As I watch what seems to be a senseless scale of violence, I have to ask myself, what will it achieve? What do they want it to achieve? I decided to do a little research.
Israeli officials say:
It’s unrealistic to be able to stop the rocket fire. -Senior Israeli Military Official
It’s not to overthrow Hamas. -Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
But… then we hear:
“To deal a blow to Hamas and to stop rocket fire into Israel.” – Senior Israeli Military Official
“Israel must not end this operation with Hamas in charge of Gaza.” -Vice Premier Haim Ramon
Now, let’s say that Israel does succeed, and gets rid of Hamas. What will the ultimate human cost be? What will be left of Gaza? It’s no secret that Israel hasn’t been targeting Hamas exclusively. It’s even breaking up government buildings under the guise of “destroying the terrorist network.”
Who would fill the power vacuum? Who would rebuild everything that’s been destroyed?
The human toll in Gaza has already surpassed 500, while the Israeli toll stands at…4. The Israeli figures constantly underestimate the figures of the dead or injured on the Palestinian side (Take for instance this claim in a comment on a previous post, 2nd comment) that the 300+ killed in the air raids was “less than half of 250″). It is almost without fail that the estimates from international aid organizations and the UN are slashed in half or more. This continues as the UN claims 25% of the dead are militants (plus 2,500 wounded), while Israel claims that figure is 80%.
Why would they do that? Why would they try to make it seem like they’re killing fewer civilians than they are?
Let’s look at Hamas goals:
“[...]strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. -Information Division, Israel Foreign Ministry
An article in Lebanon’s The Daily Star had a smart and thoughtful idea on how we got here in the first place. The author writes from inside Gaza.
I just want to understand how this was the most advantageous path.
-S.S.
I think the Palestinians should think twice before electing terrorist leaders, becasue terrorists brink terrorism….come on 7.000 rockets into Israel since 2005. Enough is enough
I only assume Israel wants to reoccupy Gaza as it occupies the West Bank (with puppet gov of Fatah in tow). If they can get a hold in Gaza, and the casualties fall in time, then the international media will move away and people will stop caring. Obama will also come to office which will divert attention and most libs around the world will think everythings fine cause a hawk who has diff colour skin from all the previous hawk is in office and take focus off this situation.
Oh, and I had fun playing my ‘media against Israel’ game this morning. Around 11am I flicked through each news station and checked out how long it would take for the rocket attacks into Israel to be mentioned (with pics of injured et al). Apparently the media is against Israel and we’re being taken as suckers, so thought this would be a good idea, and here’s what my indepth 15 min research found;
Length of time it took for Israeli rocket attacks to be brought and explained as cause of this whole episode;
Sky News (Rupert Murdoch’s British news channel) – News of a rocket attack being shown and discussed with correspondent the moment I switched channel on
BBC – 35 seconds
CNN- 5 mins
Euro News – No news of attacks on Israel while I was watching for a few mins
Fox News – Some bizarre priest fella ranting that Israel should show forgiveness to Hamas, even if the latter did start all this.
Al Jazeera – about 25 mins
To me, Al Jazeera probably had it right considering the ratio of deaths between the Israeli’s and Palestinians. There was a little vid of an old woman being carried out of her house on a stretcher in tears, but there wasn’t quite as much blood involved as the previous clip showing the wounded/dead being taken to the main Gaza hospital.
Oh and just a sideline, the BBC had a quite long bit of footage showing IDF troops who’d been wounded arriving at hospital.
So I switched on my tv expecting to find anti-Israeli bias everywhere as so many people claim here on WP and other blogs, but just couldn’t find it. Maybe I’ll have to look harder.
Note- Russia Today had an hour long interview with venerable fruitcake Pat Buchanan while Chinese state news CCTV were discussing films that had recently been banned by the gov. If anyone wants a haven from images of all these dead Gazans, I recommend them!
Fine analysis, me. Obviously you put a lot of thought into that comment.
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I am NOT sympathetic to Hamas. However, I at least understand their goal and why they’re doing what they’re doing, whether I agree with it or not, because they’re not trying to hide their intentions.
What I still don’t understand is WHAT’S ISRAEL’S GOAL, in invading, and how is this course of action helpful? How can I be sympathetic to a course of this scale of military action and destruction to innocents (see links above) without knowing what will be gained from it?
I’m just trying to understand.
I AM sympathetic towards the civilians who are being killed on ANY side.