World reacts to the conflict in Gaza

[bemildred]

The international community remains sharply divided as an Israeli army offensive in Gaza that has killed scores enters its third day, and Palestinian fighters fire rockets at a number of cities in Israel.

At least 81 Palestinians have died in airstrikes since they began on Tuesday, with Israel facing condemnation from many Arab and Muslim countries, and calls for restraint from some of its allies.

Others have condemned rocket attacks from Gaza and say that Israel has a right to defend itself.

Al Jazeera looks at how some world leaders have reacted.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/world-reacts-conflict-gaza-201471073217736666.html

[Jefferson23]

1. The reliable enabler:

Israel, U.S. try to ward off UN condemnations of Gaza air strikes

The Security Council is meeting to consider whether to condemn Israel amid the deaths of Palestinian civilians.
By Barak Ravid | 17:06 10

Jerusalem and Washington are trying to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning Israel’s air offensive in the Gaza Strip, in which dozens of Palestinian civilians have been killed, Israeli diplomats said Thursday. The Security Council is due to meet at 10 A.M. New York time to discuss the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.604337

[azurnoir]

2. No surprises here the "West" with a couple of exceptions (Scotland and Ireland) ignore Palestinian

casualties entirely mentioning only rockets, I'm sure the UNSC meeting will reflect this attitude too

[bemildred]

10. I am curious what the UNSC will do.

They seem to have a lot on their plate at the moment.

[bemildred]

3. Israel: Hamas firing rocket every 10 minutes

Israel's military arrived at the figured based on its claims that Hamas has fired 365 rockets at Israel in less than 3 days.

That assessment comes as Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault in Gaza for a third day on Thursday, hitting hundreds of Hamas targets as its missile defense system — Iron Dome — once again intercepted rockets.

Military spokesman Peter Lerner said Thursday that Israel struck more than 300 Hamas targets overnight, focusing on underground tunnel networks and rocket launching sites. That brought the total number of targets hit to 750.

The military said it struck a car in Gaza carrying three Islamic Jihad militants involved in firing rockets, raising the Palestinian death toll to at least 75. At least 20 civilians have been among the 75 deaths, according to Gaza's health ministry.

http://www.khou.com/news/world/Israel-Hamas-firing-rocket-every-10-minutes-266578331.html

[sabbat hunter]

11. civilian deaths

are absolutely deplorable. Hamas and IJ should stop being cowards and stop firing rockets from civilian areas to civilian areas. Israel has every right to take out those military targets, and continue to warn the civilians that those areas are being targeted due to military operations taking place among them.

[bemildred]

4. Airstrikes Leave 80 Dead In Gaza; Still No Israeli Fatalities

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault in Gaza Thursday hitting hundreds of Hamas targets, as Palestinians reported 16 people killed in strikes that hit a home and a beachside cafe and Israel's missile defense system once again intercepted rockets fired by militants at the country's heartland.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Israel struck more than 320 Hamas targets overnight, focusing on underground tunnel networks and rocket launching sites. That brought the total number of targets hit to 750 in three days of the massive offensive that has killed at least 80 Palestinians.

Lerner said Israel has already mobilized 20,000 reservists for a possible ground operation into Gaza, but for the time being Israel remained focused on maximizing its air campaign. A ground invasion could lead to heavy civilian casualties on the Palestinian side while putting Israeli ground forces in danger.

Neither side is showing any sign of halting their heaviest fighting since an eight-day battle in late 2012. Israel says that Hamas must cease rocket fire from Gaza for Israel to consider a truce. Militants have fired hundreds of rockets, striking across the length of Israel and disrupting life across the country. No one has been seriously harmed as the "Iron Dome" defense system has intercepted at least 70 of the projectiles destined for major population centers.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/airstrikes-leave-80-dead-in-gaza

[bemildred]

5. Israel's Strategy and America's Mythology by Ira Chernus

Bombs are falling and people are dying in Gaza. It's headline news in America's mass media. As usual, though, we get only today's events, with no historical context to explain what's really going on and why.

The crucial piece of history our mass media ignore is that one basic principle has always guided Israel's foreign policy: Keep the perceived enemies divided; never let them unite.

That's why Israel aided the creation of Hamas in the 1980s. The Israeli government feared the prospect of all Palestinians uniting under the flag of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, dominated by Yassir Arafat's Fatah party. Hamas seemed to offer a counterweight.

The recent reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah raises that specter again. Israeli leaders want to stop it at all costs, to drive a wedge into the uneasy peace between the rival Palestinian parties. Hence the onslaught against Hamas and Gaza.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/10-5

[bemildred]

6. Contentions Obama’s Indefensible Palestinian Policy

It might be considered an indication of just how warped the Obama administration’s position on Israel has become when the U.S. is sounding less supportive of Israel than several of the European countries. Germany’s Angela Merkel was quick to unequivocally condemn the latest barrage of Hamas rockets while Downing Street was uncharacteristically forceful in its statement. There was none of the usual calls for Israeli restraint, and no attempt to pin casualties in Gaza on Israel. Instead the press release simply announced: “The Prime Minister strongly condemned the appalling attacks being carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians,” and “The Prime Minister reiterated the UK’s staunch support for Israel in the face of such attacks, and underlined Israel’s right to defend itself from them.”

