Israeli Troops Said to Kill Palestinian, Testing Cease-Fire

[TomClash]

Source: NYTimes

By JODI RUDOREN and ISABEL KERSHNER

GAZA — Health officials said on Friday that a 20-year-old Palestinian was killed and nine others wounded in a clash with Israeli soldiers in the southeast Gaza Strip, testing the cease-fire between Hamas and Israel after wild celebrations here on Thursday.

Gaza City residents celebrated the cease-fire, which ended the eight days of conflict but did not resolve many underlying issues.

The leadership in Gaza has said that the agreement, announced on Wednesday in Cairo to end eight days of ferocious exchanges, includes an Israeli promise to halt “incursions” into a 1,000-foot-wide buffer zone along Gaza’s northern and eastern borders where Palestinians have not been allowed to go.

Maan, the Palestinian news agency, reported that a group of Palestinians went to Abassan, a border area east of the southern town of Khan Younis, on Friday to pray on their land, and ended up throwing stones at soldiers, who responded with gunfire. Ashraf al-Qedra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, identified the man who was killed as Ahmad Qudih.

It remained unclear whether Hamas would depict the incident as a violation of the still uncertain cease-fire.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html?hp

[madaboutharry]

1. That was a poorly written headline,

especially for the NYT. Also, I am a pessimist when it comes to the I/P conflict. I don't believe there will ever be peace.

[John2]

2. Can you explain why this was poorly written?

Really, Hamas claims victory and then you get young men claiming to be farmers according to Hamas, going to the Border? So they got farmers in that little strip and one of them was twenty years old? What farms do they have in that area? It remains to be seen if Hamas is serious or not about peace talks and negotiations. If they are, then they need to control their citzenry.

They have been made a player. I actually think they are a pest but it remains to be seen and people keep apologizing for them when they try to gain sympathy for their people by using the media. They have not won anything, because Hamas can be eviscerated just like Al Qaeda if need be. Especially if the U.S. give Israel the go ahead and install the Palestinian Government as the legitimate Government of Gaza. I think that can be arranged with military might. So Hamas should be put on notice. Hamas can't go to Egypt, Libya or Syria. The U.S. and Israel can put Hamas in a box just like they did Al Qaeda. We can bomb the hell out of their asses and take over that strip once and for all. So they need to think about it.

[Dems50State]

3. some people are set in stone on this issue

Israel can do no harm. It's best to avoid getting into it chances are you are going to go down a long path that gets you no answers.

[John2]

4. My point

is, that I do not trust any religious fanatics and that applies to the government of Hamas. I'd rather throw my cards with Israel, especially when some are Americans that have dual citizenship. It is in Hamas's charter that they don't accept the Israelis as a sovereign state. Hamas has essentially declared war and hasn't changed its position unlike the Palestian Authorities in the West Bank.

Therefore I consider Hamas the diease forestalling progress. The U.S. and Israel do have the military might to accommodate Hamas if they think, they have won some major victory. Coming out and claiming victory over the U.S. and Israel is not wise. They have merely given Hamas a chance to act responsible. I don't think anybody should take Hamas's side. The next step is theirs. They can be removed from the equation considering the environment in the other countries. Providing their citizenry with food and other neccessities of life can be changed if you put a more responsible government in charge. So for the regime of Hamas's survival, they need to start acting responsible. And I do think the U.S. has leverage with all participants in what ever manner they see fit to achieve a settlement.

[cpwm17]

16. "I'd rather throw my cards with Israel,

especially when some are Americans that have dual citizenship." There's a word for people that use that kind of reasoning: bigot.

"The U.S. and Israel do have the military might to accommodate Hamas if they think, they have won some major victory." There's a term for people that use that kind of reasoning: war-monger.

[JDPriestly]

7. And for some, Palestinians are excused from enforcing the rules of

a cease fire.

Palestine has negotiated in bad faith in the past. The entire problem, the entire conflict, boils down to whether Palestine is willing to enforce a peace on its own citizens.

If Palestine cannot control its own citizens well enough to keep them from throwing stones and other missiles across the border into Israel, then they are not a credible negotiating partner. And if they are not a credible negotiating partner, then Israel is wise to keep using its organized defenses.

Palestinian authorities hide their aggression in the stones of kids whom they encourage to sacrifice themselves to keep old, spiteful feuds going.

When the Palestinian authorities gain enough control over their own people that they can come to the table and make promises that will be carried out, they will find themselves on the way to peace.

Maybe this constant state of misery and war is what Palestinians want. Over many years of watching that conflict, I have drawn that conclusion. War and victimhood are habits that Palestinians are having difficulty giving up. Seems to be sort of an addiction for them.

