Bekijk Volledige Versie : Oorlogsretoriek, Intimidatie en ondermijning vd Democratie
Tzipi Livni bezweert eind bewind Hamas in Gaza
De Israëlische minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Tzipi Livni heeft zondag bezworen het bewind van de beweging Hamas in de Gazastrook te beëindigen wanneer ze premier wordt. ,,Israël en mijn regering maken er een strategisch doel van het bewind van Hamas in Gaza ten val te brengen,'' aldus Livni. Daar gebruiken we ,,militaire, economische en diplomatieke middelen'' voor.
In februari zijn er parlementsverkiezingen in Israël. Livni leidt de partij die nu de meeste stemmen in het parlement heeft.
De kleine Gazastrook met bijna anderhalf miljoen mensen wordt ook het grootste getto ter wereld genoemd. Het is geïsoleerd en afhankelijk van voedselhulp van de Verenigde Naties.
Dwarsboomden
De Islamitische Verzetsbeweging Hamas won de Palestijnse verkiezingen begin 2006, maar Israël en tal van andere mogendheden dwarsboomden Hamas. De partij Fatah bleef zo overeind in het formele Palestijnse bestuur. Hamas greep in juni 2007 de macht in de door corruptie geplaagde Gazastrook. Die wordt sindsdien vrijwel permanent belegerd door Israël.
Palestijnen zijn er vrijdag na een bestand van een half jaar weer begonnen projectielen op Israël af te schieten. Een hoge Israëlische officier zei dat een militaire inval in de Gazastrook vrijwel onafwendbaar is geworden.
Politieke rivalen
Premier Ehud Olmert beklemtoonde zondag in de marge van kabinetsberaad over de Gazastrook dat hij een weloverwogen beleid voert. Hij sprak nadat hij er door politieke rivalen van was beschuldigd dat hij de Israëlische grensstreek niet voldoende beschermt.
Bij een raketinslag werd zondag een Thaise gastarbeider gedood en werd een pand in Sderot zwaar beschadigd. Israëlische gevechtshelikopters hebben ook zondag de Gazastrook bestookt.
http://www.depers.nl/buitenland/271604/Livni-bezweert-eind-bewind-Hamas-in-Gaza.html
De topictitel klopt niet.
Er is geen sprake van democratie. Oke de mensen hebben uit nood gekozen voor, in hun ogen, de minst kwaden. Hamas heeft voor haar medestanders in Gaza beslist het beste voor.
Alleen de tegenstanders? Bij democratie hoort ook het eerbiedigen van mensenrechten. Een partij met moordenaars hoort niet thuis in een democratie.
Let wel ik heb het over moorden op de eigen mensen niet over de raketten en aanslagen in Israel. Dat zie als legitieme daad van zelfverdediging. Die discussie hoeven we dus niet te voeren.
De topictitel klopt niet.
Er is geen sprake van democratie. Oke de mensen hebben uit nood gekozen voor, in hun ogen, de minst kwaden. Hamas heeft voor haar medestanders in Gaza beslist het beste voor.
hamas is legitiem en democratisch gekozen door het palestijnse volk.. dat is eerlijk en rechtmatig gebeurd.. wanneer een buitenlandse bezettingsmacht de eerlijk gekozen hamas wilt verdrijven dan is dat een ondermijning vd palestijnse democratie..
Bij democratie hoort ook het eerbiedigen van mensenrechten. Een partij met moordenaars hoort niet thuis in een democratie.
m.a.w. jij vindt dat de knesset opgeheven moet worden wegens het schenden van mensenrechten sinds haar bestaan..
Let wel ik heb het over moorden op de eigen mensen niet over de raketten en aanslagen in Israel. Dat zie als legitieme daad van zelfverdediging. Die discussie hoeven we dus niet te voeren.
in nood moet je wel tot harde maatregelen komen.. jij weet net zo goed als iedereen dat hamas geen andere keuze had dan zich te verdedigen tegen de machtsovername van fatah die de verkiezingsuitslag weigerde te accepteren..
