Israel and Gaza

[neo-x]

Okay, so I noticed the conflict…
During my research methods class last Wednesday evening, we received news that Hamas’s military leader, Ahmed Jabari, had been assassinated by an Israeli air strike. As the conflict between Gaza militants and Israel escalated over the next day, my friends and I decided to move ahead with our weekend plans to go to Jerusalem. We reassured ourselves that we would be safe in the center of the country and reminded ourselves that, as all Israelis and Palestinians know, we couldn’t just stop living because of a remote threat.

After Friday afternoon prayers ended in Jerusalem’s Old City, I joined a huge mass of people moving out of Damascus Gate into East Jerusalem to see what kind of demonstration against Israeli action in Gaza might ensue.

I thought some kind of demonstration was in the works because riot police had been loitering outside the Old City for several hours. Maybe 20 people were chanting, but most people – myself included – were just trying to move away from the demonstrators. For a few minutes, Palestinians chanted, an IDF surveillance helicopter circled overhead, and Israeli riot police and members of the press observed from a distance.

I have no idea how the violence started. All it takes is one person to feel physically threatened and shove someone else, and things begin to escalate. There’s no way I can accurately interpret the actions of either side, so I’ll just stick to what I witnessed as objectively as I can. Young, unarmed Palestinian men trying to run away from the demonstration were apprehended by police officers in full riot gear (helmets, body armor, batons, guns, sound grenades), usually three or four officers to a protester.

Many of the Palestinian women present got close to these scuffles to yell at the officers, and when they were knocked down, the crowd got angrier. At one point, a girl a few feet away from me was elbowed in the face by a police officer wrestling with a protester; later, I saw an elderly Palestinian couple get knocked down by a crowd swarming toward a young man being arrested.

By the time the protest quieted down, I had seen probably four or five young men being frog-marched to the nearby jail.

I don’t think the behavior I observed was significantly different from riot police conduct anywhere else in the world, but I wonder about what contributed to the violence. What would have happened if the riot police officer hadn’t been close enough to the crowd to get shoved – why couldn’t he watch from a distance? What makes a teenage boy so blindly mad that he charges three or four fully armed soldiers who weren’t directly provoking him? Why are nearly one hundred Israeli officers in riot gear so paranoid about twenty shouting Palestinians?

(On a more apolitical note, why are all Israeli police horses big, black, and Friesian-y?)

We returned to the Old City a couple hours later to see the Shabbat celebrations begin at the Western Wall. A few minutes after sundown, we heard Jerusalem’s first air raid sirens since 1970, followed by several explosions in the distance. (Rumor has it that I shouted some expletives at that point, but I can’t imagine myself ever using foul language). My friends and I held hands and ran with the crowd of panicked tourists and worshippers to the closest form of shelter, which was a small cave on the opposite side of the plaza from the Western Wall.

We inadvertently picked the cave that was filled with hysterical teenage girls, but I can’t say I was more composed than any of them. I clung to my friends and thought about what my mom would say if she could see me now, just a few hours after I had promised her there was no way a rocket could reach Jerusalem. I thought about how completely vulnerable I was, and how the true terror came from having no clue what was going on. Were there more rockets coming? Had they been intercepted by Israel’s defense system? Had they caused any casualties? Were we in the right kind of shelter?

After a few minutes, everyone in our cave started to dash across the plaza to a more fortified tunnel, and we followed. We crowded together in the tunnel waiting for information – at this point we learned that a rocket had landed near the Gush Etzion settlement in the West Bank, but there were no casualties. Totally shaken, we decided to head for Bethlehem, which seemed as safe as anywhere else we could get to on Shabbat after Israeli transportation shuts down.

Our friends in Bethlehem told us that lots of young men were rushing to the Separation Wall to protest the Israeli operation in Gaza. They were throwing rocks, and the IDF soldiers were responding with tear gas and rubber bullets. Several times during the two days in Bethlehem, we heard Palestinian ambulances rushing injured protesters to hospitals. I, however, had had enough of protests for a few days and spent my time in Bethlehem catching up with some dear friends. If you’re reading this, please take a bit of time from reading news of Gaza and south Israel to learn about protests in the West Bank. Hundreds have been arrested (including this unconscious young man in Nabi Saleh, who was simultaneously denied medical attention), and many Palestinians have been injured.



