Let us stop. Hold our fire. Restraint is our duty to the innocent of Gaza

[LeftishBrit]

Now, after the heavy blow that Israel has dealt to the Gaza Strip, we would do best to halt, turn to the leaders of Hamas and tell them: until last Saturday, we restrained ourselves in responding to the thousands of Qassam rockets fired at us. Now you know how severe the retaliation can be. So as not to add to the death and destruction we intend, unilaterally and absolutely, to hold our fire for the next day.

Even if you continue to fire on Israel, we will not respond by resuming combat. We will grit our teeth, just as we did throughout the period before our attack. We will not be drawn into using force. Furthermore, we hereby invite all concerned countries, nearby and distant, to mediate between us and you, in order to reinstate the ceasefire that ended earlier this month. If you also cease hostilities, we will not renew them. If you continue to shoot while we hold ourselves back, we will respond accordingly when the 48-hour ceasefire, which we began on Monday afternoon, comes to an end. But even then we will leave the door open to negotiations to re-establish the truce, and even seek a broader agreement.

This should be Israel's next move. Is it possible, or are we already captives of the all too familiar ritual of war? Until last Saturday, Israel, under the military leadership of Ehud Barak, acted with impressive level-headedness. We must not lose that now, in the heat of battle. We must not forget, even for a moment, that the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip will continue to live on our borders, and that sooner or later we will need to achieve neighbourly relations with them.

We must not, under any circumstances, strike with such massive violence, even though Hamas has for years made life excruciating for the Israelis who live on the Gaza Strip's perimeter, even though Hamas's leaders have rebuffed every Israeli and Egyptian endeavour to achieve a compromise and prevent a conflagration. Restraint, and our duty to protect the lives of Gaza's innocent inhabitants, must remain our call words today, precisely because Israel's power is almost limitless compared to that of Hamas....


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/31/gaza-comment-israel-hamas

[azurnoir]

1. Thank you

It is wonderful thoughtful piece now if only the governments involved would listen.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. That's an excellent article. Thanks for posting it n/t

[bemildred]

3. Much too sensible.

The way to fight evil is to be more evil, everybody knows that ...
:sarcasm: