Intense fighting reported as Israeli troops cross into Gaza

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Yahoo / McClatchey

JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks and soldiers punched into the Hamas -led Gaza Strip on Saturday night as the nation's eight-day-old military campaign to destabilize the hard-line Islamist rulers moved into a more volatile phase.

Backed by Apache helicopters, Navy warships and artillery batteries, the Israeli ground forces moved into northern Gaza in an attempt to seize control of open fields and orchards along the border that have been regularly used by Palestinian militants to fire crude rockets into southern Israel .

Residents in northern Gaza hiding in their homes said Israeli soldiers were quickly confronted by Palestinian militants that had been lying in wait. Palestinians in the area reported intense firefights taking place but there was no immediate word on fighters killed on either side.

The ground offensive sets the stage for a deadly showdown that could significantly shake-up Middle East political dynamics by either cowing hard-line Hamas ideologues into moderating their views or propelling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a deadly new spiral of unpredictable violence.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090103/wl_mcclatchy/3136548_1

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. How long until this spirals completely out of control? nt

[Pharaoh]

2. It already is.......

And numbnuts is still in charge :eyes:

[natrat]

3. how a bout when the nuke plant gets hit

[stillcool]

6. as if...

[depakid]

4. Gotta shock & awe before the Obama administration takes office....

[stop the bleeding]

5. this is bad

Very Bad

[rainbow4321]

7. Oh, great....so once again we get to hear chimpass say

"on my orders...." in announcing our military has started bombing/invading--just like he did on the day we invaded Afghanistan, and again when we invaded Iraq. Except this time, it will be Iran.


Goddammn it. Get this asshole OUT of office. Now.

[Sultana]

8. "Backed by Apache helicopters, Navy warships and artillery batteries"

:wtf: Israel?

[soulcore]

9. We send them nice things don't we? n/t

[Sultana]

10. Nice deadly things

:banghead:

[Joanne98]

11. This is getting out of control. What if Hezbolla starts firing rockets into

Israel from Lebanon and then that Iranian ship shows up tomorrow and Israel sinks it..You can just see this coming. The whole world will freak out!

[Karenina]

12. SNAP OUT OF IT!!!

:spank: What if, what if, what IF... FULL STOP. Look, Jojokins, we know we are surrounded by LUNATICS. You have documented so much truth on this board and KNOW this: They will certainly continue their insanity on the morrow. Our speculations will never eclipse their Mad Max potential. (When that movie came out I forbade my kids, after watching the trailers together, to view it at that time asking them if THAT was a visual they wanted implanted in their brains. We'd had many prior discussions on my theories of "visual pollution.")

Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof, or something like that.

Israel is going in on the ground. :cry:

Is there a STOP button? I'm clicking and it's NOT STOPPING...

[Poll_Blind]

19. It's good to see you're still here and posting, Karenina!

  I know this is a very difficult time for you right now...you are in my thoughts:

:hug:

PB

[Karenina]

20. I am indeed quite beside myself...

and so appreciate your kindness and offer of your shoulder. :cry::cry::cry:

[Trillo]

13. "open fields and orchards ... regularly used by Palestinian militants"

Um, I thought the story was the militants were hiding in civilians' villages.

[Alamuti Lotus]

14. That was the story a few days ago

...when they wanted to bomb the villages. Now they want to occupy the fields (typically used by farmers, last I checked..), so the militants followed them (in advance, of course) in there. Please try to keep up with the official line, and stop asking bothersome questions--they tend to make 'official lines' look bad.

[daleo]

15. Sounds very grim. n/t

[Mari333]

16. .....pics from gaza...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=236997&mesg_id=236997

[HughMoran]

17. Sucks when you know who's going to win from the git

I don't blame Israel for being pissed at these "rednecks" firing missiles at them, but this uneven match and overreaction by Israel makes me lose sympathy. This has to stop and clearly Israel doesn't seem to do anything non-violent to resolve the conflict permanently. They are the superpower in the region - why can't they resolve this without the violence?

[bstender]

18. religion

clearly Israel doesn't seem to do anything non-violent to resolve the conflict permanently. They are the superpower in the region - why can't they resolve this without the violence?

making peace would require an acceptance of the indigenous people, and accommodations. (perhaps even reparations)

and the problem is, according to certain fundamentalist doctrine, this Holy Land has not yet been fully reclaimed for God's chosen people.

See the "Clean Break" document for fuller expose of the problem. Conflict facilitates the expansion.

Like the USA, fundamentalist beliefs in the halls of power have created great difficulty.

[davsand]

21. Ya know, if we didn't need oil from the Middle East none of this would matter except...

...for the loss of human lives.

If we took every cent that we spend on Israel and every other county in the Middle East and if we invested it in weaning off their oil this would be a matter of human rights rather than an international panic. Personally, I'd much rather be worrying about providing humanitarian aid than bombs and tanks.

Just sayin.



