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Death Toll rises in Deadly Gaza Strikes
12 Killed in Gaza's Deadliest 24 Hours Since 2008-9 War
GAZA CITY - An Israeli tank round killed a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip early on Saturday, bringing to 12 the overall toll from the deadliest 24 hours of violence since a devastating war more than two years ago.
Hamas put security forces and emergency services in Gaza on 24-hour alert amid the escalating tit-for-tat violence and despite calls for an end to the hostilities from both the European Union and the United Nations. A truce declared by Palestinian armed groups in the enclave unravelled even before it could take hold as militants fired dozens of mortar rounds and rockets into southern Israel and the military retaliated.
Hamas put security forces and emergency services in Gaza on 24-hour alert amid the escalating tit-for-tat violence and despite calls for an end to the hostilities from both the European Union and the United Nations.
Around 30 mortar rounds or rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel early on Saturday, without causing damage or casualties, military radio said.
Twenty mortar bombs exploded, while 10 Grad rockets struck the area around Ashdod, Beersheba and Kiryat Gat, the radio said.
Israeli shelling killed the Palestinian and wounded a second in an eastern neighbourhood of Gaza City, medics said, without specifying whether they were militants or civilians.
The Hamas interior ministry decreed a state of alert.
"All security forces must work 24 hours in 24, even civil defence and medical services, to protect and save the people targeted by the Zionist occupiers," ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein said.
"Groups in Gaza committed themselves to respecting the Palestinian consensus and halting rocket attacks, but the Zionist aggressor has ruined everything by attacking and killing civilians -- women, children and old people," he said.
The latest fighting erupted on Thursday when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and injuring the driver.
"The attack on a school bus yesterday crossed the line... Whoever tries to hurt and murder children, his blood will be on his own head," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Prague on Friday before heading home.
Since the bus attack, Israel has launched dozens of raids on targets across the Palestinian territory. By early Saturday, it had killed 17 Gazans -- including a 10-year-old boy, at least five Hamas militants and one policeman.
At least 57 Palestinians were wounded, 12 of them seriously, medics said.
The death toll of 12 made it the deadliest 24 hours in Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the devastating 22-day offensive Israel launched in December 2008 that claimed the lives of some 1,400 Palestinians -- more than half of them civilians -- and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
Palestinian armed groups declared a unilateral truce but both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed mortar and rocket attacks on Israel on Friday as the violence intensified.
"Our holy warriors are ready to react to the Zionist aggression and respond to any foolish acts committed by the occupation with everything they have," said a statement from Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants continued into Saturday morning.
Several industrially manufactured Grad rockets were fired at the Israeli port city of Ashkelon but had been intercepted by the newly deployed Iron Dome short-range defence system, the spokeswoman added.
A statement on the Hamas military wing's website said the "resistance" had fired several Grads at Ashkelon on Friday, and that smoke was seen rising from the city.
However, the Israeli defence ministry said the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, deployed around Ashkelon just last Monday, had intercepted three rockets, while a fourth struck open ground.
The port city with a population of some 113,000 was the second city to be protected by an Iron Dome battery after the desert city of Beersheba which has also been targeted by Gaza militants.
The defence system, the first of its kind in the world and still at the experimental stage, is not yet able to provide complete protection against rocket fire from Gaza, army commanders have warned.
The Israeli military spokeswoman said overnight raids on Gaza had targeted a "large car carrying weapons," a tunnel and "three Hamas commanders."
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton condemned the rocket fire from Gaza but also urged Israel to show restraint, urging "an immediate cessation of all violence" and prompting an Israeli diplomat's "dismay" at her "choice of words."
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63 Comments so far
Show AllThis just in: Israel sucks.
The Israelis have the right to defend themselves against mortar and rocket attacks but they do not have the right to indiscriminately retaliate in a manner that kills ten year old boys.
"the so called Left in this AmeriKa stinks and sucks?"
I take there are still people who are either absurdly naive or wildly hypocritical when it comes to international law and basic human rights. Palestinians live under Israeli occupation. You clearly don't understand the concept, for if you lived under that kind of brutality on a daily basis it might be clearer to you why some Palestinians feel the need to fight back. Under international law, occupied people have the right to resist. You didn't know that?
