What did she ever do to anyone, world?
"Annapolis Hopes Withered by Gaza Crisis"
Reposted because I want to keep the image of this little girl front-and-center (and because the New York Times piece at the end is in today's paper).
"MIDEAST
Khody Akhavi
WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (IPS) - As President George W. Bush returned from his visit last month to Israel to reinvigorate the Annapolis process, the international media was dominated by reports of Palestinian militants firing rockets into Gaza, and Israel's response -- an unprecedented blockade of the territory to effectively squeeze the population to turn against the Islamist group Hamas.
For more than three weeks, an area slightly more than twice the size of Washington, D.C. was plunged into chaos and darkness, a humanitarian crisis whose magnitude intensified with each passing day.
Gaza's 1.4 million residents received a respite from the siege last week when Hamas blew holes through Gaza's border wall with Egypt, temporarily easing the impact of Israeli restrictions on fuel, electricity, medicine and food.
But the border breach also blew apart Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak's "experimental" policy to pressure Palestinians and -- contrary to intention -- appears to have only further entrenched Hamas in Gaza and weakened Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's ability to lead in the U.S.-supported peace negotiations. According to experts, Gaza's most recent crisis has undermined the Annapolis initiative endorsed by Washington, a process for which neighbouring Arab states have already expressed varying degrees of scepticism.
"The escalation of the siege in Gaza was of course inhuman, but it also did nothing to improve the security of the neighbouring Israeli population," wrote former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy in the American Prospect magazine. "It undermined the peace process that was supposed to have been relaunched and weakened the ability of the Arab states to support that process."
By creating a border crisis with Egypt as the reticent intermediary, Hamas managed to deflect criticism of its management of Gaza, and perhaps most importantly, prove that it could play the "spoiler" role if continually ignored. Egypt was put in the uncomfortable position of taking some measure of responsibility for the Rafah crossing, going so far as to meet with Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Cairo to facilitate movement of Palestinians on the border.
"Hamas earned a degree of respect for action even from its opponents in Gaza, further consolidating its control. Now Hamas is trying to force Cairo to acknowledge that control and to deal directly with Hamas to solve the border crisis," wrote New York Times reporter Steven Erlanger.
Egypt is committed to a peace treaty and security cooperation with Israel. It receives two billion dollars a year in aid from Washington, in part to stem the flow of militant groups that pose a threat to Israel's security. But analysts believe the border move made Hamas look creative and effective at playing a weaker hand.
"The stark reality currently facing the Egyptians," wrote Michael Walid Hanna of the Century Foundation think-tank, is "that Egypt cannot stabilise the border without the active and constructive cooperation of Hamas. The events that led to the stabilising of the border have cast Hamas in the role of an official counterpart to the Egyptian authorities, much to the chagrin of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah supporters. Meanwhile, Egypt's, Israel's, and Fatah's greatest point of leverage -- the ability to undermine Hamas's grip on power through a blockade of Gaza -- is now irreparably damaged."
Israel's policy has also come under attack by human rights advocates who argue it amounts to "collective punishment".
French-Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace last month, described the policy as "conscience engraving", a part of Israeli military doctrine to "engrave" in the minds of Palestinians that "violence doesn't pay".
Wrote Karen Koning AbuZayd, the commissioner general for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in the pages of the Guardian:
"In today's Gaza, how can we foster a spirit of moderation and compromise among Palestinians, or cultivate a belief in the peaceful resolution of disputes? There are already indications that the severity of the closure is playing into the hands of those who have no desire for peace. We ignore this risk at our own peril."
She continued: "What we should be doing now is nurturing moderation and empowering those who believe that Gaza's rightful future lies in peaceful co-existence with its neighbours. We welcome the new to resuscitate the peace process, revive the Palestinian economy and build institutions. These pillars, on which a solution will be built, are the very ones being eroded."
Gaza's unemployment rate stands at nearly 40 percent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, a territory where rates are already among the highest in the world.
