Will Israel launch "Cast Lead II" on Gaza?

  GAZA, March 7  -- Since the end of the "Cast Lead" operation, a 22-day Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip, violence between Israel and minor Gaza militant groups, mainly radical Islamic Jihad (Holy War), has escalated.
    With the increase of violence, in which dozens of rockets have been fired from Gaza at southern Israeli, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had threatened to carry out another quick large-scale operation against Gaza rockets fire.
    Gaza observers and ordinary residents expressed deep concerns and fear. They began to ask the question "Under such crucial circumstances, will Israel this time carry out another large-scale operation against the Gaza Strip and what will be the goals of this war?"
    Ahmed Odwan, a political observer based in Gaza, said he does not believe that Israel would take the risk again, unless "Hamas movement, which hasn't fired rockets at Israel since Jan. 18, gets involved and more intensive rockets attacks are carried out against Israel."
    The recent offensive with the claimed aim of stopping Gaza rocket fire against southern Israel killed over 1,300 Palestinians and 11 Israelis. Israeli warplanes, naval vessels and tanks destroyed thousands of houses, governmental and security buildings as well as infrastructure in the Hamas-controlled Gaza.
    "Most of those killed were not militants. They were civilians. Israel's image was badly damaged before the international community after it waged the war against Gaza, and I don't think Israel would do it again," said Odwan.
    Hamas spokesman in Gaza Fawzi Barhoum has described the Israeli offensive in Gaza as "a great failure," adding that his movement warned Israel of carrying out another war against the Palestinians saying "this time Israeli would be faced by tougher resistance."
    The offensive was put to an end on Jan. 18 as both Israel and Hamas declared unilateral ceasefires. Hamas' move to declare a ceasefire was aimed to pave the way for the Egyptian efforts to reach a long-term truce with Israel.
    However, Israel warned if rocket attacks continued, it would hit back toughly.
    The Israeli security cabinet, headed by Olmert, has officially decided that there will be no truce with Hamas, until the radical movement frees Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured in the summer of 2006 by Hamas-led Palestinian groups.
    Since the end of the Israeli military onslaught, a minor group called the Brigades of Hezbollah in Palestine continued firing rockets at Israel. The group has been affiliated to pro-Iran Islamic Jihad, but it decided to act independently in the wake of the offensive.
    After the large-scale offensive, the Israeli army carried out a series of airstrikes targeting militants. Israel has not only targeted the members of this small group, but also senior Islamic Jihad militants and killed four of them.
    Saraya al-Quds, Islamic Jihad's armed wing, fired around 20 rockets in revenge for the killing of five of its militants.
    A senior Israeli army official also revealed that Israel would carry out a quick military operation against rockets firing from Gaza.
    The Israeli threat came as there are only 10 days left for right-wing Likud chairman, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government.
    "The aim of carrying out another war if it happens soon will be like throwing a ball of fire by the current government of Olmert at the new government of Netanyahu," said Khader Abu Ghalioun, a Palestinian academic from Gaza.
    He expected that the Israeli army would carry out a military operation in Gaza a day or two before Netanyahu takes office and hand over a boiling situation to the government of Netanyahu.
    "There is another reason for carrying out another war on Gaza. That is to thwart any success of the internal Palestinian reconciliation talks that will resume in Cairo on March 10," said Abu Ghalioun.
    He said "the best thing is to wait and see what will happen during the coming crucial three weeks," adding "all depends on what the Israeli cabinet decides in its meeting on Sunday."

Israels Propaganda Machine: An Inside Look at Israels Deception and Manipulation

Do you know that some posters here are actually volunteers and paid workers for the Israeli propaganda machine? Did you ever wonder how these "Sock Puppets" get their info to post in response to truths? I call them "Sock Puppet Terrorists". Here is the article with links to the propaganda machine! (expect an onslaught of hate from these sock puppet terrorists!)

The source of this report, -Israel National News- , tells the whole story.

