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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090105/...l_palestinians
US joins press for truce as Gaza onslaught goes on
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writers
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel seized control of high-rise buildings and attacked houses, mosques and smuggling tunnels as it pressed its offensive against the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers on Monday, while the U.S. joined a stream of countries pushing for a cease-fire.
At least 14 Palestinian children were killed on Monday, raising the known Palestinian death toll from the 10-day onslaught to 540 — including 200 civilians, the U.N. and Palestinian officials said. Gaza's biggest hospital said it was overwhelmed.
Five Israelis have died since the operation began.
From Gaza, Hamas continued to pummel southern Israel with more than two dozen rockets on Monday, including one that struck an empty kindergarten in the city of Ashdod, and promised to wait for Israeli soldiers "in every street and every alleyway."
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would go on until Israel achieved "peace and tranquility" for residents of southern Israel.
After a week of air strikes beginning Dec. 27, Israeli ground troops invaded Gaza late Saturday. They quickly seized a main highway in Gaza, slicing the territory in half, and on Monday, Israeli forces pounded houses — one of them belonging to a leading Hamas member who was not there at the time — a pair of mosques and smuggling tunnels.
Israel has attacked several mosques during the campaign, saying they were used to store weapons.
The Israeli army said "dozens" of militants have been killed or wounded, but Hamas has not released casualty figures. A Palstinian health official said 80 people — including 70 civilians — have died since the ground invasion began, fueling international outrage.
Israel has three main demands: an end to Palestinian attacks, international supervision of any truce and a halt to Hamas rearming. Hamas demands a cessation of Israeli attacks and the opening of vital Gaza-Israel cargo crossings, Gaza's main lifeline.
In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. was pressing for a cease-fire that would include three main elements, including a halt to rocket attacks.
"We're doing a lot of work on these three elements," said spokesman Sean McCormack said, adding that the goal is to establish a halt to the violence that would meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's standard of being durable and sustainable.
President George W. Bush, however, emphasized "Israel's desire to protect itself."
"The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said in the Oval Office.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce before the land invasion began, was due to meet Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007.
While blaming Hamas for causing Palestinian suffering with rocket fire that led to the Israeli offensive, Sarkozy has condemned Israel's use of ground troops, reflecting general world opinion. Sarkozy and other diplomats making their way to the region are expected to press hard for a cease-fire.
A European Union delegation met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Monday.
"The EU insists on a cease-fire at the earliest possible moment," said Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which took over the EU's presidency last week. Rocket attacks on Israel also must stop, Schwarzenberg told a joint news conference with Livni.
The EU brought no truce proposals of its own to the region because the cease-fire "must be concluded by the involved parties," he added.
Livni said the operation was designed to change the rules of Israel's struggle against Hamas after seven years of rocket fire at Israeli towns. From now on, she said, "When Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate."
Israel's operation angered many across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries like Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been involved intimately in Mideast peacemaking.
The Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, who works within the rival Fatah administration from the West Bank, asked the U.N. Security Council to quickly adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to Israeli attacks in Gaza and a permanent cease-fire including border monitors and an international force to protect civilians.
Israeli forces seized sparsely populated areas in northern Gaza and by Monday morning were dug in on the edges of Gaza City.
Gaza's biggest hospital, Shifa, has been swamped by the bloodshed. Bodies were two to a morgue drawer, the wounded were being treated in hallways because beds were full, and three preschool boys killed in an artillery strike Monday were laid out on a floor.
Since Israel mounted its ground offensive three days ago, most of the dead and wounded arriving at Shifa have been civilians, including 21 who died in various attacks across Gaza on Monday.
Fourteen of them were children, said health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.
Four young siblings were killed in a missile strike on a house east of Gaza City, Hassanain said, and a mother and her four children were killed in another strike. Three other children died in a naval s ing of a Gaza City beach camp, and three toddlers died in an attack on another town outside Gaza City, a different Gaza health official said.
Israeli troops seized three six-story buildings on the outskirts of Gaza City, taking up rooftop positions after locking residents in rooms and taking away their cell phones, a neighbor said, quoting a relative in one of the buildings who called before his phone was taken away.
"The army is there, firing in all directions," said Mohammed Salmai, a 29-year-old truck driver. "All we can do is take clothes to each other to keep ourselves warm and pray to God that if we die, someone will find our bodies under the rubble."
Civilian casualties have ed since Israel launched the ground offensive. Of the 80 confirmed deaths, at least 70 were civilians, Hassanain said.
Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said Hamas was to blame for civilian casualties because it operates in densely populated areas.
"If Hamas chose cynically to use those civilians as human shields, then Hamas should be accountable," she said. "Civilians will probably continue to get killed, unfortunately, because Hamas put them in the first lines of fire."
Black smoke from tank s s and wind-swept dust billowed in the air over Gaza City, home to 400,000 people, where the streets were almost empty. Two children crossing a street near a Hamas security compound didn't bother to look right and left for cars but gazed up at the sky, apparently looking for attack aircraft.
Unmanned Israeli planes and Apache helicopters circled overhead.
Hamas leaders went into hiding before the Israeli military strike began and only on rare occasions have addressed the Gaza residents in broadcasts from their hideouts.
On Monday, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar exhorted Palestinians to fight the Israeli forces and target Israeli civilians.
"The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children. They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people," Zahar said in a grainy video broadcast on Hamas TV.
Playing right into their hands
A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, identified by a nom de guerre, Abu Obeida, warned the Israelis that militants "wait for you in every street and every alleyway."
The ground clashes took place in open areas militants use to launch rockets and mortars at nearby Israeli communities, but did not advance into urban areas where casualties are liable to swell.
The Israeli military said aircraft carried out 30 sorties overnight, including strikes against a mosque in Jebaliya that contained a large store of weapons and an underground arms bunker in the Gaza City area that touched off secondary explosions and collapsed underground smuggling tunnels.
The violence has deepened the suffering in impoverished Gaza, home to 1.4 million people. The military said Monday that 80 truckloads of humanitarian aid and critical fuel supplies would be let in.
Israel's ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that now threatens major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population of 7 million people.
Among the Israelis killed since the offensive began included a soldier who died in the ground operation. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.
Because they're not biased at all
Jewish Voice for Peace
Peace, U.S. Military Aid and Israel
Why we urge the U.S. government to suspend military aid to Israel until it ends its 37-year occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
U.S. military aid to Israel has a dramatic effect on Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. It has increasingly been used not to pay for defense but to finance the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. It keeps Israel from facing the difficult but necessary challenges of building a more democratic society, and encourages solving deep-rooted problems by military rather than peaceful and more effective means.
The U.S. funding that pays for the guns and ammunition, F-16 bombers, and Apache helicopters that are used to carry out Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and people serves neither Israelis, Palestinians, nor Americans.
In short, Israel cannot build a society based on the principles of democracy, human rights, and compliance with international law while brutally occupying another people and their land. The United States is currently paying for that occupation with its annual aid. That's why Jewish Voice for Peace urges the U.S. government to suspend military aid to Israel until Israel ends its 37-year occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
Top Five Things You Should Know About U.S. Military Aid to Israel
1. Harm to Palestinian civilians
A large part of U.S. military aid to Israel goes to purchase tanks, helicopter gunships, machine guns, and bullets that are used against Palestinian civilians. Our tax dollars have been used to destroy homes; uproot trees and crops; seize land from its lawful owners; close all access to food, medicine, and the outside world for small towns in the West Bank and Gaza; staff checkpoints that cut off ambulances and other civilian traffic; and carry out assassinations that kill children in addition to summarily executing political leaders. When Palestinian doctors remove bullets from the bodies of Palestinian children, the bullets are typically stamped ?Made in the U.S.A.?
Israel has used its U.S.-financed arsenal against unarmed Palestinian civilians, including children. Amnesty International reports that in 2002 alone, ?At least 1,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army, most of them unlawfully. They included some 150 children and at least 35 individuals killed in targeted assassinations. Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army cons uted war crimes.?[including] unlawful killings, obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel, extensive and wanton destruction of property, torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement and the use of "`human shields."?
?The IDF continued to demolish houses and destroy agricultural land and industrial installations throughout the Gaza Strip?.The IDF routinely used F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, and tanks to bomb and s Palestinian residential areas in response to gunfire or mortar attacks by Palestinians or in reprisal for suicide bombings and other attacks??
Go to Amnesty International for more reports on the Occupied Territories and Israel.
