There's more factions in the occupied territories than Hamas, but are we going to conveniently gloss over their idiotic campaigning through bloodshed and the glorification of said bloodshed in order to highlight just how fucked up war is...? I hope not. They ARE democratically elected, true, but that's after DECADES of 1) guerilla warfare and terrorism and 2) a lot of hand-wringing and cringing by the West that actually led to a small bit of "oh well throw them a bone" compensation.
Israel has imposed a Western-sactioned apartheid on the occupied territories and West Bank for generations. HOWEVER, I'm not going to say that suicide bombing is any BETTER or HONEST than any other murder that kills bystanders just because they CAN.
Organized warfare, by comparison, is plain different, though it has similar ends--righteous victory over the weak(er) in order to further your own aims. But I'm not going to equate Hamas and its (former?) terrorist tactics with the French Legionnaires, the Canadian Mounties or the LAPD. Why? because I know that those other "more lawful" law enforcement/guys with guns groups might have corruption and might be in some ways corrupted...but Hamas isn't always about furthering an agenda FOR the people...BY the people.
It's just REAL good at making it LOOK like it is.
Quite true. Trying to argue which side is right and which is wrong over there is futile and unhelpful. Both sides have committed atrocities. It's a fucked-up mess, and until both sides decide it's time to chill out, nothing is going to change.
There might be hope. After Hamas won the election, they became more moderate. Like any politicians, they realized they had to appease the people if they wanted to stay in power, and it's not like blowing stuff up makes anyone's life better.
The Likud Party leaders are on record as saying they will not be satisfied until every Palestinian man woman and child has been driven from the land.
The above map is Israel as it was first created by UN declaration in 1947. The blue portion is Israel, the rest is all Arab lands. Note that Jerusalem was completely within Arab lands and Israel was much smaller than it is today. Note also that there is NO Israeli presence inside the area surrounding Jerusalem. No settlements, certainly no IDF.
The red square outlines the approximate region shown in the map posted below. Keep an eye on that.
This is Israel as it is today. Note that the western border of Palestine has been pushed up to Jerusalem. Such a land grab is NOT the result of a defensive act, but of an invasion to bring Jerusalem under Israeli control, even though Jerusalem was not originally part of Israel.
These maps clearly tell the story of an Israel conquering lands which do not belong to it. Since Sharon took office, Israel has built more illegal Jewish Settlements on Palestinian land. Note on the above map that the majority of the lands which were originally Arab lands when Israel was created, are now under complete (dark blue) or partial (green) Israeli control. Only the black areas remain to the Palestinians, and those are shrinking by the minute
Now. On the topic of the suicide bombers. Yes there are suicide bombers from Palestine. But not many Not near as many as are reported. These events are staged in many cases.
The above scene was reported in the papers as a suicide bomber. But this photo shows it was a car bomb.
10 years ago Ariel Sharon had this to say in a Likud Party Cabinet Meeting:
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." -- Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001.
Now lets think about the rapidly shrinking Palestinian Territories. The Israelis are going full steam ahead with a plan to expel all Palestinians living within Israel. These are Israeli citizens... albeit citizens who do not have the right to vote.
The total Population of the Palestinian territory at mid 2011 was about 4.17 million, 2.58 million in West Bank and
1.59 million in Gaza Strip.
More than one fifth of participants in the labour force were unemployed (21.7%)of participants in the labour force were unemployed in the first quarter of 2011.
7.8% of females(15 years and over) are illiterate.
(2.4%) of males aged 15 and over are illiterate.
Population density of The Palestinian territory is generally high at 693 persons/per Km2 .
In The Gaza Strip population density is 4,353 persons per km2 compared to the much lower population density in West Bank at 456 persons per Km2.
25.7% of individuals in the Palestinian territory suffer from poverty .
Yet Israel is aggressively planning to take more land from them and to further tighten the rules governing Palestinians ability to cross the borders to work or to farm their own (erstwhile) land.
They are starving the Palestinians to death. Often people need to travel to Egypt to buy essential food items because of the Israeli embargoes on UN Food and Aid Delivery. That's Food AND Aid.
So medical supplies are held up by the same embargoes.
Now. as to who is killing whom at a greater rate.
Lovely little bar graph that. But be aware those figures for the Israelis are set in stone. they are very good at keeping records of their dead inb the conflict.
The Palestinian numbers are hotly disputed. All claims about the inaccuracy of those numbers are based on the premise that the numbers are far higher. The UN Security Council consistently reports far lower Palestinian death rates than do non aligned NGO's - both Arab and Western.
An annual report from the Jerusalem-based B'Tselem showed that in 2011 Israeli security forces killed a total of 105 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom 37 were confirmed as non-combatants.
A "combatant" is counted as including those children Jenne referenced, throwing rocks at tanks.
"The picture is harsh, not because of dramatic events or a sudden deterioration, but precisely because of the routine," the report said.
"This year, we enter the 45th year since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. What was supposed to be a temporary situation appears firmly entrenched with no change in sight."
