Israel Warns of Hamas Military Buildup in Gaza
Here we bloody go. You can predict this stuff every time someone comes up with a peace deal in the Middle East. The Saudis announce a peace plan promising full recognition for Israel from all Arab country's in return for Israel going back to the 1967 lines.
In public the Israelis greet the deal as good news, albeit with a few quibbles. And then we get the - always anonymous - Israeli spokespersons telling us what the evil Hamas group are really up to:
Now the implication from that last paragraph is that Hamas are preparing some kind of offensive against Israel. It's hard to square that image with the recent attempts by all Arab nations to engage Israel in peace talks. But this is par for the course whenever anyone proposes any kind of peace deal that requires Israel to comply with international law and hand back the West Bank and Gaza. Publicly, we have the plan welcomed whilst almost instantly the Israelis start anonymous briefings revealing the Palestinian's darker intentions.Hamas, the dominant faction in the Palestinian government, is building its military capacity in the Gaza Strip, constructing tunnels and underground bunkers and smuggling in ground-to-air missiles and military-grade explosives, senior Israeli officials say.
The officials, including a top military commander who spoke in an interview on Friday, said that Hamas had learned tactics from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, which brought in and stored thousands of rockets in bunkers near the northern Israeli border before its war with Israel last summer.
Indeed, they have stressed that Israel is, once again, showing great patience over this matter.
Oh no. The big operation in Gaza will be held off until it looks like even the US are serious about the Saudi Peace plan at which point, reluctantly, Israel will "be forced" to engage.The commander, who gave the briefing at the request of The New York Times and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hamas’s improved rockets had a range of about 10 miles, which would allow them to hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon.
But he emphasized that despite Israel’s growing concerns about Hamas, “we’re not going to start a big operation in Gaza.”
The New York Times faithfully reports this stuff whilst offering only one line to suggest that it may be bunkum:
Israel may have an interest in asserting that the Palestinians are building an aggressive force.It then goes on to tell us that usually Israeli intelligence on this kind of thing is simply first class whilst declining to tell us what interests Israel may be pursuing by asserting that the Palestinians are building an aggressive force. The idea that Israel could be doing this as a response to the peace proposal is simply unmentioned.
Indeed, when they bring up the Arab peace proposals, they do so only to reinforce the Israeli line - that they have been using for years - that "they want peace but lack a partner in peace":
The continuing empowerment of Hamas is also behind Mr. Olmert’s reluctance to embrace the Arab League peace initiative reconfirmed Thursday at its summit meeting. Israelis may want peace in principle, but they are very reluctant to give up more territory in the occupied West Bank, as they have done in Gaza, to a Palestinian Authority dominated by a group unwilling to recognize Israel’s right to exist or to forswear the use of violence.It simply never occurs the New York Times that perhaps Israel do not want to hand back land that they have been illegally building on for the past forty years. Nor is the fact that Israel have been unable to find "a partner in peace" for the past four decades greeted with the slightest amount of suspicion by this newspaper.
Israel's wish for peace is simply taken as a given. The fact that she is building illegally on the seized land is mentioned nowhere in the article, which obviously means that such actions are an irrelevance and nothing to do with anything.
The democratically elected Hamas government, who have since - for the sake of unity - teemed up with a Fatah coalition, are portrayed throughout the article as a band of militants, rather than as a government.
It is no wonder Americans always appear so blatantly one sided when discussing this dispute if this is how they are fed information about it.
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6 comments:
The Saudi "Peace Plan" is a recipe for Israel national suicide. No guarantees are provided by the Arab side. "Just trust us" seems to be their philosophy.
Hamas, whether "democratically elected" or not, is a beligerent, fundamentalist terror organization, whose goal is not the well being of the Palestinian people, but the destruction of the State of Israel.
No, Jason I'm not. Having read my other article on the right to return you know fine well where I stand on this.
I'm also noticing that you never comment on the gist of anything I write. You don't comment on the substance, in this case the very one sided way the New York Times have portrayed this.
The New York Times is a bastion for far-left ideology and does not exactly have a record for impartiality or journalistic integrity, so I wouldn't dispute that almost any story from them is somehow lacking in objectivity. That aside, I do not agree with many of your assertions made concerning this article, finding some of them either misleading or just ignoring certain facts.
