The Israeli-Palestinian disaster
Israel unleashed its military machine in the past few days, ignoring global calls for calm and restraint. For one captured and murdered soldier, Israel has accelerated the conflict to outright war. Launching night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel captured and arrested the majority of the ministers and members of parliament of Hamas.
Hamas has stated that these raids were an act of “open war against the Palestinian Government and people” and it is hard to see how this is not so. States an Israeli Foreign Ministry official (Mark Regev):
The hypocrisy of this statement is unfortunately lost on most people, and obviously, the Israelis. The Israeli Government has launched dozens of aerial attacks into Palestinian urban areas, killing an order of magnitude more civilians. It has routinely “kidnapped” Palestinians through its extrajudicial security sweeps.
As for behaving like “terrorists”, in the past two days, Israeli attacks targeted the Gaza Strip’s only power station and have left 700,000 Palestinians in the Gaza without power and with a threatened water supply. The Foreign Ministry has described civilian infrastructure as “legitimate targets”. Sorry Mr Regev, but targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in such a manner is an act of state sponsored terrorism and a war crime.
As I have argued on numerous occasions the ethics and morality of action needs to be examined through the lens of “universality”. If we apply the reasoning that Israel uses to justify its attacks to Hamas, then surely Israeli “civilian infrastructure” would also be “legitimate targets”. Attacking and kidnapping of Israeli ministers and MPs would be justified.
This is obviously not the case. As such Israeli should be condemned in perpetrating this highly unethical, if not illegal military action against the Palestinian people.
In just six months since the Ariel Sharon broke away from Likud to form the centralist Kadima party, the hope that he created for a new peace between Israelis and Palestinians has faded like the man.
From: The Sydney Morning Herald
Acts of war: Middle East on edge (excerpt)
Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Gaza and agencies
June 30, 2006
...In night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli troops rounded up most of the ministers and MPs representing the non-Gaza wing of the Palestinian ruling party, Hamas.
Hamas has described the raids as an act of "open war against the Palestinian Government and people" and said Israel would have to face the consequences...
...Israel's move against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is only the most serious of a number of grave developments threatening to escalate an already fraught situation into all-out war and humanitarian disaster...
...On Wednesday Israeli jets buzzed the summer palace of Syria's President, Bashar Assad, driving home Israel's threat to assassinate Hamas leaders at large in Gaza and in exile in Syria. Syria said its air defences fired on the aircraft without hitting them.
Early yesterday Israeli troops found the body of a murdered 18-year-old Jewish settler - Eliyahu Asheri, who is the son of an Australian immigrant - abducted by Palestinian militants in the West Bank on Sunday.
In Gaza, meanwhile, militants belonging to the mainstream Fatah military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, claim to have fired a chemical-tipped missile into Israel for the first time...
...Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said that Israel will not negotiate to release Corporal Shalit and will take "extreme actions" if he is not freed.
"Our aim is not to mete out punishment but to apply pressure so the soldier will be freed," he said. "We want to create a new equation: freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians."
Over the past 48 hours, Israeli attacks - including artillery bombardments, tank incursions and the destruction of two bridges and the strip's only power station - have left 700,000 people without power and threaten to cut off water to 1.3 million Gazans.
The actions have been condemned as "collective punishment" by human rights groups and by the British Foreign Office...
Israel unleashed its military machine in the past few days, ignoring global calls for calm and restraint. For one captured and murdered soldier, Israel has accelerated the conflict to outright war. Launching night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel captured and arrested the majority of the ministers and members of parliament of Hamas.
Hamas has stated that these raids were an act of “open war against the Palestinian Government and people” and it is hard to see how this is not so. States an Israeli Foreign Ministry official (Mark Regev):
“If the government of the Palestinian Authority says it’s okay to send rockets into Israel, to kidnap Israelis, to behave like terrorists, then they will be treated like terrorists.”
The hypocrisy of this statement is unfortunately lost on most people, and obviously, the Israelis. The Israeli Government has launched dozens of aerial attacks into Palestinian urban areas, killing an order of magnitude more civilians. It has routinely “kidnapped” Palestinians through its extrajudicial security sweeps.
As for behaving like “terrorists”, in the past two days, Israeli attacks targeted the Gaza Strip’s only power station and have left 700,000 Palestinians in the Gaza without power and with a threatened water supply. The Foreign Ministry has described civilian infrastructure as “legitimate targets”. Sorry Mr Regev, but targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in such a manner is an act of state sponsored terrorism and a war crime.
As I have argued on numerous occasions the ethics and morality of action needs to be examined through the lens of “universality”. If we apply the reasoning that Israel uses to justify its attacks to Hamas, then surely Israeli “civilian infrastructure” would also be “legitimate targets”. Attacking and kidnapping of Israeli ministers and MPs would be justified.
This is obviously not the case. As such Israeli should be condemned in perpetrating this highly unethical, if not illegal military action against the Palestinian people.
In just six months since the Ariel Sharon broke away from Likud to form the centralist Kadima party, the hope that he created for a new peace between Israelis and Palestinians has faded like the man.
From: The Sydney Morning Herald
Acts of war: Middle East on edge (excerpt)
Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Gaza and agencies
June 30, 2006
...In night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli troops rounded up most of the ministers and MPs representing the non-Gaza wing of the Palestinian ruling party, Hamas.
Hamas has described the raids as an act of "open war against the Palestinian Government and people" and said Israel would have to face the consequences...
...Israel's move against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is only the most serious of a number of grave developments threatening to escalate an already fraught situation into all-out war and humanitarian disaster...
...On Wednesday Israeli jets buzzed the summer palace of Syria's President, Bashar Assad, driving home Israel's threat to assassinate Hamas leaders at large in Gaza and in exile in Syria. Syria said its air defences fired on the aircraft without hitting them.
Early yesterday Israeli troops found the body of a murdered 18-year-old Jewish settler - Eliyahu Asheri, who is the son of an Australian immigrant - abducted by Palestinian militants in the West Bank on Sunday.
In Gaza, meanwhile, militants belonging to the mainstream Fatah military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, claim to have fired a chemical-tipped missile into Israel for the first time...
...Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said that Israel will not negotiate to release Corporal Shalit and will take "extreme actions" if he is not freed.
"Our aim is not to mete out punishment but to apply pressure so the soldier will be freed," he said. "We want to create a new equation: freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians."
Over the past 48 hours, Israeli attacks - including artillery bombardments, tank incursions and the destruction of two bridges and the strip's only power station - have left 700,000 people without power and threaten to cut off water to 1.3 million Gazans.
The actions have been condemned as "collective punishment" by human rights groups and by the British Foreign Office...
1 comments:
Israel are wrong in punishing all of the people living in Gaza. It is mass punishment which is totally wrong.
Under the geneva convetion by blowing up the power station and other roads they are possibly commiting war crimes.
The situation keeps escaliting becuase each time one side does something bad, the other one does something twice as bad. This will continue until one side realises this.
At the end of the day it is the innocnet people on both sides who will suffer the consequences of these actions from both sides.
Israel do not help themselves in situations like these.
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