Gaza-Israel: Conflict in Review

It's back to normal, whatever that means, for Gaza and Israel. The burial of the dead and the recovery of the wounded can go on in Gaza City, without the same risk of being the next innocent victim of the F16s. In Sderot, there will probably be no such let-up, and the sirens will continue to sound.


(Image: Sderot, after a rocket impact - nobody injured, but you try telling these folks it's not something to be bothered about...)

(Image: On the other hand, this is in Gaza. Obviously, there was a Hamas rocket set up on the roof...right? The dead women and children were stupid to let Hamas use their buliding, and that was why they were killed, right? Some Israel apologists really think like that too - shameful.)

The ceasefire has come in this conflict, just in time for OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA...and it will all be forgotten. Well, not by the Gazans, or the residents of Sderot, of course. Hamas fired six rockets, allegedly, after the ceasefire. What a surprise - as if the operations would halt rocket fire; they don't work as we've seen before with the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war.


(Image: This conflict revealed the true nature of the incoming Obama administration - more Neo-Con hawks willing to support Israel unconditionally. The man is 'Change' like the USA Patriot Act was 'Change'.)

SOLUTIONS to the frankly childish situation we have:

1st...Israel must BACK THE HELL OFF of Gaza and Palestine. That does not just mean militarily. They have to get out of their settlements they have built illicitly in what is now designated Palestine.

2nd...The criminal and inflammatory trade restrictions and blockades MUST STOP. Gaza has been turned into an even more empoverished area than when Israel first invaded it. Stopping 'terrrorism' is not reason enough to seal off a neighbour, especially from the sea.

3rd...If Hamas continues to fire rockets on places like the beseiged Sderot, Israel or a UN, NATO etc. security force (the possibility of which should be discussed) should respond on a specific, individual basis. In other words, not waiting ten years to get all riled up then roll in the tanks. That was stupid. Instead, individual air strikes on REAL militant targets and not UN schools, which should be recorded and shown to the UN, the media etc. for utmost transparency.

The above three measures will restore Israel's 'good guy' image PROPERLY to the rest of the world (in other words, not through lies, but through truth and actions).

4th...The existence and validity of the state of Israel needs to be discussed. It is not anti-Semitic to do so, nor is it 'what the terrorists want'. Israel was a nation founded on military expansion, and it is doing what it has always done - fight, and talk about the Holocaust to make people feel guilty. What we now have is an 'apartheid' situation as described by UN officials, where racial segregation occurs, freedom of movement and opportunity for peaceful co-existence do not.

In the long term, do we go down the route of 'more segregation' and have the current two-state borders? Or one Palestine, in which Jews and Muslims could form a democratic government? The last seems far-fetched or optimistic, but so did the possibility of devolution in Northern Ireland - and look how far that has come in two decades!

Of course, we will go down neither, continue to worship Israel, and another conflict will erupt in two more years' time that the Western powers could have prevented.


(Image: Let's not be harsh on the individuals in the IDF, but the Israeli government? Hell yes, they do seem to think like this!)

We need to take down the myths surrounding this conflict. So, in review:

- Israel broke the ceasefire FIRST, killing 6 Gazans on November 4, the day of the US Presidential Election.

-Hamas responded with a resumption of the rocket fire which had essentially stopped during the ceasefire. Note here, the absence of significant rocket attacks until Israel's Election Night incursion. Followed up by a return to early 2008 levels of intensity.

- Israel used White Phosphorous, and regardless of the supposed way in which it was used, it burned people (ever seen We Were Soldiers?) For more info on the effects of WP Oh, and Israel used WP in Lebanon too = serial war criminals

- Proportionality: 10 Israeli soldiers, 3 civilians killed since the end of the truce. On the Gazan side, a minimum of 765 dead civilians and according to the IDF a minimum of 400 dead Hamas militants. Take those figures not quite at face value though, nobody will ever know the exact number of Gaza's dead.

- Israel has lied on several occasions that have not been discussed sufficiently. 1. An early air strike 2. Actually about 10 things at MPAC UK 3. 'They lie about everything!'

- Media have not been biased against Israel, because of the proportionality of their retaliation and their status as a vastly stronger military power Israel should have more responsibility than their neighbours. BTW more people die in road accidents in Israel than die from rockets.

- US media in particular has been biased in favour of Israel, citing their self-defence as justification for every war crime committed.

- People complaining about lack of coverage of Sderot and rocket attacks earlier, need to stop whining. The truth is that it isn't a big story in the eyes of corporate media. US and coalition troops were being killed regularly in Iraq in 2007, but reporting in US media (and UK media, imo) was almost non-existent. Does that mean the media was biased against their own troops? Naaaaaah.


Never forget the humanity, loss, persecution, subjugation, humiliation, and stealth genocide of the people of Gaza.