Comments on: Post-ceasefire post-mortem http://www.yourish.com/2008/12/21/5782 Cutting straight to the point Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:59:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Meryl Yourish http://www.yourish.com/2008/12/21/5782/comment-page-1#comment-34789 Meryl Yourish Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:29:06 +0000 http://www.yourish.com/?p=5782#comment-34789 Your understanding of a cease fire is one between nation states, which Hamas is not. It is a terrorist group that does not recognize either the rule of law, or the Geneva Conventions. Gilad Shalit has not been seen by the Red Cross or anyone. Hamas continues to rocket civilian areas, deliberately scheduling their attacks for the times when Israeli children are walking to school. Your "relatively minor threat" can reach <a href="http://jcpa.org/JCPA/UpLoadFiles/PGallery/1218260735.jpg" rel="nofollow">a wider area of Israel</a> thanks to the cease fire and, gee, by the way, why, exactly, is Hamas rocketing Israel? There are no more Israelis in the Gaza Strip, which is the reason they used to send rockets in prior to 2005. Now the reason is what, again? Oh, that's right. They want to rule all of "Palestine." There is no talking to Hamas. What part of "<a href="http://www.yourish.com/2008/05/14/4818" rel="nofollow">we will never recognize Israel</a>" do you think they're lying about? Because if you ask me, when a group says over and over again that their goal is the elimination of Israel, and that they will never accept the existence of an Israeli state in "Palestine," I tend to believe them. Just as I believe Ahmadinejad when he tells me Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map. Your understanding of a cease fire is one between nation states, which Hamas is not. It is a terrorist group that does not recognize either the rule of law, or the Geneva Conventions. Gilad Shalit has not been seen by the Red Cross or anyone. Hamas continues to rocket civilian areas, deliberately scheduling their attacks for the times when Israeli children are walking to school.

Your “relatively minor threat” can reach a wider area of Israel thanks to the cease fire and, gee, by the way, why, exactly, is Hamas rocketing Israel? There are no more Israelis in the Gaza Strip, which is the reason they used to send rockets in prior to 2005. Now the reason is what, again? Oh, that’s right. They want to rule all of “Palestine.”

There is no talking to Hamas. What part of “we will never recognize Israel” do you think they’re lying about? Because if you ask me, when a group says over and over again that their goal is the elimination of Israel, and that they will never accept the existence of an Israeli state in “Palestine,” I tend to believe them. Just as I believe Ahmadinejad when he tells me Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map.

]]> By: Chris Hayes http://www.yourish.com/2008/12/21/5782/comment-page-1#comment-34786 Chris Hayes Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:33:50 +0000 http://www.yourish.com/?p=5782#comment-34786 My understanding of ceasefires is that unless they specifically state a stop to all conflict related activity re-arming and preparing for future hostilities is accepted? So Hamas undoubtably used the time to both re-arm and neutralise its domestic opponents, as well as dig tunnels etc and get ready for another round of fighting. Just as the Israeli state didn't stop its normal processes of re-arming, replacing spent munitions, improving its defenses and intelligence networks and so on. And indeed would never agree to such a ceasefire stopping the above as it would be quite silly to give that concession to what is a relatively minor threat compared to the hostile nations in the region? Any assessment of the ceasefire should surely be one of what did the sides gain? Israel got less bombs lobbed at it but in return has to contend with a strengthened Hamas threat. Without holding to any ceasefire per say all it did was carry out reduced retaliatory strikes on Gaza. A bonus for it was less criticism about its activities, in addition to the media focus anyway being more on Iraq and Afghanistan, though how much criticism affects it from most of the world now is debatable. Hamas got to look like it was 60% in charge of Gaza and more importantly got to fight other Palestinian groups to consolidate its power. This is undoubtably good for it, but also might be good for anyone wishing to talk to it. One down side of Israeli strategy has been the fragmentation of Palestinian opposition, which while it makes the overall threat level less it also makes knowing who to talk to harder (and gives diminishing returns to any future military actions). My understanding of ceasefires is that unless they specifically state a stop to all conflict related activity re-arming and preparing for future hostilities is accepted? So Hamas undoubtably used the time to both re-arm and neutralise its domestic opponents, as well as dig tunnels etc and get ready for another round of fighting. Just as the Israeli state didn’t stop its normal processes of re-arming, replacing spent munitions, improving its defenses and intelligence networks and so on.
And indeed would never agree to such a ceasefire stopping the above as it would be quite silly to give that concession to what is a relatively minor threat compared to the hostile nations in the region?

Any assessment of the ceasefire should surely be one of what did the sides gain? Israel got less bombs lobbed at it but in return has to contend with a strengthened Hamas threat. Without holding to any ceasefire per say all it did was carry out reduced retaliatory strikes on Gaza. A bonus for it was less criticism about its activities, in addition to the media focus anyway being more on Iraq and Afghanistan, though how much criticism affects it from most of the world now is debatable.

Hamas got to look like it was 60% in charge of Gaza and more importantly got to fight other Palestinian groups to consolidate its power. This is undoubtably good for it, but also might be good for anyone wishing to talk to it. One down side of Israeli strategy has been the fragmentation of Palestinian opposition, which while it makes the overall threat level less it also makes knowing who to talk to harder (and gives diminishing returns to any future military actions).

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