I have been active on Twitter since Israel’s War on Gaza’s unprotected population started. Some of the Hasbara there has been shocking. One of the cards the parrots play repeatedly is the “Qassam threat” card. This is shocking if you know what a Qassam “rocket” looks like and you also know what a tank, or an Apache gunship, or an F16 fighter jet looks like.
Simply, for the IDF to assault a defenceless people, murdering its children after starving the country through an act of war (blockade) for the last couple of years is a matter that should leave our so-called “leaders” hanging themselves from Tower Bridge. But they won’t. The ruling elites are like that. Shameless, evil and disgusting.
Some visual perspective on the Qssams is in order.
(Yes, that really is a Qassam. No they don’t come much bigger.)
In the last eight days, Israel’s Occupation Forces have killed more Palestinian children (at least 40, figures still rising by the hour) than Israelis killed by Qassam fire in the last eight years. Worse, Hamas, the legitimate, democratic voice of the people, has been held responsible for using children as human shields. I’d like to know where the hell you would run from the “precision” demonstrated by the following image.
For all the hyperbole about the Qassam threat and the “constant fear” that Israelis have to live under, the truth is that an Israeli is more likely to be struck by lightning than by a Qassam. Outside Sderot and a couple of other towns, the chances of getting hit by one of these firecrackers is zero. In fact, in the USA, more people die from bee stings in a year (around 50) than the entire total of Israelis killed by Qassams or mortars in history.
The Hamas “threat” has been incredibly overplayed and the British media, traitors that they are, have played along. Then again, Israel is not the first country to use the fear of terror (over the reality of terror) as a political tool. Nor is it the most bloodthirsty. In fact, it would find it very hard to achieve any of its racist objectives without the backing of the USA.
Mainstream Media has been shockingly complicit in the murder of human beings in Gaza. Journalists have lost all integrity for the most part, though there are some notable exceptions. It is now utterly apparent to me that the media and governments are completely beholden to a Zionist agenda and answer to Zionist interests only. How they have managed to portray this assault on an utterly defenceless and besieged people as some kind of balanced military conflict is beyond my comprehension.
I urge you to compare and contrast the effects of the “precision” of Israel’s “discriminate targeting” with the “indiscriminate” and “destructive terror” of the Qassams at this link.
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Doesn’t matter if your boys throw rocks–any kind of ordinance coming into Israel is unacceptable. Just stop doing it and it’ll all end.
“Your boys”… pakis are not middle eastern, not arabic, they might as well be indonesian… Joel Richman is obviously a Jew, trying to equal arabs with pakis, to further racism against arabs and win the western sympathy.
@ David huh? “Your boys” is a reference to those who launch the Qassam rockets in the above post. I don’t care where they’re from. Leave your inflammatory BS at home. If you have something to say that moves the conversation forward, bring it. Otherwise, don’t embarrass yourself like that. Full disclosure: I am definitely a Jew.
I believe this latest escalation, in Gaza, of the horror the Palestinians have been subjected to for decades, is the countdown to the well-deserved, long-overdue, EndOfIsrael. Snuffed, in favour of One country, with Equality for All. And I believe, not long from now, the UK will no longer be an active participant in WarsForIsrael, because it’s going to be at the forefront of a worldwide coalition to dismantle “that shitty little country Israel” (thanks, French ambassador); refuge of the greatest cruelty and barbarism known to humankind. Good-hiphooray-riddance. USrael, meanwhile, will remain a rock-solid Zionist enclave for the foreseeable future, now on its way to becoming a full-fledged Zionist dictatorship under O-sucksAIPAC’sdick-bama – yet it won’t be able to stop this movement. When I was at uni in the mid-70s — paki-bashing era — no-one could have envisaged the UK of today. “Wogs” were going to be sent back “home”. Well, UK society and culture via its Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Bengali, Mediterranean, Middle, Near and Far Eastern imports has been transformed for the better. I love this scepter’d isle….and its people….and I, like many many others, hate the Zionist infestation of this green and pleasant land. I was born in Pakistan; proud of my heritage, and consider myself English, not British Asian nor Pakistani, AND I can assure the likes of Zionazi Joel, that my Jewish-convert-to-Islam husband (pre-me, he was always a staunch non-Zionist), and our families, and our friends, and our neighbours, and our hybrid kids, and their friends, and the people we work with, feel the same way about the psychopath supporters of Israel. And, Zionazi Joel, there are MILLIONS like us in this New Britain (that’s the reality hidden by the media). Our numbers are increasing exponentially, and we are not going to stay a silent majority any more, nor tolerate the repugnant murderous racism of Zionists to remain in our midst. Oh, and the other transformation: the incredible numbers of UK-ers becoming Muslim! Of Their Own Volition! Another reality the media is having a harder time hiding. Alhamdulillah, these brothers and sisters have added another layer of beauty to an already beautiful faith.
