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The Forum > Article Comments > A mother's Gaza > Comments

A mother's Gaza : Comments

By Judi Hall, published 20/1/2009

From the calm of Australia how we can understand what it is like to live with neighbours like Hamas?

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As much as I respect the Jewish people, it's hard to take Israel's continued protestations of victimhood seriously, when one sees tanks and helicopter gunships lined up against slingshots and bottle rockets. Nor indeed when one compares the scorecards: 21 dead in 8 years versus 1,500 dead in just three weeks.

I have no sympathy for Hamas militants, none whatsoever, but any nation-state that wilfully stoops to such outrages as firing phosphorous shells into civilian hospitals has simply abandoned itself to barbarity.
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 12:34:49 PM
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They just had to kill all those kids. They may have grown up to be anti-Semites.

Maybe those who don't like to hear what the immoral, neo-Stalinist , self-hating, gutter press have to say shouldn't selectively quote from it as the need arises while ignoring those inconvenient facts that don't fit the narrative of their personal own brand of hatred.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 12:37:37 PM
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SJF

When asked if he could envision a 50-year hudna (cease-fire) with Israel, Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan responded, "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel. Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."

There is enough hatre on both side that this was never going to finish

^ http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_11410945 "Death to all Juice", Denver Post, (January 9, 2009).
^ http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/nizar_rayyan_of_hamas_on_gods.php “Nizar Rayyan of Hamas on God's Hatred of Jews”, The Atlantic, (January 2, 2009).
Posted by dovif2, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 12:47:48 PM
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This is a very good article, which sums up Israel's dilemma because it describes so well the terror under which ordinary Israelis live and explains why Israel's democratically elected government had to take military action against Hamas rocket fire: The effect on its citizens was untenable. After concentrating on economic sanctions and avoiding a large scale offensive for quite a few years, military action by Israel became inevitable.

Israel, despite all the bluster, does negotiate with Hamas, indirectly, through Egyptian mediators and that is how the ceasefires that were previously in place came about. It was Hamas that decided unilaterally not to renew the 6 month ceasefire in a desperate ploy to rebuild its popularity, which is at rock bottom due to sanctions imposed on its borders by a neighbour that Hamas openly seeks to destroy and terrorise.

Sadly Hamas probably still has a future in Gaza because its ability to terrorise its own people remains intact despite an humiliating military defeat, which it claims as a victory. While Hamas is in control I see little hope for Gazans who are cynically manipulated by their rulers into abject suffering.

If this war means that Israelis are able to stop living in the shadow of terror, scurrying in an out of rocket shelters, then it has one positive outcome. If it results in the demise of Hamas, that is another because for the residents of Gaza, their fate is in the hands of their rulers.
Posted by Chatoul, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 12:54:54 PM
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As well quote from the Hamas charter, one might offer such quotes as:

"One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." - Rabbi Ya'acov Perin

"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs." - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin

Obviously there are extremists on both sides.

It's just that one side has built a bigger mound of dead women and children.
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 1:03:20 PM
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How nice of Israel to withdraw from Gaza (which it occupied illegally)and then put an economic strangle-hold on it.

How nice of Israel to sign an agreement with the USA to prevent 'smuggling" of arms into Gaza at the same time as 'importing' 5,000 (or was it 50,000?) tons of American armaments into Israel.

It is unfortunate that 20 Israelis were killed by rockets in the last 7 years as a result of their daily humiliation and imprisonment of Palestinians in their apartheid state. That is not an excuse to slaughter 1200 people including 100s of children and babies, and maim 5000 more. Do they think that is goingt to help relations with their neighbour in future?

I await to see whether Israel will pay the $1.6b, just to put the infrastructure back. I await to see what the International Criminal Court will do with the extensive evidence of war crimes presented to it.

For those interested in persuading Israel to move from its morally bankrupt position, see boycottisrailigoods.com. The Israeli bar-code starts with 729.
Posted by Stan1, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 2:20:50 PM
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