General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIsrael-Gaza conflict: What has Israel achieved in 26 bloody days?
World View: Hamas is stronger, the Jewish state looks shifty and heartless and the world's eyes are on GazaAs Gaza is devastated by a new paroxysm of violence, what has Israel achieved by its 26-day bombardment and ground intervention? The outcome so far is similar to that of past Israeli wars in Lebanon and Gaza: massive firepower is used to inflict heavy losses on the other side, the great majority of the casualties being civilians. But, as the war goes on, Israeli leaders find that Israel's military superiority is failing to produce comparable political gains.
Worse, from the Israeli point of view, it is the Palestinians and, in this case, Hamas, who are in a stronger position than they were a month ago. By its actions, Israel has put the Palestinian issue firmly back on the international agenda from which it had largely disappeared since the Arab uprisings of 2011. Only a few months ago, a friend sympathetic to the Palestinians lamented to me that, in his travels in the US, Europe and the Arab world, he had seldom heard the words "Palestine" or "Palestinians". Gaza, at horrendous cost to its people, has changed all that.
Usually, the sufferings of the four million Palestinians penned into Gaza and the West Bank are invisible to people in the rest of the world. But over the past month we have seen, night after night, pictures of Palestinian families, with their maimed and terrified children, vainly seeking safety amid shattered houses and hospitals. Israeli spokesmen sound shifty and heartless as they claim that there is no proof of Israel's culpability for the shelling of a UN hospital or a children's playground, suggesting that a Hamas rocket might have fallen short. These denials and evasions might work in a short war but, by the time 264 Palestinian children had been killed, as of Friday, they only serve to convince people that Israelis do not care how many Palestinians they kill.
Of course, we have been here many times before, the most notorious Israeli intervention being the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. I was in the Sabra and Shatila camps just after the massacre of 1,700 Palestinians by Christian militiamen who would not have been there but for Israeli actions. When I see pictures of the dead in Gaza, I feel I can still smell the sickly sweet stench of the dead bodies as they began to rot in the hot September sun. I remember the poverty of the dead, with their ragged clothes and plastic shoes, as they lay in the doorways of tiny shops or heaped up in alleyways. Out in the open, a donkey was lying dead between the shafts of a small cart carrying a barrel of water, and corpses were half-buried in a bank of sand, as if somebody had wanted to conceal them but had given up half-way through because there were too many bodies to bury.
in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/israelgaza-conflict-what-has-israel-achieved-in-26-bloody-days-9644508.html
hack89
(39,171 posts)The Palestinians will be forgotten. The carnage inflicted by ISIS will make Gaza look like a walk in the park.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)like a sweet old lady by comparison...in their own back yard.
hack89
(39,171 posts)In the eyes of many Arabs. Religious wackos are wearing out their welcome. The people know who has killed more innocent Muslims over the past decade.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)former9thward
(32,077 posts)Hamas has over reached and they are certainly not "more powerful."
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)I am sure you did not intend to do that. No one is claiming Hamas is more powerful than
Israel.
The Arab states have their own self interests, and they are weak overall right now.
They do not act in the best interests of the Palestinians any more than they
do their own people...Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, especially. The citizens of those
countries is another matter, but they are powerless.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Nothing in your posting history demonstrates a unique or in depth knowledge of the situation. Why don't you get off your high horse and simply give me some links.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)in another thread, and you ignored it. If you want to discuss the equation of Hamas = ISIS,
find someone who takes your opinion on it seriously..I do not.
hack89
(39,171 posts)I bet the past month in Gaza changes nothing. As things deteriorate in Syria and Iraq Gaza will go straight to the back burner. Hamas will be marginalized by the Arab leadership as fear of radical Islamists continues to grow.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)and the hundreds of thousands who just lost their homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, etc.
Some of us don't plan to forget.
Bettie
(16,124 posts)As lack of electricity, sanitation, food, and shelter up the death toll.
Every one of those deaths is on the Israeli government too, as they made the decision to destroy the entire infrastructure.
malaise
(269,157 posts)+1,000
hack89
(39,171 posts)Just like me. Your remembrance is irrelevant.
malaise
(269,157 posts)and international law. Thankfully we have nothing in common other than the fact that we're both human beings.
hack89
(39,171 posts)It means jackshit as far as what will happen to Gaza.
malaise
(269,157 posts)I take positions because I have convictions about human rights and international law. All are equal in my eyes - none has special rights and privileges.
hack89
(39,171 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)Do you agree with that assessment? I don't think Cockburn makes a very compelling case on that score.
4now
(1,596 posts)Someday maybe they will kick out this rabid right wing government and try to live in the real world.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)that they have what you term a 'rabid right-wing government'. Living with the constant, permanent threat of sneak attack has a way of doing that to you.
Orrex
(63,224 posts)Decades-long forcible occupation has a way of doing that to you, too.
Funny how Israel is always painted as the victim, no matter how superior their military might nor how many civilians they murder.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)diminishes the fact that they are still victims. Just points out that Hamas is stupid for picking fights with someone stronger then itself.
Orrex
(63,224 posts)Shocking lack of foresight on their part.
All victims are not victimized equally. Israel experiences minimal danger and occasional minor property damage, while Palestinians are murdered by the dozen and wide swaths of their city are bombed to rubble, all while suffering under a crippling siege by their aggessive occupying power in the ongoing process of a massive land grab.
Israel's response has consistently been wildly out of proportion to the actual threat or harm inflicted. They are victims in the sense that they've lost any moral authority, but that's about it.