A New Country in the Middle East

Vicious Babaristan, land of the uncivilized:

During recent fighting in the Gaza Strip, armed Palestinian groups have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

Calling all human shields and suppliers of the milk of human kindness:  Please report to Gaza.  Example setters and speechifiers are needed immediately to show these lost lambs the way.

In internal Palestinian fighting over the last three days, both Fatah and Hamas military forces have summarily executed captives, killed people not involved in hostilities, and engaged in gun battles with one another inside and near Palestinian hospitals. On Saturday, armed Palestinians from Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade used a vehicle with a "TV" insignia to attack an Israeli military position on the border with Gaza.

"These attacks by both Hamas and Fatah constitute brutal assaults on the most fundamental humanitarian principles," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch. "The murder of civilians not engaged in hostilities and the willful killing of captives are war crimes, pure and simple."

On Sunday, Hamas military forces captured 28-year-old Muhammad Swairki, a cook for President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, and executed him by throwing him to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City. Later that night, Fatah military forces shot and captured Muhammad al-Ra'fati, a Hamas supporter and mosque preacher, and threw him from a Gaza City high-rise apartment building. On Monday, Hamas military forces attacked the home in Beit Lahiya of Jamal Abu al-Jadiyan, a senior Fatah official, captured him, and executed him on the street with multiple gunshots. On Tuesday, there were reports of additional killings of individuals not involved in hostilities. Link

If ever a people needed an occupying force...

A strong unified force from the free world would actually save lives and help restore order. Where is it? Who is to blame for the fact that it is not there right now?

Comments

[DRaftervoi]

I am still deciding if I was wrong about the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. I think that pulling the settlers out was still a good move, given the demographic problem of trying to defend thousands against a hostile population of millions. The current violence makes me think I was wrong...except that it can't be blamed on the Israelis.

[Gail]

Many had high hopes for the disengagement. I did. But now I think it was a mistake.

As far as blaming Israel, it was inevitable. From Taranto's Best of the Web Today:

The Boston Globe editorial board looks at the Gaza civil war, and finds it's the fault of the Jews:

The people of Gaza are the true victims of the civil war most of all because the fighting is destroying their future. With the military wing of Hamas poised to seize complete control of Gaza in what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rightly called a "coup attempt," Gaza's residents stand to lose whatever hope remained of achieving independence and a decent life in a viable Palestinian state.

The Hamas campaign to eradicate Fatah from Gaza is certainly not the sole cause of Gazans' misery. They long suffered from Israel's suffocating occupation, and then from Ariel Sharon's foolishly unilateral withdrawal in 2005, a move that allowed Hamas to bid for power with the misleading claim that its rockets and suicide bombings had driven Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza.

According to the Globe, Israel is to blame both for its "occupation" and for having ended it--the latter of which "allowed Hamas to bid for power." But "the people of Gaza" are innocent victims. It somehow escapes the Globe's notice that Hamas came to power because Palestinians voted for it. The Globe denies that Palestinians are responsible for their own actions, and thereby dehumanizes them under a pretense of compassion.

[draftervoi]

There is also a difference between withdrawal of the settlements and withdrawing the occupying force, although the raison d’être of the occupation was the protection of the settlers. There may also be long term benefits here that we can't see yet...in that Hamas does not have the same level of international radical-chic cred that Fatah has exploited. That is, they make a far more justifiable enemy for the Israelis in the eyes of the world. However, western "progressives" may make common cause with an Islamist regime that throws Fatah members off of rooftops...

[AndyJ]

The withdrawal was necessary to demonstrate that the Palestinians are not serious about peace, at any time, at any price... This barbarism is pre-Treaty of Westphalia mentality. This is tribal war of total extermination. What happens in Gaza will show the world what happens in Lebanon with Hezbollah. Only Turkey seems immune from this game, so far... Syria backed down very quickly when Turkey moved its forces...

Now the West can be quiet about "peace talks" and "Peace Treatys"... There will be none because there is no nation of government with whom to treat...

[Gail]

The withdrawal was a wretched and emotionally jarring thing for the Israelis. They are still reeling from it.

They sacrificed for peace. But there is no peace. Many predicted the result before it happened.