If the analogy of the Gaza strip as a 1.5 million capacity prison seems like hyperbole, witness the "prison break" this week of hundreds of Gaza's Palestinians into Egypt near the border town of Rafah. Residents broke through the border wall (with the aid of explosives) not to smuggle in more ammunition, but to buy "rice and sugar, milk and wheat."

With Israel's crushing two week old blockade in effect, intended to snuff out militant groups, Gazans have watched their economy crumble. Industrial stockpiles dwindled and food was in short supply. Fuel shipments were cut to Gaza’s sole power plant, leaving much of Gaza City in darkness. Reports on the ground outline relentless suffering.

It's a sign of how far things have come (or not, rather) since Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza strip settlements, a withdrawal seen by Palestinians as one in name only. Israel still has control over nearly every aspect of Gazan life and has applied it mercilessly. Students destined for universities abroad have been trapped by the border closures and restrictions on travel. With the blockade, Gaza is at risk of becoming "virtually 100 percent aid dependent," according to a UNRWA representative.

For Israel, it is the barrage of Qassam rockets, deployed by the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, that underscores the entire Israeli response in Gaza (suicide bombings from there have become virtually impossible since a border wall was built around it several years ago). Over 1000 Qassams were fired in 2006 alone. Considering the restraints, they are manufactured and deployed with remarkable efficiency.

"It is the duty of all states to ensure the right to life and safety of its people, especially from vicious acts of violence and terrorism," argues Gilad Cohen, Israel's UN representive. But the Qassams are, of course, no existential threat to the Jewish state. It is only poor Sderot, a farming village barely a mile from the border of northern Gaza, that bears the brunt of the rockets (calling them missiles would be an overstatement).

To the extent that Qassams have caused death or injury there, they are indefensible. But if, as the Israelis argue, every life is precious, the grossly disproportionate body count delivered within Gaza as retaliation serves as a reminder of how quickly the argument can turn. Within the past week, over 40 people have been killed and 120 injured, most of them civilians. Targeted killings mean little when aimed within one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

"It is a message to Hamas, and hopefully the people in Gaza, who by the way elected Hamas as the government, to put pressure on that government," adds an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. However, when Palestinians are pushed ever further below poverty level (as over two thirds of Gazans currently are), survival is more of a priority for them rather than facing militants with guns. The response is seen, quite rightly, as collective punishment.

It should also be noted that Gazans also helped elect Hamas not to wage endless (and so far, unwinnable) war, but to save themselves from the kleptocracy of a Fatah-led government. Hamas notably rejected a referendum proposed by Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on a two-state solution based on 1967 borders (something Hamas abhors). The fact that a clear majority of Palestinians support such an outcome may have been a reason.

The truth is that Qassams are much more a political weapon than a tactical one. To the extent it serves their interests, they are overstated by Israel and understated by Hamas (to the outside world, anyway). The salvos are a reaction of emotion and spite, not practicality. Deep down, most Palestinians probably know this.

If Israel is being goaded into reinvading the territory (as some are pondering), the result could be endless misery. As with any occupation (Iraq comes to mind), Israelis need to ask themselves what could possibly be achieved. Likewise, the Qassams do little more than offer Israel valuable cover. Without the current crisis, the recent decision by Israel to expand the Har Homa/Jabal Abu Ghneim settlement south of Jerusalem by 300 units might have met with more international resistance.

Ultimately, Hamas will have to reconsider the wisdom of their current tactics. The successful liberations of recent times have not relied largely on weaponry. This is no accident. From South Africa to East Timor, there is still tremendous global inertia towards supporting self-determination. That support depends on a moral high ground, which Qassams can only continue to obscure.

For now, Israel will pull back just enough to reduce the boiling over into merely boiling. Fuel shipments to the stricken power plant have now resumed. The lights are back on, but in the scheme of things, there is still darkness. Some Israelis are imagining the crisis to be a charade created by Hamas as a provocation. This in a conflict littered with them. Irony, it seems, is not yet in short supply.

