War Handwavium

Illegal Jewish Settlements on Palestinian lands are gobbling up the land that would become part of a Palestinian state, making the two-state solution impossible.

The only alternative to the two-state solution is that the Palestinians become part of the state of Israel. Except many Jewish Israelis hate that idea. Israeli government officials have recently said that Israel is a Jewish State, that non-Jews will have to leave Israel once a Palestinian state is created.

But there’s little land for a state left.

What this points to is that Palestinians will likely get absorbed into Israel, Israel will declare that it owns all the land that is currently Palestinian land, and Palestinians will be treated as second class citizens, an apartheid enforced by the Israeli government.

It’s little different than the current situation, other than the Palestinians will officially lose all their land to Israel, rather than Israel stealing it one illegal settlement at a time.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/200911421151530735.html

So, the US House of Representatives, morons of history that they are, voted 344 to 36 to oppose the Goldstone report.

“The report was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimise the damage to Palestinian civilians,” Steven Rothman, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, told Al Jazeera.

Dude, there have been twelve thousand rockets only if you count all the rockets that have been launched since 2001.

And there was a cease-fire back in June of 2008, and all the rockets stopped. For several months, July 2008 to October 2008, rocket fire had come to an end.

ANd then Israel went and violated the cease fire. In November of 2008, Israel sent commandos into Palestinian territory and killed six Palestinians.

Israel had agreed to a ceasefire in June and then Israel invaded Palestinian land and killed Palestinians in November. That’s not how you follow a ceasefire.

Hamas rockets resumed after the cease fire violation in November.

Israel then launched Operation Cast Lead in December of 2008.

What moron quotes “12,000 rockets” without looking at the actual history? What moron counts 12,000 rockets launched prior to a cease fire agreement, ignores the months that Palestinians honored the cease fire, and ignores Israel violating the cease fire agreement?

Only a moron in public office in America, apparently.

And more importantly, the Goldstone report is a report on Operation Cast Lead. Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza. That military operation must follow international law. Just because someone launched a rocket from Gaza back in 2001, doesn’t mean Israel is justified in killing an unarmed woman and her child in 2009. It is still a war crime to kill civilians like that.

And that’s what the Goldstone report says, that Israel’s operations during Operation Cast Lead violated the rules of war, that Israel used the war to inflict collective punishment on the Palestinians, rather than launching the war to stop rockets.

If Israel wanted to stop the rockets, it shouldn’t have violated the cease fire that had been successful for the previous months. If Israel wanted the rockets to stop, it shouldn’t have launched a war and killed hundreds, possibly a thousand, civilians.

DUring Operation Cast Lead, some Palestinian militants fired rockets back into Israel. A total of 17 Israelis were killed during that same time period. During that same time period, Israel killed 1400 people, about 800 or so were civilians.

So, if the Honorable Moron Steven Rothman from New Jersey wants to quote 12,000 rockets spanning all the way back to 2001, then by all means, lets do a side-by-side comparison of all the Palestinians that Israel has killed since 2001.

I can assure you that every step of the way, more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israelis, than Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinians.

Only a moron would compare apples to oranges, only a moron would take a three week invasion Operation Cast Lead and compare it to the last ten years of Palestinian militants.

A moron, or someone who doesn’t like the truth.

more details about the Israeli cease fire violation here:

http://www.warhw.com/2009/01/06/israeli-ceasefire-violation-november-2008/

article about the House vote here:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/200911320434191455.html

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist with the Israeli paper Haaretz, wrote an article today titled:

“America, stop sucking up to Israel”

Juicy tidbits:

“As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket,… (Israel) will continue in its ways.”

“If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 … then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.”

“For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price.”

“Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything”

It’s good to see that not all Israelis agree with the militant actions of their government.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124928.html?

via Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/02/levy/index.html

After the election, Obama and Clinton demanded that Israel “freeze” all settlement construction. They demanded a “complete halt”.

As of today, Clinton announced that Israel has made “unprecedented” progress towards peace, and no longer calls for a “freeze” but rather calls for “restraint”.

Where “restraint” is a code word for “as much settlement expansion as Israel wants”.

What? No? Well, the US certainly isn’t defining the terms anymore. Neither are the Palestinians, who are watching the Israelis bulldoze their houses in East Jeruselem on Palestinian land to build more illegal Jewish settlements.

Instead of saying anything unequivacol about Israel, the US is saying that Palestinians should start peace talks without “preconditions”. The main precondition being that Isreal stop stealing Palestinian land.

When the US was willing to condemn Isreal for its illegal and immoral stealing of Palestinian land, I thought that peace in the middle east, or at least peace between Israel and Palestinians, might be possible while Obama was still in office. But now, with the US backpedaling to the status quo of ignoring Israel’s thievery while condemning Palestinians for not ignoring Israel’s thievery too, it’s pretty obvious that peace just got dragged out into a dark alley and shot execution style.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/2009103121332825958.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/2009111194139773721.html

That pretty much sums it up.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009615202848261945.html

Amnesty International says that Israel is denying Palestinians access to adequate clean drinking water but illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands are enjoying swimming pools.

About 200,000 Palestinians have no access to running water. And Israel’s consumption per capita if four times larger than that of the Palestinians.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091026132714361238.html

A relatively new Jewish lobby has come onto the scene. It’s called “J-Street”. It is pro-Israel, pro-two-state-solution, anti-Jewish-settlement, and pro-peace.

Here’s hoping the voice of J-Street gets heard.

US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, gave a speech at a conference in Jerusalem organised by Shimon Peres, Israel’s president. Rice basically said two things: Isreal must restart real peace talks for a Palestinian state and that anti-Israel “vitriol” at the UN should end.

Ignoring calls for a Palestinian state, Netanyahu instead latched onto the part he wanted to hear and said he supported the US in it’s criticism of the Goldstone report.

Duh.

We call that “cherry picking” over here.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/200910222109748934.html

Just follow the link.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/20091229274380583.html

The short of it is, it doesn’t look good.

The session will begin on Thursday and is expected to last into the following day.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091013163035586460.html