Most of the world understands this. In February of this year, 14 members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "illegal." The US was the only vote against it. It's not looking good for Israel.
Israel is one of the most powerful military forces in the world, only possible because they are propped up by US tax dollars, well over 3 billion a year. That amount doesn't take into account the interest on the borrowed money. Without our tax money, Israel would be history rather than the bullies and brutalizers that they are.
In 2008, with their vicious "Cast Lead" attacks, 1400 Palestinian civilians were killed, a huge proportion of them children. How many Israelis killed? 10 or so, some by IDF's own fire. And here they go again, killing children and old men and women. They do it this way so the Palestinians will finally up and leave. Even their own leaders have been clear about this - they want it all.
If you read and study the history of Palestine/Israel, surely you have read Noam Chomsky's work, "Fateful Triangle." Chomsky is Jewish, he believes that Israel has a right to exist, so no one can say he's an anti-Semite and not also be a fool. Listen to Chomsky and then listen to someone like Alan Dershowitz or his partner in absurdity, David Horowitz:
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/noted-expert-on-israelpalestine-david-horowitz-has-never-been-there.html
Occupiers have responsibilities under international law. They are not allowed to confiscate property, bulldoze Palestinian homes, shoot peaceful protesters, and basically have themselves a policy of ethnic cleansing. The only reason Israel gets away with it is because they have the ability to bomb anyone who tries to stop them and the US will help them do it. It's not about loving Israel, it's about location, one of the worlds most powerful military bases, smack dab in the middle of all that oil.
I once had a naive dream to visit Israel. I'm sorry to say that, back then, I was subject to US/Israel propaganda. Once I began to investigate, it became crystal clear. Israel is a pariah state for good reason.
Visit: ifamericansknew.org
"Most of the world understands this. In February of this year, 14 members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "illegal." The US was the only vote against it."
Only slightly incorrect.
Canada stood with the US in that vote.
Canada is not a member of the security council. They did not vote.
All it takes is one vote by Israel or the U.S. to kill public scrutiny when Palestinian's plea for redress.
http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa03.html
Here is a list of war crimes ignored by the international community because the U.S. or Israel can single-handedly kill any protest.
Palestinians have no voice in the MSM, it's controlled by... ?
oldy,
Here is another view.
The rocket attacks are not constant... there was just a two year lull but Israel refused to stop building settlements against international law.
No Israelis were killed in this new round and the militants firing rockets knowing that Israel will kill many Arab civilians in retaliation might just as well be working for Israel because all they do since-the book Exodus is give Israel the excuse to avoid peace and take more land and human rights from Palestinians living in an apartheid state. Read the book, Exodus because the movie cut out this long time con game revealed by the Author.
The United Nations knows what the problem is but Israel is still getting away with "the world is against us so we must continue the expansion of our land", but other people of a different background have been living on that land for thousands of years while the Israeli main population now and their ancestors were living in Europe.
The old testement Bible is about the history of Israeli aggression, killing natives because God told them too.
Today the Bible is the same license to kill for more than Israel, the USA uses the same mindset that the worlds resources is controlled by our exceptional Christian Super Power with full spectrum domination of the world for the profits of the big money Corporate Boys and Banksters.
This is enough to make any non bible culture rebel. And rebel they are doing now and it will continue until the racket of war destroys itself and millions more humans with this culture of death and destruction in the name of God for good.
Israel is doing to Palestinians what America did to the natives here and that is worse than a few revenge rockets by militants who don't care what this war is doing to the people because those little rockets do not stop the aggression and settlements and human rights violations, they only expand it. The militants are on both sides of this money making Empire of war led by the USA and its spearhead in the East, Israel.
War is basically the same racket everywhere and if the people of Israel were concerned and smart they would talk peace with all the people of Gaza before it is too late.
Your "so called Left in Amerika" is still waiting for peace, and waiting sucks too.
If Israel is waiting for God to give them peace, their God is not talking to them right now.
Don't feed the ....
Despite that, an "attack" that causes no damage or injury really isn't much of one.