"It is a message to Hamas, and hopefully the people in Gaza, who by the way elected Hamas as the government, to put pressure on that government," adds an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman...The response is seen, quite rightly, as collective punishment."

Why doesnt the reverse also apply? Since Israelis elected an Israeli supreme court indicted war criminal (Ariel Sharon) as prime minister, they should also be held accountable for the actions that he has taken -- both in Lebanon, Sabra and Shatilla, the 2000 uprising, and the increasing of settlements when he was minister under Shamir. After all, this is what he said when running for office:

“Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don't care.”
--Ariel Sharon

Is only one side to be held accountable for their choices?

regards,
sh

The January-March 2008 Volume 41, Issue 1 of The Link (http://www.ameu.org), published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, has an excellent article by Khalid Amayreh describing why Hamas is a legitimate polital actor. http://www.ameu.org/uploads/vol41_issue1_2008.pdf.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Egyptian government did not add to the Gazans' suffering by trying to enforce the blockade. I hope that the Egyptian government does not change its course.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Egyptian government did not add to the Gazans' suffering by trying to enforce the blockade. I hope that the Egyptian government does not change its course.

Spoke too soon

The unfotunately dire circumstances in Gaza are almost entirely self-inflicted. Instead of using the unilateral Israeli withdrawal as an opportunity to show the world how well Palestinians can govern themselves and what Israel could gain from ending occupation, they loot and torch the abandoned greenhouses, bring Hamas to power (a group sworn to Israel's destruction), and launch thousands of missiles into Israel proper. (Go ahead, reflexively blame this all on Israeli "crimes." I know you want to). Israel has been almost suicidally restrained in its reactions to the missiles. Any other country facing the same would have pounded Gaza back to the stone age. Answer this question: why should Israel make any further concessions when unilateral withdrawal from Gaza (and Lebanon) has resulted in all this?

The primitive and corrupt death cult that is Palestinian society does not deserve a state. Give Gaza back to Egypt and let the rest of the Arabs care for the Palestinians as they should have been doing all along. Enough whining.

ansik28 - that's like saying that prisoners in jail are free. i'm sure you are aware that ever since the israeli army left (and, of course, before) that the entire strip has been shut off from the world from the outside, strangling commerce and free movement of people. how can any society function, much less thrive, under that kind of situation? the gaza strip palestinians were never given a chance.

Shahed - the only reason Gaza is shut off from the world and Palesinians feel imprisoned is because shorlty after leaving Gaza, the Palestinians forced the Israelis to impose tight closure by shooting missiles, attacking Israeli border closings and kidnapping Israeli soldiers on the Israeli side. It's self imposed imprisonment. It's not that the Palestinians never had a chance, as you put it. They had a golden opportunity to show their non-violent side. As usual that was just too much to expect and they opted for more war and misery. They have no one to blame but themselves.

to call them missiles is a dramatic overstatement- and to paint the israelis as "suicidally restrained" stretches all credibility.

when one compares the statistics of deaths incurred in 2006-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6215769.stm

it is clear the palestinians made every effort to restrain themselves-

israeli deaths 23 (down from 50 in 2005)

more than CUT IN HALF!

palestinian deahts- 600 (3 TIMES THE PREVIOUS YEAR!)

322 INNOCENT CIVILANS GUILTY OF NO AGGRESSION
141 CHILDREN- CHLDREN!!!!!!!!!

they DID show their non-violent side, and were killed for the effort.

Mrs. A - The issue is not which side suffers the most casualties, it is which side initiates the hostilities and rejects compromise. By just looking at civilian casualties, the Allies in WWII would look like the bad guys, not the Germans who started the war and dragged the world into it.

