Hamas has called off its 16 month military truce with Israeli, after seven Palestinians were killed, and thirty were wounded, while picnicking at a beach in Gaza.
Israel has a history of inflicting collective punishment on Palestinians, causing widespread demoralization.
According to ABC.com, Kamal Ghobn said he had just arrived at the beach on a bus with about 50 relatives when the attack took place. "I was still parking the bus and everyone got out to go to the beach. As I locked the door I felt the thud of the shells and felt a sting in my side," said Ghobn, who was slightly wounded by shrapnel. Gobn said he saw four shells land.
The artillery fire scattered body parts, destroyed a tent and sent bloody sheets flying into the air. A panicked crowd quickly gathered, screaming and running around hysterically.
A sobbing girl lay in the sand, crying for her father. "Father! Father!" she screamed.
The body of a man lay motionless in the sand nearby.
Palestinian officials said seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded at the beach. Hardest hit was the Ghalia family, which lost six members, among them the father, one of his two wives, an infant boy and an 18-month-old girl.
On Thursday Israel conducted an aerial artillery attack killing Hamas leader Jamal Abu Samhadana. Thousands of Palestinians attended his funeral at a Gaza soccer stadium.
RENEGADE EYE
40 comments:
Just like so many other things, the bias is right in place.
Barbaric.Sophisticated savagery.But what is horrible as well is the utter predictability of the reactions to these atrocities.I can tell you exactly who will say what.Who will do what.
a vicious cycle. And we are doing the same thing the Israelis are.
"Fuckers.I hope they choke on their picnic."
I disagree - I don't think ordinary Israeli citizens are complicit in their government's reactionary foreign policy.
their deaths will be avenged and the Israelies will cry out to the world for help
South America is full of Israeli young people (...) Fuckers.I hope they choke on their picnic
Israeli terrorist machine. They are trying to eradicate the palestinian people from the face off the earth. AIPAC lobbies congress and controls our media. You never hear of the terror the palestinians face on a daily basis from Israel. "Israel Controls The U.S. Senate". It disgusts me to be an American.
Sieg Heil!
This type of incident, makes Hamas look appealing to Palestinians. I'm sure Zionists were glad that Hamas won the last election. It is a force, that doesn't have to be negotiated with. Zionists subsidized Hamas, as an alternative to Fatah. Hamas wouldn't exist without Zionism.
I agree with david B, that rank and file Israelis, don't approve of such naked aggression. It was an open act of war.
Zionist lobbyists are powerful, not that powerful.
I think in time, we'll see the naked Islamist face of Hamas, with sharia courts and forced veils.
I've always supported a secular, socialist Israel, as the most enduring solution.
America will never stop their support of Israel. The bed would get rather cold with only one of them in it! What a disugusting display of state(s) sponsored terrorism!
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young radicals
This is sad. I need to read more on this topic, before commenting further, shortly.
The events reported by ABC.com represent yet another vicious act of terrorism which you could “cut and paste” into any given scenario between warring factions across the world (I am reminded of the atrocities reported by Maryam regarding Haditha).
This attack, disgraceful as it is, may undoubtedly be avenged with an equally disgraceful act and the net result is of course the death of innocents on the “other side”. It seems there is no end to bloodshed, all of which takes place in the pursuit of power and control, and more often than not, linked to the US.
Again, we are forced to consider the way forward, but will anyone ever listen? It appears a culture of terrorism prevails, so widespread and indiscriminate that no one is safe. What of the ordinary citizen, stripped of the basic human rights to live a life without fear? What stories will they tell their children, to fear, to hate the “other side” how will this shape the lives of future generations? The road to peace is fraught with difficulties but it is the only way forward.
Well roared, Obokun. But this is not only a culture of terrorism, but also a cult of the terrorists.
"Again, we are forced to consider the way forward, but will anyone ever listen?" - No. I'm afraid not.
Obokun,the point you make of the universality of these atrocities is sad but true .Structural change is needed to escape this cycle of insanity.The Palestinians are just as dysfunctional as all of us and should not be idealized but we have to find enough compassion for all, even Israeli soldiers andHamas guerrillas, to address the question of justice and create a peace.
"Fuckers.I hope they choke on their picnic."
