AlterNet Commenters Share Their Anger at the Killing and Atrocities in Gaza

By , AlterNet
Posted on January 10, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/118630/alternet_commenters_share_their_anger_at_the_killing_and_atrocities_in_gaza

As global conflicts go, emotions always run exceptionally high over the question of Israel and Palestine, so it came as no surprise that AlterNet readers have a lot to say about the current crisis in Gaza. The anger and frustration -- over the inaction of U.S. politicians, the failure of the corporate media to honestly portray the conflict, over Hamas's rockets and the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people, and over the slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians -- is palpable.

A good deal of the comments posted in response to our Gaza coverage have focused on which side is to blame. But many others grapple with the harder questions of how to end this intractable conflict, what the appropriate response should be from Barack Obama, the roots of the prejudice that makes it possible to justify killing innocent civilians, and what the current bloodletting will produce down the line.

Below is a collection of some of the more striking comments elicited by AlterNet's recent Gaza coverage, pulled from stories including Liliana Segura's "Atrocities in Gaza: Piecing Together the Story," Stephen Zunes's "Democrats Are Cowards in the Face of Israel's Brutality," "Unprecedented Numbers of Americans Question Israel's Actions in Gaza" by Max Blumenthal, and Linda Mamoun's "Israel's Militants Poised to Resettle Gaza After Assault" (Read more Gaza coverage here).

 writes in the comment, "Put Yourself in Their Shoes,"

The fact of the matter here is that too many people are looking at the political side to this and ignoring the moral and human side. You'd think after reading such a heart-wrenching account, some of the commentors would actually show some compassion.

Let's take a second to try and disconnect ourselves from the comfort of our cubicles and offices and try and imagine what life is like for the population of Gaza. The person interviewed above says it himself, the civilians of Gaza are at a disconnect to the rest of the world. How could they not be? They don't have the luxury to sip cafe lattes and read the news and get different perspectives on Hamas or Israel or anything going on in the world really. These are desperate people in a desperate situation, not just since the attacks started, but far longer than that. It's easy for people here to condemn the support for Hamas, but we don't know what it's like to live over there. We don't know what it's like to live in occupied territory, especially with the suspect human rights record of Israel over at least the past 40 years. How could we possibly understand what it feels like to be a resident of Gaza? The people of Gaza are not granted the same luxuries of information gathering in as we are here.

Neither Israel or Hamas is an innocent party here. But what I do know however, is that the death of this many civilians is IMMORAL AND WRONG. It is not necessary, this is not 'collateral damage,' this is targeting of a civilian population. You cannot rationally defend the death of this many children. You cannot rationally defend the Israeli bombing of a UN School, just like you can't rationally defend a suicide bomber.

Enough is enough. Stop punishing the civilians. What ever happened to compassion?

robchapman writes in "Hamas is not for peace":

Hamas's leadership and its behavior since winning the Palestinian elections has been deeply disappointing.

Despite the electoral support of almost 2/3 of the Palestinian voters, Hamas has never shown the basic requirement of a legitimate government: willingness to let its neighbors and its own people live in peace.

I am referring to Hamas' dedication to the destruction of the State of Israel and its mobilization of its own people for this evil end.

Whatever humanitarian and governmental functions Hamas has undertaken have been subordinated to the goal of total war against Israel. This in the face of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and ongoing Israeli- Palestinian Authority negotiations to develop a two-state peace treaty.

The regrettable and terrible loss of property and civilian lives in the current conflict clearly stems from the Hamas decision to deploy its forces in heavily populated areas and cynically use its population as a shield from IDF.

It is a sad statement of cravenness and depravity on the part of Hamas that their armed wing depends on the proximity of defenseless non-combatants for safety. This stands on its head any notion that Hamas is a protector of Palestinians.

One can only hope that public opinion, rightfully repulsed by the bloody pictures of wounded children, will powerfully push Hamas toward a more conciliatory role with Israel and other neighboring countries.

In "We can do more," Democritus writes:

Most Americans see the injustice of subjecting Palestinian civilians to disproportionate military force. But so far our mainstream media is cheering for the IDF the way they did for our invasion of Iraq.

Long our "cat's paw" in the Middle East, the Israeli government has now decided to do to the Hamas government what the Bush Administration did to Saddam Hussein -- with the same sort of indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Not only will this come back to haunt Israel -- the demographics being on the side of Israel's neighbors -- but it will damage our chances to act as any sort of "honest broker" in resolving the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

What can ordinary citizens do to shut down the Israeli spin machine? Write letters to the editor; write your congressperson; speak out as loudly as possible; use the internet as a tool to denounce the Israeli government, AIPAC, and the IDF. What would really stop the Israeli war machine is the threat of withdrawing all U.S. aid to Israel -- only a concentrated grass-roots movement directed at our new Administration would be able to accomplish that, but it would be worth it.

radical53 writes in "Olmert Has Gone Too Far":

I guess Olmert is a little apprehensive about the incoming Obama administration. The Israelis decided to do as much damage to Hamas and Gaza as they can while they have a blank check from the Bush Administration.

There is no doubt that Hamas is a radical, violent group that should be defeated. Israel's actions, however, are disproportionate and ill-advised. The overkill employed by Israel will only strengthen radical feelings against them. Indeed, even non-radical states are voicing stronger opposition than usual to the latest bombings and invasion into Gaza.

As for President Obama, he will be in the inevitable but uncomfortable position of having to begin applying pressure on Israel to act in the interest of peace.

More international involvement is needed and Israel will have to be persuaded to make meaningful concessions. Israel needs to stop violating UN resolutions and expedite its talks with the Abbas government. The international community, led by the U.S. and UN working jointly, must focus on real progress and real compromise. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has far-reaching implications for world peace. It must be treated as an urgent priority.

