Israel started bombing Gaza at Christmas with two avowed war aims. Firstly, to neuter Hamas and turn the people of Gaza against them, and the second was to stop the missile attacks on Israel and end the means by which these missiles can get in to Hamas in the first place. Clearly with the announcement that Israel has announced a unilateral ceasefire these war aims have been shown to be lies.
Why do I say they are lies ? Because Hamas are as strong as ever in terms of their support in Gaza. There is no greater way of making an unpopular government popular than by having them stand shoulder to shoulder with the civilian population during a war. Israel has helped Hamas be seen, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, as the only people standing up for the ordinary people.
As for Israel's second aim, all the experts make clear that the tunnels from Egypt have been disrupted, but not closed whilst missile attacks continue on Israel, showing this object has also not been met.
Israels real aims seem to be clearer when we take in to account that Barack Obama takes charge in the US in two days. Israels real war aims were to lash out and cause as much damage as possible before Obama took charge, nothing more or less complicated than that. After all, if Israel calls a ceasefire without achieving any of their war aims, what other possible reason could there be for their attacks ?
UPDATE - This story must make Israeli apologists very proud.
3 comments:
This is all pretty desperate Nich. No military action in Gaza will make Hamas more unpopular. The military objective was to severely damage, or break, Hamas command and control and ability to function normally.
The question was always going to be for how long Israel could withstand the all too predictable international outpouring of fury. Hamas can wage violent campaigns with impunity under the noses of the UN, but the moment Israel takes action to deal with the aggression the usual nonsensical reaction follows.
If Israel was unconcerned about the loss of innocent life it could simply carpet bomb the southern border area to destroy the tunnels.
One thing that continually comes to mind is why Hamas seems perfectly capable of smuggling huge quantities of weapons, ammunition, rocket parts and fuels and explosives into Gaza through those tunnels. But there is supposedly a shortage of medical equipment, medicine, antibiotics and humanitarian aid.
Couple that with Hamas' traditional and reprehensible tactic of launching attacks while shielding behind civilians, in the hope retaliation kills those civilians and hands them a propaganda victory, and you can see Hamas does not give a damn for the people it controls in Gaza.
Despite this your condemnation is of a country that is repeatedly told to exercise restraint in the face of unacceptable violence. A restraint no other country would display if thousands of rockets rained down on them and suicide bombers were sent to blow up people on buses and in restaurants.
But Tony, Israel has achieved none of its war aims, but now stops ? Why ?
The truth is its aims were unattainable and it knew that it would not get a green light from Obama as it has from Bush.
Why? The question was always going to be for how long Israel could withstand the all too predictable international outpouring of fury.
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