It's all a lie. The government is allowed to terrorize its own population but the pro-violence lobby excuses it with a wink and a nod toward religion and their favorite brand of approved racism and hate.
Why does anyone feel the need to "defend" the actions of the bully? It's not like Palestinians can protect themselves or fight back in an effective manner.
I despise anyone who defends the bully of Israel. It's not defense to strangle and starve a helpless population.
The pro-violence folks pay pretty well though, don't they.
Israel has a right to defend itself -- however, it's a nuclear nation, fully
funded and weaponized by US -- and it does not have the right to wage
a full scale war on people with no military!!
Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different times
while the world stands by
genocide
live*
*slow motioin in Gaza
Where's the no-fly zone for Palistine?
Was the school bus the target?? It must have happened because the Palestinians did not have sophisticated weaponry. Why not give them Apache helicopters and tomahawk missiles so that hey can aim it at the Israeli leadership and its military units?
Actually it was a sophisticated weapon. One of very few that they have fired that has been. The bus was clearly the target although they may have mis-identified it somehow... I hope.
School bus a target or a random hit? First, Hamas said they didn't intentionally target the school bus. But if we ignore that, how did the Gazans to know where the school bus was since they don't have the aerial capabilities to spot targets; unless it was on the military road on the Gaza border? If so, what was it doing there. Also, since when have the Gazans been able to hit anything?
Didn't I say something about this sort of thing happening after that judge tried to get fancy with words over the UN Report that had to do with the last major massacre in Gaza?
Only the dead seem to know peace.
Well, Mr Netanyahu, you must have a lot of blood on your head! You have murdered many times more innocent children and woman than the Palestinians have . Not to mention that the Palestinians are trying to defend themselves against your extreme zionist aggression, oppression and illegal theft of their land!!
Everyone I know who has visited the West Bank and some have even gotten into Gaza, say the same thing: living under Israeli occupation is hell on earth. But when Israel actually wages a full blown military attack against Gaza's people, as they did in "Cast Lead," where civilians trapped behind concrete walls had no escape route available, it became another Naziesque moment for Israel.
As Israel propagandist Thomas Friedman so nobly pointed out: "I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to “educate” Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." If it's the latter, Friedman says, "Israel may have achieved its aims." Hmmm. I do believe the word for that is TERRORISM!
I seriously wonder if the US isn't egging Israel on in order to ultimately destroy Zionism. It appears that's what's happening. Israel is presently in a tiny corner all by itself. How long can that go on? By holding Israel accountable, The US could become the heroes of the world, overnight. You don't think the US knows this? They couldn't care less about Zionism, it's all about location and oil.
sorry, double did it
Yes, where is the UN mandated "no fly zone" over Israel? Clearly Israel is the most murderous regime in the world right now. "Slow motion genocide" is just what the Israeli policy is. Why is the world not opposing Israeli genocide.
MOST of the world does oppose Israel's occupation and one thousand to one revenge attacks and invasions.
Actually most american jews favor a return to 67 borders, even under decades of lies in our media they favor it.
Israel is NOT the most murderous regime. The country I live in, the USA, is.
Where do you live, and why so furious at Israel? 'We' know about their gov'ts barbarism...but it pales to what the USA has done in the past 40 years, and the amount of weapons and aid the USA gives to dicatorships around the world.
hamas is firing random rockets at civilians. Though Israeli response is murderous, and the crimes perpetrated by the state are inhuman, nothing touches what the USA has done. I'm always confused why people center so much on the admittedly horrible aparthied conditions of gaza and west bank...when obviously, the beast that REALLY is the source and main mass murderer is my country the USA.
Perhaps if the 'left'....the masses in the USA centered on that real fact....we might be able to organize general strikes...and mass shutdowns...for years and years...until we change the political and economic system here.
my god, ADM , Cargill, monsanto....(USA based and subsidized agricultural corporations) are responsible for more deaths and poverty in one year that what Israel does in twenty.
tommys1961
And if the USA "is the most murderous regime" then that certainly does not justify what Israel has done and is still doing to the Palestinians. It does not justify the USA selling munitions and weapons to Israel. It does not justify Israeli commandos killing nine peace activist, including one American, aboard that Gaza aid rescue boat last year. It does not justify Israel's murderous actions against Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. It does not justify Israel taking away land and water from the Palestinian people since 1947.
