Fifty-One Days of Israeli Terror in Gaza

[polly7]

Through the Eyes of a Father of Five
by Vacy Vlazna / June 23rd, 2015

We prepare the suhoor. We all sit around five dishes: white cheese, hummus, orange jam, yellow cheese, and olives. Darkness eats with us. Fear and anxiety eat with us. The unknown eats with us. The F16 eats with us. The drone, and its operator somewhere out in Israel, eat with us.

I read The Drone Eats With Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire by Atef Abu Saif in almost one sitting — resenting that I had to break to cook and eat dinner. These beautifully written searing diaries recounting each of the horrific 51 days of Israel’s monstrous war on the people of Gaza sweeps the reader into Atef’s anguished experience. An experience so dreadfully encompassing of the dark depths of human sentience that it is simultaneously personal and collective.

Your personal concerns start to erode; even your gravest fears begin to seem unjustified. What does it matter if you’re afraid for your children when all the children in the Strip are in immediate danger? What does it matter if you’re worried that your house may be reduced to rubble when thousands are being destroyed up and down the Strip? Is your house any better than these countless others? Are your children any better than the hundreds who have been killed or maimed already?

indexAtef shares with us the mental and emotional torment of every Palestinian parent, child, husband, wife, sibling, friend trapped in Gaza, as Chomsky puts it in the foreword, “under remorseless, relentless assault by the most advanced technology of killing and destruction that the ingenuity of modern civilization has devised”.

The horror that to the outsider was unimaginable, becomes from the first to the last words, felt, real, and confronting. We are challenged to go way, way beyond the statistics and images of news-bites….

Everything is turned into numbers. The stories are hidden, disguised, lost behind these numbers. Human beings, souls, bodies – all are converted into numbers.

Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/06/fifty-one-days-of-israeli-terror-in-gaza/

[Fozzledick]

1. What utter hypocrisy! The Gazans have no one but themselves to blame for the war they chose.

Why would anyone think they should be allowed to fire artillery rockets at civilians with immunity?

[polly7]

13. LOL. Just like the north american indigenous people should blame themselves!

How sad.

[Fozzledick]

14. Trying to compare belligerent terrorists to Native Americans IS pretty sad.

I guess that's what you do when you don't have a rational argument to paint terrorists as sympathetic victims.

The real question is why would anyone want to do that?

[grossproffit]

16. Indeed, why would anyone want to do that?

[King_David]

18. Why ?

Exactly.

[polly7]

21. The settlers considered the Native Americans extremely belligerent.

After all, they were on 'their' land and had to be removed, those that didn't agree were killed and often tortured in horrible ways. Defense of their land and settlements was met with extreme measures - don't you agree? But they were definitely considered the bad guys (terrorists), just as the Palestinians objecting to their confinement, loss of land, homes, livelihoods, lives are and have been for so many years.

'Terrorists' wasn't a handy word back then, but absolutely it would have been applied exactly the same way.


Real 'Terrorism' - deliberately attacking civilians and civilian targets in the world's largest open-air prison and all the other goodies they've been subjected to that cause fear and utter hopelessness - just as for any other targeted people in the world.

That is WHY. It's not fucking rocket science.

[Fozzledick]

24. Still digging, I see.

Maybe "science" is too much for you, but it IS fucking rockets.

Everything the Gazans have suffered is self-inflicted because they choose to keep shooting fucking rockets at Israeli civilians. They can end the war anytime they want to, but like you they choose to just keep digging (alright, so there are tunnels involved too, but is that so hard to comprehend?).

Your disingenuous attempts to justify it by defaming Native Americans is beyond sad.

[brush]

26. You say they can end the war anytime they want

Are the Israelis going to give them back their land anytime they want?

I guess people are just supposed to be happy at being displaced from their homes and land.

Sorta like blacks were supposed to be happy being enslaved.

[Fozzledick]

27. The Israeli's DID give them back Gaza.

Their plan was to withdraw from the West Bank as soon as Gaza stabilized, but the Palestinians aborted that with a new round of terrorist attacks launched from Gaza. They also made it clear that their real goal was not to live in peace but to drive every Israeli into the sea. Your overblown rhetoric appears to be in accord with that agenda.

[brush]

28. They're in a prison in Gaza

And what about the continuing bulldozing of Arab homes and groves for settlements? Israel's hands are far from clean.

How do you defend all of that?

[Fozzledick]

29. They're under siege in Gaza because they've chosen to wage aggressive war against their neighbors.

Why are you defending that?

[brush]

32. Gaza was just about annihilated . . .

with grossly disproportionate force. Why are you defending that?

And I see you ignored my question about the bulldozing of homes and groves and confiscation of land.