Hamas are the ones who describe the terrorists as civilians when they do get killed in retaliation.
Yeah, let’s let them throw Qassam rockets inside our borders, no biggie. Let them kill and terrorise our people.
We clearly have a problem in the west and that is not our ‘Zionist’ leaders or “racist” non muslims. Your accusations mean fuck all. We eat them for breakfast. The cancer of Islam is metasticizing and our dhimmi leaders are cowed by your “sensitivities”.
And, frankly, I’d much rather be a Jew or a “shameless, evil, and disgusting Zionist” uneducated westerner rather than a backward woman-beating primitive barbaric wog. You don’t belong in the 21st century.
Hey Shahid (your name says it all) – Your logic is inverted. You are a racist. Israel left Gaza in 2005, and instead of creating a state Hamas shot 5000 missiles at Israeli civilians. If Hamas lays down their weapons there will be peace. If Israel lays down its weapons, there will be no Israel.
Counting Hizbullah, more than 10,0000 missiles have rained down on Israel in the last 3 years, FROM TERRITORY ISRAEL LEFT VOLUNTARILY. What would you be saying if your town of London were bombed like that?
Hamas is the aggressor. Admit it. Stop your racism. Let Israel live in peace.
Steve, read “Hollow Land” by Prof Eyal Weizman to gain an understanding of why Israel wont allow the Palestinians to gain a homeland…and no, its not conspiracy theory but interviews with planners and generals and research into Israeli laws. Its a war of demographics, urban planning and bombs. Israel wont allow for palestinians to have infrastructure bcos that means stability.
The Israel government tried to burn all copies of Prof Weizman’s previous publication “A civilian occupation” like the Nazi’s the Israeli goverment are.
Israel left Gaza?!
Gaza after Israeli disengagement
The Sharon government’s plan to remove almost 9,000 Zionist settlers and Israel’s military installations from within Gaza by the end of July will not result in any significant alleviation of the humanitarian and economic crisis in the territory.
The central goal of Sharon’s “unilateral disengagement” plan is to consolidate and expand the massive Zionist settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which together house about 450,000 Israelis. The withdrawal from Gaza serves as an effective diversion for these measures.
…
A nominal end to the occupation in Gaza would, in terms of international law, leave the territory a foreign country in relation to Israel. This would completely alter the legal framework within which the Israeli military could operate within the area. In Israel, it has been suggested that if Gaza were to be designated a foreign country, Israel could suppress any manifestation of Palestinian resistance by invoking the principle of self-defence against a hostile power, thereby granting its armed forces even greater freedom of action against the local population.
The B’tselem and HaMoked report backed up the numerous legal experts who have concluded that disengagement will not end Israel’s status as occupying power under international law. The removal of the settlements will not alter the ability of Gazans to travel to and from the territory. Israel will also retain sole control over Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters. The Sharon government has also emphasised that it maintains the right to take what it describes as “preventive measures and responsive acts using force against threats emanating from the Gaza Strip.”
A Withdrawal That Did Not End Israel’s Occupation of Gaza
As B’Tselem, the Israeli information and human rights organization, documents:
*Israel continues to maintain complete control over the air and sea space of the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian may operate a seaport or an airport without Israeli approval, which limits Palestinians’ freedom of trade and travel.
*Israel continues to control the joint Gaza Strip-West Bank population registry, which means Israel gets to decide who is a “Palestinian resident” and who is a “foreigner.” Palestinians must seek Israeli approval for every individual who wants to move to the West Bank.
*The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was supposedly turned over to the Palestinian Authority. In fact, Israel continues to control the crossing to the extent that it may bar entry to “foreigners”—that is, Palestinians who are not residents of the Occupied Territories—or anyone it deems a security risk.
*Israel continues to maintain complete control of the movement of people and goods between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which Israel considers a “closed military area” off limits to anyone without a permit. West Bank residents are also forbidden from traveling abroad, including to the Gaza Strip, without a difficult-to-obtain Israeli permit.
*As far as trade is concerned, Israel controls the three crossing points in and out of Gaza (Karni, Sufa, and Kerem Shalom). Israel routinely closes the crossings to any exchange of goods, causing severe food and other shortages in Gaza.
*Israel still controls taxation and other levies in Gaza.
To Palestinians, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza with only a matter of military retrenchment. It was not a turn-over of authority. The long list of powers and restrictions still wielded by Israel over Gazans shows to what extent that was the case.