In "This is why there were tunnels, the reason Israel broke the cease-fire," fanny666 writes:

The blockade -- which prevented basic supplies even before this latest invasion -- is a good example of how Israeli policy is so draconian to be counterproductive. Gazans have had to smuggle food water and medicine in through tunnels. Of course those tunnels were probably being used for smuggling weapons in as well. Which is the excuse Israel needed to break the cease fire on November 4, when the U.S. media was focused on the election.

It's an interesting fact about this conflict that citizens of the United States are much more propagandized about Israeli innocence/morality than Israelis are. A good example is the idea that Hamas broke the cease-fire with rocket launches. This is patently false. Israel broke it by bombing tunnels. You could argue that they had the right or that it was a good thing to do, but it's simply false to say that it did not break the cease-fire.

From the Jerusalem Post: "Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that while Israel wanted to continue the truce, it could not tolerate tunnel digging… When Israel agreed to the truce it didn't agree that while there was calm, Hamas would exploit it to dig tunnels, whether they are for smuggling weapons, for perpetrating attacks or kidnapping soldiers," she said. "Therefore, if it becomes clear that is what's happening, it is the government's responsibility to act.""

In other words, Israel broke the cease-fire because they didn't like something that was happening.

The Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz was a little more blunt about it: "Palestinians have fired more than 200 rockets on Israel since the Gaza border region flared up November 4, after six Hamas operatives were killed when the Israel Defense Forces destroyed a tunnel near the border."

In other words, the Hamas rocket attacks happened AFTER the IDF air attack.

From the online version of Yedioth Ahronoth, the biggest newspaper in Israel: For the first time since the ceasefire took effect in June, IDF forces operated deep in the Gaza Strip Tuesday night in a bid to collapse a tunnel located 250 meters (273 yards) from the border -- and which terror groups intended to use for kidnapping Israeli soldiers."

The IDF goes on to say that they called a temporary "Time-Out" of the cease-fire, and that these bombs didn't count:

"The IDF is committed to maintaining the ceasefire and is acting accordingly," Ynet was told. "In this case, we had a credible threat indicating soldiers might be kidnapped and we had no choice but to act in order to thwart it."

As for the chances of the operation effectively ending the ceasefire, the sources said that while that was taken into consideration, the defense establishment believed the chances of that happening were slim but that risking a kidnapping attempt "was not an option."

To be honest, I get annoyed when people quibble about who started what in the latest acts of violence. At some level, it doesn't really matter. Israel needs to get back to its borders or there will never be peace. But the notion that Hamas broke the most recent cease-fire is utterly false.

radhasinha writes in "Obama's Lost Moral Highground":

Whatever political and diplomatic considerations may have dictated President-elect Obama's silence on the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure by the invading Israeli army, it has certainly undermined his credibility as some one who believes in International law and morality. It will be difficult for him to recover the lost moral high ground. He spoke, and rightly so, against the terrorist acts in Mumbai, but he is keeping silent on a much greater tragedy in Gaza. He is intelligent enough to see that his silence may be interpreted by Israel as an endorsement of Israeli action. Much of the world, let alone Islamic world, will see his silence in this light. He is sharp enough -- and certainly not as dumb as George W. Bush -- to realize that every Israeli bomb that kills innocent civilians, including women and children, is adding to the numbers of the terrorists severalfold. Thus, Israeli disproportionate response to Hamas's 'terrorist acts' are undermining President-elect Obama's objective of eliminating terrorism. Yet, his silence continues. Nobody aware of his close association with the Israeli lobbies in the United States would have expected him to make loud criticism of Israeli policies,but he could have used his association with such lobbies to deter Israel from taking actions which might jeopardize Obama's future Middle East diplomacy. There is no indication that he has done so.

In "This is a horrible injustice all around…," bloominblacksheep writes:

30 years ago, when I was substitute teaching in a high school on the East Coast (in my own neighborhood at the time), the English class I had was reading selections about Anne Frank. I was astounded at the anti-semitic statements I heard from some of the kids in what was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood (not that it mattered) so I divided the class up into the "persecuted" and the "persecutors" for short periods. Of course, since this was a school setting none of the "persecutions" were very harsh.

To all our (the students and my) surprise, 30 years ago, we discovered after this half-hour experiment, the "persecuted" were not more "compassionate," as I had expected them to be, psych grad student that I was! The students in the first group of "persecuted" kids, became much more hard to control when it was their "turn" to be in charge!

Subsequent, more formal studies, have shown that this is the case, from individuals ("abused kids become abusers" -- I am generalizing, of course there are exceptions--- to groups of people). Harsh treatment begets people who are harsh rather than merciful -- how sad! "Never Again" replaces "Turn the Other Cheek" -- Why? Because of the distrust engendered by horrible treatment,tragedy, loss, grief and the resulting trauma. Not to mention the loss of belief in a "just world."

So, does bombing the hell out of Gaza promote "peace" for Israel in the future? Has it in the past? Do all these human tragedies on both sides really work? What are we in the United States doing with our planes (Apache helicopters?) Aren't they of our own manufacture? Our bombs? Our weapons? Aren't they being used to kill these people?

I was raised in a military family. I have worked (for a time) in the Defense Establishment. I have watched people go after their "contracts" and I have edited manuals for weapons systems, years ago. I know all about the Holocaust and I have always supported Israel, but is this the correct way to deal with terrorists? If I were a child in Gaza right now, do you think I would feel kindly towards the people dropping bombs on me?

This is something I absolutely fail to understand! It is madness! It is WRONG for our Country to have ANYTHING to do with this kind of slaughter! (That also goes for Iraq -- another story.)

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