Israel does not listen to the opinions of others because it can afford it. It does not have to. It can get away with ignoring the views other than its own.
Neither side – Israel, Arabs/Palastinians/Hamas/Hezbollah – really wants to reach a solution. Each side has reached an accommodation with the current status and is not willing to and does not see a need to move from its current position. There is no right on either side.
One of the great lies of this (and other conflicts) is the statement about the equality of wrong of both sides. This statement was made about the Yugoslavian conflicts of the early 1990s when it was frequently stated that each side was as bad as the other; Bosnian, Croatian, Slovenian and Serbian. It was an excuse not to intervene because there was no right side. The equality was not correct. There was a larger and more wrong and smaller and less wrong belligerents.
In this case, the actions of Israel are disproportionate. The actions have everything to do with the upcoming general election in Feb 2009. Kadima and Labour want to be in a position of strength and want Likud and Binyamin Netanyhuto be reduced to an irrelevance.
Having said this, the actions of Israel have to be considered truly despicable.
Israel says that it generously gave Gaza to the Palestinians. In August, 2005, they left and removed their 8,00 settlers. Yet Gaza was an occupied territory and the settlers were illegally planted there. They seek to make a virtue of their final compliance with law. Their removal does not represent a concession, just the normal administration of law.
They drop leaflets advising Gazans that they will be bombing. Yet these civilians have nowhere to go. The civilians are trapped and are not being given a chance to flee and are therefore implicitly being subject to collective justice.
Israel has been attacking on peace activists - Rachel Corrie, Thomas Hurndall, Brian Avery - and the UN - including Irish troops seconded to UNIFIL - for decades and using the excuses that these were accidents. The excuses have been worn to nothing through overuse. They are the actions of an arrogant invading and occupying power that feels and knows it can get away with anything because it can and it has done so consistently for decades.
Article 50 of the Hague Regulations states:
No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible.This is exactly the action Israel is taking Gaza and has taken elsewhere previously.
Under the terms of the Hague Regulations, Israel is the effective occupying power of Gaza. Despite its withdrawal three years ago, Israel continues to exercise control of Gaza: borders and access into and out of Gaza, including sea and air. Israel has always reserved and exercised its self allocated right to intervene militarily in Gaza. Israel control Gaza’s infrastructure such as water, electricity, fuel, imports/exports, radio, TV and so on.
The actions of Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza are reminiscent of the partisan orders issued by the Germans in the second world war and the reprisal massacres committed under these orders in countries such as Czechoslovakia (Lidice), Yugoslavia (Kragujevac, Topola), Italy (Ardeatine) massacre.
For example, on September 16 1941 General Keitel, issued the so-called Partisan Order:
Since the beginning of the campaign against Russia Communist insurrections have broken out in all the areas occupied by Germany. It can be seen that this is a mass movement centrally directed by Moscow. In view of the considerable political and economic tensions in the occupied areas, it must moreover be anticipated that nationalists and other circles will take full opportunity to cause difficulties for the German occupation forces by joining the Communist uprising. In this way, an increasing danger to the German conduct of the war is developing.
The measures taken so far to meet the general Communist insurrection movement have proved inadequate. The Fuhrer has now given orders that we must take action everywhere with the most drastic means in order to crush the movement.
Every case of rebellion against the German occupation forces,
regardless of circumstances, must be concluded to be of Communistic origin. In order to suppress these machinations from the beginning, the strongest means have to be employed. As atonement for the life of one German soldier, the death penalty for fifty to one hundred Communists is generally considered as proper. (NCA, 389 PS, Directive on Communist Insurgents in the Occupied Areas.)
This, and similar orders, were repeated in territories occupied by the Germans and acted upon thereafter as a justification for civilian massacres which were judged to be war crimes.
So when you strip away the proper nouns and the unnecessary adjectives, what is the really difference between this and the disparity between 13 Israel deaths and 900 Gazan deaths caused by Israel?What really is the difference between:
and
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