Pointing fingers in Gaza
Trading blame for Israel's clash with Hamas
A doll stained with red paint, during a protest against Israel.
(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
What happened
The United Nations said it was halting aid shipments to Gaza after a relief truck driver was killed by Israeli tank fire. (AP in Google News) Officials from Israel and Egypt planned to launch negotiations for a cease-fire to end Israel's 12-day offensive, which aims to stop rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza. (Financial Times)
What the commentators said
“I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided,” said former president Jimmy Carter in The Washington Post. Months ago, Hamas agreed to stop firing rockets into Israel if the Israeli government would permit a normal flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza. But the flow of food, medicine, and fuel was never fully restored, and the “fragile truce” collapsed.
Cease-fires with Hamas always result in disaster, said Marvin Hier in The Wall Street Journal. The pattern is always the same: The world sends money to help the Palestinians recover from an Israeli attack, and Hamas, “the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place,” uses the money to rearm and inflict greater damage than before.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, said Rosa Brooks in the Los Angeles Times. The Palestinians make peace impossible by targeting civilians and refusing to recognize Israel; the trigger-happy are usually the ones to end lulls in the violence; and the Bush administration wrings its hands but blocks a U.N. Security Council demand for a cease-fire on the grounds that it offers no long-term solution. And Palestinians whose only mistake was being born in Gaza pay the price.
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2 Comments
Posted by Kam, Thursday, January 8, 2009, 8:28 pm Quoting Jimmy Carter is the height of hilarity. When has he ever taken the side of anyone who wasn’t a terrorist, socialist, communist, or a maniac? The liberal Washington Post has stooped to scoop up the Carter drivel and poop once again. This comment is partly the cause why the terror of Gaza continues. As long as idiots like Carter continue with his inane comments, Hamas has justification to continue its reign of terror….Besides without humanitarian monetary assistance and supplies, how would Hamas continue to endear themselves with the Palestinian civilians?
Posted by ronald reece, Friday, January 9, 2009, 8:52 am No comment on the current violence in gaza should have anyvalidity unless the power struggle within the palestinian power aspirants is factored into the equation. Until a united front is esatablished capable of working for the good of the palestinian people, coupled with the sense to recognise the right to exist of israel nothing will be acheived. The arabs need to recognise the futility of "faith"based actions, and embrace reason, and rationality as a basis for thir own salvation.
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