Sow the hamsin, reap the whirlwind

Roger Waters has written another screed excoriating the evil Israelis and championing the Palestinian right to violent resistance.

"It is easy for those of us who do not live under the tyranny of the occupation to condemn the military wing of Hamas for using randomly fired rockets that might cause civilian casualties in neighboring Israel, and I do unreservedly condemn it. Having said that, an occupied population has the legal right to resist the military of the occupier." 

Waters viewpoint is nauseating to me. Rockets might cause civilian damage and if so, so what? The Palestinians have a right to violently resist the occupier. Waters sentiment the last several years has been so typical, doesn't hate jews, just Israelis, blah, blah, blah. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck...

As for the Peace Process: Israel wants the Process but not the Peace. While 'the process' is going on the settlers continue grabbing land and building their settlements… and then when the Palestinians finally erupt with their pathetic fireworks they get hammered and shredded with state-of-the-art missiles and depleted uranium shells because Israel 'has a right to defend itself' ( whereas Palestine clearly doesn't). And the settler militias are always happy to lend a fist or rip up someone's olive grove while the army looks the other way. By the way, most of them are not ethnic Israelis - they're 'right of return' Jews from Russia and Ukraine and Moravia and South Africa and Brooklyn who came to Israel recently with the notion that they had an inviolable (God-given!) right to the land, and that 'Arab' equates with 'vermin' - straightforward old-school racism delivered with the same arrogant, shameless swagger that the good ole boys of Louisiana used to affect. That is the culture our taxes are defending. It's like sending money to the Klan. Brian Eno

Pathetic fireworks? Ethnic Israelis? The Klan now? I don't know where to start... Byrne decides to level the playing field by having what amounts to a weak and lame counter argument by a "good jew (a jew who dislikes Israel)," who promises not to ruffle the liberal party line.

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I personally think that Israel has shown an admirable restraint in the recent conflict. As Hamas has publicly admitted, they funded an operation that instigated the current hostilities in which their operatives kidnapped three Israeli teenagers and murdered them.

"Another senior Hamas official who currently lives in Turkey, Saleh al-Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, was taped at an Islamic scholars’ conference in Istanbul describing the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers as “a heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades,” referring to Hamas’s military wing."

So Hamas and its proxies in Gaza can lob thousands of missiles at their neighbors, kidnap and kill innocent Israelis and yet Israel is forbidden to react, and obviously the bad guy for defending themselves? This is Pink Floyd logic, or at least Roger Waters logic, the man who deigned to put a star of david on a pig balloon. The gall of those filthy jews to try to inhabit their historic homeland.

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Now we come to the point of today's little sermon, Gaza. Gaza has been said to have now been bombed back into the stone age, it will take at least twenty years to rebuild, the evil Israelis are heartless abusers, who had the temerity to inform the population that they had better scram before the airstrikes and that it would not bode well to shelter operatives pointing rockets at Israel.

Now Gaza needs cement.

For rebuilding. But can we guarantee that said cement won't end up in a tunnel full of weapons and explosives under Israel, no of course we can't. But send it anyway.

It is estimated that each of the thirty six tunnels uncovered by the IDF required 350 truckloads of supplies to construct. The new plan has the U.N. administering the cement supply. Considering that the Hamas terrorists have used the U.N. compounds in the past to launch rockets towards Israel, forgive me for my skepticism regarding their newfound plans for the concrete.

In fact Palestinian munitions were found at three U.N. schools this year and there have been some allegations that U.N. vehicles have been used to transport rockets in the past. The U.N. has a bff and it has always been Palestine.

"Israel's claims that Hamas uses UN premises to store weapons has been given substance by the discovery of arms caches at three UN schools on 16, 22 and 29 July. The UN says the schools had been closed up for the summer holidays, and condemned their appropriation by militants as "flagrant violations of international law". It said it immediately informed all relevant parties about the discoveries."

Hamas explosives by the baby's crib.

Hamas is using the civilian population for cover for its aggression and then playing the hurt martyr when discovered, reflexively screaming about collective punishment. They are content at present, crowing about winning the war and enjoying war reparation payments from their rich gulf neighbors.

I have to wonder what Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Cruz, Brian Eno, Bardem and the rest of the ilk would consider to be an acceptable mideast paradigm for Israel in dealing with its hostile neighbors? Short of mass suicide of course.