After a unilateral Israeli withrdwawal, the Palestinians waged war (hundreds of indiscriminatly fired rockets and kidnappings). Each Israeli action in Gaza has been preceded by a Palestinian agression. The Palestinians with weapons hide among civilians (including children) amd Palestinian society worships martyrdom and death, pushing kids to be involved in dangerous actions -- this is what leads to high civilian and child casualties -- let's not play games. If Israel simply wanted to slaughter Palesinians as its critics claim, it could just drop a few nuclear weapons on Gaza and that would be that. They don't do this. Instead, they respond relatively mildly to acts of war on Israel proper.

If the Palestinians had their way, their rockets would hit Israeli schools and hospitals and kill hundreds, if not thousands. And the suicide bombers would hit Israel by the thousands. Thank God they do not have the technology or means to acheive their bloodthirsty dreams. Likewise, the security barrier and other Israeli police measures have reduced Israeli casualties. Thus the higher Palestinian casualties of late prove nothing about which side is to blame. The fact is that Israeli tactics have improved and resulted in a reduction in its own civilian exposure to Palestinian violence. This is a result of improved Israeli defenses, not reduced Palestinian agression. At the same time, useless and short sighted Palestinian violence invites a tough Israeli response and leads to Palestinian civilian death. Palestinians love to play the victim, but these deaths are self-inflicted.

Ansik28 writes: "Each Israeli action in Gaza has been preceded by a Palestinian aggression."

There's really no point to any further discussion with someone who believes this.

The only real issue in this is whether Egypt cooperates with Israel on this blockade.

The "You started it" argument does little for the cause of Palestinians. Haven't we learned from the Hatfields and the McCoys? Time to put your false pride aside, stop acting like children and petty tyrants (Qassams and collective punishment) and finally sit down, talk to each other, and come to an acceptable agreement.

The people on BOTH SIDES want peace. What's the problem here? Are the political gains of HAMAS and the PA more important than the wishes of the whole?

Until then, this is going nowhere. If you're looking for an Islamic solution, try this verse: God will not change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.

Methinks HAMAS and the PA are not the solution. The only "change" that is occuring is the rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic while the people die needlessly.

This whole thing erupted once more because of stupid moves by the US to 'bring peace'. Both sides - Israel and Palestine - are controlled by interests that want the situation to keep simmering because fighting is all they know how to do and they have no idea what else they would do if peace broke out!

The US should accept that this will never change and leave them alone to quietly quarrell harmlessly for the next hundred years. Every time there is an effort made by some busybody to 'fix' the situation, Hamas fires off the stupid Kasam fire-cracker-rockets and Israel gladly bombs the hell out of Gazans. We should all stay out and let them be!

Ansik28,

Maybe the Palestinians should have never allowed the Jews from Poland, Germany and the rest of Europe to seek refugee from the Murderous Terror of Christian Nazi Germany during WWII. The Jews sought refugee and comfort off the backs of the Arabs, while Hitler ravaged the world with his crusade to World Domination. Germany's Terrorist Christian principles of Murder during WWII pushed the Jews out of Europe into the Arab lands. They manipulated the Palestinian people and created Israel in 1948 as a nation. This land was called Palestine and the majority of it's inhabitants were Arab people prior to WWII.

You mention the hostility of the Palestinian people. The hostility was created upon the entry and vile manipulation of those Jews from Europe who systematically attempted to plan the demise of Palestinian people and it's Nation. The Jews have killed and terrorized the Palestinian people for decades. Please keep your bastardized, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, CNN, New York Times, USA Today version of lies away. Hidden hatred of Arab people and Muslim people is the culprit of your lies. Perhaps the Jews should go back to Europe and establish there nation.

The United States should not take sides, this causes dissension and enemies among the Muslim World. The US created Israel to militarily control the Muslim people and to destroy the Nation of Palestine.

