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© Ahmed Zakot/ReutersEgypt's foreign minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (second and third from left) in a hospital in Gaza City on 20 November, visiting a Palestinian woman wounded in an Israeli air strike.
He was echoed by Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, who declared that the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas bore "principal responsibility" for Israel's bombardment of the open-air prison that is the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, most western media have echoed Israel's claim that its assault is in retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks; the BBC speaks wearisomely of a conflict of "ancient hatreds".
In fact, an examination of the sequence of events over the last month shows that Israel played the decisive role in the military escalation: from its attack on a Khartoum arms factory reportedly supplying arms to Hamas and the killing of 15 Palestinian fighters in late October, to the shooting of a mentally disabled Palestinian in early November, the killing of a 13 year-old in an Israeli incursion and, crucially, the assassination of the Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari last Wednesday during negotiations over a temporary truce.
© Malcolm EvansRoad map to peace
"The talks are still continuing," an Egyptian official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. He said Cairo was hopeful of an agreement later in the day.
Israel pressed on with its strikes in Gaza on the seventh day of its offensive and Palestinian rockets still flashed across the border as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to the region after attending an Asian summit.
The Jewish state launched the campaign last week with the declared aim of halting the rocketing of its towns from the Palestinian enclave, ruled by the Hamas
Medical officials in Gaza said 21 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday. An Israeli soldier and a civilian died when rockets exploded near the Gaza frontier, police and the army said.
Gaza medical officials say 130 people have died in Israeli strikes, mostly civilians, including 31 children. In all, five Israelis have died, including three civilians killed last week.
Clinton was due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Tuesday in Jerusalem. Earlier, he said that Israel was open to a long-term deal aimed at ending Palestinian rocket attacks that have plagued its southern region for years.
© idfnadeskStill from YouTube video
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) issued a statement Tuesday expressing its "concern" for the use of footage which wrongly suggested the agency's complicity in "terrorist activities" targeting Israel. The agency also took issue with "the unauthorised use of its logo in computer-generated material."
"In a situation of conflict these allegations have potentially grave consequences. UNRWA takes with utmost seriousness the neutrality of its installations, particularly in times of heightened violence," the agency said in a statement.
On Saturday the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) official Twitter account posted a link to a year-old video claiming "These are the tactics Hamas uses in the Gaza Strip."
Comment: How convenient. With the excuse that 'Hamas hides everywhere' the IDF argues it can target anyone - including civilians, children and the UN. Unsurprisingly, it is just another trick to facilitate its murderous objectives.
Best of the Web: North Wales pedophile network: Government officials and high level public figures involved
In a report by Channel 4 on the initial investigation into north Wales child abuse in 1991 to the Waterhouse inquiry in 2000, Sian Griffiths, North Wales council worker, has collated details of every allegation and document surrounding the scandal. In her testimony, she reveals evidence of judges silencing victims when they mentioned "high profile" names and court orders to destroy photographic and other evidence implicating 'high level' abusers.
© AFP Photo/Menahem KahanaIsraeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai.
A new wave of hatred towards Palestine is sweeping through Israel from public figures to the man on the street. This hostility is in sharp contrast to efforts in Cairo, where Arab leaders and Western diplomats are trying to hammer out a peace plan.
While Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) official Nabil Sheath expressed hope Sunday night that negotiations would continue, very different noises were coming out of Israel.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai said Operation Pillar of Defense would continue and likely be expanded, a reference to the possibility that a ground offensive has already been given the go-ahead.
The war in Gaza "must be so painful and difficult that the terror groups will not think twice but a hundred times before they fire missiles against Israel again," it was reported in The Israel National News.
"Destroy and damage infrastructure, public buildings and government buildings. We must make sure that Hamas will be spending many years rebuilding Gaza, and not attacking Israel," he continued.
A few days ago he said, "The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, only then will Israel be calm for the next 40 years."
His words were relatively mild compared to some of the comments that have been coming out of Israel in recent days.
Three U.S. Navy amphibious warships are returning to the eastern Mediterranean to remain on standby in the event they are needed to assist Americans leaving Israel in the coming days, according to two U.S. officials.
The officials stressed an evacuation remains an extremely remote possibility and the Obama administration is not currently planning for one. Americans who wish to leave the region now are able to do so using commercial airlines.
But the decision to send the ships even if the event is such a remote contingency underscores the growing concern about where the Israel-Gaza conflict could be headed.
