Amused, Jay Tea and yourself are just plain wrong on this point. You mentioned “law and custom.” After all this time, neither you nor Jay Tea have cited a I single international law that would support such a suggestion. I’ve cited experts quoting the exact law that supports my argument. Instead of addressing this actual fact, you went off on a tangent about the nature of international law itself. But now you are back citing international law as supporting Israel.

So which is it and where is the citation of the actual law?

As for Jay Tea’s bullshit, saying “Hamas fired the rockets,” and “Hamas deliberately allowed others to fire the rockets” is two different things. The former is simply not true based on the information provided by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center, which is not, as far as a I can see, an organization given to publishing Palestinian propaganda.

At the same time, Jay Tea accepts as true some data provided by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center while rejecting the truth of the Center’s contextualization of that data–in the same report.

It falls to Jay Tea to explain the reasoning behind his selective use of the Center’s information. Rather than explain this, he went off on another tangent — funny how often you guys do this — about the nature of sovereign nations.

Jay tea has argued that “the first test of a new government is to establish the monopoly on force.” I wonder if this is a universal test that Jay Tea applies to other governments, like say, the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan. Have either of those governments passed that test, Jay Tea? I don’t think so. And yet I wonder if he’s one of those types who are now telling us that the US has succeeded in, at least, Iraq.

The point being is that Jay Tea and yourself don’t care about facts or consistency. It’s all spin all the time with you guys.

Brucie, such keen insight and rapier like wit. LOL, its not the dirty hippies that are the problem, its the dirty anti american hippies.

It is sad to see the Faaroo and Quaker school of diplomacy held up as a viable model. After each rocket attack Israel should show a softer more gentle approach. Certainly if she eases up after Hamas aggression that targets only the innocent Hamas will see the error of its ways and embrace dialogue to pursue peace. The appeasement method has such a long history of success.

Fafaroo tries to take Jay to the woodshed regarding the behavior of Hamas during the lull. He berates him for not clicking through a citation and uncovering the truth. Fafaroo further castigates Mr. T for rationalizing civilian deaths without acknowledging that by law and custom Israel is within her rights to attack military objectives despite their proximity to civilians and the “war crime” and the civilian deaths are again by both law and custom the responsibility of Hamas.

Interestingly enough if one goes to the site of the organization in question there is a little tidbit that guts much of Quakers cheerleading.

“The fundamental contradiction between the needs of the civilian population and Hamas’s policies is clearly manifested by the continuing attacks made by Hamas and the other terrorist organizations on the crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the lifelines for the Gazans, and by the difficulties imposed by Hamas on their operation.

Although for years Hamas has tried to falsely represent the situation in the Gaza Strip as a humanitarian crisis and even a “holocaust,” in effect it prefers carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel to caring for the basic interests of the Gazans.

For the past few years the Kerem Shalom, Sufa, Karni, Nahal Oz and Erez crossings, through which fuel and other vital supplies are delivered to the Gaza Strip, have been repeatedly attacked with rocket and mortar shell fire as well as attempted mass-casualty and suicide bombing attacks.

The rocket and mortar shell fire at the crossings continued during the six months the lull arrangement was in force. In addition, the terrorist organizations have publicly targeted the Ashqelon power plant, which provides the Gaza Strip with 65% of its electricity”

Too bad there’s probably no hell for AO to go to when he/she dies, because he/she certainly would deserve that destination for writing something like that.

Mr. Tea, see how easy it is to check your facts before you post something totally wrong and embarrassing?

From your very own source:

In the six months the arrangement was in force, 329 rockets and
mortar shells were fired at Israel, most of them during the month and a half after November 4.

Now what was it I wrote that you were trying to take down? Oh yeah, it was this:
Don’t need to guess. Just look at June through November of this year and you have your answer.

Add what my sister Friend posts:
what about the Israeli’s response to the cease fire? They were suppose to remove the blockades and restore aid shipments to the level needed to support the population in Gaza, something like 700 shipments per week. Shipments did increase, at a mere trickle of 20 per week.

Buh..buh…but they were digging a tunnel!

Has the Israeli invasion stopped the rocket attacks yet, Mr. Tea?

You know, Jay Tea, this is again another piece of bullshit from you. There’s a comment in moderation dealing with the main point but this deserves note as well.

Jay Tea, this is not what happened in this particular ceasefire. The lull agreement ended when Hamas declared it over and started firing again. No one, as far as I know, could blame Israel in that instance.

But this is just another example of you ignoring the basic facts of a situation, preferring instead to cling to a narrative more suited to your insane worldview in which civilian deaths aren’t a tragic consequence of war, but something to be rationalized and even cheered.

Right. A game that the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center is just another willing dupe of.

