Our news is lying to us about the Gaza conflict

[Just the Facts]

Yes but the truce did. That truce was a chance for peace. Hamas held up its end of the truce/peace bargain, while Israel provoked a war, which means that our news has been lying to us about Hamas breaking the truce. Israel broke this truce and it never wanted peace. Now Israel has a war and its getting ugly. Israel is basically violating every convention of war. They are starving children, killing UN humanitarian workers and medics, using human shields.... Israel is certainly showing their true colors right now. If you can't see it, you must be color blind.

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but Hamas decided the truce was over, unilaterally.

 

[earth_as_one]

More pro-Israel BS propaganda. A truce requires both sides to respect it. Israel violated the truce repeatedly since the beginning.

"The truce was limited to six months and ends on December 19," Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said in a television interview from Damascus with Hamas' Al-Quds satellite television.
"Given that the enemy is not respecting its commitments and the blockade is still in place against our people, for Hamas, and I think for the majority of forces, the truce ends after December 19 and will not be renewed," he said.

The Daily Star - Politics - Hamas says truce in Gaza Strip will end on Thursday

War of Choice: How Israel Manufactured the Gaza Escalation
Steve Niva | January 7, 2009

Editor: Erik Leaver




Foreign Policy In Focus Foreign Policy in Focus - A Think Tank Without Walls


Israel has repeatedly claimed that it had "no choice" but to wage war on Gaza on December 27 because Hamas had broken a ceasefire, was firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and had "tried everything in order to avoid this military operation," as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni put it.

This claim, however, is widely at odds with the fact that Israel's military and political leadership took many aggressive steps during the ceasefire that escalated a crisis with Hamas, and possibly even provoked Hamas to create a pretext for the assault. This wasn't a war of "no choice," but rather a very avoidable war in which Israeli actions played the major role in instigating.

Israel has a long history of deliberately using violence and other provocative measures to trigger reactions in order to create a pretext for military action, and to portray its opponents as the aggressors and Israel as the victim. According to the respected Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz in his recent book, Defending the Holy Land, Israel most notably used this policy of "strategic escalation" in 1955-1956, when it launched deadly raids on Egyptian army positions to provoke Egypt's President Nasser into violent reprisals preceding its ill-fated invasion of Egypt; in 1981-1982, when it launched violent raids on Lebanon in order to provoke Palestinian escalation preceding the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and between 2001-2004, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly ordered assassinations of high-level Palestinian militants during declared ceasefires, provoking violent attacks that enabled Israel's virtual reoccupation of the West Bank.

Israel's current assault on Gaza bears many trademark elements of Israel's long history of employing "strategic escalation" to manufacture a major crisis, if not a war.

Making War 'Inevitable'
The countdown to a war began, according to a detailed report by Barak Raviv in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, when Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak started planning the current attack on Gaza with his chiefs of staff at least six months ago — even as Israel was negotiating the Egyptian brokered ceasefire with Hamas that went into effect on June 19. During the subsequent ceasefire, the report contends, the Israeli security establishment carefully gathered intelligence to map out Hamas' security infrastructure, engaged in operational deception, and spread disinformation to mislead the public about its intentions.

This revelation doesn't confirm that Israel intended to start a war with Hamas in December, but it does shed some light on why Israel continuously took steps that undermined the terms of the fragile ceasefire with Hamas, even though Hamas respected their side of the agreement.

Indeed, there was a genuine lull in rocket and mortar fire between June 19 and November 4, due to Hamas compliance and only sporadically violated by a small number of launchings carried out by rival Fatah and Islamic Jihad militants, largely in defiance of Hamas. According to the conservative Israeli-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's analysis of rocket and missile attacks in 2008, there were only three rockets fired at Israel in July, September, and October combined. Israeli civilians living near Gaza experienced an almost unprecedented degree of security during this period, with no Israeli casualties.

Yet despite the major lull, Israel continually raided the West Bank, arresting and frequently killing "wanted" Palestinians from June to October, which had the inevitable effect of ratcheting up pressure on Hamas to respond. Moreover, while the central expectation of Hamas going into the ceasefire was that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza, Israel only took the barest steps to ease the siege, which kept the people at a bare survival level. This policy was a clear affront to Hamas, and had the inescapable effect of undermining both Hamas and popular Palestinian support for the ceasefire.

