Israel 'ready for escalation' of Gaza conflict

[Michael_Mayo]

The US, the UN, everybody has to do everything they can to stop this conflict from escalating. Israel (our ally in the region) is fighting for its existence in hostile territory and the Obama administration is nowhere to be found. The Palestinians are also dying and suffering horribly under the Israeli attacks.

What would you like the Obama Administration to do?

 

[graciew]

catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1402896.htm

Phone calls, evacuations: Gaza’s Christians work together to stay safe.

Father Jorge Hernández lives in Gaza.

 

[gnjsdad]

ISRAEL ORDERS RESIDENTS OF NORTHERN GAZA TO LEAVE
JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli military says it is ordering Palestinians living in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate the area “for their own safety.”

In a statement Saturday, the military said it would send messages to residents overnight to leave the area.

This would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. They are being ordered to move from one side of their open-air pen to another.

Israel, the world is watching.

From the West Bank City to Ramallah to London to Paris, thousands of people around the world took to the streets this week to call for an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza. This included U.S. protesters in cities including Chicago and New York urging the U.S. to withdraw its financial and political backing of Israel’s aggression.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Friday that “international pressure” will not make him stop the attacks, emphasizing that Israel is still “preparing” for a possible ground assault, according to media reports.

Gaza’s Children Trapped by Israeli Airstrikes, Naval Bombardment, over 20 Dead

 

[Coatimundi]

catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1402896.htm

Gracie, thank you for sharing that. Often I have forgotten there are Christians living in Gaza, and when I have remembered that possibility, I had no idea how many there might be. The article you provided gives us some sense of what they are going through.

The Sisters of the Institute of the Incarnate Word have been calling members of the parish to check up on them on a daily basis, [Father Jorge Hernández] said, and he has remained in touch with his parishioners either by phone or by Skype. He is also in touch with the Greek Orthodox priest and Baptist pastor, and they remain united in helping the Christian community, he said.

“Maintaining contact with the people is important. Maybe I can’t reach them myself because of safety, but, for example, there is a very elderly woman who did not have any water on one of the most intense days of bombings, so I couldn’t go there but I called a neighbor who lived close by to bring her water,” he said.

Some 1,300 Christian Palestinians now live in Gaza amid 1.8 million Muslims, with 130 Catholics, a sprinkling of Baptists and a large majority of Greek Orthodox.

Fr. Hernández said that the bombs are not the entire problem. He worries that the militants in Gaza will eventually try to scapegoat the Christians. He says this has happened previously.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Israel has a right to defend itself.

 

[graciew]

aleteia.org/es/internacional/articulo/bombas-sobre-un-orfanato-en-gaza-mueren-tres-ninas-discapacitadas-5894543224340480
Bombs on an orphanage in Gaza: three girls with disabilities die.( my translation)

You are welcome,Coatimundi.
The Spanish news I have today from a Catholic source says Father Hernandez asks Christians of all the world : " Pray for for us,we need a miracle."
He says people are asking them( priests) to leave,he says they are not. And he is sorry they can’t do more than they are doing.

I could not find it in English. I Apologize for that.

 

[graciew]

Israel has a right to defend itself.

So do the children,7Sorrows. But they have no voice if we don’ speak.
Peace.

 

[7_Sorrows]

So do the children,7Sorrows. But they have no voice if we don’ speak.
Peace.

The terrorists are putting the children’s lives in danger.

 

[gnjsdad]

The terrorists are putting the children’s lives in danger.

I think Israel’s F16s are doing a more effective job of that.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I think Israel’s F16s are doing a more effective job of that.

I think you know what I mean.

Israel won’t attack without being provoked.
Hamas and other terrorist organizations are endangering the lives of their children.

 

[ringil]

I know we are to have hope but I believe that there will never be peace in the Holy Land. I honestly believe that many people on the Israeli and Palestinian sides do not desire peace and have made their lives on war.

To many many Israelis the problems are %100 the fault of the Palestinians.
And to many Palestinians the problems are %100 the fault of Israel.

There can’t be any dialogue with this mindset.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I know we are to have hope but I believe that there will never be peace in the Holy Land. I honestly believe that many people on the Israeli and Palestinian sides do not desire peace and have made their lives on war.

To many many Israelis the problems are %100 the fault of the Palestinians.
And to many Palestinians the problems are %100 the fault of Israel.

There can’t be any dialogue with this mindset.