Israel is in an untenable position. They will have to yield some things — the most obvious is to stop the settlements and a begin a sincere and success effort for a Palestinian state with some lands returned. Otherwise there will never be peace.

Too bad Israel is stuck with Netayahu as there are reasonable people there who favor a two-state solution.

[Fozzledick]

33. Gaza is what Hamas has made it.

Israel offered them peace, they choose war.

[brush]

34. What about the bulldozed homes and groves, land grabs and settlements?

You keep ignoring that.

And if they want peace there has to be a two-state solution, which we all know Netanyahu does not favor.

You can keep claiming Israel offered peace but everyone with any sense knows there won't be peace until there is an independent Palestinian state that is not constantly being whittled away by settlements.

[Fozzledick]

35. Yes, I noticed your attempt to change the subject.

The situation in the West Bank is what it is because Abbas and the PA have consistently refused to negotiate a peaceful settlement or agree to an end of hostilities, but that's an irrelevant distraction. We were specifically discussing Gaza and you just tried to muddy the issue by changing the subject. I'm not impressed or distracted by Gish-gallop tactics.

[Israeli]

36. Neither am I Fozzledick.......

Back to Gaza ....... and but but .... " we returned Gaza to them. ".....

Gaza's Darkness

By Gideon Levy

09/03/;06 "Haaretz" -- -- Gaza has been reoccupied. The world must know this and Israelis must know it, too. It is in its worst condition, ever. Since the abduction of Gilad Shalit, and more so since the outbreak of the Lebanon war, the Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately.

Nobody thinks about setting up a commission of inquiry; the issue isn't even on the agenda. Nobody asks why it is being done and who decided to do it. But under the cover of the darkness of the Lebanon war, the IDF returned to its old practices in Gaza as if there had been no disengagement. So it must be said forthrightly, the disengagement is dead. Aside from the settlements that remain piles of rubble, nothing is left of the disengagement and its promises. How contemptible all the sublime and nonsensical talk about 'the end of the occupation' and 'partitioning the land? now appears. Gaza is occupied, and with greater brutality than before. The fact that it is more convenient for the occupier to control it from outside has nothing to do with the intolerable living conditions of the occupied.

In large parts of Gaza nowadays, there is no electricity. Israel bombed the only power station in Gaza, and more than half the electricity supply will be cut off for at least another year. There's hardly any water. Since there is no electricity, supplying homes with water is nearly impossible. Gaza is filthier and smellier than ever: Because of the embargo Israel and the world have imposed on the elected authority, no salaries are being paid and the street cleaners have been on strike for the past few weeks. Piles of garbage and obnoxious clouds of stink strangle the coastal strip, turning it into Calcutta.

More than ever, Gaza is also like a prison. The Erez crossing is empty, the Karni crossing has been open only a few days over the last two months, and the same is true for the Rafah crossing. Some 15,000 people waited for two months to enter Egypt, some are still waiting, including many ailing and wounded people. Another 5,000 waited on the other side to return to their homes. Some died during the wait. One must see the scenes at Rafah to understand how profound a human tragedy is taking place. A crossing that was not supposed to have an Israeli presence continues to be Israel?s means to pressure 1.5 million inhabitants. This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment. The U.S. and Europe, whose police are at the Rafah crossing, also bear responsibility for the situation.

Gaza is also poorer and hungrier than ever before. There is nearly no merchandise moving in and out, fishing is banned, the tens of thousands of PA workers receive no salaries, and the possibility of working in Israel is out of the question.

And we still haven?t mentioned the death, destruction and horror. In the last two months, Israel killed 224 Palestinians, 62 of them children and 25 of them women. It bombed and assassinated, destroyed and shelled, and no one stopped it. No Qassam cell or smuggling tunnel justifies such wide-scale killing. A day doesn?t go by without deaths, most of them innocent civilians.

Where are the days when there was still a debate inside Israel about the assassinations? Today, Israel drops innumerable missiles, shells and bombs on houses and kills entire families on its way to another assassination. Hospitals are collapsing with more than 900 people undergoing treatment. At Shifa Hospital, the only such facility in Gaza that might be worthy of being called a hospital, I saw heartrending scenes last week. Children who lost limbs, on respirators, paralyzed, crippled for the rest of their lives.

Families have been killed in their sleep, while riding on donkeys or working in fields. Frightened children, traumatized by what they have seen, huddle in their homes with a horror in their eyes that is difficult to describe in words. A journalist from Spain who spent time in Gaza recently, a veteran of war and disaster zones around the world, said he had never been exposed to scenes as horrific as the ones he saw and documented over the last two months.

It is difficult to determine who decided on all this. It is doubtful the ministers are aware of the reality in Gaza. They are responsible for it, starting with the bad decision on the embargo, through the bombing of Gaza?s bridges and power station and the mass assassinations. Israel is responsible now once again for all that happens in Gaza.

