Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia
Titolo: Israel Says 'No'

Israel Says 'No' 
by Ran HaCohen 
On Jan. 23 Ha'aretz readers were utterly embarrassed. Just as the quality 
paper was printing its top headline, based on Israel's omniscient 
"security sources" – "New Israeli Policy in Gaza: Border Crossings Will 
Stay Closed" – the border crossings between Gaza and Egypt were being 
opened; a few hours later, they didn't exist anymore. Once again, the 
regional power was caught in surprise; Hamas won by breaking the siege. 
A good indication for a declining empire is its inherent tendency to say 
"no" to reality. The Soviet Union gave the English language the 
interjection "nyet." Long ago, it was the Arabs who said "no" – no to 
negotiations, no to normalization, no to recognition, no to peace. This 
changed, at the latest, with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. Now it's 
Israel that has become the nyet-sayer. Get prepared to look up "lo," the 
Hebrew "no," in the Oxford English Dictionary. 
The Israeli border town of Sderot is under attack. Rockets from Gaza are 
fired at the civilian population on a daily basis. No country can tolerate 
that for long, but the attacks have been going on for seven years. 
Military operations have all failed to stop or even significantly reduce 
the fire. Any rational adviser would say (1) protect or evict the 
inhabitants of Sderot; (2) talk to those firing the missiles and see what 
they want. Israel, however, says "no" to both suggestions. 
Why Not Talk to Hamas? 
Talks with Hamas are a good place to start. Polls show strong support 
among Israelis for such a step. But Israel says "no." The ideology 
propagated by the media is so dominant that this issue is not even 
discussed in Israel; rejectionism is taken for granted. Why not talk to 
Hamas? 
The official answer: "Hamas denies Israel's right to exist." A ridiculous 
argument, which comes down to "we don't talk to our enemy because he is 
our enemy," or "we'd rather make peace with friends than with foes." 
Moreover, Hamas offers a long-term cease-fire, lasting years or even 
decades. Israel says "no" to that too. Why? The idiotic Israeli answer is 
that Hamas would use the time to rearm. As if Israel would use the time to 
make love. A pseudo-democracy run by the military is totally blind to the 
rational logic of creating a "temporary" peaceful atmosphere, boosting the 
parties' vested interest in a peaceful life, raising a new generation in 
prosperity and free of old hatreds, and so on. Better a war right now than 
decades of peace and a war – perhaps – afterwards. It surely is better – 
for the weapons industry, and for the graveyards. 
Israel, of course, is a spoiled colonialist. In Abu Mazen Israel found a 
weak but rather reliable collaborator. Talking to Hamas, so the experts 
claim, would weaken Abu Mazen and make him issue more demands, to compete 
with Hamas. Even a successful policy of "divide and rule" has its 
disadvantages. Somehow, there's always an excuse: if the Palestinians are 
united, we cannot make peace with them because they are either too weak 
(and thus unreliable) or too strong (and too demanding). If they are 
divided, we surely cannot talk to them because the fractions would 
compete. 
Obviously, the true reason not to seriously negotiate – Israel already 
says the end of the year is much too early to strike a deal even with Abu 
Mazen! – is that Israel is unwilling to end the occupation. Not only land 
and water are at stake, but, as Meron Rapoport of Ha'aretz recently 
reminded, more than 6 percent of all Israeli exports (excluding diamonds) 
go to the occupied Palestinian market, about $2 billion a year, more than 
to France and Italy combined: fruits and vegetables, medicines and 
hospital equipment, water and electricity, steel and cement. A captive 
market, where products not good enough for the Israeli customer can be 
dumped for good money (from the donor countries). A precious asset in a 
competitive capitalist world. 
Civilians as Propaganda Card 
Ehud Barak will be remembered in Israel's history as the one who 
introduced the abuse of innocent civilians as political cards. Barak was 
probably not the first Israeli warrior to abuse civilians on a tactical 
level, but he was the one who turned it into a central Israeli strategy. 
Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, in 1996, with Barak as an 
influential cabinet member, openly targeted civilians, turning them into 
refugees to make them put pressure on Beirut's government. The recent 
siege on Gaza follows a similar logic: put pressure on civilians to 
achieve political goals. (A clear war crime, it goes without saying.) 
The Israeli inhabitants of Sderot are similarly abused. Israel hasn't yet 
found the budget to give suitable protection to those bombed citizens. 
Only last week, 23 public shelters were opened in the southern town – 
financed, however, not by the Israeli government, but by an American 
evangelical foundation (IFCJ). It is also a private donor who, from time 
to time, takes some of Sderot's residents to a week off in a safe hotel. 
Inhabitants seeking government aid to leave their bombarded town were 
turned down: "house hostages" as Ha'aretz terms it. Evicting the town, 
says official Israel, would be yielding to terror. Obviously, an 
8-year-old child losing a leg in Sderot is a propaganda asset Israel 
cannot resist. How easy it is, sitting in an armchair in Tel Aviv, 
Jerusalem, or Washington, to make a point on the back of innocent 
civilians – both in Gaza and in Sderot. 
And all this in vain, of course: the citizens of Sderot grow 
understandably impatient, with their protest capitalized on by political 
parties. The inhabitants of Gaza now broke the siege – which doesn't make 
Israel lift it – and the rockets keep being fired. What's the solution? 
The rejectionist regime can offer just more of the same. Interior Minister 
Meir Shitreet recently suggested to "demolish a whole neighborhood in 
Gaza." Other politicians and columnists do not lag in "creative" ideas. 
Israel is doing what it thinks it does best: sowing death and destruction. 
But as we now know, even in this Israel is not as good as it used to be.
-- 
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Per rinfreswcare la memoria ai razzisti rognosi:
Il presidente della repubblica italiana, il comunista Giorgio Napolitano 
  ha detto:
No all'antisemitismo "anche quando esso
si travesta da antisionismo".
"Antisionismo", ha detto il capo dello stato, "significa negazione della 
fonte ispiratrice dello stato ebraico, delle ragioni della sua nascita, 
ieri, e della sua sicurezza oggi, al di là dei governi che si alternano 
nella guida di Israele".

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:47c07def$0$37201$4faf...@reader3.news.tin.it...

E che, siete sempre in guerra voi due?
Saludos
Itzcoatl

 E che, siete sempre in guerra voi due?
con arduino? a che serve dargli addosso ad un imbecille che non riesce
a capire quel che legge e da del razzista rognoso ad ebrei israeliani
che sono critici della politica colonialista di Tel Aviv? Si spara già
sui piedi da solo il cialtrone arduino.