We once had a neighbor who caused anger and trouble for the entire neighborhood. It was terrible. Neighbors would look at her place -- all the junk she stored on her lawn, the disrepair, the many tenants living illegally in it, all the unpermitted changes to it, the fact that the plumbing was not hooked up to the city sewers. . . . . It was awful. We lived next door and, personally, got a long with her well. But no one else did. One day my husband called to me across our house and said that he had just realized something. He said, "Our neighborhood is an ecology. We are part of it and so is our neighbor." That realization was what it took. We began to watch ourselves, how we responded to our neighbor. Were we apologizing for her? Perhaps we were not asking enough neighborliness of her?

Within the year, the city discovered that her house was not hooked up to the city sewer line and condemned the entire place. The following summer, my rose bushes near the bathroom of her house did not do so well. I realized that they had been feeding from all that moisture and fetid matter from her house. We really were all part of an interdependent ecology.

Palestine has to get its sewer hooked up to the community around it. It has to enforce its cease fire on its own people. It's tough, but I will tell you that when our neighbor moved out, we learned that she had quite a colorful past. She had a long sentence for a very serious crime. That news did not surprise us, not at all.

Palestine needs to negotiate with integrity and a willingness to enforce the peace it makes. It hides behind stone-throwers rather than take responsibility for what it does. Israel does not send civilians out to harass Palestinians. It has already abandoned some settlements in compliance with agreements to do so. Thus, Israel has proved that it will enforce its agreements on its own people. Palestine needs to either admit that it does not want peace or enforce settlements among its own. It could start by issuing apologies when its citizens violate agreements. And if Israelis violate agreements, then Israel should do the same.

[Scootaloo]

10. What a fucking vile post

Maybe this constant state of misery and war is what Palestinians want. Over many years of watching that conflict, I have drawn that conclusion.

And from this post, I have drawn the conclusion that nothing that dribbles out of your mouth is worth consideration.

[cpwm17]

13. You're a horrible person

If someone wrote about the other side in this conflict like you write about the Palestinians, they would be PPR'ed; and the Palestinians are the victims in this conflict!

Your a denier of the worst kind, plus you also support the oppression of the Palestinians.

[cstanleytech]

15. I think they had a point somewhat, the Palestinian government does need to get better

control over its more radical citizens and they need to be seen as working at stopping those trying to provoke Israel.
Thats not to say that Israel is innocent though because the fact is they arent as their stances on some issues such as not returning the land they took a few decades ago in their last major war is still causing additional tension in the region to this day.

[USMCMustang]

12. Pay Attention to Headlines

Israel (collectively) is always wrong. "Palestinians" do no wrong. They don't even kill--rockets land, buses explode, etc. But when the inevitable retaliation comes, "Israel Kills." Do some research or even visit The "Honest Reporting" site..I am sure this post will be censored by "jury decision'" but get the facts. Even Al Jazeera is fair in their reporting.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. You want the US and Israel to install the government of Gaza? That's funny.

Or it would be if it weren't so pathetically wrong-headed.

"We can bomb the hell out of their asses and take over that strip once and for all."

You ought to take that belligerent drunk guy bs elsewhere.

[magical thyme]

6. yeah, we could do that.

"We can bomb the hell out of their asses and take over that strip once and for all. "

Or we could just turn the entire area, Israel included, into a pane of glass.

No Israel = no backstabbing "friend" to continually milk us for billions in tax dollars and one less lobby to control our government back home.

[cpwm17]

14. You don't need to go there

That's not appropriate, even if you're writing it to make a point.

[magical thyme]

17. that's where the poster I replied to was headed.

If that's where he wants to go, I'm more than happy to illustrate where he wants to head.

If you think my response was inappropriate, alert on it and let a jury decide because really, it's not your call to make. I think it was appropriate and that the poster wasn't just asking for it, he was begging for it.

[Igel]

8. The Gaza strip has farms.

Given that most of the population is under age 20, it makes sense that there'd be young farm workers. ("Farmer" is probably not the word we'd use these days.)

Strawberries and other fruit; vegetables; in previous years, flowers for export.

Farms are one reason that so much of their water is contaminated. They overuse manure and fertilizers, and the chemicals seep down into the groundwater. They overuse the aquifer for farming, and so saltwater from the sea infiltrates the aquifer nearest the coast.

The farms guarantee some local food supply and a ready export. On the other hand, keeping the land free for farms also ensures that the population has to be packed together. The 3rd and 4th-generation "refugees" tend to be sequestered in refugee camps and packed even more densely (the population that was there in 1948 no more wanted to assimilate the refugees than the Lebanese and Syrians did).

[PavePusher]

9. Two things.....

1. The headline is worded such that it sounds like Isreal had the man shot intentionally with the intent of testing the ceasefire..... when in actuallity he was shot because they (rightly or wrongly) thought he was a danger. Whether the confusing grammar was done intentionally or unintentionally can only be known by the author and the editorial staff.

2. "They need to control their citzenry." Ummm, wow. That appears to be an endorsement of totalitarian government methodology. Would you say the same in regards to the U.S. government?

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Yup. But, unsurprising.