To those who support the IDF on their invasion **Israel is - TopicsExpress



          

To those who support the IDF on their invasion **Israel is leading a ground invasion of a territory it has bombed virtually every 2-3 years for the last 60 years, which it has under lock and key, whose borders, airspace, and seaspace it controls, after using precision missiles to systematically incinerate hundreds of civilians, including 4 kids who were playing soccer on a beach this morning right after they kicked the ball around with an NBC news correspondent.** In total, over 200 Palestinians, 80% of which were civilians, have died so far (not counting the hundreds more that may die with a ground invasion) while 1 -- yes, 1 -- Israeli civilian has been killed** in what was essentially a fluke. Targets included 4 children playing soccer on the beach, a geriatric hospital, another hospital, a group of Palestinians watching the World Cup on the beach, a mosque after prayers for Ramadan, a car full of journalists, several ambulances, and 18 members of a single policemans family. 80% of the fatalities have been civilians and virtually all targets have been civilian targets, while Israel repeats the same knee-jerk rationalization for every attack that it has used since 1996: that next to or behind the civilians there was a legitimate target. Virtually every time (with a small number of exceptions) this has been completely unfounded and unverified, and Israeli soldiers themselves who have been involved in the bombardment [testify that this is a lie](breakingthesilence.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Operation_Cast_Lead_Gaza_2009_Eng.pdf). Thats in addition to what human rights observers have found; for example, in 2008, [Amnesty International concluded that it was Israel, not Hamas, that used human shields during their ground invasion of Gaza](alternet.org/story/141078/amnesty%3A_israel_used_children_as_human_shields_in_gaza). On top of that, Israel claims it has warned many of Gazas residents to move -- using, ironically, warning missiles that kill more people than Hamas rockets themselves. In the past, Israels warnings -- which are more a macabre threat of impending destruction than a warning -- were useless, and put more peoples lives in danger. [During the 2008 Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Israel warned Gazans to flee to city centers -- and then it bombed those same city centers.](hrw.org/reports/2009/06/30/precisely-wrong-0) In other cases, Israel [has killed dozens of civilians while targeting civilian service workers](news.nationalpost/2014/07/13/gaza-police-chief-survives-israeli-airstrike-on-family-home-but-bombs-kill-18-relatives-including-children/), including a police chief, with no warning at all. Through this entire ordeal, much of the media has shamelessly repeated Israeli propaganda, suggesting self-defense on Israels part. From starting the clock the second a transgression was carried out by Palestinians and [ignoring the ongoing, clock-work like killings of Palestinian youths](edition.cnn/2014/05/22/world/meast/israel-west-bank-shooting/) both before and after 3 Israelis were killed last month, to claiming that Israel has a right to defend itself from a territory it was already besieging in the first place -- [a right that does not, in fact, exist for occupying states](jadaliyya/pages/index/8799/no-israel-does-not-have-the-right-to-self-defense-) -- most US media has been systematically pro-Israel, sometimes to the extreme. NBC has [pulled its Gaza correspondent after he accurately reported the mass slaughter on the beach earlier this morning](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/17/nbc-removes-ayman-mohyeldin-gaza-coverage-witnesses-israeli-beach-killing-four-boys/), and Diane Sawyer portrayed Palestinian areas destroyed by Israels highly sophisticated missiles as Israeli areas -- a comment [she was forced to retract by social media activists.](abcnews.go/WNT/video/diane-sawyer-apologizes-world-news-error-24513856) **But perhaps the [most disturbing form of propaganda has been trying to create a sense of parity](https://youtube/watch?v=tmPJb6Mcu6g)** between Israels bombardment of a besieged enclave, where it has killed more people during peacetime than Hamas has killed in 20 years of back and forth clashes, with Hamas retaliatory rocketfire. The rockets serve no military purpose, and in fact many of them end up landing in Gaza. One rocket laughably hit an electric wire in Israel that provides electricity to Gaza, emphasizing how dependent Gaza is on the very country that is currently bombarding it while locking all borders and preventing food, medical supplies, and sometimes fuel/electricity from entering the enclave. Furthermore, some have compared Israels treatment of Palestinians to Hamas treatment of Israelis. Rightly or wrongly, the fact remains that Hamas does not have Israel under a military siege or occupation. It does not manage the Israeli peoples lives. It has no control over their food, electricity, or living situation, except by fluke. It is not a government. It barely governs Gaza, as its police services and infrastructure have been decimated by Israel, which controls the air, sea, and borders of Gaza. The notion that Israel is at war with Hamas is absurd. Israel won a war in 1967 when it took over Gaza, and it has held Gaza under varying levels of occupation since. There is no war, there is an invasion by a government into a territory it has already kept under siege for decades, after having originally expelled most of Gazas population from what is now Israel. There is only one purpose for Hamas rockets, which explain why Israels PR campaign has tried to exaggerate their significance into a military threat that justifies bombarding Gaza on all sides. Hamas rocket fire proves that Israels mass terror campaign cannot and will not work, and prevents Israel from using measures of aggression to destroy Palestinian political factions and larger Palestinian public sentiment to drop those rights which Israel does not want to grant to Gazans -- from the right to return to what is now Israel to control over its own borders to an end the killzone border Israel has enforced in Gaza. So long as Hamas keeps firing rockets, so it appears, Israels measures will have failed and whatever political lesson Israel is trying to teach its colonial subjects in Gaza will fail. Others, including the US State Department, have absurdly put the blame for Israels aggressive bombardment of Gaza on Hamas for failing to agree with the conditions of an Israeli ceasefire, which essentially rewarded all of Israels aggression by demanding complete disarmament by Hamas. Apparently, if Israel kills enough children, Palestinians must disarm, no matter how weak and useless their weaponry is. But the reality is more complex. Following Israels 2012 killing of dozens of Palestinian civilians, [it was Israel that consistently violated the terms of its ceasefire with Hamas](3.bp.blogspot/-F07y-Gax1XA/UvKDpEwhwZI/AAAAAAAAFVY/vS6xmEK44Zg/s1600/Gaza+Dynamics.png). This is, in fact, [a reality that has continued for decades.](imeu.org/article/self-defense-or-provocation-israels-history-of-breaking-ceasefires). Prior to the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza, during which over 1200 people, mostly civilians, were killed as Israel bombed infrastructural targets, three hospitals, hundreds of school buildings, chicken factories, fields, densely-populated city centers, it was [Israel that broke the ceasefire](theguardian/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians) even while Hamas enforced it by arresting any militants who fired rockets at Israel. More: blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2012/12/israeli-ceasefire-violations-in-gaza.html So why has the story looked so different on Reddit? [**As I am typing this, about 400 Israeli students at IDC Herzliya in Israel are taking to every social media site they can find to spread Israeli propaganda**](electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-student-union-sets-war-room-sell-gaza-massacre-facebook). Heres the [original in Hebrew](ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4542801,00.html). **That is [in addition to a paid Israeli foreign ministry program to have students spread propaganda online](haaretz/news/national/.premium-1.541142).** The propagnda campaign has been so strong that there is now even a button on r/worldnews to hide Israel-Palestine-related news, essentially whitewashing the entire story. There are answers. But the first step is to understand that the friendly Israeli soldier that you are PMing and the strange surge of propaganda links on World News are not made in good faith. It is an active government operation to distort the way Israeli aggression is discussed.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 19:50:37 +0000

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