There definitely is an Arab lobby in the USA and Europe but it cannot hope to compete with the Israeli lobby. Aipac and it's offshoots use many different tactics to stifle debate and get what they want. Here is just a little insight into their workings.

1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate. Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as "unilaterally ended by Hamas"). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza's borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, "what they hear over and over again," this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.

2) Recognize that stereotypes work. Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel's propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as "Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem," media coverage of any conflict begins with how "the problem" is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to "balance" the story, giving an extensive treatment, with photos, of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as "collateral damage."

3) Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders. Hamas' stupidity played into Israel's strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.

4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing -- and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it's no accident, for example, that Israel has an "Arab" Consul General in Atlanta - that's where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.

5) Give no ground. Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will "toe the line." Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another.

6) Deny, deny, deny. When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, "Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?"), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame ("We didn't do it, they made us"). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, "Arabs don't really grieve like we do").

7) The last refuge.... When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/...a_b_156767.html

Some of the posters on this thread and related threads also use these tactics, but they shall remain unnamed

The comments above are from a very well-known left-wing blog and are the opinion of James Zogby who is the Founder and President of the Arab American Institute. There might be some truth in them, but I would much more interested in his knowledge of what tactics the ARAB Lobby use "to stifle debate and get what they want". I have no doubt that a lot of them concern violence, supporting terror groups and giving out large numbers of oil dollars to buy UN votes.

I should have been more clear in my post. There is no single Arab lobby in the US. Of course there are various Arabic lobbies, as I have mentioned in previous posts. But due to either the disparate nature of the various Arab groups, or perhaps due to their inability to organize as well as the Israeli lobby, there is no single, concerted effort by the Arab lobbies to work together for a common goal.

1) Define the debate. Israel must be made to appear to be indiscriminately attacks civilian populations, often resulting in childern's deaths. Hamas must be shown as a resistance force attempting to break the stranglehold that is being forced upon a downtrodden people by a Nation that must appear as occupiers disregarding the fact there had been no force in the area on any mission, with the exception of retaliatory strikes, since 2005. Everything that Israel does must be protrayed as disproportionate, because radicals are only firing inaccurate rockets that only kill a handful of civilians. The justification of the killing of civilians can be provided by claiming that all Israelis, with a few exceptions for religion, are required to serve in the military and thus Hamas is only attacking military targets. Ensure that the world understands that, ignoring the rockets purchased, all aide sent hasn't been enough and Israel has an obligation to provide for the Gazans; ensure that the fact that the border to Eygpt is closed is not discussed as this would undermine the stance it is all Israel's fault. It is extremely important to make sure that the ideals set forth by the Koran and Hadiths regarding dhimmis and jizya are not broached, since that would expose the supremacist idealogy of your movement.

2) Recognise that stereotypes work. This is not as effective in the States, but Europes latent hostility toward the Jews can be exploited. This hostility is not painfully obvious but centuries of mistrust which caused the "Elders of Zion" and the Holacoust to happen can be teased out and played upon. Also effective are certain ideals which can be rolled out and have significant meaning in the Muslim world but which the West is blithely unaware of. This pressure can be utilised to great effect in halting Israel from inflicting maximum damage on the leadership which will go into hiding in the basement of hospitals.

3)Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders. Israel shall make mistakes in the execution of their plan. Expedite those mistakes by ensuring that mortars and rockets are fired from heavily populated civilian centres. Any premature detonations can be used as propaganda to illustrate that Israel is attacking all the time. Also, rig ammo dumps inside of schools and mosques, preferably with a detonator to provide the largest fireworks when triggered. Thus when the Israelis kill the attackers there's significant collateral damage. Attempt to ensure the editing of the videos so that the original airstrike is shown and the damage cause by your own munitions is evident but not on tape. Should footage be revealed that indicts Hamas on these actions, refer to point one.

4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing -- and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. As soon as reporters are let into the area, ensure the coverage is of civilian deaths. To garner the most sympathy, corpses of children and woman should be used. Failing that, re-use corpses. The fact the majority of the corpses are men of the age to be muhajadeen could be a sticky point, but the West has not caught onto that yet. Aid in this can come from foreign doctors who will be more than happy to assist in performing non-necessary medical functions on childern, such as the doctor who hammed up his minute on TV to provide CPR to a girl who was in absolutely no need of it. Make much ado of Israel's decision to restrain reporters from wandering around a war area by insisting it is an attempt to slant the story rather than acknowledging the fact that in previous actions reporters have been killed. This is of course not as beneficial as using the reporter's deaths to bolster point 2.

5) Give no ground. No matter how much Israel is willing to concede, refer to Hama's charter. Follow points 1-4. Continue to use your civilian population as human shields thus attempting to protray Israel as indiscrimanate killers. Continue to siphon money off to purchase rockets and mortars and claim that Israel is not providing for you. Continue to confiscate aide shipments and sell them for inflated prices on the black market. Solicit help from fellow Muslims around the world.

6) Deny, deny, deny. Make no concessions that if the rockets were to stop, Israel would not be attacking. Hope that no one can draw a similarity between the lack of rockets from the West Bank and Israel not attacking the population there. Attempt to force the world to ignore Israel's right to defend its homeland.

7) The last refuge.... When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous Islamaphobia (whether they were actual or cases or a shopkeeper commiting arson and attempting to collect on insurance), generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive. Failing that, force the United Nations to adopt a resolution by the Organisation of Islamic Conference that would ban criticism of Islam. Than use the claims of Islamaphobia to silence your critics.

I probably shouldn't have stooped to the level that is being displayed by making the counter-points, but should someone other than the few posters in this thread read it, I would hope it would give them something to consider.

Oh, and thanks for using someone who rates on the same "Wasting Humanity's O2 Supply" as Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken. I.E., only slightly better than Anne Coulter.