M.J. Rosenberg, of the dovish Israel Policy Forum, said: "In 2008, the only way to resolve disputes between nations is through direct negotiations. That means that all the problems posed by Hamas in Gaza can only be resolved through negotiations that will end the Israeli occupation, create a West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its shared capital and ensure the security of both Israelis and Palestinians. As the Israelis say over and over again, it needs a partner. In fact, it has one in Mahmoud Abbas. But, being essentially powerless, he is not a partner Israel can hold responsibility for very much."
Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2005 only to be isolated by the West, violently seized control of Gaza in June and has been locked in a power struggle with Abbas's Fatah group, which controls the West Bank. Washington has presumably placed its full confidence in Abbas, but the Fatah leader still faces challenges from Hamas, as well as from some elements of its security force.
"The Army of Palestine", which says it is a unit of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack in the southern Israeli town of Dimona. An Israeli woman, along with the suicide bomber and his accomplice, were killed. Fatah denied any involvement in the attack.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said the Monday bombing would not derail U.S.-backed peace talks between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the first in seven years to tackle so-called final status issues, including statehood borders.
The events in Gaza have overshadowed the Annapolis process thus far, and threaten to undermine them in the future.
(END/2008)"
Need more pictures?
Watch the slide show!
Can it get any worse, readers?
"EU envoy warns Gaza could become the next Somalia"
Yeah, I guess it can!
And the ISRAELI MURDER SPREE continues!!!!
A TEACHER!!!!!
Israel killed a TEACHER?!
"Israeli Forces Kill 7 in Gaza" by ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces killed six Palestinian militants and a civilian in Gaza early Thursday after militant groups in Gaza stepped up their rocket fire against Israel.
On Thursday?
Which means the New York Times totally ignored this slaughter!
And notice the biased excuse-making in favor of Israel in the first paragraph of the Times!
Two brothers, one from Islamic Jihad and one from the military wing of Hamas, were killed in clashes with Israeli ground forces, while four more Hamas members were killed in airstrikes, according to Hamas and medical officials in Gaza.
An Israeli missile hit the grounds of an agricultural school in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, killing a teacher, Hani Naim, 43, and wounding three students, according a local resident who monitors violent activity in the area.
Fucking god-damn Iz-ray-HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An Israeli Army spokeswoman said that the forces “did not aim at the school, but at rocket launchers nearby.” The militants who launch rockets “exploit the civilian environment,” she said, noting that mortar shells were fired at Israel from a schoolyard in northern Gaza a few months ago.
Fuck IZ-RAY-hell and their LYING FUCKING EXCUSES!!!!!!!
Images from The Associated Press Television News showed the school in Thursday’s airstrike to be a series of huts in a rural area. A rocket-launching device was spotted between some olive trees, indicating that militants had used the school as cover to launch attacks, according to The A.P.
Seven Qassam rockets and four mortar shells landed in Israel early Thursday, one hitting a house in Sderot, an Israeli town near the Gazan border, and wounding two residents, the spokeswoman said.
And HOW MANY were killed by the Mossad-fired rockets?
Late Wednesday afternoon a rocket landed near a playground and nursery in an Israeli communal farm near the border with Gaza, wounding two girls, 2 and 12 years old.
Oh, the Times is reporting on that NOW?
Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, went back to launching its own rockets at Israel in January, after limiting itself to firing shorter-range and less-damaging mortar shells for more than half a year.
That's just an outright lie, readers!
Hamas has obsereved a unilateral cease-fire for over three years!!!
How about that New York Times, huh?
Talk about shoveling shit propaganda for Iz-ray-HELL!!!!
Take a look into her eyes, Times, and explain your propaganda!!!
In a statement issued Wednesday, the military wing of Hamas said it had fired 33 rockets and more than 30 mortar shells since Tuesday, when Israel killed seven Hamas policemen in an airstrike on a police post in southern Gaza.
The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Thursday that “if the Qassam fire from Gaza continues, we shall step up our activities even more and hit the other side harder, until we solve the problem.”
Until when, NaZionist murderer, they are ALL GONE?!
The FINAL SOLUTION to the problem?