Laura

[underpants]

22. Israeli Troops Launch Attack on Gaza (ground troops- NYT 6 minutes ago)

Source: NY Times

JERUSALEM — Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground war against the militant group Hamas after a week of intense airstrikes.

The ground attack brings new risks and the prospect of significantly higher casualties on both sides in a confrontation that, even before this phase began, had already cost the lives of more than 430 Palestinians and 4 Israelis.

Sharp explosions rang out across Gaza, and tank fire and airstrikes lit the darkened sky well into Sunday as Israel continued to pound the coastal territory by land, air and sea. The Hamas military wing said it was firing mortars at approaching Israeli troops.

In a statement, the Israeli military said a key objective was “taking control” of the rocket launching sites Hamas has used to fire at southern Israel. Rockets fired from Gaza have plagued southern Israel for years.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?hp

[Joanne98]

23. Is there any video coming out of Gaza yet?

[stillcool]

24. The key objective is "taking control" alright..

[soulcore]

25. 430 to 4.

Yeah, THAT'S proportionate.

[badacid]

47. How much is a life worth to you?

Who the hell cares about proportionate?????

Each Isreali life (though on this board it doesn't look like it) lost is a tragedy, just as much as it is when a palastinian life is lost.

Some of you are just freakishly one sided. ANY life lost due to Random Rocket Blasts or Collateral damage is a tragedy.

The US should step in, not because it's one sided, but because if they don't more people will die - on EITHER side.

[Mir]

26. This is going to be intense.

2 years ago the IDF put on a shameful performance (albeit much of it came directly from political incompetence) and lost, what, around 160 soldiers and had another 600+ wounded? Hamas should really be able to inflict similar damage -- maybe 100 kills and 500 wounded. Meanwhile the Palestinian death toll, which will never be discussed by the jackals in the mainstream press, will of course be well into the thousands. This is going to be very ugly.

[leftchick]

27. fucking killers

:cry:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. I don't think they are fornicating this time around

It will take about a day or so to see where things are really going.

[Eryemil]

29. Regrettable

Lets hope it actually accomplishes something. If they were just going to go in and hunt for the leadership they would not get very far but taking over the rocket platforms seems like a sound plan. Without these rockets they really have no way to get at Israel, though I wonder how long it will take for things to come to the point where the only alternative is another operation like this.

But what else can they do? A full scale occupation would be too costly in terms of troops I think. Regular raids like this one are probably the best bet.

[underpants]

31. Just yesterday CNN told me that you *have* to have ground forces following an air strike

You know in order to achieve the objective

Isn't that what it is all about?

:sarcasm:

[Eryemil]

33. Depends what the objective is. In this case it is to capture the misile platforms, as far as we know

[mathpol]

30. When Herb Bisno Cleaned My clock

Almost exactly 41 years ago, I visited my friends, Jill and Fred Heilpern, in Eugene, Oregon, where I had been a graduate student, getting my Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1966. This was January, 1968, six months after Israel’s six day war in June, 1967. I was an Assistant Professor at SUNY Stony Brook. One of my closest friends was Hugo d”Alarcao, an unabashed Marxist, who had filled my head with all sorts of arguments supporting the poor Palestinians who had been vanquished by the Israelis.

The Heilperns had a party for me, and Bisno, a social work professor whose wife, Ziona, was an Israeli, decided to come to the party to do a number on me, having heard about my anti-Zionist position. He did indeed “clean my clock”, ending with the statement, “At least I admit I don’t know anything about mathematics.”

The funny part of this was that my arguments were in fact correct, although I didn’t supply much depth without Hugo there to help me. There was in fact a Palestinian people who had lived in the land of Israel and had been pushed out by the Israelis. Israeli President Shimon Peres, among others, has bought into this argument.

Bisno’s attack has rankled me all these years, and I hope he goes to Hell. (If alive, he would be in is mid-eighties.) And the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma is still with us, given Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza. My position?

Israel will never be able to live in peace with its neighbors. The Israelis should all emigrate to somewhere. Most likely the United States. The Arabs didn’t do the Holocaust, and in any case the Israelis should quit bringing it up. The fact the there was a state of Israel 2000 years ago is irrelevant.

Otherwise, Israel will become more and more a garrison state. They have been enabled in their militancy by the Bush administration. Hopefully, Obama will be more even-handed. But there is no “two-state” solution. The best solution is for the Israelis to go elsewhere, where they will continue to thrive. This is hard for me to say, and in my opinion most Jews in the United States tend to view Israel as a glorified “summer camp”. Well, the summer is over.

[underpants]

32. Welcome to DU

:hi:

'Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things'

On Foreign Policy: Tilt back toward Israel
President Bush echoed the view: 'We're going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We're going to tilt back toward Israel." Bush continued, 'If the two sides don't want peace, there is no way we can force them.' Colin Powell said, 'a pullback by the US would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.' ; Bush added, 'Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 71-72

http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/Price_of_Loyalty_George_W__Bush.htm

[Behind the Aegis]

34. Seems you still, after all these years, haven't learned much.

Supporting ethnic cleansing is not very progressive, but it will win you friends here, as long as those being "cleansed" are Israelis.

