Last Stage, By Another Name

Posted by on . 30 comments.

AFP:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the four-day-old bombardment of Gaza was the “the first of several stages” of the offensive.

And how, Mr. Olmert, will this end? That is to say, what’s the final solution going to look like?

(Yes, I know. That’s in very poor taste. So is what Mr. Olmert believes in doing to Palestinian women and children.)

Comments

  1. joe says:
    December 30, 2008 at 5:40 pm

    so what does he believe in doing to the women and children of Gaza? Is it any different from what Hamas wants to do to every Israeli and every Jew? To answer my own question yes it is cuz he at least targets enemy combatants instead of women and children!! How can you possibly complain about what Olmert is doing considering what is going on? What is happening to the Palestinian people is called collateral damage and it is a necessary part of every war. It isn’t possible to win any war without having some civilians dying, you are naive if you think you can win one. Do some research on any war ever fought and you will find that to be true. Your just another Israeli hater who knows nothing about realistic world politics, but instead lives in a fantasy world where (i assume) you wish every Israeli to be dead because that is what you show me when you take the side of Hamas. The fact that you dare to compare what is happening now to the Holocaust is despicable and reeks of stupidity and hatred. Your joke was in very poor taste and if you had said this to my face you would not be standing right now.

  2. Susan says:
    December 31, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Perhaps you forget that Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas, a terrorist group that is committed to Israel’s destruction, and that continues to rain missiles down on Israeli towns.

    Why do you find Israel’s self-defense so objectionable?

  3. Susan says:
    December 31, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Your pro-Hamas comments are just another example of the anti-semitism that’s rampant in the left-wing blogosphere.

    Israel left Gaza 3 years ago. So why have the Palestinians there been sending missiles into Israel ever since? Because they don’t believe Israel has a right to exist, as it states in the Hamas charter.

    That’s who you’re defending?

  4. sarabeth says:
    December 31, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    I’m not pro-Hamas. I’m just anti-slaughter, whether it comes from elected or unelected terrorist organizations, or whether it is state-sponsored.

    Israel’s notion of retaliation is seriously disproportionate, as evidenced by the slaughter score (which was something like 400 to 5 when I checked last).

    I’m not sure why people like Joe and Susan believe that to denounce slaughter by one side is automatically to defend the other side (or, in Joe’s extreme form of the disease, “wish every Israeli to be dead”).

  5. Susan says:
    December 31, 2008 at 5:10 pm

    You should blame Hamas, which
    launches missiles into Israel and then
    hides its fighters amongst civilians.

    Hamas wants civilian casualties
    so people like you will condemn
    Israel for defending its citizens.

  6. sarabeth says:
    December 31, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    So, by your logic, Hamas is winning the current skirmish by getting exactly what it wants. Surely Israel won’t take that lying down?

  7. Susan says:
    January 1, 2009 at 8:00 am

    Hamas has clearly won the pr war in your case.

    Even Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas blames Hamas. But not you.

  8. Susan says:
    January 1, 2009 at 8:19 am

    from article on Israel’s attack on Gaza in the Canberra Times in Australia, 1-1-09:

    Civilian casualties, on the current information, are extraordinarily low.

    The built infrastructure struck was distinguished as non-civilian. Israel broadcast Arabic messages warning the populace to keep away from Hamas sites. Although not all Hamas forces wear uniforms, the evidence on day two was that 90 per cent of Palestinian casualties were in Hamas uniform.

  9. Susan says:
    January 1, 2009 at 8:22 am

    Why don’t you have any criticism of Hamas?

    None of this would be happening if they weren’t launching rockets into Israel.

  10. Susan says:
    January 1, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Israel’s Response is Perfectly Proportionate
    by Alan Dershowitz
    Wall Street Journal
    1-2-09

    The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality — by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets — is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.

    Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children’s lives.

    While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel’s military actions.