Set on what appeared to be a collision course with Israel, Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, said that his group had “long ago adopted resistance as a strategic choice to claim our rights and principles and to protect our people, our land and our holy sites.” Israel’s “targeted attacks and dangerous escalations will only increase our commitment to this choice,” he said.
The current spike in violence started on Monday with a suicide bombing that killed one Israeli and critically wounded another in a southern Israeli town, Dimona. Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing, after refraining from carrying out suicide attacks inside Israel for more than three years.
And that was all tangled with conflicting accounts.
All cleared up now, huh, Times?
Just selling the conventional myth now, huh?
A representative of Hamas in Iran, Abu Osama Abed al-Maati, issued a statement on a Hamas Internet site on Wednesday saying that the Dimona bombing was “a message” that the group’s military wing had “renewed the suicide attacks.”
Hamas seized control of Gaza after a brief factional war last June, routing the rival Fatah forces loyal to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr. Abbas has since refused to speak to Hamas unless it gives up control of Gaza. But on Thursday, without mentioning Hamas by name, an official spokesman for Mr. Abbas said the president was ready to “try to work towards a mutual cease-fire with Israel to stop the daily slaughter confronting the Palestinian people in Gaza,” as well as to take back control of the passages into Gaza to ease the Israeli-imposed economic blockade.
Mr. Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, is engaged in peace talks with Israel and has often condemned the rocket fire from Gaza along with the Israeli military strikes.
I never listen what the Zionist agent Abass has to say anymore.
He's a traitor to his people!
In response, Mr. Barhoum of Hamas told Agence France-Presse, “President Abbas doesn’t believe in the resistance against the occupier and is looking to promote a defeatist project under the false slogan of wanting to protect the Palestinian people.”
Israel refuses to deal with Hamas unless the group fulfills the internationally sanctioned conditions of recognizing Israel, halting all violence and recognizing previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
In response to Mr. Abbas’s offer, Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said that “from Israel’s perspective, moving forward on the peace process successfully will be dependent on having a zero-tolerance policy toward terrorism.” He added that there was no sign that Hamas would meet the required conditions.
And CUI BONO from this latest "suicide" attack?
But there are differing opinions in Israel regarding how to deal with Hamas. Giora Eiland, a retired general and former director of Israel’s National Security Council, presented several options on Wednesday at a seminar at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. One involved trying to achieve “some kind of reasonable, stable understandings with Hamas,” including a mutual cessation of violence in and around Gaza.
Why, the world's eyes and voices exposing the NaZionist WAR CRIMES getting to them?
Refusing to deal with Hamas because it does not recognize Israel was not sensible, and was “even childish,” Mr. Eiland said, given that there are “lots of arrangements with hostile regimes all over the world.”
Israelis finally waking up to the fact that everyone -- including sympathizers and believers in the past (like me) -- HATES THEM NOW!!
That we DON'T CARE a shit about the Jewish state of Iz-ray-HELL?!
Not as long as they continue the MASS-MURDERING GENOCIDE of Palestinians!!!!
Have you forgotten the little girl?
Or the little boy?
Or this little girl?
Another retired general, Shlomo Brom, advocated “checking the possibility of a dialogue with Hamas” and said there were plenty of indications that Hamas was also interested in a dialogue, though perhaps not a direct one with the Israeli government at this stage.
Would you want to talk to someone who has MURDERED YOUR WOMEN and CHILDREN, STARVED and IMPRISONED YOU, and routinely IMPRISONS and TORTURES CHILDREN and INNOCENTS?!
Would you be all happy to talk to that person, 'Murkns?
Mr. Brom contended that the government’s strategy of trying to reach an agreement with Mr. Abbas while fighting Hamas would not work. The Dimona bombers came from Hebron in the West Bank. Mr. Brom said that attack was a message to both Israel and Mr. Abbas that Hamas “can still be a spoiler,” preventing the easing of movement and normal economic development for Palestinians in the West Bank."
At least SOMEONE in Israel FINALLY ADMITS IT!
