The Israeli Air Attack - Hundreds Dead - Israeli Ground attack on Gaza is now under way

Someone from this ship, I'm not sure who, was interviewed on RTE radio or Newstalk today I think - anyone hear it?

Micheal Martín can be reached at

minister@dfa.ie

Hey Hermes, on that boat was the black former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. She is an avowed Marxist left wing loon.

She was one of only a handfull of patriots in the entire Congress. As such she had to go so her district was redrawn. Too bad she is not president elect instead of the puppet.

For a lot of reasons I feel this is a genocidal attack. Taking apart social and medical infrastructure, deprivation of access to food and medical supplies, destruction of civil leadership and killing of civilians.

I read that the UN casualty figures are not counting any men as civilians. If this is true it is horrifying and I have a picture of the boys and old men of Srebrenica, lined up.

I think talk of genocide and constant comparisons with the Nazis is getting us nowhere.

This is from the BBC

Quote :

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said his latest information was that about 320 Palestinians had been killed and 1,400 injured.
"Sixty-two of those killed, we believe... are civilian casualties," he told a news conference.

"That simply encompasses those who are women and children. It does not include any civilian casualties who are men - even though we know that there have been some civilian men killed as well."

link

So he's saying the figure of 62 is too small. You might question the methodology of the UN when it comes to counting these things, but it is unfair to think they don't care at all.

905 wrote:

I think talk of genocide and constant comparisons with the Nazis is getting us nowhere.

This is from the BBC

Quote :

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said his latest information was that about 320 Palestinians had been killed and 1,400 injured.
"Sixty-two of those killed, we believe... are civilian casualties," he told a news conference.

"That simply encompasses those who are women and children. It does not include any civilian casualties who are men - even though we know that there have been some civilian men killed as well."

link

So he's saying the figure of 62 is too small. You might question the methodology of the UN when it comes to counting these things, but it is unfair to think they don't care at all.

The problem with excluding men from the civilian death count is that is an invitation to kill all men, particularly of "arms bearing" age. In Jerusalem yesterday Palestinian men under the age of 50 were prevented by the Israeli forces from attending the Mosque. A complicity is being built here that gives permission to kill people simply because they are Palestinian men.

There aren't constant comparisons to the Nazis. People, myself included, mention Warsaw because the idea of bombarding a beseiged civilian population is not that common in modern warfare. There hasn't even been a declaration of war, has there? The Arab leaders don't want to deal with the Palestinians, who have been radicalised by losing their land. It doesn't matter who their leaders are, any group who leads a stateless and landless population, unless they are complete quislings, will be seen as a threat.

If the police force are counted as civilian, which they should be, the numbers of civilian injured and dead are in their thousands.

It is only an invitation if the Israelis want to kill all men. And they are not being excluded, the UN is simply being conservative in its numbers.

I can't see how figures mount into thousands when the police force are counted. The death toll is around 440, still a shocking number.

In the past few threads, there has been comparisons with Warsaw and Schindler's List.

905 wrote:

It is only an invitation if the Israelis want to kill all men. And they are not being excluded, the UN is simply being conservative in its numbers.

I can't see how figures mount into thousands when the police force are counted. The death toll is around 440, still a shocking number.

In the past few threads, there has been comparisons with Warsaw and Schindler's List.

My post is corrected to say "thousands of injured and dead".

Heavy artillery bombardment of the roads in Gaza has started and tanks are moving (Sky news, 5.00 p.m.). Al Jazeera says the eastern border of Gaza is being shelled.

It looks as though my prediction of no ground assault is about to be put to the test.

There has been talk of moves towards a ceasefire. A ground offensive may paradoxically indicate a move towards peace, as it's the last chance the attackers have to acomplish their goal and also provides more bargaining power.

905 wrote:

It looks as though my prediction of no ground assault is about to be put to the test.

There has been talk of moves towards a ceasefire. A ground offensive may paradoxically indicate a move towards peace, as it's the last chance the attackers have to acomplish their goal and also provides more bargaining power.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200913165056951537.html

It has looked as if a ground attack would go ahead from the beginning. Bush is backing the attack strongly and the US seems to have had the Eygyptians lined up to agree to it.

The Israelis seem to want to drive the fear levels up in the local population as much as possible. Leaflets have been dropped telling people to leave their homes as they will be bombed but they don't have anywhere to go. I read that a 14 year old girl died of heart failure from the shock of nearby bombing today. The roads outside Gaza city are now being shelled. Six mosques have been bombed and a school has been bombed.

I don't know why people are bothering to demonstrate outside Israeli Embassies - they should be outside the Eygyptians'.

http://english.aljazeera.net/

There are reports from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides that columns of tanks have crossed the Gazan border and a ground attack has started.