Israel Launches Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza

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According to the live blog on the Al-Jazeera English website, the Palestinan factions have held a closed door meeting in Gaza City and then released a statement. Reportedly they are rejecting offers by Arab and EU mediators to broker a cease-fire.
 
Well thanks to this crisis I just found out that apparently the Israelis are “our [Canada’s] allies” (Defense Minister yesterday) and that ‘an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada’ (ibid.). This from the CBC1].

Apparently at some point Canadian impartiality in the Israel-Palestine conflict just disappeared.

I’m still trying to find out exactly when Canada entered into a military alliance with Israel.
  1. Cf., e.g., cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/11/15/video-peter-mackay.html
 
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mwFwqwoJ9OU#!

I hope this is not off the point of the thread, however this video was sent to me several weeks ago, in relation to what we don’t see ‘behind the scenes’ with regards to the Palestine/Israel situation. Being in the West as is the person who sent it to me, he’s in the USA, we both were always led to believe, by the media, that Israel are the ones hard done by and that the Palestinians are always at fault and causing trouble. This video puts a slightly different light on the situation. I fully recognise that Palestine is not a totally innocent party, either.

I think this is a very ‘cruel’ and unnecessary way to demoralise people, as you can imagine building your own home and it taking months, looking forward to moving in and then a legal entity comes and pulls it down. If nothing else, why not ban the building of it in the first place.

I do not want a full blown war to open up between the Israel and Palestine, especially as who knows which larger countries will end up siding with whom and how big it could all escalate.
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On November 6th the Israeli army demolished one house and a stumble in the Palestinian village of Derath; afterward it demolished a house and a water cistern in the Palestinian village of Jawaya, South Hebron Hills, West Bank.

The two Palestinian villages are located in Area C, under Israeli military and civil administration. According to OCHA oPt (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in occupied Palestinian territory) construction is prohibited for Palestinians in some 70% of Area C, while in the remaining 30%, a range of restrictions eliminate the possibility of obtaining a building permit.

The policies enforced by the Israeli authorities in Area C restrict the possibility to access to basic needs for the residents and prevent environment and development of Palestinian communities. An OCHA Opt research shows that in some communities families are being forced to move as a result of Israeli policies applied in Area C
Category:*

News & Politics
 
1AugustSon7 said:
Well thanks to this crisis I just found out that apparently the Israelis are “our [Canada’s] allies” (Defense Minister yesterday) and that ‘an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada’ (ibid.). This from the CBC1].

Apparently at some point Canadian impartiality in the Israel-Palestine conflict just disappeared.

I’m still trying to find out exactly when Canada entered into a military alliance with Israel.
  1. Cf., e.g., cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/11/15/video-peter-mackay.html
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… Actually I’m starting to question even the legality -certainly the morality- of this sort of rhetoric. The government here is effectively retroactively imposing an enomormous obligation upon Canada and Canadians that they [people or parliament] never had the opportunity to discuss/debate.

I don’t like this at all.
 
1AugustSon7 said:
Well thanks to this crisis I just found out that apparently the Israelis are “our [Canada’s] allies” (Defense Minister yesterday) and that ‘an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada’ (ibid.).
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I am not familiar with Canada’s foreign policy positions, but apparently the Defence Minister, Peter McKay, has said similar things before. This is from a June 2012 news article
Newly released documents say Defence Minister Peter MacKay told Israel’s top military commander, Maj.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, during a 2011 visit to the Middle East, that “a threat to Israel is a threat to Canada.”
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A spokesman for Mr. MacKay said the defence minister’s comment was intended as an expression of support.
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“Minister MacKay was making a statement of political solidarity with the Israelis and reminding our friends there that they are not facing global security threats alone,” Jay Paxton said in an email.
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news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/19/a-threat-to-israel-is-a-threat-to-canada-peter-mackay-to-jewish-commander/
 
pepipop said:
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mwFwqwoJ9OU#!

I hope this is not off the point of the thread, however this video was sent to me several weeks ago, in relation to what we don’t see ‘behind the scenes’ with regards to the Palestine/Israel situation. Being in the West as is the person who sent it to me, he’s in the USA, we both were always led to believe, by the media, that Israel are the ones hard done by and that the Palestinians are always at fault and causing trouble. This video puts a slightly different light on the situation. I fully recognise that Palestine is not a totally innocent party, either.

I think this is a very ‘cruel’ and unnecessary way to demoralise people, as you can imagine building your own home and it taking months, looking forward to moving in and then a legal entity comes and pulls it down. If nothing else, why not ban the building of it in the first place.

