BorealIsrael's Invasion of Gaza 2014This will be my last and possibly most controversial posting on Israel's Gaza misadventure. I have tried to be fair while presenting a different perspective on the conflict. July 10 - A moral right to exist in jeopardy.Palestinian death toll 74, officials say as Israel's rocket shield holds ... Eight Palestinian family members, including five children, were killed in an early morning air strike. Reuters, July 10 According to the BBC World Attitudes Survey, about 60% of Canadians have a negative view of Israel, which is very much in keeping with the international consensus. Globe and Mail reader's comment A legal right to exist is no protection for a country in Israel's position if it loses the support of enough fair-minded people of the moral right to exist. July 12 - Israeli Deaths 0 - Palestinians 120Israeli airstrikes hit mosque, Gaza death toll rises to 120 CBC News, July 12 July 13 - Israeli Deaths 0 - Palestinians 165Harper accuses Hamas of using human shields ... calls on all nations to support Israel. Canadian Press, July 13 July 15 - Israeli Deaths 0 - Palestinians 185The Israeli bombing of civilians is a reminder of an old crime committed early on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has evolved into a tactic. On April 8 [1948] soldiers of the Irgun and the Stern Gang seized Deir Yassin despite Haganah's advice that the place had little strategic value. After overcoming the resistance of a band of Arab soldiers, the Jewish terrorists entered the town and carried a savage massacre; a Red Cross representative who visited Deir Yassin on April 10 found and found 254 civilians, men, women and children dead … the damage was done, and the Jewish moral position irreparably stained by the crime. Robert Silverberg, If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem, Pyramid Books, 1972 July 16 - Israeli Deaths 1 - Palestinians 208Israel pounds Gaza with air strikes, hits homes of Hamas leaders ... Israel told tens of thousands of residents of the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighbourhoods of Gaza City, all near the border with Israel, to evacuate their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday … On Wednesday morning, hundreds of residents of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah were seen walking in the streets, carrying small bags with belongings. Older children carried smaller ones, in their arms or on their backs. Some of the women and children cried, looking terrified. Associated Press, July 16, 2014 July 17 - Israeli Deaths 1 - Palestinians 220Four Palestinian children ranging in age from 9 to 11 were killed by a shell fired from an Israeli warship. Israel again blames Hamas for causing their death, claiming they were human shields. That was no justification for killing them. The following dialogue where the character Worf is harshly reprimanded by his captain for putting children at risk will be familiar with fans of Star Trek Deep Space 9: Sisko: You fired at something you hadn't identified. You made a military decision to protect your ship and crew, but you're a Starfleet officer, Worf. We don't put civilians at risk or even potentially at risk to save ourselves. Sometimes that means we lose the battle and sometimes our lives. But if you can't make that choice, then you can't wear that uniform. Worf: Yes, sir. Sisko: At ease, Commander. Now, all that being true, the reality is no harm has been done. There are no dead children on your conscience. You got lucky. Golda Meir said that she hated the Palestinians, not because they were Palestinians, but because they forced her to kill their children. No one forced whoever gave the order to fire on children playing on a Gaza beach. If it's any consolation for the parents, their death from a well-aimed shell must have been instantaneous. July 18 - Israeli Deaths 2 - Palestinians 265Netanyahu may rue the day he chose to invade Gaza after Hamas appeared willing to compromise. The Hamas leadership wanted a change in the status quo for which it was ready to make significant concessions, agreeing, before the exchange of missiles and bombs "to the three conditions the international community had set for engagement with Hamas: recognition of Israel, abidance by previous diplomatic agreements, and renunciation of violence." BBC July 18. July 19 - Israeli Deaths 2 - Palestinians 332Restraint in dealing with a cornered, desperate population was what was called for, not a military campaign defined by a callous disregard for the loss of innocent lives. July 20 - Israeli Deaths 5 - Palestinians 400Fighting intensified and casualties mounted Sunday … The fiercest shelling struck the eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City, where 50 civilians were killed … local reports described the scene as a massacre. Los Angeles Time, July 20 July 21 - Israeli Deaths 25 - Palestinians 565It was said of Arafat that he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and those opportunities were to make peace. The same can now be said of Netanyahu. The so-called Hebron clan, whose actions the Hamas leadership could not foresee, let alone control, any more than Netanyahu could stop the burning alive of a Palestinian youth by a cabal of ultra-orthodox Jews in retaliation for the murder of three of their own. It the spirit of Arafat, who did not care for peace with Israel while pretending otherwise, Netanyahu used the unfortunate murder of the three young men to disrupt a peace process which, if successful, would have put an end to an expansionist Jewish state— its most visible manifestation being the illegal settlements. The Hamas leadership wanted a change in the status quo. What it got, was an invasion with a massive loss of life among Palestinians and, as reported by the BBC, an increase in the number of Palestinians who would rather die fighting their oppressor than continue living under the brutal conditions imposed by Israel. July 23 - Israeli Deaths 29 - Palestinians 600+Israeli strikes have killed at least 13 women and children in Gaza, bringing the death toll to over 600, medics said, as the Israeli army announced the deaths of two more soldiers in the two-week conflict. RTE News, July 22 Yesterday, in Ottawa, people marched in protest against Israel's "military actions in Gaza". They were joined by a group of Jews known as Jews United against Zionism who called for the peaceful dismantling of Israel as a political state. "For 66 years this illegitimate state has brought death and suffering to Arab and Jew alike," said Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of New York. "We must rally together and condemn this current attack against the Palestinian nation." Huff Post, July 23 The solution to preventing another holocaust may be a third Diaspora. It is, I admit a drastic solution, but a State which to survive must kill another nation's children, is inviting retaliation on a Biblical scale, not unlike what Joshua did to the Amorites. I stopped caring for Israel when it decided that, if children had to die to prolong its survival, so be it.