The Israeli woman in that rally in New york, had said very sublime words :WIPE THEM OUT!

Zionist's propaganda has only one rule;which is “The 180 rule” whereby it can be flipped 180 degrees from the truth.By accusing others of your own crimes/failings. Indiscriminate killing (of Gazans) - Check!

Surrounded by people who would love to destroy it and everyone in it? (Gaza ghetto) - Check!

Indoctrinating small children (Remember children signing missiles for Lebanon?)- Check!

Generation of killers (60 years of punishing the people whose land was stolen) - Check!

Comparisons of Israel claimed false (even many Israeli Jews compare Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto) - Check!

(Afterall, Amadinejad, Saddam, Hamas…they’ve all been described as “bad as Hitler”).

Check out the site for former IDF coming clean of their actions in occupied territories .

IDF

Gaza Is a Concentration Camp By

Ellen Cantarow, Posted January 16, 2009.

One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll.

Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen. The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it.

There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans' having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. (For more, see Richard Falk's "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe.")

This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai last spring when he said Israel would create a shoa if Qassem rockets kept dropping on Israeli towns like Sderot. Shoa, Hebrew for holocaust, is a serious word denoting the extermination of an entire people. Vilnai embarrassed the Israeli government, and no official has used the term since.

But since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza's government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. It is impossible to keep pace with the death and injury toll, which rises as I write: on Jan. 13, the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem reported 900 Palestinians killed, with more than 4,200 injured. The Israeli toll: three civilians and seven soldiers killed, more than 82 civilians and 61 soldiers injured. As for Israeli civilians killed by rockets, the Israel Project lists 25 dead during the past seven years.

On the broadcast program Democracy Now, a Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, who had just returned from Gaza to Denmark, told host Amy Goodman that "90 percent of those killed are civilians." Gilbert reported 971 dead, of whom 1 in 3 is a child under 18. He has worked in Gaza for years and was there for the first weeks of Israel's assault.

The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone.

Gilbert and other experts think Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza. According to Gilbert, conventional shrapnel damages limbs and other body parts as if they'd been cut by a huge knife. DIME, on the other hand, leaves "no signs of shrapnel," but rather "small pieces of some kind of substance" (DIME is made of nickel and cobalt). It crushes "the whole limb," not just part, with "multiple severe fractures, muscles split from bones." Some classify DIME weapons as nuclear because they are based on a fusion process. (Democracy Now, Jan. 14.)

*****"Take some kittens … in a box. Seal up the box, then jump on it with all your weight and might, until you feel their little bones crunching, and you hear the last muffled little mew," a surgeon named Jamal tells Italian writer Vittorio Arigoni. Bloodstained boxes are fetched; Jamal opens one. It contains "amputated limbs, legs and arms, some from the knee down, others with the entire femur attached . . . from the injured at the Al Fakhura United Nations school in Jabalia, which resulted in more than 50 casualties."

Jamal says, "Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? Almost nothing. We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."

Arigoni also described the account, by ophthalmologist Dr. Abdel, of strange and terrible wounds he'd never seen before: "Dr. Abdel told me that at Al Shifa hospital, they don't have the medical and military competence to say for sure whether the wounds they examined on certain corpses were indeed provoked by white phosphorous bullets. But on his word, in 20 years on the job, he had never seen casualties like those now being carried into the ward."

These included "traumas to the skull, with fractures to ... the jaw … cheekbones, tear duct, nasal and palatine bones [all showing] signs of the collision of an immense force against the victim's face. What he finds inexplicable is the total lack of eyeballs, which ought to leave a trace somewhere within the skull, even in the case of such violent impact. Instead, we see Palestinian corpses coming into the hospitals without eyes at all, as if someone had removed them surgically before handing them over to the coroner."

Since no international observers are allowed in, judgment about the weapons inflicting such trauma will depend on further reports from Gaza, and corroboration from experts like Gilbert. (Arigoni is an international who reached Gaza by boat during the siege. His report was sent to e-mail lists Jan. 9.)

***The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Held "personally responsible" and cashiered from his post, he later rose to prime minister to resume his malignant policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The late Israeli writer Tanya Reinhardt predicted in 2002 that Israel was starting to finish what it began in 1948. This 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public (see Jan. 13 story in the New York Times.)

Operation Cast Lead is one of the great war crimes of our era. It was planned six to 18 months in advance, according to journalist Jonathan Cook. The war design "required directing artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighborhoods from which rockets were fired, despite being a violation of international law. Legal advisers, Barak noted, were seeking ways to avoid such prohibitions, presumably in the hope the international community would turn a blind eye."

Operation Cast Lead fulfills at least three of the points under Article 2 in the Convention on Genocide: (a) Killing members of the group; ( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

So to President-elect Barack Obama in his silence; to our senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, I'd address European Parliament member Luisa Morgantini's closing words in her open letter to European leaders:

"Israel has a right to exist as a normal state, a state for its citizens, along the 1967 borders, much wider than those of the partition plan passed by the United Nations in 1947. But I would have liked to hear your outrage and your humanity, and to hear you shouting for the pain of so many deaths and so much destruction, for such arrogance, for so much inhumanity, for so many violations of international and humanitarian law. ...

"My God, what a terrible world we live in!"

The pictures that Baby-killer defenders, and the new Nazis would definitely Don't want you to see.

Gaza !

There goes the Hamas propoganda again and it is not even decent propoganda:

Testimonies Routine pictures of taliban

Name: ***

Rank: first sergeant

Unit: Nachal

Description: When we got back from that operation, we had loot so to speak. There were IDs confiscated, uniforms, Kalachnikovs. For army intelligence. I only remember that our staff – another thing that really annoyed me – I remember them being photographed with those Kalachnikovs, the sort of 'Taliban' pictures. I don't know what the sense of it was.

