Right, left call for strong response to renewed Hamas rocket fire

[King_David]

Opposition and coalition lawmakers were united in calls to hit Hamas hard after it renewed rocket fire at the end of a 72-hour ceasefire Friday.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said "this is a test of Israel's deterrence in the coming years, and the response must be tough." Bennett added that Operation Protective Edge is not over.

"Hamas has yet to be defeated and the residents of Israel need to be strong and alert as we prepare to continue," he stated.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor), who is in Prague, told Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek that he thinks Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should control Gaza.

At the same time, Herzog added, "Israel will continue to respond with strength to any shooting from Gaza that threatens the Israeli public." "You can't complain about Israel when Hamas continues to shoot and won't accept the ceasefire proposed in Egypt. There can't be a double standard here where, on the one hand, there is support for Israel's right to defend itself and on the other, Israel is attacked the minute it defends itself," the opposition leader said.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) called on the government to immediately respond to the rocket fire.

"Apparently, the only language Hamas understands is that of the IDF. There is no point in continuing talks in Cairo. Blackmailers and terrorists only understand strength and the time has come that we take that simple truth seriously," Elkin stated.

Knesset Finance Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit Yehudi) said that if Israel allows Hamas to shoot rockets without a significant response, it will lose its deterrence and encourage more shooting.

http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Right-left-call-for-strong-response-to-renewed-Hamas-rocket-fire-370496

[Fred Sanders]

1. On another thread people are demanding proof of my accusation Likud leaders want more killing.

Thanks for this.

[King_David]

2. Opposition and coalition lawmakers were united

Opposition and coalition lawmakers were united in calls to hit Hamas hard after it renewed rocket fire at the end of a 72-hour ceasefire Friday.

[Fred Sanders]

3. They were also loudly not in favor of the ceasefire in the first place, same guys.

How much power does a Minister of Health or Minister of Finance have in matters of war, anyway?

[King_David]

4. Hamas break 72-hour ceasefire in 30-rocket attack on Israel

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113476262

[msongs]

5. so what will israel blow up when all the schools and hospitals are gone? nt

[Fred Sanders]

6. There are a couple of malls and amusement parks children would go to......

[oberliner]

17. Gaza has malls and amusement parks?

How have they been able to manage that?

[Fred Sanders]

19. Well, not anymore. The IDF has made it clear the safest place in Gaza is anywhere away from children

[King_David]

7. Hopefully all the terrorists and their rockets ?

[kayecy]

8. And how many more women and children?.....................n/t

[King_David]

9. Amos Oz ( peace activist)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113475768

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Terrible analogy, really

the appropriate analogy is more like: "what would you do if you had seized your neighbour's house and barricaded him into a tiny back room, and he threw stones at you through an opening?"

Seeking to present Israel as completely blameless is frankly ludicrous, especially in light of Israel's flagrant and continuing breaches of international law in building of settlements in occupied territories, engaging in collective punishment and reprisals, maintenance of an illegal blockade, and enforcing de facto apartheid in the West Bank.

[King_David]

11. I think that's a terrible analogy. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. You're clearly ignorant of the meaning of "occupation" and "reistance", so that's no surprise.

[King_David]

13. Clearly

[Shaktimaan]

14. Resistance?

So you consider Hamas' attacks to be resistance to occupation?

In what manner is the blockade illegal?

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. Do you consider Israeli bombing of schools to be legitimate and proportional military objectives?

Hamas are a resistance movement; not all of the rocket attacks against Israel are "Hamas", and any attacks against civilians are illegitimate. (Attacks against military personnel and targets, however, are not.)

And the blockade is illegal because it's a form of collective punishment; that's been the finding of multiple UN commissions.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-un-gaza-rights-idUSTRE78C59R20110913

[Shaktimaan]

16. I don't know.

It depends on details I don't have access to. While the intentional targeting of civilians is an obvious breach of law, the bombing of ostensible civilian structures is legal if they're being used in some fashion by military factions or if they are the result of unintentional collateral damage.

Assuming Israel isn't intentionally targeting civilians then yes, their actions would be considered legitimate.

I'm not surprised that a UNHRC panel headed by Richard Falk found against Israel. The UNHRC and Falk in particular have a long history of serious bias against Israel.

That said, the Palmer Report actually found the blockade legal. So it's one report against and one supporting. That said, I wonder how a blockade can be considered illegal on the basis of it constituting collective punishment. Would that then indicate that ALL blockades and sanctions, (both being accepted practices of war), are also illegal? In fact, seeing as how all forms of war negatively affect the civilians in question, would that not make any act of war illegal?

Considering Israel's legitimate problem concerning rocket fire from Gaza, what would you consider an acceptable alternative to the blockade and/or military action?

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. Selective perception, much?

"In pronouncing itself on the legality of the naval blockade, the Palmer Report does not recognize the naval blockade as an integral part of Israel's closure policy toward Gaza which has a disproportionate impact on the human rights of civilians," they said in a joint statement.

(NB that the Palmer report limited itself to the naval blockade; in practise Israel maintains a land, sea and air blockade of Gaza which is much broader in scope.)

