And they say you can’t put a dollar value on human life.

Thank you Ian. egregious, that’s still correct in my book. Any amount is simply too much.

This is all the Gaza offensive was intended or expected to accomplish anyway:

And I’m not convinced that’s necessarily a completely bad thing.

500 dead now as compared to 5000 dead under Netanyahu?

Do I state the cold, hard, pathetic reality or am I just a heartless fuck?

You decide…

ya know, i had not factored in the israel elections. guess it is an added benefit. if it works, that is.

it ain’t over.

some more background from jonathan cook:

Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party.

The attack on Gaza may make or break this pair’s political fortunes as they jostle for position against Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud, before a general election little more than a month away.

Until now Livni and Barak have been facing the imminent demise of their ruling coalition as Netanyahu and the far Right have surged in the polls and looked set to form the next government.

Both have strenuously denied that the election has any bearing on the timing of the Gaza operation. But equally they hope a successful strike against Hamas may yet save them from electoral humiliation.

In the run-up to the election, observed Michael Warschawski, a founder of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, “all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more.”

Netanyahu, pushed out of the spotlight, has had to turn his fire away from the two other parties and instead lambast easy political targets: in recent speeches he has questioned the loyalty of Israel’s 1.2 million Arab citizens and demanded the resignation of the only Arab government minister.

Barak, an unpopular former prime minister but Israel’s most decorated combat soldier, has the most political capital to gain from the current military campaign. With his once-dominant Labor Party languishing in the polls, he will take the credit or blame among voters for the outcome in Gaza.

Livni is in a more precarious position. Her glory, if the operation proves a triumph, will be of the reflected variety. But as Netanyahu’s fortunes have grown, her political fate has become increasingly dependent on a continuing center-left alliance with Barak. The two, it seems, stand or fall in these elections together.

I have been on and off the comments over the holidays but have been able to catch up on all the Gaza related posts.

Thanks for this post Ian.

I do want to call everyone’s attention to Leen’s Oxdown. Kucinich is displaying some excellent diplomacy.

We should all write similar letters.

i am fairly cynical but it is hard for me to believe that politics is the prime mover in the gaza effort. there are other more plausable necessities.

I’m actually not sure about this. There have been a variety of actions around the world — committed by BushCo. folks as well as others — to try to lock Obama into Bush Administration policies. At $3 billion a year for military aid to Israel, there are few with a more compelling reason to see that continue.

Also, Hamas was at 16% support within Gaza — that number has now soared.

This was a win/win/win.

I heard Netanyahu on NPR. Scary guy.

sure, it is great to make that request. but, the un is toothless.

Netanyahu is a fascist plain and simple. Livni, Olmert, and Barak are war criminals who have unleashed this killing spree for campaign purposes. Seriously, are these the people we want for our allies? Who will be our next BFF at this rate? Mugabe?

And the UN is toothless because the US vetoes everything, sometimes without even a reasonable explanation, in spite of support from every other country.

Despite the “toothless UN,” the wording of the request is exactly the wording to pay attention to. When Israel has political gaming going on, as noted by Jane as coming down to a win-win-win, Dennis’ letter HAS the language to neutralize, which can defuse the gaming and bring about a possible diplomatic strategy instead.

Bibi is Cheney on Viagra. I still don’t understand the Israeli public, I thought they were smarter than our mentally challenged voter. Most Israelis want a two state solution, yet seem to condone bombing the shit out of Palestinians. Cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.

The US is more than complicit in these war crimes.

The language of his letter would neutralize if a global effort backed it. We are in an environment where that backing could build and the netroots could play an important role.

win/win/win for all except for the dead, injured and their families.

But they are only Palestinians and voters, so they’re lower than whale shit, correct?

it’s the kind of windmill tilting that dennis does. worth the try but not likely to succeed. has to get on the world calendar to get fixed, i agree.

For the long term, it is much better for a solution if Kadma wins. Every time I hear from Likud, I think of BushCo.

And I still think you’re underestimating Israel’s goal. They truly intend to crush Hamas, whatever the cost. Those troops aren’t on the fence line for decoration.

We’ll see a ground war soon, maybe tomorrow. The first move will be to seal the egyptian border, then tanks will move in from the northwest. If you think it’s bloody now, just wait.

This won’t end as long as either side thinks it can win by force of arms.

Boxturtle (Strictly neutral, thinks both sides are terrorist idiots)

there are no winners.

The UN has already voted against Israel: the US vetoed two votes so far. The UN is not the problem except for the US veto.

This is not a win for anyone. In the long run, we, the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Middle East all lose because any kind of meaningful peace is now even further away than before. For more than 400 Palestinians and their families, they have already lost all that they had to lose.