But Israel's most provocative action, acknowledged by many now as the critical turning point that undermined the ceasefire, took place on November 4, when Israeli forces auspiciously violated the truce by crossing into the Gaza Strip to destroy what the army said was a tunnel dug by Hamas, killing six Hamas militants. Sara Roy, writing in the London Review of Books, contends this attack was "no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June."

The Israeli breach into Gaza was immediately followed by a further provocation by Israel on November 5, when the Israeli government hermetically sealed off all ways into and out of Gaza. As a result, the UN reports that the amount of imports entering Gaza has been "severely reduced to an average of 16 truckloads per day — down from 123 truckloads per day in October and 475 trucks per day in May 2007 — before the Hamas takeover." These limited shipments provide only a fraction of the supplies needed to sustain 1.5 million starving Palestinians.

In response, Hamas predictably claimed that Israel had violated the truce and allowed Islamic Jihad to launch a round of rocket attacks on Israel. Only after lethal Israeli reprisals killed over 10 Hamas gunmen in the following days did Hamas militants finally respond with volleys of mortars and rockets of their own. In two short weeks, Israel killed over 15 Palestinian militants, while about 120 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel, and although there were no Israeli casualties the calm had been shattered.

It was at this time that Israeli officials launched what appears to have been a coordinated media blitz to cultivate public reception for an impending conflict, stressing the theme of the "inevitability" of a coming war with Hamas in Gaza. On November 12, senior IDF officials announced that war with Hamas was likely in the two months after the six-month ceasefire, baldly stating it would occur even if Hamas wasn't interested in confrontation. A few days later, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly ordered his military commanders to draw up plans for a war in Gaza, which were already well developed at the time. On November 19, according to Raviv's report in Haaretz, the Gaza war plan was brought before Barak for final approval.

While the rhetoric of an "inevitable" war with Hamas may have only been Israeli bluster to compel Hamas into line, its actions on the ground in the critical month leading up to the official expiration of the ceasefire on December 19 only heightened the cycle of violence, leaving a distinct impression Israel had cast the die for war.

Finally, Hamas then walked right into the "inevitable war" that Israel had been preparing since the ceasefire had gone into effect in June. With many Palestinians believing the ceasefire to be meaningless, Hamas announced it wouldn't renew the ceasefire after it expired on December 19. Hamas then stood back for two days while Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militants fired volleys of mortars and rockets into Israel, in the context of mutually escalating attacks. Yet even then, with Israeli threats of war mounting, Hamas imposed a 24-hour ceasefire on all missile attacks on December 21, announcing it would consider renewing the lapsed truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip if Israel would halt its raids in both Gaza and the West Bank, and keep Gaza border crossings open for supplies of aid and fuel. Israel immediately rejected its offer.

But when the Israel Defence Forces killed three Hamas militants laying explosives near the security fence between Israel and Gaza on the evening of December 23, the Hamas military wing lashed out by launching a barrage of over 80 missiles into Israel the following day, claiming it was Israel, and not Hamas, that was responsible for the escalation.

Little did they know that, according to Raviv, Prime Minister Olmert, and Defense Minister Barak had already met on December 18 to approve the impending war plan, but put the mission off waiting for a better pretext. By launching more than 170 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians in the days following December 23, killing one Israeli civilian, Hamas had provided reason enough for Israel to unleash its long-planned attack on Gaza on December 27.

The Rationale for War
If Israel's goal were simply to end rocket attacks on its civilians, it would have solidified and extended the ceasefire, which was working well, until November. Even after November, it could have addressed Hamas' longstanding ceasefire proposals for a complete end to rocket-fire on Israel, in exchange for Israel lifting its crippling 18-month siege on Gaza.

Instead, the actual targets of its assault on Gaza after December 27, which included police stations, mosques, universities, and Hamas government institutions, clearly reveal that Israel's primary goals go far beyond providing immediate security for its citizens. Israeli spokespersons repeatedly claim that Israel's assault isn't about seeking to effect regime change with Hamas, but rather about creating a "new security reality" in Gaza. But that "new reality" requires Israel to use massive violence to degrade the political and military capacity of Hamas, to a point where it agrees to a ceasefire with conditions more congenial to Israel. Short of a complete reoccupation of Gaza, no amount of violence will erase Hamas from the scene.