[Shaktimaan]

24. Can you read?

That was a quote from the recent UN inquiry. Not from the Palmer report itself. So they refuted the earlier report's findings. No surprise. It's not as though their inquiry could end any other way. Richard Falk was actually forced to resign for posting anti-Semitic cartoons online. And the UNRWA practically exists to condemn Israel. I don't believe they've ever condemned any other state, to date.

Care to reply to any of my other comments?

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. I can read just fine, thanks. Can you?

The report considered the blockade in the context of the overall closure of Gaza (which the Palmer report did not). Which os pretty specifically referenced.

And the UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Considering that a majority of Palestinian refugees live in Israeli-occupied territory, that Israel should be a focus of their interest is not surprising. However they have condemned the treatment of Palestinian refugees in Syria. (And Falk is Jewish; accusing him of anti-Semitism is a patent absurdity, and that's not related to the findings of the report, anyway.)

[Shaktimaan]

26. Can you?

The report comes from the UNHRC. That's the UN Human Rights Council. Not the UNRWA. Additionally, most palestinian refugees live in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Not the OPT.

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. and:

This makes very clear that the Palmer Report and the other findings are distinct in that the Palmer Report only considered the naval blockade and not the closure on land.

[Shaktimaan]

28. Can't read the link.

But it doesn't matter. I'm aware that the Palmer report only considered the naval blockade. It doesn't really impact any of the criticisms I made earlier though.

The UNHRC is undeniably biased against Israel. I believe Israel is still the only state they've actually condemned. For comparison, during the genocide in Rwanda their recommendation was essentially just to keep an eye on it.

Israel's land blockade consists of a closure of the border between Gaza and Israel. An act I think you'll agree is well within Israel's purview as a sovereign state. Israel has no direct influence on the state of closure on egypt's border. So to frame the blockade as being entirely an Israeli action is somewhat misrepresentative.

I also had several questions for you. Namely: doesn't this ruling imply that all blockades and sanctions are disallowed, as both impact the civilian population negatively by nature? And since the blockade was an attempt at neutering Hamas' lethality while doing the least amount of harm to the civilian population, (as opposed to direct military intervention), what action WOULD you recommend Israel take under these circumstances?

[oberliner]

18. If only militant sites were targeted would you object?

If there were no schools bombed, would that change your opinion of Israel's actions?

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. That depends.

Is Israel also going to withdraw from the settlements and comply with its other obligations under international law? Is Israel going to cease its collective punishments and house demolitions? Is Israel going to actually start behaving like what it claims to be, a liberal democracy that respects human rights?

[oberliner]

21. I take your point

I am going to ask you to consider a pretty far out hypothetical.

Let's imagine that Israel did withdraw the settlements and reached an agreement on borders with the Palestinian side. If this happened but Hamas still fired rockets at Israel - would they then be justified in taking some kind of military action against such behavior?

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. In that hypothetical situation?

The obvious solution to the continued violence of a particular rogue faction should be police action on the part of the hypothetical Palestinian state; the perpetrators should be arrested and either placed on trial or handed over to Israel for trial. Any agreement would depend on the ability of the Palestinian side to enforce the terms among its own people. That enforcement is not for Israel to carry out, in such a situation. Israel claiming the right to do so would make a nonsense of the hypothetical agreement by declaring that they reject Palestinian sovereignty and/or regard the actions of rogue elements as a matter of Palestinian state policy.

[Shaktimaan]

29. VERY interesting.

So, using the example of Gaza, following Israel's withdrawal in 2005, Hamas immediately resumed rocket fire. Subsequently they were elected as the majority representative government in Gaza.

In such a scenario, Hamas is not merely a rogue faction but the legally elected representatives of Gaza.

Even assuming they were not elected, like in the case of another group, say Islamic Jihad, what would you recommend in the event that the police were either unwilling or unable to halt terrorist acts against Israel?

It's not very far fetched. We've seen this exact scenario play out before, as in the immediate period following the signing of the Oslo Accords when Hamas reacted by utilizing their newfound freedom of movement to enact bus bombings in Jerusalem. Or in Lebanon, when Hezbollah renewed rocket fire on northern Israel following the withdrawal. In that case the UN responded by installing peacekeeping forces to ostensibly prevent Hezbollah from accruing more arms and from attacking Israel. As we have seen since, those forces were spectacularly ineffectual in achieving this modest goal.

Considering these likely circumstances, what WOULD you advise Israel to do, as a prudent and reasonable response?

[Spider Jerusalem]

30. We're not talking about "Gaza" but a hypothetical Palestinian state.

That would be the outcome of the posited situation, above. And for any hypothetical state to be legitimate it would have to agree to the terms for peace and statehood agreed in negotiations with Israel. That much is obvious, or should be. Having secured statehood, it would be suicidal, as a matter of state policy, to endorse attacks against a vastly superior military power. In the current situation, the Palestinians are stateless and therefore have nothing to lose. It's fatuous to pretend that this hypothetical situation, in which Israel has withdrawn from its illegal settlements and made terms with the Palestinians, could have any relation to the situation in the 1990's.