I agree with D Broder...that's a disgusting and stupid thing to say.
I also agree with the comment that the Israel/Palastine issue is often over-simplified...and certainly in some of these comments.
Israel is a formal democracy...they can change governments. It's also a democracy situated in a very hostile area.
This is not Isreali foreign policy it's security policy. Security is the only issue in what is left of Isreali politics. So though a democracy (for Jewish people, anyway) voters have little choice. All the parties are singing the same, singular tune.
Some of the awful things that Israel governments get up to - and this yet another in a long list - is bad for Palastinians and Israelis. It's is not in anyone's interest to act that way.
But we should also remember the suicide bombings and other horrors committed by an increasingly hope less 'Palastine'.
and the two state solution is not a solution to anything.
Sad
Broder, you are bang on.
This is just sickening. But I don't think a socialist Israel would be any better. (Remember, Eye, the original "founders" of Israel were leftist revolutionaries from Russia.) I think we need a one-state solution where all citizens will have equal rights. But Zionists and Neo-Cons will never allow this because of the risk of a Palestinian coming to power. Israelis will never find security until they elect leaders who are not scared to foster a just peace for the Palestinians. Only this will stop them turning to Hamas. To blame the rise of Hamas on the Palestinians is simply to blame the victims. (P.S. Thanks for visiting my blog!)
It is sad especially when unarmed civilians are killed. And should evoke a response like when an Israeli restaurant is bombed. But the cycle of violence is too complicated and Hamas not recognizing Israel is complicating it more.
original "founders" of Israel were leftist revolutionaries from Russia
The original founders of the state of Israel were pragmatists from Poland.
A 60-year-old Israeli maintenance worker has been critically injured by a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza.
Not even an apology from Hamas
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/725220.html
It has become like one of those hillbilly clan wars which go on forever. As long as people cling to religious-nationalist ideologies, they will kill the other who does not have THE BOOK. We create our gods and they wreak vengence on us. We are manipulated by ruling cliques, who use these gods words and our own reified view of the world to manipulate us. Our rulers who's interests are to maintain their own power, not help us to become freer, they are the enemies. Soldiers turn your weapons in the direction of the ruling class. Demand their immediate surrender.
"Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took part in the demonstration of 200 activists who marched outside the house of IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz at the Tzahala neighborhood in Tel Aviv Saturday evening, to protest the killing of civilians in Gaza on Friday."
link: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261125,00.html
Can we imagine for 1 sec the Bush Twins doing something like this?
Hamas is clearly a group of violent religious zealots but Isreal tends to call them out and fuel the fire on a lot of things. I want to see the survival of Israel, simply because it's one of the few (perhaps only) democracies in the Middle East.
Even so, incidents like this one are inexcusable. All of these containment policies like this wall being built are only inciting more violence.
Beatroot's attempt to draw parallels between Apartheid Israel's attack and Hamas's response of firing rockets into Palestinian land occupied illegally by Apartheid Israel underscores the very point of the occupation: there are no 'innocent' European colonial settlers who've moved into the West Bank and Gaza.
The only reason they're there at all is because they were preceded by bulldozers, fences, and IDF shells specifically meant to cleanse the land of its Palestinian population to build an ethnically pure Apartheid state of European Settlers.
Hamas has every right to resist. They held their fire for almost 1 1/2 years, losing a good number of high-level politicians and commanders during that time.
And what have they to show for their patience?
Nothing... nothing but blood.
As their retreat from Lebanon and their subsequent pseudo-retreat from Gaza proves, Apartheid Israel responds to only one thing: force.
And if the Palestinians make the decision to defend themselves from the tanks and bulldozers, we have no right to second-guess that decision.
In fact, we owe them our solidarity and support.
JB said there are no 'innocent' European colonial settlers who've moved into the West Bank and Gaza.
The guy who died was a maintenance worker...he wasn't there because he was a settler. (and the most rabid of settlers are from the US and Russia, so it's not just a 'European' thing.
we owe them our solidarity and support
hamas has led the second intifada's brutal and counerproductive tactic of suicide bombing and are a religious party that is deeply reactionary.
many on the left have started to support reactionary, conservative
elements like this.
and people wonder why the left has become an irrelevance.
