Almost by definition for the Israeli government, anything (like food, water, medical supplies) that helps ordinary Palestinians aids Hamas terrorists and must be stopped. From Steven Sahiounie at strategic-culture.su:
The IDF uses the aid as a weapon of war, intent on starving the civilians, Steven Sahiounie writes.
At least one UNRWA staff member was killed after Israel targeted a food distribution center in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on March 13. Another 22 UNRWA workers were injured in the attack by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
On March 14, the IDF released a statement to the U.S. media CBS news, that the IDF has precisely targeted a ‘Hamas Operations Unit’ based on intelligence, which the IDF claims were distributing humanitarian aid to ‘terrorists’.
UNRWA confirmed that the aid distribution center attacked was on a list of UN supported facilities across Gaza which are by international law to be safe for civilians and aid workers alike. By Israel attacking known humanitarian sites, such as food centers, schools and clinics, the IDF is declaring that there is nowhere safe in Gaza, or in southern Gaza, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed all civilians to gather for safety.
The UN has warned that the people in Gaza are close to famine from lack of food aid during the current and ongoing bombardment of civilian homes and infrastructure.
Over 30 people have died recently from lack of food and water, and many were children.
Open Arms
On March 12, a Spanish ship, ‘Open Arms’, left Cyprus for Gaza. It is expected to arrive on Friday, March 15 carrying 200 tons of aid.
This desperate attempt to stave off famine in Gaza is the brain-child of Spanish-American celebrity chef, José Andrés, founder of the non-profit World Central Kitchen (WCK).
WCK has Palestinians building a jetty in Gaza, utilizing rubble and materials from bombed buildings, which will play a role in offloading the food and supplies. This jetty is a temporary structure and in not related to the pier the U.S. is planning.
It is too bad that I can not do a “dislike”. What is the source of this so called “article”? Does the author consider “thinking” a requirement before putting pen on paper? Didn’t Hamas attack Israel on October 7, 2023 and kill and destroy civilians? And having initiated such attack, does Hamas and the population of Gaza, 80% of whom supported Hamas’ October 7 attack, expect that Israel should just put its head down and go away? Hamas is using its population as a chip in the political process in an attempt to use their misery to obtain better terms for their alleged peace negotiations, when they have also clearly claimed that they intend to continue with their attacks against Israel, presumably, with the support of their population. If Israel and Israelis know that any alleged “peace” with Hamas will result in another war down the line, then they would have to be idiots to cut a deal with Hamas allowing Hamas to attack Israel yet again. I hope that Israel does what it can to finish Hamas, a Jihad-oriented Islamic fundamentalist group, and to end Hamas just as ISIS was allegedly ended. I am sorry for the civilian population losses, but the blood of those being killed are on the hands of Hamas and its leaders. For thinking men to arrive at any other conclusion under the existing facts is a mystery to me, which can be explained by antisemitism embedded in the author of this article. However, I would welcome commentary providing another explanation of the events we are observing. If Israel wanted to commit genocide, would it have taken the steps it has taken to limit the losses and injuries to the civilian population? If Hamas has hidden the Israeli hostages in Rafah, what rational explanation exists to prevent Israel from attacking Rafah? What is the logical response in your opinion and under these facts? Please share.
smokhtarzadeh
Because this article was originally posted on another site, it’s improbable that its author will respond, but I will address some of your points. There is no dislike button, but your dislike is noted. Please feel free to dispute my version of facts and my interpretations and arguments.
Since the beginnings of the Zionist movement in the late 1800s, the goal has been a Jewish state along Biblical boundaries, essentially from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This was land that was, until 1948, called Palestine on maps, on which primarily Palestinians lived, although it was a British protectorate. Before 1948, the Jewish population, according to the figures I’ve seen, was about 3 percent of the total population, the other 97 percent Arabs, predominately Palestinians. That all changed in 1948, of course, after what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakbah, when tens of thousands of them were driven from their homes, people were killed, and the state of Israel was established.