Confirming the steps needed to create the "new reality," the broader reasons why Israel chose a major confrontation with Hamas at this time appear to be the cause of several other factors unrelated to providing immediate security for its citizens.

First, many senior Israeli political and military leaders strongly opposed the June 19 ceasefire with Hamas, and looked for opportunities to reestablish Israel's fabled "deterrent capability" of instilling fear into its enemies. These leaders felt Israel's deterrent capability was badly damaged as a result of their withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and especially after the widely criticized failures in the 2006 Israeli war with Hezbollah. For this powerful group a ceasefire was at best a tactical pause before the inevitable renewal of conflict, when conditions were more favorable. Immediately following Israel's aerial assault, a New York Times article noted that Israel had been eager "to remind its foes that it has teeth" and to erase the ghost of Lebanon that has haunted it over the past two years.

A second factor was pressure surrounding the impending elections set to take place in early February. The ruling coalition, led by Barak and Livni, have been repeatedly criticized by the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, who is leading in the polls, for not being tough enough on Hamas and rocket-fire from Gaza. This gave the ruling coalition a strong incentive to demonstrate to the Israeli people their security credentials in order to bolster their chances against the more hawkish Likud.

Third, Hamas repeatedly said it wouldn't recognize Mahmud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority after his term runs out on January 9. The looming political standoff on the Palestinian side threatens to boost Hamas and undermine Abbas, who had underseen closer security coordination with Israel and was congenial to Israeli demands for concessions on future peace proposals. One possible outcome of this assault is that Abbas will remain in power for a while longer, since Hamas will be unable to mobilise its supporters in order to force him to resign.

And finally, Israel was pressed to take action now due to its sense of the American political timeline. The Bush administration rarely exerted constraint on Israel and would certainly stand by in its waning days, while Barack Obama would not likely want to begin his presidency with a major confrontation with Israel. The Washington Post quoted a Bush administration official saying that Israel struck in Gaza "because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in. They can't predict how the next administration will handle it. And this is not the way they want to start with the new administration."

An Uncertain Ending
As the conflict rages to an uncertain end, it's important to consider Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz's contention that Israel's history of manufacturing wars through "strategic escalation" and using overwhelming force to achieve "deterrence" has never been successful. In fact, it's the primary cause of Israel's insecurity because it deepens hatred and a desire for revenge rather than fear.

At the same time, there's no question Hamas continues to callously sacrifice its fellow Palestinian citizens, as well as Israeli civilians, on the altar of maintaining its pyrrhic resistance credentials and its myopic preoccupation with revenge, and fell into many self-made traps of its own. There had been growing international pressure on Israel to ease its siege and a major increase in creative and nonviolent strategies drawing attention to the plight of Palestinians such as the arrival of humanitarian relief convoys off of Gaza's coast in the past months, but now Gaza lies in ruins.

But as the vastly more powerful actor holding nearly all the cards in this conflict, the war in Gaza was ultimately Israel's choice. And for all this bloodshed and violence, Israel must be held accountable.

With the American political establishment firmly behind Israel's attack, and Obama's foreign policy team heavily weighted with pro-Israel insiders like Dennis Ross and Hillary Clinton, any efforts to hold Israel accountable in the United States will depend upon American citizens mobilizing a major grassroots effort behind a new foreign policy that will not tolerate any violations of international law, including those by Israel, and will immediately work towards ending Israel's siege of Gaza and ending Israel's occupation.

Beyond that, the most promising prospect for holding Israel accountable is through the increasing use of universal jurisdiction for prosecuting war crimes, along with the growing transnational movement calling for sanctions on Israel until it ends its violations of international law. In what would be truly be a new style of foreign policy, a transnational network that focuses on Israeli violations of international law, rather than the state itself, could become a counterweight that forces policymakers in the United States, Europe, and Israel to reconsider their political and moral complicity in the current war, in favor of taking real steps towards peace and security in the region for all peoples.

Foreign Policy In Focus | War of Choice: How Israel Manufactured the Gaza Escalation

 

[Just the Facts]

More pro-Israel BS propaganda. A truce requires both sides to respect it. Israel violated the truce repeatedly since the beginning.