2. Harm to Israelis
In addition to the devastation it visits on Palestinians, the occupation threatens the democratic values Israel seeks to uphold. Massive military aid promotes militarism, which has led to a reliance on military, rather than diplomatic means to work for a solution to this ongoing conflict. More and more Israelis question the moral decay that accompanies the criminal actions of the military and the dehumanization of the Palestinian people. A peace rally at the height of Israel?s reoccupation of the main towns of the West Bank in April 2002 drew 15,000 protestors in Tel Aviv. Currently nearly 1,200 Israeli army reservists refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories because the occupation corrupts Israeli society and endangers, rather than enhances, the security of Israelis. Israeli activists support the suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel; in the words of feminist activist Rela Mazali, ?[T]he U.S. foots most of the bills run up by this siege and makes some of the most lethal weapons used to maintain it. We hope you will tell your government to stop arming the conflict.?
3. Harm to the U.S. and its citizens
Israel is required to use 75% of its military aid from the U.S. to buy arms and equipment such as Caterpillar bulldozers made in the U.S. It funnels this money to more than 1,000 U.S. arms suppliers, which in turn lobby for U.S. policies that benefit them at the expense of peace in the Middle East. As a result, the diversion of our tax dollars not only reduces funding for education and social programs but militarizes our public policy overall. U.S. military aid to Israel sets the U.S. in opposition to many Arab and European nations who recognize the horrors of the occupation. This makes U.S. citizens less safe because we are more hated. And the massive flow of arms into Israel is made even more dangerous by arms sales of lesser quality to other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. While all this business fills the coffers of arms merchants, it makes the Middle East ever more unstable. Furthermore, when our government arms proponents of massive human rights abuses, we become complicit in their crimes and hated by their victims. U.S. support of Israel?s occupation of Palestinian lands and its abuse of human rights undermines any moral authority to criticize human rights abuses in other countries. And it shreds the U.S. of any credibility in acting to promote peace in the region.
4. Violations of U.S. and international law
U.S. law prohibits the president from furnishing military aid to any country ?which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.? 22 U.S.C. ? 2304(a). The U.S. Department of State reported in March 2003 that, ?Israel's overall human rights record in the occupied territories remained poor and worsened in several areas as it continued to commit serious human rights abuses?.Israeli security units used excessive force during Palestinian demonstrations, while on patrol, pursuing suspects, and enforcing checkpoints and curfews, which resulted in many deaths.? Targeting civilians, as Israel has done, is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The fact that Palestinian groups have done the same makes it no less criminal. For more information on these human rights violations visit www.btselem.org, and web.amnesty.org/report2003/2md-index-eng.
5. Aid is excessive and disproportionate
More U.S. aid goes to Israel than any other country, even though Israel?s per capita income is as high as many European countries. In fiscal year 2003 Israel received a foreign military financing grant of $3.1 billion and a $600 million grant for economic security in addition to $11 billion in commercial loan guarantees. This total aid package of nearly $15 billion makes Israel by far the largest single recipient of U.S. aid. U.S. aid is a function of politics. According to a Time/CNN poll, released April 12, 2002, 60% of Americans favor cutting aid to Israel if Israel does not immediately withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas. Further, U.S. aid to other countries is often tied to various conditions, depending on what the U.S. wants the aid recipient to do. We are asking that aid to Israel be treated in the same manner.
Pouring arms into an area of the world already plagued by violence can only increase death and destruction and render the U.S. a questionable broker for peace at best. In these hard economic days, that money can be put to use in the U.S. or it could be used to build a stable Palestinian society, out of the devastation that exists there now. The Israeli economy has been in a downward spiral for years, and foreign investment has long been directly related to the level of violence in the region. Using military aid as a lever to end the occupation will be a boon to the security and hopes for the future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Key Facts
* Total direct aid to Israel, 1948-2003
$89.9 billion (uncorrected for inflation)
* Since 1976 Israel has been the largest annual recipient of US aid. It is the largest ulative recipient since World War II.
* Direct U.S. aid for each Israeli citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Israel = $16,710) -- over $500
* Direct U.S. Aid for each Ethiopian citizen in 2001 (per capita annual income of Ethiopia = $100) -- about $.45
* REGULAR US GRANT AID in FY 2003
$2.76 billion military aid grant
$2.1 billion economic support funds
$600 million refugee resettlement grant
* COMMERCIAL LOAN GUARANTEES IN FY 2003
$2 billion
* BUSH ADMINISTRATION SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST FOR FY 2003
Military aid grant $1 billion
Commercial loan guarantees $9 billion
Arrow missile development $60 million
* TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion
* Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel -- 30%
* Israel's population as a percentage of world population -- .01%
* Section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) states, "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." 22 U.S.C. 2304(a)
* Section 4 of the Arms Export Control Act prohibits selling military equipment to countries that use them for non-self-defense purposes.