Egypt needs to open the border and keep it open, regulating the flow of Palestinians in and out so that they can get the basic neccessities that they need. All of the Arab states, particularly those with tremendous wealth, and the U.N., should provide humanitarian aid using the Egypt/Palestine border.
Israel should be put under sanction (which we know their breast friend the US will never allow), until they are in compliance with all U.N. mandates and resolutions.
It's no secret who is suffering under this occupation and it's certainly not the Israeli settlers illegally occupying Palestinian land, financed by their co-conspirators in the U.S. and Israel.

Yes. Its quite interesting you see. The British white people and French white people and whoever else landed at the shores of North America and what did they do? Did they come here and say to the Native Indians, oh look, we are here to trade with you for something, or sir please, we are here because we are a persecuted minority back home, can we live in your land for sometime as a minority. And so on and so forth. Nope. They came and took over the whole continent. Gobbled it up, wholesale. Killed off most of the native indians and put the rest in camps and stuff. Same as the Spanish white people did in South America.

Same as what the European Jews did in Palestine. What the European Jews SHOULD have done was asked the Arabs living there for centuries, that hey, we are persecuted people back in Europe, do you mind if we come and live in your land as refugees. We have our Holy places here and some Jews living here for centuries as well. Kindly give us some room to relocate.

Nope, instead what have they done. They enlist the help of the British colonials and using well documented terrorist means (including secret militias) they carve out a nice huge piece of Arab land as their own and throw the Arabs out the door. Sound familiar?

Thats what I call people power. To to racist calling the heroic Palestinian people " a death cult," your words describe Israelis perfectly.
Kwaleed has excellent points.

A few responses to the vitriol:

1. Salim, there was nothing Christian about the Nazis. Read your history.
2. At least half the Jews in Israel originated from Arab countries where they were driven out, not from Europe. They were absorbed into Isralei society while Palestinian refugees were forced to fester in camps, for use as pawns by Arab leaders against Israel.
3. At Israel's inception, the Jews accepted partition and the Arabs waged war - beginning a constant theme of non-compromise that has cost thousands of lives.
4. If all the Jews want to do is destroy Palestinians systematically, they could have done that years ago with the push of a button, but they didn't.
5. Hajibaba - see points 2 and 3. By the way, the early Zionists did make those requests of the Ottomans. Also, if you want to get into the history of imperial empires conquering by the sword, look no further than the Arabs and the Turks. How do you think Islam spread out of Arabia all the way from Spain to Malaysia (and into Palestine, by the way)?
6. The bottom line is, even if you dispute my history, the situation of the moment exists as it is. Either the Palestinians finally resolve to live beside the Jews and share the land, or they continue to live in a fantasy world and fight for everything. Which would actually benefit the Palestinian people? Israel, having in the last few years unilaterally withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza, has never been more ready to cut a deal.
7. It is interesting how much fury the Israeli/Palestinian issue generates among non-palestinian Muslims. If only they were just as worked up over the following crimes involving Muslim victims, which have much higher body counts: Algeria's recent civil war (100,000 killed!), Saddam's crimes, destruction of Hama by Assad of Syria, Sunni/Shiite slaughter in today's Iraq, general Shiite oppression, Iran/Iraq war, slaughter by Pakistanis in Bangladesh, slaughter of Kurds by everyone, etc, etc, etc. We're talking about millions of Muslims killed over the last few decades by fellow Muslims. And Millions of refugees. And how many Palestinians have died in the the fight with Israel? Maybe 10,000? Why the double standard, righteous Muslims?

ansik28,

The history is clear. Read the books from Nazi Germany and you will clearly see that the Nazi regime advocated Christian principles. Read the book, “The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis, by Gregory S. Paul. Germany is a Christian nation and supported Hitler's government in full fledge. The books from the Nazi regime themselves clearly indicate that they believed in Christianity and it's underline principles.

