Israelis Say Strikes Against Hamas Will Continue

GAZA — Waves of Israeli airstrikes destroyed Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group’s rocket fire, killing more than 225 — the highest one-day toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades.

Israeli military officials said the airstrikes, which went on into the night, were the start of what could be days or even months of an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel. The operation could include ground forces, a senior Israeli security official said.

Palestinian officials said that most of the dead were security officers for Hamas, including two senior commanders, and that at least 600 people had been wounded in the attacks.

After the initial airstrikes, dozens of rockets were fired into southern Israel, where an emergency was declared. Thousands of Israelis hurried into bomb shelters amid the hail of rockets, including some longer-range models that reached farther north than ever before. One man was killed in the town of Netivot, the first death from rocket fire since it intensified a week ago, and four were wounded.

A number of governments and international officials, including leaders of Russia, Egypt, the European Union and the United Nations, condemned Israel’s use of force and also called on Hamas to end the rocket fire. But in strong terms, the Bush administration blamed Hamas for the violence and demanded that it stop firing rockets.

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Australia I believe has also asked Israel to cease fire. 

The Bush administration — in place for another 22 days — can pat itself on the back for having made the Middle East a far more dangerous place for everyone than when it came into power — despite claiming the contrary.

May be this is the last throw of the dice? The final storming of the last Palestinian bastion. But I doubt it: Revenge attracts revenge and in the long run, Israel will (and has thus) commit(ted) genocide — whether we like Hamas or not. Don't the Jews remember the pain inflicted on them by the Nazis?... I'm sure they do, as they keep reminding us at every documentary opportunity. But it appears they have forgotten their quest for a purer heart, now soiled with the blood of those they kill... Is it kill before being killed? It could appear that way, and they wish to make us believe so, but no... The Jews ultimately want all Palestinians out of their idea of Israel, beyond the borders the nations of the world allowed them to have when Israel was created. The Jews in Israel now behave like the Nazis in Europe back in the 1930s.

Many Palestinians hate Israel, but daily Israel gives them more reasons for them to do so. Israel can and should negotiate, but it is a very hard road that armed dimwits don't want to take. Israel is cleverer than that. Israel can do better than to have in the past few months blockaded and humiliated the people of Gaza, who in turn decided to break the truce since Israel had broken its duty of care in full view of the world. And it does not matter who started what... We could even go back to the displacement of Palestinians to create Israel... Now, all Israelis are doing is implanting stronger hate in the heart of the Palestinians, whether Hamas or Fatah, while gradually stealing the land and the spirits like thieves in the night. Jehovah would not be happy...

Israel and the Jews are greater than playing in the gutter. So, why do they behave like sewer rats?

Israeli airstrikes continued on Gaza throughout Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon. The death toll of the attacks rose to 292, with more than 1,000 injured, 180 of them seriously.  

Israel began attacks on Gaza at 11:30 Saturday, ostensibly to root out Palestinian military groups launching rockets at Israeli targets.  

Two massive waves of strikes kicked off the operation, known as Operation Cast Lead, and strikes have continued throughout the night and early morning.  

The Israeli bombing of Gaza over the weekend is the bloodiest attack since 1967. Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence Minister, has threatened further attacks on Gaza, one of the most impoverished places on earth.  

The death toll rises with each strike, and as more bodies are pulled out of Saturday’s rubble. 

The pornographic mass slaughter perpetrated by Israel in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, 27 December, once again reveals the Nazi nature of the Zionist state. 

It also underscores the genocidal nature and brutal ugliness of the Zionist mentality, a mentality based on and shaped by murder, bullying, coercion, aggression, brutality and criminality. 

Furthermore, it shows that Israel is capable, both mentally and physically, of carrying out a real holocaust against the Palestinian people and other peoples of the Middle East. 

In fact, it is quite safe to say that there are no moral restrictions that would prevent Israel from committing the unthinkable, namely a campaign of extermination against the Palestinian people. 

Zionism is simply Jewish Nazism, pure and simple, and the Israeli army is in fact "the" Jewish Wehrmacht. Jews may not like the comparisons, but the Nazi reality of Israel is as conspicuous as the sun in a bright day. 

http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=50016&s2=29 

Does Israel have the right to defend its citizens against Hamas? Sure, but Israel does not have any right to inflict mass punishment upon innocent Palestinians, all of whom had no role in the violence.