On no the IDF are posing with pictures of AK 47s, isn't that inhuman and terrible. Oh no!

A whole bunch of Israelis and Americans who want to kill the enemy at a pro-war rally during the middle of a war. What a big surprise. Just think about asking those loaded questions about Jews at a pro Hamas Rally.

Gaza Is a Concentration Camp By

Ellen Cantarow, Posted January 16, 2009.

There were no weapons INSIDE the Nazi concentration camps and EVERYONE in them was killed even though they didn't fight back. Gaza is no concentration camp.

Hamas in Gaza were attacking Israel and Israel responded as any country in the world would. Hamas was crushed as they deserved. Too bad that they purposely took so many innocents along with them.

Don't Miss These Brilliant Essays on Gaza

By

Jan Frel, Posted January 15, 2009.

A quick guide to some of the best essays on Israel's assault on Gaza and the larger questions posed by the recent violence.

The events in Gaza have resulted in the producution of more media than any one person could digest in a lifetime. And since few of us have more than a small part of the day to learn about what's going on, it's almost certain that you might have missed some of the absolutely superb essays written in recent weeks that give the big picture.

Here's a quick guide to some of the best essays I've read on Gaza and the larger questions posed by the recent violence.

Israeli Uri Avnery in CounterPunch argues that after witnessing the events in Gaza, even through the distorted lens of televised mass media, "seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a bloodstained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for [israel's] long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet."

Chris Hedges has a sublime touch when it comes to writing about the insanity we are capable of when warmaking consumes a society. We all saw, and most of us, if you believe the polls, personally experienced this madness most recently during the onset of the U.S. invasion in Iraq. In his latest essay, in TruthDig, "The Language of Death," Hedges writes,

"[T[he assault on Gaza is about creating squalid, lawless and impoverished ghettos where life for Palestinians will be barely sustainable. It is about building ringed Palestinian enclaves where Israel will always have the ability to shut off movement, food, medicine and goods to perpetuate misery. The Israeli attack on Gaza is about building a hel_l on earth. This attack is the final Israeli push to extinguish a Palestinian state and crush or expel the Palestinian people.

The images of dead Palestinian children, lined up as if asleep on the floor of the main hospital in Gaza, are a metaphor for the future.

Israel will, from now on, speak to the Palestinians in the language of death. And the language of death is all the Palestinians will be able to speak back."

Naomi Klein makes the case in The Nation that Israel should become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to South Africa's apartheid, calling for boycotts.

Bill Moyers argued forcefully last week in his PBS show, Bill Moyers Journal, "rute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism. It's what the U.S. did in Vietnam with B-52s and napalm, and again in Iraq, with shock and awe. By killing indiscriminately -- the elderly, kids, entire families, by destroying schools and hospitals -- Israel did exactly what terrorists do and exactly what Hamas wanted. It spilled the blood that turns the wheel of retribution." [Transcript here]

Stephen Zunes has written three comprehensive articles for AlterNet covering America's role in tampering in Palestinian politics to support a hard-right agenda for Israel, Democrats' utter complicity supporting Bush's policies that made the latest assault on Gaza possible, and most recently, an account of how Democratic congressional leaders are advancing a radical view of international law that would allow powerful countries to get away with war crimes.

Suzanne Maneh recounts for New America Media the story of a 78-year-old Palestinian expat, who wanted to remain anonymous, who was forced to flee Palestine 60 years ago. And Laila Al-Arian shares in "My Grandpa Lives in Gaza" what it's like to have a relative living in a war zone.

War Nerd Gary Brecher, at eXiledonline, has written two important essays looking at the current culture of warfare in light of the Gaza attacks, explaining why militarily superior countries don't just wipe their enemies off the map like they used to, before 1945:

We live in the hangover after a wild night, the first half of the 20th century. That was a binge to end all binges, an era of great, total, merciless warfare. Everybody thinks of the Western Front in the First World War when they think of total war, but there were plenty of other fronts just as merciless, just as brutal, like the Russian civil war or the Greek-Turkish war in western Anatolia, which was even nastier, if that's possible, than the Russian fighting. No quarter asked or given on either side. [brecher's

second essay

explains why the assault on Gaza in 2009 won't be a repeat of Lebanon in 2006]

Former President Jimmy Carter wrote an op-ed sharing his view on the necessary path to peace through negotiations. And Ira Chernus in Foreign Policy in Focus shares what is almost a secret history of a peace that could have been with Yasser Arafat, if Israel had gone ahead and allowed it: "All of the suffering in Gaza -- indeed, all of the suffering endured by Palestinians under Israeli occupation for the last eight years -- could have been avoided if Israel negotiated a peace agreement with Yasser Arafat when it had the chance, in 2001."

The pictures that Baby-killer defenders, and the new Nazis would definitely Don't want you to see.

Gaza !

The new Nazis are Hamas. They use their own people as human shields and want to drive the Jews into the sea. Just think about what kind of person purposely spreads their lies!

Recent research has traced the sentiments expressed in the poem to speeches given by Niemöller in 1946.

Nonetheless, the poem's wording remains controversial, both in terms of

its provenance, and the substance and order of the groups that are

mentioned in its many versions. While Niemöller's published 1946

speeches mention Communists, the incurably ill, Jews or Jehovah's

Witnesses (depending on which speech), and people in occupied

countries; the 1955 text, a paraphrase by a German professor in an

interview, lists: Communists, Socialists, "the schools, the press, the

Jews, and so on," and ends with "the Church." However, as cited by

Richard John Neuhaus in the November 2001 issue of First Things, when

"asked in 1971 about the correct version of the quote, Niemöller said he was not quite sure when he had said the famous words but, if people insist upon citing them, he preferred this version:

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

First-Wikipedia

Outcry over weapons used in Gaza "Initially everything seems in order... but they will present within one to five hours with an acute abdomen which looks like appendicitis but it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all of their organs," he said. "It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles at around 1x1 or 2x1 millimeters that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically."

