"what is the sense of serving freshly baked bread in a graveyard?"
"Livni declares to the world that there is no humanitarian emergency in Gaza; obviously denial is in fashion not only in Ahmadinejad's country. On one thing the Palestinians are in agreement with Livni, the ex-serial killer in the pay of the Mossad (as Joseph, an ambulance driver, tells me): more food goods are really coming into the Strip, simply because in December almost nothing got in, beyond the curtain of barbed wire stretched by Israel. But realistically, what is the sense of serving freshly baked bread in a graveyard? The urgent need is to immediately stop the bombs, even before restocking with food. Corpses do not eat, they just fertilise the land, which here in Gaza has never been so fertile with decomposition. The dismembered bodies of children in morgues should instead nourish a sense of guilt in those who are indifferent, in those who could have done something. The images of a smiling Obama playing golf have been shown on all the Arab satellite stations, but here no one has the illusion that only skin colour will be able to radically affect U.S. foreign policy."
8 comments:
Hello. I'm an Israeli woman who doesn't live in Israel currently. I want to share my heavy and bad feelings that me and my husband are going through these horrible days. I am a second generation of Holocaust survivors and I am torn apart when I think about kids in Gaza. I'm disappointed about the way that my country chose, I dont believe that twisting arms (in gentle words) can make any process.In my childhood I grew up with my beloved Arabic neighbor it was a pure innocent and fascinating at the same time to discover that we are all the same. I still love her and miss her. My heart misses a bit all the time when I see my kids and thinking about mothers and kids who will need to struggle for along time to erase those horrors from their memories. You have the right to hate me but I want you to know that every person on earth has the right to live his life in a decent way. And I want to assure you that I'm raising my kids to love people and to respect them. Hope that you will be safe and please please may a day will come and our kids will play, live, and enjoy each others company.
Shalom/Salam.
Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead some 400 truckloads of humanitarian aid have been transferred at the request of the international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and various governments. Preparations are underway to facilitate further shipments expected to arrive in the coming days.
Details of humanitarian aid transferred to the Gaza Strip via Israeli crossings since December 27, 2008:
10,000 tons of humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza throughout the week
226 dual nationals were evacuated from Gaza
2000 units of blood were donated by Jordan
5 ambulances donated by Turkey
5 ambulances transferred from the West Bank on behalf of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society
20 people were evacuated to Israel for medical needs, including two injured children.
All reports indicate that there are sufficient medicine and food in Gaza. The crossings to Gaza are open for the transfer of humanitarian aid from all international organizations, in full cooperation with the Israeli authorities and without restriction.
So why don't they let the international press in to verify your claims of sufficient medicine and food in Gaza?
Dear Dancewater,
South Israel in the Gaza vicinity area is a closed military zone.
No reporters can get there. this is a common order in war time.
Address your question to the Egyptians. Normally, repoters could enter Gaza also fronm the Egyptian side.
Dear Hassan,
You say "The urgent need is to immediately stop the bombs, even before restocking with food".
Do you also call for your leaders to stop bombing israelis citizens?
I am sure you know that Kassam rockets are again raining down on Israel on a daily basis, including longer-range and deadlier Grad Kaytusha rockets.
Please read http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/31/AR2008123102773.html
Israel's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.
Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot -- which have borne the brunt of the attacks -- have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign their weapons.
When Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.
In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.
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. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.
Israel understands this as well. It goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties -- even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.
Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes -- targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations -- and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue
The Media is a weapon, when it comes to Hammas hands. They spread lies to serve their faked facts. Why should Israel supply them with this weapon.... No one helps the enemy in a war!!!!!
Israeli's planes bomb military targets which have been deliberately put amidst civilians. If there is a high danger of hitting civilians, Israel doesn't attack. But there is a line below which risk that will be taken, and rightly so.
The smug smiles are wiped off the faces of Hamas leaders. Yet they have one more weapon, their reserves, they call up the media.
Those arrogant, heroic, macho victors of yesterday—literally yesterday as the process takes only a few hours—are transformed into pitiful victims. Casualty figures are announced by Hamas, and accepted by reporters who are not on the spot. Everyone hit is, of course, a civilian. No soldiers here.
And the casualties are disproportionate: Hamas has arranged it that way. If necessary, sympathetic photographers take pictures of children who pretend to be injured, and once they are published in Western newspapers these claims become fact.
Yet there is a problem here. Rockets and mortars may win wars; newspaper articles really don't. Of course, too, material damage is inflicted that sets back Gaza's material development.
Hamas doesn't care about that, but by acting in a way to ensure the destruction of their material base, Hamas does weaken itself. Precisely because Israeli attacks are ocused on military targets, Hamas is weakened.
Tell me oh wise professor of law in Harvard, are the Iraqis allowed to attack American soil since they ravaged Iraq, messed up whole country, invaded it, killed civillians and stole it's resouces? And call it a self defence?
And would Barack Obama accept to know that his two daughters are crammed in an area while someone is shelling them nearby? No, would he accept his dog being in this situation?
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