Israeli minister: World may be wasting its money on Gaza

[Carlos Rodrigez]

The countries who pledged vast sums to rebuild the Gaza Strip in Cairo Sunday will have made worthless donations if the people of the Gaza Strip return to terror, Transportation Minister Israel Katz said Sunday.

Katz, who is one of the ministers closest to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, issued the warning at a gathering of some 2000 Likud activists outside his Sukka on his ranch on the Moshav Kfar Ahim in the northern Negev.

"The Gazans must decide what they want to be Singapore or Darfur [which rhymes in Hebrew]," Katz said. "They can pick between economic recovery and war and destruction. If they choose terror, the world should not waste its money. If one missile will be fired, everything will go down the drain."

He quoted one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud a-Zahar threaten Israel using terminology that the minister said sounded like it came from the Islamic State about turning Palestine into an Islamic Kingdom and destroying Israel. Katz said there was a much greater chance that Zahar will soon see in hell fellow Hamas founders Sheikh Ahmed Yassein and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who were assassinated by Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israeli-minister-World-may-be-wasting-its-money-on-Gaza-378683

[Carlos Rodrigez]

1. Boy,

there are so many causes where money could do real good, like fighting Ebola, African iliteracy, global warming.

It is simply unhumanitarean to reject these noble causes and throw away the money on Gaza.

There will be another Gaza war eventually, and all that money will go to waste, while Ebola will still be here.

[procon]

2. So, trapped by nearly a half century of Israeli occupation

and suffering under apartheid and blockades that have deprived the Palestinian peopled of even basic human rights, translates into they are less "human" than people in Africa? The deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians who died while Israel's military ruthlessly bombarded their homes, schools and hospitals are somehow less "noble" than global warming?

Both side are at fault, and it's quite possible there will be more violence until Israel resolves to address the impediments to peace it has created. Until then, thankfully the many nations who have donated, and exceeded, the goals of the Gaza reconstruction funds, are not as bullheaded or prejudiced.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

5. Procon calls me prejudiced

because I am opposed to global warming. He misunderstands the issue as choosing between helping the environment and helping the Palestinians. If the money is spent on Gaza, the Palestinians will not benefit. It is just teasing them. It is like buying a kid a lego set, so that he can build it up, when you are going to come and crash it down.

[bravenak]

7. So they shoud just live in rubble?

Or you are saying that Israel will just knock it down again like a spoiled toddler?

[Carlos Rodrigez]

10. Yes. I am saying

for now there is no way for them not to live in rubble. The next Gaza war will likely start before any reconstruction will be finished.

Bravenak also misunderstands the analogy. Israel is not analogized to the spoiled toddler, but to the disciplining parent.

[bravenak]

11. No, Israel is the one busting up the homes. They fully admit it.

So, they are the spoiled toddler living off of uncle sugar's greenbacks. They break stuff and the world, like long suffering parents, fixes it for them and cleans up their messes.

Eventually all of these wars will lead to a binational state.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

14. Bravenak has not read enough on the conflict.

Any expert will tell you that the least likely ultimate outcome is a binational state. It is so ridiculous that the opinion could only be held by the entirely uninformed, a tourist on the issues. The Palestinians multiply in number, so Israel would never agree to have one democratic state, in which they will eventually be the minority.

Moreover, the world does Israel no favor in giving Gaza money. Israel gets nothing out of it. It even tries to impede it on the theory that some of the aide goes to miliary uses, like building tunnels.

[bravenak]

15. You are talking to Bravenak.

This is weird. Like talking to a computer program.

[shaayecanaan]

35. Elmo wants to learn more about the conflict...

this is like someone doing a weird pantomime of a non-native English speaker.

