Gaza's Only Power Plant Knocked Offline 868
necro81 (917438) writes "Gaza's only power plant (see this profile at IEEE Spectrum — duct tape and bailing wire not included) has been knocked offline following an Israeli strike. Reports vary, but it appears that Israeli tank shells caused a fuel bunker at the plant to explode. Gaza, already short on electricity despite imports from Israel and Egpyt, now faces widening blackouts."
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Did they now?
Perhaps you should read other propaganda than you normal intake and see what other parts of the world is thinking.
Right now Israel is facing a lot of problems, it seems like they very well knew that Hamas in fact did *not* sanction the kidnappings; also Israel seems to have left out important informations regarding the kidnapping in order to step up the conflict with Hamas.
Re:Don't allow missils to be fired... (Score:4, Informative)
...from your territitory and chances are good that you won't get missles fired back at you. Sign a document to that effect and you will most likely have peace.
Ah yes, "peace" like they have in the West Bank where there are 0 missiles fired, yet they still manage to kill a few Palestinians per week. Peace to Israel is no resistence to their land grab.
Re: Nuke those terrorists (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Iran specifically has one Parliament seat reserved each for both a Jewish member and a Christian member (as well as a number of other minority groups) as part of its religious minority group policy.
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Show me another country in the region that has a single Jew or Christian in office.
Out of 290 seats the Iranian parliament have 3 Jewish, 4 Catholic and another 7 occupied by non-muslim minorities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hamas Is 100 Percent of the Problem (Score:3, Informative)
You realise that those rockets Hamas has it was probably getting for free, and those tunnels it built were actually the main way to get food and supplies into Gaza due to Israels blockade on imports, as they limited total food shipments to just 136 truck loads a day, for the entire Gaza population of 1.8million...
Hamas are far from blameless, but they also aren't anywhere near 100% of the problem.
Re:Radicalization (Score:4, Informative)
in exchange for a cease fire and removing the language in the charter to kill all jew
You can't remove that which doesn't exist. Hamas' charter includes language that identifies the dismantlement of the state of Israel as a goal, but nothing about killing all Jews. In fact, let's take a look at the text of the charter, and more specifically any instance of the word "kill":
From Article Seven: The Universality of Hamas:
The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).
A quote from Mohammed. No value judgement made. On its own, a statement of fact (assuming Mohammed did actually say these things). No incitating to kill Jews, let alone all Jews.
From Article Fifteen: The Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Obligation:
We must imprint on the minds of generations of Muslims that the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise. It includes Islamic holy sites such as the Aqsa Mosque, which is inexorably linked to the Holy Mosque as long as the Heaven and earth will exist, to the journey of the Messenger of Allah, be Allah’s peace and blessing upon him, to it, and to his ascension from it. “Dwelling one day in the Path of Allah is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it. The place of the whip of one among you in Paradise is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it. [God’s] worshiper’s going and coming in the Path of Allah is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it.” (Told by Bukhari, Muslim Tirmidhi and Ibn Maja) I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill (told by Bukhari and Muslim).
A call to regain control of Muslim holy sites by violent means. While I personally am no fan of holy wars, one would have to be rather obtuse to mistake this for a call for genocide.
From Article Twenty: Social Solidarity:
The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor. In their horrible actions they mistreat people like the most horrendous war criminals. Exiling people from their country is another way of killing them. As we face this misconduct, we have no escape from establishing social solidarity among the people, from confronting the enemy as one solid body, so that if one organ is hurt the rest of the body will respond with alertness and fervor.
A denouncement of Jews and their treatment of their Arab neighbors. No call for violence here either.
So it seems that Israel has offered legitimacy to the Palestinian government in exchange for removal from the Hamas charter language which doesn't exist. Should we be surprised that this "offer" hasn't led to any meaningful reconciliation or normalization of relations?
Now, once you understand that there is no language that calls for the killing of all Jews, you can focus on less inflamatory (but more productive) objections to the charter. Perhaps the part "Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors" bothers you. Indeed, this too is a call to violence, a call to destroy the state of Israel. However, this is no different than Israel's stated aim of destroying Hamas. It's a violent political goal, but that's not the same thing as genocide. If Israel is justified in calling for the destruction of Hamas, Hamas is equally justified in calling for the destruction of Israel (which, I feel compelled to remind you, is not the same as calling for the killing of all Jews, any more than calling for the destruction of Hamas is the same as calling for the killing of all Palestinians).