* The U.S. State Department determined in February 2001 that Israel has committed each of the acts that the law defines as "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person." It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force."
SOURCES: Clyde R. Mark, ?Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance, Congressional Research Service, updated April 1, 2003; Clyde R. Mark, Middle East: U.S. Foreign Assistance, FY 2001, FY 2002, FY 2003 Congressional Research Service, March 28, 2002
Questions on JVP's Stand
Do you seek the destruction of Israel?
No. By linking the suspension of military aid to the occupation, we make clear that we are not calling for the abandonment or destruction of Israel. Israel?s ability to defend itself will not be compromised by this proposed suspension of aid. Indeed, it will be enhanced by ending the occupation. We are calling for Israel to comply with international law and the principles of democracy and human rights.
What's your position on economic aid?
While Jewish Voice for Peace does not call for the suspension of economic aid to Israel, we do believe that such aid should be based on need and that Israel should be required to comply with the same laws and standards, and be subjected to the same congressional supervision as other aid recipients.
Won't a suspension of military aid endanger Israel and increase violence against Israelis?
Ending the occupation would hasten peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as with Israel?s Arab neighbors. A reduction of military aid to Israel by even a small amount would create strong pressure to end the occupation. Israel?s military superiority will still be there, as will Israel?s alliance with the United States. Further, in the event the occupation ends, if Israel were attacked without provocation, it would have most of the world supporting it. As long as it continues its occupation, Israel will continue to be seen as the aggressor in this conflict by most of the world.
IMO the differences are only superficial. It stains credulity to suggest that suicide and bomb attacks in Israel are purely notional, and not in essence terroristic. In Sudan this may be the case, I do not know.
shastafarian's equivalence of Gaza and Georgia made more sense to me. Israel obviously had a contingency plan (i.e., a plan for war in hand) for missile attacks against southern Israel; similarly, the Russians were prepared to act with alacrity when Saakashvili overreached last year.
As to whether Israel's recent actions are proportionate to the threat against them, being utterly ignorant of just war theory and life in Israel, I'll just be arbitrary and say no. Political and geostrategic motives seem to be at play. Israel's rolled the dice on war with Hamas right now, and of course the ends justify the means. That's the kind of realpolitik that's fashionable in the region. Preventive war.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-05-2009 at 02:27 PM.
Don't Fatah militias operate in Gaza, too? The context of the present invasion is the ongoing quasi civil war between Gaza and the West Bank, that followed closely on the US backed elections propelling Hamas to power.
Assuming this is not the beginning of a wider regional outbreak, what do you think ES? Will democracy get a do-over in Gaza?
Perhaps Palestinians believed their choice would be honored, and their government recognized.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-06-2009 at 10:52 AM. Reason: inaccuracy removed
How anyone be vouching for Hamas (and Palestine in general) in this situation is just flooring.
To refer back to the fist-fight analogy, Hamas is a 100 pound, 5' 7th grader walking up to Brock Lesner and repeatedly punching him. When that doesn't work, the kid takes out any blunt instrument possible and starts swinging away.
How about a WORLDWIDE condemnation of Hamas? How about a completely international effort to move into Palestine and remove the terrorists running the government?
Give the people of Palestine two options: Turn in the leaders with the RPGs that are causing you to be bombed and live in the 3rd world, or live with it.
The public of Israel doesn't hate Palestine. They don't want the people eradicated. Sadly, the reverse is not true. If Palestine (Hamas) laid down their arms today, Israel would lay them down tomorrow. If Israel laid down their arms today, they would be attacked into extinction. A sadly high number of people in Palestine, whether through ignorant hate or brainwashing, want the Jew scoured from the Earth.
I think it would be interesting if anyone would stop to consider what it's like to be a Jew today. Just 1.5 generations ago, 6,000,000 of their people were killed in one of the most brutal genocides in human history. Now they're getting rockets thrown at them, and you're expecting them to ignore it on the grounds of, "Well we have superior tech, so we'll be ok."?
The amazing thing is that a lot of Israeli citizens ARE peaceful. They don't want war. They just want to be left alone. After the past century they had, I can't help but sympathize with them.
I'm just not sure I would be as patient as they are. Bearing in mind that WWII wasn't that long ago, I think it's surprising we don't have thousands of Israeli's clogging the streets calling for the decimation of the aggressor. That they don't is a tribute to their people.