Gaza: From economic to humanitarian disaster
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis began long before the world decided that the Palestinians had to be punished for voting in the Hamas government.
Since Israel’s occupation in 1967 of the little land left to the Palestinians, Gaza has suffered miserably. Israel did everything in the 25 years before Oslo (1993) to shut off opportunities for economic growth and made sure that Gaza’s infrastructure remained undeveloped. Despite the optimism of the Oslo Accords, Israel’s vice-like grip on Gaza continued and the people found themselves increasingly denied freedom of movement which again impacted on their economic development. Unable to produce or invest, the Palestinians became more and more dependent on imports from Israel.
Nothing changed after Israel removed the deliberately implanted 7,000 Jewish settlers to a massive publicity campaign around Israel’s “painful sacrifice for peace”. Instead, the Palestinians were left hopelessly impoverished and were literally strangled economically and socially by Israel’s formidable military cordon around the Gaza Strip. This, despite Israel claiming that it had disengaged and was no longer occupying Gaza. All imports and exports came to a standstill and Palestinian businesses were forced to close. In January 2006, Israel closed Karni crossing – the commercial and humanitarian lifeline of Gaza with a 200 truck per day capacity. Truckloads of farming produce destined for Israel and international markets were suddenly unable to get through. According to UN-OCHA, this meant more than $US30 million in losses to the Palestinian economy as farmers had no choice but to donate their crops or destroy them as they rotted.
By the time Hamas was elected to government, the Palestinians had been reduced to dependency on international donors. This situation was exacerbated when Israel and the world decided to cut off funds for the government’s operating budget because the elections had not produced the results they had wanted. Barely two months later, as former World Bank president James Wolfensohn stepped down from his role as envoy to Israel and the Palestinians, he reported that if Israel continued its regime of restrictions on trade and labour and the flow of donations weakened further without a turn around by 2008, 74 percent of the Palestinians would be living beneath the poverty line and unemployment would reach 47 percent. In particular, he pointed to the systematic restrictions of movement Israel has imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank and at the Gaza Strip border crossings saying that these measures are largely to blame for the tremendous damage done to the Palestinian economy.
Since Hamas re-took power in Gaza after routing Fatah forces, the Palestinians there have been living under a state of siege.Israel has adamantly refused to let through some 104 boxes of basic food stuffs being provided by UNRWA to more than half of Gaza’s population, despite saying that aid through UNRWA would be given passage. Israel cites “security considerations” as the reason. The only opening is through the Karm Abu Salem Crossing in the southern Gaza Strip and its 15 truck per day capacity cannot serve a 1.4 million population in desperate need. According to the UN, at least 100 trucks a day need to be going into Gaza….
As to laying down weapons – Gaza didn’t have a chance to prove there would be peace if it laid down its weapons since on the very first day of the last truce Israel broke the ceasefire, and broke it 7 times in the first week (Gaza 1 time in response) according to the UN and, more infamously, Israel killed 6 Palestinians in an unprovoked attack on 4 November.
Israel’s massive campaigns of words is betrayed by its even more massive campaign weapons. It is not threatened by Palestinian resistance; it is threatened by Palestinian existance. If not for Israel (or other colonialist projects), Jews and Christians and Muslims could have continued living in Palestine together peacefully.
The Judeofascists have been active on YouTube as well, flagging dozens of accounts resulting in hundreds of videos being pulled down. For what? Criticizing the terrorist “state” of “israel”(lowercase and in quotation on purpose).
The fact of the matter is they won’t rest until Palestinians are exterminated and “eretz israel” is a reality. For the moron(s) who insist that “israelis” are peaceful and the settler scum left gaza in 2005 : Where were they moved too and at whose expense? ans – Resettlement in the West bank, and “compensation” of up to $300000 per settler thug family. Paid for by the US tax payer.
Palestinians will stop firing rockets(I guess they’re supposed to throw stones at tanks all their lives?) when Judeofascists stop occupying their country.
“Hamas is the aggressor. Admit it. Stop your racism. Let Israel live in peace.”
Live in peace. You mean, let Israel kill 500 and upwards people? I know Israel was born in war, but that is still an odd way to conduct peace.
In evil moments, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the UK had followed the moral free Israeli code and just used aerial bombardment to take out suspected IRA homes. A bit of shelling on Dublin. A soupçon of naval bombardment on Cork. Wouldn’t have solved anything but it might have amused Londoners briefly.
And then I remember I’m a grown up.
@SallyX Classy.
Whilst I agree 100% that the threat of the Hamas rockets has been hugely exaggerated it does, in a fashion, cut both ways
Yes, what Hamas is doing isn’t very dangerous to the Israelis at all
So why are they doing it?