I do not want a full blown war to open up between the Israel and Palestine, especially as who knows which larger countries will end up siding with whom and how big it could all escalate.
*
On November 6th the Israeli army demolished one house and a stumble in the Palestinian village of Derath; afterward it demolished a house and a water cistern in the Palestinian village of Jawaya, South Hebron Hills, West Bank.

The two Palestinian villages are located in Area C, under Israeli military and civil administration. According to OCHA oPt (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in occupied Palestinian territory) construction is prohibited for Palestinians in some 70% of Area C, while in the remaining 30%, a range of restrictions eliminate the possibility of obtaining a building permit.

The policies enforced by the Israeli authorities in Area C restrict the possibility to access to basic needs for the residents and prevent environment and development of Palestinian communities. An OCHA Opt research shows that in some communities families are being forced to move as a result of Israeli policies applied in Area C
Category:*

News & Politics
Click to expand...
good post; very informative, but I don’t understand why all those displaced people don’t just go and live at the Arcmed Al Mashtal in Gaza City, there’s plenty of vacancies there and looks like plenty of gourmet food to enjoy as well, some people just don’t know what’s good for themselves I guess.
 
brumano said:
good post; very informative, but I don’t understand why all those displaced people don’t just go and live at the Arcmed Al Mashtal in Gaza City, there’s plenty of vacancies there and looks like plenty of gourmet food to enjoy as well, some people just don’t know what’s good for themselves I guess.
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I genuinely don’t know enough about the situation. Maybe they’re farmers, not city workers, I don’t know. But I thought their treatment was very cruel, either way. They could have been refused planning permission and it would seem that the territory they built within, is still part of their homeland, Gaza. I doubt they would have had the ‘nerve’ to build a home, illegally and/ or in Israel territory considering the way they seem to be policed.
 
brumano said:
I don’t understand why all those displaced people don’t just go and live at the Arcmed Al Mashtal in Gaza City, there’s plenty of vacancies there and looks like plenty of gourmet food to enjoy as well, some people just don’t know what’s good for themselves I guess.
Click to expand...
I had to look up “Arcmed Al Mashtal,” but see that it is (or was) a five star hotel located in (of all places) Gaza City. The explanation for its existence is as follows:
Construction began in the mid-1990s in the optimistic days following the signing of the Oslo accords when many believed lasting peace and a Palestinian state were realistic prospects. Funded by a consortium of Palestinian businessmen and Gulf state backers, it was originally planned as an office block but the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada brought work to a halt.
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The building, redesignated as a hotel to be operated by the upmarket chain Mövenpick, was eventually completed in 2006. A year later Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip following bloody battles with their rivals Fatah, and Mövenpick pulled out. The hotel was mothballed.
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Then a year ago ArcMed, a Spanish group, agreed to take over the management and open the hotel. “I came to the hotel and saw the possibilities,” said the company’s president, Anna Balletbo, whose connections with Gaza stretch back more than 40 years. “We decided to try it.”
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guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/08/gaza-first-five-star-hotel

It didn’t open until last year, because it had been damaged during the 2008-09 war with Israel and needed to be repaired. Given that (at least in August of last year) a Hamas military training camp is located next to the hotel, it probably isn’t a safe place to be during this war, either.
 
The sources may be very biased, I don’t know. However usually information on RT, is subsequently reported by more established news sources.

haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-peace-activist-hamas-leader-jabari-killed-amid-talks-on-long-term-truce.premium-1.478085

*Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip. This, according to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate between Israel and Hamas in the deal to release Gilad Shalit and has since… *

rt.com/news/peace-settlement-hamas-israel-882/

*Israel has chosen to attack Gaza in order to avoid reaching a longer-term peace settlement that was being negotiated with the help of Hamas’ military leader Ahmen Jabari, who was assassinated in an Israeli attack Wednesday, says Israeli activist.

Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin spoke to RT confirming that Ahmen Jabari was involved in peace settlement negotiations with Israel and was due to send Hamas’ version of a peace draft to Baskin on Wednesday evening before he was killed. *

Gershon Baskin: It was initially drafted 8 months ago. It was presented to the Israelis, Hamas, Egyptian intelligence and the UN for deliberation. Both Israelis and Hamas decided not to agree. Over the last months the ceasefires got shorter and shorter and the intensity of the fighting increased. And I decided together with my counterpart in Hamas, we were instrumental in negotiating a prisoner exchange deal that led to freedom of Gilad Shaid, the Israeli soldier held in captivity by Mr. Jabari, we decided to push forward. My Hamas counterpart wrote a new version of the draft and he was presenting it to Hamas leaders. In fact on Wednesday morning he was presenting it to Ahmed Jabari himself. I was supposed to receive later that evening the copy of the draft in Arabic for me to deliver to the Israelis who were waiting for it along with Egyptian intelligence.
 
