Israel-Gaza conflict: What has Israel achieved in 26 bloody days?

[Jefferson23]

World View: Hamas is stronger, the Jewish state looks shifty and heartless – and the world's eyes are on Gaza

As Gaza is devastated by a new paroxysm of violence, what has Israel achieved by its 26-day bombardment and ground intervention? The outcome so far is similar to that of past Israeli wars in Lebanon and Gaza: massive firepower is used to inflict heavy losses on the other side, the great majority of the casualties being civilians. But, as the war goes on, Israeli leaders find that Israel's military superiority is failing to produce comparable political gains.

Worse, from the Israeli point of view, it is the Palestinians and, in this case, Hamas, who are in a stronger position than they were a month ago. By its actions, Israel has put the Palestinian issue firmly back on the international agenda from which it had largely disappeared since the Arab uprisings of 2011. Only a few months ago, a friend sympathetic to the Palestinians lamented to me that, in his travels in the US, Europe and the Arab world, he had seldom heard the words "Palestine" or "Palestinians". Gaza, at horrendous cost to its people, has changed all that.

Usually, the sufferings of the four million Palestinians penned into Gaza and the West Bank are invisible to people in the rest of the world. But over the past month we have seen, night after night, pictures of Palestinian families, with their maimed and terrified children, vainly seeking safety amid shattered houses and hospitals. Israeli spokesmen sound shifty and heartless as they claim that there is no proof of Israel's culpability for the shelling of a UN hospital or a children's playground, suggesting that a Hamas rocket might have fallen short. These denials and evasions might work in a short war but, by the time 264 Palestinian children had been killed, as of Friday, they only serve to convince people that Israelis do not care how many Palestinians they kill.

Of course, we have been here many times before, the most notorious Israeli intervention being the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. I was in the Sabra and Shatila camps just after the massacre of 1,700 Palestinians by Christian militiamen who would not have been there but for Israeli actions. When I see pictures of the dead in Gaza, I feel I can still smell the sickly sweet stench of the dead bodies as they began to rot in the hot September sun. I remember the poverty of the dead, with their ragged clothes and plastic shoes, as they lay in the doorways of tiny shops or heaped up in alleyways. Out in the open, a donkey was lying dead between the shafts of a small cart carrying a barrel of water, and corpses were half-buried in a bank of sand, as if somebody had wanted to conceal them but had given up half-way through because there were too many bodies to bury.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/israelgaza-conflict-what-has-israel-achieved-in-26-bloody-days-9644508.html

[hack89]

1. As things get worse in Iraq and Syria

The Palestinians will be forgotten. The carnage inflicted by ISIS will make Gaza look like a walk in the park.

[Jefferson23]

2. Huh? I think Israel should be concerned that what may come to pass would make Hamas look

like a sweet old lady by comparison...in their own back yard.

[hack89]

4. Hamas = ISIS

In the eyes of many Arabs. Religious wackos are wearing out their welcome. The people know who has killed more innocent Muslims over the past decade.

[Jefferson23]

5. No, they're not..please do your research. I can only suggest you do that. n/t

[former9thward]

10. The Arab states are largely ignoring this conflict.

Hamas has over reached and they are certainly not "more powerful."

[Jefferson23]

15. Your comments are out of sync with my conversation with the other poster.

I am sure you did not intend to do that. No one is claiming Hamas is more powerful than
Israel.

The Arab states have their own self interests, and they are weak overall right now.
They do not act in the best interests of the Palestinians any more than they
do their own people...Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, especially. The citizens of those
countries is another matter, but they are powerless.

[hack89]

11. That is a weak, bullshit reply

Nothing in your posting history demonstrates a unique or in depth knowledge of the situation. Why don't you get off your high horse and simply give me some links.

[Jefferson23]

17. I don't have a high horse, I have access to information as you do. I gave you information

in another thread, and you ignored it. If you want to discuss the equation of Hamas = ISIS,
find someone who takes your opinion on it seriously..I do not.

[hack89]

20. Time will tell

I bet the past month in Gaza changes nothing. As things deteriorate in Syria and Iraq Gaza will go straight to the back burner. Hamas will be marginalized by the Arab leadership as fear of radical Islamists continues to grow.

[Jefferson23]

23. I would not bet on that at all, but as you say, time will tell soon enough. n/t

[kelliekat44]

3. I think Israel ought to be concerned about their actions being a spark for ISIS to build itself up.

[hack89]

12. ISIS needs no spark nt

[bemildred]

22. They are already doing that:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113475301

[malaise]

6. Go tell that to the families of the 1,600 dead

and the hundreds of thousands who just lost their homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, etc.
Some of us don't plan to forget.

[Bettie]

7. And to the families of the many more who will die

As lack of electricity, sanitation, food, and shelter up the death toll.

Every one of those deaths is on the Israeli government too, as they made the decision to destroy the entire infrastructure.

[malaise]

8. We certainly need to remind the appropriately named ubiquitous poster

+1,000

[hack89]

13. You are a powerless nobody

Just like me. Your remembrance is irrelevant.

[malaise]

14. No I'm on the side of human rights

and international law. Thankfully we have nothing in common other than the fact that we're both human beings.

[hack89]

18. If that makes you feel special than good for you

It means jackshit as far as what will happen to Gaza.

[malaise]

19. I don't take positions to feel good

I take positions because I have convictions about human rights and international law. All are equal in my eyes - none has special rights and privileges.

[hack89]

21. Right. Got it. nt

[oberliner]

9. Hamas is stronger?

Do you agree with that assessment? I don't think Cockburn makes a very compelling case on that score.

[4now]

16. Israel is it's own worst enemy.

Someday maybe they will kick out this rabid right wing government and try to live in the real world.

[COLGATE4]

24. I think it's because they live in the real world

that they have what you term a 'rabid right-wing government'. Living with the constant, permanent threat of sneak attack has a way of doing that to you.

[Orrex]

25. Almost as demoralizing as the constant threat of massive airstrikes and land invasion

Decades-long forcible occupation has a way of doing that to you, too.


Funny how Israel is always painted as the victim, no matter how superior their military might nor how many civilians they murder.

[COLGATE4]

26. Nothing in the fact that they have superior military might

diminishes the fact that they are still victims. Just points out that Hamas is stupid for picking fights with someone stronger then itself.

[Orrex]

27. Paletstine should have had the good sense not to be forcibly occupied for decades

Shocking lack of foresight on their part.

All victims are not victimized equally. Israel experiences minimal danger and occasional minor property damage, while Palestinians are murdered by the dozen and wide swaths of their city are bombed to rubble, all while suffering under a crippling siege by their aggessive occupying power in the ongoing process of a massive land grab.

Israel's response has consistently been wildly out of proportion to the actual threat or harm inflicted. They are victims in the sense that they've lost any moral authority, but that's about it.