As the Wall Street Journal wrote on May 6th,
"For reasons both telling and mysterious, Israel has become unpopular among that segment of public opinion that calls itself progressive. This is the same progressive segment that believes in women's rights, gay rights, the rights to a fair trial and to appeal, freedom of speech and conscience, judicial checks on parliamentary authority. These are rights that exist in Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. So why is it that the country that is most sympathetic to progressive values gets the least of progressive sympathies?"
it is therefore very strange that, because of their rabid anti Israel views, these progressives have turned into apologists for Islamic fundamentalists (such as hamas and hezbollah) who loath and despise every progressive belief that these folks hold dear.
if peace were ever to exist, palestine or even worse the "one state solution" (which would result in the demographic destruction of the state of israel) would be just another arab cesspool, where women are despised and oppressed, other religions disrespected (and forbidden) and gay people murdered.
in Israel gay marriage is already recognized and NOW,
Overseas adoptions by gay couples get OK from Israel
United Press International (4/25)
To support the Palestinian Cause is to be anti women, anti gay and anti democracy.
Finally, To focus so much attention on the Palestinians at the expense of the genocide in Darfur (Muslim killing Muslim), the Muslim on Muslim violence in Iraq, the executions of Muslim gay teens in Iran, the violence towards women in Iran--(just for showing their hair), the sentences of stoning or beatings for rape victims in both Nigeria and Saudi Arabia (where woman are also forbidden to drive), The burning to death of young girls in a school in Saudi Arabia, as the religious police would not allow male fireman to save them, because the girls were not wearing their burkahs, the epidemic of honor killings by brothers and fathers of young girls in both Britain, Canada and Turkey is not only morally reprehensible but indefensible.
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Hamas and Its Discontents
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Isreali Defense Forces spokesperson Avital Leibovich, head of the IDF's foreign-press branch, counters that the military has documentary evidence including aerial surveillance tapes of the northern part of Gaza City "in which you can see schools next to [Hamas] training camps, launching sites in or near schools or from the streets themselves …When fire is opened at us and soldiers are in a life or death situation, we protect ourselves and Hamas is accountable for casualties if it chooses to put a launching site near schools and hospitals." She also gave NEWSWEEK a copy of what she said was a Hamas map which paratroopers recovered during ground operations inside Gaza. "It shows how a neighborhood was taken and divided into three war zones. Hamas centers were scattered over the neighborhood including a gas depot with explosive charges … On the map, you can see the Football Association and Technical School are surrounded by 45 Hamas positions, from which Hamas fired."
Many Gazans have no problem with the idea of Hamas attacking Israelis, but complain that they made a disappointing job of it this time. Only 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in the three-week-long operation, compared to more than 200 dead Hamas fighters, according to independent Palestinian figures. And thousands of rockets fired into southern Israel killed just three civilians there. "There's nothing in Gaza but buildings," said a former Fatah military commander, who gave the name Mahmoud Barbakh. "No fighter can fight except in the streets, we can't fight Israel in the open." Yet Hamas did precious little fighting, he said, while ticking off half a dozen cases of Fatah militants who were deliberately shot in the legs by Hamas during the Israeli war, some for violations of Hamas orders putting them under house arrest.
One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated. Asked if there were any militants firing from the hospital or the Red Crescent buildings, hospital director general Dr. Khalid Judah chose his words carefully. "I am not able to say if anyone was using the PRCS buildings [the two Palestine Red Crescent Society buildings adjacent to the hospital], but I know for a fact that no one was using the hospital." In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle." Or as his fellow PPP official, Walid al Awad, put it: "It was a mistake to give Israel the excuse to come in."
Perhaps a doctor at Shifa Hospital summed it up best. "Hamas doesn't care about anything," he said, "and the Israelis will kill anyone to get to Hamas." Today Hamas threw a victory parade. A few hundred young men with green flags marched through the middle of Gaza City, one of them riding on a cart at the head of the procession and holding aloft a chunk of metal, purportedly from an Israeli tank. No one lined the streets to cheer them on. No one poured out from his or her home to join the parade. Most Hamas critics in Gaza are afraid to openly say what they think, but sometimes actions (or the absence of them) speak louder than words.
With reporting by Joanna Chen/Jerusalem
© 2009
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