(Marian, Kate, Emma and I had quite the bonding experience this weekend).

I am now completely out of rocket distance in Haifa, but still find myself struggling to process my thoughts about this weekend (and now you, reader, have the great joy of watching me try and do it!).

One thing I know is that life is hard in Gaza. From 2007 until 2010, Gaza was under such a strict blockade that the import of a ridiculous array of goods was forbidden. It’s true that Israel eased the blockade in 2010, but this has done little to change the very low quality of life in Gaza. Schools are overcrowded, freedom of movement is severely limited, unemployment is high, no building materials have been allowed in since Operation Cast Lead decimated infrastructure in 2009, and the process of getting permission to leave Gaza for medical treatment continues to be inefficient and deadly. Israeli civilians and soldiers have the security of advanced military technology – a defense shield that stops nearly all missiles headed for populated areas and fortified shelters stocked with supplies in or near most homes – while Gazan civilians have none of these luxuries. They are undeniably more vulnerable than their Israeli counterparts. It’s hard to see how these conditions that are so closely linked to Israeli policies foster anything but animosity for Israel.

I wouldn’t have written this two months ago, but I do think that Israel has a dilemma here – on a different scale from the difficulties Gazans face just trying to live every day, but a dilemma nonetheless. The Israeli government has made some peaceful overtures toward Gaza: it withdrew settlers in 2006, and eased its blockade in 2010. As many Israelis see it, these concessions have been met with more and more rockets being launched into southern Israel. I think many Israelis feel exasperated – they hate seeing Israel dragged through the mud in the international media, but they don’t know another way for the Israeli government to stop the rockets. My Israeli friends aren’t warmongers, and they’re legitimately scared for their friends and family who have been called to active duty near the Gaza border.

The conversations I’ve had about these issues since returning to Haifa have been emotional, to say the least. Often, talking about life in Gaza is incorrectly interpreted as a denial that Israel has a right to self-defense. Friends whose political beliefs I respect are blindly re-posting political cartoons that are racist, de-humanizing oversimplifications of a tragic and deeply complex issue. It is appallingly stupid to suggest that Jews in Kiryat Malachi died because they are Zionist occupiers, or that the four children of the al Dalou family died because their parents didn’t love them enough to move them away from Hamas militants.

Discussing possible alternatives to Jabari’s assassination or the military operation is immediately written off as anti-Israel. I don’t know the answers – nobody does – but for the life of me, I can’t see how this operation in Gaza is a sustainable form of self-defense for Israel. Hamas will regroup after this bombardment, it will gain more support from civilians in Gaza and from international actors, and it will strike Israel again. Laying the framework for future attacks isn’t self-defense, and it endangers civilians in Israel and in Gaza. I don’t believe all nonviolent options for peace are exhausted, and I don’t accept that the killing of Hamas operatives is ever so imperative that targeting errors resulting in the death of innocent civilians should be tolerated.

Yours in peace/salaam/shalom,

Nora

PS. I have some really smart friends here, and you should check out their blogs for other takes on what happened this weekend and some cool ideas in general: Lauren and Aaron were both in Tel Aviv/Jaffa; Emma was with me.

***

Original article here:
http://circlesinthesky.wordpress.com/20 ... -conflict/

[Gman]

??... Gaza was the ones who started the whole war... I can't see any logical reason why anyone would take the terrorists side on this. They only want one thing.. The complete destruction of Israel.. They will never stop. Never.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

I can't see any logical reason why anyone would take the terrorists side on this.

Hatred. That's the only reason: hatred.

I was stuck in traffic in downtown Montreal last Friday as an anti-Israel demonstration blocked an important artery. I sat in my truck and watched the demonstration go by. There were some ordinary-looking people carrying signs that said End Israeli Apartheid, others carried signs that said Boycott Israel and Stop Israeli Aggression and Free Palestine! Many people carried the Palestinian flag. Then came another group of demonstrators all dressed in black, wearing black face masks, some carrying black flags, some carrying Israeli flags which they had defaced with profanities; their signs read End World Domination and Capitalism = Slavery and Anarchy Now! Overthrow the Rulers! After these, there came a large contingent of djellaba-wearing men and their hijab-clad women; these just carried the Palestinian and Hizbollah flags with a few signs written in Arabic. I even saw a lone Hassidim among them!

