Israel Pounding Gaza Strip From Air; Arab League Meets
Source: Washington Post
By Abigail Hauslohner The Washington Post
Sunday, November 18, 2012
(Published in print: Sunday, November 18, 2012)
Israel pounding Gaza Strip from air; Arab League meets
By Abigail Hauslohner The Washington Post
Sunday, November 18, 2012
(Published in print: Sunday, November 18, 2012)
Israel’s four-day-old air offensive in the Gaza Strip expanded to target Hamas government buildings yesterday, and Palestinian militants continued firing a torrent of rockets at civilian areas in southern Israel, as both sides stepped up diplomatic efforts to win support.
Israeli airstrikes over Gaza accelerated to nearly 200 early in the day, including one hit that reduced the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to a smoldering concrete heap. That strike, along with others on a police headquarters and smuggling tunnels along the strip’s southern border with Egypt, raised questions about whether Israel had broadened its mission to including toppling the Hamas government that rules the coastal strip.
Just before sundown, Hamas said it had shot an Iranian-made Fajr-5 rocket at Tel Aviv, and air raid sirens sounded in that city for the third day in a row. The Israeli military said its newly deployed missile defense battery intercepted the rocket before it landed in the populous coastal city.
Even as airstrikes pounded yesterday morning, the foreign minister of Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, Rafik Abdessalem, arrived in Gaza with a delegation, underscoring Hamas’s newfound credibility in a region dramatically altered by the Arab Spring. Abdessalem expressed outrage at what he called Israeli “aggression” and pledged to unite with other Arab countries to end the conflict.
Read more: http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/livebreakingnews/2880807-95/gaza-hamas-israel-arab
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patrice
(47,992 posts)
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Israel has been shelling Gaza from the sea and air on the fifth day of its bombardment of the coastal territory.
Two media buildings were hit, including one housing offices of Hamas TV as well as Britain's Sky and ITN. Several Palestinian journalists were injured.
The Israeli army said eight rockets had been fired from Gaza since midnight, three of which hit Israeli territory.
Israel is ready to "significantly expand" its operation in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20383001
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Probably not, a boogeyman is a remarkably useful thing to have around for politicians.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Seriously.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The worst thing that could happen to Bibi and the Likudniks would be for the Palestinians to go totally non violent, world opinion is already swinging against Israel and the Likud.
Likewise the worst thing that could happen to Hamas is for Israel to treat the Palestinians as fellow human beings and their brothers.
It's like two siblings in the back seat on a long road trip, the extremists are both nth degree black belts in annoying the other and provoking a reaction.
No one knows you like a long and bitter enemy.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I would like to believe, however, that the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians would like nothing more than to live in peace.
Do you not think that is the case?
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Bolding is mine.
With its takeover of Gaza after the 1967 war with Egypt, Israel hunted down secular Palestinian Liberation Organization factions, but dropped the previous Egyptian rulers' harsh restrictions against Islamic activists.[19] In fact, Israel for many years tolerated and at times encouraged Islamic activists and groups as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the PLO and its dominant faction, Fatah.[19][20]
Among the activists benefited was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, who had also formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, a charity recognized by Israel in 1979. Israel allowed the organization to build mosques, clubs, schools, and a library in Gaza.[19]
Yitzhak Segev, the acting governor of Gaza in 1979, said he had no illusions about Yassin's intentions, having watched an Islamist movement topple the Shah as Israel's military attache in Iran. However, according to Segev, Yassin and his charity were "100% peaceful" towards Israel during this time, and Segev and other Israeli officials feared being viewed as an enemy of Islam. Segev maintained regular contact with Yassin, met with him around a dozen times, and arranged for Yassin to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment.[19]
Also, Segev said, Fatah was "our main enemy."[19][21] Islamists frequently attacked secular and leftist Palestinian movements, including Fatah, but the Israeli military avoided getting involved in those quarrels.[19] It stood aside, for example, when Mujama al-Islamiya activists stormed the Red Crescent charity's headquarters in Gaza, but Segev did send soldiers to prevent the burning down of the home of the head of the organization.[19]
In 1984 the Israeli army received intelligence that Yassin's followers were collecting arms in Gaza. Israeli troops raided mosques and found a cache of weapons.[19] Yassin was arrested, but told his interrogators the weapons were meant to be used against secular Palestinians, not Israel. The cleric was released a year later and allowed to continue to develop his movement in Gaza.[19]
Around the time of Yassin's arrest, Avner Cohen, an Israeli religious affairs official, sent a report to senior military officers and civilian leadership in Gaza advising them of the dangers of the Islamic movement, but this report and similar ones were ignored.[19] Former military intelligence officer Shalom Harari said the warnings were ignored out of neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."[19][22] In contrast, French investigative newspaper Le Canard enchaîné writes that Shin Bet also supported Hamas as an attempt to give "a religious slant" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to make the West believe that it was essentially between Jews and Muslims.[23]
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Not sure what that is supposed to show.
Certainly doesn't show that Israel created Hamas like the poster claimed.
Israel was definitely more pro-Hamas and anti-PLO when the PLO was hijacking planes and killing Olympic athletes and Hamas was just running Islamic charity groups.
Of course, when each group changed their tune, so did Israel.
condoleeza
(814 posts)just went to his site and it's offline due to electrical or internet loss in his city. I hope he's OK.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)And what a sharp exciting name he has!
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)feel the need to resort to violence.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)You'd think by now they could've come up with something.
