ICRC – from the field. Civilians are counting the cost of the 3 week conflict in January 2009, which claimed more than a thousand lives and dealt a heavy blow to the economy of Gaza, a territory already shattered by decades of conflict and deprivation. The international community pledged billions of dollars in aid, but restrictions on essential raw materials going into Gaza will have to be lifted if Palestinians are to rebuild their lives.
The title is right.
Gaza is paying the price.
And that is the way it should be.
Sending suicide bombers and threatening to kill every Jew in every mosque sermon in most Arab countries has a consequence. Launching missiles by the thousands cannot be expected not to provoke a response.
Refusing any solution that would preserve the right of Israel to exist as an independent and Jewish nation, while advocating for its destruction will also have consequences.
Israel might have caused the death of a thousand persons in Gaza; a large majority of them Hamas militants. Compare it to the millions of fatalities in the war between Iran and Irak, two islamic countries; the massacres of Darfur, committed by moslems against non-moslems, the daily suicide bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the killings of thousands in Algeria, just a few years ago, when Islamists took the path of violence.
And the figures are almost meaningless, when you admit that Israel’s violent actions were caused by even more violent actions against its population.
The world tend to forget that the “big wall” surrounding Palestinian territories started to go up as a response to the daily attempts and killing of innocent civilians in Israel.
There is an evident refusal by the Arab world to accept the fact that Jews have the right to occupy the tiny territory that has been theirs since and before the existence of Islam and Christianity. Arabs conquered half of the world fifteen centuries ago and imposed their religion on numerous nations. But that is history and it’s fine. They just cannot get over the fact that the ‘YAHUD” s could have recovered a infinitely small part of that territory and are no more their subjects to be treated as second-class citizens.
And if you want to talk about the right of return, let me mention the plight of at least 80,000 Egyptian Jews, (I am one of them) and close to a million Jews who where expelled (and ruined) without any right from the Middle Eastern countries of which they were rightful citizens, just because of their race and religion.
Again:
Yes, you have to pay the price if you choose the path of violence.
I’m not going to respond to each of your falsehoods (“large majority of them Hamas militants), etc. It’s enough to observe the fact that collective punishment is a war crime.
You have to pay the price if you choose the path of violence? So what price do you suggest Israel pay?
Israel has already paid the price in the thousands of its citizens maimed or killed in several wars, rockets, and suicide bombers attacks.
Sorry, Jeremy, that they inflict heavier losses on their attackers who hide within civilian dwellings. Regarding my “falsehoods”, perhaps you should elaborate. Perhaps my family was not ruined and expelled from Egypt?
Perhaps Hamas is not refusing to negotiate on the right of Israel to exist and does not state in its charter that Israel must be destroyed as a holy mission?
Perhaps daily sermons at mosques in most Arab countries do not promote violence and call for elimination of the Jewish people, (“enemies of Mohamed and Islam?”).?
Perhaps Jews are not the “dogs of the Arabs” as their speeches unanimously proclaim?
Are you sorry that Israel willfully and deliberately targeted the civilian population of Gaza?
Israel was acting in self-defense. Therefore, it does not need to pay a price… it has been attacked for the last 7 years by Hamas’ rockets coming from the Gaza Strip. Enough is enough. According to international law, any country is allowed to act in self-defense and this is exactly what Israel was doing.
You’re right. According to international law, any country is allowed to act in self-defense. Also according to international law, no nation may engage in collective punishment, aggression, indiscriminate killing, invade and occupy foreign territory, engage in targeted assassinations, prevent the wounded from obtaining medical aid, inflict a blockade designed to keep an entire people teetering on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe, use white phosphorus as a weapon, deliberately target civilian locations like schools, hospitals, U.N. sites…
The list of Israel’s crimes goes on and on.