Over 1,000 non combatants were killed during the last major Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2009. According to both The Red Crescent and the Jerusalem-based B'Tselem (NGO) those official figures could well be less than half the actual number killed, as many bodies were bulldozed into mass graves and never counted.
And here is a charming vignette:
Firefighters at the site of a crash between a truck and a school bus transporting Palestinian children between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah on Feb. 16, 2012. At least ten Palestinian children from east Jerusalem were killed when their school bus was hit by a truck on a road in the West Bank.
In
“Enemies, a hate story”, Gideon Levy a Jewish freelance journalist and blogger described the general Israeli media coverage of the story as “Workmanlike overall: faceless and depersonalized.”
The accident would have been followed by “a lot more blood and tears” if the children had been Jewish, adds Levy.
But worse than ignoring the tragic deaths of the children when an Israeli truck overturned their bus were the nasty, hateful things that Israelis had to say on the internet.
They revealed their names and their Facebook photos, spewing forth nauseating, hate-permeated racism that seemed to exceed anything seen here previously,” wrote Levy.
“Relax, these are Palestinian children,” Benny Dazanashvili wrote on Twitter.
“It seems these are Palestinians … God willing,” posted Tal Biton.
“I hope every day there is a bus like this,” chipped in Itai Viltzig.
“Dozens, if not hundreds, of Internet surfers said a prayer of thanks – for the terrible death by fire of young children on a school field trip – and the responses were featured on the web pages of the Prime Minister and the Israel Police and the Walla! Web portal,” wrote Levy.
The only light came from Meira Baruch, who wrote: “I’m 63 years old. Only a few times in my life have I been ashamed to be a Jew. Today I am ashamed. How can anyone rejoice over the death of little children?”
What Levy says next should be covered in every major newspaper and TV station in the West: “Enemies, a hate story. In the past few years, anti-Arab hatred and racism have reached monstrous proportions and are no longer restricted to a negligible minority.”
These Israelis are inviting a blowback of hatred from Palestinians who have generally been placid. Of all who should know better, young Jews should have learned how high a price accompanies racial hatred.
Levy comments on the difference in attitudes between the Palestinians and Israelis:
“Palestinians I have met over the years, all of them victims of the occupation, speak about their dream of living together in peace while the majority of Israelis dream of ‘the separation’.”
This is from a JEWISH freelance journalist.
Many of these Israelis still have illusions of eliminating Palestinians by forcing them out of both Gaza and the West Bank and into refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.
Despite the talk about a two-state solution, the evidence of real Israeli intentions exists in the Apartheid Wall (meant to divide farm lands), the theft of water sources and the continued development of settlements.
On many occasions recently, Palestinians have reported unprovoked abuse by Israelis in the settlements. The government does nothing to stop this kind of behaviour; fitting only what Gideon Levy called “a dream of separation”.
On 22 February Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member and lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi called on the European Union to rescue the two-state solution.
“We call on European countries to translate policy into action and implement new creative initiatives to rescue the two-state solution before Israel destroys the chances for peace.”
Ashrawi’s is the voice Levy referred to as the Palestinian’s “dream of living together in peace”. Her call to the European Union to act conveys her hope that the Europeans may help the peace process where others have failed.
Meanwhile, Israel approved building over 500 new settlement units.
Is the violence and the anger among Palestinians increasing? Undoubtedly. There is a very good reason for this. Palestinians over the last decade have been passive resistanced to death.
Now the UN only counts as "Palestinian Refugees" those people and their direct descendents who were displaced from Israel during the 1946-948 War of Independence. Thee are no official numbers of refugees who have been forced to flee after this time.
However, officially there are 4.2 million Palestinian Refugees
One-third of the registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.4 million, live in 58 recognised refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are the lucky ones.
There are in total 4.2 million Palestinian people who are now 4 generations into living in the nightmarish situation of being stateless people.
4.2
million of them.
Now you two seem well motivated and intelligent people. What are the Palestinians still living in their rapidly shrinking, starving,impoverished and parched homeland to do about bringing these people home?
It is THEIR country. They were there when the Jews arrived from Egypt. They remained there when the Diaspora took the Jews away in the 12th century. And they were still there still in 1946 when the Partition happened.
I studied the Holocaust rather comprehensively. You know what has always baffled me?
Most of Europe stood back and knew it was happening but did NOTHING to alleviate the Jewish people's plight. Denmark was a standout. Parts of The Netherlands also did quite well by their Jewish citizens. Oddly, the Italians, when allies of the Germans were rather good at protecting their Jews. They were very reluctant participants in the Final Solution. Most of Occupied Europe though joyously handed their Jews over to the Nazis.
But as far and as I recall, no Palestinian was ever responsible for putting any Jewish person on a deportation train, or into a ghetto, a concentration camp or a shower block .
So why then were they the only people in the world who were expected to give up their country in recompense for that terrible crime?
Do you know what they call Partition in Palestine?
The Catastrophe.