  11. sarabeth says:
    January 2, 2009 at 5:09 am

    Maybe Dershowitz is able to delude himself that the kind of reprisal Israel has been engaged in for the last six days or so will actually do something to reduce the probability of future rocket attacks by Hamas. (Or maybe, like a good lawyer, he is just able to argue that position without believing it for a minute, because it makes good propaganda.)

    And maybe you wholeheartedly buy into Dershowitz’s delusion. (Or maybe you are just not able to actually think about these things without emotion clouding out reason.)

    But the entire recent history of the conflict makes it perfectly clear that killing these 400 odd Palestinians will do absolutely nothing to reduce future rocket attacks.

    Maybe if Israel actually wants the rocket attacks to stop, it needs to be doing something else?

    This is why Israel’s reciprocal violence is stupid. It achieves nothing.

    And if it achieves nothing, then all the women and children and civilians who were killed for nothing represent unconscionable violence.

  12. Susan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    Why are you so outraged by Israel’s
    self-defense and what do you propose
    it do instead?

    Israel left Gaza three years ago.

    Israel has a duty to defend its
    citizens from relentless rocket
    attacks.

    800,000 Israelis are now within
    range of Hamas rockets.

    The reason so few have been
    killed is that Israel uses bomb
    sirens to warn people and
    built bomb shelters for them,
    something Hamas refuses to
    do for Palestinians.

    According to the U.N., 80% of
    Palestinians killed in Gaza
    are Hamas fighters.

    Israel goes to great lengths to try
    to avoid civilian casualties, calling
    Palestinians on their cell phones
    to warn them and sounding warning
    alarms.

    According to you, Israel has no
    right to defend itself since Hamas
    makes it impossible to do so
    without killing some civilians.

    Israel would cease to exist if
    it followed your rules.

    You may have no problem with
    that. But 7 million Israelis would.

    I can only conclude that your’e
    infected with the anti-semitism
    that pervades the left.

  13. matt says:
    January 2, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    I can only conclude that your’e
    infected with the anti-semitism
    that pervades the left.

    i can only conclude that your powers of logic are in severe disrepair.

    watch your step.

  14. Susan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    The fact that you blame Israel
    for a situation that’s entirely
    of Hamas’s making shows how
    biased and unfair your views
    are.

    Why so much animosity towards
    Israel?

    Why no criticism or blame
    whatsoever for Hamas?

    No country would allow its citizens
    to be bombarded by rockets
    every day.

    Yet you expect Israel to.

    You hold Israel to an impossible
    standard that would lead to
    its destruction.

  15. Susan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    Why must I watch my step?

    Don’t you believe in free speech?

  16. matt says:
    January 2, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    of course I believe in free speech, but I don’t have to pay for space for you to slander sarabeth. and I won’t.

  17. Susan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    Sarabeth’s strongly anti-Israel comments speak for themselves.

  18. matt says:
    January 2, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    assuming sarabeth’s comments speak for themselves, then you are completely superfluous.

  19. kiel says:
    January 2, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    Hamas is deeply flawed, riddled with terrorist elements. However, they were duly elected. Since that election, Hamas’s constituency has been blockaded and deprived of everything from clean water and electricity to food and medicine. Should they be firing rockets into Israle? No. Should Israel and the rest of the international community, who were so gung-ho about elections that turned out unexpectedly, punish to the point of massacre the people who voted for Hamas? No. Israel is still, after many decades, in violation of international law — the illegal settlements are still there, the bulldozed homes of Palestinians–Muslim and Christian alike–have not been rebuilt. Israel is not without culpability, and Israeli civilians do not deserve to be killed because of the sins of their politicians any more than do the people of Gaza.

  20. Susan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 8:00 pm

    There are no Israeli settlements in
    Gaza.

    The only Israeli in Gaza is Gilad
    Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped
    two years ago, if he’s still alive.

    The West Bank isn’t under attack
    because it’s not launching rockets
    into Israel.

    None of this would be happening
    if Hamas stopped launching rockets
    into Israel.