The doctors said many patients succumb to septicemia and die within 24 hours.

Dr Erik Fosse, a Norwegian surgeon who worked at the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza during the Israeli offensive in Gaza, also told Al Jazeera there was a significant increase in double amputations.

"We suspect they [israel] used Dime weapons because we saw cases of huge amputations or flesh torn off the lower parts of the body," he said.

"The pressure wave [from a Dime device] moves from the ground upwards and that's why the majority of patients have huge injuries to the lower part of the body and abdomen."

Cancer fears

Fosse described the injuries as "extreme" and "much more dramatic" than those inflicted by landmines as "legs are blown off to the groin, it's like they have been cut to pieces".

He described them as "new injuries" that most doctors will not have come across, although he noted similar wounds were reported in the 2006 Lebanon war. Noting that Dime explosives are precision weapons that are supposed to minimise civilian casualties, Fosse said: "The problem is that most of the patients I saw were children. If they [the Israelis] are trying to be accurate, it seems obvious these weapons were aimed at children."

Fosse called on the UN to establish a body in Gaza to monitor survivors to see if they developed cancer, following claims Dime devices contain radioactive material.

Medics and observers have also accused the Israelis of using white phosphorus - banned from use near civilians under international law - in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) said on Monday that delegates it sent to Gaza had found "indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north".

"We saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army," Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert touring Gaza as part of AI's four-person delegation, said.

White phosphorus is a toxic chemical that causes severe burns and sparks fires that are difficult to extinguish.

It is dispersed in artillery shells, bombs and rockets and burns on contact with oxygen and is used to create a smokescreen to hide the movement of troops.

War crimes?

Israel fiercely denies using weapons in such a way as to contravene international law.

Major Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, reiterated Israel was using "munitions that other militaries in the world are using" and that weapons were deployed "according to international law" .

Pressed on the number of civilian and child casualties in Gaza, she accused Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the territory, of hiding fighters within civilian areas and using ordinary Gazans as "human shields".

"Israelis in responsible positions, as well as Palestinians ... are going to be looking over their shoulders in the days and weeks to come"

Mark Taylor, international law expert

Leibovich also said the international community needed to ask itself whether Hamas and other Palestinian factions had committed war crimes by firing rockets at Israeli citizens for eight years. More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed in the 22-day offensive, many of them woman and children, and 5,340 injured. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers and three civilians, have been killed in the same period.

The number of civilian deaths has provoked an international outcry, with senior UN officials demanding an independent investigation into whether Israel has committed war crimes.

The likelihood of either side being subject to a war-crimes action seems remote as the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction to investigate because the Gaza Strip is not a state.

In addition, Israel has not signed the Rome Statute that enshrined the ICC so any investigation would require a UN Security mandate - likely to be vetoed by Israel's ally, the US.

However, Mark Taylor, an international law expert, told Al Jazeera that individual commanders and politicians on both sides could be subject to legal actions lodged abroad.

"I think that Israelis in responsible positions, as well as Palestinians in responsible positions, are going to be looking over their shoulders in the days and weeks to come," he said.

Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims.

A Petition to the U.N. on Hamas’s Crimes

By Jamie Glazov

FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/16/2009

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Brigitte Gabriel, one of the leading terrorism experts in the world. She has addressed the Australian Prime Minister, members of The British Parliament/House of Commons, members of the United States Congress, The Joint Forces Staff College, The US Special Operations Command, the FBI and many others. She is the author of the Latest New York Times Best Seller, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. Why we must defeat radical Islam and how we can do it. She is also the founder of ACT! for America.

FP: Brigitte Gabriel, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Gabriel: My pleasure Jamie.

FP: Your organization has launched a petition to the U.N. calling for an investigation into Hamas’s crimes against children. Tell us more about the petition and why you launched it.

Gabriel: Something simply had to be done to bring attention to what Hamas is doing. Hamas is a religiously driven radical Islamic organization. Westerners simply do not understand, and I believe have a hard time believing, how far radical Muslims are willing to go to accomplish their objectives. That’s why so many in the West tend to dismiss the evil of Islamofascism and Islamists’ depth of hatred towards the Jews and their commitment to destroy Israel at any cost -- including sacrificing their own children to achieve their goal.

Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. We are committed to disseminating such important videos and promoting this petition, to awaken as many Americans as possible to a reality they simply cannot fathom. Second, we want to call upon the UN to take a more even-handed approach to the Muslim-Israeli conflict. If enough people sign the petition from around the world this will pressure Sec.-Gen Ban Ki-moon to respond.

FP: Hamas’ exploitation and abuse of children isn’t really that unusual when it comes to the Muslim world, is it?

Gabriel: It is not unusual at all, especially in the Middle East. I have said repeatedly and wrote in my books that Muslims are fed hatred through their mother's milk. I was raised in the Middle East and have seen first hand how Muslims teach hatred to their children.

People in America had a hard time believing me and others who spoke like me, who came out of the Middle East a few years ago. Now it is evident in indisputable videos that this is the reality Westerners have buried their heads in the sand about and avoided to believe for a long time.

Today Islamic radical Madrassas are springing up around the world funded by the Saudis that teach such hateful education based on Koranic principles. In America alone we have 230 registered Islamic Madrassas operating in America and teaching an average of 50,000 American Muslim students per year. I dedicate a whole chapter in my new book They Must Be Stopped to Madrassas in America and abroad. It is about the rise of a new IslamoNazi army. It shouldn’t surprise us when Muslim parents, who take seriously the Islamic doctrines of conquest and subjugation of infidels, and especially of Jews, train their children this way.