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/site/content/T1.asp?Sid=18&pid=121

In Gaza, Hamas simply turned a blind eye (or, more likely, tacitly gave its permission and assistance) to these “rogue” elements as they carried out their attacks.

Jay Tea, please. Please just go the fuck away.

How, exactly, did Israel hold up its end of the bargain in this particular cease fire? 20/700 needed shipments per week would seem to be the most meagre token. It takes both sides for a cease fire to work.

No one here has excused Hamas for firing rockets into Israel. On the contrary, several posters have rightly condemned attacks on Israeli civilians. And yet you cannot admit even the smallest lack of will on Israel’s part towards improving conditions in Gaza and upholding its end of the agreement.

Every cycle of the “peace talks” starts the same way: Israel is called upon to make some kind of “good will gesture” and release prisoners or give back territory. The Palestinians are never asked to make any kind of comparable measure. And when the Palestinians eventually say they can’t keep their pledges (but insist Israel keep its pledges), that’s when the “rogue elements” start terrorizing again.

Israel did half the right thing when they pulled out of Gaza completely. Now if only Egypt would take it back — after all, they held it up until the 1967 war.

J.

And yet, you would argue that Israel fulfilled it’s end of the agreement?

This is the same old Palestinian game they’ve played for years. Some of the major players (Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad) announce a cease fire. Israel stops shooting back. Everyone’s happy. Then one of the players starts its attacks. The others repeatedly state that they’re still honoring the truce, and demand Israel (or, more often, the world make Israel) show “restraint.” The attacks continue until Israel finally hits back against the attacking party, and — ta-da! — once again Israel has “broken the truce.”

That was one of the purposes why Israel and the US backed elections for the Palestinians — it would put in place a Palestinian government that could be held responsible for acts of war being launched from Gaza and the West Bank. One of the core definitions of a government is that it must have a monopoly on force; the governing body of the Palestinians would, by definition, have to control these “rogue elements” and keep them from launching their own attacks on Israel.

In the West Bank, it has largely worked — the twin threats of further Israeli counterattacks and a Gaza-style Hamas coup has kept Fatah “honest” in both not launching its own attacks and the “rogue” elements from doing it, either.

In Gaza, Hamas simply turned a blind eye (or, more likely, tacitly gave its permission and assistance) to these “rogue” elements as they carried out their attacks. Hamas had zero interest in actually acting like the duly-elected governing body they became.

Often, the first test of a new government is to establish the monopoly of force — that the government, and the government alone, is the only body that can raise a military and wage war. The United States learned this lesson with Shay’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Israel learned this with the Altalena Incident.

The Palestinians have yet to have their version of this — and until they do, then they’re going to keep on having their “rogue elements” continue to carry out the attacks that they don’t want to claim responsibility for.

Once Gaza was unoccupied and the Palestinian Authority was recognized as the legitimate government, that argument suddenly lost all its plausibility. It’s only now that we’re seeing that actually carried out.

J.

So here i was hoping to avoid posting another comment on this thread when I saw that Jay Tea posted some “facts”. Well, how could I resist, being a curious fellow and all. So I googled the sentence “During the six month cease fire 329 rockets and mortar shells were fired.” And came across a wikipedia article with this information:

December 19th
The cease fire agreement ends. During the six month cease fire 329 rockets and mortar shells were fired. For the six months prior to the truce 2278 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel.[91]

Oh gee look, it’s the passage Jay Tea quotes above. And what do we see there at the end? Why it’s something called a citation number. Why, what’s a citation you ask? Well, Jay Tea, it’s a reference to the source that the author used to get their facts. What do you say just for fun we follow this “citation” where it leads?

Why it’s a PDF document published by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center. The PDF is titled: “The Six Months of the Lull Arrangement”.

In this PDF we find the source of the information quoted in the Wikipedia entry.

In the six months the arrangement was in force, 329 rockets and
mortar shells were fired at Israel, most of them during the month and a half after November 4. That was significantly fewer than the rockets and mortar shells fired during the
six months preceding the lull, during which 2,278 rockets and mortar shells were launched (an average of 380 a month).

But you know what? I’m not all that familiar with the terms of the Lull Agreement so, again, as a curious kind of fellow I decided to read further than just the basic numbers. Who knows, maybe I might find some more information that will help me to better understand those numbers, to you know, get the whole picture, as it were.

Here’s what I found:

On June 17, 2008, after several months of indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas through Egyptian mediators, Egypt and Hamas individually announced that a lull arrangement (tahadiya1) had been reached between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and it would go into effect at 0600 hours on the morning of June 19. Israel’s position was that the lull had no time limit. The position of Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations was that it would remain in force for six months and they then expected it to be extended to Judea and Samaria. Spokesmen of Hamas and other terrorist organizations later stated that it would end on Friday morning, December 19; in the field it had been seriously
eroded since November 4.