At JB's site, he has a feature, where he interviews someone he disagrees with. He is interviewed on the site of the person who disagrees with him.
The JB/Beatroot debate is great, actually a reflection of the big picture of the left.
I'm closer to Beatroot myself. I also like JB's fighting spirit.
I am always open to such a debate.
But to address beatroots points: first, I wasn't aware that the settler died. Even so, that doesn't change the facts in this case.
As a legitimately and legally elected body, Hamas has every right to defend itself. That they chose to do so by launching rockets into Palestinian lands illegally occupied by an Apartheid settler colony is their right and their perogative.
Do you deny that they have this right? Another way of asking the same question: do you think the Palestinian people - whatever their leadership - should simply concede the stolen lands to the Apartheid colony?
It isn't about supporting this government or that government - whether Iran or Venezuela or Occupied Palestine. Rather, it's about supporting the right of people under the boot of imperialism and oppression to defend thesmelves.
Your support for such a position seems dependent on an arbitrarily determined set of 'revolutionary' credentials. IMO, that, not some imagined support for right-wing governments, is why the left here on Sam's Plantation is dead.
Here the left won't support Palestine, but they'll vote for John Kerry. That's not weakness - it's self-immolation.
I also find it disengenuous to conflate this specific issue - the firing of rockets into occupied lands - with the issue of suicide bombers. I agree that it's a poor tactic, but again, I unconditionally support their right to resist illegal occupation in whatever means they see fit. Your desire to put qualifiers and caveats on that support offers de facto support for the occupier.
If firing rockets in response to the mortaring of women and children on a beach isn't legitimate resistance, what is?
An online petition? A phone call to Knesset members, "dear Mr. Zionist: you've already killed 1000 kids over the last few years. Please Mr. Zionist sir, please don't kill any more."
The time for groveling to savages - Democrat or Republican, Labor or Likud - has long passed us by. The relevance of the left can only be found by developing ways to combat the whole system down to its roots by any means necessary. Tactics may differ, but the strategy must be to fight imperialism and empire.
John Brown,
According to this CNN article, it was a Hamas mine that killed that family on the beach...
As a legitimately and legally elected body, Hamas has every right to defend itself. That they chose to do so by launching rockets into Palestinian lands illegally occupied by an Apartheid settler colony is their right and their perogative
Well, JB, just replace the word 'Hamas' with 'Israeli government' and you've just delivered a rousing defense of Israel...
it's about supporting the right of people under the boot of imperialism and oppression to defend thesmelves
Your principles are fine. It's your definitions of imperialism and oppression that are totally wrong. Hamas is way more oppressive than Israel or US. Al Qeada has killed far more Muslims than Israel or US. Taliban has killed and oppressed far more Muslims than Israel or US.
This not a debate about ideology, but about facts. And the inescapable FACT is that the greatest oppressors of Arabs and Muslims are their own totalitarian leaders, from Nasser to Arafat to Saddam to Khadaffi - bloodthirsty monsters who are exterminating their own people and blaming Jews for their own crimes.
And naive Westerners like you are falling for it....
I would like to see figures and facts, compared, and an unbiased source.
"I wasn't aware that the settler died. Even so, that doesn't change the facts in this case." I met this great argument on an extremist site first: raping German and Central European women during and after the war was fine, because they were the enemy. Great logic. That they were also civilians, that mattered little. If the death of a civilian doesn't change the "case", the whole debate is pointless: some think that too many Jews were left alive after the Holocaust. And that is not anti-Zionism any longer, that is mere anti-Semitism in the disguise of radical leftism. Were there peace, these people would have a heart attack: they would lose their raison d'etre.
Sonia,
I don't believe the IDF less than I believe Rumsfeld. Just because they say, "we didn't do it," doesn't mean they're telling the truth. It just means that the people who believe it are gullible.
Additionally, I don't accept the racist logic that says, "Arabs love to kill their own babies." That's no different than saying the Guantanamo suicides were a PR stunt. It's only effective as a propaganda device because of the Islamophobia and White Supremacy that longs for it.
That you whitewash Apartheid tells us exactly where you stand. That you side with colonialst, pro-Apartheid land thieves over the Palestinian people who have lived there for generations tells us exactly from where you come.