The events in Gaza expose the great fraud of Kadima: It came to power on the coattails of the virtual success of the disengagement, which is now going up in flames, and it promised convergence, a promise that the prime minister has already rescinded. Those who think Kadima is a centrist party should now know it is nothing other than another rightist occupation party. The same is true of Labor. Defense Minister Amir Peretz is responsible for what is happening in Gaza no less than the prime minister, and Peretz?s hands are as blood-soaked as Olmert's. He can never present himself as a 'man of peace' again. The ground invasions every week, each time somewhere else, the kill and destroy operations from the sea, air and land are all dubbed with names to whitewash the reality, like 'Summer Rains' or 'Locked Kindergarten.' No security excuse can explain the cycle of madness, and no civic argument can excuse the outrageous silence of us all. Gilad Shalit will not be released and the Qassams will not cease. On the contrary, there is a horror taking place in Gaza, and while it might prevent a few terror attacks in the short run, it is bound to give birth to much more murderous terror. Israel will then say with its self-righteousness: 'But we returned Gaza to them.

Source: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14799.htm

[Fozzledick]

39. I can't imagine why you think Gideon Levy is a credible source

but thanks for illustrating what a real Gish-gallop looks like.

Oh, and BTW, the fact remains that all of Gaza's suffering is the direct result of their unprovoked aggression against Israel. All the crocodile tears in the world don't change that truth.

[Israeli]

40. I cant imagine why you think he isnt ......nt.

[shira]

44. I see Gideon Levy is having trouble again with definitions - like the word "occupied".

No one takes that ass clown seriously in Israel.

[brush]

42. Ok, that's makes everything else all right then?

Israel vs the Palestinians is a regional issue that includes both the West Bank and Gaza.

So everyone is supposed to ignore all the land graps and bulldozing because you call it a gish gallop?

I call it something you don't want to talk about because you can't defend it. You're not fooling anyone.

[shira]

45. Enough deflections. The Palestinians keep rejecting 2 state solutions...

...that would end the occupation, settlements, "land grabs", etc.

Defend that.

Israel: We want a divorce from you.

Palestine: You can't divorce me; You're still beating me.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

41. "Trying to compare belligerent terrorists to Native Americans IS pretty sad."

You write with an uncanny ability to miss not only the historically obvious, but you are also quite blind to the present as well.



1. The First Nations were treated like the indigenous Palestinians are today, and like the Palestinians also stood up to the colonizers as well. The American settlers viewed the First Nations as ungodly savages that wanted to kill them...and so marginalized them, stole their land, moved them like they were livestock...killed then.

2. The Palestinians are victims...The First Nations are victims of brutal, colonial, expansionist power.

3. There are always going to be lazy bigots that miss points 1 and 2 in order to show to everybody just how uneducated that they really are.

[shira]

46. Native Americans realize Jews are indigenous to the land, including Judea...

The word "Jew" derives from ancient Judea (which is what it was called up until 1948). Just a little history there.

Also, Native Americans don't appreciate their struggle being compared to what Hamas does. That's quite an insult, BTW.

Do you see Hamas as misunderstood freedom fighters just struggling to defend their people & wanting to live in peace?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

50. You have become both a professor of inaccurate history and a spolesman for the First Nations?

Pssst: Your fail is showing.

[shira]

52. Comparing Native Americans to Hamas is highly insulting.

I notice you didn't answer my question.

Have something to hide?

If not...

Do you see Hamas as misunderstood freedom fighters just struggling to defend their people & wanting to live in peace?

[oberliner]

2. Vacy Vlazna is a batshit crazy leftist anti-Semite.

To quote another poster here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134103540#post22

[Little Tich]

5. That opinion still stands. n/t

[polly7]

11. ............

Quit pretending the source is the problem - it's people being able to see what is tried so hard to be hidden, and forgotten that pisses you off!

[oberliner]

19. It's the article that is the problem

It presents a clear and unambiguous support for violent attacks against Israelis on the part of Hamas. This is a position that all progressives ought to find repugnant. I would direct you to these paragraphs in particular:

The integrity of the diaries would have been strengthened by a generous acknowledgement of the courage of the freedom fighters; the thousands of young ‘sons of Palestine’ and their 531 comrades who were martyred while holding their ground, costing Israel serious military losses, and igniting worldwide sympathy and respect for defending Gaza.

On his return home from Gaza, Norwegian surgeon, Mads Gilbert made a dignified speech lauding the Palestinian ‘unbending determination not to submit to the occupation!’ By comparing Gaza to Norwegian resistance to the Nazis, Gilbert upheld the Palestinian ‘right to resist, even with weapons.’

<end of citation>

Do you agree with those sentiments?