Israel gets away with as much as they can with their propaganda
machine via AIPAC, Mossad and the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Their propaganda sophistication rivals that of the Nazis and the old
Soviets.

Here's a report on Israel's vast propaganda enterprise:

The hasbara brigade strikes again!  You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation.  Everyone knows it’s going on but usually the process happens through dedicated volunteers like those involved with Giyus.  Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to fill news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.
A friend has received the following e mail which documents both the efforts and the agency that originated them.  The solicitation to become a propagandist also includes a list of media links which the ministry would like flooded with pro-Israel comments:

Dear friends,
We hold the military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it’s a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote - the more likely we gain positive sentiment.
I was asked by the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange a network of volunteers, who are willing to contribute to this effort. If you’re up to it you will receive a daily messages & media package as well as targets.
If you wish to participate, please respond to this email.

My friend did so and received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Solid Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Here are the links s/he was asked to respond to:

English
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/04/israel-history-comment-peter-beaumont
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5446519.ece
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2158709/posts
http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=169745 (comment on Anti-Israeli posts, post your own)
http://palestinian.ning.com/profiles/blogs/ilan-pappe-israels-righteous
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/depleted-uranium-found-gaza-victims(disinformation)
Spanish
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/ataque-brutal-y-sangriento-de-israel-contra-la-franja-de-gaza/3276528285/?icid=VIDURVENT06
Dutch
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/2925927/__Chaos_in_ziekenhuizen__.html
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/2923318/__Veel_burgerdoden_in_Gaza__.html
Material to use
http://www.bicom.org.uk/
Video - Israel history in 10 minutes -http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/What_Really_Happened_in_the_Middle_East.asp
Amid Gaza violence, Israeli and Palestinian doctors save baby’s life -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjqm5tzIwIQ
– CNN’s Amanpour interviews Tzipi Livni - http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=3244332&ak=null
Military incursion should be seen as part of War on Terror,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5447575.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093
Blog from Southern Israel, Morit Rozen - http://soundsofwar.wordpress.com/

If you visit any of those articles you will identify the hasbaraniks easily through the pseudo-polite style they adopt and the programed arguments they advance.

Remember when the defense department was paying public relations companies to insert articles praising the Iraq war in U.S. newspapers?  There rightly was a media uproar about the manipulation.  We’ll see whether the same happens over this.

I just hope the foreign ministry doesn’t get a pass on this one.  They view this as maximizing their efforts to “explain” Israel’s position in the world media.  I view it as a cynical attempt to flood the web and news media with favorable flackery in a vain attempt to tilt the war effort favorably toward Israel.  Not only does it do Israel a disservice, it stains every legitimate effort that the ministry might make to explain Israel to the world, since no one will believe a word it says knowing it engages in such outright propaganda efforts.

Not to mention that this is such cheap pennyante s(^t.  What do they gain by this?  How effective can it be and how many can be convinced?  By the way, I’ve even noticed the hasbaraniks here in this blog.  You can tell them a mile away because they’ve never published a comment before yet write something like: “I’ve enjoyed your blog for a long time, but anyone with a brain in their head knows that Hamas is out to destroy Israel blah, blah blah.”  Pretty formulaic stuff.  Also, you can Google a few phrases of the comment and if you find it appears elsewhere on the web you know you either have a hasbaranik or someone who has repetition compulsion.

In the meantime, over 500 Gazans are dead.  An entire family of seven killed in their home.  Claims are flying that Israel is using depleted uranium, cluster bombs and white phosphorus munitions.  But thank God, hasbara never sleeps.

