Why a ceasefire now?

It seem that Israel no longer has carte blanche to bombard Gaza; at least from the United States. why the sudden change from its previous stance of “Israel has a right to react to terror”? It seems that bombing outside a U.N school that killed 30 people many of them children may have had something to do with it [via].

Tweet This“Why a ceasefire now?” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=2827] was published Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 12:12 pm by Patrix, filed under Asides, Current Affairs, and tagged as , , . Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

«
»

Related Posts

  1. ‘Border’ battle never happened?

  • http://wyblog.us/ Chris Wysocki

    Propaganda wins the day again. The Palestinians are masters of propaganda. The media is willingly complicit in the charade. “Militants” were firing rockets from near that school. “Militants” often use women and children as human shields. But it’s solely Israel’s fault when those tactics result in the loss of “innocent” life?

    • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

      Chris, No one is disputing Israel’s right to safeguard its citizen but life of innocent civilians cannot be dismissed as mere ‘collateral damage’. If the so-called militants are using women and children as human shield it is reflective of their callous inhumanity but that doesn’t give us the right to shoot or kill innocents. Let us at least maintain our moral high ground because that may be the biggest difference between us and the militants.

      BTW, I like it how you put innocents in quotes. I wonder if the Taliban propaganda machine also did that with the innocents killed on 9/11.

  • http://wyblog.us/ Chris Wysocki

    I put “innocents” in quotes for two reasons. First because the Palestinians in Gaza have wholeheartedly embraced Hamas, a known terrorist organization. Hamas executes the citizens who don’t toe the party line. Hence, the vast majority of the people in Gaza are overt supporters of Hamas and their desire to wipe Israel off of the map. And second, because the media always portrays every injured or dead Palestinian as some sort of Rhodes Scholar wannabe who what just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even a cursory investigation of the actual facts on the ground would demonstrate that the vast majority of the casualties were engaged in attacking Israelis.

    As far as maintaining the moral high ground; Hamas brought this on themselves. They can stop it just as easily — give up on launching rockets into Israel. Or, stop hiding the rocket launchers in schools. They won’t do that. The propaganda value of dead children is worth more to them than the joy of watching those children grow up.

    • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

      Chris, Nice. So I guess you suggest wiping Gaza off the map along with all those “innocents” who sympathize with Hamas. Although I don’t agree with the way Hamas works, Israel is now proving to be no different. After all, an eye for an eye strategy has worked so well in the past 50 years, right? Hamas justifies killing “innocents” in Israel when Israel kills “innocents” in Gaza and it goes on and on. Everything you say can and is said by the other side. It is so much easier to let the issue fester than find a genuine solution. I’m no pacifist but violence hasn’t solved anything in the Middle East yet and I doubt it ever will. Wish as you may, you cannot wipe a billion+ people off the map and wish the world would be peaceful again.

  • http://www.suyogdeshpande.net/blog/ Supremus

    I say lets all get rid of Brits first LOL ;). They are the ones who created this problem in Middle East, Kashmir and wherever her imperial majesty could no longer hold fort ;-). After that we can start butchering Russians, Chinese, Indians, then proceed towards America, Canada, Southern Hemispheres – at some point, the world be peaceful :D

    • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

      Supremus, the Brits definitely got off lightly after fucking up most of the countries they ruled. If some in this comment thread are to be believed then a game of ‘Survivor’ is the perfect solution. Let’s get ready to humble!

  • http://wyblog.us/ Chris Wysocki

    @Patrix – I most certainly did not suggest wiping Gaza off the map, nor did I imply that 1 billion people should be wiped off the face of the earth. In each case where Israel has fought the Palestinians and/or the Arabs they were attacked first. Prior to 1967 Gaza was a part of Egypt and the West Bank was under Jordanian control. To vastly oversimplify, those territories were taken when Israel beat back the Arab invasion, and then ceded back to the Palestinians via “land for peace”.

    But your moral equivalence argument is facile. Giving up land has not brought peace. Hamas holds as its ultimate goal the complete destruction of Israel and the extermination of every Jew. Ergo one of 2 things must happen for peace – Hamas must reform from within and accept that Israel has the right to exist, or Hamas must be destroyed. Israel hopes for the former, but prepares for the latter. Meanwhile Hamas refuses to even consider a change in policy.

    There are something like 2 million Arab residents of Israel. Many of them are citizens. They have representation in the Knesset. They work for a living and pay taxes. They are proof that Arabs and Jews can live side by side in peace.

    We should be aware too that Hamas (and Hezbollah) do not act unilaterally. Iran pulls their strings. The war with Hamas in Gaza is really a proxy war with Iran. Sooner or later Iran is going to detonate a nuclear weapon and then things in that part of the world are really going to get dicey.

    • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

      Chris, You did consider most Palestinians as not innocent due to their support for Hamas. And killing off non-innocent people was alright for you. The level of support for Hamas differs right from being a suicide bomber to mere mumbling voices of grudging support; it probably has more to do with opposing the U.S. than supporting Hamas. It is kinda the result of “either you’re with us or them” mentality in the Bush administration. The choices aren’t always that transparent.

