It seems as though every year the Western press expends heavy coverage over the latest raid by Israeli troops into Gaza and promptly forgets about those attacks that came before. Here’s an excerpt from a BBC article:
Israel said it was responding to an escalation in rocket attacks from Gaza and would bomb “as long as necessary”.
They were the heaviest Israeli attacks on Gaza for decades. More air raids were launched as night fell.
Staff at the main hospital in Gaza say operating rooms are overflowing, it is running out of medicine, and there are not enough surgeons to cope.
This portion comes right after a quote from Prime Minister Olmert about how “he pledged to avoid a humanitarian crisis.” Seems to me that by bombing a region for multiple days in addition to effectively turning that region into a closed-off island pretty well creates a humanitarian crisis.
Why does the press simply cover these repeated attacks by Israel with sympathy for the Palestinians but not recognize the perpetual aggression of Israel? If the press and the public were to have memories longer than a few months they would realize that this is a familiar course of events. Israel cordons off the Gaza Strip which then causes the Palestinians to retaliate. Israel then uses this retaliation as justification for increasing violent attacks against Gaza. I would like to see countries (all, not just Israel) held responsible for the history of their actions and to not simply treat each outbreak of violence as a separate incident. With this it would be easier to see a trend of increasing violence and hold countries responsible for the use of military force.
Link via BBC NEWS | Middle East | Massive Israeli air raids on Gaza.
Comments
Hypocrisy in Action:
Where were Egypt, Russia, OIC, EU, Britain, Sarkozy, US & Austria when Hamas was pounding Israel with daily barrage of rockets?
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/12/hypocrisy-in-action.html
Why does Israel retaliate if not in response to aggression from those against whom the retaliation was directed? Is that not, by definition, what “retaliation” is? It is not retaliation if it was not provoked. There was a ceasefire. Hamas broke the ceasefire with more rocket attacks. Israel did nothing for a short while and then the “retaliation” began.
Hamas has said publicly that it is committed to the destruction of Israel. Egypt and Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have all condemned the action of Hamas in its forceful political takeover in the Strip. These actions by Israel have resulted in an outpouring of Arab sentiment in the general populations of the country that gave tenuous government disaproval of Hamas’ initial action.
Hamas is clearly pickiing a fight. It is intended to arouse support among the general Arab population in contradiction to the governments’ position (Jordan, Egypt, The P.A.). How long can those governments’ continue to ignore the actions of their own people protesting in the streets? Not long, I think. It all plays into the hands of an obviously weaker oponent (Hamas) by turning INTERNATIONAL sentiment in their favor by making Israel look like the “bully” when in fact they are merely trying to insure their own territorial sovereignity.
What should they do? Stand down and allow Hamas to continue to lob shells into south Israel with impunity?
My solution would include bringing in U.N. peacekeepers. Let’s pray that something like that happens before Syria or Iran uses this incident as an excuse for a regional war.
By the way, Egypt has set up machinegun posts along the border with Gaza in anticipation of refugees.
please see http://gryphonscry.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=240
O.K. I messed up that link. But you can see it if you go to my blog, sorry.