14 Nov 12: Israel Launches Operations in Gaza

[Sythen]

I'm curious to see what Canada will do, especially after their new negotiations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM

Canadian PM: I Will Defend Israel 'whatever the cost'

 

[Edward Campbell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM

Canadian PM: I Will Defend Israel 'whatever the cost'

I think he means "... whatever the cost ... except for money or soldiers and all that sort of stuff."

 

[jollyjacktar]

I think he means "... whatever the cost ... except for money or soldiers and all that sort of stuff."

He must mean his reputation with the voters here in Canada...  >

 

[Edward Campbell]

Also not commented upon is the Arab/Hamas treachery which gives Israeli intelligence such priceless information. Every Arab (and Persian and West Asian and North African) leader ~ president or terrorist, king or usurper, must go to bed every night wondering which of his inner circle is betraying him, right now, to the hated Israelis ... Paranoia!  :nod:

Slightly different but still very similar ... this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, illustrates, yet again, that the Israelis have excellent local intelligence which, I'm guessing, can only come from inside the organizations concerned. Further, the Israelis are able to warn the journalists to stay away while they kill the Islamic Jihad bad guys ~ someone inside Gaza is passing those messages for them, most likely someone from inside Hamas.

Now, to make matters worse, it looks like, maybe, Hamas sold out Islamic Jihad:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/killing-of-jihad-leader-opens-rift-with-hamas/article5455415/

Killing of Jihad leader opens rift with Hamas

PATRICK MARTIN
GAZA CITY — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Nov. 19 2012

Israel dealt a body blow to Islamic Jihad Monday, killing one of its most senior Palestinian leaders and exacerbating tensions between Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, and Hamas. The result could make a ceasefire with Israel that much harder to reach.

Rames Harb’s charred body was carried out of a 14-storey office building in central Gaza, just before 4 o’clock in the afternoon. About 45 minutes earlier, the building, a media centre that is home to Palestinian and international journalist organizations in Gaza, was struck by an Israeli missile.

Mr. Harb and four Jihad colleagues were in their third-floor office when the missile came through their front window.

The colleagues were seriously injured, but Mr. Harb’s clothes were blown right off him and his body burned from top to bottom.

He probably never knew what hit him, but his organization does.

Standing amid the broken glass and shattered concrete shortly after the attack, journalists from the building said Israeli authorities had warned them the day before to stay away from their offices. Mr. Harb and his associates must not have gotten the message. They were alone in the building when the attack came. And while Jihad members are livid at Israel for killing their Gaza City leader, they also are angry at Hamas for the ruling group’s apparent willingness to accept Israel’s terms for a ceasefire.

It verges on collaboration, they say.

Israel bombed dozens more targets in the Gaza Strip and militants in the Gaza Strip fired 110 rockets at southern Israel on Monday, causing no casualties. Intense diplomatic efforts to craft a ceasefire agreement continued, with United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-moon shuttling from Cairo to Jerusalem and President Barack Obama pressing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to use his influence with Hamas leaders to broker a stop to rocket launches from Gaza.

But Hamas, which has governed the densely populated Gaza Strip, is not the only player.

Islamic Jihad says it wants to fight the Israelis, not just fire rockets that get shot down. Notably, Jihad members were among the only ones to have engaged in combat with Israeli forces when they invaded Gaza in January, 2009. Most Hamas fighters fell back and hid, saying they were waiting to tackle the Israelis when they entered Gaza’s maze of small streets – a battle that never came.

They also say they won’t agree to stop firing rockets in the future, a position that would bring them into real conflict with Hamas should it agree to an Israeli demand that Hamas guarantee that all other militias in the Gaza Strip stop firing rockets and mortars into Israel.

‪Hamas officials insist they are not selling out to Israel when they indicate they are prepared to deal.

“The only ceasefire Hamas will agree to is one in which Israel agrees to stop all aggression and to end the siege [on Gaza], explained Mushir Masry, a leading Hamas MP. If Israel does that, he said, “it’s a deal worth having.”

‪Nabil Shaath, a prominent minister in the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, made a rare visit to his native Gaza Monday to wave the PA flag and “to show Israel it can’t divide the Palestinians [between those in Gaza and those in the West Bank].”

“We are one people,” he said, “and we’ll stay that way.”

On the subject of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, he agreed that it would be good for all Palestinians, “provided Israel is made to adhere to it, too.”