Tzipi Livni bezweert eind bewind Hamas in Gaza
De Israëlische minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Tzipi Livni heeft zondag bezworen het bewind van de beweging Hamas in de Gazastrook te beëindigen wanneer ze premier wordt. ,,Israël en mijn regering maken er een strategisch doel van het bewind van Hamas in Gaza ten val te brengen,'' aldus Livni. Daar gebruiken we ,,militaire, economische en diplomatieke middelen'' voor.
In februari zijn er parlementsverkiezingen in Israël. Livni leidt de partij die nu de meeste stemmen in het parlement heeft.
De kleine Gazastrook met bijna anderhalf miljoen mensen wordt ook het grootste getto ter wereld genoemd. Het is geïsoleerd en afhankelijk van voedselhulp van de Verenigde Naties.
Dwarsboomden
De Islamitische Verzetsbeweging Hamas won de Palestijnse verkiezingen begin 2006, maar Israël en tal van andere mogendheden dwarsboomden Hamas. De partij Fatah bleef zo overeind in het formele Palestijnse bestuur. Hamas greep in juni 2007 de macht in de door corruptie geplaagde Gazastrook. Die wordt sindsdien vrijwel permanent belegerd door Israël.
Palestijnen zijn er vrijdag na een bestand van een half jaar weer begonnen projectielen op Israël af te schieten. Een hoge Israëlische officier zei dat een militaire inval in de Gazastrook vrijwel onafwendbaar is geworden.
Politieke rivalen
Premier Ehud Olmert beklemtoonde zondag in de marge van kabinetsberaad over de Gazastrook dat hij een weloverwogen beleid voert. Hij sprak nadat hij er door politieke rivalen van was beschuldigd dat hij de Israëlische grensstreek niet voldoende beschermt.
Bij een raketinslag werd zondag een Thaise gastarbeider gedood en werd een pand in Sderot zwaar beschadigd. Israëlische gevechtshelikopters hebben ook zondag de Gazastrook bestookt.
http://www.depers.nl/buitenland/271604/Livni-bezweert-eind-bewind-Hamas-in-Gaza.html
De eerste plicht van de Israëlische regering is de bescherming van haar burgers.
knuppeltje
22-12-08, 17:02
De eerste plicht van de Israëlische regering is de bescherming van haar burgers.
En om voor welzijn te zorgen, alleen is dat voor de niet joodse bevolking in Israël niet belangrijk blijkbaar, die hebben niet eens overal stemrecht.
Mijne heren, Tzipi is een geschifte nazi.
Mijne heren, Tzipi is een geschifte nazi.
Nah, ze is best pragmatisch volgens mij. Maar het is verkiezingstijd, dus dan zeggen de politici wat zij denken dat het volk wil horen.
Netanyahu verklaarde vandaag dat de Golan hoogvlakte, als hij premier wordt, niet zal worden opgegeven.
De komende verkiezingen worden helaas dramatisch, maar hopelijk zal het bijna onmogelijk worden een regering te vormen die lang in het zadel zit. Tot die tijd zal de "vredesbeweging" in Israel flink moeten soulsearchen en opkomen met een antwoord. De toekomst van Israel als een seculiere democratie is in gevaar.
Spot the Difference
A MAN was asked about his sons. “I have three,” he said, “but one of them is a complete idiot.”
“Which one?” they asked.
“Take your pick,” he replied.
In 51 days, we shall vote for a new Knesset and a new government.
Three big parties are competing for the prize: Kadima, Likud and Labor.
From there on, see the joke.
IS THERE a real choice? In other words, are there any real differences between the three parties?
As in the game “Spot the Difference”, they are so tiny that one needs really good eyes to discover them.
There are, of course, political differences between the three. But what the three parties, and the three leaders, have in common is far more important than what divides them.
Binyamin Netanyahu says that this is not the time for peace with the Palestinians. We have to wait until conditions are ripe. Not on our side, of course, but on the Palestinian side. And who is going to decide whether the conditions are ripe on the Palestinian side? Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. He or his successors, or the successors of his successors.