As for what you call Americans being blatantly one-sided in the conflict, while that's not completely true (I have spoken with several pro-Palestinean Americans before), I would be willing to accept that as a generalization. Something about the Palestineans having killed many of our citizens probably just doesn't sit too well with some of us. For a little more recent history, the images of them dancing in the streets on 9/11 is something I will never forget.
That said, as blatantly one-sided as Americans appear to you on the conflict, I have felt the same generally true of Europeans, just not on the same side of the argument.
I do not agree with many of your assertions made concerning this article, finding some of them either misleading or just ignoring certain facts.
Care to be specific?
As for what you call Americans being blatantly one-sided in the conflict, while that's not completely true (I have spoken with several pro-Palestinean Americans before), I would be willing to accept that as a generalization. Something about the Palestineans having killed many of our citizens probably just doesn't sit too well with some of us.
When have the Palestinians killed your citizens?
And I agree with you that Europeans tend to support the other side as easily as many Americans support the Israelis. Although American kneejerk support for a country engaging in colonialism is not something I would naturally expect from a nation that drove the Brits out. It would appear when the charge of anti-Semitism is held over your heads that you fail to see colonlialism when it's staring you in the face!
Care to be specific?
To name a couple...
Nor is the fact that Israel have been unable to find "a partner in peace" for the past four decades...
This neglects the fact that a deal giving the Palestinians almost everything they asked for was all but done when Arafat walked away from it.
The democratically elected Hamas government, who have since - for the sake of unity - teemed up with a Fatah coalition, are portrayed throughout the article as a band of militants, rather than as a government.
Yes, Hamas is a band of militants. So is Fatah. The positive light you attempt to portray Hamas in is a bit misleading given their past and their refusal to even recognize Israel.
When have the Palestinians killed your citizens?
Often. Here's one list. Of course that one only concentrates on Americans killed in Israel and ignores the hundreds of Americans murders linked to Hezbollah including the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait, The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996, William Buckley, Colonel William Higgins, the killing of a Navy diver on TWA flight 847, two American offials on Kuwait Airways Flight 221... There are more and I could go on, but you get the point.
This neglects the fact that a deal giving the Palestinians almost everything they asked for was all but done when Arafat walked away from it.
Ah, the proof that your news sources are seriously skewered. You are now referring to the generous offer that Israel never made:
"Barak's proposal for a Palestinian state based on 91% of the West Bank sounded substantive, but even the most cursory glance at the map revealed the bad faith inherent in it. It showed the West Bank carved into three chunks, surrounded by Israeli troops and settlers, without direct access to its own international borders.
The land-swap that was supposed to compensate the Palestinians for the loss of prime agricultural land in the West Bank merely added insult to injury. The only territory offered to Palestinian negotiators consisted of stretches of desert adjacent to the Gaza Strip that Israel currently uses for toxic waste dumping. The proposals on East Jerusalem were no better, permitting the Palestinians control of a few scattered fragments of what had been theirs before 1967.
Barak offered the trappings of Palestinian sovereignty while perpetuating the subjugation of the Palestinians. It is not difficult to see why they felt unable to accept. The only surprise is how widely the myth of the "generous offer" is now accepted."
Yes, Hamas is a band of militants. So is Fatah.
That ignores the fact that they have joined the Democratic process in the same way that the IRA have recently joined the Democratic process. Indeed, the state of Israel was founded by many terrorist groups, the Irgun and Haganah to name just two, so it is hypocritical to argue that only Israeli militant groups can transform themselves into an arm of government.
When have the Palestinians killed your citizens?
Often. Here's one list.
Every name on that list is Jewish. Indeed, some of them are only linked to America by the fact that they have family there. How many people on that list are Americans and how many have dual citizenship? And while you often like to ask for sources, is that blog really the best source you could come up with to support your assertion? That's weak. Nor does the link on the page even take you to a Republican website that says what he claims it says.
Of course that one only concentrates on Americans killed in Israel and ignores the hundreds of Americans murders linked to Hezbollah including the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait, The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996, William Buckley, Colonel William Higgins, the killing of a Navy diver on TWA flight 847, two American offials on Kuwait Airways Flight 221...
I thought you were going to list Americans killed by Palestinians? You've even quoted Hizbullah there which shows a shocking ability to simply lump disparate groups together. Which of the above do you believe were carried out by Palestinians?
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