Perhaps all the facts stated above may be the reasons why, to borrow from your words, so many people are furious at Israel. Or will your next trick be to claim that I and anyone else who dares to criticize Israel are to considered anti-semitic? I think not.
Well you all must remember the old Jewish biblical mantra: "An eye for a village." That's justice.
It's because all the good rules are in the "New Testament"! No heaven or rapture for anyone in *that* religion........Non believers all.
I posted this on today’s article “American Dreams and American Eagles” but am reposting it here because this seems to be a better place for it. I hope nobody thinks I’m being obnoxious doing so—some people here on CD like to hear my experiences in teacher-land.
Once again, I was finished conversing with a student, Sean, about the tensions in our class via email when I checked out CD and found this article. I was communicating to this student, a very peaceful, thoughtful man, a Montessori teacher and father, because once again he had been vilified by the class for making an outrageous remark. This is how it played out: when I showed the class Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe “Oh Dearism” and asked if students had even known about the Rwandan civil war, where four and a half million people had died, one student responded that she really didn’t care because we all die anyway, that people should forget about all that stuff and go to church because Armageddon is on its way. Then I turned to the day’s reading, Laura Miller’s article on why US citizens were so ill-equipped to understand the 9/11 attacks. This was a reading from a collection of works on how our educational system is failing. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/27/stupidity We talked about how people don’t understand the Muslim world much at all. Then a girl mentioned the recent Rolling Stones article about war crimes and kill teams. I commented on the strange fact that people are openly acknowledging killing for fun in the Mideast. One student, a veteran, had something to say about his experience in Iraq but couldn’t finish his sentence because he broke down. The Armageddon girl then let the class know that she came from a Christian military family and her uncles had told her that they had killed some Iraqis for fun and thrown them in a river. When the student I’d been emailing, Sean, responded that that might contradict her Christianity, all hell broke loose. Armageddon girl screamed at him for attacking her religion. The rest you can figure out if you care to read my email, which is below.
The world is not going mad. It IS mad.
Dear Sean:
Sinclair Lewis famously wrote, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Methinks it came marching in on 9/11/2001 and is now so strong that people feel totally free to express the most heinous thoughts while announcing their deep Christianity. If you dare suggest that flag and cross cannot possibly defend outright murder in a sane world, you'd better watch out, because this country has gone insane. The language is Orwellian, so don't expect Christianity to mean peace and love.
Friday morning, as my daughter and I were on our way to class, I said, "Thank God. Finally I think I've got the class calmed down and I don't feel, for the first time in a while, that I'm going to war." Oh, the irony.
I have been on bad terms with most members of my family of origin since they have been "born again" into this upside-down, Fox-deployed, educationally-sanctioned belief system. In this system we can see Bernays-style propaganda that Goebbels would greatly admire. What people really are is afraid, and when they're afraid they tend to hate. As MLK says, hate disfigures the soul, and those overcome with hate can't think straight.
Who do they hate? Anyone who disagrees that destroying the Muslim world is a great good. Anyone who points out the illogic or, heaven forbid, the gruesome immorality and stupidity of their ideas. Anyone who is not a true believer in the supreme goodness of the ongoing "Armageddon." They're looking for Christ, and think they'll find him gunning down small children in Gaza. You'd bloody well not get in their way, and there's no talking to them. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you don't already.
I'm sorry they've targeted you. Ridiculously, Marsha was defending Sammy to other students after class concerning how outrageously you'd attacked Sammy, just one more thing you've said that she wants everyone to realize is an outrage. Really! How nasty of you! All Sammy said was that her cousins kill people for no good reason and throw them in the river, as all good Christian soldiers do. Or something like that.
I don't know if you realized this, but Adam behind you was breaking down, and I felt very sorry for him. Paradoxically, most veterans I've met are very ethical, thoughtful people.