War crimes…bombing civilian population two wrongs don’t make a right.
Hamas rockets on civilians Wrong
Isreals Bomds on larger populations is the same crime on a much larger scale

The difference is Isreal has usurped lands, starved 1.2 million people and done a much larger scale of violence while dancing in glee.

if the goals of the nations of the world are to live in peace…the attacks must stop and Isreal has to allow supplies in ans stop the siege of Gaza.
What Isreal has accomplished is:

Raised the issue to an international audience…enraged the Muslim world…stengthened their enemies positons politically.

The in humanity and stupidity of this is overwhelming. Dennis is about gathering the nations to stop the insanity.

They truly intend to crush Hamas

This worked out so well against Hezbollah and Fatah before them.

sorry, which two votes?

i expect that, just like our wars, the motivations are complicated and multi-factorial. but not all factors have the same weight, and i’d give israeli elections the nod, with usa elections and long term israeli elite consensus foreign policy supporting motivations.

could be wrong though. don’t know enough of the history.

Again, the netroots could move this and show pressure on our own UN position. Dennis’ language has a “reality check” element which neither names one side better in the conflict but notes the humanitarian concerns. His letter acknowledges the two problems from a humanitarian standpoint, which ends up a counter strategy on it’s own in terms of traditional US-Israeli policy.

I don’t see this ending until Gaza is flattened. There is simply no force strong enough to stop it. Not the UN. Not public opinion. Not the media. Israel has total control of the message and the US Administration is backing that message up.

Obama may step in on the 20th. But it’s probably too late. And if Israel thinks Obama will do anything Isreal WILL move to cut off that intervention. Hence the pending ground war.

It’s armageddon for Gaza. One way or another.

yes it did. they only have a six month peace horizon at a time in mind.

my thoughts exactly.

That there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not news to anyone! It doesn’t matter to the powers that be.

The UN Secretary has spoken publicly against Israel and it just doesn’t make any difference.

if the israeli gov did not want palestinian extremist leaders, imo they would not have kicked out mubarak awad.

Digg is open

I disagree. There are numbers in our favor which should be constantly noted. Remember 40.3% of the world’s Jewish population lives in the US. That 40.2% is only 2.2% of the total US population.

That 40.2% is only 2.2% of the total US population.

It’s amazing that so few people can control the world media and the US Government. Don’t say anything bad about them or they will burn down your house.

/sarcasm

klynn: I agree with you about the numbers but even those numbers are not making any impact on this. It’s like 75% of the population being against Bush and it made no difference. It just doesn’t have any effect on what is happening.

Israel’s actions against Hezbollah were seen as failures at the time. As for Fatah, Israel vowed to destroy them for decades.

They crushed the PLO, splitting it into Fatah, Hamas and few small fry. Arafat convienently died. Israel backed Fatah against Hamas, made Fatah dependant on Israel and made sure they couldn’t get along with Hamas.

It worked in part, but Hamas won the next election. Israel has been working them ever since. How many targeted killings of key people? I lost count. What are left are barely adequate at anything besides war.

Now they plan to finish off what’s left of the effective leadership, jail the rest and ask Fatah to restore order in Gaza.

It has a very good chance of succeeding, IF they can get the worst of it done by 1/20.

Boxturtle (Hamas played Israel or Israel played Hamas? Irrevelent, both wanted this)

Very important point. The destruction of any Palestinian leader with a chance to move things forward is a very telling aspect of the Israeli strategy – and one the costs so many lives.

The last time I posted those figures, I was threatened in the comments by a poster who had never posted before…

Hugh hits the nail @ 38…It seems to be a rotating uprooting of any power in Gaza…

matter of opinion. israel got what it wanted at the time. it’s all talk. i look at what happens.

how did the israeli gov get what it wanted by the 2006 attack on lebanon?

it seems to be? you’ll not get an arguement from me.

reduction of opposing forces and infrastructure, panic, confusion.

The last time I posted those figures, I was threatened in the comments by a poster who had never posted before…

On previous threads, various people made the point that they were criticizing Israeli government policy, and not Jews in general. And now you post the population figure of Jews in the United States, apparently blaming them for what’s going on in Gaza. If you meant something else, please tell me.

We need to separate out the effects of lobbies. AIPAC exerts an influence out of all proportion to its numbers even though it represents the views of only a small percentage of Jewish Americans.

We have seen this kind of distortion by lobby before. We have had both Cuban and China lobbies that skewed our relations in the past with China and ongoing with Cuba.

I wrote earlier today that policy often becomes institutionalized so that politicians rather than saying this is stupid and no longer corresponds to reality will seek to make points off their steadfast adherence to what often the rest of the country acknowledges makes no sense.

actually, he was making the the opposite arguement.

We have seen this kind of distortion by lobby before. We have had both Cuban and China lobbies that skewed our relations in the past with China and ongoing with Cuba.

Yes. It’s also important to remember that it’s a lobby and not a conspiracy. (Not pointing a finger at you).

