Israeli official: We will not negotiate under fire

[Jefferson23]

Rocket-fire toward Israel resumes, after quiet night; IDF jets target 30 sites overnight Saturday; IDF resumes Gaza airstrikes, five killed.
By Haaretz | Aug. 9, 2014 | 4:06 PM

Live updates:

4:06 P.M. An Israeli official said there are no plans at the moment to send the Israeli delegation back to Cairo on Saturday night. "We will not negotiate under rocket fire," the official said. (Barak Ravid)

3:57 P.M. Rocket explodes inside community in Eshkol Regional Council. No injuries or damage reported. (Shirly Seidler)

3:33 P.M. Rocket sirens sound in Eshkol Regional Council.

2:26 P.M. Rocket sirens sound in Gaza-bordering areas (Haaretz)

1:02 P.M. Tel Aviv police announces it will not permit the left-wing demonstration planned for this evening in the city's Rabin Square. "Due to the security situation, the rocket threat, and in light of the recommendations set forth by the Home Front Command, it has been decided that no large-scale public congregations in open areas will be allowed."

According to the instructions issued by the IDF's Home Front Command yesterday, gatherings of over 1,000 people in open areas are not permitted anywhere within 40-80 kilometers of the Strip's perimeter. Both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv fall into that category.

In areas within 40 kilometers of the Strip, public gathering of over 500 people are forbidden, both oin open areas and within closed spaces. (Yaniv Kubovich)

12:08 P.M. Rocket sirens sound in Gaza border areas. One rocket landed in an open area in Sdot Negev Regional Council. (Shirley Seidler, Haaretz)


http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.609676

[oberliner]

1. Why does Hamas keep shooting rockets?

I seriously do not get the point behind that strategy.

[Jefferson23]

2. I don't think you ever will. n/t

[oberliner]

3. It's sad

I wish they would think more rationally.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. Like Irgun?

[oberliner]

6. I was thinking more like Arafat circa 1993

There really seemed to be genuine hope then.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. Of course you are, my dear.

Last edited Sat Aug 9, 2014, 08:11 PM - Edit history (1)

Whenever I bring up Irgun, the Jewish terror group, Israeliphiles scatter in all directions.

It's easier to run than admit that there were some Jews that used terror to justify their goals.

[oberliner]

8. Huh?

I don't know what you are talking about. Israelifiles??

Of course there were Jews that used terror to justify their goals. There still are such Jews.

Personally, I don't think the Irgun model would be effective here.

I honestly feel like the Arafat approach would be more likely to yield positive results for Palestinians than embracing terrorism.

[Scootaloo]

10. I think the term he wanted was "Israeliphiles"

The "Arafat option" produced nothing for Palestinians. Which is why there was a Second Intifada. Which is why hamas is how it is.

Arafat came to believe that Israel would be willing to let Palestine exist. And maybe so, if Rabin hadn't been killed by the father of modern Israel, Yigal Amir.

Maybe you should be clucking about how Israel needs to follow the example of Rabin, rather than embracing the view of his assassin.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

16. Yes, apologies. I was distracted or some other

king-sized thing...

[Ken Burch]

20. The Israeli side destroyed that hope and sabotaged Arafat

by continuing to expand settlements, settlements they KNEW were illegal, in the West Bank and(at that time)Gaza.

Even the "dovish" Israeli governments refused to state publicly that they would accept a Palestinian state...even though they KNEW they had no right to ever ask the Palestinians to end hostilities without the creation and permanent existence of such a state being a fait accompli.

And even THOSE governments refused to treat the PLO as an equal partner and as the true voice of the Palestinian people, but kept trying to undermine and replace it...and in doing that, they got the only alternative they ever could have...Hamas.

In the end, Rabin died for nothing, and the Israeli leadership never took the two-state solution seriously.

In refusing to do that, in never really giving up on preventing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza from coming to life, they made what is happening now a certainty.

It was NEVER all the Palestinians' fault, or even mainly so. There is equal blame and equal shame in the leadership on both sides.