Don't argue with them. You might as well be trying to reason with rabid dogs. Marsha thinks this is HER class, has been trying to garner support against me from day one--implying that there is a racist bias in my methods (nice trick)--and has hated you since you criticized the US medical industry, but really just wants her big fat "A" and a platform on which to spread her Oprah wisdom. Here's an on-point Onion video I don't dare show the class: http://www.theonion.com/video/oprah-invites-hundreds-of-lucky-fans-to-be-buried,18443/
I'd tell her she already has that A, but she'd probably turn that against me too. She'd get me fired for that A in a minute, because she wants to go to medical school and become, get this, a psychiatrist.
Don't think of this as a class. Look at it as a lab. We are in a laboratory watching devolution at an alarmingly rapid rate. Just add some sanity and watch the chemical reaction. I haven't had experiences like these until this past year. Now they're common, and I fear for our children.
Do you know who Ray McGovern is? He was a soldier in Vietnam and later worked for the CIA, working in the White House and briefing presidents, vice-presidents, and Congress. He is now a leader of VIPS--Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity--and works with Veterans for Peace. This link contains a video clip of him being arrested for standing in silent protest while Hillary Clinton was giving a speech lauding Egyptians for demanding free speech: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/021711a.html
Otherwise, I'm at a loss for words. I don't know what the fark I'm doing anymore.
Elizabeth H,
You and I share the horror of seeing this monstrous social decay all around us.
You are a beacon of ethics in a maelstrom of evil.
I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel though I want to. I don't see any good that my ethical position in life has brought about, either.
But somewhere, somehow, someone did listen. I know it. I know definitely that some people have listened to you too and turned from their brainwashing. Even if you never see the results in your life, it's worth it to do the right thing.
Thanks for being there.
Elizabeth, i assume you realized i was being sarcastic to a meanspirited and intentionally inflammatory post. That happens here in CD land. Usually it is a name i don't recognize, but that is irrelevant.
Thanks for your thoughtful sharing. We are indeed in the midst of the greatest 'lessons' that have yet to be learned by humanity. I am jewish by birth and have never been a supporter of israel. For the past ten years i have been ardently active against that 'nation' and what it does. But i won't go on about this now.
I personally believe that anyone who is living in 2011 and still doesn't 'get' the basics, ie., an eye for an eye creates a world of blind men/(women), on many levels i might add, then they are fairly unteachable. As a psychologist and energy healer i have worked with people whom many wouldn't even have attempted to help. Because i sense the inner self, not a bunch of defenses and labels.
And there are those who just don't really want to 'see'. And free will is free will. That is part of their journey and it may piss me off as a human being, however, i always need to take a step back and have some perspective. Since i believe, and not without extensive experience, that we are far more than our main stream 'science' or 'religion' promotes, i can be outraged, heartbroken and philosophical simultaneously. (In my better moments). I have worked with some Iraq vets as well. One guy is changing his view of everything, as 'patriotism through war' was his religion. Literally.
Another veteran was in charge of Saddam - guarding him. He was rounding up people the first week of the invasion. Anyone they could find. He wasn't at all reflective nor guilty about what he had done. Very different character than the other guy. Everyone is unique.
peace.
rita
Well, nobody was held accountable in Cast Lead, so they feel justified more than ever to keep doing what they do. In fact debunking the Goldstone Report gave them the Green Light.
This story misleads. “The latest fighting erupted on Thursday when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and injuring the driver.” It did not.
Since the beginning of April and before the retaliatory, possibly accidental attack on the Israeli school bus, five Palestinians were killed and at least five Palestinians injured, including two women and a child, by the Israeli military.
• On Friday, April 1, Israeli forces assassinated a 24-year-old member of a Palestinian resistance group in Gaza.
• On Saturday, April 2, the Israeli air force assassinated three members of the group.
• On Tuesday, April 5, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in northern Gaza, reportedly unarmed and not part of any resistance groups.
• On Wednesday, April 6, at dawn Israeli forces bombarded Gaza in three air strikes, injuring four people, including two women (one of them pregnant) and a child.
• On Wednesday afternoon hundreds of children in Gaza participated in a march asking the international community to protect them against ongoing Israeli raids and attacks.
• On Wednesday night the Israeli Air Force bombarded several areas of Gaza, causing extensive damage; at least one resident was injured.
