Around the Web in 80 Minutes (1/8/09): More Israel-Hamas Stuff

More wise words to a very morally confused world re: the Israel-Hamas conflict:

First, Larry Elder, the Sage from South Central, weighs in:

Israelis and Palestinians: Who’s David, Who’s Goliath?
January 08, 2009

Much of the world buys the line—peddled by the Palestinians and the Arab Muslim world and, indeed, many Western countries—that paints Israel as the bad “Goliath” that “stole” the land from the “Palestinians.”

Israel gave Gaza self-rule in 1994, unilaterally withdrawing the last of its citizens and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas, voted into power via free elections in 2006, fought and defeated their political and military rival, Fatah, to seize de facto control of Gaza in 2007. In the past eight years, Hamas has fired more than 10,000 rockets and mortars into Israel—7,000 of them after Israel’s 2005 withdrawal. With improved technology—reportedly assisted by Iran—Hamas’ rockets can now fly 24 miles before impact and explosion, thereby threatening, injuring and killing more and more Israelis living in southern Israel. […]

We turn our attention to the “stolen” allegation.

Israel lies in the ancient Fertile Crescent’s southwest corner, with some of the oldest archeological evidence of primitive towns and agriculture. Historians and archeologists believe the Hebrews probably arrived in the area in the second millennium Before the Common Era. The nation itself was formed as the Israelites left Egypt during the Exodus, believed to be in the late 13th century Before the Common Era

The 12 tribes of Israel united in about 1050 Before the Common Era, forming the Kingdom of Israel. David, the second king of Israel, established Jerusalem as Israel’s national capital 3,000 years ago. Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for a millennium.

After conquests by Babylonians, Persians and Greeks, an independent Jewish kingdom was briefly revived but Rome took control in the next century, renaming the land of Judea “Palestine” after the Philistines, historical enemies of the Israelites’.

Invading Arabs conquered the land from the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines) and attracted Arab settlers. Within a few centuries, the Arab language and Islam prevailed, but a Jewish minority remained. After a brief period of prosperity, waves of invasions and changes of control followed, including rule by the non-Arab empires of the Seljuks, Mamelukes and European crusaders, before becoming part of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 until 1918. […]

After four centuries of Ottoman rule, Britain took the land in 1917 and pledged in the Balfour Declaration to support a Jewish national homeland there. In 1920, the British Palestine Mandate was recognized. A declaration passed by the League of Nations in 1922 effectively divided the mandated territory into two parts. The eastern portion, called Transjordan, would later become the Arab Kingdom of Jordan in 1946. The other portion, comprising the territory west of the Jordan River, was administered as Palestine under provisions that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland.

The United Nations, in 1947, partitioned the area into separate Jewish and Arab states along meandering and indefensible boundaries. The Arab world, insisting that any Jewish claim to Palestine was invalid, staunchly refused to compromise or even discuss the subject.

When Israel’s independence was declared in 1948, Arab forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq combined to crush the 1-day-old country. They lost. Still, Egypt occupied most of the Gaza Strip, and Transjordan (calling itself “Jordan”) held most of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem. Neither Arab country gave the “Palestinians” a state.

The word “Palestinian,” as employed today, is a relatively recent term. Until the end of the British mandate over Palestine, in 1948, all inhabitants of the area west of the Jordan River were known as “Palestinians.” A Jewish person living in what is now Israel was a “Palestinian Jew.” An Arab living in the area was a “Palestinian Arab.” Likewise, a Christian was known as a “Palestinian Christian.”

Israel won more land after a series of wars, land since returned or offered for return in exchange for peace. The Jews “stole” nothing.

Thank you, Larry, for that well-written concise history of the land of Israel.

Next, “Rite Jew” Richard Baehr at today’s American Thinker writes:

Let Them Eat Rockets
January 08, 2009

The international community is expressing outrage over the relatively small number of civilian casualties reported in the first 11 days of Israel’s operation in Gaza. War, apparently, must now mean zero civilian casualties. If anyone is killed, they seem to be saying, war crimes are committed.

Of course, anyone has the right to object to Israel’s invasion. But these critics are conveniently silent about Hamas’ deadly objective when it fired 7,000 rockets and mortars into Israel over the past few years, and the recent torrent of projectiles it launched to end the six-month ceasefire, precipitating the current conflict.

The goal of the Hamas rocket fire was not only to terrorize a significant percentage of Israel’s population, but also to kill or maim Israeli civilians. But because most of these rockets did not cause casualties, Israel’s critics do not consider them a serious threat.

The fact that more than 15 percent of Israel’s population is now within Hamas’ rocket range, or that the rockets are more precise with a more lethal payload (thanks to Iran), also seems to be of little concern.