FP: Give us an example of how Hamas uses children for public relations purposes.

Gabriel: The Palestinians in general have perfected the art of using civilians as human shields for the last thirty years because they know and understand how the West thinks and how the media works and what drives ratings. I personally was used as a human shield by them during the war in Lebanon. The Palestinians used to park their rocket launchers in front of my bomb shelter where my family hid with three other families including 9 children. I was the oldest. They used to shell Israel and then drive away knowing that when Israel responds to the target, we would get hit, hopefully die, and we would make great pictures on the evening news representing dead civilians while Israel would be vilified. Here we are 30 years later and nothing has changed. They have just gotten better at it and the Western press has continued to buy this cruel Palestinian charade.

FP: I am so sorry about this personal experience of yours. Our hearts go out to the victims, and our thoughts are also with you, Brigitte, for all that you, your family and all your loved ones have experienced.

There are Americans who are tempted to think that Hamas is Israel’s problem and doesn’t affect us. What do you say to that?

Gabriel: Thank you Jamie.

Of all the Islamic militant groups in the U.S., Hamas has developed the most sophisticated American network. According to Intelligence reports they have cells in the top 31 cities in America including New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ft Lauderdale, and Miami.

Hamas is right here in many of our towns and cities. Hamas's charter states clearly that their goal is the destruction of the State of Israel. They also discuss their enemies around the world who they believe should be destroyed. In article 22 of the Hamas charter, Hamas identifies what they consider front groups for advancing the Zionist agenda of world Hegemony: "Such organizations are: The Freemasons, Rotary clubs, Lions Clubs, B'nai B'rith and the like. All of them are destructive espionage organizations." I wonder how many of our readers who are members of the Rotary Club or the Lions Clubs know they are mentioned in the Hamas charter, Hamas the largest terror infrastructure on American soil.

When you watch the demonstrations now organized across America in support of the "poor Palestinians" in Ft. Lauderdale, Washington DC, New York, LA, etc. keep in mind that what you are watching are Hamas members and sympathizers screaming on the streets in our own country. These are the same people who would commit terrorist operations against us in a flash if they have the chance.

Let's also not forget that our government just won its most important case against the Holy land Foundation Charity in Texas which was a front for Hamas and its fund raising arm. The Holy Land Foundation and its top members were convicted on a 108 separate charges for its support for Hamas to the tune of tens of millions of dollars raised from Muslims in America and sent to the Middle East to finance terrorist operations.

FP: How can average citizens have any influence to stop this teaching of hatred?

Gabriel: I believe we have sat on the side lines for a long time watching our tax dollars going to support the Palestinian people without strings attached -- allowing them to use our aid to build schools that teach hatred and killing. I am sure most Americans will not tolerate having their money going to support such education. We can pressure our government as well as the UN, after all we provide over a quarter of the UN total budget, to do something about this.

We also better understand why appeasement of such evil will never lead to peace, but only serves to embolden the radical Islamists whose ultimate goal is to impose their doctrines on the rest of us, by any means possible.

FP: And so the petition.

Gabriel: Yes, I appeal to all peoples’ conscience to please sign our petition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. And please forward it to everyone you know. Regardless of the response we ultimately receive from Mr. Ki-moon, the very act of our promoting the petition and people signing it will draw much-needed attention to the real root of the conflict in the Middle East, which is the doctrine of hate that drive radical Islamists.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Print...96-05A9EAA357F3

Gaza war 'genocide'

The emergency meeting had been requested by the 118-member UN member states making up the non-aligned movement. An Israeli delegate had sought to block the session on procedural grounds by arguing that under the UN charter the 192-member assembly could not rule on a matter already being tackled by the Security Council, but the move was dismissed.

D'Escoto noted that the Security Council last week had called for a Gaza ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

"Prime Minister Olmert's recent statement disavowing the authority of Resolution 1860 [the Security Council resolution] clearly places Israel as a state in contempt of international law and the United Nations," d'Escoto added.

He urged the assembly to agree its own non-binding assembly resolution reflecting "the urgency of our commitment to end this slaughter" in Gaza.

Israel has continued its offensive regardless of the resolution which was also rejected by Hamas.

D'Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Israel's killings of Palestinians in Gaza amounted to "genocide".

Almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's Gaza offensive, which Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza.

Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza.

STOP THE ROCKETS DUMMIES!

Is this a private debate between UG and Zaza? Or can anyone join in?

Please; welcome; Ya Hlla ;Ya Hlla

But; I advise you to wear an armor before you join in.

It is outrageous to call this genocide. Please reserve that word for ACTUAL genocide. Hamas wants to wipe out Israel and kill all Jews. Israel wants to DEFEND itself and takes civilian casualties as a necessity of warfare. So who wants genocide? HAMAS!

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate. There are similarities.

However, I have to admit that using the phrases "concentation camp" and "genocide" are fairly gross exagerations used to incite for political purposes.

Gaza Is a Concentration Camp By

Ellen Cantarow, Posted January 16, 2009.

One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll.

One(!) Israeli official does not speak for the whole of the government nor populace. And if it is impoosible to keep pace with the death toll, why does the sixth paragraph in your copy of someone else's propoganda include a toll?

Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen. The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it.

