Israel Launches Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza

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The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”…

The charter is a rather classical Islamist document, applied to the local issues. It declares that Jihad (in the sense of armed battle) is the only solution. It cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a ludicrous anti-Semitic forgery.

One of the most ominous aspects of the Charter however, is this Hadith:

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).

The implication is clear: Allah promised that the Jews will be murdered, and the Hamas “aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take.”
 
Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood…

Some observers deny the relation between the Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Charter states:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

Moreover, the Charter quotes Hassan Al-Banna, a Nazi sympathizer who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There is no doubt that the Hamas views itself as a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and an ideological heir of al Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood spawned a number of radical Islamist movements including Al-Qaeda.
 
Gaza is a densely-populated, heavily-concentrated civilian area. No other country in the world would get away with killing civilians because it was “thought” that a resistance fighter (a “terrorist”) might be in the apartment block that you have just knocked down with your “precision” strike. The British were at war for decades with the Irish people. Irish Republican fighters were committing serious acts of violence even almost killing the British PM and several of her parliamentary colleagues. If the British Air Force had begun bombarding, firing rockets, dropping phosphorous gas into Nationalist areas in the North of Ireland because it was “thought” that IRA fighters were in there somewhere can you imagine what the outcry in the United States would have been? Can you imagine what the world response would have been? Never mind the British response. No British government would ever had gotten away with such civilian killings.
 
Gaza is a densely-populated, heavily-concentrated civilian area. No other country in the world would get away with killing civilians because it was “thought” that a resistance fighter (a “terrorist”) might be in the apartment block that you have just knocked down with your “precision” strike. The British were at war for decades with the Irish people. Irish Republican fighters were committing serious acts of violence even almost killing the British PM and several of her parliamentary colleagues. If the British Air Force had begun bombarding, firing rockets, dropping phosphorous gas into Nationalist areas in the North of Ireland because it was “thought” that IRA fighters were in there somewhere can you imagine what the outcry in the United States would have been? Can you imagine what the world response would have been? Never mind the British response. No British government would ever had gotten away with such civilian killings.
If one wanted to see where possibly the British Empire abused power, I would possibly check with their colonialization in Africa and perhaps India/Pakistan as well.

guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities

But this is off-topic from this thread. I’m not out to criticize others, we have a good library here and they have some book about how the British Empire conducted themselves in Ghana.

Ireland being a slightly different topic and then, one could get into the Irish diaspora that saw many come to the US, potato famine, etc.
 
Article reads: 1845-1852

In the USA, “potato famine” and others here can confirm, seems to be a common term. However, having said that, I have heard that it can’t be directly blamed on the British Empire or only in a small part. But still, that is getting away from the topic.

Like you say An Gorta Mor, that’s Gaelic I’d think.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29

We have had similar types of famines in other places, Ukraine, China too if there are ever “man-made” famines.
 
See, I think this is the key here.

First off the rhetoric runs high on both sides.

You may be correct, individuals say these things but in some cases, these individuals are the leaders.
More specifically, why is the United States pledging any degree of support for a new President who, in a rally held shortly before the election, cried before his followers: “Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca, or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem, Allah willing. Our cry shall be: ‘Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem”? Mohammed Morsi just recently announced, also, that he wants to “restore ties with Iran in order to create a strategic balance in the Middle East” and “revise” Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel.
thecollegeconservative.com/2012/06/27/flirting-with-radicals-obama-the-muslim-brotherhood/

It’s the leaders of Nations like Egypt and Iran who say these things. This is why it digresses into this kind of name-calling and fair enough, the term is brought up by the other side as well.

This is almost though why I stay out of this argument because it’s difficult to totally see one side correct and one side wrong.

Though away from the Palestine/Israel conflict, I think it is clear Islamic extremists cause a lot of problems, per Nigeria, Kenya and other places, Libya too.
 