Tzipi Livni says – or so it seems – the very opposite. We have to talk with the Palestinians. What about? Not about Jerusalem, God forbid. And not about the refugees. So about what? About the weather, perhaps? Tzipi’s plan, one has to conclude, is to go on talking and talking and talking, and never to reach any practical agreement.
Ehud Barak has not withdrawn his fateful pronouncement of eight years ago, when he came back from the failed (thanks to him) Camp David conference: “We have no partner for peace.”
Not one of the three has stood up and told the public in simple words: I am going to make peace with the Palestinians in the course of 2009. This peace will include the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed minor border changes on the basis of 1:1, turning Jerusalem into the capital of the two states and agreeing on a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, a solution Israel can live with.
Not one of the three has offered any peace plan at all. Only hollow words. Only spin.
Like the alternative offered by Netanyahu: to ameliorate the living conditions of the Palestinians. Living conditions under occupation? When 600 roadblocks in the West Bank prevent free movement? When every violent act of resistance leads to collective punishment? When death-squads go out in the night to liquidate “wanted men”? Only a madman would invest money in such a territory.
ALL THE THREE are united in their view that Hamas must be eliminated. True, not one of them declares publicly that the Gaza Strip should be reoccupied – something that is wildly unpopular both with the public and the army chiefs. But all three support the tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, believing that if the population has no bread and the hospitals no medicaments or fuel, the Gaza public will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. For now, the opposite is happening. This week a quarter of a million people – almost half the adult population of the Strip! – took part in a rally to celebrate the birthday of Hamas.
Not one of the three has stood up and said: I shall talk with Hamas and bring them into the peace process.
Neither did one of the three get up and say: I shall make peace with Syria in the course of 2009. The terms are known, I accept them, I intend to sign.
Perhaps all three of them secretly think so. But each of them tells himself/herself: “What, am I crazy? To take on the Golan settlers and their supporters in Israel?” Someone who is not prepared to remove even one miserable outpost in the West Bank, for fear of a clash with the fanatical settlers there, will not take any such risk on the Golan Heights either.
ON THE other hand, all three have the same emergency exit: the Iranian bomb. What would we do without it! “The main danger to the existence of Israel is the Iranian bomb!” declares Barak. Declares Tzipi. Declares Netanyahu. A finely attuned choir.
Since the beginnings of Zionism, it has been looking for ways to escape from the “Palestinian problem”. Why? Because if the Zionist movement had admitted that there even exists a Palestinian people, it would have had to find a solution to the actual situation and to the moral problem. Therefore, a hundred different pretexts have been found, each in its time, to ignore the dilemma.
Nowadays the Iranian bomb fulfils this function. Here is a clear and present danger. An existential danger. Stop bothering me about the Palestinian problem. Nothing urgent there. It can be postponed for a few years (or a few generations). The Iranian bomb is what needs immediate attention. After we solve this problem (it’s not clear how) we shall be free to deal with the Palestinian nuisance.
Logic, of course, says the opposite. If we sign a peace agreement with the entire Palestinian people and put an end to the occupation, the Persian rug will be swept from under the feet of Ahmadinejad and the likes of him. When the Palestinians recognize Israel and make peace, the anti-Israeli Crusade (or, rather, Crescentade) will lose its steam.
OK, SO in matters of war and peace there is no difference between the three. But what about the other issues?
The economic crisis fills the headlines. All the candidates promise to deal with it. To find any difference between their pronouncements, one would need a microscope.
One might have expected Netanyahu to be different from the others. After all, he was the High Priest of privatization. To privatize everything, from steel cables to shoestrings. This dogma has now collapsed in the United States, and is collapsing in Israel too. Does this bother Netanyahu? Does it make him more humble? Not in the least. Now he demands, without batting an eyelid, massive state intervention. Like Livni. Like Barak.
State and religion? Not one of the three demands separation between them. Not one demands civil marriage, or the rolling back of religious coercion, or the calling up of thousands of yeshiva students. Not one demands the inclusion of the core subjects – like English and mathematics – in the curriculum of the state-financed religious schools. God forbid! God forbid! After all, all of them will need Shas and/or the Orthodox party tomorrow.
