23 July 2014

Score

Gaza Palestinians 649         Israel 31
(includes 132 children)                      (includes 28 soldiers)
It's not a cricket match nor a meeting of two great baseball teams. We are not talking about rugby or athletics or snooker, we are talking death. The Grim Reaper. The end of life. Even as we speak, Israel is wreaking havoc in the Gaza Strip with its American tanks and state of the art weaponry while Palestinians fire pathetic "rockets" into Israel  that are not much more deadly than grenades on sticks. If these rockets are such a threat, how come more Israelis haven't died? How come the damage to buildings is so superficial?

We are led to believe that the humane Israeli military machine messages Gaza civilians ahead of its missile strikes - warning them to evacuate their homes. Where are they meant to run to? How much time have they got? How do the Israeli generals know the messages have got through? Can Israeli bombings really be so pinpoint accurate that they always hit their targets and leave the people next door free to get on with their lives?

It is such an unequal conflict and personally I shudder when I hear the justifications and tissue thin apologies of Israeli spokesmen. Obviously, the issues surrounding Israel and the Palestinians are complex - like a tangled ball of wool. I would have no idea how it might be sorted out but killing women and children, bombing schools and hospitals, creating terror in the densely packed streets of Gaza is surely not the way. Talking, agreement and compromise are the only way forward. Ultimately, that's how it has always been.

Dumb Dubya Bush and Catholic Convert Blair promoted a war ON terror, but Philadepelphia-educated Benjamin Netanyahu is now conducting a war OF terror on a desperate people whose lives are not underwritten by America with its vast military arsenal and influential Jewish lobbyists. One things's for sure - the death and terror currently being meted out by Israel will not be the end of it all. It's no solution, no solution at all. If you kick a wounded dog it will bite back. If you put a lid on a bottle of soda water and shake it up it is liable to explode.

13 comments:

  1. A very brave post. One I commend you for.
    Israel could not exist without over nine million US dollars a day.
    If British Airways suspended all flights that would be a start. I Dithery banned all Israeli imports that would be better. They steal land, They murder the indigenous population.
    The Palestinians have one UN resolution against them Israel has seventy seven.
    We can do sod all about Putin but we could sort Israel. Russia would most likely help.

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  2. It is indeed a tangled ball of something nasty and will probably never be sorted. The nutters leading all this fighting year in year out, be they Hamas or whatever armed "resistance" group are in power, or the Israeli leaders and military, seem to have very little desire to sort it out- though I can't believe that this is true even as I type this.
    As you say, death, violence and destruction has never solved anything, it merely keeps hatred alive for another generation - but perhaps politicians don't look beyond the next general election?
    Solutions? No idea. But it's clear that killing ain't one of them.

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  3. You're right. This is not a solution. it will only lead to further violence later on.

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  4. I think the tide of public support is moving firmly towards the people of e gaza

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  5. Not in this country, unfortunately. Our leaders and therefore our news will not say anything against Israel. No matter what. It is just so sad that there are no words to be said, Mr. Pudding. Except, somebody try to keep the children safe.

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  6. It makes me despair of the human species, those never-ending conflicts such as the Middle East, or those war-torn countries in Africa where people are hacked to bits with machetes only because they belong to the "wrong" tribe or pray to the "wrong" god.

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  7. Send out the peace envoy with the instructions he can't return home to count his money, until he brokers a definite peace deal.

    LLX

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  8. LETTICE, LIBRARIAN, PEACE THYME, HELEN, JOHN, BRIAN, RED, ADRIAN, JAN - Your comments are appreciated.

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  9. Maybe you won't appreciate mine so much.

    Every single thing that has occurred in or near or to Israel during my lifetime has always been said, by both sides, to be in retaliation for something that occurred the previous week. It is theater of the absurd.

    So how long have you been anti-Philadelphia? By the way, Netanyahu may have graduated from high school in Cheltenham Township (suburban Philadelphia) but his advanced degrees are from M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Harvard (which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts). Are you anti-Massachusetts too? I would not dare bring up the possibility of anti-Semitic.

    It's always good to tell both sides of an issue.

    Here is something from our very own right-wing Rush Limbaugh that you may find interesting about Hamas (but surely you knew it already).

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  10. It's laughable really, or maybe laughable isn't the right word. The Israeli's send a text to the residents in an apartment block to tell them they are going to bomb the neighbours? Is that for real?

    I know that there is a lot more going on than I know about but if your water is restricted, your food is restricted, medical supplies are restricted we can hardly blame the Palestinians for building tunnels. I also saw some footage somewhere of Israelis spraying the Palestinian people with raw sewerage, not for any particular reason by the look of it, just for the hell of it. I also saw some footage of Israelis getting their deck chairs out to the best vantage point to view the bombing of Gaza and cheering every time a bomb went off. Just saying what I've observed - no intention to offend anyone.

    Carol

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  11. Few would say that the situation is simple. Of course it isn't. When I was a child Ben Gurion was the world's number one terrorist (so far as Britain was concerned anyway). Last year in New Zealand I came across and decided to read his biography. I saw things from a different perspective. However the one thing it made me wonder all the more is how and why the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them: the denial of what they saw as their homeland albeit from millennia past. It is the Palestinians' homeland. I'm not suggesting that the Israelis give up Israel but surely they should at least give the Palestinians that which they are living in now. Without that there will never be peace and one day America's demography will change sufficiently and they will stop funding Israel. Or is all that too far off for anyone to care so long as we/they are not directly affected.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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