From your post:

According to the conservative Israeli-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's analysis of rocket and missile attacks in 2008, there were only three rockets fired at Israel in July, September, and October combined.

Hmmm, not to say it's not there, but I couldn't find it. All I could find was this:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/rocket_threat_e.pdf

A quick survey of the news, however, reveals 4 rockets and four mortars in July alone. Somehow the 3 rockets in all those months sounds like, uh, propaganda. :roll:

And that's not even including the scores killed and injured by the bulldozer attacks, or the bomb belt and car bomb that were found and defused before they could go off.

But those would be attacks based from the West Bank, which don't count. O wait.....yes they do!

One Rocket July 3
Israel closes Gaza crossings after Qassam hits Negev - Israel News, Ynetnews

Two Mortars July 8
Mortar shell hits W. Negev in fresh Gaza truce violation - Haaretz - Israel News

Two Rockets on July 10
Hamas arrests Gaza rocket cell - Israel News, Ynetnews

One Rocket July 12
Qassam hits western Negev in new Gaza truce violation - Haaretz - Israel News

Two Mortars July 13
2 mortar shells land in Nahal Oz area - Israel News, Ynetnews


Shall we continue on to August? I imagine there's no point, since even your article omits August. Must have been a rocketpolooza.

 

[Zzarchov]

To be fair, the bulldozer attack was not terrorism.

It was a guy in a bad marriage with money issues going nuts. Just because a Palestinian commits a crime doesn't mean its terrorism, just means they aren't an angellic group of people with no human flaws.

I think classifying the bulldozer attack as a terrorist attack dehumanizes Palestinians.

 

[earth_as_one]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain:

YouTube - Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate.

Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as "unilaterally ended by Hamas"). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza's borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, "what they hear over and over again," this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.

2) Recognize that stereotypes work.

Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel's propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as "Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem," media coverage of any conflict begins with how "the problem" is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to "balance" the story, giving an extensive treatment, with photos, of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as "collateral damage."

3) Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders.

Hamas' stupidity played into Israel's strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.

4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing -- and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible.

Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it's no accident, for example, that Israel has an "Arab" Consul General in Atlanta - that's where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.

5) Give no ground.

Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will "toe the line." Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another

6) Deny, deny, deny.

When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, "Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?"), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame ("We didn't do it, they made us"). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, "Arabs don't really grieve like we do").

7) The last refuge....

When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/how-israels-propaganda-ma_b_156767.html

 

[earth_as_one]

Our News is lying to us about the Gaza conflict:

Turn off the Canadian Media, Please
by Justin Podur / January 9th, 2009

If national media help make a nation, then we all need to stop reading and listening to conventional Canadian media if we want to make a decent Canada. Benedict Anderson, perhaps the leading scholar of nationalism, wrote that the daily newspaper (along with other innovations like novels, maps, censuses, museums) played a key role in creating national consciousness. People in a country like Canada use their own media — public (CBC) and private (CanWest, TorStar, CTVglobemedia) — to know what is happening in their own country. Media are also an important part of forging a national identity. They are supposed to represent the broad spectrum of Canadian opinion. When they present information on the rest of the world, they do so from a Canadian perspective and have the Canadian audience in mind.

And today, if you want to have the first idea what is happening in Israel/Palestine (or most of the rest of the world), the best thing to do would be to turn them off completely.

In the face of a major ongoing crime like that of Israel’s siege and assault on Gaza, Canadians turn to the Canadian media in good faith to try to learn and understand what is happening, who is to blame, and what they might be able to do to help the victims. On each of these counts, the Canadian media fails. But the days when Canadians would be stuck listening to local radio, picking up the local print newspaper, or watching local television packaged by Canadian media corporations for their consumption are over. There is, for the time being, media choice. And given the choice, on Israel/Palestine, it would be foolish to turn to the Canadian media.