I’ll tell you what the situation in besieged Gaza is akin to. When the Jewish people in occupied Poland were blockaded in a Ghetto which became famous throughout the world as the Warsaw Ghetto, they had a choice: they could die quietly one by one or they could rise up and try and break the stranglehold of their besiegers. They Jewish people who rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto were not terrorists, they were freedom fighters, they were the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto. We look at that page now in history and it shines as an example of what any dignified people must do, have to do – not to go quietly into the night of death by starvation, death by deprivation but to take up arms against the sea of troubles which is slowly drowning them. That’s what the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto did and that’s what the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza seeks to do. If this latest ceasefire ends with the blockade still in place, then this conflict will not really have ended at all. As long as the people of Gaza are being besieged there will be resistance in Gaza. If there is resistance in Gaza there will be no peace in the Middle East. And if there is no peace in the Middle East there can be no peace in the world. Haven’t we learned that simple equation yet? No justice, no peace. 🤷
 
Hamas leader defiant as Israel eases Gaza curbs
Israel eased restrictions on Gaza fishermen and farmers on Saturday, Palestinian officials said, advancing a three-day-old truce brokered by Egypt after a week of fierce fighting.
Gaza’s children also headed back to school in their hundreds of thousands, in another indication normal life was returning after eight days of fierce cross-border fighting in which 166 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed.
Nonetheless, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar showed how fragile the ceasefire remained, with defiant remarks to reporters of how the Islamists would go on smuggling in weapons “by all possible means”, including via Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
reuters.com/article/2012/11/24/palestinians-israel-idUSL5E8MO12S20121124

Israel is now allowing fisherman out to six miles (10 km) from shore, which is twice as far as before. Fisherman say this will enable them to have a more diverse catch, and a more bountiful yield.

Israel is also allowing farmers into the 300 meter (1000 feet) buffer zone which surrounds Gaza. This change comes a day after Israeli troops fired on Gazans in the zone, some of whom may have thrown stones or passed through a hole in the border fence into Israel. Farmers were observed on Saturday working the ground close to the fence.
 
Are you suggesting something deeply disturbing was going wrong on an island that in the grips of the Famine produced enough stuff to feed and clothe 18 million people yet despite having less than half that, many starved to death?
 
has this got any thing to do with the O P

or are we hijacking it after so many posts…

fyi i would like to see a thread on this topic…
 
Next thing I know you’ll be telling me the freed Irish in America (over 100000 were basically shipped as slaves to the Thirteen Colonies) who set up schools for freed blacks partially did it because they knew what it was like to be crushed under the British (nearly all English) boot after being taken in literal chains from their homes and shipped to a foreign place against their will.

😉
 
it has nothing to do with them what so ever. (name removed by moderator)

you might sympathise with them but it has nothing to do with what is happening.

how come my father was from Clara,a total republican and all…and he was all for the Jewish state.

not the history but in opinions,when you talk about Ireland,do you talk on your understandings not every bodies… because they are not all the same as you…

the royal WE .

i would not talk about colonial regimes,because the Moors was one, so is the caliphate that is growing now.the same thing really.it never left the planet…

so you agree with a different regime rather than the one you despise?

well then you learn some thing new each day…

the very best to you.
 
Suspected militants bomb security bases in Egypt’s Sinai
Militants bombed security bases being built in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, injuring three people, authorities said, as the state tries to reassert control over territory that slipped from its grip after the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
Hardline Islamist militant groups have expanded into a vacuum left by the collapse of state control in North Sinai during the uprising that overthrew Mubarak in February, 2011.
The state launched a concerted effort to reestablish control following an August 5 attack in which 16 border guards were killed. But a November 3 gun attack in which three policemen died underlined the challenge still facing the authorities.
uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/25/uk-egypt-sinai-idUKBRE8AO02G20121125

The attacks took place near two towns. Rafah is the site of the border crossing from Egypt into Gaza, and the vicinity in which numerous smuggling tunnels have an outlet.

I am unsure of the location of other town, which is called Quseima
 
Will Militants Spoil the Gaza Ceasefire?

This article concerns jihadi groups in Gaza and the Sinai who operate largely out of the control of Hamas, and who have challenged the authority of Hamas.
The jihadis of Majlis Shura Fi Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis (MSM for short), Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (JABM), Jaysh al-Ummah (JU), and Jaysh al-Islam (JI) claimed responsibility for 99 rocket attacks from Nov. 11 to Nov. 21 once the conflict escalated. MSM and JABM have cells in both the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. MSM was responsible for the majority of these rocket attacks, having conducted 72 of them --14 of which were in a joint operation with JI on November 20. Five of MSM’s rocket attacks originated from northern Sinai. Additionally, JU announced the launch of 26 rockets, while JABM accounted for the final one having targeted the Israeli port city of Eilat from the Sinai.
This thoroughfare between the Sinai and Gaza amongst jihadis highlights the growing nexus of terror emanating from the two locations. The destabilization of the Sinai after the 2011 Egyptian uprising has helped Gazan jihadis regroup after suppression at the hands of Hamas when jihadis in the past attempted to challenge Hamas’ power in the Gaza Strip.
Therefore, it is possible that if Hamas attempts to implement the new ceasefire, Gaza-based jihadis will further embed themselves in the Northern Sinai safe haven. And while tensions have flared between Hamas and the various jihadi factions in Gaza since Hamas took power, Hamas has also looked the other way following the 2008-2009 war when different jihadis launched rockets into Israel. Both possibilities do not bode well for the sustainability of the ceasefire. Further, a recent analysis by a popular jihadi essayist suggests Gazan jihadis feel slighted by Hamas and PIJ’s lack of recognition in their recent efforts in the conflict. As such, these jihadis might attempt to derail the ceasefire.
theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/spoiling-the-gaza-ceasefire/265552/
 