Not every senior Palestinian official is keen to have a ceasefire, however, at least not yet.

‪Ayman Batniji, spokesman for the Hamas police force and a charismatic imam at a downtown Gaza mosque, was wandering through Shifa Hospital Monday afternoon.

Since police headquarters had been destroyed in the wee hours of Sunday morning – the new facility had only been open for six days – Mr. Batniji, dressed in a stylish brown leather jacket, had been without an office. His views, however, have a home among many in Hamas’s security forces.

On the subject of an Israeli invasion, he all but declared: Bring ’em on.

“It will be a big disaster for the Zionists if they enter Gaza,” Mr. Batniji said. “We’ve got 10,000 men willing to sacrifice themselves to kill as many of the Jews as possible.”

“These people [the Israelis] never learn,” Mr. Batniji said. “They lost in 2000 [when they pulled out of Lebanon]; they lost in 2005 [when they withdrew their forces from Gaza]; they lost in 2006 [when they retreated from Lebanon, again] and they lost in 2009 [when they ended their attack on Hamas in Gaza].

“They will lose even bigger this time,” he predicted.

Clearly, it is not an easy path for Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.

But, in the final analysis, ‪Ayman Batniji is right: there is no way for Israel to "win" this in any conventional military sense. The hatred upon which organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad feed is deep and strong. Thousands of silly, ill educated, hopeless young men will line up for a chance to kill Jews. It is possible, even likely, that yet again, the Arabs will find a new and exciting way to "lose" this battle, but Israel can't win it.

 

[FJAG]

Probably as a result of frontier warfare, Jacksonian opinion came to believe that it was breaking the spirit of the enemy nation, rather than the fighting power of the enemy’s armies, that was the chief object of warfare. It was not enough to defeat a tribe in battle; one had to "pacify" the tribe, to convince it utterly that resistance was and always would be futile and destructive. For this to happen, the war had to go to the enemy’s home. The villages had to be burned, food supplies destroyed, civilians had to be killed. From the tiniest child to the most revered of the elderly sages, everyone in the enemy nation had to understand that further armed resistance to the will of the American people—whatever that might be—was simply not an option.

The Jacksonian approach wasn't new to North America having first been used by Europeans when Thomas West the 3rd Baron De La Warr used "Irish Tactics" in 1610 to subdue the Powhatan nation by raiding villages, burning crops and houses, removing provisions and along the way killing and terrorising the population. The Powhatans had been using exactly the same tactics against the Jamestown colony.

Regardless of the origins, these tactics have been contrary to the law of war long before the Geneva Convention. The Allies, including the Americans coined a new war crime, waging wars of aggression, and ensured that a meaningful number of Nazis were hanged for this.

The resulting Geneva Conventions codified much of what was already part of the customary law of war.

A key consideration that comes into play in any conflict and particularly in the field of targeting, is the Principle of Proportionality which can be paraphrased as "the anticipated loss of life and damage to property incidental to attacks must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained."

A second consideration for anyone planning to occupy hostile territory are the very onerous responsibility that falls on an occupying military power in administering the occupied territory and its people.

Is there anyone here who really thinks that Gaza can be "subjugated", whether by Jacksonian approach or any other, to the point where a million and a half Palestinian Muslims are going to give up their fanatical hatred of Israel?

Sadly, the world does not stand with Israel. Even amongst its most stalwart allies, the media and much of the population is critical of Israel's settlement policies and believe that the "Palestinian Problem" is just as much, if not more, Israel's fault as that of Hamas. Most countries are overtly opposed to Israel.

Israel is between a rock and a hard place. Its Iron Dome system, while an excellent militarily, is a double edged sword in the media war. It's difficult to win the propaganda wars when your actions are based on self defence from Hamas missile when your own systems are knocking them out of the skies while your own "smart bombs" are creating "excessive collateral damage". Don't bother pointing out to me that Hamas is firing indiscriminately at civilian targets and that they are using civilians and their property as shields. You know it. I know it. The general public on the other hand only sees hundreds of dead and wounded Palestinians including children compared to only a handful of Israelis.

I very much support Israel and wish them luck but won't even pretend that I have a solution to their problem.