Who vouched for Hamas? I was referring to the PA election. The US may not have vouched for Hamas, but it did insist on the inclusion of Hamas on the ballot over Israel's objections.
Isn't it enough already that Israel has rolled up it's sleeves and rolled into Gaza? Besides, the foreign perspective might vitiate expedience and tactical daring...
Hand over your government and your arms. Surrender.
But to whom? To Israel? To Fatah? To some outraged international ragbag of humanity? To whom shall the sword be tendered, CH?
To whom is this point addressed, please?
Agree 100%.
Yeah, it pretty much is. I strongly agree. But there are a few extremists out there with exotic demographic conclusions. You take the light with the dark...
Its ridiculous when people try to simplify the situation in the manner you just did CH. In fact the main root of this continuing problem is the continual oversimplification combined with the ego of world leaders who believe they're going to solve this problem overnight and with roadmaps and simple plans.
Actually, the situation is quite simple. Quit ing with Israel and they won't with you.
I agree. I wasn't attempting to simplify anything. But a viable solution would be pages long and take forever to type. My main point is that more international response is needed if anything is going to change. There is no solution short of a massive peace effort. Unless world leaders are willing to make that move, they CANNOT criticize Israel for defending itself and simultaneously ignore the position they put both Israel and Palestine into.
And of what does this peace effort consist of?
An international war against Hamas?
Also, I noticed the passive construction " the position they put both Israel and Palestine into.' This suggests both are passive victims, when in fact both are aggressors. The suggestion is mischievous, IMO, but there is some history behind it.
To some degree, European and Asiatic Jewry were foisted on the land that is now and biblicly was Israel, with distressing results for everyone.
There will NEVER be peace if one side doesn't want peace.
If the US had consulted China -or the rest of the world,excpet their "friends" in jerusalem- last time they attacked a overeign nation, the answer would have been a wise, smart, resounding NO.
The US didn't and that clear NO came down the stretch when it was time to renew loans to two notoriously indebted Real Estate Companies.
A financial "readjustment" ensued.
So go ahead and listen to what the "martyrs" in jerusalem order you to do.
Who ain't got nothing, ain't got nothing to lose.
I might be wrong but... this is the rockets that been firing to Israel????
IMO, an israeli has more chance of being hit by lighting than one of these rockets.
Any fool could pick up one of those and fire. But will they hit anything? I doubt it. Now, these Hamas tools are a bunch, but I don't see why they have to punish thousands of Palestinian women and children for these toy so called "rockets".
are Israelis living in fear? yeah, but mother in newsflash: "You ing live in Israel, what did you expect???"
I see other hidden reasons for these war, for example elections coming up. But these "rockets" are a in joke
No .I might be wrong but... this is the rockets that been firing to Israel????
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...ns/q0279.shtml
Do you think its still just a "harmless" toy rocket?
I might be wrong but... this is the rockets that been firing to Israel????
well they still look like toy rockets.No .
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...ns/q0279.shtml
Do you think its still just a "harmless" toy rocket?
You are a damn joke. Where do you live I want to send you someI might be wrong but... this is the rockets that been firing to Israel????
IMO, an israeli has more chance of being hit by lighting than one of these rockets.
Any fool could pick up one of those and fire. But will they hit anything? I doubt it. Now, these Hamas tools are a bunch, but I don't see why they have to punish thousands of Palestinian women and children for these toy so called "rockets".
are Israelis living in fear? yeah, but mother in newsflash: "You ing live in Israel, what did you expect???"
I see other hidden reasons for these war, for example elections coming up. But these "rockets" are a in joke
"it want hurt" fireworks your way. Damn, if you had a brain you
would take that out and play with it too.
*sigh* I see you totally missed the point.
Ok. I'll do just that because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.So go ahead and listen to what the "martyrs" in jerusalem order you to do.
says the clown of the political forum
Don't argue with them. These people love israel more than they love america. Why we donate billions of dollars a year and our latest military equipment to them is a ing joke.
If anyone hasn't caught on by now this is just one part of the many systematic slaughterings the Israelis have carried out to rid the world of palest.
For what a couple of Hamaas operatives do shouldn't be burdened on the entire people. This is going to be one of a humanitarian crisis. The dead and the injured are piling up to a level the country cannot sustain.
israel don't care who they kill. israel doesn't want peace. this is a group of people that killed its own prime minister because he talked about peace.
The US is donating Millions of dollars to a rich countries such as Haiti, Liberia and Guatemala.
Why shouldn't donate Billions to poor Israel?
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