Israel's Soldier's of Conscience

This post is to highlight and salute the bravery and courage of those Jews inside Israel who refuse to be part of the colonial occupation and mass murder of Palestinians by the Zionist State of Israel.
To understand the context in which these brave men and women are taking a public stand it needs to be remembered that polls conducted during the recent hostilities show that an astounding 90% of Israel's Jews support the war on Gaza; that Israel has officially banned Arab political parties from standing in elections, and that those who take a public stand are threatened and humiliated by people on the street and by institutions of the State.
Despite this mass hyteria of support for its murderous war, conscientious objectors are standing up and refusing to be part of it. "Not in my name!" they say and are ready to face jail and social censure.
We at Pragoti stand in solidarity with these men and women and hold our raised fist in a "Lal Salaam"!
It should be remembered that this present refusal to military service has been going on for some time. Here is the letter from 550 Israeli soldiers who refused to serve the occupation in 2003, among them war-criminal Binyamin Netanyahu's own nephew. School children in class 12 are also showing a maturity and morality worthy of admiration in refusing military service and willingly going to jail for their stand.
(Those with Facebook profiles can support the Shministim letter here. Those with a bit more time on their hands can read this book on Israel's Soldiers of Conscience).
The numbers may be small, but precisely for that reason, they deserve all the support they can get. We want to tell them that they may be in a minority inside Israel, but are with the overwhelming majority of the world's people.
-- --
Postscript: Just to place on record the courage of those US and UK soldiers who have also refused to fight the imperialist war in Iraq.
Post Post script: sorry for not letting you go but here is a whore-media alert! The BBC has refused to carry an appeal for humanitarian aid in Gaza! How much lower can these guys go? I'm sure we've seen nothing yet!

Israel indicts two journalists for violating censorship

Tel Aviv, Jan 13 (DPA) Two east Jerusalem employees of a production company servicing various media outlets worldwide, including one based in Iran, were indicted in Israel Tuesday for breaking Israeli military censorship, the Ynet news site reported.Kadir Shahin, a reporter with Iranian Arabic-speaking Alalam television station, and producer Muhammad Sarhan are accused of reporting that Israeli ground troops had entered the Gaza Strip Jan 3, before the information was cleared for publication.


According to the indictment, filed in the Jerusalem District court, the two were reporting from the Israeli side of the Gaza border when they spotted Israeli forces gearing up for the ground incursion into the Strip.

Although allegedly aware the information had not been cleared by the military censor, they two began a live broadcast detailing the troops’ moves, the indictment charges.

According to the prosecution, their broadcast included information which they knew could easily find its way to viewers in Gaza, including Hamas members, with whom Israel is located in combat in the salient.

The prosecution also asked the court to remand the two in custody until the end of the legal proceedings against them, arguing that their office is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, thus posing a risk they could try to flee if released.

Foreign correspondents working in Israel are required to sign a form agreeing to abide by military censorship regulations.

Israel pursues diplomacy but presses attacks

JERUSALEM: Israel broadened the scope of its air offensive against the Hamas infrastructure in Gaza on Thursday, destroying important symbols of the government and, for the first time in its six-day-old campaign, killing a senior leader of the militant Islamic group.

With Israeli troops and tanks massing along the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground invasion, Israel also pursued diplomatic avenues to explain its positions.

The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, flew to Paris to meet with French leaders who are seeking ways to promote a cease-fire. Before she left, Livni suggested that Israel was seeking more time for its military operation, which officials say is intended to bring an end to the rocket fire from Gaza that has plagued southern Israel for years.

The Israeli Air Force on Thursday afternoon bombed the house of Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader, killing him along with his four wives and nine of his children, four of them under the age of 18, Palestinian hospital officials said. An Israeli military spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, described Rayyan as one of the "most extreme" figures of Hamas, which controls Gaza. The military said he had helped plan a deadly suicide bombing in Israel in 2004, had sent his own son on a suicide mission against Jewish settlers in Gaza in 2001 and was advocating renewed suicide missions against Israel in retaliation for the current offensive.

Rayyan was known in Gaza as a highly influential figure with strong links to the military wing of Hamas, particularly in northern Gaza, where he lived, and as a popular Hamas preacher who openly extolled and championed the idea of martyrdom.