      If destroying Hamas would solve the Middle East problem, I’m sure someone would have thought of it but the problem is much deeper. Hamas is merely the by-product; destroy it and it will be replaced overnight. There are extremist opinions on both sides – some Arabs don’t want Israel to exist and some Israelis don’t want any Arab presence in “their holy land”. The fact that Israel grants equal right to their Arab citizens is admirable and should be emulated by its Arab neighbors.

      This space is too short to discuss the origins of the Middle East crisis but there is plenty of blame to go around; even for Iran’s role. Remember we deposed their democratically elected government in 1953 and imposed the feudal Shah for our national interest. Iran is protecting their national interests now by influencing the affairs of their neighbors just as United States would and does in their neighbors affairs.

      If national interest is the sole objective, at least let us be honest about it. If it is in the United States national interest to side with the Palestines, would we abandon Israel? Why or why not? You don’t have to respond. We started this debate from a ceasefire from Israel. If no one is innocent on that side then why stop for humanitarian aid? After all, they supported Hamas and are paying for it, right?

      I have never supported killing of innocent civilians as means to make your point and for that reason, I abhor Hamas militants as well. Being an Indian, you do not have to emphasize the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism. We have lived with it in India and continue to.

  • http://wyblog.us/ Chris Wysocki

    @Patrix – you are indeed correct that the issues facing the Mideast are complex and do not lend themselves to short descriptions. What we may or may not have done in 1953 is ancient history; it’s what is going on now which matters most. At the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict the US was aligned with the Arabs! Israel was a client state of Russia, and we opposed Russia, so we supported Egypt and Jordan. Clearly the alliances have shifted.

    It’s also probably helpful to differentiate between Gaza Palestinians and West Bank Palestinians. Gaza had everything going for it when Israel withdrew — a viable infrastructure, industry, agriculture, housing, power plants, etc. The “animals” (and yes I use that term with all the opprobrium which it implies) in Gaza looted, destroyed, and demolished everything the Israelis left behind. They shot themselves in the foot. Meanwhile the West Bank seems to be markedly better off. Go figure.

    Some other random observations based on your last reply: Yes there are extremists in Israel but the government there does its level best to keep them in check. From what I’ve observed it’s the pacifists and land-for-peace crowd who holds sway most days. Extremists in the Palestinian territories seem to become their leaders, movers, and shakers. If boils down to what effect the extremists on each side have. Israeli extremists – not much, Palestinian extremists – they run the show.

    Your comment re Iran again assumes a moral equivalence which is not realistic. Iran is is state sponsor of terrorism, their “national interest” can hardly be expected to coexist with the rest of the civilized world.

    Speaking of national interest, you asked if it was in the US interest to “side with the Palestinians” would we do so. In a way we do “side” with them. We support the Roadmap; we explicitly endorsed the two state solution. We postulate their right to self-determination. We also “side” with Israel. We endorse their right to exist. We endorse their right to defend themselves.

    I realize the issues over there are complex. But I have one overarching question which I think will imbue a bit of clarity. If the Palestinian people abjured further violence, accepted the current borders, stopped teaching their children to hate the “Zionist Entity”, and began the process of building a market based economy, would Israel continue to attack them? Wouldn’t Israel immediately being to assist them? I think “yes”. On the other hand, if Israel were to unilaterally lay down their weapons, dismantle the border fences, cede Jerusalem to Palestinian control, in effect giving them everything Arafat demanded at Oslo, would the rockets and suicide bombers and killing stop? I’d say “no”.

    The entire Palestinian culture is based on one premise — hatred of Israel and the Jews. Everything they do follows from that. When you see a mother extolling the virtues of her sons who have blown themselves to bits for Allah you have to wonder how a holy book that is supposed to be the basis for a “religion of peace” could have become so distorted as to condone her actions.

    • http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix

      Chris, I guess we can go on and on about this and given the complexity of the issue and number of hours already spent by far worthy and capable men, I think we have to agree to disagree. However, we do agree that extremist views on both sides and political games wrought on by conflicting national interests of various stakeholders make a speedy resolution almost impossible.

      But at the same time, I wonder how can you say what we did (historical fact) in Iran in 1953 is ancient history when in fact, the entire justification for the existence of Israel on the current geographic location is based on much ancient history and grounded in religious superficiality (I’m an atheist so I may have a different perspective on this). That said, now that we can’t reverse what happened in the past, efforts must be made to bring about a reasonable compromise which by definition is not going to be the ideal case for any side. But Israel’s often disproportionate response often brings us back to square one and if such tactics have not worked in the past, perhaps they should explore others. I wouldn’t rule out military action entirely as it is useful at times.

      Anyway, nice discussion. We just have to let it rest. Thanks. I’m closing this thread. Feel free to continue on your blog.


Copyright © 2012 Nerve Endings Firing Away. Designed by ckunte. Powered by WordPress.