and the neo cons costly failure to remake or reconfigure the world.

Bush and Cheney have only ten more ten days in their reign, but overuled Rice and the State Department as the US were alone, and voted at the UN to abstain in the UN Security Council Resolution calling for a cease-fire.

By "cease-fire" you mean "Israeli surrender", right? Because never in the past have such cease-fires applied to the Palestinians.

Not to minimize the deaths in Gaza, but I just wonder why those are so much more terrible than the deaths in Darfur. 300 is what, a weekend? One day? What kind of world attention is the regime in Khartoum and its supporters getting? Supporters who happen to include Hamas.

It seems, in the end, that the concerns you raise only apply to certain political actors. Could you explain why that is, and by what criteria?

Because never in the past have such cease-fires applied to the Palestinians.

... and the Israelis?

'Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen'. Wednesday 5 November 2008

Until now it had appeared both Israel and Hamas, which seized full control of Gaza last summer, had an interest in maintaining the ceasefire. For Israel it has meant an end to the daily barrage of rockets landing in southern towns, particularly Sderot. For Gazans it has meant an end to the regular Israeli military raids that have caused hundreds of casualties, many of them civilian, in the past year. Israel, however, has maintained its economic blockade on the strip, severely limiting imports and preventing all exports from Gaza.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, had personally approved the Gaza raid, the Associated Press said. The Israeli military concluded that Hamas was likely to want to continue the ceasefire despite the raid, it said. The ceasefire was due to run for six months and it is still unclear whether it will stretch beyond that limit.

Do you think the US Bush administration or the present Israeli government coalition are concerned about the plight of the Palestinians or Dafur? They are concerned about the grim mumber of twenty Israelis who have been killed by Hamas in the last eight years.

And that is the political actor and figure that is most important in determining American foreign policy even if it sets us against all of the world.

'Bush ordered ceasefire retreat at UN
Rice told to abstain in last-minute phone call from the White House'

When finally every last hurdle was cleared and the members of the Security Council were headed to their chamber for the vote, there was a mood of celebration in the building. Ministers from Arab nations especially were slapping backs. It was only in the last minutes before the vote was due that word began suddenly to circulate. America was not going to vote in favour after all.

It was no secret that Ms Rice had been on the phone with Washington and with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert all day. This was no run-of-the-mill vote, after all. The call that changed everything apparently came just as ministers and ambassadors were taking their seats in the council chamber. It was President George Bush for Ms Rice. Don't veto the resolution, he said, but don't vote for it either.

As Mr Miliband left later for the airport and the flight home, he could take heart, perhaps, from what Ms Rice said in the chamber. America supported the text and its goals, she insisted. And yet, the US could not vote for it because of that other special relationship it has; with Israel.

So on with the bombarding of children in Palestian schools and shelters and the final pages of the Bush Cheney neocon compassionate conservative days in the White House. Just who are the proxies?

srael gave the Palatines Gaza they sold them green houses which the could grow food and sell back to Israel. Hamas had a chance to bring a better life to the people of Gaza. Instead they stayed true to their nature and lunched thousands of rockets into Israel targeted at Civilians. Now since the Israeli have early waning systems they were able to keep casualties form the attacks low.

Israel targets Hamas officials and strategic targets, however Hamas surrounds it self with civilians. They want Palestine blood to flow because they see it as way to get the world opinion on their side.

If the world wants less people killed by Hamas then demand they surrender and change their charter. Until then Seek and Destroy Hamas.

Everything seen in this round points to Israel FINALLY deciding to do what they should've done prior.

Until and unless these terror organizations are ELIMINATED it will just be the same old charade. I suspect that the uncertainty level regarding Obama's admin is the prime mover here. I don't know but that removing Fatah wouldn't be prudent, also.

Then perhaps for a time Israel can enjoy a respite--for a while.

