Archive for the ‘war’ Category

I guess even the UN can learn

Posted: February 6, 2009 by datechguy in war
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Amazing who would have thought it possible:

A UN agency said on Friday it halted aid imports into Gaza after hundreds of tonnes of food assistance were seized, but Hamas indicated the goods would be returned, saying the incident was a mistake.

“UNRWA has suspended all imports of aid into the Gaza Strip following the confiscation of hundreds of tonnes of food aid,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.

And Hamas’ reaction? Who us?

“The aid supplies were loaded onto trucks by mistake as no government representative was present. The drivers did not know which supplies were UNRWA’s and which were the government’s.”

I suspect that this will be a blip and things will be back to normal shortly but you never know.

Two state solution? Ha!

Posted: February 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: ,

Via Israellycool this story from the Age nails it:

Hamas has absolutely no desire to negotiate a peaceful Palestinian state living in neighbourly quiet next to Israel. Hamas, and many Palestinians, have effectively abandoned the two-state solution. They instead have a long-term demographic strategy. In 1950, there were 240,000 Gazans, Now there are 1.5 million. By 2040 there will be three million. Eventually, they believe, they will swamp Israel with sheer numbers. And they will never let Israel be free of responsibility for them, either by an association with Egypt, which is what Israel tried to achieve by its withdrawal in 2005, or by becoming an independent state at peace.

At the other end of the spectrum, I believe many moderate Palestinians don’t really want two states either. If you were an Arab East Jerusalemite, would you really want to leave Israel, with its modern economy, world class hospitals etc, to be ruled either by the corrupt kleptomaniacs of Fatah or the totalitarian Islamists of Hamas?

Combine this with Yon’s article from yesterday and you have the situation in a nutshell.

We will see a Palestinian state sometime after Puerto Rico either becomes independent or the 51st state.

Rockets Rockets have some more rockets

Posted: February 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags:

And the hits keep coming from Gaza but since apparently the only story in the world is the bill in the Senate nobody around here cares.

If you are the exception you know where to look.

It hits me that there isn’t a lot of whining over the plight of the Palestinians at least I haven’t read much of it lately, there was a time I couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.

This might mean that Peres in Davos might have been a seminal moment. If the “peacenicks” have lost Peres they have lost the ability to pressure Israel.

If they are so blatant why not protest them?

Posted: February 5, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: , , , ,

Via LGF and Mere Rhetoric we find out why Peres’ speech is so important:

Human rights groups argued Wednesday that a detailed probe into Hamas’s firing of Kassam rockets at Israeli communities is not necessary, because it constitutes such a “blatant” war crime. By contrast, Israel’s actions are more complex, and therefore do require such investigation, they said.

With Israel it is much more complicated apparently;

“With Israel things are more complicated because Israel states it does not deliberately target civilians and that it safeguards them. With Israel, you have to investigate each specific incident because even if a civilian is killed in an attack, it doesn’t mean its necessarily a war crime.”

Hamas however says not so fast:

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum was quoted by AP Wednesday as saying Hamas attacks on southern Israel towns are “a means of self-defense.” “Those are not civilians. They are all soldiers,” Barhoum said of the residents of southern Israel. “We are firing at places that bring us the F-16s, the warplanes and the tanks.”

But Micha’eli dismissed Barhoum’s statements as absurd. “No credible human rights law expert would accept that excuse,” she added.

This explains why they are not investigated but it doesn’t explain why they are not condemned or protested. The less that these guys make of this stuff the more they are ignored and forgotten. If these “blatant” crimes are ignored by the NGO’s then as far as the world community is concerned they don’t exist.

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