The Israeli military said in a statement that there were many secondary explosions after the air attack, "proving that the house was used for storing weaponry." It was also used as a communications center, the statement said, and a tunnel that had been dug under the house was used by Hamas operatives.
Most Hamas leaders in Gaza have been in hiding since the Israeli operation began, but Rayyan was said to have refused to leave his home on ideological grounds. In the past, he had been known to gather supporters to stand on the rooftops of other houses in Gaza that Israel had threatened to strike.
While hundreds of thousands of Gazans have received warnings in the form of telephone messages or fliers that their buildings are Israeli targets, Leibovich said she could not give details or specify whether Rayyan's family had been warned.

Hamas called on Palestinians in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem to mark Friday as a "day of wrath" by holding marches after noon prayers, according to Agence France-Presse.

Hamas has so far responded to the Israeli military assault by firing yet more rockets deeper into the country. On Thursday, a rocket fired from Gaza struck an apartment building in the major port city of Ashdod, about 20 miles north of the Palestinian territory, causing extensive damage but no serious injuries.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli warplanes and naval forces bombed Hamas security installations, militants' houses and tunnels used for smuggling weapons, as well as symbols of the government like the legislative building — a Gaza landmark — and the Ministry of Justice, the Israeli military said.
In Gaza City, a large section of the main street around the destroyed legislative building was filled with rubble. Armed Hamas security officers in civilian clothes were out on the streets maintaining control.

Medical officials in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment had topped 400. While many of the dead were Hamas security personnel, the United Nations said, a quarter of those killed were civilians. Some Israeli officials have put the number of Palestinian civilians killed at closer to 10 percent.
In France — which on Thursday handed over the rotating presidency of the European Union to the Czech Republic — Livni met with President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for "an exchange of opinions and ideas" and to share information about Israel's intentions and plans, an Israeli official said.

Livni, speaking from Paris, again rejected the idea proposed this week by Kouchner for a 48-hour lull in the fighting for humanitarian purposes.

"There is no humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, she said, "and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

The Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the French proposal, called it "unrealistic," "hasty" and bordering on "offensive," saying that Israel was already allowing relief supplies into Gaza every day.

The European Union has in the meantime issued a statement calling for an "immediate and permanent cease-fire," including an "unconditional halt to rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel and an end to Israeli military action."

But as she left for Paris, Livni told Israel Radio that Jerusalem would not agree to a cease-fire at this point and that it would continue with its military operation. "This is not a short battle and it is not a single battle, and we have long-range goals," Livni said.

Sarkozy is now scheduled to stop in Israel on Monday during a tour of the Middle East.
Israel's stated goal for its operation is to halt the rocket fire from Gaza and to create a new security situation in southern Israel, where three civilians and a soldier have been killed in rocket attacks in the past six days.

Israeli officials have been less clear about whether or not they hope to topple Hamas, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and then took full control of Gaza after routing forces loyal to the rival Palestinian Authority in June 2007.

But in attacking symbols of the government on Thursday, Israel seemed to be blurring the lines. The military said in a statement on Thursday that Hamas government sites "serve as a critical component of the terrorist group's infrastructure in Gaza."

Israel, like the United States and the European Union, classifies Hamas as a terrorist group. Livni has emphasized that Israel will not accept Hamas's rule as legitimate unless the organization fulfills conditions set by the international community, including recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing all violence and accepting previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians — conditions that Hamas has so far rejected.

Israeli officials have said they will work with allies to build a durable, long-term truce while seeking to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, a measure that will help prolong the Israeli military's ability to act.
Israeli human rights groups on Thursday issued an urgent appeal to Ehud Barak, the defense minister, demanding that Israel restore fuel supplies to Gaza to ensure the proper functioning of hospitals, water wells and other vital humanitarian institutions.

Sari Bashi, the director of one of the groups, Gisha, which advocates the free movement of Palestinians, said that while food and medicine were coming into Gaza, the supply of fuel was "extremely minimal" for the past two months.

Mirek Topolanek, the Czech prime minister, told Czech television that organizing a cease-fire would be the European Union's "main role in the coming days and weeks."

The European Union initiative said the cessation of fighting "should allow lasting and normal opening of all border crossings" to Gaza, a fundamental Hamas demand for any renewal of the six-month truce that expired on Dec. 19. But the European initiative suggests that the crossings should be operated by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with European monitors, a provision that Hamas is likely to reject.
Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza; Rina Castelnuovo from Ashdod, Israel; and Alison Smale from Paris.

It's Overtime for Hamas' Leaders and Time for Them to Go

By Amb. Marc Ginsberg

The Gaza Strip is truly a forbidding place for the uninitiated.

I first visited Gaza City in 1971 when I was a young staffer on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees undertaking one of Congress' first assessments of the plight of Palestinian refugees, and then several times in the past few decades.

It does not take a sophisticated observer to understand the repressive squalor that qualifies as subsistence living inside Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are crammed into a sandbox slum no bigger than the District of Columbia, cut off from their brethren in the West Bank -- yes, suffering under a Hamas rule that by any standard has actually made Gaza as close to a hell on earth as one can imagine. Instead of preserving the last vestiges of operable civilian infrastructure that the Israelis had left behind following their withdrawal a few years ago, Hamas methodically bulldozed the "Zionist contaminants" (translated from Hamas' own Arabic website). So much for giving its own people a better life even if it meant benefiting from Israeli "leftovers."

My last visit a few years ago was the most revealing (before Hamas seized Gaza). I was on a fact-finding mission and requested to meet with one of Hamas' leaders, who were surprisingly open to the request. Always important to hear extremists in their own tongue. I was put into the trunk of a car once across the Nesher Israeli crossing, and taken on a bone-breaking ride through Gaza's potholed streets to a back alley. The car stopped, the trunk popped open, and I soon found myself face to face with one of Hamas' leaders (name withheld).

For over two hours, I was subjected to the expected Hamas rantings about Israel's illegitimacy and Hamas' determination to transform Palestine into a fundamentalist Islamic state where only those Jews who had lived in pre-British Mandate Palestine would be "accepted."

And what would become of all of the other millions of Jews who had come to settle in Israel since then I asked? Hamas conveniently would force them out of Israel, and what became of them was of no consequence to Hamas. It was the UN's problem, the Americans' problem, the Germans' problem, but no longer the Palestinians' problem. Driving them into the sea would have been too impolitic for the Hamas spokesman to utter, but the intent was just the same.

Therefore, in order order to understand what this struggle is all about, one must understand Hamas' goals, largely derived from its ideological paternity to the Egyptian Muslim Brothehood. As a Sunni extremist offshoot of the Brotherhood, Hamas' raison d'etre is Israel's destruction -- nothing less will do.

Hamas' leaders, both in Gaza and in Damascus, have every intent to transform Hamas' control of Gaza into "Hezbollah South." Hamas, with Iran's backing, is slowly preparing Gaza to serve as a staging ground for an eventual all-out assault on Israel, joined at the hip with its Shiite extremist terrorist brethren of the Hezbollah who are also busily rearming themselves in Lebanon and itching for the next round of war with Israel -- hopefully with a nuclear-armed Iran to egg them on.

Since Hamas illegitimately seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in its own fratricidal terror campaign, Hamas has imposed a Taliban-style subsistence on the Gaza Strip, made all the harsher by Hamas' stubborn refusal to soften its hatred of Israel so as to permit more aid to enter Gaza.

The rockets being fired arbitrarily, and may I intentionally add, without Israeli provocation, after the expiration on December 18 of the latest intermittent "Tahdiyeh" or self-declared Hamas "lull" is designed to turn southern Israel into a virtual no-man's land. Hamas wants to begin "liberating" Palestine from its side of the border.

