'Israel's Supposed Victory Is Really a Defeat'
Israel and Hamas individually called truces over the weekend, bringing a fragile cease-fire to the Gaza Strip. German commentators ask what Israel actually achieved with its three-week offensive.
Hamas for its part claimed that Israel had failed to achieve its war aims. "God has granted us a great victory, not for one faction, or party, or area, but for our entire people," said the top Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, in a televised speech. "Do whatever you want. Manufacturing the holy weapons is our mission and we know how to acquire weapons," Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told a news conference Monday.
Commentators writing in Germany's main papers Monday were split over what Israel had achieved during the offensive and how to move forward.
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"What has Israel's offensive actually achieved, apart from more than 1,300 people dead, more than 5,300 wounded, and some relatively unproductive crisis diplomacy?
"Hamas has survived the war. It exists, and it is here to stay. Therefore, it is essential that an easing of the Western boycott against the Islamists is considered. A gradual process should be sought, with the participation of the moderate Palestinian leadership, with the aim of creating normalcy for the people in Gaza."
Hurray! We Lost!
Israel's war in Gaza is a military victory. But with 1,300 dead and thousands wounded, it is also moral defeat. The painful lesson: Israel can only defeat itself. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya only had to hide to emerge as the winner.
By waging a war that has killed 1,300 Palestinians and wounded several thousand, Israel has not only succeeded in turning global public opinion against itself; it has also invited sanctions that will be much heavier than a few negative editorials in the New York Times or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Let's forget about Hamas' charter, which would like to see not only the territories occupied since 1967, but also all of Palestine liberated from Zionist occupation. Let's forget the stupid chatter of experts like Michael Lüders and Peter Scholl-Latour, who are calling on Israel to meet with Hamas at the negotiation table.
Thirteen hundred dead: That screams to the heavens. That is not an issue of "proportionality," which is impossible in any asymmetrical war. A pile of corpses like that is a nightmare, a catastrophe.
And let's forget for a moment Hamas' heroic propaganda machine, which even recruits children who would love nothing more than to die a martyr's death. Thirteen hundred dead in three weeks: That is a down payment on the Apocalypse -- no matter who started it, who bears responsibility and who ultimately settles the score.
European intellectuals are under the impression that freedoms, homes and families can be protected without reference to force in this world.
How encouraging to those to whom force is one tool of an untrammeled conscience in the path of allah
What easy marks
4 comments:
GEERT WILDERS TO BE PROSECUTED FOR THOUGHT-CRIME
"A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements.
Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
"In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to... draw a clear line," the court in Amsterdam said.
Mr Wilders said the judgement was an "attack on the freedom of expression".
"Participation in the public debate has become a dangerous activity. If you give your opinion, you risk being prosecuted," he said.
Not only he, but all Dutch citizens opposed to the "Islamisation" of their country would be on trial, Mr Wilders warned.
"Who will stand up for our culture if I am silenced?" he added."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7842344.stm
No, Europe is not dying!
Europe is like a neglected garden. The weeds have run riot, the flower and vegetable beds are overgrown and unproductive and it will take drastic measures to return it to beauty and productivity. Those measures will be taken, perhaps not in my lifetime as I have only 10 of the "threescore and ten" left to me, but it WILL be done.
America has just elected a new president. Does he reflect the views of all Americans? No, he doesn't. Does Gordon Brown represent the views of everyone in Britain, No, and we can't wait to tell him so at the ballot box, whatever his spin-doctors (paid liars to you and me) say. Not all Frenchmen and women are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Most of my French friends feel as I do about the EU, the Euro and the menace of Islam. The left-leaning so-called "great and good", the intellectuals, the social engineers, the BBC (Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation) and other media, may sweat liberalism and lies from every pore, but more and more people are waking up to the facts. It will happen.
WiseOwl said, Not all Frenchmen and women are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"
I say, that seems evident by the fact that the French people voted against the EU treaty back in 2005.
Of course, Sarkozy gained a yes vote in Parliament, three years later, but that had nothing to do with the will of the people.
The will of the people is at odds with the will of the government throughout much of Europe.
Looking at things another way, one could say that America is the place that's in trouble, because here, the will of the people is NOT at odds with the government. We really want to have a President who wants to "bring the troops back from Iraq" and "close Guantanamo". Our people really do not like George Bush, though he kept us safe, liberated 50 million people, and gave the poor of Africa unprecedented aid.
That's what I call brilliant Infidel math.
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