Leaflets were dropped addressed to “the residents of Gaza,” saying that the Israeli military had in recent days warned residents of the southern city of Rafah of “an imminent operation” and asking them to evacuate their homes for their safety.
“The fact that the residents of Rafah abided by the orders,” the leaflets continued, “has protected those who had nothing to do with the fight. The Israel Defense Forces will intensify shortly its directed operation against tunnels, weapon storehouses and members of terrorist groups all over Gaza. For your safety and that of your family you are asked to stay away from terrorist elements and from places where terrorist operations occur. Please continue abiding by our orders.”
Red Cross workers said their telephones were flooded with calls from residents of the Beach refugee camp who had received large numbers of the calls and leaflets. The callers wanted to know if they should evacuate their homes and if so to where.
A Beach camp car mechanic named Hamdi Eki, 47, was asked why he did not leave after receiving such a call. “I have nine children,” he said. “Where can I go? I prefer to die at my own house.”
Source
And so, some of those civilian casualties are whose fault?
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14 comments:
Hamas started this war,is holding civilians hostage and as shields, fights from urban centers, etc.etc and could end the violence today if they chose, they must be held accountable for civilian casualities. Hamas probably orche strates by proxy many of the anti-semetic protests as this is their only strength: to emotionally exploit the "body count" through a gullible and enabling media and U.N. Israel's military is fully justified in what they are doing
and hopefully will will put a just end to Hamas fanatic idiocity.
Hamas started this war,is holding civilians hostage and as shields, fights from urban centers, etc.etc and could end the violence today if they chose, they must be held accountable for civilian casualities. Hamas probably orche strates by proxy many of the anti-semetic protests as this is their only strength: to emotionally exploit the "body count" through a gullible and enabling media and U.N. Israel's military is fully justified in what they are doing
and hopefully will will put a just end to Hamas fanatic idiocity.
Your blog may make sense to you - but your frame of reference is clearly very constrained. I speak for many UK jews who are deeply ashamed of what Israel is now doing, and fear that you have become, in your own minds at least, the new Übermenschen. It is a tragic (but sadly not unique) historico-pathopsychological inversion. If you cannot learn to talk to your neighbours - who have, just as you do, legitimate grievances - then your claims to any form of moral (let alone religious) high ground will disappear altogether. As a Jew, I would regret that.
PaulC
Hi, Paul. Okay, I'll ignore that Nazi imagery. I guess it means nothing to you to throw such terms around. Teach me how do you talk to Hamas? They don't recognize me. They consider me as a monkey, dog & pig, not necessarily in that order. They take orders and arms from Iran via Hezbollah training. My homeland is Waqf property for them. Ever since 1920, Arabs have been not listening to Jews, the League of Nations, the UN, have not accepted one compromise proposal made and accepted by the Zionist movement.
How do I talk to them?
Your words display a lack of accountability prevalent in Zionism today. If I shoot someone, it is my fault he is dead. It is not his fault for failing to "get out of the way". If I kill an innocent because my enemy hid behind them, I am still guilty of killing that innocent. If I pull the trigger, I am at fault. This blame shifting is cowardly, and indicates a lack of moral certainty.
Svein, you know, you really should check your facts before writing.
a) Israel does not intentionally shoot civilians.
b) Hamas intentionally shoots civilians.
c) "Amnesty International has accused Israel and Hamas of endangering civilian lives in the conflict in Gaza, including the use of "human shields".
Israeli troops had forced Palestinian civilians to stay in their homes after taking them over as sniper positions or bases, it said quoting sources in Gaza.
"This increases risk to families and means they are effectively being used as human shields," the group said.
Hamas fighters also put civilians in danger by firing from homes, it added.
"The use of these tactics at a time when armed confrontations are taking place in streets in the middle of densely-populated residential areas underlines the failure of both sides to respect the protected status of civilians in armed conflict," said Amnesty's Malcolm Smart.
The use of human shields in conflict is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions.
Article 51.7 states the presence of civilians 'shall not be used to... shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations'."
and that's from a BBC report.
and this: "the use of human shields constitutes 'perfidy' under Article 147 of the Geneva Convention IV defining the laws of war (which reads: "Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention:...compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power"). The international criminals who use human shields are hostes humani generis: "common enemies of humankind."
a) It is a fact that Israel is shooting (shelling, bombing, whatever) civilians. The attempt to qualify this action by claiming the killing was not "intentional" is misleading, and does not change the fact that Israel did the killing.
b) We are not talking about Hamas.
c) This is another attempt at deflection. (See b, above). The fact that both sides are using human shields is worth noting, but off topic. I am referring specifically to Israel's willingness to hit targets despite the presence of civilians.