Just as there are varying degrees of pornography going from suggestive scenes to soft porn, then on to hard porn and progressing to bondage then to beastiality & all the way to snuff porn, so there is a progression in hatred. I saw varying degrees of hatred as I sat in my truck for over 45 minutes waiting for the demonstration to go by. There are varying degrees of hatred against the Jews in blogs as well and I would put Nora's blog at the lowest level.

I'm mostly wondering why neo-x posted it...

FL

[neo-x]

I can't see any logical reason why anyone would take the terrorists side on this.

I am speaking from a side position, violence begets violence, you can't avoid this anyway you go and try to find your way out of it. Its nothing really different then what America is doing in Pakistan. They drone our country, kill 4 innocent people with one terrorist, call it collateral damage, and then wonder why the terrorists keep popping up. The reason is simple the civilians they kill, result in more hatred, more radicals finding a way to avenge their homes, their dead. It is easy to brainwash someone when they have been hurt in someway. And the terrorists take advantage of this, in this way Israel like teh US gives them more ammo.

The U.S has almost carried out 3000+drone strikes in pakistan and organizations like CIVIC report that almost 1/3 rd of these strikes killed civilians instead of terrorism camps....We have had more bomb blasts in Pakistan after the the war on terror than the entire history of attacks by terrorists on the U.S. More people have died here because of the "war on terror".

Sometime back, the american drones struck a wedding...can you believe it? a wedding...how horrible is that? I wouldn't be surprised if a surviving child from that drone strike turns out to be a suicide bomber ten years later in a building in America.

I don't care how you view it but the way I see it if it is Muslims or Christians or Jews that die...the result is just MORE HATE AND MORE HATE. Israel may have the right to defend itself but it is also sowing more hate against itself.

And by the way

"I don’t believe all nonviolent options for peace are exhausted, and I don’t accept that the killing of Hamas operatives is ever so imperative that targeting errors resulting in the death of innocent civilians should be tolerated."

Read this line carefully, on what scale of hatefulness, does this line even qualify to be called one?

[Danieltwotwenty]

Amen Neo-X, I think Matthew 16:25 sums this up pretty well.

Lay down your arms and give yourself to Christ.


Dan

[Gman]

They drone our country..

"I don’t believe all nonviolent options for peace are exhausted, and I don’t accept that the killing of Hamas operatives is ever so imperative that targeting errors resulting in the death of innocent civilians should be tolerated."

Read this line carefully, on what scale of hatefulness, does this line even qualify to be called one?

Your country? Again everyone knows Israel will be completely destroyed if they lay down their arms.. Hamas only has one agenda, kill all the Jews... Then the Christians. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. It's not hate, it's defense although sometimes others get in the way. But they are warned too..

The solution is very very very simple... Stop the bombings and make friends with Israel. And peace will come.. Guaranteed.

[neo-x]

Gman » Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:21 am

neo-x wrote:
They drone our country..

"I don’t believe all nonviolent options for peace are exhausted, and I don’t accept that the killing of Hamas operatives is ever so imperative that targeting errors resulting in the death of innocent civilians should be tolerated."

Read this line carefully, on what scale of hatefulness, does this line even qualify to be called one?


Your country? Again everyone knows Israel will be completely destroyed if they lay down their arms.. Hamas only has one agenda, kill all the Jews... Then the Christians. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. It's not hate, it's defense although sometimes others get in the way. But they are warned too..

The solution is very very very simple... Stop the bombings and make friends with Israel. And peace will come.. Guaranteed.

So you're saying that killing innocent people with the terrorists is acceptable as long as you kill some terrorists?

And since when did you become a spokesperson for Israel's military, how do you know they will stop too?

[Gman]

So you're saying that killing innocent people with the terrorists is acceptable as long as you kill some terrorists?

And since when did you become a spokesperson for Israel's military, how do you know they will stop too?

You say that killing innocent Israelis is justified?