These days I actually don’t have the stomach to do an exhaustive survey of Canadian coverage of these massacres. I have done such surveys in the past (see my letter to the Toronto Star’s Mitch Potter from a few years back), and I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about how to democratize the mainstream Canadian media and pressure it to be more open. These days, though, I mainly follow my own advice. A friend of mine, Brooks Kind, spent some time going through the least biased of the Canadian media, CBC radio, over the past two weeks. He found that the CBC suppressed crucial facts, presented an unrepresentative spectrum of opinion, and falsified the historical record. The suppressions and omissions are in the service of the perspective of the US and Israeli governments (and Canadian politicians), but they are no less false for that. With the reminder that I am picking on the CBC not because it is the worst, but because it is by far the best, here are just a few examples.

First, remember that the pretext for Israel’s attack is that Hamas refused to renew the June 19/08 ceasefire and started rocket attacks in December/08. But Israel violated the ceasefire in two ways. First, by continuing to starve Gaza (as Israeli officials openly admit and have done for years), and second, by attacking Gaza on November 4/08 and killing six Hamas people. Why is this important? There is a pattern here: Israel has repeatedly broken truces, ceasefires, and peace talks with spectacular assassinations that involve killing large numbers of people. This has been a pattern for many years, and has included the assassinations of many of Hamas’s leaders (Abd-el-Aziz Rantisi, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, and many, many others). It is an explicit part of Israel’s strategy to provoke its opponents and get pretexts for further attacks. But this timeline, and the November 4/08 attack by Israel, is not part of the ‘boilerplate’ provided when the attack on Gaza is reported in the Canadian media.

Second, Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has been making very strong statements about Gaza in recent months. Falk is an acclaimed scholar and a highly credible source. He works for the United Nations, which Canadians supposedly have special respect for. When Falk traveled to Israel, he was detained, strip searched, and deported. Israel’s contempt for the United Nations could hardly have been more starkly revealed. Except, perhaps, when the Israelis killed a Canadian UN observer (Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener) in Lebanon in 2006, along with 3 others (Du Zhaoyu of China, Jarno Makinen of Finland, and Hans-Peter Lang of Austria). Or, perhaps, when the Israelis bombed the UNRWA school in Jabaliya on Jan 3/09, killing 43 Palestinians and wounding 100. Unlike much of the UN, whose main response to these killings might as well be to apologize for getting in the way of the bombs, Falk has provided urgent warnings to the world about the seriousness of the situation. But Falk’s story is not given any prominence in any Canadian media....

Dissident Voice : Turn off the Canadian Media, Please

 

[einmensch]

You have been upgraded Zz-full Israeli armour with and upgraded Israeli programmed computer.

 

[EagleSmack]

Yes but the truce did. That truce was a chance for peace. Hamas held up its end of the truce/peace bargain, while Israel provoked a war, which means that our news has been lying to us about Hamas breaking the truce. Israel broke this truce and it never wanted peace. Now Israel has a war and its getting ugly. Israel is basically violating every convention of war. They are starving children, killing UN humanitarian workers and medics, using human shields.... Israel is certainly showing their true colors right now. If you can't see it, you must be color blind.

WRONG. You are wrong. Plain and simple...Hammas broke the truce and the world knows it. They do not like Israel's response but they all know Hammas broke the truce.

Post all the propaganda you want...post all the lies... it won't change the facts this time.

 

[earth_as_one]

I'm wrong? OK then I'll put this challenge out again. Please provide proof that Hamas broke the ceasefire from the time it started back in June 19, 2008 until the IDF invaded Gaza on November 4, 2008. I can find numerous examples of Israel provoking Hamas and the other militant groups. I can a few examples of militant groups responding to Israeli provocations (in at least one case resulting in their arrest by Hamas). But I am unaware of a single Hamas violation of the ceasefire until November 4, 2008 in response to an Israeli raid into Gaza which killed Hamas members.

But if you have some evidence "bring it on".


Here are links backing up my statement that Israel deliberately violated the truce:

Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 November 2008

A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory...

Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen | World news | guardian.co.uk

The November 4, 2008 Israeli raid into Gaza in violation of the truce was aimed at provoking Hamas and timed to coincide with this event:

November 4, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05elect.html

Christian Science Monitor

Since Nov. 4, when Israel effectively broke the truce with Hamas by attacking Gaza on a scale then unprecedented – a fact now buried with Gaza's dead – the violence has escalated as Hamas responded by sending hundreds of rockets into Israel to kill Israeli civilians. It is reported that Israel's strategy is to hit Hamas military targets, but explain that difference to my Palestinian friends who must bury their children.