[rockymountaindem]

38. Seriously! Can't the Jews just be happy with whatever they get?

Why should the state of Israel be established in the place the would-be Israelis actually *want* to live? I hear nobody's really using Wyoming...

:banghead:

[orleans]

39. oh please! who the fuck really wants to move anywhere?

i think they/we should all just knock off the fighting and get to bed!

(or is that too simplistic?)

[eridani]

42. Israel is doing the ethnic cleansing at the moment n/t

[rustydad]

44. Lets define *ethnic cleansing*

No one said Jews should be forced to leave occupied Palestine. Shit for what we have given them in cash and hardware sense 48 we could have made them all millionaires living in mansions in Palm Springs. Israel had a 20% chance of surviving as a state in the ME. Now it has none, absolutely none. Bob

[JerseygirlCT]

45. Yes.

I continue to be confounded and amazed at the vitriol, not to mention spotty grasp of 20th century history, displayed here toward the Jewish people in general and the Israelis in particular.

"Just immigrate". That's been the "solution" for how many centuries now? Just keep moving, folks, don't want your kind around here.

[The Magistrate]

35. Do You Honestly, Sir, Consider What You Have Proposed A Practical Solution?

[High Plains]

36. How about the old one-state solution?

Doesn't everyone always tell us how most Israelis and Palestinians only want peace? A truly democratic state encompassing all three entities, what's wrong with that?

[The Magistrate]

37. The 'One State' Wheeze, Sir

Is simply an attempt to secure a victory over Israel by demographic means that has proved elusive on the battlefield.

No one is fooled by it, or doubts its signifigance.

[Mir]

43. No it's not

It's an attempt to secure a secular and democratic state with no preference for any religion or ethnicity. It is the racism of Jews - and nothing but the racism of Jews - that prevents this. Would it be acceptable for Anglo-Saxons (or any other group for that matter) to oppose the structure of the U.S. because they may lose their numerical majority? Of course not. Any thought in that direction would be construed as overtly racist and purely contemptible. It should be no different for these two groups. After all, aren't they genetically related?

[rustydad]

46. Victory by demographics?

Magistrate I live in California, once the home of American Indians, later took by force by Mexicans, and then more recently taken by force by European immigrants. Now California is being repopulated by immigration and childbirth by Mexicans. They soon will comprise the largest voting block in the State. What to do? Herd them into concentration camps, let them run them themselves only give them just enough food and material to just sustain life? And when they throw rocks or fireworks over their prison walls use the full force of the American military to pound out their lives? Magistrate a single state, a democratic state, a non sectarian state is the only solution and yes that means a return of the land to the State Of Palestine, as it should be. Bob

[leftchick]

40. hey one of my friends attended SUNT at Stony Brook!

Hello Professor! I grew up Catholic with a Jewish best friend (she still is after 45 years :) ) Her parents, both Russian Jews, absolutely hated what Israel has been doing since they displaced the Palestinians. They were pacifist liberals and were horrified for the folks in Gaza and Israel's brutal tactics. Their daughter and I share their beliefs to this day.

[mathpol]

41. Realistic Solutions, Ethnic Cleansing, etc.

I want to add a few personal items. I am a non-observant Jew. My only year in Hebrew School coincided with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. As I was precocious when it came to politics, my entire political life has coincided with the existence of Israel. I have lived through the whole thing. The initial war of independence. The attacks by Syria on Israeli villages from the Golan Heights. The 1956 Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt. The rise of Arafat's Fatah. The Six Day War. The Yom Kippur war, and so forth.

Don't forget, the Israel of today is a very different entity than the one of sixty years ago. That one was Socialist, anti-colonialist, supported by the Soviet bloc more strongly than by the U.S. (The arms they used in 1948 came from Czechoslovakia.)

I am not in favor of ethnic cleansing, although of late it has been the Israelis who have been doing most of it. You want a "one-state" solution. Fine, but that would mean the end of the Jewish state, thanks to the Arab womb. And would the Arabs really buy into it, or would it just be another step in their plan to reclaim the entire land of Israel, from the River Jordan to the Sea. And how many Israelis would buy into it? Certainly not those like the settlers who live in Hebron. They are just as crazy as the Hamas leaders are.

There could have been a peaceful solution years ago, but Yasir Arafat saw to it that it never really happened. Don't forget, he founded Fatah before the Six Day War, when Israel was still within its 1948 borders. Now I don't think a peaceful solutions is possible. What worries me now is the possibility of "reprisals" against "soft" Jewish targets outside of the Middle East.

Here are some interesting articles on the subject in recent years.

The Apostate, David Remnick, The New Yorker, July 30, 2007

Among the Settlers, Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, May 31, 2004

In a Ruined Country, David Samuels, The Atlantic, September, 2005

Unforgiven, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, May 2008

[mathpol]

48. The Arab-Israeli Conflict

I have published an improved version of my two posts on Associated Content.