US 'Appalled' By 'Disgraceful' UN School Shelling

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States said declared Sunday it is "appalled" by the "disgraceful" shelling by Israel of a United Nations school sheltering some 3,000 displaced people in southern Gaza.

In language that was rare in its directness and severity, the U.S. denounced in a statement issued Sunday the attack earlier in the day that killed 10 people, noting that the school had been designated a protected location.

"The coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israel Defense Forces," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in the statement. "We once again stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties."

The U.S. condemnation follows one by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who depicted the shelling near the Rafah school as both "a moral outrage and a criminal act."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/us-appalled-disgraceful-un-school-shelling-180521599--politics.html

[Fred Sanders]

1. CNN is careful to juxtapose reporting on this with images of rockets and tunnels.....for balance.

Fox is whistling past the graveyards with no coverage at all.

The corporate media is riding right past the graveyards of children, while Bibi spits on America.

[JDPriestly]

6. And, I too, will balance this report with the report on the

rockets and tunnels because I don't think that DUers realize the pressure that Palestinian extremists have placed on Israel or Israel's considerable investment in trying to protect itself from the Palestinian terrorism without harming innocent Palestinians.

2000s

List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2001
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2002–2006
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2007
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2008
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2009

2010s

List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2010
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2011
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2012
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2013
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

and for 2014

This is a detailed list of Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks on Israel in 2014. All of the attacks originated in the Gaza Strip, unless stated otherwise. For information pertaining to the wider conflict, see Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This list does not include reports of deaths and injuries caused by Hamas rocket and mortar attacks that fell within Gaza.

On 5 March, the Israeli Navy intercepted a ship containing dozens of long-range rockets being smuggled from Iran to the Gaza Strip.

On 10 March, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, unveiled a monument to its rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns, a life-sized model of an M-75 rocket in Gaza City. The group declared that the attacks "managed to take the battle to the heart of the Zionist entity (Israel)".

On 23 April, Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation deal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014

3,055 rocket attacks in 2014 alone.

Israel built a wall and refused entry to Palestinians (one of the reasons they are accused of Apartheid) to protect against suicide bombers.

Here is the Al-Jazeera story on the wall:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/12/visual-activism-activestillsphotographsthebarrierwall.html

That tells it from the Palestinian point of view.

Here is the Israeli view on the wall:



Before the construction of the fence, and in many places where it has not yet been completed, a terrorist need only walk across an invisible line to cross from the West Bank into Israel. No barriers of any kind exist, so it is easy to see how a barrier, no matter how imperfect, won't at least make the terrorists' job more difficult. Approximately 75 percent ofthe suicide bombers who attacked targets inside Israel came from across the border where the first phase of the fence was built.

This diagram shows why a wall is being built in a few specific places where Palestinian snipers have terrorized motorists.

During the 34 months from the beginning of the violence in September 2000 until the construction of the first continuous segment of the security fence at the end of July 2003, Samaria-based terrorists carried out 73 attacks in which 293 Israelis were killed and 1950 wounded. In the 11 months between the erection of the first segment at the beginning of August 2003 and the end of June 2004, only three attacks were successful, and all three occurred in the first half of 2003.

Since construction of the fence began, the number of attacks has declined by more than 90%. The number of Israelis murdered and wounded has decreased by more than 70% and 85%, respectively, after erection of the fence.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html

But then the Palestinians shot rockets into Israel over the wall, so Israel built a shield to protect its citizens from the rockets.

Here is the story on the shield.

As soon as US President Barack Obama disembarked from Air Force One on his first visit to Israel last month, an Iron Dome battery was ready for his inspection at Ben Gurion airport.

There could have been few clearer signs of the importance attached to the missile batteries that are the pride of the nation’s defences. If one product has come to define the high-tech military apparatus of Israel Inc, it is the Iron Dome.

The anti-missile defence system shielded the country from a barrage of Qassam and Grad rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas during the eight-day Operation Pillar of Defence in November. Israel’s defence ministry says Iron Dome had a success rate of more than 80 per cent during the operation, in which about 170 Gazan Palestinians and six Israelis died.

Designed to intercept short-range rockets, Iron Dome is the smallest and best-known component of a multilayer anti-missile defence system Israel is building to shoot down ordnance fired from as far away as Iran.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6b120a1e-9883-11e2-867f-00144feabdc0.html

The article is about Obama's 2013 visit to Israel and is dated March 2013.

Here is what set off Israel's current attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. You don't read about this on DU because it doesn't confirm the DU party line on Palestine and Israel. I probably would not be permitted to post this as an OP because people would read it as pro-Israel when in fact I am trying to be fair.

SUFA, Israel — Israel’s decision to invade Gaza has its roots just outside of this small kibbutz in southern Israel where open fields and citrus orchards offer a pastoral scene that residents say has long been deceptive.

At dawn on Thursday, 13 Hamas gunmen from Gaza emerged from the mouth of an underground tunnel about a mile away, inside Israel territory. The air force thwarted the attack, but the government said that the attempted incursion was the final straw and that the ground invasion would commence.