On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems. A colleague of mine in Jerusalem said, "this siege is in a league of its own. The Israelis have not done something like this before."

During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza's ambulances are now out of order.

Israel's 'victories' in Gaza come at a steep price | csmonitor.com

...The truce had been uneasy ever since it took effect on June 19, and violence has increased since early November, when Israel shattered it with an invasion of Gaza that killed seven Hamas men. Since then at least 11 more Palestinians have been killed and Israel has reported more than 250 rocket and mortar fire attacks, the overwhelming majority of which caused no damage or casualties.

Israel responded to retaliations for its attacks by tightening its blockade - imposed after Hamas won democratic elections in 2006 - and closing crossing points with Gaza, halting deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies.

The UN Relief and Works Agency said that shortages caused by the closures forced it to suspend distribution of food assistance to about half the 1.5-million-strong population in the Gaza Strip on Thursday....

The Daily Star - Politics - Hamas declares end to truce, cites Israeli violations

Israel had been planning this war crime since before the June 19, 2008 true:

Israeli News Source Haaretz

Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.

Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas' security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.

This intelligence-gathering effort brought back information about permanent bases, weapon silos, training camps, the homes of senior officials and coordinates for other facilities.

The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire...

Print

That's not to say a small number of rockets and mortars didn't land in Israel between June 19 and November 4, 2008. Other militant groups claimed responsibility for those and Hamas vowed to find those responsible and arrest them, which they did do in at least one case.

Reuters:

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas arrested seven Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a militant faction said, in the first such detentions since the Islamist group and Israel agreed a truce last month.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group, said Hamas men pursued three of its members after the attack and "abducted them" in Jabalya refugee camp.

No one was hurt in the strike with two rockets on southern Israel.

Four more men were arrested as they tried to fire rockets at Israel after darkness fell, an al-Aqsa official said.

"We demand their immediate release," said Abu Qusai, a brigades spokesman.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said: "We stress that all parties should maintain the national agreement that was reached with a consensus."...

Hamas arrests first rocket squads since truce | International | Reuters

Given the ineffectiveness of rockets, especially when fired in small numbers I find it highly unlikely that Hamas participated in or approved the small number of rocket attacks where no group claimed responsibility. Some of the Israeli claims of rocket attacks during that period appear to be unsubstantiated with any proof.

 

[WeeLeprechaun]

Personally most Canadians (real ones) could care less about what goes on in that godless country.

 

[Zzarchov]

I'm wrong? OK then I'll put this challenge out again. Please provide proof that Hamas broke the ceasefire from the time it started back in June 19, 2008 until the IDF invaded Gaza on November 4, 2008.

The truce was not with Hamas. It was with the government of Gaza. Hamas is the political party in charge.

I guess the invasion of Iraq wasn't the fault of the republican party though, since the republican party didnt' participate.

Gaza did not live up to its end. Rockets were still inbound.

 

[lone wolf]

The truce was not with Hamas. It was with the government of Gaza. Hamas is the political party in charge.

I guess the invasion of Iraq wasn't the fault of the republican party though, since the republican party didnt' participate.

Gaza did not live up to its end. Rockets were still inbound.

Why don't you walk up to the biggest and baddest gangsta on Jane Street and tell him to surrender his handgun. You'll get to experience the reality of what too many Palestinians are up against ... twice because they get branded as terrorists by the little-minded too.

 

[Zzarchov]

Why don't you walk up to the biggest and baddest gangsta on Jane Street and tell him to surrender his handgun. You'll get to experience the reality of what too many Palestinians are up against ... twice because they get branded as terrorists by the little-minded too.

Oh I don't doubt they are bad people, thats why so many Palestinians aren't saying much about Israel, they target Palestinians who are "too secular". But then shouldn't it be a good thing the "police are comign in to round them up?

You can't claim its both too horrible to remove them and too horrible to have them stay. One has got to be the better option.

 

[earth_as_one]

The truce was not with Hamas. It was with the government of Gaza. Hamas is the political party in charge.

I guess the invasion of Iraq wasn't the fault of the republican party though, since the republican party didnt' participate.

