The Gaza 'tea party'

[bemildred]

Mike Whitney was very amusing today on this subject, I will not post him here or offer clues, but he thinks it's all an Israeli plot.

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The situation in the Palestinian territories got out of hand on January 23, after a week-long siege by Israel on the Gaza Strip. The Israelis were enraged that since June 2007, Gaza has been under control of Hamas, a military group hailed as a resistance force in the Muslim world, but labelled as "terrorist" in the US and Europe. For an entire week, the IDF laid siege to Gaza, under the watchful eye of the US, to punish its entire population for having produced Hamas in the 1980s, and voting for them in the elections of 2005.

Israel claims it imposed the siege in response to over 100 rockets fired into Israel from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The Palestinians claim they fired these rockets in response to the international embargo imposed on Gaza since Hamas came to power in the strip in 2007. The embargo turned violent in December 2007, when 58 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, and another 61 were wounded during IDF operations. On the other hand, six Israelis were wounded by Qassam rockets fired by the Islamic group on the IDF. Since hostilities started last week, over 70 Palestinians have been killed, 23 of them on January 15-16 alone.

According to Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, "The Israeli practice of collective punishment, disproportionate use of force and targeted killings continues, as does the Palestinian militants' practice of indiscriminate firing of mortars and rockets into Israel. Since the beginning of the year and until midday January 22, Palestinian militants fired about 230 mortar shells and 110 rockets into the northern Negev, including the cities of Sderot and Ashqelon."

Unable to put up with the death, hunger, cold, darkness (fuel has run out in Gaza, and electricity has been shut off), tens of thousands of Palestinians stormed, blew up, and crossed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which has been closed to the Gazans since Hamas came to power in Gaza in June 2007.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA26Ak01.html

[Tom Joad]

1. Intifadah is a good thing. It was good in 1776 and its good today.

Gazans are an example for the world.

[oberliner]

2. Was it good when a busload of Israelis was blown up in Haifa?

The Palestinian intifada has been violent and brutal. Innocent people have been deliberately targeted and killed in the name of resistance. This has often included small children and the eldery. It both saddens and angers me that anyone could identify this as a good thing.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. Yes, I'm sure you believe passively accepting Israeli tyranny is

preferable. And much of the intifadah has not been violent, unless you consider throwing rocks at sodliers "collective punishment" of the IDF.