MIDDLE EAST: Watching Gaza, from up close and afar

To no one's surprise, pan-Arab television news networks such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera flooded the airwaves Saturday and Sunday with gruesome images from Gaza, where an Israeli operation to stop to rocket attacks on southern Israel has left scores of Palestinians dead.

But it was somewhat surprising to see how little attention Iraqi news channels gave to the Palestinians' plight. The crawlers scrolling at the bottom of the screen gave regular updates on Palestinian casualties. But the big news by far is the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq.

Some in The Times' Baghdad Bureau sardonically suggested to me that after five years of violence in Iraq, they are unmoved by the suffering of the Palestinians.

Our own Richard Boudreaux, bureau chief in Jersusalem and former boss of our Baghdad office, described the scale of the Israeli offensive in Sunday's Times:

Hundreds of Israeli armored and infantry soldiers crossed into northern Gaza before dawn Saturday, advanced several miles on militant strongholds in Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, and dug in for what was expected to be several days of fighting. They targeted sites they said were rocket factories and bunkers manned by launch crews. An airstrike destroyed a truck carrying 160 rockets, the army said. After dark, Israeli warplanes killed seven members of the Hamas-led police force in southern Gaza, two in a car in Khan Yunis and five in a mosque being used at night as a police barracks in Rafah. Three missiles fired from the air early today destroyed the Gaza City building housing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's offices, which were vacant at the time.

Ashraf Khalil, a former Baghdad staffer (and fellow Chicagoan) who is the latest addition to the Jerusalem Bureau, also reported about a new controversy that erupted after an Israeli official warned Gazans in the harshest of terms:

By allowing constant rocket barrages from Gaza on nearby Israeli cities, the Palestinians, [Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan] Vilnai said, were "bringing upon themselves a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground."

Shoah is often translated as Holocaust, but can also mean disaster.

The Times' Op-Ed section includes a provocative piece by Yossi Klein Halevi describing Israeli's growing lack of compassion for the plight of Palestinians.

...today the guilty Israeli has become nearly extinct. Just as we came to realize during the first intifada that the occupation was untenable, so we have now come to realize that peace is impossible with Palestinian leaders for whom reconciliation is a one-way process.

— Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad

Photo: A Palestinian medic evacuates an injured child after an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City on Saturday. Credt: Adel Hana / Associated Press

Comments

[Ski]

To M. Delphia block and John Zavesky. Fascinating.. 40 years. That's since the 6 day war of 1967. So how about a little review of history then.
Israeli-Syrian Border and Air Battle (Nov. 13, 1964)—Israel and Syria both claimed sovereignty over several Demilitarized Zones along their border. These Zones were set up as part of the cease-fire ending the First Arab-Israeli War. Israel attempted to farm the land in these Zones, while Syria developed a project to divert water from the Jordan River, which Israel shared with both Syria and Jordan. Syrian forces often fired on Israeli tractors attempting to farm the Zones, while Israel looked for ways to interrupt the Syrian diversion project. On Nov. 13, 1964, Syrian forces stationed on the top of the Golan Heights, a plateau overlooking Israeli territory in the Jordan River valley, fired on Israeli tractors. Israeli forces returned fire. Syrian artillery then targeted Israeli civilian villages. Israel responded with air attacks on Syrian forces. This battle resulted in 4 Israeli dead and 9 wounded. Syrian losses included two tanks and machines involved in the diversion project. One result of this clash was Syria’s accelerated acquisition of more and better Soviet-made fighter planes. (Oren, 2001).
Hmmm. Oh wait.. Here is more.
In May 1967, Egypt expelled the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the Sinai Peninsula, which had been stationed there since 1957 (following the 1956 Sinai invasion to allow for a free Suez Canal), to provide a peace-keeping buffer zone. In reaction to Israeli-Syrian tensions, Egypt amassed 1000 tanks and 100,000 soldiers on the border, closed the Straits of Tiran to all ships flying Israeli flags or carrying strategic materials, and called for unified Arab action against Israel...
Jordan, which had signed a mutual defence treaty with Egypt on May 30, then attacked western Jerusalem and Netanya.[6][7][8] At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.
In 1964, the Israelis began withdrawing water from the Jordan River for its National Water Carrier. The following year, the Arab states began construction of the Headwater Diversion Plan, which, once completed, would divert the waters of the Banias Stream before the water entered Israel and the Sea of Galilee, to flow instead into a dam at Mukhaiba for use by Jordan and Syria, and divert the waters of the Hasbani into the Litani River, in Lebanon.[11] The diversion works would have reduced the installed capacity of Israel's carrier by about 35%, and Israel's overall water supply by about 11%.[12]

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacked the diversion works in Syria in March, May, and August of 1965, perpetuating a prolonged chain of border violence that linked directly to the events leading to war.[13]

Most of this information is publically available... Oh by the way there is no mention of Palstinians. Oh wait.. The concept came around after 1973 war. When Syria and Egypt invaded Israel...