Gaza did not live up to its end. Rockets were still inbound.

Admit it Z, you can't find any evidence that Hamas fired a single rocket at Israel. If you could, you would have posted it by now.

Now what about the fact that Hamas arrested people who fired rockets at Israel during the truce?

Hamas Arrests Gaza Rocket Squad
July 11, 2008
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Hamas arrests Gaza rocket squad

This indicates Hamas was making an effort to prevent rockets from being fired at Israel.

Also look at the number of rockets and mortars fired at Israel from Gaza during the truce:

The numbers sure seem to indicate Hamas was making an effort to stop rockets and mortars from being fired at Israel. Obviously they weren't 100% successful which only indicates that they don't have 100% control over Gaza, not that they weren't trying to maintain the truce.

The few rockets getting through can be atributed to lawlessness, not a deliberate ceasefire violation by Hamas. Its unrealistic that Hamas would be able to control all of Gaza's 1.5 million residents. If any government could do that, then there would be no crime.

If Israel didn't want Hamas firing rockets and mortars at Israel, then attacking and killing Hamas members in Gaza would seem to be counter productive, especially since Hamas was not linked to any of the few rocket attacks which occured during the truce.

Israel's actions indicate they are not interested in peace. If they were interested in peace they would have recognized Hamas's efforts, rather than assassinate Hamas members.

Also you can see by this graph, Israel began using food as a weapon when Palestinians elected Hamas. Fatah never handed over power and fighting broke out. When Hamas gained control of Gaza, Israel began starving Gazans. One of Israel's ceasefire obligations (besides stop killing Gazans) was to allow the free flow of food and medical aid into Gaza. Israel never respected its ceasefire obligations to allow Gazans access to food:

The facts speak for themselves. Israel never respected its ceasefire obligations and broke the truce by killing Gaza militants on November 4, 2008 the same day the US elected Barack Obama.

But the challenge remains. Those of you who believe Hamas broke their ceasefire, please post something which proves Hamas did something in violation of the ceasefire between June 19, 2008 when the cesefire started and November 4, 2008 when Israel began killing members of Hamas and the US elected President Obama.

 

[earth_as_one]

Personally most Canadians (real ones) could care less about what goes on in that godless country.

Ever wonder why 9/11 happened?

Maybe most Canadians don't care about the horror faced by 1.5 million people caught on the front lines who have no place to run or hide, but what's going on over there wouldn't be happening if our governments over here didn't support it.

Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask
</EM>
Wednesday, 7 January 2009

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?


Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas...

...Long detailed list of Israeli atrocities committed over the years...

...I write the following without the slightest doubt: we'll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We'll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we'll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn't. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent

Well in your case wee leprachaun that may be true. But you should be aware that everytime Israel commits an atrocity, the victims notice which countries call Israel's actions "measured".

Harper stands by his comment on Israel's 'measured' response

MIKE BLANCHFIELD, CanWest News Service; PC contributed to this report; Reuters
Published: Tuesday, July 18 2006

Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered brief condolences yesterday to the families of Canadians killed in Lebanon, but has not asked Israel for an explanation for their deaths.

And while he offered more details, Harper did not back down from his comment that Israel's bombing of Lebanon was a "measured" response to Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers, a characterization that has angered Canada's Arab community...

Harper stands by his comment on Israel's 'measured' response

Also Canadians have been killed as a result of Israeli atrocities. Not only a family of Canadians but sometimes our finest have also died as a result:

UN observer's wife calls Israel attack 'intentional'
Updated Fri. Jul. 28 2006 11:37 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

The wife of Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, missing and presumed dead after an Israeli attack on his UN observer post, says she believes the bombing was "intentional."


"The building was clearly marked, their vehicles were clearly marked, they were clearly marked as UN observers," Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener told a news conference in Kingston, Ont., Thursday.


"So why were (the Israelis) firing on that base? ... In my opinion, those were precision-guided missiles, so the attack was intentional."


She also said that Israel had attacked the area several times before, "for weeks upon weeks," according to her husband.


The Canadian government identified Hess-von Kruedener as missing and presumed dead following the Israeli bombardment on Tuesday.

The attack also killed three other UN observers at the post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of Lebanon's border with Israel.