The Arab citizens? All of the parties court them ardently. But not one of them promises them anything real. Real equality? Only in words. Cultural autonomy? Of course not. The implementation of the recommendations of the government commission of inquiry that was appointed after the October 2000 killings? Not a chance!
And the list goes on. Subject after subject.
SO IS THERE really no difference between the three? Is a vote for one of them the same as a vote for any of the other two?
I would not go that far.
There are small differences – but when we are dealing with fateful matters, even a small difference is significant.
Netanyahu, for example, brings with him a very rightist crew. They include fascist elements that must not be ignored. There is a danger that he would set up a government that would include “extreme-right” (meaning: outright fascist) parties, on top of the rightist-orthodox Shas party. His victory would signal to the whole world that Israel has chosen the path to the abyss. It may also bring up the possibility – the nightmare of Israeli politics – of a clash with the United States, now led by Barack Obama.
The battered (and rightly so) Labor Party at least includes a social-democratic element that makes it different from the other two. It is weak but not entirely insignificant.
Kadima, that cross-breed of leftist rightists and rightist leftists, is in spite of everything better than Likud, from which most of its candidates have sprung. Netanyahu and Livni grew on the same tree, but on different branches. Tzipi may still surprise us for the better. If Netanyahu springs any surprises at all, that would be a miracle.
Aside from the three big ones, there are, of course, several smaller one-issue parties, each in its own niche, which address specific sectors of the public and which have at least a clear and honest message: the Arab parties, Meretz, the Orthodox list, Shas, the Liberman party, the “Jewish Home” (formerly National-Religious party). Probably they will be joined by some new election lists. Each of them is a story in itself, but none of them will set up the next government.
The real story is between the Three Big, and it is a sad story indeed.
The choice between them is a choice between bad, worse and still worse. Between toothache, migraine and backache.
Nothing good will come out of this election. The question is only how bad the results will be.
THE CONCLUSION: This must not happen again!
Quite probably, the next Knesset, too, will not last for more than a year or two. Then there would be new elections, which might well be fateful.
On February 11, 2009, the day after the coming elections, those who seek change must start to think anew. Those who long for a democratic, secular, progressive Israel, an Israel at peace with its neighbors and imbued with social justice within, must decide to take matters into their own hands,
They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. No longer to be satisfied with voting for the “lesser evil” but finally to vote for the greater good, and - together with sectors that have not been partners up till now - to work out solutions that have not yet been tried in ways that have not yet been tried. To bring about an Obama-like miracle.
Instead of the three good-for-nothing sons, a fourth son must appear.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1229805840/
Uri Avnery's Column
Uri zegt het beter.
Can the First Gaza War be stopped before it starts?
Doing nothing is no longer an option.
The week began with Palestinian rockets slamming into the Negev an average of nearly once an hour, around the clock.
"There's a moral problem here," says Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, former commander of the IDF's Gaza Division.
"The basic obligation of a nation is to see to the security of its citizens. The factual situation is that the state of Israel is not doing so, where the residents of the south are concerned."
Zakai told Army Radio this week that Israel's real options are down to three. The first is the option that many have taken routinely to call unavoidable: a broad military offensive.
The IDF station began its central morning newscast with an unnamed security source saying that Israel's three top leaders had decided to end the policy of military restraint, and that "the Hamas organization will be surprised by the might of Israel's response."
The scope of rocket attacks, their increasing range, and the fact that there are potential launch sites from Beit Lehiya in northern Gaza to Rafah in the south - coupled with an intensive Hamas effort to arm, booby trap, and fortify entire regions, especially areas where civilian populations and military units are congruent - all but mandates that if Israeli troops launch an offensive, the result will be a war in which then IDF invades and progressively reconquers the entire length of the Strip, at a horrible cost in civilian and military casualties to both sides.
That old familiar cringe has hit the air, the unmistakable feel of the slope turning slippery.
Is it already too late to stop the First Gaza War?