    Israel does not target civilians,
    unlike Hamas, which not only
    targets Israeli civilians but also
    uses Palestinian civilians as
    human shields.

    Israel goes to great lengths to
    avoid killing Palestinian civilians
    even giving up the element of surprise
    in order to warn them.

    Israel is also allowing humanitarian
    aid into Gaza.

    The first duty of any country is
    to protect its citizens as Israel
    is doing.

    Blame any civilian deaths on
    Hamas, which refuses to stop
    launching rockets into Israel
    and hides amongst civilians.

    Palestinian president
    Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian
    president Hosni Mubarak both
    blame Hamas.

    Egypt also continues its blockade
    of Gaza because it doesn’t
    want to support Hamas.

  21. Susan says:
    January 3, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Matt,

    So you don’t approve of anyone
    defending Israel on your blog?

  22. jamie beth says:
    January 3, 2009 at 8:49 am

    @susan – i’m going to step in here and say that matt probably has a much bigger problem with your faulty logic and your blind talking points than he does with your defense of israel, but that’s just an educated guess.

  23. matt says:
    January 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

    we’ll go with jamie beth’s answer.

    i’ll add that if you were more capable of making your point, you wouldn’t have to cast aspersions on the people with whom you were arguing.

  24. Susan says:
    January 3, 2009 at 11:21 am

    I note that neither of you present any facts to refute my arguments.

    You just resort to insults.

  25. Susan says:
    January 3, 2009 at 11:48 am

    Perhaps this defense of what Israel
    is doing is more acceptable to you.

    Barack Obama:

    “If somebody is sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that – and I’d expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

  26. matt says:
    January 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    your arguments consist of quoting alan dershowitz and some other hackneyed talking points. when you have a thoughtful argument to make, in your own words (not copy/pasted from elsewhere) please feel free to make it.

    and if you had any idea of what is or is not acceptable to me, you wouldn’t try to convince me of anything using the words of barack obama. this more or less proves that you’re clueless, and worse are just ascribing motives of other blindly. that’s not going to work out all that well for you.

  27. Susan says:
    January 3, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    I have used my own words.

    I’m not trying to convince you
    of anything, but rather to make
    my point.

    You’re deep hostility is curious
    to say the least.

    Where does it come from?

  28. Susan says:
    January 3, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Is it because you’re unable to come
    with any facts to refute my comments?

  29. matt says:
    January 3, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    why do you feel the need to write two comments for every one someone else makes? could one of them at least include an original thought? or are you incapable?

    i’m hostile to people who can’t and/or don’t think. i’m hostile to people who think israel can do no wrong, ever. i’m hostile to people who come here and, despite 5 years of archives, deliberately ascribe the motives of others to us.

    the only point you’ve made is that you can copy/paste the arguments of others and accuse people you don’t know of things you clearly don’t even understand.

    I can only conclude that your’e
    infected with the anti-semitism
    that pervades the left.

    i should have banned you on the spot for this. i’m sick and fucking tired of bullshit “logic” from anonymous morons who stumble onto our site and confuse our comments section for a toilet in which to puke up aipac talking points and racist alan dershowitz tracts.

    since this has swerved into absurdity, you get one more response because of course you need the last word. after that, this is over and done with.

  30. jamie beth says:
    January 3, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    @susan – you seem very upset that no one will engage with your talking points. i think it’s fair to say that anyone with a half a brain can deduce from your comments that there’s no changing your mind. we tend not to waste too much time around here with people who show-up with an agenda and use a post of ours as a jumping off point.

    kiel’s comment says it all, says it plainly and says it better than i could. whether the illegal settlements are in gaza, the west bank or anywhere else is of little consequence. the policies are the policies. as long as jews and israelis insist on playing the victim, claiming that because the holocaust happened once we are now entitled to our own country and the defense of it at all costs, this argument and these wars will continue to no good end.

    @susan – i hope to god you are writing these comments from israel, and that you have served. to me, when it comes to this issue, it really doesn’t matter what you say if you’re not willing to walk the walk.