THE USUAL  RITUAL

Since Hamas took over Gaza Strip in 07/2007, just 8 month ago, over 2000 rockets and mortar shells were fired on ISRAELI villages and towns along the Gaza borders. More then 500 were fired since 01/2008.

Although the number of casulties was, relatively low, 11 ISRAELI citizen were killed and few dozens wounded, the daily shelling completely disrupts the civil life of about 150,000 people and brought upon an economical crisis in the region, not to mention the stress and the psychological effects. (See - GAZA DETERIORATION )

There is not a single country in the world that would tolerate such a situation and neglect its duty to protect its own citizens. The recent Turkish incursion to Iraq is an example of an expected response of a country under threat. Kurdish rebels targeted Turkish army while the HAMAS is targeting, deliberately, most of all, civilians.

Israel tried all kind of measures to stop the shelling -starting from not responding at all, continuing to a limited response targeting only the Qassam squads, which are shelling ISRAEL, and in the last two month, getting on to larger military operations. It was clear that in a certain moment, if the HAMAS will not stop the daily fire and focus on internal affairs ISRAEL will be forced to respond much more aggressively. (See - THE INEVITABLE )

It is a usual ritual that when ISRAEL restrains herself, in order to save Palestinians life, all the international community praises ISRAEL and condemns the HAMAS. The support for ISRAEL evaporates in the moment that ISRAEL is not satisfied with verbal support only and decides to do what any other country would do in the same situation – respond.

When ISRAEL responded only with Super-sonic booms - the International community condemned ISRAEL for public punishment of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza and increasing the abortion rate of Palestinian innocent women. When ISRAEL cut off 30% of the electricity - Israel was blamed by the European Union, and of course by the Arab world, for preventing electricity to hospitals which caused the death of innocent patients,  although it was up to the HAMAS regime to set priorities for the usage of electricity.

The basic fact is that ISRAEL limited the gas supply to Gaza Strip to 75,000 liters a day designated for ambulances, fire brigade and other basic needs like street cleaning. ISRAEL supplies diesel oil for the local electric station and Hospital generators, but cuts its electrical supply for other civilian usages by 1.5% each week as long as the Qassam rockets continue to be fired, daily, on ISRAEL. ISRAEL is also supplying all the medicines, basic food and needs. 14,000 Palestinians from Gaza went through medical care in ISRAEL in 2007. Some of the treatments, such as dialysis or against cancer, are extremely expensive - despite that ISRAEL is considered as inhuman. (See - GAZA RALLY )

European and American units operating in Afghanistan or Iraq are not different from ISRAELI army in Gaza. There are humanitarian problems in large parts of Afghanistan and Iraq and it is always the innocents that suffer. Every week Incidents caused the death of many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mistakes of identification of the enemy, of the right location of the target, manipulation on information and deliberate provocations are almost daily occurrences. The number of civilians killed by NATO or USA air strikes in those countries is very high and measured, in the last five years, many thousands. (See - CIVILIANS LIFE )    

Iraq, after the first Gulf War in 1991, never threatened Europe or USA. Not a single rocket was fired from Iraq to England to justify the presence of British army in Iraq and the humanitarian crisis that was brought upon innocent Iraqi civilians.

All sanctions in the world, whether it is a British led sanction on Zimbabwe, which never shelled any single village in UK; American led sanctions on Cuba; sanctions on North Korea or Iran - all sanctions in the world are, eventually, targeting the innocent common people and  all countries in the world use sanctions as a intermediate measure between diplomacy and war.

Now, when ISRAEL is responding in a more aggressive measures in a large Military operation launched on 03/01/2008 morning, the international community, in the usual ritual, is blaming Israel, once again, for being inhuman, while doing the same when its come to their own conduct. In fact they provide political shelter to Hamas to go on with shelling, deliberately, of ISRAELI citizens which – take note - are also innocent.

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04/03/2008 06:04:02