The Gazans get to shoot at Israel and Israel can't fire back? They can continue to kidnap and kill, to fire from schools, kindergartens and hospitals and United Nations compounds but the Israeli response must guarantee to hit only direct perpetrators? Turn the other cheek. Crazy. And Israel needs to open the crossing back up and disregard the fact that every time they do, the Palestinians take the opportunity to violently resist and pickoff a few Israeli soldiers and civilians.

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The world is very quick to pillory the Israelis. Last week Hamas executed a reported 27 palestinians for collaborating with Israel. Never mind that Israel's Shin Bet has stated that none of the people killed were actual sources. It will serve as a warning not to talk or dissent.

No trial, no jury, just a sack over their head and a bullet. Where is the international outcry? With the crazy as batshit and murderous islamists there is of course always a different standard.

“One mustn’t express an opinion about the war. They’ll make you trouble if you say anything. I speak my mind, but others, if they say what they think, they’ll say they’re collaborators, or they’ll beat them or even kill them.” AP similarly warned that “Under Hamas rule, it’s rare and dangerous to share even as much as a hint of criticism of the government with outsiders.”Gazan citizen

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What do we know about the recent war? Approximately 4500 rockets were fired from Gaza.  It is estimated that 875 fell inside their own border. They are said to have about 2500 to 3500 rockets left at their disposal.

32 tunnels were dug with the purpose of attacking Israel. 14 of those tunnels in fact reached into Israeli territory. Many more kilometers of tunnel underlay Gaza itself.

Israelis say that 2127 Palestinians died in the conflict a number that includes 616 combatants. 71 Israelis were killed. Palestinians, irrespective of the toll of death and destruction, think that they have won a great victory and have witnessed the breakdown of the myth of Israeli superiority. Hamas popularity has never been greater. Israel must let the people freely travel, and allow the Gazans material to rebuild, even if it means more Israelis being killed by Gazan aggression.

The U.N. is predictably calling for an end to the blockade, travel restrictions and anything else that is hindering the Palestinians, the health of Israel and its citizens be damned. I knew U.N. personnel when I lived in Israel. I used to drink with an irishman who worked for the U.N. and lived at the guest house at Gesher Haziv. He, like most of the U.N. people tended to be very anti Israel. Neutral to the point of blindness.

I had to laugh when the U.N. force was forced to scurry into Israel when attacked by Syrian rebels the other day. Guess their buddies didn't get along with them as well as they had hoped.

Maalot

I truly believe, the son and grandson of an Israeli, having lived in Israel through two conflicts and having personally been subjected to the onslaught of the katyushas, that Israel hates playing the part of jailer but has been forced into the role by vicious terrorists who seek its total destruction. It is difficult to negotiate with someone who doesn't recognize your right to exist and has vowed to annihilate you. And it should go without saying that it is considered very poor form to shoot rockets at people that you wish to parley with.

It is easy to quarterback from your easy chair in Cleveland and to tell them how they should react. The Palestinian should not think that they can commit hostile actions against Israel and be insulated from response, by either civilian complicity and cover or predictable world opinion.

I worked building apartments in Israel in the 1970's, worked with and had good relations with many palestinians, in fact I still do. I got into a big argument at a dinner party recently with a guy from Saudi Arabia who refused to admit that there were many Israeli arabs living very happy lives within the state. He said that I didn't know what I was talking about, what he read trumped what I knew empirically from my own experience.

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Israel has not been blameless in its actions. It has squandered opportunities for peaceful resolution, mainly with an oft duplicitous settlement strategy. But let us be honest about Hamas and its charter. These are people dedicated to Israel's destruction. The face of Hamas terrorism is not very different than the other groups that promote Islamic terrorism and the caliphate, the Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, al Shahab, Isis, Hezbollah, Jemaah Islamiah, Al Qaeda, etc..

Imagine that they are your neighbor and are just waiting for a day when their weaponry improves and they can do you in, like they tried to exterminate the Yazidis and Turkmen in Iraq the other day. There are no good guys in the region, Americans are silly to even consider throwing in with a murderer like Assad, a man who has used chemical warfare on his own people, in order to combat the newest bogeyman, the Islamic State.

Like it or not, there is only one state and people that you can count on in the region, with the exception of the kurds of course, maybe you can figure out who they are for yourself.

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So I wrote to Sirius radio about not being able to listen to the Pink Floyd channel on Deep Tracks because of Waters antisemitism and they sent me back a note that suggested that I should listen to more Pink Floyd.