Operation Cast lead
The world's response to Israel's counter-attack on Hamas in Gaza has been somewhat muted this time compared to past conflicts, for several reasons: (i) Hamas has few natural allies, mainly Hizbollah in Lebanon and Iran, most of the rest of the world including the Arab States, although they protest automatically on behalf of the Palestinians, would not shed a tear if Hamas were consigned to oblivion; (ii) Israel mounted a PR campaign in advance of the attack on Gaza that included taking all visitors (including Pres. elect Obama) to Sderot, having all Israeli Ambassadors contact the Governments they are assigned to and complaining about Hamas breaking the ceasefire and FM Tzipi Livni making a series of speeches that highlighted the problem, especially her "enough is enough" speech that caught world attention; (iii) even while the conflict is ongoing, Israel is allowing trucks (today 120) to enter Gaza thru the crossing points with food and medical aid, so that the claims that there is a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza are factually unfounded.
Every time the IAF attacks anywhere the cry immediately goes up that civilians are being killed, and most news media emphasize the civilian casualties and ignore the military ones. So when they say that 51 civilians have been killed, they forget to mention that 250 Hamas operatives have been killed too, and they are the significant ones. It is understood in any aerial operation like this that the civilian casualties will be high, and for two reasons in this case, because Hamas has sited its security centers within civilian areas, using the locals as a human shield against Israeli attack and also Gaza is so densely populated that it is almost impossible to carry out military operations there without causing some collateral damage. But, the civilian casualties do not arise from deliberate Israeli tactics, as every Israeli commentator emphasizes. Fortunately, the vast majority of western audiences believe this and it is borne out by the ratio of military to civilian casualties (although we don't really know the extent of casualties since they mainly come from Hamas sources).
Also, the aim of the operation is to stop all rocket and mortar attacks by terrorists into Israel, but today ca. 50 rockets were fired into Israel, several Grad (longer range) missiles hit Ashkleon and one man was killed and ca. 15 injured. Ironically the man killed was an Israeli Arab working on a building site who did not make it into the shelter in time. This highlights the difference between the Israeli and Hamas attacks, the Israeli ones are targeted against military targets while the Hamas rockets are indiscriminate, intending to cause civilian casualties and they don't distinguish between Jew and Arab. Around Gaza the Israeli population of ca. 250,000 are spending a lot of time in underground shelters, and there will be no schools open for the time being, all children will be kept in shelters with special tuition and TV programs. Most countries in the world would not stand for this kind of bombardment for one day let alone 8 years, Israel has in fact been incredibly restrained, and now is finally the time to act!
The main aim of this Operation is to stop all hostile acts from Gaza. In that case, since the very raison d'etre of Hamas is to destroy Israel, it seems there will have to be a ground war, since clearly the rockets are continuing. How this will be mounted and how things will play out remains to be seen. PA Pres. Abbas in Ramallah has publicly crtiticized Hamas and stated that this Israeli Operation would not have been necessary if they had renegotiated a ceasefire with Israel as he and Pres. Mubarak of Egypt wanted. The ideal outcome would be if Hamas is trounced sufficiently so that Abbas and Fatah can re-establish the PA in Gaza. Although they won't like being aided by Israel, they would probably be grateful to have the opportunity to overcome the schism within the Palestinian people. But, that is wishful thinking, while on the other hand Israel has no intention to re-occupy Gaza for the long term and so any clear outcome of Operation Cast Lead is not foreseeable.
Every time the IAF attacks anywhere the cry immediately goes up that civilians are being killed, and most news media emphasize the civilian casualties and ignore the military ones. So when they say that 51 civilians have been killed, they forget to mention that 250 Hamas operatives have been killed too, and they are the significant ones. It is understood in any aerial operation like this that the civilian casualties will be high, and for two reasons in this case, because Hamas has sited its security centers within civilian areas, using the locals as a human shield against Israeli attack and also Gaza is so densely populated that it is almost impossible to carry out military operations there without causing some collateral damage. But, the civilian casualties do not arise from deliberate Israeli tactics, as every Israeli commentator emphasizes. Fortunately, the vast majority of western audiences believe this and it is borne out by the ratio of military to civilian casualties (although we don't really know the extent of casualties since they mainly come from Hamas sources).
Also, the aim of the operation is to stop all rocket and mortar attacks by terrorists into Israel, but today ca. 50 rockets were fired into Israel, several Grad (longer range) missiles hit Ashkleon and one man was killed and ca. 15 injured. Ironically the man killed was an Israeli Arab working on a building site who did not make it into the shelter in time. This highlights the difference between the Israeli and Hamas attacks, the Israeli ones are targeted against military targets while the Hamas rockets are indiscriminate, intending to cause civilian casualties and they don't distinguish between Jew and Arab. Around Gaza the Israeli population of ca. 250,000 are spending a lot of time in underground shelters, and there will be no schools open for the time being, all children will be kept in shelters with special tuition and TV programs. Most countries in the world would not stand for this kind of bombardment for one day let alone 8 years, Israel has in fact been incredibly restrained, and now is finally the time to act!
The main aim of this Operation is to stop all hostile acts from Gaza. In that case, since the very raison d'etre of Hamas is to destroy Israel, it seems there will have to be a ground war, since clearly the rockets are continuing. How this will be mounted and how things will play out remains to be seen. PA Pres. Abbas in Ramallah has publicly crtiticized Hamas and stated that this Israeli Operation would not have been necessary if they had renegotiated a ceasefire with Israel as he and Pres. Mubarak of Egypt wanted. The ideal outcome would be if Hamas is trounced sufficiently so that Abbas and Fatah can re-establish the PA in Gaza. Although they won't like being aided by Israel, they would probably be grateful to have the opportunity to overcome the schism within the Palestinian people. But, that is wishful thinking, while on the other hand Israel has no intention to re-occupy Gaza for the long term and so any clear outcome of Operation Cast Lead is not foreseeable.
posted by Jack Cohen at 10:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home