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Lebanon is set up such that the president is always Christian, the prime minister Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament Shia Muslim.
Re:Radicalization (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like Lebanon, Israel's neighbor to the north?
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"High-ranking offices are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Eastern Orthodox....
"Lebanon's national legislature is the unicameral Parliament of Lebanon. Its 128 seats are divided equally between Christians and Muslims, proportionately between the 18 different denominations and proportionately between its 26 regions."
I wouldn't say that government-by-religious-and-ethnic-quota is necessarily a great way to go, but it does provide diversity.
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No innocents here (Score:3, Informative)
The people in Gaza are not Israeli citizens.
Israel does not control the civilian population in Gaza since it withdrew out of the Gaza strip in 2005.
Since I'm sure you'll mention the naval blockade, So for your information, the blockade was enacted in June 2007, when the Palestinians elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to lead them, and started firing rockets in to Israel.
Btw, right after their election, Hamas eradicated PLO members from the Gaza strip (which were *relatively* moderate muslims), through a series of violent clashes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Radicalization (Score:3, Informative)
Nice little piece of propaganda spin there.
Has anyone told you, on Slashdot posting anonymously doesn't work. You need to use one of the old accounts, just buy it from someone, then your propaganda will get traction.
So, how are things in your university class room in Israel? Feeling like you are part of the "team" are we, like your participating in the "war".
Nice to see, you love the bloodshed.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i... [globalresearch.ca]
Student propagandists in Israel are just as Evil as the Government in place.
If you dont agree, you dont spread lies. If you actively spread lies, its like you are killing the children yourself.
SHAME ON YOU!
Bullets will not win this conflict (Score:4, Informative)
The people in Gaza are not Israeli citizens.
And yet Israel insists on controlling the territory. They may not get a vote but they ARE Israeli citizens until such time as Israel actually stops trying to control their political processes and truly leaves. Israel conquered the territory, they control what goes in or out and they fairly regularly send their military in. Even the maps show Gaza as a part of Israel. What they have done is to conquer a territory full of people who don't like Israel and never made a secret of that and then treated them badly for a long time. Shocking why things have gone badly.
Since I'm sure you'll mention the naval blockade, So for your information, the blockade was enacted in June 2007, when the Palestinians elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to lead them, and started firing rockets in to Israel. Btw, right after their election, Hamas eradicated PLO members from the Gaza strip (which were *relatively* moderate muslims), through a series of violent clashes.
Yep, both sides are doing all sorts of evil things to each other. That's what happens in a civil war. Ever consider that a big part of the reason Hamas has such a large voice is because of the decades of stupid decisions by Israel? I totally get that Israel is a bit touchy given that they are surrounded by neighboring nations who have to put it mildly been quite hostile. But this is a conflict that will NEVER be won with bullets or walls. It will be won with cooperation and discussion and genuine caring about others.
Re:Radicalization (Score:4, Informative)
No, the elections were deemed to be free and fair (well actually there was a bit of interference, but it was by the Israelis to try and cut the Hamas vote), which was actually quite a headache for the west at the time because whilst the US et. al. were crying for democracy it led to a result that they just did not want.
As for the result, try reading my post again you seem to have completely glossed over the point I made. You cannot simply take the popular vote and spread it evenly between the West Bank and Gaza. Whilst the overall vote may well have been 44% in favour of Hamas, that doesn't equate to 44% in the West Bank, and 44% in Gaza - that's a gross statistical misunderstanding. Given roughly equal population numbers (they're not too dissimilar) between Gaza and the West Bank you can have a result whereby the overall popular vote is 44% whilst 88% of Gazans support Hamas and 0% of Palestinians in the West Bank. Hopefully this example clears up your inability to understand why that overall figure gives a misleading layout of support for Hamas in Gaza.
Gaza is the Hamas heartland and there's where the majority of their support comes from. This is precisely why Hamas was able to swiftly kick (or kill) Fatah and it's supporters out of Gaza in 2007.