This is nuts, people outside of the US may not know who Kim Kardashian is but if we have to see her here in the USA whenever we go to the Super market and she’s on the coverage of magazines, I have to add in this:

According to WND (World Net Daily)
Kim Kardashian tweets support for Israel;
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wnd.com/2012/11/kim-kardashian-yanks-pro-israel-tweet/?cat_orig=world

Go to the story for the rest:

This meaning how people responded to this free speech is terrible and this is what is apparent in America that we can not have tolerance in discussing issues and in this example, we have someone that can’t be identified as having Conservative views for the most part and amazingly, this is how she is treated?? Shocking.
 
I meant to bring this subject up, it seems Syria, some of these other countries could get involved. Bad sign.
 
Things seem to be heating up. I would recommend everyone read David French’s post from yesterday about how the rules of war seem to work in respect to Gaza. Your going to hear a lot of propaganda being flung by both sides in the next few days.
 
There is so much propaganda over this and posturing by the more ‘powerful nations’ as to who will support which side. Hopefully this is ‘posturing’ and nothing else, in the assumption that one side or both will eventually back down.

presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/16/272661/russia-to-back-egypt-against-israel-putin/

*Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country will back Egyptian efforts to put an end to the Israeli aggression in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In a telephone conversation with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Friday, Putin said Russia planned to support Cairo’s efforts directed at normalizing the situation in the Palestinian territory, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Code: 
The remarks come after Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Qandil visited the Gaza Strip on Friday, where he urged the world leaders to stop Tel Aviv’s attacks.
Qandil promised to intensify Egypt’s efforts to “stop this aggression and achieve a lasting truce."

On Thursday, President Morsi also condemned the Israeli aggression as “unacceptable” and warned it could lead to instability in the region. *
 
pepipop said:
There is so much propaganda …*. *
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PressTV is a propaganda arm of the Iranian government. The Iranian government funds Hamas. That is where the missiles are coming from and the training to shoot those missiles that Hamas has been shooting at Israeli citizens for months now. Not exactly an objective sourse. :rolleyes:
 
Looks like nothing much came from the Egyptian PM’s visit to Gaza.

I doubt Egypt will do anything at this time. What is odd is that Hamas chose this time to cause this confrontation. Something in Iran must be causing Iran to want Israel distracted right now.
 
Al Qassam Brigades just took credit for shelling the city of Ashdod with 5 Grad missiles. IDF reported 4 rockets fired from Gaza struck Ashdod: 1 on a house, 1 on a car, 1 near a kindergarten & 1 in an open area. By the way, this is technically a war crime. Actually the way Hamas is shooting the missiles discriminately and the fact that they are shooting them from civilian areas and the men shooting them are not in uniform, all their missile firings are war crimes.

People close to Gaza only have seconds to find shelter if they get any warning at all.

And so the day goes on…
 
gilliam said:
What is odd is that Hamas chose this time to cause this confrontation. Something in Iran must be causing Iran to want Israel distracted right now.
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That is an interesting suggestion. What sort of thing(s) were you thinking of?

The conventional wisdom is that Hamas is responding to internal challenges to its leadership of Gaza. More radical factions have been rocketing Israel for months and Hamas may have seen a need to re-establish its credibility.

I suspect the timing has something to with rivalry with Fateh, which oversees the West Bank, and is technically in charge of the Palestinian Authority. The PA is currently circulating a proposal in the UN which would advance Palestine to the rank of non-member observer state. The proposal has been widely expected to be approved by the General Assembly, but it is vehemently opposed by Israel.

Hamas may be trying to upstage Fateh. Whether the current Gaza-Israel crisis will help or hurt the proposal’s chances, I am unsure.

Another thing to consider is that Hamas is diplomatically less tied to Iran than before the Syrian uprising. Hamas has publicly supported the rebels and that can’t please Iran. Plus, Hamas has mild backing from Egypt, Qatar and some other moderate Gulf states. It is possible that Hamas is trying to portray itself as a victim of Israeli oppression in order to strengthen ties to the moderate countries and to further isolate Israel.
 
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