That Israel has taken great pains to minimize civilian casualties in the current fighting, going so far as to contact Gaza residents by phone and warn them to evacuate from targeted areas, also does not matter. Critics vilify Israel for being less than 100 percent effective in its attempts to only hit armed Hamas men. […]

Israel’s care for the sanctity of human life, even in war, is something completely absent among Israel’s foes. Hamas educates and trains their children to kill themselves to achieve the greater good of killing the “Zionist enemy.”

In fact, contrary to what we see on television, Hamas does not grieve for children accidentally killed by Israel in the heat of battle. Rather, this is part of the Hamas war strategy. The Palestinian children who die in conflict with Israel are fodder for Hamas’ propaganda machine. This is why Hamas uses civilians as shields—both to protect their fighters and weapons caches, and to play the resulting civilian casualties for all they are worth. […]

When Israel ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians as a measure of goodwill in 2005, the Palestinians had an opportunity to demonstrate what they could do with political sovereignty. Instead, in 2006 both Gazans and West Bank Palestinians cast their lot with Hamas, an organization known primarily for suicide bombings against Israel, voting to give them 60 percent of the seats in the Palestinian legislature.

Less than two years later, Hamas engineered a bloody coup in Gaza in the summer of 2007, slaughtering more than 200 Fatah men in the process. Hamas then began making intense preparation for its next war with Israel. Indeed, this conflict was planned. Hamas smuggled deadly rockets and other weaponry into Gaza via tunnels between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Hamas is now firing rockets at the Israeli cities of Beersheba, Ashdod, and Ashkelon.

Hamas unquestionably knew that Israel would respond with force to the renewed rocket fire. Hamas also knew what this war would mean for the Palestinians living in Gaza. But Palestinian misery has never been a concern for Hamas. By continuing to provoke Israel, their message to the Palestinians is simple: Let them eat rockets.

Finally, at Human Events, Rachel Marsden addresses …

The Biggest Lies About The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
01/08/2009 ET

1) Israel launched a preemptive war.

Congressman and former GOP Presidential candidate, Ron Paul, suggested to Press TV—the official propaganda arm of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—that Israel’s actions were “preemptive”. His logic: Israel has nukes and Hamas doesn’t, so it’s unfair. … In early 2007, on Fox News, Rep. Paul told me that he didn’t have a problem with Iran possessing nukes. The whole idea of Israel’s nuclear advantage is moot, until Israel nukes Gaza—and they haven’t. If you ask me, the “Zionists” are showing unbelievable restraint.

2) Israel is killing Palestinian civilians.

Press TV says that 25% of deaths in Gaza have been civilian. These terrorists could severely curtail the civilian killing at any time by getting out there and taking their jihad like real men, rather than hiding around women and children like cowards. Hamas’ lack of warfare decorum, and insistence on guerilla tactics when push comes to shove, really isn’t Israel’s problem. Israel is so caring and humane that even in the midst of war, they paused their military efforts to provide civilians with aid. […]

4) Iran has nothing to do with this.

While on vacation in Vancouver, BC, I actually heard a local talk-radio host say, “The next thing you know, the USA will link Hamas with Iran!” Actually, Hamas has saved these Leftists the trouble of blowing out a few more brain cells coming up with conspiracy theories, and has already publicly linked itself with Iran. A Sunday Times of London article from last March quotes a senior Hamas commander: “Iran is our mother. She gives us information, military supplies and financial support.” […]

6) Obama is waiting in the wings, and will save the world shortly.

About the only thing on which Al-Qaeda and the GOP have ever agreed is how useless Obama is, and how pathetically he has been propped up by the American media. Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a recent audio message: “This is Obama whom the American machine of lies tried to portray as the rescuer who will change the policy of America. He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and without affection.” Not only has Obama failed miserably in appealing to psychotic terrorists’ gentler and more reasonable instincts, but he’s also apparently “killing” people before even having taken the oath of office.

7) George Bush has “studiously ignored the whole problem” of Israel vs. Palestine.

Or so says new agey expert turned political analyst, Deepak Chopra, in this week’s San Francisco Chronicle. No mention of the Annapolis Conference that Bush held in November 2007 with representatives of 49 countries to develop a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. No mention of Condoleezza Rice’s eight trips to the area that year. But none of this matters, because Chopra—a recognized expert in such things as “self-awareness”—concluded by humbly declaring his own analysis “irrefutable”. […]

Some people get it, thank God. But bear in mind: They are primarily on the Right.

Comments

[EricTheRed]

Thanks, allyHM for the tip! - ETR

[allyHM]

There's a great slide show that gives the facts about the history of this whole thing here:

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

I highly recommend it. (but be sure to be ready to hit the pause button on the bottom right of the screen so you don't miss anything)

[Zack R]

Great pithy, quick-reference sheet from Rachel Marsden. Should be memoriozed by all those preparing to do conversational battle with Lefty relatives or with just about anyone you happen to run into in our major cities.