TBH I half suspect that it suits the Israelis’ long term objectives to have some crappy little missiles come over the border
So why are Hamas playing into their hands?
It’s called resistance Stef.
In fairness to the IDF it must be very galling that the insurgents aren’t finding some nice open fields to stand in with their small arms and toy rockets and waiting to be cluster bombed
It’s a long recognized principle of insurgent warfare that you have to target the hearts and minds of the non combatant population to have a chance of a lasting solution
The IDF seem to be doing that alright, quite literally
” …an Israeli is more likely to be struck by lightning than by a Qassam.”
So it would be fascinating to compare say road deaths / injuiries with within the borders of what they choose to call Israel and deaths / injuries from incoming fireworks – these few figures culled from a quick Google are interesting ……
Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles per annum Israel 2.7 Japan / UK / Holland / Germany less than 1.4. (http://www.israelroadsafety.org/)
Haaretz reported “210 road fatalities were recorded between January and June (in 2007)”
Jeruslaem Post reported – January 8, 2002 in article by Edward H. Kaplan
“… excluding the West Bank and Gaza, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reports 461 traffic fatalities during the 2000 calendar year. This adds up to an annual personal risk of 73 per one million, which is nearly four times higher than the risk of death from terrorism.”
“The 2000 Statistical Abstract of the United States reports that about 41,500 traffic fatalities have occurred in each of the past several years in the US. With a population of 286 million people, the annual personal risk of death from a motor vehicle accident in the United States is 145 per one million.” ie double the risk of Israel.
Why figures are not included for West Bank and Gaza is presumably nobody gives a flying fuck what happens to the Arab inhabitants whether they suffer being knocked down on a road crossing , or by searing immolation in the latest (untested )munitions wizardry.
So when you folks have completed the genocide of a UN member state (Israel) will you then push on to deal with Jordan (a creation
of British imperialism)? And then after that you will destroy the
Lebanon (a creation of French imperialism). And then if you are
a Palestinain Arab you can shot yourself (Palestine was also a
creation of British imperialism. Without the adoption of the
Balfour Declaration by the League of Nation Palestine would never
have been created). You folk are going to be doing a whole lot of killing. Is this the same faith that my Muslim friends call a religion
of peace? Salaam, Tom.
“In fairness to the IDF it must be very galling that the insurgents aren’t finding some nice open fields to stand in with their small arms and toy rockets and waiting to be cluster bombed.”
In fairness to Hamas it must be galling to them that they only have
unarmed women, children and the elderly to hide behind. Of course
as you point it is only by adopting this cowardly option do they
stand any real chance against the IDF.
And you StefZ are as guilty of those deaths as anyone. If you really
cared about Arab children you would be doing your best to persued
the Egyptians to open the Gaza border to evaculate the women and
children to safety. The same ones you and others on this board pretend to care about. Salaam, Tom.
Hey Ziz –
Why should a sovereign country have to endure someone else lobbing any kind of explosive at its unarmed population for YEARS without retaliation? If you’re being bitten by a mosquito, don’t you slap the spot where you feel a sting?
Quit justifying your dismay over Hamas’ failure to put up a decent, well-fought humanitarian resistance (read: they hide behind their own women and children) by saying Hamas only constitutes a mosquito bite on Israel. It’s a horribly, horribly flawed argument and negates itself from the onset. Rockets are not “fireworks” and even if they were, Israel has the moral authority to squash them, too. When your side learns this you MIGHT be able to muster some more sympathy–maybe. But probably not. Hamas’ practice of using its own people as human shields isn’t going to be forgotten soon and only solidifies peoples’ impression that Hamas and friends are nothing but a bunch of animals–as Gaza’s populace has had to learn the hard way.
The events speak for themselves and no one buys this line of BS, Ziz. Being an extremist has a short half-life. Just look at history for proof. What government or other type of social glue can you think of right now is thriving under an oppressive, radical ideology? Remember I said “thriving.” Good luck coming up with one.
Did you not read the article or are you just a racist Jewist supremacist bigot who thinks nothing of the destruction of children by white phosphorous? 10 times as many CHILDREN were killed by “your boys” in 22 days as Israelis killed in 8 years by Qassam fire.
“If you’re being bitten by a mosquito, don’t you slap the spot where you feel a sting?”
With 100 Palestinian “mosquitos” (I prefer calling them human beings) killed for every Israeli (some of whom were killed by Israeli fire), your logic justifies the nuclear annihilation of Israel.
The rest of your argument about “human shields” has been discredited elsewhere time and time again. It was “your boys” who used human shields while searching houses. None of what you say stacks up anymore. It never did, but now even your mates in America are beginning to realise “your boys” are just an ugly, shameful wart on humanity.
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