[John Zavesky]

Israel has been in violation of international law for over 40 years with their occupation of Palestinian territories. As an occupied country the Palestinians have every right to respond to all acts of aggression precipitated by Israel, just the same as England had the right to respond to Germany's blitzkrieg. Israel has engaged in ethnic cleansing and committed countless war crimes for over 60 years. The country has violated numerous U.N. resolutions. Israel refuses to join the IAEA, sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty or allow inspections of their facilities. These are all acts of a rogue country. It is time that the United States act accordingly and deal with Israel the same way we would any other country that has brought a "Shoah" upon innocent civilians.

[s.friedman]

M.Delphin Block says Israel 'whine and complain when the Palestines throw stones'. How about when they shoot rockets ?

[David M]

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 03/03/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front lines.
http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2008/03/from-front-03032008.html

[M. Delphia Block]

Europeans killed Jews and were responsible for the Holocaust, not the Palestinians! Mark Regev, Chief Spokesman, Embassy of Israel, in an appearance on C-SPAN (11-28-07) spoke about his father being liberated as a refugee from Nazi Germany by the U.S. Army in 1945 during WWII and brought to a displaced persons camp and eventually integrated into society. He said Israel was the solution to the Jewish refugee question. M. J. Rosenberg, Israel Policy Forum, a guest on Bill Moyers’s Journal, spoke about his wife’s father being liberated from Nazi Germany as a refugee who also went to Palestine. So European Jewish refugees go to Palestine, take homes and land that belong to the Palestinians making the Palestinians refugees. So the Jews are to the Palestinians what Hitler was to them? Are Jews any less evil?
Americans feel very ashamed and embarrassed that our tax dollars are extorted to aid Israel's horrendous, egregious abuse of the Palestinians. Israel ignored U.N. Res. 194 (1948), 242 (1967 and 338 (1973), but whine and complain when the Palestinians throw stones.

[Dave]

You news media always and I say always make it look like Israel just decided one day to attack and kill a bunch of civilians. First of all other than the children there are no innocent Palestenian civilians as long as they let Hamas rule and let them use their homes as bases of operations. They are not innocent they are as guilty as the terrorists are. I say Israel should destroy all of these people. They are the scum of the earth who will use women, old people and children to hide behind. Israel ONLY responds after it has been attached to protect its truly innocent citizens. It was the Palestinians who attacked first and continue to assualt Israel month after month, year after year. Their goal is and has always been to completely obliterate Israel and it "ain't a gonna happen!" I would like to see how you would respond if you were first attacked not once but hundreds of times.

[Robert]

In the past 6 months 1 (One) person has died in Israel from a Gazan rocket.

In 1 (One) day Israel has killed more than 100 Palestinians many of them women and children.

Presumably, Israel will justify the situation to further provoke the Palestinians and ignore world opinion by building more settlements on land stolen from them.

[DJ SanDiego]

residents of long beach proper were again confined to their waterfront homes for the second day on this lovely weekend surf is 11 to 13 at the face from trestles to the Governors Mansion.A pesky bunch of dontcallmeninians is launching home made rockets from the huntington beach marsh area tween the power station and goo-goos washarama.Spiff Del Sol the WAQDD reporter is live with an interview "Spiff give us a whiff what do those pesky dontcallmeninnians want"? Thanks Lon. Word from the occupied territories of Corona Del Mar,Newport Beach and Huntington Beach;just three things Lon; Surf, Food and Family.Stop the F-16s and the Super Cobra Bell Copters and we stop launchin the dinty moore cans and give back Long Beach we said it'll ruin the curl dont build there

[Pete]

Israel is the only country in the world that would sit back for months on end and watch its citizens flee in fear from rocket attacks before deciding on waging a massive campaign to end those attacks. I suppose the media plays a roll in Israel's capitulation. Radio talk show host Michael Savage describes Liberalism as a mental disorder. Perhaps he is right, although I have yet to make my final diagnosis on the matter. Perhaps if you would start covering the daily lives of Israeli's living in fear in Sedorot, it would help to put an end to these attacks, but I'm not expecting that kind of coverage from you. Are there any qualified sychiatrists in LA who can help you?

[Pete]

It is not surprising at all to see how little attention the LA Times gives to the plight of Israeli's who are under constant rocket attack in Sedorot (now Ashkelon too) and who are forced to live their daily lives fleeing to bomb shelters. I don't read the Times too often, but often enough that I get the picture.