 

[BrendenDias]

I doubt Harper would send troops to Isreal. He probably means verbal defence... hah.
Netanyahu probably won't be happy if Canada doesn't lend out some sort of a hand to the Israeli effort, just my opinion.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I doubt Harper would send troops to Isreal. He probably means verbal defence... hah.
Netanyahu probably won't be happy if Canada doesn't lend out some sort of a hand to the Israeli effort, just my opinion.

The only support Israel really needs is a) financial from the USA; and b) moral from countries like Canada.

My guess: the IDF does not want now would it accept any foreign troops on its own territory. National pride was strong when I was last in Israel, some years ago now, and I have seen nothing to suggest that they have had a sudden crisis of confidence. When US troops visit, for combined training, they often do so - in the minds of the IDF - as "students" who are there to learn something. My, also very likely out of date, experience with the IDF and US was that neither actually "likes" the other and the IDF does not think it has much to learn from its American friends. Israel is a small country and it is not a "rich" one, except in human capital: the Israelis are well educated, sophisticated and "advanced;" their science and technology is at the top of the global heap; they want "help" but not just any help, see my opening sentence.

The Israelis would, probably, be happy to see Western nations join a very looooong UN mission in Gaza or the West Bank as one possible solution to their desire to see a disarmed Palestinian State with an independent "occupying" power.

 

[tomahawk6]

Just a few weeks ago the US had Patriot batteries in Israel and as far as I know the US maintains an X band type radar on Mt Keren in the Negev. It has a range of 2900 miles and would provide early warning to Israel of an Iranian missile launch.

 

[OldSolduer]

So what's going on in Syria and Iran?

 

[The Bread Guy]

.... calling on Muslims to help pile on - full statement attached to avoid racking up the Taliban webmeister's hit count:

.... The Israeli regime, over the last few decades of its savage occupation of Palestine, has had the oppressed Palestinians suffer every kind of oppression, misery and bloodshed. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have been brutally murdered or blown to bits, their houses have been leveled and knocked down in the Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives and most of their rightful land has been usurped.

In fact, the Israeli regime has never stopped at anything and will never stop at this as well. Accordingly, in order to avoid this invasion what is an act of terrorism, the Islamic Emirate hereby urges the entire Muslim Ummah, particularly the Muslim leaders, human right organizations and the peace-loving people in the world to regain a strong position to work out ways so as to put an end to the Israeli invasion of Palestine and its savage aggression against the oppressed people of Gaza City and to let the Palestinian nation live free and in peace in their own land ....

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....

 

[Maxadia]

Apparently a truce may have been called:

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/D2VboA0QsnQ7pjtUy0792M/Israel-strikes-Gazas-Islamic-bank-as-death-toll-hits-109.html

Updated: Tue, Nov 20 2012. 10 26 PM IST
Gaza/Jerusalem: An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza conflict will go into effect later on Tuesday, a Hamas official said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier he was open to a long-term deal to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on his country.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Apparently a truce may have been called:

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/D2VboA0QsnQ7pjtUy0792M/Israel-strikes-Gazas-Islamic-bank-as-death-toll-hits-109.html

Latest from Israel - not quite yet:

.... Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told Reuters the announcement was premature and Israeli military operations in Gaza, territory run by Hamas Islamists, would continue in parallel with diplomacy.

"We're not there yet," Regev said on CNN. "The ball's still in play." ....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Jeffrey Goldberg, who writes for The Atlantic and Bloomberg View is not an unbiased observer but I think this column, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Bloomberg View, is a pretty fair assessment of the Israeli point of view:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/seven-truths-about-israel-hamas-and-violence.html

Seven Truths About Israel, Hamas and Violence

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Nov 19, 2012

There are many lies being told about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Here are seven things that are true.

No. 1. This most recent outbreak of violence represents the opening round of the third Palestinian intifada. The first intifada, which began in 1987 and petered out in the early 1990s, was an uprising of stones and Molotov cocktails. The second intifada, which began 12 years ago, was an uprising of suicide bombers. The third uprising, inevitably, was going to feature rockets and missiles. I don’t care to think about what sorts of weapons and tactics will feature in the fourth intifada.

No. 2. Hamas’s strategy in this latest conflict makes perfect sense. Hamas, which is the Palestine branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is theologically committed to the obliteration of Israel and believes, as a matter of faith, that Jews are Allah’s enemies. Its leaders have believed, since the group’s inception, that Jews are soft (“We love death and they love life,” a Hamas leader once told me, and it is a commonly expressed thought). Hamas also believes that eventually misery and fear will drive most Jews to leave Israel, which it views as a Muslim waqf, or endowment, not merely the rightful home of the Palestinian people.

