A story of a war

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8pzh8tE82w]A story of a war - YouTube[/ame]

 

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOK7h1IDgPo&feature=related]CNN: Israel Started the War not Hamas - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

Eminent Journalist Sir Harold Evans, Knighted for Services to Journalism and the International Press Institute's "50 Heroes Of World Press Freedom" and Former Editor of the London Times. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/20/israel-goldstone-palestine-gaza-un

Four years ago Israel voluntarily pulled out all its soldiers and uprooted all its settlers from Gaza. Here was a wonderful chance for Gaza to be the building block of a Palestinian state, and for Hamas to do what the Israelis did – take a piece of land and build a model state. They didn't. Instead of helping the desperate Palestinians, they conducted a religious war.

...Hamas is committed not just to fight Israeli soldiers; it is a terrorist organisation hellbent on the destruction of the state of Israel.

While new rockets hit Israel over many months there was no rush by the world's moralisers – including Britain – to censure Hamas, no urgency as there was in "world opinion" when Israel finally responded. Then Israel was immediately accused of a "disproportionate" response without anyone thinking: "What is a 'proportionate' attack against an enemy dedicated to exterminating your people?" A dedication to exterminating all of his?

Colonel Richard Kemp, a British commander in Bosnia and Afghanistan, stated: "The Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare." The "collateral damage" was less than the Nato allies inflicted on the Bosnians in the conflict with Yugoslavia.

No doubt there were blunders. A defensive war is still a war with all its suffering and destruction. But Hamas compounded its original war crime with another. It held its own people hostage. It used them as human shields. It regarded every (accidental) death as another bullet in the propaganda war.

 

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5BDwEW6uw]Laila El-Haddad, Journalist, Author, Gaza Mom-The Autograph-09-21-2011 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writer Charles Krauthammer, named by the The Financial Times as the most influential commentator in America...

The world urged Israel to evacuate Gaza and let it be independent, which it did. It uprooted every settler, every soldier. There wasn't a Jew left in Gaza. There were fewer Jews in Gaza than there were in Nazi Germany after World War 2. They withdrew. The Israelis were completely open to friendly relations. They had no interest in war on Gaza. And, the relations were good until Hamas took over.

Hamas is an entity declared to eternal war with Israel until Israel is destroyed. It's not an argument over settlements. It isn't an argument over occupation. It's over existence.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcQjZtR2Ygg]Krauthammer: The problem with Israel isn't occupation or settlements. It's existence - YouTube[/ame]