When Hamas' leaders decided to resume their indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, they did so knowing full well that Israel would be forced to react no matter what the inevitable civilian suffering. Having smuggled into Gaza longer-range Grad missiles from Iran through the 800 some odd tunnels that Hamas has dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border, Hamas is betting on the hope that the Israel's countermeasures would drive more and more Palestinians into the lap of Hamas, both in Gaza and the West Bank. There is a real danger that this could occur.


Despite my instinctive belief that one should try to negotiate a way out of this dilemma no matter the odds, I have concluded that the only way out of this mess is to separate Hamas' entire military and political leadership from the oppressed citizenry of Gaza (and yes, it is absolutely a mischaracterization of fact to assert that Hamas is the legitimate ruler of Gaza). Easier said than done you say. But as long as Hamas rules Gaza, no amount of cajoling is going to end the vicious cycle of terror that Hamas is inflicting first and foremost on its own beaten-down Palestinian victims as well as on Israel.

Just as Yassir Arafat was forced into Tunisian exile in 1982 after he transformed Lebanon into a mess, so, too, must Hamas' leadership share a similar fate until such time as they either die clinging to their nightmarish vision for the future of Palestine, or end their campaign of terror once and for all.
Ultimately, the Palestinian people deserve better than what Hamas offers them. Hamas has rejected every opportunity to be more accommodating not only with Israel, but also with every Arab mediator that has tried to mend Hamas' fences with the Palestinian Authority. That speaks volumes about Hamas' true intentions. As long as Hamas rules its Gaza roost with its iron fist, any hope for a two state solution is just not in the cards. Hamas plays with a crooked deck.

If not merely for the sake of Israel's right to live in peace and security, but also for the right of Palestinians to have a brighter tomorrow, its time to force Hamas' leadership out of Gaza. Preferably, this will be done not as a result of further destruction to Gaza or to Israeli southern cities, but due to unyielding international pressure that forces Hamas to relinquish its stranglehold on Gaza. Better for Hamas leaders to live in forced exile rather than enable them to block any hope for ending Gaza's misery and establishing a Palestinian homeland existing side-by-side with a safe and secure Israel.
For those shedding crocodile tears for Hamas, its time to take a good hard look at what it has wrought on the Palestinians of Gaza.

A Tit For A Tat

First the Israelis were :

Israel hit by rockets from Gaza

 

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Israeli children react to a Palestinian rocket attack Wednesday in the southern city of Ashkelon, neighboring

Gaza Militants Bombard Israel With Dozens Of Rockets, Mortars

Then ---Why Did Israel Attack Gaza?

Why has Israel launched the deadliest attacks on Palestinian territory since the 1967 Six Day War?
Israel's onslaught is a reprisal for a week-long barrage of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza. Israel says it had to safeguard the lives in towns bordering the strip. Palestinians, and many others, believe the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also ordered the raids to achieve what his government had failed to achieve through other means: the removal from power of Hamas, the Islamist political movement elected to run Gaza in 2006, which it accuses of being controlled by Iran and Syria.

Was the timing a surprise?
The scale and ferocity of the attacks came as a shock to many but tensions had been building after the expiry on 18 December of a ceasefire.
Why did the ceasefire collapse?
Hamas had offered to renew the ceasefire if Israel reopened Gaza's border crossings. The strip had been sealed by Israel in an economic siege aimed at toppling Hamas. The blockade has brought the territory near economic collapse.
Are Israeli domestic politics a factor?
Very much so. Israel is preparing for general elections on 10 February. The prospect of a return to power by the hawk Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, promising tough action against Hamas, has hardened the positions of Israel's more moderate political leaders.
Can Israel achieve its security aims by attacking Hamas so forcefully?
It is difficult to see Israel's action as being anything other than counterproductive, particularly if it escalates and widens the assault. Unless a fresh truce can be negotiated quickly, the hopes raised by the election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency and the possibility of a more engaged US policy seem to have dimmed again.
Read more at The Independent

After The Israeli's Bombarded Gaza

Bodies of Palestinian Policemen killed in the Israeli airstrike

Bodies of Palestinians are seen at Shifa hospital in Gaza December 27, 2008

Bodies of Palestinian Policemen killed in the Israeli airstrike

In this image taken from APTN video, Palestinian men carry two injured children into hospital after Israeli aircraft struck.