It's seems to me that you have been heavily influenced by the Orientalist View. The spread of Islam was through peaceful means. Not by the sword as the Orientalist advocate. Entire nations in Africa and the Indian and to a smaller degree Europe accepted Islam through mutual business transactions and intermarriage. Public schools in America and American/Western Universities always educate from the Orientalist view point. There objective is to inform the masses that only the Europeans nations were advance or civilized and all other nations were backward, uncivilized, animal, uncontrollable nations, that needed to purified with Christian doctrine, even if that means killing them. The Christian nation have done a wonderful job psychologically with the African nations of today. Just look at Rwanda. systemically, infiltrated the human psyche of those people by implementing race based hatred. The Rwandans commit genocide, butcher each other to death, because of the Roman Catholic priest manipulating the society. Christians even do it to themselves, classical example the Irish Republic VS the Protestants, England.

On the contrary it was the Christian nations that spread by the sword. How do you account for millions of Blacks in America converting to Christianity through Anglo-Protestant Christan Slavery. They were forced or killed if they didn't, as a result of slavery. Blacks in America are a product of forced slavery and the killing spirit of Anglo-Protestant Christianity. The slaves that made it to America were either of some African religions or Muslims. The ones who didn't make it were killed.

The Native Americans were killed off, almost completely, forced into slavery and forced to accept Christianity. They had there own religion until the Anglo-Protestant Christian murderers forced them to accept, most were exterminated. They were looked upon as mere savages.

The reality is that Anglo-Saxon's don't want Americans nor anyone else in the world to accept Islam. Christian Europe methodically, systemically, conquered and killed by the sword of in the name of Christ. Perhaps you need to learn the history that the rest of the non-European world understands.

The Jews prior to WWII, were a small, insignificant, splinter group in the Nation of Palestine. The Arabs were the majority there, that's clear in history. Leave your Orientalist history for Europe and it's colonized cronies. The European Jews from Poland, Germany, Checkoslovakia and the other parts of Europe, need to go back to Europe. That's there homeland, not Palestine. These bastardized, Khazarian Jews who converted to Judaism in or around the 10 century, are nothing more than European heretics.

thank you salim for your use of reason-
i have to admit, there were so many revisionist inconsistencies and outward hostility in ansiks posts that i didnt want to encourage him or her

>> 7. It is interesting how much fury the Israeli/Palestinian issue generates among non-palestinian Muslims <<

The primary reason is because the Palestinians are among the most helpless of Muslims against the onslaught of the entire Judeo-Christian powerlords of planet earth. They can turn to no one but their fellow Muslims and Arabs for help. Even the rich Saudi Government is not wholeheartedly on their side due to its complete dependency on the Americans for legitimacy. The Bengalis were helped by India, the Kurds are apparently helped by Israel itself as has recently been exposed! And all Muslims under attack by Russia could turn to the West, but Palestinians?

I would personally take exception to y'alls comments above. I think one has to separate religion from state here. The Islamic peoples did conquer large swaths of land with the sword. They captured the entire Iraq, Southern Pakistan, Egypt, North Africa, Turkey within 100 years of the formation of Islam. They did so for material gains, for booty, human and non-human, land, mineral resources etc etc. Because the ruling elite paid lip service to religion, this allowed Islamic missionaries to operate freely within these newly captured lands. So people converted to Islam out of a mix of....

- kissing up to the ruling elite for material gain
- geniuine exposure to a superior religious thought
- slave mentality conversion to superior culture
- other reasons

Same can be said about the Christian spread. The people from Europe who spread across the world and colonized the whole planet were secular greedy capitlaists types. Their capture by sword allowed the missionaries in their respective countries to come and evangelize among the newly captured populations.

Once the rulers left, the religions stayed because they were superior in their theology to what was there before the rulers came. Primarily I assume the idea of one powerful God in heaven as opposed to voodoo diety worship etc.

It is interesting to note that the Protestant version of Christianity is hardly practised outside of Western countries and it is usually the stricter Catholic version that survives in Africa and India and South America and the Far East. Interestingly, the most conservative of all Catholics are the ones in areas where they are competing with the Muslims for converts. Catholics in places like Nigeria, India and Southeast Asia tend to be the most strict of all Catholic dioces.