Attacks on Gaza continue
Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 6:43pm
2 responses
I hope you like the vlog below regarding open casting. The camera got a bit shaky on occasions, sorry-it was cold out there!…
I didn’t manage to get to the vigil in Cardiff today for the people of Gaza, unfortunately. The situation there is atrocious. What exactly has Tony Blair been doing in his role as peace envoy to the Middle East? Its quite unnerving that Barak Obama is keeping silent on this matter also. He won’t be able to wangle his way out of having an opinion in a few weeks time.
Israel is still refusing to declare a ceasefire despite growing International pressure ( although this isn’t coming from George Bush- surprise surprise) Palestinian president Mahumad Abbas is lobbying the UN for a resolution to impose a ceasefire to be followed by a ‘durable truce’, and media reports state that the Arab league will convene an emergency meeting if their wish for a ceasefire and for Palestinian and Israeli compliance to such a ceasefire is not met. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has announced that he will invest £6.9m in aid, yet an article in The Times questions whether the aid will reach the victims of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, stating that ‘it remained unclear today as to how it would be distributed, with Gaza still largely sealed off under the near-continuous Israeli bombardment and aid organisations reporting that working within the territory was almost impossible.’
I believe that this attack on Gaza will serve to strengthen Hamas and its popularity, and will work against Israeli intentions to minimise the influence of Hamas. Tim Butcher in a Telegraph article admits as much, addding that violence initiated by Hamas would rise, by stating ‘notwithstanding the growing number of Palestinian civilians killed in the operation, my first response on Saturday when I heard about the attacks was that the consequence would be to increase, not reduce, the number of Israelis killed by rockets’.
He also believes that the peace process now lies in ruins, and has had a detrimental affect on the region at large- with Syria and Israel calling off peace talks in the height of the fighting in Gaza. Any predictions about the future, and what lies ahead are hard to make considering the crisis that we see before us. Yet what I do know is that Palestinian peoples should have the right to self-determination, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to the homes from which they have been displaced and uprooted. It is for the International community, alongside Israel and Palestine to facilitate an agreement that will bring about peace and stability for all.
no questio bethan that israel’s response to admittedly constant and repeated attacks on its citizens by hamas rockets has been disproportionate! The civilian casualties have been appalling and israel should be aware that its current actions may only be aiding the very people – radical islamicists – who hate israel the most.
But hamas’s role in bringing about these attacks should not be overlooked either! Despite a ceasefire having at one time being agreed it has continued to allow its members to fire rockets, purchased from iran, into israeli residential areas from gaza – 100 a day prior to israel’s recent response!
Also one wonders how israel – a democratic state dont forget – is meant to meaningfully ‘negotiate’ with an organisation like hamas that actually believes in the annhilation of the state of israel? An organisation that assassinates and tortures journalits,trade unionists and its political opponents and which is complicit in the so called honour killings of women in gaza! An organisation that does not even believe the nazi holocaust of the jews took place! An organisation which deliberately fires rockets into israeli communities from residential areas of gaza, knowing pefectly well that any israeli response may result in the death or injury of ordinary palestinians!
So where are the ‘protests’ in wales or the rest of the uk against this repellant organisation and its s well documented human rights abuses i wonder?????
Yes an independent palestinian state should be established and this is what israel offerred the palestinians in 2000 only for the palestinian leadership of the time to reject it out of hand!
But it is disappointing to see you joining calls for the so called ‘right of return’ of palestinianas, displaced when the state of israel was trying to establish itself in the years immediately after the nazis had tried to exterminate all jews. You surely must know bethan that this call is code for the physical destruction of the state of israel?
Why i wonder do you as a socialist wish to see the end of a state in which trade unionists and socialists can organise freely? Where there is equality between people of different genders and different sexualities. Which has an open and free press and a independent judiciary. Very laudible things which of course cannot be found in a single other state in the region!
Leigh says “Israel a democratic state dont forget”. We must also remember that hamas were also democratically ellected by their own peope. Of course Gaza is not a state, Israel and the world have put a stop to that.
Israel has never offered the Palestinian people a workable state,MR richards clearly has little understanding of the suffering of the Palestinian people. Israel could have struck a deal with the PLO back in the 1970’s but didn’t, who knows what their enimy will lokk like in years to come, much worse than hamas is my guess.
Of course Israel wants to stir up trouble in the rest of tha arab world, it’s all part of their plan.
We in Wales must support the setting up of a workable palestinian state, before it is too late.