[bravenak]

9. This is the stupidest argument to not rebuild a bombed out area I have ever read.

That's worse than me saying, Why waste money on Israel's security when the money could go to our American families, since they are just going to need help againg and again. We should just leave them to sink or swim on their own. Israel's is always going to need support from us, but our children will grow and support us later. Actually, this is a pretty good argument to not help Israel anymore.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

12. Bravenak should value the environment more than he does.

The environment will always require expenditure to keep it clean and to keep species from going extinct. This will be true 10,000 years into the future. Bravenak, however, says anything that requires you to spend money in perpetuity is not worth spending on. He does not realize this means letting thousands of species go extinct.

There is a big difference with Israeli security that Bravenak also misunderstands. The Israeli Arab conflict is not going to last another 10,000 years. It will not last as long as the Crusades did. It will last somewhere between 10 and 100 more years. So Israel is not a bottomless pit of security spending. America will not be giving Israel money forever.

[bravenak]

17. What are you? A narrator?

You are chatting with Bravenak. Using third person is throwed off.


I think we should stop wasting 3 billion a year on Israel, you are right. We should stop wasting that 3 billion and spend it on green technology right here at home!!

[intaglio]

3. Question, who blows up the infrastructure in Gaza?

a) Space Aliens?
b) Justin Bieber?
c) the IDF?

[King_David]

4. The IDF

Hamas of course is 100% to blame, After 1 week they rejected the Egypt ceasefire that would of been more gain than after 50 days and about 2000 less killed.

[intaglio]

23. Only if reacting against systematic oppression is blameworthy

But, of course in your fantasy world Israel does not continually "mow the lawn" does it?

[hack89]

33. So Hamas is waging war? Nt

[intaglio]

34. Reacting to systematic oppression is not necessarily waging war

Nice try but no cigar.

Hamas is a nasty terrorist organisation but that terror is a reaction to the decades of systematic oppression of Palestinians by Israel. That reaction is not an excuse for their actions any more that the illegal actions of the Israeli state are excused by the opposition of Arab states.

Israel carries out criminal acts and all I see from the nonsensical fan-boys/girls are excuses about anti-semitism or the Diaspora or genocide. If the actions of others excuse Israel then the actions of Israel excuse Hamas. This is not a proposal I support, viewing both Israel and Hamas as reprehensible.

[hack89]

36. But Hamas is also the elected government of Gaza, correct?

governments wage war, not terrorism. I don't think one excuses the other. Hamas has decided that violence is the correct path to what ever their goals might be. Might as well let them fight it out and see if they are correct.

[intaglio]

37. 2 points here; firstly the Israeli government is not government of Gaza

any more than it is the government of the Palestinian West Bank.

Second Hamas was actually elected as the government of Gaza back in 2006, elections that Israel refused to recognise.

[hack89]

38. Didn't I say Hamas is the government of Gaza?

so perhaps they should act like a government. Which means when they attack Israel, they are waging war. That's what they call it when one government attacks another.

[intaglio]

39. So as the people of Gaza do not have tanks and aircraft

Do not have modern artillery or communications how can they respond?

How can a government react when an oppressing power have destroyed hospitals, schools, public buildings, water, sewage and electrical services destroyed. Are denied access to the majority of their territorial waters and to the so called buffer zone (now about 50% of the available territory). And all of is regarded by both the Hague and the UN as crimes against humanity.

Now imagine that Israel was similarly oppressed, what would the response of the Israeli Government be? What you want is a cowed slave population of Palestinians, moved wherever and whenever suits the purposes of a colonial government of incomers.

What you want is for everbody to give a free pass to a criminal state.

[hack89]

40. They can respond by making rational choices

do you think waging war against Israel is a rational choice for Hamas?

You forget a simple fact - Palestinians used to commute to Israel for decent paying jobs on a routine basis. Then the suicide bombings started. And the walls went up. And the suicide bombings ended.

It is all about rational choices. Hamas needs to start making them.

[intaglio]

41. So they should kow-tow to a superior force

the same way the helots were forced into submission by the Spartans or should they act like the Sicarii at Masada?

Your dual standard is showing and the other word for that is bigotry.

[hack89]

42. If you pick a fight with a more powerful country

What do you think is going to happen?

[intaglio]

43. Well, you had better go back in time and tell all the following people how wrong they were

Because inferior forces fighting superior ones is pretty common.

The Spartans leading the Greeks at Thermopylae should not have delayed the Persians
The Athenian Fleet should not have fought at Salamis
Themistocles and the Athenians should have rolled over and let the Persians conquer the Peleponnese
Alexander should not have tried to conquer the entire Persian Empire
The Romans should have surrendered to Pyrrhus
The Sicarii should have surrendered Massada (You do know about Masada? One of the foundational tales of the Jewish peoples)
The Germanae should not have fought at Teutonburger Wald
Alfred the Great should have just let the Norse have the whole of England
Wallace should have surrendered to the English
Nevsky should have let the Teutonic Knights take over Novgorod and Kiev

Let me skip a few hundred years

The Americans should not have fought the War of Independence
Toussaint should not have fought the French
The Zulus and the Irish and the Boer and the Maori should not have fought the British
All of the numerous campaigns fought by Bolivar and Zapata were pointless
Finland should not have fought the USSR
Lehi should not have fought the British Mandate
Egypt should have rolled over to the British, French and Israelis in the Suez campagn

[hack89]

44. Then Hamas is doing the correct thing and we should let the violence play out

They are clearly doing the right thing and are on the right track.

[intaglio]

45. Another person utterly ignorant of history

By your argument France should not have funded the US rebels or given troops and ships to the US army (there were more French troops than US at Yorktown) - oh, and the US should not have accepted aid from an old style monarchy.

The British should not have aided Bolivar and the other South American rebels whilst allowing Admiral Cochrane to help.

The British should not have supplied aid to the Greek rebels and Garibaldi

The British should not have been censured for their actions against the Boer; the German government and American citizens should not have funded the IRA.

Finland should not have accepted aid from Nazi Germany.

America should not have intervened in the Suez crisis.

[hack89]

46. No one will give Hamas that kind of help

When the Palestinians choose someone other than a terrorist group as their leaders is when they will get more sympathy and aid.

Nowhere in your list are groups sworn to establish despotic theocracies. No where on your list are groups that waged suicide terror attacks against civilians.

[intaglio]

47. So you have gone from "The Palestinians in Gaza should not fight"

To "No-one should aid such minority groups" to "no-one will aid the Palestinians in Gaza" until some condition you set is met. This is called wishful thinking.

The truth that you cannot accept is that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are oppressed by a criminal Government of Israel. These oppression frequently come under the heading of crimes against humanity and that, although the actions of the terrorists are reprehensible, there is a reason for those actions and that is that Israel only listens to force majeur.

[hack89]

48. They can choose to fight

They just need to stop whining when they get their asses kicked.

[DanTex]

49. So, if a woman is getting raped, and she fights back, and then the rapist stabs her,

she should just accept it rather than complain about getting her ass kicked. If she didn't want to get stabbed, she shouldn't have fought back!

[hack89]

50. Only you would confuse a violent terrorist group with a rape victim

well done - one of your better efforts.

Hamas want to wage war - is there any doubt in your mind? Do you really think for a second if Israel lifted the blockade that Hamas would embrace peace? Really?

[DanTex]

51. The Palestinian people are the rape victims in this analogy.

There are other, umm, interesting implications of your moral theory that people defeated by superior force have no legitimate grievances.

For example, if a slave doesn't want to get flogged, he shouldn't have disobeyed his owner!

[hack89]

52. Both sides are responsible for the violence

the Palestinians, like the Israelis, are not innocent. Gaza was not always like this - Palestinians routinely went to work in Israel at decent paying jobs. Then the suicide bombings started. And the walls went up. And the suicide bombings ended but so did the jobs. You want to hand wave away such facts but consider where Gaza could be if Hamas chose peace instead of suicide bombers.

[DanTex]

53. Both sides are responsible, there I agree.

Gaza was occupied before the blockade. It was never a good situation.