• On Thursday morning, April 7, the resistance group that had suffered four assassinations fired mortars at a nearby Israeli town, which injured two people on an almost empty school bus, the bus driver and the one student (16) who hadn’t already been dropped off. The bus was on a road also often used by Israeli military vehicles.
See http://israelpalestinenews.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/israeli-army-strikes-gaza-after-school-bus-hit-%E2%80%93-deconstructed/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-says-didn-t-mean-to-target-israeli-school-bus-1.354967
In the last two years, more than 156 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis, including 19 children. During the same period 11 Israelis, including one child, were killed by Palestinians.
http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/casualties.asp?sD=19&sM=01&sY=2009&filterby=event&oferet_stat=after
On Thursday the U.S. State Department condemned the attack on the Israeli school bus. No mention was made of attacks on Palestinians.
Ooh. Ooh. I know. I know. Is it because the US Government says it's concerned about civilian loss of life?
['Scuse me. Just got to go outside and laugh like a gibbon for a few minutes]
seriously, I know it's the weekend, but can't AIPAC do better than you today?
oldy, The School bus is mentioned more than anything... what are you jabbering about?
Are you a liar or what saying "Why should AmeriKan Government should mention attacks on Palestinians when none of the above posters and zillions other post do not bother to mention "attack on the Israeli school bus."
Sorry oldy but the article above and the posters here mentioned the school bus.
This was from the link above posted by Emma from the biggest paper in Israel, learn to read before you lie... if you knew the facts before you accuse, you might be able t help Israel make peace instead of your stupid comments that the School bus is not being "mentioned".
"Hamas said on Saturday its militants did not intend to target Israeli schoolchildren when they fired a rocket at a bus two days ago, critically wounding a teenager and moderately wounding the bus driver, in an attack that sparked the latest round of border fighting.
"It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried schoolchildren," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by Israeli military vehicles."
Now since we cleared that up the question is Did Israel intend to bomb the civilians and children it killed in the last round of air strikes on Gaza.
Palestinians have NO recourse:
http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa03.html
No legal one anyway!
Golstone now has the blood of 12 goyim on his hands. Did he and Netanyahu share a high 5?
Oh, your parents must be from eastern europe??? And, East is your name? Very subtle reference here, Jack.......
You are undoubtedly a real mensch! (google it).
Israel will be over within two years. They can't wait to bring it on......Neocon capital of the world.
Cheney envies Netanyahu.
And, by the way, "Holy warriors".....Let's all get over the middle ages. And, while i am at it. Let's also get over "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". People can suck without regard to race, creed, religion.............ad nauseum.
All sides simply take turns forgetting their own crimes of yesterday so as to play victim to themselves and for the rest of us today. What's the real daily prayer---"May today's needless bloodshed prove me right and sanctify my principles"? "Lord, help me to poison the whole world with war and hate before I treat my neighbor like an equal"? I'd say you can all go to hell but it's too late.
Judge Goldstone's wretched attempt to rehabilitate his reputation and recover the good graces of the Zionist community by walking back aspects of his report is deplorable at best.
But I don't think there's a direct cause-and-effect relationship between that and rogue-state Israel's continuing encroachment and genocide-by-attrition upon the Palestinian people.
The Goldstone flip-flop is just a gratuitous dab of grease upon the gears of a perpetual-motion juggernaut.
"Whoever tries to hurt and murder children, his blood will be on his own head," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Israel has launched dozens of raids on targets across the Palestinian territory. By early Saturday, it had killed 17 Gazans -- including a 10-year-old boy".
I suppose the next thing we'll hear is some drivel like 'They were trying to do it. We try to avoid it.'. Are the people who spout this nonsense really too stupid to realize the 'others' will be saying exactly the same?
You're not the good guy if you use violence. You're just someone else's bad guy.
It's fascinating how the killing of more than 35 demonstrators this weekend by security forces in Syria didn't raise much concern here. I didn't see people condemning the "massacre" or calling for the annihilation of Syria. Well, maybe readers here can't wait to do this, but they just don't have an opportunity? After all, common dreams didn't even bother to report on these events.
Now, I wonder also why the firing of an anti tank missile on a school bus is a legitimate act of resistance, in the eyes of those who proclaim themselves to be opponents of violence.