Let's consider that claim; there's 1,5 M people inside of 362.6 KM² for a density of 4137 people per square KM. Sounds frightfully dense, but consider that Monaco is four times as densely populated, and Singapore is 1,5 times as densely populated, it isn't that bad. Or consider that New York County is almost seven times as densely populated. Are any of those examples, which have considerably more people, example of ghettos. Granted, you can't define ghettos strictly by population so let's consider the rest. Since your copied quote contains quotation marks around the pull-out, are we to assume there was actually no pull out? Concerning the walls along Israel's border...is it not their right to whatever they want to with their border? What International Statue are they violating by building a wall to ensure that people who have sworn to erase their country out of existence using any means necessary to include kidnappings, bombings and rocket firing out? Why no concern with Eygpt closing the broder also? Or Jordan closing their border with the West Bank? Also the crass comparison of shooting animals in a pen is disingenious at best. Ever notice that Israel won't attack unless attacked first? And if you think that the weapons being deployed by Israel aren't multitudes more accurate than that Hamas has been indiscrimately firing into the Israeli population you're deluding yourself.

There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans' having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. (For more, see Richard Falk's "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe.")

How many of those assualts were in direct response to rocket/mortar fire? You can check out the number shot here. You've called for the UN to intervene on Gaza's behalf, why is it allowed for them to judge the actions of a Nation and take steps to display its displeasure but not alright for Israel to do the same? And attempting to use Richard Falk's opinion, the same gentleman who called media reports of Khomeini backward, antisemitic, and guilty of theocratic fascism and has defended the use of bombings in both the US and Israel as valid means of struggle is ludicrous. If we're to consult the World Health Organisation(latest report I could find was here), who I trust much more than a professor emeritus who has displayed much friendliness toward Militant Islamists, Gaza's amenia rate has remained the same as they were before Israel closed its borders. It also states Wasting levels and underweight rates for children under five were 2.8% and 4.9% respectively in 2004 and have changed little since 1996 (3). Stunting seems a significant problem, both in terms of current levels and trend. In 2004, stunting levels for under-five were estimated at 9.9% (11.4% in Gaza and 8.8% in the West Bank), an increase from 7.5% in 2000 and 7.2% in 1996 (3). Quite a bit lower than what Mr. Falk would have us believe.

This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai last spring when he said Israel would create a shoa if Qassem rockets kept dropping on Israeli towns like Sderot. Shoa, Hebrew for holocaust, is a serious word denoting the extermination of an entire people. Vilnai embarrassed the Israeli government, and no official has used the term since.

While Matan Vilnai may have ruffled some feathers, a complete quote is in order: will bring upon themselves a bigger 'shoah' because we will use all our might to defend ourselves Also of note is that Hebrew contains two words that accurately describe genocide. The first is רצח עם (retsakh ‘am) which literally means "murder of a people" and השמד עם (hashmed 'am)which means "extermination of a people". שואה (shoah) means "disater" or "calamity". Words have important meanings, which is why the Inuits have 17 words for snow; attempting to assign well know English words to translations often loses signficant meaning in the process. In fact looking at this newspaper clipping speaking of the Armenian genocide, you'll see that both shoah (שואה) and retsakh ‘am (רצח עם) in . Also consider that in Deuteronomy 3.22 the Jews receive this verse: The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them (השמד עם), so it's not as if Hebrew speakers wouldn't know from their history a proper word.

But since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza's government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. It is impossible to keep pace with the death and injury toll, which rises as I write: on Jan. 13, the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem reported 900 Palestinians killed, with more than 4,200 injured. The Israeli toll: three civilians and seven soldiers killed, more than 82 civilians and 61 soldiers injured. As for Israeli civilians killed by rockets, the Israel Project lists 25 dead during the past seven years.

So it is a numbers game?

On the broadcast program Democracy Now, a Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, who had just returned from Gaza to Denmark, told host Amy Goodman that "90 percent of those killed are civilians." Gilbert reported 971 dead, of whom 1 in 3 is a child under 18. He has worked in Gaza for years and was there for the first weeks of Israel's assault.

The same gentleman who was caught performing fake medical actions on childern?

The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone.

What international convention has outlawed white phosphorous?

Gilbert and other experts think Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza. According to Gilbert, conventional shrapnel damages limbs and other body parts as if they'd been cut by a huge knife. DIME, on the other hand, leaves "no signs of shrapnel," but rather "small pieces of some kind of substance" (DIME is made of nickel and cobalt). It crushes "the whole limb," not just part, with "multiple severe fractures, muscles split from bones." Some classify DIME weapons as nuclear because they are based on a fusion process. (Democracy Now, Jan. 14.)

*****"Take some kittens … in a box. Seal up the box, then jump on it with all your weight and might, until you feel their little bones crunching, and you hear the last muffled little mew," a surgeon named Jamal tells Italian writer Vittorio Arigoni. Bloodstained boxes are fetched; Jamal opens one. It contains "amputated limbs, legs and arms, some from the knee down, others with the entire femur attached . . . from the injured at the Al Fakhura United Nations school in Jabalia, which resulted in more than 50 casualties."

Jamal says, "Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? Almost nothing. We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."

Speculatory and inflamatory propoganda. Rather than attempting to assign the blame on a new wonder bomb, which has a blast radius of only 40x the charge diameter (which if Israel is using it is most likely being delivered in the GBU-39 which has a 190 mm casing or a likely blast radius of 7600 mm - so unless there were 50 people standing inside a 7,6m circle (an average of 90cm² per person), it's doubtful). Much more likely is that the civilians were in fact standing on Hamas weapon caches that Israel blew up. All of the reports listed are very indicative of being inside the blast area of a large weapons storage area.

Arigoni also described the account, by ophthalmologist Dr. Abdel, of strange and terrible wounds he'd never seen before: "Dr. Abdel told me that at Al Shifa hospital, they don't have the medical and military competence to say for sure whether the wounds they examined on certain corpses were indeed provoked by white phosphorous bullets. But on his word, in 20 years on the job, he had never seen casualties like those now being carried into the ward."