This strategy only works because Hamas leaders believe that the deaths of Palestinians aid their cause. As we have seen in this latest iteration of the Arab-Israeli war, every death of a Palestinian civilian is a victory for Hamas and a defeat for Israel. Palestinians in Gaza who dissent from this approach are often punished by Hamas.

No. 3. Hamas’s decision to increase the tempo of rocket attacks at Israeli civilian targets -- the cause of this latest round of violence, as President Barack Obama and most Western leaders have asserted -- emerged not only from a desire on the part of the group to terrorize the Jewish state out of existence. It also emerged from a cold political calculation that the Arab Spring (or, in the eyes of Hamas, the Islamist Spring) means that the arc of history is bending toward them and away from the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas and its more moderate Arab supporters. This analysis has encouraged Hamas to assert itself now as the main player in the Palestinian “resistance.”

No. 4. The Jews aren’t abandoning ship. One of the reasons Hamas’s strategy so far hasn’t worked is because Israel’s Jews are more patriotic, and braver, than Hamas ideologues can bring themselves to admit. The Jews didn’t abandon Israel during the height of Hamas’s suicide-bombing campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s, and hundreds of Israeli Jews, as well as Israeli Muslims, Christians and foreign visitors, died in those campaigns. As of this writing, three Israeli Jews have died in the past week’s rocket attacks.

The majority of Israelis believe that they are finally home. Unlike their ancestors during the long period of exile from Israel following the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, they believe it is wrong and counterproductive to run from persecution and attack.

No. 5. Israel, unlike Hamas, has no strategy in Gaza. It has only tactics. Israel is justified in defending itself. It isn’t tenable for a sovereign state to allow its citizens to go unprotected from rocket attacks from someone else’s territory. If Russia or the U.S. had come under similar attack, those responsible would almost immediately find themselves dead. All of them. But for Israel, military victory over Hamas is impossible, which is why a ground invasion of Gaza is a bad idea. So long as Hamas maintains the capability to fire even one rocket into Israel, or dispatch one suicide bomber to a Tel Aviv cafe, it will view itself as having won this round.

For a while, at least, expect Hamas to have more difficulty launching attacks. It has, after all, lost much of its rocket force as well as its military commander, the allegedly indispensable Ahmed al-Jabari. But I’ve been to the funerals of four or five indispensable Hamas men over the years, and they are always replaced. Short-term, it is possible that Hamas will refrain from firing rockets and keep others from doing so as well. But there is no long-term military solution for Israel, short of turning Gaza into Chechnya or Dresden. This is militarily feasible, but it would be immoral and would end in Israel losing its international legitimacy.

No. 6. There also is no direct political solution for Israel. If Hamas were willing to negotiate with Israel about anything more than prisoner exchanges or cease-fires, it wouldn’t be Hamas. It is impossible for Israel to do serious business with an organization that wishes it dead. But there is an indirect political solution for Gaza. The Palestinians are currently split between the moderate camp of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, on the West Bank, and the extremists of Hamas in Gaza. Successive Israeli governments have undermined the Palestinian Authority government on the West Bank by expanding the Jewish settler presence.

The settlement project aids Hamas, which can point to it as proof that Israel is uninterested in the two-state solution endorsed by Hamas’s more-moderate rivals. If Israel were to reverse settlement growth, this could serve to buttress Palestinian moderates, who are in a position to negotiate with Israel. If the West Bank were to gain real freedom, the Palestinians of Gaza might turn away from Hamas. All of this is unlikely -- pessimism needs to be our guide in the Middle East - - but this plan represents the only alternative to continued military strikes on Gaza by Israel.

No. 7. Opinions on both sides hardened in the first intifada and hardened further in the second. Here in the third, they will harden some more. Palestinian society is infected with dreams of physically eliminating its enemy. Parts of Israeli society, too, are succumbing to fever dreams of total victory. The trends on both sides are almost entirely negative. The most likely outcome of this round: A cease-fire, a period of quiet and then a gradual return to shooting.

(Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist and a national correspondent for The Atlantic. The opinions expressed are his own.)