2. The lull arrangement was based on unwritten understandings and called for the cessation of the fighting in the Gaza Strip. Hamas committed itself to enforce the arrangement on the other Palestinian terrorist organizations which had not expressed their opposition (some organizations opposed it, some were reserved).

So wait a second. There are “other Palestinian terrorist organizations”? I thought the evil mooslims were like one great big undifferentiated borgbrain. You mean, like, not all palestinians are exactly alike and under complete and total command of Hamas?

There are actually other terrorist organizations in Gaza?

This was, naturally, shocking to me. And then I read this:

The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by rogue terrorist organizations, in some instance in defiance of Hamas (especially by Fatah and Al-Qaeda supporters). Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.

Holy Shit! That’s when it hit me. Jay Tea, you are the dumbest motherfucker on the internet and that puts in the running for dumbest motherfucker in the universe.

You will believe anything, say anything that suits your worldview without one ounce of effort expended to verify the information you have and how to understand it.

I really don’t know what to say. Really. It’s stunning. Beyond fucking words how goddamn naive, gullible and flat out fucking stupid you are.

You state emphatically that Hamas was responsible for the rockets fired during the ceasefire and quoted various numbers to “prove” your case. But did you ever once stop and think, fuck, i got these number from a wikipedia entry, maybe I ought to check its sources?

Hell no! You just cut, paste, put on your smug hat and stuck your thumb up your ass. You earned it!

Now anyone who knows how to use google can do exactly what i did and learn a little something about the world.

As for you, Jay Tea, I wish this would be the last time one of us had to prove you totally and utterly wrong. I wish you would be so embarrassed for yourself this time that you’d just apologize and leave, never to return.

But of course you’ll be back acting as if this time too, never happened. You be here spouting more total horse shit and calling everybody names and we’ll all have to go through this again.

Sigh.

This isn’t some namby-pamby, weak-minded “soft” approach to international relations. This is the bedrock of modern international relations. We, as civilized societies, _aren’t supposed to act like the bad guys_ re: indiscriminate targeting of civilians.

I’ll be the first to admit that Israel is in a very difficult spot. But I’m also convinced that the current actions against Gaza, including dropping bombs on top of apartment buildings to kill one Hamas leader, and meanwhile killing 20 more Palestinians who were perfectly innocent, is a war crime.

But at this point the IDF is going to do what it wants to do. And when they declare operations over, Hamas, just like Hezbollah in 2006, will declare a major victory. And the Israeli people will realize their political and military leadership has failed them yet again and the rest of the world will continue to see Israel as a rogue nation.

On top of all that, it certainly doesn’t help that the reason Hamas runs Gaza is _directly due to US intervention_ re: holding elections that toppled Fatah.

Hmm… let’s do that, shall we?

Courtesy Wikipedia:

Israel attacks a 250 meter tunnel going from Gaza and under its border, claiming the tunnel is designed to capture additional Israeli soldiers and hold them hostage.

So, when Hamas stops firing rockets, they start digging tunnels to kidnap Israeli soldiers (such as Gilad Shalit, who — if he’s still alive, and I doubt it — has been a Hezbollah hostage for two and a half years now). That’s a real improvement.

But did they really stop firing rockets?

December 19th
The cease fire agreement ends. During the six month cease fire 329 rockets and mortar shells were fired. For the six months prior to the truce 2278 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel.

So when Hamas “ceases fire,” they only average about 1.8 rocket and mortar attacks a day. An interesting definition of the term…

Thanks for asking the question, Quaker.

J.

Don’t need to guess. Just look at June through November of this year and you have your answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_2008

Gee, Hamas stopped firing rockets while it was digging a tunnel under Israel’s border to kidnap more soldiers (remember Gilad Shalit? He’s still a kidnapping victim — if he’s still alive). Then Israel discovered the tunnel and blew it up, and that’s when Hamas went back to firing missiles and rockets.

So there’s Quaker’s answer: Hamas stops the rocket attacks while it’s working on another style of attack. And Israel, when the rocket attacks ease up, looks to see what Hamas is up to.

I particularly like this quote:

December 19th The cease fire agreement ends. During the six month cease fire 329 rockets and mortar shells were fired.

Some “truce…”

What would happen if Hams quit attacking innocent civilians?

Don’t need to guess. Just look at June through November of this year and you have your answer.

“Nothing to add”

No need for context in a post from the Kucinich school of international diplomacy. How about taking a shot at those two different scenarios at the bottom of the post Quaker. Any thoughts on that.

Yeah. This pretty much speaks for itself. I’m with Quaker. There’s simply nothing else that can be said in response.

Where we differ is that I don’t feel Israel is approaching either the legal or moral limits of this situation.

There it is. It’s OK with you if lots more Palestinians die. Nothing to add.