[hack89]

54. To be frank, I have a hard time imagining some magical happy ending

I think that Israel needs to withdraw unconditionally from the West Bank. I think a proposal to incrementally lift the Gaza blockade would be useful in restoring some measure of trust. It is just hard to see any good happening in Gaza if Hamas is involved. Regardless of whether their cause is just or not, they have yet to convince me that they understand anything other than violence. My fear is that Hamas will use lifting the blockade to acquire the powerful long range weapons they have been attempting to acquire for so long. If that happens, the only result will be a war that made the last one look like a walk in the park.

[DanTex]

55. Me too.

Everyone's behaving badly.

A good starting point would be no more rocket attacks and no more settlements. But I don't think we'll even see that.

[hack89]

56. Unfortunately I agree with you. nt

[Krishna Vijaya]

57. You cannot compare

settlements to Hamas rockets.

Settlements may or may not be legal. There are two opinions on that. But all agree settlements are not war crimes.

Hamas rockets, everyone agrees are war crimes.

[intaglio]

58. Excuse me but where did I mention settlements?

I did describe the forced ejection of Palestinians from the buffer strip in Gaza, a buffer strip which is now approximately 50% of the area of Gaza; this is not land for Israeli settlements this is just dead ground that cannot be used by Palestinians even for the production of food.

This forced migration is in addition to the criminal actions of the Israeli Government where they have destroyed hospitals, schools, water purification, sewage systems, electrical generation and distribution structures, public buildings and have targeted ambulances and first responders.

And all of this is described as "Mowing the lawn,"

[Krishna Vijaya]

59. Israel left,

and Palestinians are free to move back into the buffer zone.

[intaglio]

60. Where did you hear that?

The Buffer Zone was a unilateral declaration of Israel and they reserve the right to shoot any person who enters it either by direct fire, artillery or air attack, they also reserve the right to enter that buffer zone at any time to suppress anything they believe to be terrorist related. No buildings are allowed, no excavation.

So you have removed your claim about settlement, will you now acknowledge that the actions of Israel in Gaza are crimes against humanity? I doubt it for you seem to be one of the persons who has swallowed the poison of Israeli propaganda. Israel is not a beleaguered little state, it is not a beacon of liberty if you are Arab, Bedouin or Palestinian, it does not adhere to international law and it does not adhere to treaties. Israel is an outlaw state that, by its oppression of the Palestinians since the Nakba, has made a rod for its own back.

[Krishna Vijaya]

61. It is good you brought this to my attention. Now I understand why you call this a crime.

You do so because you have been misled by Palestinian propoganda. The buffer zone is 100 meters, not 50% of Gaza.

"An Israeli buffer zone along the Gaza border will be reduced from 500 meters (550 yards) to 300 meters (325 yards), and eventually down to 100 meters."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/look-gaza-war-and-cease-fire-halting-it

[Carlos Rodrigez]

6. D) Hamas blows up infrastructure in Gaza.

Intaglio has been fooled by Hamas propoganda. Hamas itself was bombing Gaza intentionally. http://www.democraticunderground.com/113479583

[bravenak]

8. Yeah.

And Israel likes to use human sheilds. And then pretend they never did. And then say Hamas was doing it. So, now, you are trying to say it was Hamas that was really bombing Gaza? Israel admits to bombing Gaza.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

13. I have not heard anyone

claim that Israel in the past year has used a human shield, including in the last Gaza war. Israel's courts have banned the practice.

Hamas did some of the Gaza bombing indeed. 800 bombs, some intentional, as the NY Times article explains.

[bravenak]

16. Uh, huh.

I didn't say it was on th pasr year. Maybe Hamas learrned from the IDF?

[azurnoir]

18. 8/21/14: Palestinian teen: I was used as a human shield in Gaza

At around 4 p.m., according to the affidavit, the men were taken away for questioning and the women, children and older residents were released. Abu Raida was blindfolded, made to strip to his underwear, and taken to a house.


“When the blindfold was removed, I found myself inside the house surrounded by more than 20 soldiers,” Abu Raida told DCI-Palestine. Someone “in military uniform” then approached him and shouted in broken Arabic: “I need to settle the score with Hamas. Are you Hamas?”

After the questioning, Abu Raida was taken to a nearby house, with soldiers forcing him to walk in front of them, the affidavit said. After they gave him “water, two cookies and some nuts,” the soldiers made Abu Raida sit in a chair and tied his hands behind his back.

http://972mag.com/palestinian-teen-i-was-used-as-a-human-shield-in-gaza/95800/

[bravenak]

19. Well there it is.

I guess they are still using human shields. Thank you.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

20. Is that the best you got?

One kid telling a crazy story, with no outside corroboration.
Years ago, when Israel had a limited program of using human shields, there was plenty of corroboration. Why would there not be now?
The kid’s story is so ridiculous anyway. So with no provocation whatsoever and solely based upon being Palestinian, a solder told him “You’re not human, you’re a dog” and beats him up and threatens to shove a stick in his ass?
Why would they do it to only this one kid? Why aren’t we hearing widespread claims of this?
You would think, if the kid’s claim had any credibility, his story would appear in mainstream news, not only in 972 magazine.
The kid is used to reading comic book with anti-heroic figures, so he thinks his story makes sense.

[bravenak]

21. They seem to have a verifiable history of using palestinian children in this manner.

It takes time to verify.

[azurnoir]

24. Here's more corroboration of the story

Ramallah, August 21, 2014—Israeli soldiers repeatedly used Ahmad Abu Raida, 17, as a human shield for five days while he was held hostage during Israel’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Ahmad, from Khuza'a, near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, was just 16 years old when he was taken from his family on July 23. He was forced at gunpoint to search for tunnels for five days, during which time he was interrogated, verbally and physically abused, and deprived of food and sleep. Ahmad told DCI-Palestine in a sworn testimony that Israeli soldiers attempted both to extract information from him regarding Hamas members, and recruit him as an informant, before releasing him on July 27.

"The Israeli military has consistently accused Hamas of using civilians - particularly children - as human shields, but this incident represents a clear case of their soldiers forcing a child to directly assist in military operations," said Rifat Kassis, executive director of DCI-Palestine. "Israeli officials make generalized accusations while Israeli soldiers engage in conduct that amounts to war crimes."

Ahmad’s ordeal began on July 21, when Israeli tanks entered Khuza'a, a town where Israeli forces allegedly committed war crimes during the the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. After two days of hiding at home, Ahmad’s family and neighbors attempted to flee intense artillery fire. As they tried to leave, however, Israeli soldiers assembled civilians, separating young men from others.

Ahmad was singled out, detained with his hands tied behind his back, and kicked and insulted by a soldier. His family was released, but lost sight of him as they fled the area.

http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/israeli-forces-use-palestinian-child-human-shield-gaza

http://www.dci-palestine.org/

[azurnoir]

32. I'm glad you think so :)

[intaglio]

22. I hope this is sacasm

Because homemade rockets falling short into wasteland don't destroy infrastructure in and around Gaza City. Additionally Hamas do not have aircraft and artillery that systematically destroy hospitals, schools, public buildings, generating facilities, communications facilities, port buildings, sewage treatment and water treatment facilities.

All of the above is carried out by Israel under the sobriquet of "mowing the lawn"

[bravenak]

28. Did you just say, "Every now and then, A LAWN NEED MOWING?"

Those people are not fucking grass, sir!! They are human!!! You need to go sonewhere and learn how not to confuse flora with humans. Those children were NOT FUCKING GRASS TO BE MOWED!!

[bravenak]

31. The children died.

And if you mow my lawn and cut my flowers and kill them, i blame you for doing a shitty job as a lawn maintenance specialist. And you would never get another dime. You do bad fucking analogies, dude.