Palestinians lift a wounded woman to a vehicle after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008.

Palestinians help a wounded man after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008.

Palestinians transport the body of a Palestinian after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008.

A Palestinian is rushed to hospital after he was wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City.

A wounded Palestinian woman is rushed into hospital in Gaza City December 27, 2008.

Palestinians help a wounded man after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008

Bodies of Palestinians are seen at Shifa hospital in Gaza December 27, 2008.

An explosion from an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip

Smoke and fire are seen after an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip December 27, 2008

Palestinians inspects a destroyed Hamas police compounds following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli air strike in Rafah, a town in the southern Gaza Strip.

The leg of a Hamas policeman is seen between the rubbles following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008

Smoke rises after an Israeli bomb exploded in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip December 27, 2008.

A Palestinian rescue worker inspects damage on a Hamas police compounds following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli air strike in the southern town of Rafah.

A Palestinian man cries over the body of his son following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008.

Palestinian medics recover the body of a dead woman from the rubble of a destroyed Hamas police compound following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008

A Hamas policeman asks for help as others try to recover a body from a destroyed Hamas police compounds following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008

A Palestinian Hamas policeman inspects the destroyed former office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Bodies of Palestinians are seen at Shifa hospital in Gaza December 27, 2008

Palestinians run for cover following an Israeli missile strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008.(AP)

A wounded Hamas policeman lies on the ground following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008.

The body of a Hamas police officer is transported to hospital in Gaza City December 27, 2008.

Bodies of Palestinians are seen at Shifa hospital in Gaza December 27, 2008

A Palestinian woman wounded in Israeli missile strikes is helped into the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. (AP)

Palestinians gather at the site of a security compound used by the Islamic group Hamas following an Israeli missile strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008.


Bodies of Palestinian Policemen killed in the Israeli airstrike





NOW WHO SUFFERS?

Is it Hamas? Is it Ehud Olmert ? Likud party? Obama? George Bush? The Islamist? Iranians? Syrians? Is it the Egyptians? ....no

IT IS ORDINARY CITIZENS LIKE YOU AND ME....Let's say No to Israeli Violence and Lets Say No to Hamas Violence. LET SAY NO TO VIOLENCE....


VIOLENCE ONLY BEGETS VIOLENCE

Israel Strikes Back

By P. David Hornik

For months now, the Palestinian terror group Hamas has been shelling Israeli cities with little in the way of an assertive response. But this weekend, which capped a week when at least 300 Hamas-fired rockets and mortars pounded southern Israel, the Israeli government has at last decided to retaliate.
“Operation Cast Iron” opened on Saturday with a carefully planned, perfectly coordinated, and devastating air strike against Hamas targets in Gaza. The strike, which involved more than 100 aircraft and occurred in two waves, destroyed dozens of military and police headquarters, training camps, and above-ground and underground weapons facilities. If Hamas estimates are to be believed, approximately 200 Palestinians have been killed. Of these, a great majority appear to have been terrorist combatants. Israel has also bombed the Islamic University in Gaza, and is now threatening a full-scale invasion.

