by Damozel | We did an earlier news round-up on the violence in Gaza here. Now the Press Association reports:
Egyptian border guards have opened fire on Palestinians who breached the border to escape Israel's assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
An Egyptian security official said there were at least five breaches along the nine-mile border and hundreds of Palestinian residents were pouring in.
At least 300 Egyptian border guards have been rushed to the area to reseal the border, the official added on condition on anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.
A resident of the Gaza Strip side of the border, Fida Kishta, said that Egyptian border guards opened fire to drive back the Palestinians.
In the meantime, Hamas has admitted it thought the rumors of the attack were a bluff. They're upset that more of the Arab world hasn't exerted pressure on Israel to cease the IDF operation and are now accusing the Palestinian Authority and Egypt of collusion with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip admitted Saturday that they were caught by surprise by the massive IDF operation in the Gaza Strip and accused the Palestinian Authority and Egypt of "collusion" with Israel.
Christ, and---speaking as a Quaker---I mean that most sincerely.
According to JP, the PA and Egypt---"who strongly condemned the IDF drive"---agree with everyone else that Hamas is also to blame for the violence in Gaza. The PA says it's ready to take Gaza if Hamas is driven out.
"Yes, we are fully prepared to return to the Gaza Strip," a top PA official told The Jerusalem Post. "We believe the people there are fed up with Hamas and want to see a new government."
Another PA official said Fatah had instructed all its members in the Gaza Strip to be prepared for the possibility of returning to power.
"We have enough men in the Gaza Strip who are ready to fill the vacuum," he said. "But of course all this depends on whether Israel manages to get rid of the Hamas regime."(JP 12-28-08)
Let us hope and/or pray, depending on our individual bents, that this can happen. Sadly, the end never justifies the means. It usually ends up working the other way round, with "the end" extending to the long-term that always follows the short-.
Ezra Klein bluntly says, "Israel, Wrong." He makes exactly the same point about long- versus short-term consequences.
This is the paragraph that I can't get out of my head:
Hamas had in recent weeks let it be known that it doubted Israel would engage in a major military undertaking because of its coming elections. But in some ways the elections have made it impossible for officials like Mr. Barak not to react, because the public has grown anxious and angry over the rocket fire, which while causing no recent deaths and few injuries is deeply disturbing for those living near Gaza.
The response will not come today, of course. It will come in months, or even in years, when an angry orphan detonates a belt filled with shrapnel, killing himself and 25 Israelis. At which point the Israelis will launch air strikes killing another 70 Palestinians, radicalizing thousands more, leading to more bombings, and so the cycle continues. (emphasis added)
The representative of J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, says carefully but clearly:
While this morning's air strikes by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza can be understood and even justified in the wake of recent rocket attacks, we believe that real friends of Israel recognize that escalating the conflict will prove counterproductive, igniting further anger in the region and damaging long-term prospects for peace and stability.
Today's IDF strikes will deepen the cycle of violence in the region. Retaliation is inevitable, though we don't know how far the violence will spread or how many more Israelis and Palestinians will die and suffer in the days and weeks to come. (emphasis added)
Matt Yglesias calls out Marty Peretz at The New Republic pretty much as he deserves to be.
Marty Peretz on the Gaza attacks:
Message: do not fuck with the Jews.
I think that’s exactly right, and also incredibly idiotic.
Yglesias reasons thus:
To people who feel besieged and impotent to resolve the political paralysis afflicting their country, something like sending the message “do not fuck with the Jews” must feel incredibly cathartic. But you have to ask yourself which Palestinian having lived through decades of Israeli occupation and all sorts of different ups-and-downs of Israeli policy and all manner of retaliatory strikes and cease-fires is really unaware that Israel doesn’t like being fucked with? The psychology of catastrophe is that one wants (a) to improve the situation, and (b) to lash out at a bad guy...
...because the problem is, you can't do both.
At Mondoweiss, Philip Weiss considers the potential outcome of the current actions and the attitudes that underlie it.
Remember how the west condemned Russia's attacks on South Ossetia in Georgia? What is the Israeli policy in Gaza? Here is John Mearsheimer writing two weeks ago on TPM:
So, if there is no two-state solution and Israel continues building a Greater Israel by expanding the settlements and road networks in the West Bank and keeping the Palestinians in Gaza locked up in a giant cage, where does Israel end up? What is the happy ending to this story?
You can't make peace through violence. In fact, you can't make peace at all. The only thing you can make is a commitment to meet violence, which is the response of children and adolescents, with reason and restraint, and even more restraint after that.
Cernig examines the moral position of those who implemented---or who are cheering on---these attacks.
Indiscriminate unguided rocket attacks on civilians and indiscriminate but deliberately targeted airstrikes on civilian infrastructure are both wrong. Collective punishment is collective punishment and is morally wrong no matter the relative intensity by which both sides pursue it or what has gone before in the way of provocation. Wrong (Strength 2) + Wrong (Strength 5) cannot ever = Right (Strength 7). All you can say is that one is less wrong but still ultimately morally reprehensible. You then (if you have any intellectual or moral integrity) have to open yourself to debate about how you weigh the relative wrongness of actions without retreating to strawman charges of anti-semitism or anti-arabism.
You'd think those who regularly decry relative descriptions of morality and demand that there are absolute moral truths would get that, but apparently not when they wish to mount a partisan defense of one side's morality.
At Haaretz, Zvi Barel points out that the conditions on which the parties could agree to roll back the violence and stop the cycle are already known NOW.
Hamas has clear conditions for its extension: The opening of the border crossings for goods and cessation of IDF attacks in Gaza, as outlined in the original agreement. Later, Hamas wants the cease-fire to be extended to the West Bank. Israel, for its part, is justifiably demanding a real calm in Gaza; that no Qassam or mortar shell be fired by either Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other group.
Essentially, Israel is telling Hamas it is willing to recognize its control of Gaza on the condition that it assumes responsibility for the security of the territory, like Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon. It is likely that this will be the outcome of a wide-scale operation in the Gaza Strip if Israel decides it does not want to rule Gaza directly. Why, then, not forgo the war and agree to these conditions now?
The obstacle, he suggests, is that Israel desires this war and wishes to carry it to its conclusion. Barel also says:
M.J. Rosenberg at TPMCafe says:
The oldsters are cheering on the Gaza attacks but the Jewish "best and brightest" think ethically and not ethnically. Bravo or, as we Jews say, kol ha kvod (all honor). (TPM)
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