 

[muskrat89]

Yeah, this will speed a ceasefire along...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/hamas-kills-six-suspected-aiding-israel-drags-body-through-streets/

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Yeah, this will speed a ceasefire along...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/hamas-kills-six-suspected-aiding-israel-drags-body-through-streets/

Were they really Israeli agents or just some poor guy who happened to be in the wrong pace at the wrong time. Or may be someone was peeved off at someone else and denounced them as an Israeli agent to get revenge.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the attack on the Media center. Most telling is the media's reaction to the event, certainly editing out important facts to drive a narrative gives one pause when considering what else is being manipulated in other, perhaps lesser, stories and for what purpose? A breif discussion on why the US response may have been muted is also in this article:

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/11/20/benghazi-gaza-and-the-killers-of-cnn/?print=1

Benghazi, Gaza, and the Killers of CNN
Posted By Roger L Simon On November 20, 2012 @ 12:01 am In Uncategorized | 51 Comments

Has Benghazi helped Israel?

It’s hard to calculate the amount, but it seems likely that the evolving Libyan scandal has been useful to Israel in its struggle with Hamas in Gaza.

The embarrassing — even humiliating — mishandling and subsequent misnaming of the terror attack on the U.S. consulate/CIA installation has made the administration look quite ridiculous in its claim that al-Qaeda and similar Islamic extremist organizations were on the run. With four Americans dead in Benghazi, the reverse appears to be true.

Sympathy for Islamofascists is not at a high point and, consequently, Barack Obama, not always Benjamin Netanyahu’s best friend, has been remarkably understanding of Operation Pillar of Defense, affirming, while in Thailand, that “we are fully supportive” of Israel’s right to act against Hamas.

During an interview I conducted Monday with David Siegel, Israel’s consul general for the southwestern U.S., Mr. Siegel, one of the Jewish state’s key diplomats in this country, was effusive in his praise regarding the president’s solidarity with Israel in its current struggle. (The interview is now available here [1] on PJTV.)

We will see how this plays out in the next few days when the inevitable pushback occurs, but conservatives, who were in such strong opposition to Obama in part because of his Middle East policy, may have to eat a small portion, at least, of crow.

The Israelis also have to thank Obama to a degree for the better treatment they are getting from the mainstream media this time around, for the moment anyway. Yes, the New York Times (probably the most reactionary institution in our country today) remains blissfully unaware [2] of the presence of terrorists in the Gaza Strip, bellowing on about the destruction of media buildings by Israeli forces without noting that shielding themselves inside the buildings were four senior leaders of Islamic Jihad.

And yes, CNN bought yet another Pallywood production [3] hook, line and sinker, years after the notorious Mohammed al Dura case and the “Green” man in the Lebanon War and who knows how many other incredibly obvious counterfeits. Anderson Cooper should don a dunce cap [4] for this and spend a long time in the corner.

Through it all, you have the sense the media is chomping at the bit to go forward with their traditional anti-Israeli narrative, but Obama’s attitude is impeding them for the moment. Who knows how long it will last? But everything possible should be done to encourage the president’s new outlook.

Of course, there would be no Gaza War ever if Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et. al. did not lob missiles at Israeli civilians day in and day out to provoke one. Israel would have no interest in fighting otherwise. Only Hamas would. And only Hamas does, by creating a deliberately asymmetrical war that results, again deliberately, in the killing and maiming of its own people for the benefit of the media.

For McLuhan, the media was the message. For Hamas, the message is the media publicizing their message.

By participating in this pas de deux, the media are complicit with Hamas in that killing and maiming because it is done for them. It happens so the media can report it. They might be shocked to hear it, but if they stopped to think for a second, the media would realize that the war, on Hamas’ part anyway, would not exist if no one publicized it. Without publicity, Hamas couldn’t be less interested. And the Israelis, unprovoked, would never send a single missile into Gaza. Everyone knows that.

So Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others fight for the benefit of the media. That’s it. That’s their sole motive — to show Israel as brutal with the help of the press. They live for the Israelis to make a mistake — and if the Israelis don’t, they invent one.

By participating in this charade, the media are effectively racist, treating the Palestinians like “ignorant wogs” from the days of British imperialism, incapable of taking care of themselves or of making a decent society for themselves. The media portray the Palestinians as victims, therefore encouraging Palestinian victimhood.

They are also “objectively pro-fascist” in Orwell’s term [5], because Hamas is an Islamofascist organization and they are doing Hamas’ will.