The implication in your original post is that if civilians do not leave their houses before Israel turns their neighborhood into a war zone, their deaths are somehow a result of their own actions. These deaths are not suicides, however. They are the result of Israeli aggression. Aggression that will take place (intentionally) despite the presence of innocents.
That Israel is not taking responsibility for these deaths shows a desire to escape accountability. Cowardly.
You cannot ignore Hamas, for if you do, then of course Israel is an "agressor". But if Israel is responding to repeated 8 yr. old Hamas agression, despite repeated truces and ceasefires which Hamas continuoulsy breaks and imports war weaponery, then your house of cards collapses and you are cowardly because you support terror ipso facto.
Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. Simply put terrorism is violence against civlians for political purposes. It is what Hamas has done with rockets and it is now what Israel is doing with fighter jets. In your outrage at Hamas you seem to be completly blind to the hundreds of innocents killed by Israel. Or perhaps only casulties from your side matter and attacks that kill anyone else are well deserved retaliation.
and Young Activist: a mugger stabs you; a doctor uses a scalpel to heal and also has to hurt even healthy cells, etc. Is their a difference? Now look at what Israel is doing in Gaza
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5447590.ece
Here it is. What are you doing using chemical weapons in highly populated areas like Gaza? Are you "saving" Palestinians from Hamas?
And what's your cynism for in this case? Don't you have at least a bit of compassion for people who don't have anywhere to go to save their life nor means to do so.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
THE DEMONS OF GAZA ONLY HAMAS IS TO BLAME FOR THE WAR; ONLY THE PALESTINIANS CAN STOP IT
January 10, 2009
Ralph Peters
The New York Post
Israel hasn't killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives.
But Israeli didn't kill them.
Hamas did.
It's time to smash the lies. The lies of Hamas. The UN lies. And the save-the-terrorists lies of the global media.
There is no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers.
There is no gray area. There is no point in negotiations.
Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate? When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to drive Palestinian civilians into the line of fire - old men, women and children. Hamas herds the innocent into "shelters," then draws Israeli fire on them. And the headline-greedy media cheer them on.
Hamas isn't fighting for political goals. "Brokered agreements" are purely means to an end. And the envisioned end is the complete destruction of Israel in the name of a terrorist god. Safe in hidden bunkers or in Damascus, the Hamas leadership is willing to watch an unlimited number of civilians and even street-level terrorists die.
Lives, too, are nothing but means to an end. And dead kids are the coins that keep the propaganda meter ticking.
All Hamas had to do to prevent Israel's act of self-defense was to leave Israel unmolested by terror rockets. All Hamas needs to do now to stop this conflict and spare the Palestinian people it pretends to champion is to stop trying to kill Israelis and agree to let Israel exist in peace.
Hamas didn't, and Hamas won't.
Now Israel has to continue its attack, to wreak all the havoc it can on Hamas before a new American president starts meddling. If Israel stops now, Hamas can declare victory just for surviving - despite its crippling losses.
While it's impossible to fully eliminate extremism, killing every terrorist leader hiding in a Gaza bunker is the only hope of achieving even a temporary, imperfect peace. The chance may not come again.
And don't worry about "creating a power vacuum." Let the Palestinians pick up their own pieces. Even anarchy in Gaza is better for Israel than Hamas.
Israelis, Americans and Westerners overall share a tragic intellectual blind spot: We're caught in yesterday's model of terrorism, that of Arafat's PLO, of the IRA, the Red Brigades or the Weather Underground. But, as brutal as those organizations could be, they never believed they were on a mission from God.
Yesteryear's terrorists wanted to change the world. They were willing to shed blood and, in extreme cases, to give their own blood to their causes.
But they didn't seek death. They preferred to live to see their "better world." Now our civilization faces terrorists who regard death as a promotion. They believe that any action can be excused because they're serving their god.
And their core belief is that you and I, as stubborn unbelievers, deserve death.
Their grisly god knows no compromise. To give an inch is to betray their god's trust entirely. Yet we - and even some Israelis - believe it's possible to cut deals with them.
In search of peace, Israel handed Gaza to the Palestinians, a people who had never had a state of their own. As thanks, Israel received terror rockets.
And the Palestinian people got a gang war.