It's no different in Iraq, where I'm sure you side with the coalition against a resistance whose demonization - entire based on Pentagon propaganda - you accept entirely.
You don't care a whit about facts. The facts are that Apartheid Israel occupies Palestine and kills 4x the number that the Palestinians kill in self-defense.
You're blind to those numbers, because you've got a racist propaganda game to play.
Redwine,
If you steal land, those from whom you stole it have a right to act in self-defense.
Pretty simple.
That you're equating it with mass rape shows only one thing: how far you'll deviate from logic to attack the Palestinian right to resist an illegal, Apartheid-based occupation.
Wine,
If a 'civilan' breaks into your home and kills your family, what would you do?
John Brown,
I don't accept the racist logic that says, "Arabs love to kill their own babies."
I don't accept that logic neither. What I believe, on the other hand, is that Palestinian people find themselves between the rock of the Israeli occupation and the hard place of Hamas and Fatah's totalitarian ambitions. And the latter are far more oppressive and destructive.
It is not true, as you seem to believe, that Hamas and Fatah fight for the freedom of the Palestinian people. They fight for their ENSLAVEMENT, using Zionist oppression as an excuse for their own totalitarian ambitions.
The Palestinian cause is doomed until they manage to overthrow their INTERNAL oppressors BEFORE they can even dream of overthrowing their EXTERNAL oppressors.
And I know it's not easy. But there is no other way. No nation has ever liberated itself from oppression while led by totalitarian psychopaths...
JB: If firing rockets in response to the mortaring of women and children on a beach isn't legitimate resistance, what is?
It was a landmine, buddy. Some moron put a landmine on a beach where women and children swim, and it wasn't the Israelis....
But anyway, do you honestly believe that Israelis mean to mortor women and children? They are after decapitating the leadership not civilians.
Suicide bombing aims to kill and decapitate women and children...that's the point.
Factually, muslims are in as much danger from religious nutters on their own side as they are from occupations (though the occupations open up the space for these pieces of shit to move in to).
JB support groups that seek to oppress women, homosexuals, etc....
That's what has happened to the degenerate left...most of them have turned into George Galloway!
Beatroot asserted without proof:
It was a landmine, buddy. Some moron put a landmine on a beach where women and children swim, and it wasn't the Israelis..
Of course, this unconfirmed assertion relies soley on the word of the Apartheid occupier army who launched the attack to tell the truth about it after the fact.
Even though they're compulsive liars, you believe them without a second thought.
Yet much like the little GI Joe investigation of Haditha, the occupier army spouts nothing but lies and propaganda.
Not that this that doesn't matter to you.
When confronted with a choice between believing the Apartheid Occupiers implausible fantasy about the killings or the rational conclusions reached by Human Rights Watch, you believe the Apartheid occupier for obvious reasons.
Because you've already chosen a side.
Beatroot: But anyway, do you honestly believe that Israelis mean to mortor women and children?
Are you kidding me? Are you really that unaware of the statistics on civilians/children killed by the Apartheid occupier in relation to those killed in resistance operations.
Beatroot: Factually, muslims are in as much danger from religious nutters on their own side as they are from occupations (though the occupations open up the space for these pieces of shit to move in to).
No. Another outright lie. Those living under occupation are under the most danger from the illegal occupation.
In Iraq, Iraqis are most in danger from Uncle Sam.
And in Palestine, the Palestinians are most in danger of the ethnic cleansing Apartheid policies of Apartheid Israel.
Call it anti-Semitism if you want to fabricate a lie. The bottom line is that it's land-theft any way you slice it.
Beatroot asserts without proof: JB support groups that seek to oppress women, homosexuals, etc....
Your assertion here is fabricated nonsense. My position is very simple: I support anyone's right to resist occupation and Apartheid.
You are simply trying to conceal your support for Apartheid, occupation, murder, torture chambers, depleted uranium, checkpoints, home bulldozing, desecration of olive groves, white phosphorus, mosque bombings, and Death Squads by making shit up.
Beatroot: That's what has happened to the degenerate left...most of them have turned into George Galloway!
Meanwhile, you're for Hillary, right? Or do you support Mullah BringItOn?