Fortunately, the European people haven't been completely brainwashed by Israeli propaganda and government lobbyists and they, the European people, are speaking out forcefully against Israel's latest outrageous use of force: 

Angry crowds of protestors took to the streets across Europe to protest Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip. At least 10 people were arrested outside the Israeli embassy in London after protests turned violent. 

For the US and UK governments, Israel can do no wrong. Israel doesn’t have to stop withholding food, medicine, water, and energy, but Hamas must stop protesting by firing off rockets. In violation of international law, Israel can drive West Bank Palestinians off their lands and out of their villages and give the stolen properties to “settlers.”  

Israel can delay Palestinians in need of emergency medical care at checkpoints until their lives ebb away. Israeli snipers can get their jollies murdering Palestinian children.  

The Great Moral Anglo-Americans couldn’t care less. 

In his 2005 Nobel Lecture, British playwright Harold Pinter held the United States and its British puppet state accountable for “the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought.”  

Everyone knows that such crimes occurred in the Soviet Union and in its East European empire, but “US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognized as crimes at all,” this despite the fact that “the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.” 

America’s doctrine of “full spectrum dominance” means that, like Lenin’s dictatorship, America is not bound by law or morality, but by power alone.  

Pinter sums it up in a speech he had dreams of writing for President George W. Bush:  

“God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.” 

If only our ears could hear, this is the speech we have been hearing from Israel for 60 years.    

Zionist Hasbara operatives have been claiming that the current Israeli genocidal onslaught in Gaza is a "war against Hamas" and that it was only necessitated by the firing of Palestinian rockets on Israel. 

This is a big lie.  

"Hamas had repeatedly said it was willing and ready to stop "all" firing of projectiles from Gaza if only Israel would lift the deadly blockade. And Israel repeatedly said "No." 

Israel has been saying ad nauseam that it ended its occupation of Gaza. Well, why does Israel then retain its control of Gaza skies, Gaza shores, Gaza sea, Gaza border crossings (even with Egypt). Why does Israel retain its control of Gaza life? Why? 

Hence, the issue of firing "rockets" on Israel (they are homemade projectiles that make more noise than damage), should be viewed largely as a red herring. 

Effectively, Israel has been giving Palestinians in Gaza either of two choices, to die of starvation as a result of the blockade or be exterminated by the Israeli war machine. 

Indeed, these so-called "rockets" are nothing more than a desperate outcry for justice, for lifting the deadly blockade. Gaza has simply been reduced to a modern-day Auschwitz. The only difference is that Jews are now playing the role of the SS.                                                                                                       

Hamas did meticulously observe a six-month ceasefire, despite the persistence of the Nazi-like blockade which very much resembled the Ghetto Warsaw siege in 1942-43. However, Israel on 13 November, Israel carried out a foray into Gaza, killing 6 people. 

More to the point, Israel killed 49 Palestinians during the ceasefire. Not a single Israeli was killed. 

Besides, hundreds of Palestinians have perished because Israel would not allow them to access medical care or medicine. I saw many Palestinians die an agonizing death because the "light upon the nations" wouldn't allow them to reach hospital a few blocks away. In short, we are talking about a Judeo-Nazi state. I am saying this because when Jews think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis. We must call the spade a spade, especially when it happens to be in the hands of our gravediggers. 

Therefore, it is a big lie to call this war a war against Hamas. This is a Nazi-like war of extermination against the people of Palestine. 

If the war were against Hamas, as the war criminals of Tel Aviv keep claiming, Israel wouldn't have targeted market places, drug stores, college buildings, private homes, mosques, cultural institutions, roads, businesses, etc. 

Only a state with a Hitlerian mindset would target an entire society and then claim that it is fighting Hamas! It is simply a big lie. 

So, Israel is simply carrying out a real genocide...and an indiscriminate one for that matter. 

Today, even a Jewish rabbi of imminence used the term "genocide" to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza.

http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=50076&s2=30

Update: The Gaza death toll has passed 350.  

Amid worldwide protests, Israel is continuing its bombing campaign against Gaza for the third consecutive day and preparing to launch a possible ground invasion. Following months of a crippling blockade, this has been described as one of Israel's bloodiest attacks on Palestinians since 1948.

Latest reports indicate that 310 people have been killed and 1,400 injured in the aerial strikes across the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning. The latest targets of the air strikes include the Hamas Interior Ministry building and the Islamic University.  

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced today that Israel is in an "all-out war with Hamas and its proxies" in Gaza. Fears of a ground invasion are growing after Israel declared a military buffer zone around Gaza, closing off the strip and its 1.5 million residents to journalists and civilians. 

http://www.alternet.org/audits/116115/ 

so, so what ..... 