Steve, I believe you conveniently forgot to mention the part where Hamas was going to use that tunnel to perform raids into Israel. What where they supposed to do, sit by and wait for Hamas to cause trouble? Yeah real smart, that kind of thinking causes stuff like 9/11 to happen thanks to good 'ol Clinton and him not doing away with Osama bin Laden preemptively when he had the chance.

Sure Hamas were smuggling weapons food and medicine. They were under a blockade. You remember the 1967 six-day war war was launched by Esrael, because Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tirar.

THE SIX-DAY WAR.

Statement to the Security Council by Foreign Minister Eban, 6 June 1967:

Foreign Minister Eban left Jerusalem on 5 June to attend the meeting of the Security Council. The next day he addressed the Council:

Mr. Eban (Israel):

The question then widely asked in Israel and across the world was whether we had not already gone beyond the utmost point of danger. Was there any precedent in world history, for example, for a nation passively to suffer the blockade of its only southern port, involving nearly all its vital fuel, when such acts of war, legally and internationally, have always invited resistance?? This was a most unusual patience. It existed because we had acceded to the suggestion of some of the maritime States that we give them scope to concert their efforts in order to find an international solution which would ensure the maintenance of free passage in the Gulf of Aqaba for ships of all nations and of all flags.

What was Hamas expected to do?

I'll give you guys who reply to Stevie credit, my gag reflex isn't strong enough to withstand acknowledging Hamas sympathizers.

Mike,

Bad plans come from bad logic.

OBL = Terrorist
Hamas = Terrorists
OBL not stopped = 9/11
Hamas not stopped = Something like 9/11.

The Israelis count on that kind of simplistic logic to garner support among the American populace.

Hugh,

What makes you believe the 2006 Gaza incursion will have any different result then the 2006 Lebanon incursion?

Is the deterrent effect you cite, a matter of deterring Hamas? If so, I doubt it will work.
Or is the plan to make the Gazans suffer so much that they will turn against Hamas? Without even addressing the morality of collective punishment of civilians, that tactic was tried and failed in Vietnam.

"What was Hamas expected to do?"

Abide by the peace agreements? I realize it's a friggin' stretch to expect the Palestinians to abide by what they AGREED to, but if they had - the blockade wouldn't have been needed.

But noooooooooo - they just had to go and start shit again.

crickmore - "What was Hamas expected to do?"

As JL said, abide by previous agreements, then and only then will there be the slightest chance of a reasonable settlement of the issues.

Hell, even Hamas apologists like crickmore might see the light and admit Egypt is guilty as much or more than anyone else in preventing aid to Gaza.

Crickmore is nothing more then an anti-semite. He would fit in nicely with Hitler's extermintation project.

The question isn't whether Israel fired missles at a school. The question is why would Hamas launch their rockets from a school knowing they will be targeted. The death of these children are on Hamas' hands. ww

Mr. Crickmore;

You might want peruse this which details how attacks continued, although at a greatly reduced rate, through out the "cease fire" and before the raid you cite (which was done precisely because of those ongoing attacks). Hamas responded by ramping up the attacks until Israel responded with a full scale attack. One might be forgiven from deciding from looking at this data that Hamas had as its goal open warfare with Israel.

Your other logic is faulty as well. You make a false analogy with the blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba. But let us take that as reasonable. What did we expect Hamas to do? Personally, I expected them to respond in the most violent and self destructive way possible, in which I was not disappointed. Fundamentally, they had two choices: surrender or war. They chose war (a decision you seem to implicitly endorse). What, then, is the problem now that they have what they wanted? Or did you and they expect a war unlike any other in history, in which civilians are not harmed or killed?

Many others, including prominent jews, are making the same points I'm making; for example, from this experienced US miltary officer:

I associated with and/or conducted liaison with The Israel Defense Force (IDF) for many years,. This activity occurred as part of my regular duties as a US Army officer and later as a civilian executive of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Since my retirement from US government service I have had many occasions to visit Israel and to watch the IDF in action against various groups of Palestinians all over the West Bank.