"Now, I wonder also why the firing of an anti tank missile on a school bus is a legitimate act of resistance,"
Who do you think said it was?
To get the news on all sorts of war/antiwar stuff, go to: antiwar.com
If this wasn't sad, it would have been hilarious. Actually, it's a bit of both. Anyway, I rest my case.
What case? Rest it where?
Some aspects of this story suggest that things are not as they are being portrayed.
The Jerusalem Post tells us that the 16 year old was on his way to visit his grandmother, and that the driver was a friend of the family. In other words, at the time of the attack the bus was not on a school route and not in the role of a school bus.
Haaretz.com reports that the Israeli government response has been to say the bus should have been identifiable as a school bus "because it was yellow ". I know there's a convention in the US (target audience?) on this, but elsewhere in the world many school buses are not yellow, and many yellow buses are not school buses. A Google image search on "yellow bus" shows a lot of school buses, but it also shows sightseeing buses, local government mobile offices, and others.
If it had been the intention to attack a school bus, wouldn't it have made more sense to wait near the beginning of the (predictable) route when the bus was full? Unless, of course, it was the intention to attack an empty school bus, as this one would have appeared. But the attackers would not have been able to predict a bus on this road at this time.
Something about the way this story is being reported by the Western media smells funny.
None of this, however, is specifically relevant to your post. You were suggesting that people on this site thought an "attack on a school bus" with the intention of harming children was an act of legitimate resistance. Strawman. No one has said this, and at least one poster has condemned it. As would I.
I'm not sure where the voices you are hearing come from, but they are not ours.
Well, we have to look at this in a balanced manner.
The Israeli government has nothing but disgust for the Palestinian peoples. A few years ago, one of the government rabbis stated "All of the Palestinians are not worth one Israeli fingernail."
The overwhelming might of the IDF, supported by an annual $3 billion annual tribute from the American taxpayer, has been used to make the lives of the Palestinians a living hell. Just the continual, but random, low level supersonic passes over Palestinian towns and villages, night and day, is destructive to both property and sleep or rest. People in the US get shook up if one of our fighters breaks the sound barrier at ten or twenty thousand feet. Imagine it at fifty or a hundred feet away.
The Holy Qur'an forbids war, but does permit self defense. It also forbids war against women, children and the aged. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine are all faced with an implacable enemy who occupies their land, kills women, children, the aged, and destroys their villages and means of support. Could one not perhaps consider the reaction of the peoples of these countries as self defense rather than terrorism? All they want is to get those foreign occupiers out of their country.
Young Jews fought long and bitterly against the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto. Eventually, the Germans unleashed irresistible force against them and they were destroyed, any survivors were sent to the extermination camps.
I think that, instead of learning the lesson that the oppressed will fight back, even against overwhelming odds, they seem to have learned their lessons from the Nazis, that with enough force you can destroy them, or keep them jammed into a ghetto to starve and die of disease.
Israel's main ally is the United States, the occupying aggressor mentioned above. Both Israel and the United States are clamping down harder and harder on dissent in their own countries. The United States can be counted on to veto any expression of censure from the United Nations, routinely exercising its veto on any Israeli sanction or censure.
Unless the people of the United States can find a way to regain their government from the oligarchy that has bought it, this situation will just continue to worsen. When I was a kid during WW-II, we thought that the world's sacrifice had eliminated fascism. The Nuremberg Tribunals and the Nuremberg Principles reinforced that.
I have sent copies of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Nuremberg Principles to Mr. Obama. Never acknowledged or commented upon. When they appointed Bush to the office, we lost all of that, and apparently the current administration wants to keep it that way.
So the wars widen, the gulags remain, and "We the People of the United States" are rapidly turning into "we the serfs," along with most of the other peoples of the world. However, the rich get richer and more powerful. That seems to be the main thing.
obviously there are no endangered civilians in Gaza otherwise there would be a no-fly zone.
that's because there are no civilians in gaza, only "terrorists" in various stages of development. i believe that's the official line.
Excellent point, drone.
"The latest fighting erupted on Thursday when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and injuring the driver."
While abhorrent and worthy of condemnation, the school bus attack does not justify the war crime of collective punishment against a civilian population.