[neo-x]

Gman » Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:34 am

neo-x wrote:

So you're saying that killing innocent people with the terrorists is acceptable as long as you kill some terrorists?

And since when did you become a spokesperson for Israel's military, how do you know they will stop too?


You say that killing innocent Israelis is justified?

So you are not going to answer my questions?

[neo-x]

"You say that killing innocent Israelis is justified?"
You are not talking about Justice at all, you are talking about revenge. Killing innocents because some other innocent was killed, is simply horrible.

So you are comfortable or content, if Israel kills 2-3 civilians, as long as one terrorist gets killed too.

That is the thing...more hate. So if one Israeli is killed, then you have to kill a Palestinian, just to make a statement that you will retaliate?

Here is the thing, and I am going to be candid here, for all those who take a very aggressive stance on matters like these, I have a few questions for them:

1. Have you ever lived and been treated inferior as a minority on a national level?

2. Have you ever lived in a war zone?

3. Have you even been a victim or a close observer of a real life terrorist activity?

4. Have you ever been discriminated legally, as in when the law actually supports discrimination?

If you answer all the above then answer this:
5. Do you believe in collateral human damage, as accepted as long as some success is achieved?

If your answers for the first four questions are "No's" then I suggest you actually experience this before you set your minds on the issue. Otherwise you simply do not understand what it is live like this.

Betting from the sidelines when nothing personal is at stake, is very easy. It changes dramatically when you're own family, life and loved ones are on the line.

[Gman]

Right... More Israelis would have been killed if it wasn't for the iron dome system.. If they didn't have that they would be toast.. And killing innocent Israelis is not justified either.

Again if both Israelis and Hamas would stop then no one would get hurt. But Hamas doesn't appear to want to stop.. They just keep going and going....

This discussion is pointless..

[neo-x]

This discussion is pointless..

It is, since you have never lived and experienced it the same way people who live as minorities and in a war zone.
I admire you're skill G, you have practically managed to evade my questions after all.

"So you are comfortable or content, if Israel kills 2-3 civilians, as long as one terrorist gets killed too. "

I guess you have answered it in one way.

Believe me G, there are probably guys with the same mindset, which you are showing here, who decide to keep droning my country too.

After all, if one american died, then its fair that a couple of hundred of innocent Pakistani's may die too as collateral damage, as long as we kill a few terrorists. It is justified since Americans died too. The only difference here is the death toll, only in my country it is in hundreds of thousands now, because of the war of terror. How many people died in 9/11? 4000, 5000. 10,000?

Is it justified to hit schools and hospitals, weddings and peaceful homes and then say "Oops!" we didn't mean to hit you but deal with it cuz we got a terrorist to nail?

But then, that is how the world behaves, and it terribly sad. Yes, keep droning us, we are very dangerous.

You may say the issue is different but I'd just say that the thinking is the same. Funny, people only speak like this, when they are the ones who are stronger in power and most of the time, attacking.

[B. W.]

Greetings neo-x

Would you mind sharing from what part of the world you live?

Also, we all must not accuse all citizens for the policies of respective political leaders. Obama is clearly to blame and recall that over half the US does not like him and another 1/3 rd have been deceived by his party's Santa Claus promises which he will be unable to deliver. Heck, I think our own voting machines were rigged. We have a county district with 92,000 registered voters and something like 125,000 people voted in that district alone. Voter ID laws were evaded for this election as well. Show an ID to purchase a bottle of Beer, or get on an Airliner at the airport but to vote - NO !!! Makes no sense...

Well, folk join this week for days of prayer at

http://www.facebook.com/AwakeAndAriseDayOfPrayer

We need it for this Country...
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[RickD]

B. W. Wrote:
Obama is clearly to blame

B. W. I couldn't disagree more! I think the administration that was in office for the last 4 years, should carry a lot of blame. Oh wait, I forgot! Silly me, who was in office for the last 4 years?

[neo-x]

b.w, i am not holding any person responsible for bad policies, except the ones who made it. i didnt mean to say all americans are the same, i am just saying that this mentality, let innocents die as long as we get a terrorist dead, is very dangerous. most of the time people form opinions without understanding fully what entails. in pakistan where i live, i see its direct consequences and they are not pretty at all.