So Annapolis was a TOTAL WASTE of TIME!!!!
And AmeriKa's MSM made -- and still makes -- such a BIG DEAL over that SHAM!!!
Yet it looks as if the NaZionists aren't going that route.
No shocker there -- not for the GENOCIDAL MASS-MURDERERS of Iz-ray-HELL!!!
Look at the pictures, readers.
"Israel to Intensify Strikes If Rocket Fire Continues; 6 Gunmen, 1 Civilian Killed in Gaza Raid" by Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post February 8, 2008
JERUSALEM, Feb. 7 -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened Thursday to intensify military operations in the Gaza Strip if fighters continue using the Palestinian territory for rocket attacks on southern Israel. Earlier in the day, Israeli troops supported by tanks, artillery and fighter jets raided Gaza, killing six Palestinian gunmen, according to Palestinian and news service accounts.
So if it is Mossad and their Fatah agents firing off rockets, CUI BONO, readers?
Also, a 42-year-old Palestinian high school chemistry teacher was killed when a shell hit a school just before classes started in the morning, said Jamil Suleiman, director of the hospital in the Gaza village of Beit Hanoun. Three 16-year-old Palestinian boys, all students, were wounded, Suleiman said....
Yeah, a shell hit a school.
Notice how passive that is, as if Israel didn't fire it and didn't kill her?
The shell just hit!
Israeli authorities say they have held off on larger ground or air offensives so as to minimize casualties.
I really want to puke after reading that Zionist bullshit!
If they REALLY CARED they would not be doing what they are doing!!!!!!
Have you forgotten the little girl?
Or the little boy?
Or this little girl?
That could change, Barak said Thursday.
To what, MORE Israeli MURDER?!?!
"If the Qassam fire continues, we will intensify our activity, and the other side's losses, until we resolve the Qassam rocket problem," he said during a visit to a military base in Israel's north.
Israeli troops entered Gaza early Thursday, drawing out Palestinian fighters in gun battles. Hamas said gunfire and Israeli missiles killed five of its men. A fighter from the Islamic Jihad group was also killed, news agencies said....
Yeah, Israel ENTERED Gaza!
They DIDN'T INVADE or VIOLATE the BORDERS!!
Really tired of the Zionist bias in the AmeriKan War Dailies, readers!
Can you imagine the reaction if Syria "entered" Israeli territory?
Case closed, readers!
Israel's Defense Ministry on Thursday directed the country's Infrastructures Ministry to proceed with a small cut in electricity to Gaza, the first of a possible series of power supply reductions meant to pressure Hamas to stop its rocket attacks. Since last month, Israel has sharply reduced shipments of fuel and other goods to Gaza.
Yeah, it's only a "small" cut!
I am TIRED of the EXCUSE-MAKING, APOLOGETIC AmeriKan MSM and its Zio-bias, readers!
"The combination of military action on the one hand and sanctions on Gaza on the other . . . will eventually bring the Qassam fire to a halt," Barak said at the military base....
Has it worked before, shitstink murderer?
On Jan. 23, fighters eased the pressure of the sanctions in Gaza by blowing up miles of the territory's border fence with Egypt, allowing hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents to cross over and shop in that country. Egypt resealed the border Sunday.
On Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit warned Gazans not to breach the wall again. "Whoever breaks the border line shall have his foot broken," Egypt's state news service quoted him as saying.
Egypt serves Zion, so I'm not surprised at this.
Aboul Gheit also said Egypt was working diplomatically to ease restrictions on Gazans entering and leaving the strip through legal Gaza-Egypt border crossings. He urged Hamas to halt attacks on Israel in the meantime, saying rockets "lost in the sands of Israel" only give Israel an excuse for attacks on Gaza."
And CUI BONO, readers?
As you leave this post, readers, remember what is REALLY IMPORTANT!
P.S.
Don't you love it when Google and Technocrati censor this post from the searches, readers?
I'm on to you Zionist filters, so how about knocking off the censorship?
Can't stand your WAR CRIMES being exposed, can you, NaZionist scum?