It already has a name, courtesy of cabinet minister and ex-Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter. It already has goals, which are as well defined as they are unrealizable. It has already had its tactics publicly spelled out and thus undermined before the fact.
Still, there are signs that the coming war, which has come to routinely be termed unavoidable, can be halted before it starts.
The most startling of these signs may be realism.
The Israeli military is certainly capable of a Gaza conquest, and at any given time, Zakai, once Israel's top soldier in the Strip, said on the army-run station. "But the question that we must ask ourselves is this: 'Okay, we've conquered Gaza - what now?' We're ruling over a million and a half Palestinians. Israel's economic situation is known to everyone. Will Israel's tax revenues now be used for rehabilitating the sewage and education of a million and a half Palestinians? What, exactly, will this give us?
"In recent years, we've made every effort to separate ourselves from the Palestinians. Are we now going to take a step that will bring us back a million and a half Palestinians to rule over? This lacks all sense. "
Zakai believes Israel should take a different approach, essentially combining two other options with a fundamental reappraisal of how Israelis should regard Hamas.
At heart, he says, "The state of Israel must understand that Hamas rule in Gaza is a fact, and it is with that government that we must reach a situation of calm."
Israel must also understand that Hamas is a pragmatic organization, Zakai continues. "The moment that the organization understands that Qassam fire is contrary to its interests, it will stop the fire.
"We need to work in an integrated manner. The situation is a complex one. There is no kuntz [trick], no patent [gimmick] that you can just turn on, in order to end Qassam fire.
"An integrated approach, on the one hand, includes demonstration of military might, a demonstration of the heavy price Hamas would have to pay if the firing continues, and on the other hand, also using a carrot, to cause Hamas to understand that refraining from firing exactly serves their interests.
In Zakai's view, Israel's central error during the tahadiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce that formally ended on Friday, was failing to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip.
He believes that Hamas would have - and still would - accept a bargain in which Hamas, the only power who holds sway over the multiplicity racketeers and gunmen of Gaza's many armed groups, would halt the fire in exchange for easing of the many ways in which Israeli policies have kept a choke hold on the economy of the Strip.
"We could have eased the siege over the Gaza Strip, in such a way that the Palestinians, Hamas, would understand that holding their fire served their interests. But when you create a tahadiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues, it's obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahadiyeh, and that their way to achieve this, is resumed Qassam fire.
"The carrot is improvement of the economic situation in the Gaza Strip. You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they're in, and to expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing. That's something that's simply unrealistic."
In the end, Israel must realize that "we can't impose regimes on the Palestinians. We can't cause the Palestinians [to decide] who will rule over them. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. This is a fact. I do not believe that the state of Israel should cause another ruler to come to power in Gaza borne on the bayonets of the IDF. "
"It's just like after the disengagement. We left Gaza and we thought that with that troubles were over. Did we really think that a million and a half people living in that kind of poverty were going to mount the rooftops and begin singing the Beitar hymn? That is illogical."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1048931.html
Dat is dus een voormalige top militair, right wing, die dus gewoon zegt dat Israelische politici niet moeten zeuren en de situatie in Gaza erkennen. Hij vraagt zich af, wat het nut is om Hamas omver te werpen en Gaza opnieuw te bezetten.
Dit zijn zo ongeveer dezelfde woorden die komen uit het "linkse vredes" kamp.
Dit is em: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Zakai
Zo te zien heeft hij na 26 dienst eindelijk ingezien dat belegering van Gaza zijn doel niet bereikt.
Let wel ik heb het over moorden op de eigen mensen niet over de raketten en aanslagen in Israel. Dat zie als legitieme daad van zelfverdediging. Die discussie hoeven we dus niet te voeren.
Pardon?
Het willekeurig of zelfs bewust beschieten van burgerdoelen is volgens internationaal recht onder alle omstandigheden een oorlogsmisdaad.
Uri zegt het beter.
Uri heeft vooral ontstellend veel woorden voor nodig voor precies hetzelfde. Israel is knettergek en wordt elke dag knetterder. En met de crisis kunnen ze hun gekte niet eens meer betalen.