Sonia,
Apartheid Israel rules occupied Palestine through a foreign Apartheid military dictatorship.
Nothing is worse than that.
And Abbas collaborates with them.
I may not agree with everything Hamas says or does, but they're the only ones resisting Apartheid Israel's little settler colony there, and I support them in that endeavor.
You, on the flipside, regurgitate the lies of the Apartheid occupier.
Neither of you have given any recommendations for how Hamas should resist the Apartheid occupation other than through force.
John Brown,
Neither of you have given any recommendations for how Hamas should resist the Apartheid occupation other than through force
That's only because Hamas never bothered to ask me. But if you volunteer to convey the message, my recommandatuions would be as follows:
1. Stop fighting. Palestinians have no chance to win an armed struggle against Israel. Israel have nuclear bombs, for Christ's sake. The only reason they didn't already dropped them on Gaza and Nablus is because they still care about public opinion. But if too many suicide bombers blow themselves in Tel Aviv, they might loose patience.
2. Rebuilt your country where it is now (Gaza and about half of West Bank). Hong Kong and Singapore are far smaller and more densely inhabited, and yet they have great, prosperous economies. Try to beat the Israelis at their own game - become more prosperous then them. Are you capable ? Are you as smart and hard-working as the Chinese ?
3. Once Palestine is more prosperous than Israel, that wall might finally become useful, keeping all the starving Israelis from illegally emigrating to the Palestinian territories...
Of course, to become economically prosperous, Palestinians would have to first get rid of all the collectivists leaders (whether secular or religious). Good luck!
JB: What's all this crap about Hilary? Clinton? Do you mean Democratic Iran Hawk Clinton? Out hawking of the hawkers Clinton?
I don't think so.
Two state solution stinks. It simply won't work. Israel will go on existing whether they like it or not. So do what many in Palestine think they should.
Recognize Israel and then claim their democratic and human rights within Israel. If they did it in a Ghandist way it would be very hard for the international community to resist that. Even the US.
Beatroot: Here's yet another piece of evidence proving that Aparhteid Israel launched the Beach attack.
Are you ready to concede that it was absurd to exonerate the very people who launched the attack based simply on their word?
Or do you hold fast to the yarn you were spinning?
Sonia's recommendations for Palestinian behavior are as absurd as they are disconnected from history and current events. If Palestinians surrender and recognize Apartheid Israel, what do they gain? They already know Apartheid Israel won't change their policies - they'll keep stealing land, keep assassinating children, and keep ripping down olive groves. They gain only by fighting their occupation:
Sonia sayd: 1. Stop fighting. Palestinians have no chance to win an armed struggle against Israel. Israel have nuclear bombs, for Christ's sake.
Of course, you've got no problem with Apartheid Israel having nukes (which takes us to Iran, doesn't it?).
You make it sound like Palestine's Apartheid occupier has no vulnerabilities. That's fiction.
Apartheid Israel is a financially broke colony that whose real military might lies in its full-on collaboration with Uncle Sam, who's not exactly looking that strong right now.
Apartheid Israel retreated from Lebanon and they've retreated - somewhat - from Gaza. It's a matter of time and demography before they retreat further. They cannot fight on every front when rockets are falling on their heads from everywhere.
2. Rebuilt your country where it is now (Gaza and about half of West Bank).
Palestinians have no country right now. You may be ok with that. You may support the Zionist view. You may want them to surrender unconditionally, recognize Apartheid Israel's right to cleanse them from their homelands, stop defending themselves, and die.
But they don't.
Palestinians today are ruled by the longest running foreign military dictatorship in the world.
They don't decide to embargo themselves, or bulldoze themsleves, or checkpoint themselves, or assassinate themselves.
They don't control the skies, or the water, or the roads.
They control nothing. They are ruled.
What about that don't you understand?
John Brown,
In the same comment, you have admitted that Israel retreated (...) from Gaza, and yet later you falsely claim that the Palestinians don't control the skies, or the water, or the roads. They control nothing. They are ruled
The Palestinians could rebuilt their country if they recognized once and for all that they have lost the war and stopped attacking Israel with Quassam rockets and suicide bombers. That's what happen to countries that lose wars - they lose territory. Happens to everyone.
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