Hamas took over Gaza so rapidly in 2007 precisely because it enjoys massive popular support there and because it gained a massive democratic mandate there (and overall).
1,000+ a questionable figure (Score:4, Informative)
Over at the Wall Street Journal Bret Stephens questions the claim that as many as 1,023 Palestinian lives have been lost in the conflict. The column [wsj.com] is paywalled but can be accessed for free via the WSJ Opinion Facebook Page. [facebook.com]
Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza - Debunked (Score:5, Informative)
Israel claims that it is merely exercising its right to self-defense and that Gaza is no longer occupied. Here’s what you need to know about these talking points and more. [thenation.com]
Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.
Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom [haaretz.com]”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead [forward.com]”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding [abc.net.au]”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.
This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children’s bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza’s shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors [cnn.com] are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.
Below I address five of Israel’s recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.
1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.
As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty [jadaliyya.com] to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.
The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense [jadaliyya.com] under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion [icj-cij.org]. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to
Re:Radicalization (Score:2, Informative)
No, they are not a nation — not in Israel's opinion, not in their own, not in that of the rest of the world. When the UN split the former British mandate into two parts [wikipedia.org], Jews proceeded to establishing their own state [wikipedia.org]. The Arabs, instead of likewise establishing theirs, declared war [state.gov]... That was because — in their own opinions [umb.edu] — they weren't separate nations (Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians), but simply Arabs. They lost that war [wikipedia.org] — and the subsequent ones [wikipedia.org]. By the end of the 20th century, Arabs have given up attacking Israel openly and switched to terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.
That tactics seems to be succeeding [nationaljournal.com]...
No, Israel has no territorial claim to Gaza strip. Are you not embarrassed over being wrong so often?
child casualties (Score:5, Informative)
If you are curious why so many children are killed in Gaza, look at this footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen Israel do things for the benefit of Palestinian citizens that Hamas refuses to do.
Indeed, like when Israel built Gaza's first and only airport in the late 90's only to have it demolished by Hamas 4 years later. Oh! right it was the other way around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y... [wikipedia.org] /sarcasm
But of course that is not a bad thing as the airport now is a valuable resource for hard to get by construction materials for the rebuilding of other structures.
Misleading summary missing key facts (Score:5, Informative)
Several important facts are missing from the summary. The only correct one is that, yes, Gaza's only power plant has been attacked.
However:
1. The effect of this power plant being out of commission is relatively minor. Gaza receives most of its electricity (and water), whether in war or peace, from, guess who - Israel. And no, they don't pay their bills (their debt is around $500 million). In fact the bizarre and twisted reality in the Middle East today is that the Israeli taxpayer is funding electricity for the enemy's rocket manufacturers.
2. The Israeli army has denied firing anywhere near the power plant and there is a high probability that the attack was a misfired Hamas rocket or mortar bomb, similar to other recent cases where Hamas rockets have killed Gazans.
3. About 50,000 Gazans have already been in a blackout for a couple of weeks since a Hamas rocket fell near one of the power lines supplying Gaza with electricity from Israel. The Israeli Electric Company will not risk its technicians' lives to repair this line while under enemy fire, thank you very much.
Re:Radicalization (Score:5, Informative)
Number of Knesset members: 120 [wikipedia.org]
Number of current Arab Knesset members: 12 [wikipedia.org] or 10%
Number of Israelis: 8 million [wikipedia.org]
Number of Palestinians: 4.4 million
Given that Israel rules Palestine, that really doesn't meet my definition of democracy. As an American I'm sure I'd have problems with an Islamic Israel, but we tell ourselves we value democracy and freedom above all else. Furthermore, I can't imagine the current course will end up better.
Re:Radicalization (Score:4, Informative)
Out of 290 seats the Iranian parliament have 3 Jewish, 4 Catholic and another 7 occupied by non-muslim minorities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
That beats the US congress, which has only 2 muslims and 3 buddhists.
Re:Radicalization (Score:4, Informative)
Aside from the freedom to reproduce, there doesn't seem to be much that Israel doesn't attempt to control about Palestinian life.