Nutter,

" ....not one of us".

"Us" ?

Please count me as " .... not one of us".

Joe Lane
Henley Beach, Adelaide

Dear SR:

Are you aware that Israel does not surround Gaza from all sides? Israel controls the borders of Gaza to the west, north and east, but not to the south. Don’t you think that trumpeting the land blockade of Gaza by Israel is just a little misleading (conniving if you prefer), given that Gaza shares a border with another country? How can you blockade an area without surrounding it?

Rather than concentrating on technicalities, don't you agree that an effort should be made to get Hamas to agree to demilitarise Gaza so that any blockade can be lifted? They are not using their weaponry in order to "defend themselves" as you claim. They are using it for attacking Israeli civilians and have been doing so for the past decade. Israel has had no presence in Gaza since 2005. The only Palestinians "shot in the streets" of Gaza are those opposing Hamas, and they are being shot at by armed Hamas thugs. Don’t you think it's quite reasonable for the Israelis to insist on removing the terror weapons before agreeing to allow open borders?

Regarding the Likud charter that you brought up, we already have the head of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, endorsing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, effectively nullifying the points you quoted in your post from their old conservative charter. We are still awaiting Hamas leadership to accept Israel's right to exist. I, for one, am not holding my breath.

Dear Avw,

You wrote;

“Israel controls the borders of Gaza to the west, north and east, but not to the south. Don’t you think that trumpeting the land blockade of Gaza by Israel is just a little misleading (conniving if you prefer), given that Gaza shares a border with another country? How can you blockade an area without surrounding it?”

No, conniving would be to give the illusion that Israel has no control over the Gaza-Egypt border. The agreement with the Egyptian government is that the border is to be maintained to Israeli requirements. Prior to handing the administration of the Rafah crossing to the Egyptians the IDF demolished large numbers of Palestinian homes and built the steel fence which sits along a very extensive buffer zone. Israel's staunchest ally the US has also provided a large amount of funding to strengthen the borders fortifications. Now except on rare occasions whatever Israel and the US dictate is complied with by the Egyptians.

You asked;
“Rather than concentrating on technicalities, don't you agree that an effort should be made to get Hamas to agree to demilitarise Gaza so that any blockade can be lifted?”

Not at all. A compliant, demilitarised Gaza will not process the peace process one iota. A compliant Fatah has seen huge areas on the West Bank now occupied by settlers and hopes for a two state solution becoming more and more like a pipe dream. Hamas would be mad to give up its weapons as they most certainly have a right to defend themselves plus they are the only thing that keeps Israel at the table. Hamas has said that the blockade can not continue in its current form for these to be a lasting ceasefire. The Israelis are in the process of complying.

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Hamas has a far more legitimate right to say it is acting in order to defend itself. As a power maintaining a brutal occupation Israel does not have that right. It is acting to maintain that occupation and to preserve avenues for more settlement expansion which is directly forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

And please spare us the line about Hamas attacking civilians. Just in the current conflict alone the count was 4 on the Israeli side compared to around 1500 Palestinians. It is an affront to common decency to be making that remark over the mangled remains of hundreds of dead Palestinian children.

Next you wrote this;

“Regarding the Likud charter that you brought up, we already have the head of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, endorsing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, effectively nullifying the points you quoted in your post from their old conservative charter.”

It would be a task to find a more two-faced, duplicitous, lying, sneering, leader of a country than Mr Netanyahu. How can anyone except for a zealot believe he wants an independent Palestinian state when he has driven so much of the settler expansion of the West Bank and continues to do so. It now looks like a cancerous organ with less than half still available to the Palestinians. The only difference between Hamas leadership and Netanyahu is that they do not tell the rest of the world such lies. He is dedicated to fulfilling the Likud charter and his supporters know it.

As engaging as the tit for tat has been I would like to ask you a question if I may, we can keep it a hypothetical if you like;

What is the more legitimate action, planting a bomb in a late night club in a major city of an occupying and invading nation that kills primarily those serving in its forces, or a 500lb high explosive bomb dropped on the house of a resistance leader an occupied and invaded peoples which kills most of his immediate family?

Dear SR:

Israel does NOT have any control over the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt as you suggest and there is no illusion about it. Under the Oslo accords, Israel was, in fact, entitled to keep the sliver of land between Egypt and Gaza under its control, yet it agreed to hand it over to Egypt on the condition that Egypt prevents weapon and people smuggling across the border. Don’t you think that if the Israelis were so committed to maintaining a tight blockade, keeping that land would have served their purposes? At any rate, Israel today has no control over Gaza’s southern border, as far as the ability to blockade the Gaza Strip. This can be clearly seen as Egyptian restrictions on the border crossing change according to the political mood in Egypt, not according to any dictates from Israel or the US.

“A compliant, demilitarised Gaza will not process [progress?] the peace process one iota”

You bring the example of “compliant Fatah” in the West Bank and the presence of settlements there. One major flaw in your argument is that Fatah was also controlling Gaza when Israel withdrew in 2005, pulling all Israeli settlements out of the territory. Hamas and its arsenal of terror weapons was not entrenched in Gaza then, therefore to imply that their violence and non-compliance today caused the end of settlements in Gaza back then is a gross distortion of facts. If anything, it is the withdrawal that caused the violence, not the other way around.

Clearly Hamas weapons are not used to defend themselves, and most certainly not to defend Gaza civilians. They are used to attack Israeli citizens. How many examples can you point to when Qassam rockets were used to defend Gaza? How will removing these rockets from Gaza harm their defence capabilities? Don’t you agree it will be a positive steps as it robs those evil Israelis from the excuse to attack Gaza?

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The “brutal occupation” that you mention is another furphy, as we already know there has not been any Israeli presence in Gaza for many years, brutal or otherwise. As for the disparity in the number of civilians killed on both sides, this is due to the fact that Israel invested huge sums in defence technology, whereas Hamas poured all it had into terror weapons. Not one shelter was built for Palestinian citizens, as much of the available construction material was instead diverted into the construction of many kilometres of concrete tunnels designed to spread terror. Tunnels, mortars, rockets – all designed to hit civilians.

You are entitled to have your personal opinion about Netanyahu, but he did signal a change to the Likud policy, which is a hell of a lot more than what Hamas has done to date. Do I believe or trust him? How much do you trust any politician? Of course they can and will change their mind as circumstances change. This is not the case, unfortunately, with religious fanatics such as the ones controlling Gaza.

As to the hypothetical question you raised: plating a bomb in a night club in a major city and indiscriminately killing civilians is never legitimate, and I hope you are not suggesting that it is. When such terror acts are carried repeatedly by ruthless fanatics, it is the duty of any country to protect its citizens and stop these attacks. From what we have seen, the Israeli army made repeated attempts to protect civilians prior to any strikes, dropping leaflets, calling and texting neighbours, “roof knocking” etc. You might argue that this is not enough, but can you name any other army that went to this length to minimise civilian casualties? Did Hamas bombers inform the patrons of the night clubs before sending the terrorists in?