Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel by Alex Cockburn

Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need To Know



As the tv networks give unlimited airtime to Israel’s apologists, the message rolls out that no nation, least of all Israel, can permit bombardment or armed incursion across its borders without retaliation.

The guiding rule in this tsunami of drivel is that the viewers should be denied the slightest access to any historical context, or indeed to anything that happened prior to June 28, which was when the capture of an Israeli soldier and the killing of two others by Hamas hit the headlines, followed soon thereafter by an attack by a unit of Hezbollah’s fighters.

Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.

Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.

That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.


http://www.counterpunch.org/

[Sensitivity]

1. Ancient history does answer question of today. Amazing.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Yeah and Israel struck each time w/o provocation

What a list of crap. This tit-for-tat has gone on long enough - and it doesn't help to just list the tats.

[Malikshah]

3. Yup-- w/o provocation-- or at least real provocation

1978 and 1982 were planned out -- they just waited.

Hows about reading Avi Shlaim's work-- it documents clearly the attempts to provoke Syria et al over the years...and then jumping all over them.

Sorry the old "tit-for-tat" ruse won't work.

The history is clear

The events are clear

Get over it.

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. Yes, I've read it - and the Arabs are reaping what they've sowed

I suggest you reread Shlaim's work again - and focus on pre '67 analysis.

[Malikshah]

5. What they sowed? Wow.

What color is the sky?

I've read it every year when I assign it...sorry--that ruse won't work.

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. Guess you're afraid to take a second look at Shlaim

And what he has to say about the Six Day War.

[Malikshah]

7. Oh. I'm sorry. My mistake. I was discussing something and

provided an answer that clarified that I'm quite familiar w/ Shlaim's Iron wall.

I naively thought that my post could be read.

Enjoy the oblivion.