The bodies of three soldiers from Austria, China and Finland have been found, but Hess-von Kruedener, a father of two grown children, remains missing.

Major Hess-von Kruedener

CTV.ca | UN observer's wife calls Israel attack 'intentional'=

I bet you never heard of this Canadian soldier. He was awarded the Meritorious Service Decoration. Most Canadians haven't because his death embarasses our leaders and risks people like you asking questions about Canada's unshakeable support of Israel.

09/05/08
Canada's backing of Israel unshakeable, Harper says


BRIAN LAGHI AND SARAH HOIDA
From Friday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA, MONTREAL — Prime Minister Stephen Harper used the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding yesterday to defend it against regimes who hate the Jewish people and their state.In some of his firmest language yet, the Prime Minister said Canada's support for Israel is unshakeable...

globeandmail.com: National

 

[lone wolf]

Oh I don't doubt they are bad people, thats why so many Palestinians aren't saying much about Israel, they target Palestinians who are "too secular". But then shouldn't it be a good thing the "police are comign in to round them up?

You can't claim its both too horrible to remove them and too horrible to have them stay. One has got to be the better option.

That's called caught between a rock and a hard place. It would be a good thing if the "police are coming to round them up" if they came in like cops and not like stormtroopers.

 

[Zzarchov]

Now, if I chose to believe all governments as equal,

technically without US support Israel would have gone communist with soviet support, and just exterminated all Palestinians along the soviet model.

Like how Iraq dealth with Marsh Arabs and Kurds. Realistically, without western support Israel would probably collapse as a democracy, become a theocracy and just exterminate its v ersion of Infidels.

People being people, and not fundementally different that would be the example the world has set.

 

[Zzarchov]

That's called caught between a rock and a hard place. It would be a good thing if the "police are coming to round them up" if they came in like cops and not like stormtroopers.

Im wondering when the last time you saw Canadian police in action. Guys who are having trouble translating get tasered to death, 14 year old girls get maced, disabled people have their face smeared across concrete and innocent people get killed by cops who are overzealous in the pursuit of criminals (usually in cars).

And this is in a peaceful country.

 

[lone wolf]

Im wondering when the last time you saw Canadian police in action. Guys who are having trouble translating get tasered to death, 14 year old girls get maced, disabled people have their face smeared across concrete and innocent people get killed by cops who are overzealous in the pursuit of criminals (usually in cars).

And this is in a peaceful country.

I have seen cops in action here ... where you ask if resisting arrest includes covering up so they can't kick ALL the downed person's ribs in. I have yet to see Canadian cops herd 100 people into a secure area and blast it to smithereens or lob arty at will upon anything regardless whether there are people there or not. What happened to these specialist assault teams with whom Israel strikes with such precision elsewhere?

 

[Cliffy]

For over sixty years the Israelis have treated the Palestinians with the same contempt and cruelty that Hitler did them. For as long as I have been aware of what is going on, have wondered how a people could treat another in this way. Is it some genetic defect?
For months I have read the propaganda and arguments from both sides, both here on other forums and in the various news media. I have come to the conclusion that most people like having their opinions fed to them and mainstream media loves to feed it to them. I have come to the conclusion that those who spout the official line of the Zionists - all Palestinians, Hamas and Muslims are evil, twisted terrorists - are parrots who are incapable of discernment or critical thought.
More and more, I see people looking in the mirror and pointing over there at the other guy and accusing them of being the person in the mirror, ignorantly bantering about such labels as anti-Semitic at those who oppose the wanton murder of innocent women and children when they cannot see that those women and children are a Semitic people and that the ones doing the murdering are not.
The only way to end this conflict is for everyone to stop supporting Israel’s aggression. Take away all moral, financial and armament support. Force Israel back to their original boundaries as set up back in 1946. And force them, if necessary, to start treating their neighbours like human beings, to start talking to them and about them like human beings.
Israel has displaced the Palestinians, stolen their land and walled them into a giant ghetto. Now they attack them with bombs and tanks and high powered rifles, killing indiscriminately. And we, in the west, turn a blind eye because we believe the propaganda being fed us by biased media whose objective is one and the same as the Zionists who are doing the killing. Time to wake up folks, because in all likelihood, you may be next.