[King_David]

3. Is it okay to post articles by Vacy Vlazna

On DU now?

[grossproffit]

6. Apparently so.

This OP is known for using these types of sources.

[King_David]

7. Did you see this hateful article posted here yesterday?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134107243

[grossproffit]

8. Not surprised by that one either.

<====seems to be my emote of choice as of late around her.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

43. It's strange that you don't seem to be offended by what Oren said but were more

offended by the audacity to report on it...

[shira]

47. We're on a liberal board where everyone should be appalled by rank bigotry...

That was yet another in a long line of bigoted articles from Mondoweiss, an established hate site.

It's amazing that kind of sewage is allowed here.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

49. The bigotry was Oren's. The fake poutrage is yours.

[polly7]

9. LOL!!!

I rarely post here.

Sorry to see how the suffering of human beings has you all so upset!!

Quit pretending the source is the problem - it's people being able to see what is tried so hard to be hidden, and forgotten that pisses you off!

[grossproffit]

15. You're using Vacy Vlazna as a source speaks volumes.

[King_David]

17. Its not so much the 'source' as the author,

The author hates Jews.
She hates me for what I was born.
And my family.
That upsets me.
How does the author feel about Gays?, I have a feeling I would be doubly upset since hatred of Jews and hatred of Gaus goes hand in hand and I am 'Twice blessed ' (google it)

[polly7]

12. ............

Quit pretending the source is the problem - it's people being able to see what is tried so hard to be hidden, and forgotten that pisses you off!

[Little Tich]

4. I consider Vacy Vlazna to be an anti-Semite. Beware... n/t

[polly7]

10. ..........

Quit pretending the source is the problem - it's people being able to see what is tried so hard to be hidden, and forgotten that pisses you off!

[Little Tich]

20. The messenger had to be shot down. I hope you would have done the same for me. n/t

[polly7]

22. You mean the 'message' has to be shut down!

Sorry, you don't get to decide which people's suffering is discussed, as much as you want to try to.

[Little Tich]

23. I believe the IDF committed war crimes in Gaza.

There seems to be no other way to explain how come so many civilians were killed inside or close to their homes. The recent UN report has come to a somewhat similar conclusion.

However, the author of the OP shouldn't be trusted.

[Fozzledick]

25. Are you really ignorant of Hamas' human shields policy?

They openly brag about how successful they are at putting civilians in the line of fire and manipulating them to seek "martyrdom". How can you ignore it?

And to any student of military history, the civilian casualty rate in Gaza is stunningly low.
In most wars, it's several times the military rate. The UN "report" is just an uncritical parroting of Hamas propaganda.

[Little Tich]

30. From what I understand there was one Palestinian and one Israeli case of the use of human shields

in the report, but more cases were suspected on both sides. I don't know, I haven't read the report, so I'm not yet an instant expert.

But surely, even if there were more instances where human shields were used, that can't explain all the civilian deaths?

The report seems to be accurate, as the criticism levelled against it only comes from the usual hasbara producing sources. If there was something wrong with the report, it would have been widely reported.

[Fozzledick]

31. Are you trying to be "cute"? Your profession of ignorance strains credibility.

Hamas has always deliberately placed offensive rocket batteries and military command centers in highly populated areas to produce civilians casualties for propaganda purposes. I find it difficult to believe that anyone who wasn't born yesterday wouldn't already know that. Anyone who has read this group for any length of time has certainly seen it argued over repeatedly.

[Little Tich]

37. Your own assertions are not proof enough, sorry. n/t

[Fozzledick]

38. Well, if that's your game...

at least now I'll know better than to take anything you say seriously. Bye-bye.

[shira]

48. You trust a clownish UNHR commission ruled by brutal tyrants...

....that owns the following record from 2006-2015:

Total UNHRC Condemnations

Israel 61
Sudan 2
Libya 2
Egypt 0
Saudi Arabia 0
Yemen 0
Jordan 0
Lebanon 0
Qatar 0
UAE 0

[font color = "red"]In 2014, the UNHRC refused to support an effort to condemn the Boko Haram kidnapping of 200 girls. [/font]

Now in all seriousness, do you actually support and trust a UN Human Rights Commission with a record like that?

Is that your idea of what human rights should be about?

Are you aware of the fact that this latest UN report condemned Israel many times, but never singled out Hamas for condemnation even once?

[HassleCat]

51. No reason

The Israelis bomb people in Gaza for no reason. Unless you count the rocket attacks.

[840high]

53. +1

[grossproffit]

54. You mean what some refer to as harmless firecrackers?

[HassleCat]

55. Depends on your perspective, I guess

If it hits you, I laugh it off and tell you not to be afraid of harmless firecrackers. If it hits me, I call it terrorism and demand retaliation. Human nature.

[grossproffit]

56. i agree with you.