Based on personal experience of the behavior of IDF conscripts toward Palestinian civilians, I would say that the Israeli government has little control over what individual groups of these young Israeli soldiers may do in incidents like the one yesterday in which mortar fire was directed toward UN controlled school buildings.

In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it.

In Bethlehem, a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble. I have seen a lot of things like that...

Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times has written that "Israel's right to do something doesn't mean it has the right to do anything."

Sorry Steve, not getting any sympathy from me. Maybe you should check that plank in the eye before pointing fingers at Israel. Maybe if Palestinians kept up their end of bargains they made you might garner more support, but as it is all you do is rankle hides by supporting scum like Hamas. Maybe if Hamas were less bent on Israel's destruction and more on helping their own citizens they'd be better off. Instead all they do is put their own people in harms way by launching rockets from areas where civilians are gathered.

Has anyone considered this?
If Hamas were to announce today that it was unilaterally ending rocket attacks against Israel, wouldn't that mean that Israel had "won"? And wouldn't that mean that in the future, if ANYONE (Hamas or not) fired a rocket at Israel from Gaza, that Israel would be justified in sending 60 F-16s to bomb the bejesus out of civilians?

Hamas can't afford to have that precedent set. Thus, they won't stop; thus Israel's policy of massive retaliation CANNOT WORK.
The only solution is another mutual ceasefire, this one made more enforceable by the use of international monitors. Israel is already making noises like it may agree to something like that.
Then, charter or no charter, negotiations can begin. The Palestinians DO have some legitimate grievances, you know.
The PLO eventually renounced the "Death to Israel" clause in its charter. Hamas will too.

Mike..I'm not supporting Hamas..Israeli tactics and Palestianian long before Hamas or Hezbollah have been very similar, for 60 years putting civilians in harms way as you say.

Bruce Henry,
From the current PLO Charter

Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.

Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.

There is more at:
http://www.netaxs.com/~iris/plochart.htm

And there's this:
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=36716

Funny thing - if Hamas WERE to succeed in destroying Israel - they'd lose food, water, medical support, electricity... and where would they go?

Egypt? Egypt doesn't want them.

Lebanon? Don't think so.

Syria? Nope.

Iran? Yeah, right. In their dreams...

Hamas had the chance, in Gaza, to produce the prototypical Palestinian state. A place of peace and prosperity - an state that could actually coexist PEACEFULLY with its neighbors.

They couldn't do it. They were left farms, greenhouses, a working infrastructure. The farms can't export what they produce (what, they won't sell it to the Palestinians?) so they're having money woes. The greenhouses? Wrecked.

The Gaza Greenhouses - Photo Essay -Zionist Construction versus The abomination of the Desolation -

If someone doesn't take some action, this is what all of Palestine may look like one day soon. It is not due to "Zionism and Its Impact." There was nothing there before the settlers came. There is less than nothing there now, but once there was the beginning of productivity and hope. It is due only to the actions of Palestinian Arabs - wrecking their own lives and their own futures, because they never invested in building the constructive mechanisms of a state and a society, because hatred or individual survival are more important to the hoodlums who did this than saving their own future or national pride.

# 18:
Perhaps I am mistaken. Are you sure that the link you provided is the CURRENT charter?
I was under the impression that the reason Israel gave, for so many years, for its refusal to negotiate with the PLO was the Charter. And that the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Authority, etc., only came about, through negotiation, because the Charter was amended.
Someone catch me up here. How wrong am I?
In any case, whether the PLO charter was amended or not, Israel now negotiates on a regular basis with the PLO. Why can't it do the same , charter or no charter, with Hamas?

You're not suggesting diplomacy, are you Bruce?
Diplomacy is for wimps, as are the Constitution, international law, and human decency.

JLawson,

Right now it appears the IDF is doing a damn good job of leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.