CNN et. al. rarely report the obvious — that if Hamas devoted a tenth of the time and money to hospitals, schools, and other civic institutions that they do to amassing an arsenal of 12,000 missiles and whatever else, the Gaza Strip would flourish like a paradise.

For now we can thank Obama and Benghazi for keeping this murderous roundelay a bit in check. Evidently the ceasefire dickering has already begun. Apparently the Israelis have the temerity to be asking for a long one. I don’t know if that matters. Hamas and similar organizations live on hate — and hate lasts thousands of years. It has to be stopped at the core.

I have a different suggestion for the Israelis to start with one simple and basic demand — for Hamas to change its charter that calls for the extermination of Israel. Without that, what will have changed?

Also read: Director of National Intelligence Office Altered the Benghazi Talking Points [6]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Roger L. Simon: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/11/20/benghazi-gaza-and-the-killers-of-cnn/

URLs in this post:

[1] here: http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=476&load=7728

[2] remains blissfully unaware: http://freebeacon.com/nyt-once-again-unaware-of-terrorists-in-gaza/

[3] Pallywood production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL8ANySuSuk

[4] Anderson Cooper should don a dunce cap: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2012/11/19/cnns-cooper-retracts-video-palestinian-man-faking-injury

[5] Orwell’s term: http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw

[6] Director of National Intelligence Office Altered the Benghazi Talking Points: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/11/20/cbs-director-of-national-intelligence-office-altered-the-benghazi-talking-points/

AS for strategy and tactics, it is totally counterproductive for Israel to "reward" bad behavior. Bombing rocket facilities and making incursions to eliminate other threats is a short term and tactical approach, but since Isreal controls the suppluy of electricity and other commodities, it may make the most sense to simply cut the cord as the price of "bad" behaviour. This would cripple the Hamas ability to carry out most civil government tasks they have chosen to do (which would also break much of their hold on the population) and I predict a large portion of the armed fighters would turn on each other within the Gaza strip not for any ideological reasons, but simply to sieze whaterver supplies and tradable goods are left. With much of the logistical "support" removed, political legitimacy of the Hamas shattered and the C2 of the various fighting organizations in Gaza ineffective as they descend into warlordism and chaos, the Gaza strip would no longer be such a threat to Israel, and moderates could attempt to take back their society to regain access to the electrical and economic lifelines.

As for the repeated assertations that "Gaza is under the heel of Israel", do you hear similar statements about Tibet or the Xinjiang region of China? How about the Ukraine during the Soviet period? East Germany? What about the Kurds in Turkey and Iran? Many nations and ethnic groups claim to be effectively under the control of an outside power with most if not all the conditions set by the "occupying power"; maybe we should ramp up the rhetoric in these places as well ?</snark>

 

[Edward Campbell]

The media is fixated on the disproportionality (well it could be word!  : ) of the casualties between Gaza and Israel. And they are disproportionate ...
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... because Israel invests in defence, for itself, as a country and for every person in the country. Hamas, on the other hand, welcomes disproportionately high casualties because they know that it will bring them undeserved sympathy.

Most reporters are just stenographers: they take dictation from the Hamas PR agents and then pass it off as "news" or "commentary."

But Hamas does speak the truth, sometimes: "The Jews," they said "love life and we [Arabs] embrace death" and that, they implied, is why Arabs will, eventually win ... they are the more bloody minded of the two. Maybe they're right, maybe if they sacrifice enough of their own people the Israelis will give up and migrate to North America.

"What bothers me most is not that Arabs kill our children," Golda Meir said "but that they force us to kill theirs."

 

[George Wallace]

ERC

Hamas is playing the same game as was played in the Former Yugoslavia and so many other conflicts around the world.  They are playing the "underdog" and trying to better the Israelis in the eyes of the Media.  It is a "competition" to gain the most sympathy from the Media and show themselves as more "righteous" in their activities.  All of it is PsyOPS for a more accurate definition.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Not sure what this means but, apparently, a mob has just (last hour?) set fire to the Al Jazeera TV studio, which is very near Tahrir Square in Cairo. Is Al Jazeera too biased for the Arab street?


Edit to add: Ooops, I meant to say unbiased. As Journeyman notes, just below, it is well known for accurate reports what have gotten it into difficulties before.

 

[Journeyman]

Is Al Jazeera too biased for the Arab street?

If, by "biased" you mean "accurate," I'd say yes. For several years now, I've routinely followed al Jazeera for world news.