The weekend offensive marks the third time in less than a decade that Israel has opened a war whose proximate cause is terrorist aggression but which was actually fostered by Israel’s own self-delusive policies. For instance, the second intifada, which broke out in September 2000, was made possible by Israel’s Oslo-era policy of inviting terrorist armies, including Hamas, to entrench itself in the West Bank and Gaza. By allowing Hamas to build up its political power base and military capabilities, Israel virtually guaranteed that it would be drawn into a future conflict in Gaza. A similar cycle of cause-and-effect underpinned the second Lebanon War, which broke out in July 2006. That conflict was made possible in large part by Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Likewise, Israel’s latest military campaign is the inevitable result of Israel’s ill-conceived “disengagement” from Gaza in August 2005. The flaw of the earlier withdrawal was starkly revealed this Sunday, when sorties against Hamas targets destroyed no fewer than 40 smuggling tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai. These tunnels were a testament to the terrorist activity that Israel’s withdrawal had made possible.
Seen against the background of Hamas’s resurgence, this weekend's successful strikes are long overdue. So, too, is the chastening that they signal within Israel’s political leadership – the triumvirate of outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni – which appears finally to have grasped that Hamas cannot be stopped with economic pressure and temporary ceasefires. As Barak told Fox News this weekend, “For us to be asked to have a ceasefire with Hamas is like asking you to have a ceasefire with al-Qaeda. It's something we cannot really accept.” Meanwhile, Livni reportedly said that Islamists must be drummed out of Gaza’s leadership.

This newfound resoluteness is to be welcomed. But the fact that Israel’s leaders have come to realize the urgency of confronting terrorism does not compensate for the dismal failures of their past performance. Reports indicate that Saturday’s strike relied on lengthy planning and intelligence gathering, but they don’t settle the question of how the government could have waited so long to act – particularly when 250,000 Israeli citizens had been living so long under a relentless barrage of rockets and mortar fire. The new Israeli offensive must also be considered in the context of the Olmert government’s bungled war against Hezbollah in 2006, when the limited success of an initial aerial bombardment was succeeded by a less successful ground offensive and, ultimately, a tenuous ceasefire.

Early evidence suggests that the government has recognized its past mistakes, and is intent on avoiding them. Thus Olmert, Barak, and Livni have defined Operation Cast Iron’s goals narrowly, eschewing the bombastic statements that the Olmert government made when the second Lebanon War erupted. Operation Cast Iron is designed to put an end to Hamas's rocket fire, terrorist activity, and arms smuggling.

However, questions abound. Will Barack and Livni follow through with their rhetoric about toppling Hamas, or will they be content to leave it in power after a temporary show of strength? If the latter, who will stop the weapons smuggling or prevent Hamas from recuperating militarily and preparing to drag Israel into its next confrontation?

Just as pressingly, who will take over if Israel does depose Hamas in a ground invasion? On the one hand, Olmert, Barak, and Livni remain allergic to the idea of Israel’s long-term reoccupation of parts or all of Gaza. But the possible alternatives are troubling. For instance, the experience of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon in southern Lebanon, which shields instead of thwarts Hezbollah’s ongoing empowerment, argues against the idea of NATO or other international forces taking over Gaza. Similarly, Israel should avoid replacing Hamas with Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah-run Palestinian Authority. Gaza’s transfer from anti-Israeli Hamas to anti-Israeli Fatah is in fact no solution, because even if Fatah presently lacks Hamas's energy and discipline, it can nevertheless be relied on to instill hatred of Israel in future generations of Palestinians, just as it currently does in the West Bank.

Still another troubling possibility is that, with Israeli elections tentatively scheduled for February 10, a perceived successful outcome to the war would help the current government defeat the Likud party, most of whose current lineup opposed the “disengagement” that created the current crisis in the first place. Given the Likud leadership’s foresight in this regard, it would be unfortunate if the next government did not share its grasp of the threats to Israeli security – especially at a time when, however grave the Gaza threat, the incomparably greater Iranian threat could require critical decision-making by the spring of 2009.
It is hard to trust the very people who got Israel into its mess in Gaza to get the country out of it. A viable solution to Gaza may involve Israel reoccupying its most strategic parts—the Gaza-Sinai border and the northern Strip from which most of the rockets are launched—while putting any Gaza regime on notice that continued aggression will result in further Israeli conquests. While such a solution may seem uncompromising, it is in fact greatly preferable to the successive retreats and empty “ceasefires” that have defined Israeli policy in Gaza to date. Unfortunately, it is a solution that requires the kind of political courage that has not been the hallmark of Israel’s current leadership.