News and Commentary on Arab Women, Palestine, Cultural Politics, and Everything in Between
"The United Nations’ top official in the Gaza Strip said on Wednesday that there were absolutely no armed men inside the UN school in Jabaliya that was the target of an Israeli attack that left 45 dead."
Labels: civilian deaths, Gaza, Israeli occupation
posted by Amal A @ 9:13 AM
4 comments
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These are improvisations: neither a manifesto nor a treatise because life is too complicated for either. Yet, I'm improvising as an Arab--Palestinian-- woman with a progressive point of view always under construction. Since I often find myself caught between anti-Arab racism and arab reactionary politics, both of which threaten to gag me, I'm raising my voice against both, hoping in the process to contribute an improvised note to a progressive Arab blogosphere.
4 Comments:
It is doubtful that any "top official" from the UN has any idea of who was in that schoolyard when the Israelis attacked. From the perspective of many Americans, we tend to believe that Hamas was there and that it was firing or planning to fire mortars from that position. The IDF even knows the names of the Hamas militants who were killed in the attacked.
This is what Nizar Rayan, a recently deceased Hamas leader in Gaza, said in an interview prior to the beginning of this recent conflict: “The only reason to have a hudna (cease-fire) is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don’t need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel. There is no chance that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God. … You (Jews) are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah. Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.”
How do you propose that Israel negotiate any kind of peace with an adversary like Rayan? It’s not possible. Furthermore, how would any other country react to incessant missile attacks over period of several years? The double standard applied to Israel is astonishing to most people in the West. And most people are too smart to believe any news that is coming out of Gaza, considering that Hamas has absolute control of the media.
This UN official has no idea whether or not mortars were being launched from that school, yet he speaks with absolute certainty. Not very credible. Attacking a school, either by accident or intentionally, provides Israel with no military advantage and it would only serve to give Israel a huge public relations problem to deal with. The IDF may be many things, but it is NOT stupid.
Hamas has been notorious for positioning militants in otherwise peaceful neighborhoods and in locations that children gather, such as schools and hospitals. Nobody in the world has been surprised about the civilian casualties in this conflict. Hamas hopes for them, and I'm sure you know why.
Most Americans are deeply saddened about the current conflict in Gaza and our hearts go out to the innocents who are being hurt there. But we're not naive, or that uninformed about the type of war terrorists like to fight, and how they use their own people as human shields. It's disgusting.
Some people will believe anything the Israelis say and yet convince themselves that they are independent thinkers. No point in talking to you.
"But we're not naive."
Your entire comment suggests otherwise.
It's really thoughtful of John to explain what "we," the "many Americans" think. I actually thought I disagreed until he set me straight in sentence two.
But let's say "we" are all in agreement that there were two, three, even ten gunmen in the school. And let's say "we" thought those armed men should be taken out. I'm still confused as to how that makes 45 human beings mere "collateral damage."
JohnRJ08 might want to read up on Operation Blue Star (India, 1984) before he defends the slaughter of civilians with the argument that they shouldn't be near militants when the bombs go off.
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