Yet from the State Department any cursory remarks about Israel defending itself were immediately invalidated by the usual moral equivalence that spoke of “both sides” and called for restraint, which in reality is just diplomacy speak for opposing any meaningful efforts taken by Israel to stop these unprovoked attacks on its people. However, the recent events raise pressing questions about the administration’s wider policy on the Palestinians, not least because just weeks ago President Mahmoud Abbas entered into a unity government with Hamas, a move that the Obama administration acquiesced in despite the many cautionary warnings they received against doing so.

The most recent flare-up makes the ongoing U.S. relationship with Abbas’s Hamas-Fatah unity government all the more awkward, but the administration has been seeking to get around the inconvenient facts of the matter with the most preposterous double-think, insisting that Abbas’s unity government with Hamas doesn’t actually have Hamas playing “any role” within it. The subtlety of this distinction will no doubt be lost on almost everyone but the State Department’s Jen Psaki, who has the unfortunate task of having to peddle this line to the press.

Nevertheless, even if we suspend our overriding sense of disbelief and buy into the State Department line for a moment, the truth is that Abbas and his supposedly moderate Fatah movement are far from innocent with regard to these latest attacks on Israel. Indeed, as Khaled Abu Toameh has pointed out, Fatah militiamen who serve in the Palestinian Authority security force—which is funded by the U.S. among others—have openly participated in rocket fire into Israeli civilian areas during this latest assault.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/07/10/obamas-indefensible-palestinian-policy/

[Jefferson23]

7. They never know when to stop throwing dirt in their most powerful friends face.

Oh yea, Obama is throwing Israel under the bus..right.

[bemildred]

8. I'm not getting into much it today, I'm depressed. nt

[Jefferson23]

9. Totally understandable..hard not to be sometimes. n/t

[bemildred]

12. Jerusalem struck by Gaza rockets

Sirens could be heard wailing in Jerusalem on Thursday evening followed by four loud explosions.

"Sirens heard in Jerusalem moments ago. People make their way to safe zones," Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld wrote on Twitter.

Two rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system, while two others fell to earth in an open field, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner wrote on Twitter that one of the rockets had landed near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

http://www.aa.com.tr/en/rss/356997--jerusalem-struck-by-gaza-rockets

[bemildred]

13. Netanyahu And Obama Haven’t Spoken Since The Latest Gaza Crisis Began

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken to a host of world leaders since the launch of Operation Protective Edge, all of whom reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Gaza. However, he had not spoken to US President Barack Obama as of early Thursday afternoon, Israel-time

Since the recent conflagration with Gaza, Netanyahu has held phone conversations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, officials said Thursday.

Netanyahu also spoke to US Secretary of State John Kerry, but has so far held no conversations with senior White House officials, including Obama or Mideast adviser Philip Gordon, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Gordon, a special adviser to Obama and the White House’s Middle East coordinator, was in Israel and the West Bank earlier this week. According to State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, Gordon met “with key decision makers on both sides.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/netanyahu-and-obama-havent-spoken-since-gaza-crisis-began-2014-7

[bemildred]

14. ‘A gift from Israel’: Why Hamas welcomes a ground invasion of Gaza despite its mounting death toll

Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin knows firsthand that Hamas is sometimes ready to cut a deal. Right now, he says, it isn’t.

The New York-born Baskin worked his Hamas back-channels to help arrange the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011 after five years of captivity. He’s working them again to seek an end to weeks of mounting hostilities in the Gaza Strip, and says he’s hitting a brick wall. Like other analysts on both sides, he says the militant group sees a political advantage in escalating a conflict that has already killed more than 40 Palestinians and barraged Israel with hundreds of rockets.

“Hamas has decided to ignore the possibility of a cease-fire for now and challenge Israel to ‘bring it on’,” said Baskin, 58, founder of the Jerusalem-based Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. “Both sides need to extract more pain from the other before there’s any hope of stopping the violence. ”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/10/a-gift-from-israel-why-hamas-welcomes-a-ground-invasion-of-gaza-despite-its-mounting-death-toll/

[bemildred]

15. The new normal

No matter what Israel’s prime minister says, the conflict with the Palestinians cannot simply be “managed”

THE prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, has sought to make life normal. While the Middle East has gone up in flames, Israel’s economy has thrived. Cafés emptied a decade ago by Palestinian suicide-bombers are once again teeming with customers. Demonstrators in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have protested not just about war and peace, but even more vociferously about the price of cottage cheese.

This unreal normality is now under threat. After a two-year lull, rockets fired from Gaza have rained down on Israel. The Israel Defence Forces have struck hundreds of sites in Gaza. The army is ready to mobilise up to 40,000 reserves. The talk is of a ground offensive against Hamas, which governs Gaza (see article). Palestinians, 70 of whom have already been killed, are sliding towards a third uprising, or intifada.

Mr Netanyahu’s mistake—compounded by the actions of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinians on the West Bank—is to think that their versions of normality can be sustained simply by managing the conflict. A stand-off is always liable to tip into violence. Lasting peace will come about only when the two sides reach a comprehensive settlement.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21606833-no-matter-what-israels-prime-minister-says-conflict-palestinians-cannot-simply-be