These included "traumas to the skull, with fractures to ... the jaw … cheekbones, tear duct, nasal and palatine bones [all showing] signs of the collision of an immense force against the victim's face. What he finds inexplicable is the total lack of eyeballs, which ought to leave a trace somewhere within the skull, even in the case of such violent impact. Instead, we see Palestinian corpses coming into the hospitals without eyes at all, as if someone had removed them surgically before handing them over to the coroner."

Since no international observers are allowed in, judgment about the weapons inflicting such trauma will depend on further reports from Gaza, and corroboration from experts like Gilbert. (Arigoni is an international who reached Gaza by boat during the siege. His report was sent to e-mail lists Jan. 9.)

***The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Held "personally responsible" and cashiered from his post, he later rose to prime minister to resume his malignant policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The late Israeli writer Tanya Reinhardt predicted in 2002 that Israel was starting to finish what it began in 1948. This 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public (see Jan. 13 story in the New York Times.)

Operation Cast Lead is one of the great war crimes of our era. It was planned six to 18 months in advance, according to journalist Jonathan Cook. The war design "required directing artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighborhoods from which rockets were fired, despite being a violation of international law. Legal advisers, Barak noted, were seeking ways to avoid such prohibitions, presumably in the hope the international community would turn a blind eye."

Operation Cast Lead fulfills at least three of the points under Article 2 in the Convention on Genocide: (a) Killing members of the group; ( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

So to President-elect Barack Obama in his silence; to our senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, I'd address European Parliament member Luisa Morgantini's closing words in her open letter to European leaders:

"Israel has a right to exist as a normal state, a state for its citizens, along the 1967 borders, much wider than those of the partition plan passed by the United Nations in 1947. But I would have liked to hear your outrage and your humanity, and to hear you shouting for the pain of so many deaths and so much destruction, for such arrogance, for so much inhumanity, for so many violations of international and humanitarian law. ...

"My God, what a terrible world we live in!"

Proportionality is the key here, the amount of death amongst innocents is appalling, both sides have committed war crimes, but how anybody can justify the death of 400 children is beyond me.

Of course there have been human shields, but the amount of death and damage is beyond any response that can justifiably be reasoned as collateral damage, the attack on UN stations, is a statement, how you interpret that statement is uptoyou.

Others have stated how it will never be resolved, it can and it will, in time.

Hamas has to be completely isolated and if necessary destroyed, but not at the expense of war crimes, white phosphorous in civilian areas is possibly one, even if they are using Human Shields.

Two wrongs, even on this scale, can never be right, I wonder how many Freedom Fighters/Terrorists have been created.

A negotiated peace is available and can be achieved if all are willing to compromise, there is a deal on the table, I will have to research, but as long as the 1967 borders are recognised is part, and all recognise Israel as a Right to Exist it can be achieved.

As the Right to Exist question, all Arab League Nations agree to this under the proposal, even Fatah, Hamas doesn't, Iran also doesn't, but last I looked they were not a signatory to the Arab League.

Good Luck

Moss

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate. There are similarities.

Try 100% silly. The Nazis attempted to exterminate every single human being in the Warsaw ghetto for the "crime" of being Jewish". Israel is quite happy to leave Gaza in peace as long as they stop trying to kill Israelis with rockets and suicide bombings.

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate. There are similarities.

Try 100% silly. The Nazis attempted to exterminate every single human being in the Warsaw ghetto for the "crime" of being Jewish". Israel is quite happy to leave Gaza in peace as long as they stop trying to kill Israelis with rockets and suicide bombings.

A comparison is reasonable if there are any similarities, not if there are 100% alike.  The fact that the Palestinians are held in a controlled area and need to have permission to leave alone makes the comparison reasonable.  If you can't see that, well, so be it.

Proportionality is the key here, the amount of death amongst innocents is appalling, both sides have committed war crimes, but how anybody can justify the death of 400 children is beyond me.

Hamas would be quite happy to kill 400 Israeli children if they could and they very well might hit a school someday with one of their rockets. Is it OK that they play Russian Roulette with Jewish children's lives? "Proportionality" is rather foolish in wartime

Weighing Proportionality in Gaza

Since Hamas wants Israel destroyed, Israel claims its actions have become a just cause

Proportionality in war is often judged subjectively as each side weighs the consequences of hostilities, especially when civilian casualties are involved. While it is extremely difficult to justify a military operation solely on the basis of proportionality at any stage during war, a just cause must be central to the argument. Since Hamas' political agenda and raison d'etre has been Israel's destruction, Israel claims that its pursuit of Hamas becomes a just cause.

Under this type of equation, the Israeli leaders are duty bound to take whatever measures they deem necessary to bring Hamas to heel. From their perspective, this is not a fight between Israel and the Palestinian people - although Hamas would like to portray it as such - but a fight between Israel and a fanatic terrorist cult acting as agents for Iran, a country that threatens its very existence. Seeing the conflict with Hamas in this context raises different questions about proportionality as well as the stakes for Israel's long-term national security considerations.

Scholars in international ethics have often argued that proportionality and the use of force in war is based on moral rather than on quantitative or qualitative equivalence. In this case, as long as Hamas' objective is to destroy Israel, the moral equivalence would be the destruction of Hamas or, at a minimum, marginalizing its militant capabilities. If, by adhering to proportionality, Israel could dramatically reduce civilian casualties and still reach its objective, it would be obliged to do so. Proportionality in and of itself, however, does not necessarily provide an acceptable equation. If Israel had indiscriminately launched one rocket against Gaza for every one fired by Hamas during the past three years, Israel's response would have been by definition "proportional," but would have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians. But Israel would have also been severely and rightfully condemned by the international community for its horrific and yet proportionate response.