Without getting into the full history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948, there has been one inarguable trend. The land allocated to Palestinians in what used to be their homeland has shrunk, and the land allocated to Israel has expanded. Gaza itself has been called an open air prison. Palestinians in Gaza are not considered Israeli citizens. Turn the clock back and if Hamas were magically wiped out before October 7, some other group of similar character would have arisen in response to conditions in Gaza. There will always be people who protest subjugation and will work against it. David Ben Gurian said that Israelis shouldn’t be surprised at ongoing Palestinian and Arab resistance to imposition of the Jewish state on what they regarded as their homeland.
I think reasonable people can express skepticism at the official Israeli explanation of October 7. It happened right under the noses of the vaunted Israeli intelligence and military service and was launched from one of the most surveilled areas on the planet. There are reports that warnings from Egypt and from Israeli military units were ignored. I find it hard to believe that nobody within the Israel government saw it coming or knew of the purported warnings, and if that is the case, the attack was allowed to happen. Supporting this is the slowness of the Israeli response and Netanyahu’s legal difficulties. The October 7 response keeps him out of jail. It’s my understanding that there is a great deal of anger in Israel at Netanyahu due to these October 7 failures.
If the attack was allowed to happen, then a good argument can be made that October 7 was a pretext to allow what I believe is the ultimate goal of Mr. Netanyahu and the current government: expulsion of the Palestinians from Israel and the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state. This has been the expressed goal of Zionist leaders from the beginning, and there are abundant quotes from current Israeli leaders in support of it. There are also quotes from Zionist leaders past and present indicating their regard for Palestinians as inferior people, and some have said that there is no such thing as Palestinians (Golda Meir expressed this view). Finally, there are the quotes from government officials and Israelis expressing indifference to or, in some malign cases, delight at Palestinian suffering and deaths. That is not to suggest that all Israelis and Jewish people outside Israel feel this way; many of the strongest condemnations of the Israeli government have come from these sources.
If Hamas were to surrender tomorrow and return all the hostages, I don’t think it would change a thing as far as the Zionist goal: expulsion of the Palestinians. This argument finds support in what is happening in the West Bank, where there is an ongoing displacement of Palestinians from their homes and farms, although there have been no wide-scale attacks on Israelis launched from that area such as the one Hamas launched from Gaza. The Jewish and Palestinian populations of Israel are roughly equal at around 7 million, and the Palestinian birthrate is far higher. The demographic reality is that Israel has to expel the Palestinians or Israelis will soon be a minority in Israel. I believe that those in control of the Israeli government do not want the return of the hostages, and were it to happen, they’d find another reason to continue the expulsion or it would continue with no reason at all. Netanyahu, who has repeatedly expressed contempt for a two-state solution (he propped up Hamas for many years because he felt that the “terrorist” group diminished support for the two-state solution), has said that once Israel accomplishes its aims in Gaza, the territory will be under even stricter Israeli control than it was prior to October 7. In other words, an even more prison-like open air prison. To suggest under such circumstances that no resistance group similar to Hamas will arise is a triumph of hope over experience.
What Netanyahu and company want is to drive the Palestinians from Rafah into Egypt and from there, Palestinians are to be scattered anywhere but Israel, anywhere that will take them. It’s my understanding that once a Palestinian leaves Israel, he or she is barred from returning under Israeli law. Apparently the Israeli people overwhelmingly support the government in this expulsion. I believe that ultimately, with the backing of the U.S government, Israel’s government will be successful, although the two governments run the risk of igniting a full-scale Middle East war. I believe that there are powerful elements in both governments that would like to use such an expansion of present hostilities as an excuse to invade Iran. This has been the frequently expressed dream of Netanyahu, among others in the Israeli government, and neocons in the U.S.
You wanted “another explanation of the events we are observing.” There you go. I trust that you will not regard this as antisemitic, although there are many in both Israel and the U.S. who regard criticism of Israel’s government as antisemitism.
BTW: Where was this author when over 500,000 Syrians were killed in the wars within Syria? What has happened to Syrians who did survive? How many of them have been absorbed by EU nations and how many were absorbed by other Moslem nations, if any? . . . Too bad the author will not respond to any such qusetions.