By Friday, the Israeli military said it had already uncovered 10 tunnels with 22 exit points and that there were dozens more “terror tunnels” spread around Gaza. In a statement, it described tunnels crossing the border from Gaza to Israel as “complex and advanced,” and said they were “intended to carry out attacks such as abductions of Israeli civilians and soldiers alike; infiltrations into Israeli communities, mass murders and hostage-taking scenarios.”
Continue reading the main story
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Gadi Shamni, a former commander of the Israeli Army’s Gaza division and of its central command, said that destroying the tunnels posed a technological and operational challenge and that each of them had offshoots going in different directions, making it difficult to track and disable the whole route.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/world/middleeast/hamas-gaza-strip-tunnels-led-to-israels-invasion.html?_r=0

That New York Times article on the tunnel invasion was dated July 28, 2014 and was the last straw I guess for Israel. That is why they started bombing and invaded Gaza.

You'd never guess that from DU.

I am rather ashamed at the group-think on DU on this issue. The fact is that the Israelis invested millions of dollars, enormous effort and thought to try to avoid killing innocent Palestinians, and Hamas or the Palestinian terrorists managed to find a way to destroy the fragile peace anyway.

They need to negotiate for peace. Wise people on both sides have tried to do it over and over, and every time, extremists on the Palestinian side, extremists that Palestinians cannot control, destroy the peace.

The Palestinian extremists are the worst enemies not just of Israel but of the Palestinians themselves. Do Palestinians need aid and a good settlement? Yes. But the Israelis need to be free from the constant harassment and criminal activity of the Palestinian extremists -- the terrorists.

That's the only fair view in my opinion.

I think that half of DU has me on ignore by now because I have tried to research this issue and find out what happened and then decided my point of view based on my research. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. I am trying to be fair to both sides when I express my opinion. The Palestinians have to control their extremists if they are to form a prosperous, safe nation.

[Purveyor]

9. The Palestinians will never be able to control their extremists as long as that

must endure apartheid conditions. Who else have they to turn to?

International peacekeepers, imo are the only answer but israel has refused that in the past.

A few years under international control and a good quality of life is the only thing that will convince the Palestinians that there is a 'better way' and purge out the extremists.

We can count the numbers of countries that have turned to despots and dictators when all seems hopeless.

Your post was informative and useful. Thanks for posting it.

[JDPriestly]

11. Israel began to open its borders and the answer was the Second

Intifada.

[Purveyor]

12. That is why there needs to be international peacekeepers. eom

[JDPriestly]

14. That is a good idea. It was tried before, but as I recall they were

not armed. This time they should be armed.

Of course, that would not stop the rockets or the tunnels. How would you stop the rockets and the tunnels.

[Purveyor]

18. The patrol would have to be large enough to basically cover every block.

Not talking about a huge chunk of land to cover but I think if the rank and file Palestinians saw some glimmer of hope, they would assist in rooting out the extremists.

Other than that...I sadly don't know what else could work.

[stranger81]

13. For the sake of accuracy, the Second Intifada was not a response to Israel

beginning to open its borders (whether it actually ever did that is debatable, at best). The Second Intifada began when Ariel Sharon decided to march around the Temple Mount with hundreds of rightists, and Palestinian demonstrators there to protest his visit were driven away with tear gas and rubber bullets.

[JDPriestly]

17. Tear gas and rubber bullets and the response was bombs that

killed children?

I read a lot on DU about how wrong it is that Israel is an intolerant religious state. That is, first, incorrect, since non-Jews freely practice their religion in Israel.

If Israel is to be a tolerant state in which all religions can practice freely, why should Jews be barred from the Temple Mount?

Haram al-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم القدسي الشريف‎, al-haram al-qudsī ash-sharīf, Noble Sanctuary), is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years. At least four religions are known to have used the Temple Mount: Judaism, Christianity, Roman religion, and Islam. The present site is dominated by three monumental structures from the early Umayyad period: the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain. Walls dating back to the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods cut through the flanks of the Mount. It can be ascended via four gates, each of which is routinely guarded by the Israeli police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount

The Temple Mount is a holy site for four religions including the Jews. Why shouldn't Jewish people visit it?

Religious tolerance applies to everyone. That's what tolerance means.

[Fred Sanders]

15. You lost me at 80% success rate for the Ironic Dome......not even close...interesting until then.

[LovingA2andMI]

2. Hey United States of America....

Stop with the "Being Appalled" and cease sending BiBi and the Boys U.S. Aid while folks in America could use it. Also, stop reinforcing the killing of innocent children by cutting off the weapons supply.

[geomon666]

3. Apalled but won't do anything.

Why even bother saying anything at this point?

[Fred Sanders]

4. Appalled enough to stop sending more ammo to drop by proxy on children? Nope.

[Hissyspit]

5. Finally got around to it, hunh?

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. Meaningless piffle without action to back it up. n/t

[broiles]

8. Quit sending them the coordinates!

[Fred Sanders]

16. Give them a coordinate for one of their own missile sites?

[whereisjustice]

10. US is so appalled they are giving only $3.999 billion for weapons, instead of usual $4 billion

[lululu]

19. If this were WWII and the U,S. were consistent,

the U.S. would be condemning the Free French as terrorists.