It should be noted that the proportionality norms apply not to the combatant's casualties, but to the relationship between the means and goal of war. Moreover, although Israel possesses overwhelming technical and fire-power advantages, Francis Winters, a noted scholar on international ethics, has observed that "There is nothing in the moral logic of self-defense that can support the notion that great powers may justly fight only when they reduce themselves to functional equality to small powers."

Proportionality is also dramatically affected by the effort made to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants with the aim of minimizing civilian casualties. Israeli soldiers strictly follow military protocol to avoid civilian casualties through targeted attacks and accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields to deliberately increase the civilian death-toll. Hamas rejects this argument on the grounds that their organization is a grass-roots movement inherently embedded in civilian communities. There is no doubt that when a fight is viewed in existential terms, be that political or physical, greater sacrifices are easier to swallow. Hamas wants to put Israel on the defensive, placing it under intense international pressure to end the hostilities before it reaches its objective. Hamas' leaders have time and again publicly asserted that they are willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians as long as they emerge victorious. They continue to fire rockets from schools and mosques, knowing full well that Israel is likely to target their launching pads.

Finally, there is the question as to whether these hostilities were avoidable, and as to whether or not Israel had exhausted all peaceful means before it decided to wage war. Israel no longer considers Gaza as occupied territory because it argues that Hamas was given every opportunity to rebuild and develop the strip since the Israelis withdrew in 2005. Hamas opted instead to use the territory as a staging ground to rain more than 10,000 rockets on Israel. Having attempted repeatedly through political and proportionate military means in the past to end Hamas' constant rocket attacks, without success, Israel was left with no choice but to use force. Though this was disproportionate, it is morally justified on the grounds that it is dealing with an enemy bent on its destruction.

Every single Israeli and Palestinian who believes in peaceful coexistence should know that if Hamas is left to its own devices it will continue to undermine any prospect of reaching a just and durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel must leave no stone unturned in its efforts to guard against civilian casualties in order for this war to fall into the category of a just cause. Regardless of proportionality, however, the losses on both sides will be all in vain if the final outcome of the war does not substantially improve both the prospects for an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace and for Palestinian citizens' living conditions. For this reason, any ceasefire agreed upon must provide the basis for such an outcome. Anything short of that will make this war just another sad chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian annals, and the question of proportionality just an obscure footnote.

Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

Web: www.alonben-meir.com

2009/01/14 오전 11:05

© 2009 Ohmynews http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/ar...p;isPrint=print

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate. There are similarities.

Try 100% silly. The Nazis attempted to exterminate every single human being in the Warsaw ghetto for the "crime" of being Jewish". Israel is quite happy to leave Gaza in peace as long as they stop trying to kill Israelis with rockets and suicide bombings.

A comparison is reasonable if there are any similarities, not if there are 100% alike.  The fact that the Palestinians are held in a controlled area and need to have permission to leave alone makes the comparison reasonable.  If you can't see that, well, so be it.

Aren't you the one who said, "Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate"? That means that you think that they are very close to one another (maybe 100% accurate) and Gaza's purpose is to house Palestinians until they get their own country. Wawsaw's purpose was as a way station to total extermination. No, I do not see your comparison as being "reasonable" at all.

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate. There are similarities.

Try 100% silly. The Nazis attempted to exterminate every single human being in the Warsaw ghetto for the "crime" of being Jewish". Israel is quite happy to leave Gaza in peace as long as they stop trying to kill Israelis with rockets and suicide bombings.

A comparison is reasonable if there are any similarities, not if there are 100% alike.  The fact that the Palestinians are held in a controlled area and need to have permission to leave alone makes the comparison reasonable.  If you can't see that, well, so be it.

Aren't you the one who said, "Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate"? That means that you think that they are very close to one another (maybe 100% accurate) and Gaza's purpose is to house Palestinians until they get their own country. Wawsaw's purpose was as a way station to total extermination. No, I do not see your comparison as being "reasonable" at all.

How do I think that they are close to each other?  I wrote that the comparison was not 100% accurate, so I obviously do not think the comparison follows through on all points. To be more clear, I think that even if the comparison is not 100% accurate, there are enough similarities to make someone comparing aspects of the two to be reasonable. But the two are inno way mirror images of each other.

You are not some dumb hippy. You are a military man. Do you see that one could compare the Waffen S.S. and the U.S. Marine Corps because both are military organizations, but if you say, "Comparing the Marines to the Waffen S.S. is reasonable if not 100% accurate", that you are slandering the Marines? That pretty much means that the Marines go around commiting genocide without provocation.

You are not some dumb hippy. You are a military man. Do you see that one could compare the Waffen S.S. and the U.S. Marine Corps because both are military organizations, but if you say, "Comparing the Marines to the Waffen S.S. is reasonable if not 100% accurate", that you are slandering the Marines? That pretty much means that the Marines go around commiting genocide without provocation.

While I am far from an expert on the Waffen S.S., I imagine that there are some similarities in training or some such. So it would really depend on what the comparison is.  If someone started comparing the mission of the two, well, I would protest and say the comparison is not valid. But I could compare the staff functions of the two organizations (assuming the staff function of the Waffen is similar--otherwise I am just using it for examples' sake), well, that would be a valid comparison for discussion.

Once again, I do not think that the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza are the same, and I have flat out written that I think the terms "genocide" and "concentration camp" are unwarranted. But if someone want to say that the Warsaw Ghetto and today's Gaza have at least a few things in common, well, I don't think that is too much a stretch.

But if someone want to say that the Warsaw Ghetto and today's Gaza have at least a few things in common, well, I don't think that is too much a stretch.

I agree, but, the statement ,"Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto is reasonable if not 100% accurate" is not even close to that. People think that you mean in the way that the Warsaw ghetto is famous for which is as a prelude to the

death camps.