January 18, 2009

And what did you do . . .

in the war, Mr Hamas?

“I showed the world how ruthless, destructive tand vengeful the Israelis could be, destoying homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and over 6, 000 of ‘my people’s’ lives.

And how many Israeli tanks did you disable or destroy?

“- – -”

And how many Israeli mortar or machine gun platoons did you successfully attack?”

“- – -”

And how many Israeli soldiers did you kill?

“13?”

“Are you sure those deaths were not ‘friendly fire’ accidents?”

“- – -”

Did you not have an advantage in urban warfare?

“We chose not to endanger our loyal and innocent civilian population.”

Ah.

Do you think you have performed militarily as well as Hezbollah during the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon?

“- – -”

What exactly have you achieved?

“The people of Palestine know now for certain that Israel is their enemy forever, that they will never be able to be assured of living in peace and will always be threatened by them.”

Were they not aware of this before?
So what else have you achieved?

“The embargo that will be instituted by Israel, Egypt and the West will further reduce the situation of the Palestinian population.”

Yes. And so?

“They will become yet more angry and militant and rise up in their masses to support Hamas and attack the Israeli occupiers.”

As they have in this last few weeks?

“- – -”

You will be calling elections to confirm this support?

“- – -”

Well, and now, Mrs Hamas, how did you and your children enjoy the war?

January 18, 2009

Some of my best friends . . .

might not be Israeli any more. This is one of the very few eyewitness reports (out of thousands) of an attack on a civilian’s home to appear on the mainstream media in the US. The victim is a Gazan doctor who works in Israel.

Embedded video from CNN Video

The background story appears to be this:

“So, Israel’s channel 10 is interviewing its regular “good Palestinian”, Dr. Az A-Din Abu al-Ayash, an OB-GYN who actually works at Israel’s Tel HaShomer hospital outside Tel Aviv [. . .]

So Channel 10’s Shlomi Eldar is interviewing the good doctor by phone, live on TV, when suddenly there’s a boom and the doctor begins to scream “Oh god, they killed my daughters”.

. . . One of our tanks missed its actual target and took out the good Dr’s house, killing two of his daughters and injuring a third (who [. . .] was airlifted to the same hospital where her dad works).

This, by the way, happened after the doctor complained earlier in the week that a tank with its barrel pointed directly at the his window was making him nervous. So Ronni Daniel, [the . . .embedded IDF reporter] military reporter for Channel 2, reportedly spoke to the commander in question and got him to point that thing someplace else. Only temporarily, as it turns out.”

(from ‘Ricky B’ (New Yorker, living in Israel) in ‘Open Salon’. http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=84825)

Square brackets indicate where I have removed defamatory phrases in the original.

January 17, 2009

Then and Now in Gaza

This boy now. . .

. . .might have been this boy then.

(Photographer of boy with candle in Gaza unknown; on the right, by Mohammed Abed, for AFP.)