That does not mean I have stopped loving the Jews.
To paraphrase Churchill, "Never in the field of human In joining with Jews United against Zionism in calling for the peaceful dismantling of Israel as a political state—unless it can accommodate the aspirations of a people whose dire circumstances are largely a result of its creation—I do it to save a people I love. July 24 - Israeli Deaths 32 - Palestinians 736* (children 165+)Israel should be wary of the traumatized children who survive their brutality for, when they grow up, they will be both fearless and merciless. July 25 - Israeli Deaths 32 - Palestinians 800+ (children 180+)Crunch time for Gaza truce talks as death toll passes 800, Reuters, July 25 July 26 - Israeli Deaths 40 - Palestinians 985The full devastation of the assault on Gaza came into focus on Saturday morning as a 12-hour humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas allowed for the discovery of the bodies of at least 85 Palestinians bodies beneath the war-torn coastal enclave's rubble. The Telegraph, July 26. July 27 - Israeli Deaths 44 - Palestinians 1,000+According to the Book of Revelation, Israel will eventually secure all the promised land whose borders include Gaza and the West Bank— the reason for the support of Stephen Harper and like-minded Evangelicals. That will start the countdown which will bring an end to God's Creation. The Koran says that it will be a Muslim victory over the Jews which will start the clock ticking towards Judgement Day. If either of these rapidly self-fulfilling damning prophecies is correct, genocide in that unholiest of holy lands is not that far off. The Jews don't have the numbers, nor I believe the heart to commit genocide on that scale as demanded by their God before the Promised Land is theirs, and theirs alone. The Muslims, on the other hand, have the overwhelming numbers and the example of their warrior Prophet. Without peace in the Middle East, Israel is doomed. If the Jews of Medina had not joined their Arabs neighbours and welcomed Muhammad when his Meccan kin were bent on killing him, Islam would have been short-lived. They even signed on to the newly drafted Constitution of Medina (one of, if not the first of its kind) in which they accepted Muhammad as arbitrator. Maybe the Arabs could return the favour and see if they can save Israel from itself. July 29 - Israeli Deaths 55 - Palestinians 1,110It's a trifecta for the Canadian Jewish Congress. Yesterday, the NDP's Foreign Affairs' critic Paul Dewar declared that her Majesty's Loyal Opposition also supports what Israel is doing in Gaza i.e. defending itself. With Harper, Trudeau and now Mulcair expressing their support of Israel's assault on Gaza, who will speak for the 60 percent of Canadians who, in a poll conducted by the BBC World Attitudes Survey disagree, and that was before the devastating invasion of Gaza. July 30 - Israeli Deaths 59 - Palestinians 1,300+ (Children 200+)Israeli strikes hit Gaza school, market killing at least 32 Israeli shelling killed at least 15 Palestinians sheltering in a U.N.-run school and another 17 near a street market on Wednesday Associated Press, July 30 July 31 - Israeli Deaths 59 - Palestinians 1,410Religion, to paraphrase Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, can make good people do bad things. Aug 3 - Israeli Deaths 66 - Palestinians 1,650Olivia Ward in Why women put their faith in Hamas, in the July 2006 issue of Chatelaine, wrote about how Palestinian women were instrumental in voting Hamas into power in an effort to rid themselves of a corrupt PLO, which Israel was instrumental in making overlord of Gaza when it granted Arafat safe passage. It is sad to see that it is women and children who are now bearing the brunt of an occupying force's assault on their home, when all they wanted was a better future for their families. Aug 4 - Israeli Deaths 67 - Palestinians 1,775 (children 320)Ten dead in strike on school in new Gaza fighting, Reuters, Aug 3 Another school, more dead kids. This is not Israel killing its enemies, it is Israel committing suicide. Israeli Deaths 67 - Palestinians 2,192 (children 519)Israel needs to be perceived as occupying the moral high ground if it is to survive. Blowing civilians to bits, children in particular, is not helping. Since the beginning of Netanyahu's Gaza misadventure anti-Semitism has increased dramatically, even in Western Europe where demonstrators in Britain and France openly called for “Death to the Jews” and carried placards which read "Hitler you were right!” It is ordinary people's sense of decency that will decide the fate of the cripplingly outnumbered Jews. Israel cannot afford to lose their support; for its sake and for the sake of Jews everywhere. Bernard Payeur
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