The lies of Tzipi Livni

“As the Jerusalem Post reported, the blitz was long-planned. It took place at a time when the illegal blockade of Gaza by Israel had succeeded in imposing near-starvation and caused a critical scarcity of medical supplies. It was all thought out beforehand. A Gaza Health Ministry spokesman, Hamam Nasman, said that “Since August we have not received basic medications. The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], which usually delivers 60 types of medication, has been unable to deliver a shipment for one month. 105 drugs and 230 basic supplies . . . are out of stock.” Then the Israelis struck, just when casualties could not be treated.

This is deliberate targeting of civilians. It is malicious cynical rubbish to try to claim that civilian deaths could be avoided or civilian injuries treated with any approach to effectiveness in such circumstances. The Israelis are criminals. They tried to starve 1.5 million people and intensified the effects of their evil (and illegal) food blockade by denying hospitals the equipment, drugs and bandages they needed.

Tzipi Livni says “Hamas is targeting deliberately kindergartens and schools and citizens and civilians because this is according to their values. Our values are completely different. We are trying to target Hamas, which hides among civilians.” So the attack on a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City that killed five children under 17 from the same family demonstrated different values? The mother of the five Palestinian girls murdered by Israel “sat on a sofa surrounded by other women at a neighbour’s house further along the street and struggled to speak, pausing for long moments and still overcome with shock. “I hope the Palestinian military wings retaliate and take revenge with operations inside Israel. I ask God to take revenge on them,” she said.”

Brian Coughley, writing at

http://counterpunch.org/cloughley12312008.html

Jesus B. Ochoa
El Paso, Texas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…..tes_Senate
451 hrs & 48 min

i don’t think so. thanks anyway.

And you can bet Obama is being fed all kinds of lying shit about US Israeli relations and the effect of these lobbies on HIS future right about now.

i feel no sense of relief by looking at those figures.

Isarael tried to destroy the PLO whose main faction was Fatah both of which were controlled by Arafat. Evetually as part of Oslo Arafat was allowed back to the West Bank. But he wouldn’t do what the Israelis wanted and this resulted in Israeli attacks on his security forces and aid to religious groups which later coalesced into Hamas to undermine him. Arafat was made a prisoner in his West Bank compound for years until he died. After his death, Israel tried to co-opt his successors. But in one sense the Israeli efforts to weaken Arafat had succeeded. A new more extreme non-Fatah resistance grew up out of the ruins. The Israelis continue to play this game of pretend as if Mahmoud Abbas really represents Palestinians and speaks for them, this after destroying much of Fatah’s power and legitimacy.

I didn’t either
451 hrs & 44 min

And the problem with lobbies is they’re one-sided. It’s a crappy way to run a country, a foreign policy, or anything.

Thank you for clarifying to 47.

Arafat also took a great deal of international aid and bought mansions for himself and his cronies instead of building any real kind of infrastructure for the people. He was a partner in his own de-legitimation.

Arafat also took a great deal of international aid and bought mansions for himself and his cronies instead of building any real kind of infrastructure for the people. He was a partner in his own de-legitimation.

And this was used as an excuse by the Israelis. There are a couple of points to be made about this. The Israelis having destroyed or undermined most Palestinian institutions basically made good governance virtually impossible. So what was left was a man and he made kept what power he had by making sure that all money was funneled through him. The other point I would like to make is that Fatah is as corrupt as ever. This was one of the reasons that Hamas gained popularity in Gaza. Curiously, the Israelis seem much less bothered about Fatah’s current corruption than that of Arafat.

Goot point!
451 hrs & 20 min

No. Both didn’t want this. The false equivalency is tiring. Hamas offered a truce with only two conditions – stop the blockade, extend it to the West Bank. Israel also broke the last truce, as multiple observers have noted. This war is primarily on Israel.

Guess I should’ve added the “snark” tag.

You’re not cynical enough.

Most Israelis want a two state solution, yet seem to condone bombing the shit out of Palestinians. Cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.

Maybe we should provide the Gazans with rockets which are more accurate, so the Israelis can feel some effects from their attacks. But, I’d want to know whether the Israeli leadership is enjoying bloodlust or simply campaigning, so they can aim for a lasting peace without Netanyahu mucking things up more than they already are.

Of course, it isn’t easy to subdue an organized minority: see California Assembly or the U.S. Senate. And, it’s scary to think that letting them have what they want might work to bring them to consciousness to realize the error of their ways or it might just embolden them.

Letting Bush run wild certainly hasn’t been good and we avoided Sarah of the North in part because of that. If only we’d also avoided the Gingrich House and the Bush White House.

So, what’s the best for the Israeli-Palestinian relationship?

Somehow the majorities on both sides must gain control and begin to create a peaceful relationship. And, the militants must be directed to a free fire zone where they can blast each other or maybe a DMZ should just be set up and maintained by the U.N. to keep everybody apart.