Sinai Peninsula surfaces as new battleground in Israel-Palestinian turmoil
Despite concerted efforts by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to restore control over the Sinai, much of the region of sparsely populated desert and mountains remains outside central government control.
Scores of soldiers, policemen and militants have been killed in the Sinai fighting, which involves almost daily attacks on police stations and military outposts punctuated by more intense battles as the authorities retaliate.
The Camp David Accord says the Sinai will remain a demilitarized zone. Heavy weapons such as tanks and helicopter gunships can only be used there with agreement from both Cairo and the Israeli government.
ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/Jonathan+Manthorpe+Sinai+Peninsula+surfaces/7585870/story.html

In August of this year, 35 militants attacked an Egyptian military outpost in the Sinai, stole two armored cars and rammed though the crossing into Israel at Kerem Shalom. Six of the militants were killed in Israel. The incident led to closer working relationship between Egyptian and Israeli military intelligence, and approval for Egypt to bring in heavier weapons on a temporary basis.
 
“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and War is the terrorism of the rich.” - Sir Peter Ustinov
 
Clara, Offaly is the county… and i have cousins in virginia,Co Cavan…

edit for county twice…

Palestine this time round fall under the muslim brotherhood…a new caliphate…
 
True, the situation in the West Bank is more like a Gulag than a concentration camp.
 
Israel, Hamas teams in Cairo for more truce talks
Egyptian mediators began separate talks on Monday with Hamas and with Israel to flesh out details of a ceasefire agreed last week that ended eight days of fighting in the Gaza Strip.
An Egyptian official told Reuters the talks would discuss Palestinian demands for the opening of more Israeli crossings into Gaza - a move that would help end six years of blockade of the coastal enclave ruled by the Islamist Hamas.
Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar told reporters on Saturday that the group wanted to see the opening of all four goods crossings with Israel that used to operate before 2006.
Only one operates at present, with a second passenger terminal reserved for the handful of Palestinians and foreigners who are allowed in and out of the territory.
uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/26/uk-palestinians-israel-egypt-talks-idUKBRE8AP0LH20121126

Egypt would like to get both Israel and Gaza to reaffirm their commitment to the cease-fire process. The shooting of Gazans in the buffer zone this past weekend alarmed Egyptian negotiators, who feared the cease-fire might come to an abrupt end. In response, Egypt pressured Hamas to deploy its police force to patrol the buffer zone to prevent similar incidents.

Israel and Hamas negotiators will not be meeting face to face, even though in the same city. Instead, they will rely on Egyptians to serve as go-betweens.
 
One has to ask, are Mursi’s motives here truly constructive and altruistic? His play for power in attempting to set himself up even above the judiciary of his country suggests much—that his “peace-brokering” may just be posturing on the international stage in order to amass more political capital at home. He probably hopes he’ll gain enough to win his showdown with the judiciary.

This is a recurrent theme in Middle Eastern politics—foreign policy being a tool to advance goals in the arena of domestic politics.

One of my favorite examples of this was during the '73 Arab-Israeli war, as Dr. Kissinger recounted in his memoirs. A Jordanian artillery officer at the front actually got hold of his Israeli counterpart directly on the opposite side of the front by radio, and requested to be allowed to lob a few shells over, which they wouldn’t actually aim at anything—just so Jordan could say it took part in the conflict, while avoiding any real tangle with Israel. King Hussein just wanted to assuage anger on his portion of the “Arab street.”

The Israeli commander, quite understandably, told the Jordanian officer what he could go do with himself.
 
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