[sabbat hunter]

18. because

they are led by cowardly idiots?

[Ken Burch]

21. And why do you keep pretending that this is all about Hamas and the rockets?

Why do you accept the Likudnik meme that this conflict isn't based anything but the tactics of the "Palestinian leadership"?

Remember, in the Nineties, the PLO did pretty much everything they were asked...and all they got were MORE illegal settlements, more collective punishment and repression, and more humiliation of the Palestinian population on a continual and daily basis.

Throughout the whole time, suffering on the Israeli side was trivial compared to what Palestinians were put through now and are still being subjugated today.

I wish nobody suffered...but there is joint responsibility for the pain.

[earthside]

4. Like a description of a totalitarian state.

A minimal actual threat in reality ... but a threat used to forbid open gatherings for dissent.

The truth is that the rockets are essentially a feeble gesture of resistance to Israeli subjugation of the Gaza -- the rocket threat is minimal. But it gives the right-wing Netanyahu government the rationalization for all kinds of oppressive civil actions and (obviously) aggressive military actions.

I find laughable the statement "We will not negotiate under rocket fire". What more proof to you need that this is ultimately all about more devastation and economic ruination of the Palestinians in Gaza and what is left of PA territory in the West Bank.

A people laid low by blockades, kept in areas by walls, regularly bombed, kept divided by off-limit corridors, disrupted by political interference, continuously referred to as terrorists, etc. -- are a people who are meant to be regarded unessential and unnecessary.

Who really thinks that the Netanyahu government wants to see a strong, bold, confident Palestinian entity within their midst -- even if they did what Israel in truth doesn't do, i.e., recognize their right to exist? Of course not!

So the bombing and blockades will go on as long as there is the slightest excuse -- and Israeli dissent will be stifled, too.

[Scootaloo]

9. Well, they didn't negotiate unde a ceasefire, either

So the takeaway is, of course, Israel's not going to negotiate at all.

[Jefferson23]

11. I wish I knew...something will need to give soon. The people of Gaza need help, now. n/t

[Scootaloo]

12. Maybe some of that aid we're dropping in Iraq will trickle down to them?

[Jefferson23]

13. Have you seen an update on what we've mobilized to Gaza in aid? I have not.

August 7, 2014

From a man who pulls no punches

"A Hideous Atrocity": Noam Chomsky on Israel’s Assault on Gaza & U.S. Support for the Occupation

Transcript



JUAN GONZÁLEZ: To talk more about the crisis in Gaza, we go now to Boston, where we are joined by Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than 50 years. He has written extensively about the Israel-Palestine conflict for decades.

AMY GOODMAN: Forty years ago this month, Noam Chomsky published Peace in the Middle East?: Reflections on Justice and Nationhood. His 1983 book, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, is known as one of the definitive works on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Professor Chomsky joins us from Boston.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Noam. Please first just comment, since we haven’t spoken to you throughout the Israeli assault on Gaza. Your comments on what has just taken place?

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/7/a_hideous_atrocity_noam_chomsky_on

[Scootaloo]

14. I figured my sarcasm was obvious enough to not need tagging

Maybe if (more of) the people of Gaza converted to Christianity, our president would notice that their existence matters and their lives need to be protected, too?

[Jefferson23]

15. Oh no, I got it..I was just asking if you knew of any efforts we are using right now that

are similar..Gaza needs it. The legacy of our support for this conflict has
undermined us in many ways in the ME..I don't know what to say anymore.

That's pretty much why I left it for Chomsky to say.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

17. Isn't it enough that we are using our tax dollars

to boost the Israeli killing machine?

We simply can't choose between guns, butter and humanitarian needs.

The MIC needs their I$raeli ROI before they could even consider a few mouthfuls of gruel for Gaza.

Ob edit...

[Ken Burch]

19. Shouldn't that be "we will not negotiate while FIRING"?

It's sickening that the Likudniks still pretend that their country is the REAL victim in this dispute.