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more - providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side.  

As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs -- who, as we all know, only understand force. 

Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis - just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated."  

And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" - as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery.  

Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course .....

Imagine what the world's reaction would be to a 4 day blitzkreig that killed 350 britains, americans or, kevin forbid, awstraylens?

Israelis and Arabs "feel that only force can assure justice," I. F. Stone noted soon after the Six-Day War in 1967. And he wrote, "A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements. The Others are always either less than human, and thus their interests may be ignored, or more than human and therefore so dangerous that it is right to destroy them." 

The closing days of 2008 have heightened the Israeli government's stature as a mighty practitioner of the moral imbecility that Stone described. 

Israel's airstrikes "have killed at least 270 people so far, injured more than 1,000, many of them seriously, and many remain buried under the rubble so the death toll will likely rise," Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies, pointed out on Sunday, two days into Israel's attack. "This catastrophic impact was known and inevitable, and far outweighs any claim of self-defense or protection of Israeli civilians." She mentioned "the one Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket attack on Saturday after the Israeli assault began was the first such casualty in more than a year." 

Even if you set aside the magnitude of Israel's violations of the Geneva conventions and the long terrible history of its methodical collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, consider the vastly disproportionate carnage in the conflict. 

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," Gandhi said. 

What about a hundred eyes for an eye? 

http://www.truthout.org/123008A

To: President George W. Bush, President-Elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton, Vice President Richard Cheney, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, the President, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Opposition leader of Israel, and Major media representatives:

For 60 years, Israel has persecuted the Palestinian people with impunity in defiance of United Nations General Assembly and United Nations Security Council Resolutions, orders of the International Court of Justice, International Law and fundamental human rights.

Throughout the years, Israel has proclaimed itself the victim as it grew richer, more powerful and more violent, while Palestinians were abused, impoverished, divided and demeaned.

A consistent tactic of Israel through all the years has been to divide Palestinians against their most effective organizations. Through most of the recent years Israel has attacked Fatah. Now it is Hamas that Israel attacks. But there is only one Palestinian people and there can be only one Palestinian State. This has been the guiding principle of the PLO. Israel's policy has always been to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian State. Its criminal assault on Hamas is in truth Israel's continuing assault on the possibility of a Palestinian State: divide and conquer.

Now in the waning days of the disastrous Bush Administration, the government of Israel with its Prime Minister under criminal indictment, is testing whether world opinion will permit it to escalate its isolation and impoverishment of Palestine and selective and systematic assassination of Palestinian leadership in Gaza to a genocidal, indiscriminate assault and invasion of Palestinian Gaza, knowing full well its acts will inflame passions throughout the Middle East and Arab and Muslim worlds risking conflict of disastrous magnitude in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, even between India and Pakistan.

Beyond crushing Gaza's capacity to resist and imposing its final solution on Palestinians, Israel is seeking confrontation that will lead to war with the U.S., the European Union, and NATO fighting for Israel against Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan to impair their ability to prevent expansion of Israel's domination of the region while the "only one President at a time" the U.S. has, George W. Bush, will support Israel, finding all fault with Gaza.

In these dangerous and difficult days and hours the undersigned call upon the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, NATO members, and European countries independently, the governments of Asia, foremost China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, the nations of Africa, and the Americas to demand an immediate ceasefire throughout Israel and Palestine and the assurance of peace. All borders to Gaza, Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, must be opened for humanitarian relief and a complete arms and trade embargo on Israel until it fully complies with all the requirements of permanent peace.

We call upon all the people, the ultimate power in every nation when organized and energized, to take to the streets where they live and demand that their governments do all in their power to cause Israel to stop its war of aggression against Palestine and for all parties to pursue peace and for Israel, the U.S. and other nations who have provided material support for Israel's aggression to be held accountable for the deaths, injuries and damage Israel has inflicted.

We call upon governments and humanitarian agencies to provide all needed emergency relief to Palestine - medical care, food, humanitarian supplies, shelter; and on all the media that truly seeks peace, justice and respect for the equal dignity of every child, woman and man on earth to headline the demand that Israel stop its aggression immediately. All parties must engage in continuous negotiation with all Palestinians until a one state solution is agreed or the state of Palestine as mandated not later than October 1948 in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) is created, fully implemented, and Palestine thrives.

Sincerely,

Anne & John Richardson