Israel launches ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’ in Gaza
Israel has launched “Operation Pillar of Cloud” against militants in Gaza, with a spokesman talking of “protracted days” of fighting.
The first step was this afternoon’s assassination of Ahmed al-Jaabari, the military commander of Hamas in Gaza. Israel is justifying this missile attack and a series of subsequent air strikes because of a recent resumption of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
Gaza happens to be the spark for the latest crisis, but that spark could have come from several places.
Last week, for example, Israel published its tender for the construction of over 2,000 housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Arab East Jerusalem, the putative capital of a Palestinian state, has witnessed twice the number of Israeli housing tenders this year than in the previous three years put together.
Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has also urged that the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, should be toppled from his seat of power in the West Bank if he presses ahead with UN recognition of the state of Palestine in New York at the end of this month. Mr Lieberman seems to think any Palestinian state should occupy only 40 per cent of the West Bank.
In other words, whether it looks to the Abbas-controlled West Bank or Hamas-controlled Gaza, whether Palestinian activity is political or violent, Israel is opposed to what is happening along its borders.
No wonder, then, that Britain has become increasingly vociferous over recent months, particularly in regard to Israeli settlement expansion, which seemed to increase while President Obama was focused on winning his re-election in the US.
“The two-state solution could disappear completely as an option very soon,” Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Cairo only yesterday.
“We are in danger of sleepwalking into a serious crisis.”
Follow @jrug on Twitter.
There are 28 comments on this post
We are in danger of sleepwalking into a serious crisis?
At what point does this become a crisis? How many Palestinians have to be killed, displaced or terrorised before this becomes a crisis?
As an American and a proud Jew, I support the State of Israel unconditionally!
I am also an American and I’m not Jewish and I don’t support the State of Israel (knowingly) and have no idea why that was even relevant? Americans have their own problems to worry about. Israel has never bailed me or mine out… and I am not a Christian nor do I believe that the Jews are God’s chosen people. Sorry to not support your genocide and Zionist agenda. If you don’t like it… move.
‘Unconditionally’ in your case seems to mean ‘blindly’.
Then why don’t you go live there? We would be better off without you in America.
They are under occupation and live in daily misery. When will the world stop this awful injustice meted out on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. I have been there and witnessed daily humiliation of people like you and I in West Bank.
I just watched the channel 4 news report about Israel’s response to terrorist rocket attacks from gaza. Never have I seen such a 1 sided biased report, unreserved criticism of Israel cutting short there spokes person. Is this news or propaganda?
What was the spark for this latest upsurge of violence? My understanding is that it was Israel’s killing of a thirteen-year-old boy, which militant groups responded to with rockets. But this seems to have dropped out of the media coverage, which as a result is implying that the attacks by Palestinian militants were unprovoked agression.
‘Recent resumption of rocket fire from Gaza?’ State the facts: More than 200 mortars fired into sovereign Israel proper. And Israel sparked this??
Killing is never good, but without sounding biased I can see the Israeli position. So little is reported in mainstream news as to what a poor quality of life many Israeli citizens have due to being under constant rocket fire, even in Today’s reports if you read between the lines you can see that they are constantly barraged with rocket fire and when the sirens go off they only have 15 seconds to get to a shelter – Not even an Olympic athlete could achieve that so easily, their nerves must be in tatters and treatment for stress, anxiety and depression must be at the forefront. You can only push someone so far before they crack.
This has little to do with politics per se. From the Islamic viewpoint it is about unrelenting jihad because they believe that they have a right to the land and that the Jews are on that land illegally. From the Jewish point of view there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land given to them by God for thousands of years, it is God’s land and not man’s to dissect or give away. They have lived peacefully alongside their neighbors in the past until the neighbors were called to jihad against them, then after the war the neighbors wanted to…
May I please ask if a blog , specifically this one, is meant to appear impartial in its pursuit of truth? I’m sorry I’m so old that I don’t yet know the parameters of a blog, I happened on this one, and thank you for allowing me this comment.
Despite your seeming straining for some measure of impartiality, I still cannot understand how you have any time for the Arab narrative. How do you reconcile a genocidal war against Israel’s very existence, including Nazi Muftis, 5 attacking armies at inception, repeated genocidal wars waged by multiple Arab armies, terrorist outrages, hoaxes like Al-Dura the boy cowering behind his father being proven a hoax in French Court, the massacre of Jenin that was never true but you also know how a lie gets around, what allows you to stand with those who fire at innocents from behind non combatants (innocents likely doesn’t apply, you have no problem accepting a society of so called Palestinians teaching their children to hate, and to murder? You absolutely know that happens, and yet you wish to somehow equivocate about Israel’s responsibility in the failure to have peace with its neighbours?) instead of turning the argument back to those…
Wow, who knew 4 News was so openly biased. Shame on you
If you really believe this, why not counter-argue the points in your comment? I’d call 4News factual rather than biased.
How you can call this an assassination is beyond me … seems like the enemy commander was targeted during fighting … and vanquished. Stinks for him … but assassination implies there was a peaceful condition prior to his being destroyed in fighting … Just my humble opinion.
Dig dipper , my friends.
Long before ” Israel published its tender for the construction of over 2,000 housing units, and long before Avigdor Lieberman became FM, there were another “SPARKS” in Gaza.
Maybe it is time to Arab world to stop poke the finger onto Israel, to go to the mirror and start what is know as ” self-examination”?
Can Israel do no wrong ?
At the risk of sounding pedantic why does Matt Frei’s headline on Snowmail say “Islamists launch rocket attack on Tel Aviv”? Surely the appropriate headline would be “”Gaza launches rocket attack on Tel Aviv”. Would you have said “Jewish assasination of Gaza’s Military Leader”. Of course you wouldn’t, and rightly so. Such slipshod reporting feeds Islamaphobia.
H. Hunter.
I am not gonna support Israel for her cowardly attack to the Gaza. Because it’s an act of terrorism, by this act lot of people killed and got injured. Mostly countries denounce the shameful attack by Israel.
Peru should support Israel in their fight against Palestine. Me and the Peruvian people owe the Israelis big time and Peru should send small battalion of soldiers to assist their allies against their greatest enemy of god.
Israel was just waiting for the end of the US election. Obama has won and the war propaganda has started