Because the Palestinians will never be satisfied. Unless Israel no longer exists. Israel has worked for peace before, but it is a 2 way street.

 

[ringil]

Because the Palestinians will never be satisfied. Unless Israel no longer exists. Israel has worked for peace before, but it is a 2 way street.

Both sides have plenty of blame here and as long as they keep going “it’s your fault”, they aren’t getting anywhere.

It is a circular problem with Israeli officials right in there.

 

[gnjsdad]

Because the Palestinians will never be satisfied. Unless Israel no longer exists. Israel has worked for peace before, but it is a 2 way street.

The implication being that the Palestinian people are just plain irrational? They need to just shut up and watch their lands being stolen by a colonial-settler power?

The reason Israel is taking rocket fire from Gaza is that it is an occupying power and it won’t let the residents of Gaza have the rights that accrue to citizens of a state. It has destroyed the Gaza airport and it won’t allow the harbor to function. It won’t allow Gazans to export any products they make and it has Gaza under an economic blockade that works to keep much of the population (composed, BTW nearly 50% of children) “food insecure”.

No other people can be expected to tolerate living under those conditions, but those Palestinians “can never be satisfied”.

Israel can have peace if it wants. All it has to do is agree to the 1967 borders and give up its designs on the territory and resources of its neighbors. The Arab League supports this. The Palestinian Authority (now joined in coaltion with Israel’s former ally Hamas) supports this.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Israel is trying to protect its citizens.

When 3 teens are doing nothing more than waiting to take a bus home from school at night and and are kidnapped and executed anf the palestinian people cheer and throw candy over the actions of those who committed the murders. They throw rocks at the ambulance that goes to pick up the 3 bodies. The palestinians are pawns of the terrorists. I don’t know where you get your information, but you might want to do more unbiased research.

Israel has the right to defend itself against those that wish to do harm or destroy it.

 

[graciew]

So where do we go from here ? You kill my children so I kill your children ? All this is plain madness.
That is what escalation means at its worst.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Yes it is madness! I don’t have the answer. I just know as long as Israel
continues to exist on their small piece of land in the middle east and as long as terrorism flourishes there will be no end.
They simply do not want the State of Israel to exist.
Period.

 

[graciew]

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/07/09/neuhaus_israeli-palestinian_rhetoric_begets_violence/1102698

Worth reading. Last paragraph refers to how Israeli mothers of the teens who were killed respond.
Peace.

 

[Coatimundi]

Yes it is madness! I don’t have the answer. I just know as long as Israel continues to exist on their small piece of land in the middle east and as long as terrorism flourishes there will be no end. They simply do not want the State of Israel to exist.

Eliminating terrorism is key. But what is the best way to do that? Killing people works in the short term. However, the conditions which convinced individuals to become terrorists needs to be addressed as well. Otherwise, new terrorists will continue to appear. Mowing the lawn is fine if you are merely cutting grass. But when you are killing people on a regular basis, then perhaps better policies need to be found.

I think Israel is considering a temporary occupation of Gaza. The goal is to disarm the terrorists who are building and launching rockets.

Yuval Steinitz, the country’s minister for strategic affairs, told Israel Radio that the immediate goal of the offensive, known as Operation Protective Edge “is quiet.”

“ The strategic goal,” Mr. Steinitz said, “is demilitarization. We have to finally not be satisfied with a temporary filling but do a root canal.”

“With all the difficulty entailed,” he said, “I think we have no way out other than a ground operation to take over Gaza in order to dismantle with our own hands the terror army, the missiles, the weapons industry in the Gaza Strip. It is complicated but maybe there is no alternative.”
nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza.html?action=click&contentCollection=World&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Blogs

This will be painful and destructive. If the conditions in Gaza are improved so that people there feel they have more to gain from peace with Israel and more to be lost from conflict with Israel, however, perhaps good will be able grow from it.

 

[Coatimundi]

nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza.html?action=click&contentCollection=World&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Blogs

What Hamas and Islamic Jihad hopes to achieve by this conflict, I do not know. The NYT article mentions a couple demands from the Gaza leadership. One is the release of dozens of former prisoners who were re-arrested last month during the clampdown in the West Bank, as the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were searched for. Another demand is for the Rafah crossing into Egypt to be re-opened.

However, my sense from past news reports is that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are eager for conflict because they have an unprecedented stock of missiles to use against Israel.
nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/13/world/middleeast/the-growing-reach-of-hamas-rockets.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article