Peace is the last thing Hamas terrorists and gangsters want. Peace means the game is up. Peace means they've disappointed their god. Peace means no more excuses. They couldn't bear peace for six months.
This is a war to the bitter end. And we're afraid to admit what it's about.
It's not about American sins or Israeli intransigence. It's about a sickness in the soul of a civilization - of Middle-Eastern Islam - that can only be cured from within. Until Arabs or Iranians decide to cure themselves, we'll have to fight.
Instead, we want to talk. We convince ourselves, against all evidence, that our enemies really want to talk, too, that they just need "incentives" (the diplomat's term for bribes). The apparent belief of our president-elect that it's possible to negotiate with faith-fueled fanatics is so naive it's terrifying.
Yet, it's understandable. Barack Obama's entire career has been built on words, not deeds, on his power to persuade, not his power to deliver. But all the caucuses, debates, neighborhood meetings and backroom deal-making sessions in his past haven't prepared him to "negotiate" with men whose single-minded goal is Israel's destruction - and ours.
If Obama repeats the same "peace-process" folly as his predecessors, from Jimmy have-you-hugged-your-terrorist-today? Carter through Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he'll be devoured before he knows he's been bitten.
How many administrations have to repeat the identical error of believing that, deep down inside, terrorists, gunmen and warlords really want peace every bit as much as we do? Israel's enemies aren't just looking to cut a sharp deal. They want to destroy Israel.
Which part of what they shout in our faces is so hard to understand? Israel's foes have been preaching Jew-hatred for so long that even the "moderates" can't turn back now.
And why does the global left hate Israel so? Why would they pull out the stops to rescue Hamas? Because Israel exposed the lie that a suffering people can't lift itself up through hard work, education and discipline. Israel didn't need the help of a hundred condescending NGOs and their misery junkies.
Because the Holocaust is a permanent embarrassment to Europeans. They need to believe that Israelis are kosher Nazis.
Because, from the safety of cafes and campuses, it's cool to call terrorists "freedom fighters." It makes you feel less guilty when you hit up daddy (or the state) for money. I mean, dude, it's not like you have to, like, live with them or anything, you know? (The preceding sentence is not a direct quote from Caroline Kennedy.) Because, above all, the most-destructive racists in the world today are mainstream leftists. Want the truth? The Left codes Israel as white and, therefore, inherently an oppressor. Israel is held to the highest standard of our civilization and our legal codes - and denied the right to self-defense.
But the Left tacitly believes that people with darker skins are inferior and can't be expected to behave at a civilized level. Leftists expect terrorist movements or African dictators to behave horribly. It's the post-modern, latte-sucking version of the "little brown brother" mentality.
The worst enemies of developing societies have been leftists who refuse to hold them to fundamental standards of governance and decency. But, then, the Left needs developing societies to fail to prove that the system's hopelessly stacked against them.
A battered, impoverished, butchered people built a thriving Western democracy in an Eastern wasteland. Israel can never be forgiven for its success.
In this six-decade-old conflict that Israel's intractable neighbors continue to force upon it, there not only are no good solutions, but, thanks to the zero-sum mentality of Islamist terrorists, there aren't even any bad solutions - short of nuclear genocide - that would bring an enduring peace to the Middle East.
And even the elimination of Israel wouldn't be enough. The terrorists would fight among themselves, while warring upon less-devout fellow Muslims.
All Israel can do is to fight for time and buy intervals of relative calm with the blood of its sons and daughters. By demanding premature cease-fires and insisting that we can find a diplomatic solution, we strengthen monsters and undercut our defenders.
And don't believe the propaganda about this conflict rallying Gaza's Palestinians behind Hamas. That's more little-brown-brother condescension, assuming all Arabs are so stupid they don't know who started this and who's dragging it out at their expense.
Gaza's people may not care much for Israelis, but they rue the day they cast their votes for Hamas. Hamas is killing them.
wow! Anonymous, I haven't heard a more racist, more paranoid, sicker crapp in my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ralph and whovever believes this, i really urge you to seak a professional help.
To anyone doubting IDF - an army I used to serve in and be proud of it and now can only hang my head in shame - deliberately targets civilians and especially children, read this pretty conclusive post by Lawrence of Cyberia with enough facts to cause your hair to stand on end.
Yisrael, you advocate collective punishment for the population of Gaza for them electing Hamas. This is against international law, immoral in any moral framework and against basic human decency. You should be truly ashamed of yourself.
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