"This is due diligence. It is better to be prepared should there be a need," one official said Monday. Both officials said the ships would be used only for assisting Americans and not for any combat role.
The most immediate impact will be on the ships' crews and the estimated 2,500 Marines on board. They had been scheduled to return to Norfolk, Virginia, just after Thanksgiving; their homecoming will now be delayed several days depending on events, the officials said.
© CNNUSS Iwo Jima
But the decision to send the ships even if the event is such a remote contingency underscores the growing concern about where the Israel-Gaza conflict could be headed.
"This is due diligence. It is better to be prepared should there be a need," one official said Monday. Both officials said the ships would be used only for assisting Americans and not for any combat role.
The most immediate impact will be on the ships' crews and the estimated 2,500 Marines on board. They had been scheduled to return to Norfolk, Virginia, just after Thanksgiving; their homecoming will now be delayed several days depending on events, the officials said.
© Desconocido
However, there had been rumblings for months of the oncoming Israeli assault, and this incident was merely a pretext: the real reason is that the Israelis were deathly afraid, not of Hamas's pathetic attempts to make a dent in "Iron Dome," but of the prospects for a general ceasefire, albeit not a settlement of the outstanding issues, which was in the works well before Netanyahu unleashed the latest blitzkrieg.
What if Hamas dumped all their rockets in the sea tomorrow? Would the illegal blockade be lifted? Would Gazans enjoy the same freedoms as other nations? Would their democratically elected government be allowed to get on and govern? Would they be able to open their sea port to foreign ships and rebuild and operate their airport? Would they be able to import and export and carry on trade and develop their economy and prosper like other countries?
"They stole my land,
burnt my olive trees,
destroyed my house,
took my water,
bombed my country,
imprisoned my father,
killed my mother, took my job, starved us all, humiliated us all,
But I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.
So they stole more of my land, burnt my olive trees, destroyed my house, took my water,
bombed my country...."
These words are printed on a tee-shirt I sometimes wear. They cut through the propaganda crap straight to the true cause of the latest unpleasantness in Gaza.
burnt my olive trees,
destroyed my house,
took my water,
bombed my country,
imprisoned my father,
killed my mother, took my job, starved us all, humiliated us all,
But I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.
So they stole more of my land, burnt my olive trees, destroyed my house, took my water,
bombed my country...."
These words are printed on a tee-shirt I sometimes wear. They cut through the propaganda crap straight to the true cause of the latest unpleasantness in Gaza.
© EricPetersAuto
You'd think by now they'd have caught at least one actual terrorist.
Ah well. Good enough for government work - right?
But lives have been lost as a result of the terroristic tactics Blue Shirted Goons. Not conjecture, either. Real people - thousands of them - dead because of the TSA.
Dead - because they chose to drive rather than fly. Anything - rather than Submission Training and Gate Rape. Even if it means an 18 hour trip vs. a three hour flight.
According to data compiled by Cornell University researchers, the ugsomeness of dealing with the TSA has pushed a goodly number of former air travelers into their cars - and back onto the roads. This, in turn has led to a measurable increase in monthly traffic fatalities - about 242 per month that would otherwise not have occurred. Some quick addition is in order. Let's be easy on our calculators - and generous to the Blue Goons - and assume the figure is off by more than half. Let's say it's only 100 additional deaths per month attributable to TSA Avoidance Syndrome. That's 1,200 deaths annually. Times four equals 4,800. In less than four years, then, TSA has managed to get more Americans killed than Osama bin Laden.
Only he's finished - and the TSA is just getting started.
Comment: How is it that Hamas is said to NOT recognize Israel, when in fact Hamas (an elected political body, which Israel refuses to consider anything but a terrorist organization) is there at the negotiating table with Israel?
Netanyahu, master of turning the table and blaming the victim: "No country would tolerate rocket attacks against its cities and against its civilians. Israel cannot tolerate such attacks," Netanyahu said. Unless they are Hamas, Hamas is supposed to sit back and do nothing on the other side of the 30' wall that surrounds Gaza, on the other side of whichis their own country, Palestine, stolen from them (Hamas and the Palestinian people). They should sit idly by as another child is shredded into pulp from an apartheid tower. That is the thinking of Netanyahu. And all the world should bow to the whim of God's chosen people.
As the image above shows we've seen all of this many times before.