Israel is getting ready to invade Gaza

Omanman

This article is pure, unadulterated Israeli propaganda, (hasbara). We are being asked to believe that whilst the IDF can identify a Hamas person in a small car in a busy street in Gaza, send in a remotely controlled aircraft or a attack helicopter and eliminate the car and its passengers with unfailing accuracy time after time but it cannot locate the source of the qassam rockets being fired into Israeli territory. Modern mortar spotting radar would pick the launch site within seconds. The rockets suit the Israels agenda to keep up pressure on the Gaza strip and eventually possess it without any Palestinians in situ. It is time for the rest of the civilised nations to recognise Israel for what is truly is, the impediment to peace and harmony in the middle east.

Ric

The problem is that Israel protects its citizens too well. World opinion is too used to seeing death tolls in the thousands and dismisses the small number of casualties from these attacks as trivial. Unlike the government of Israel and world Jewry, the world does not see each of these lives as precious: nor does it care about the myriad foiled attacks that would have killed thousands. We face a similar problem in Britain: the media underplay massive suicide operations foiled by the security services, emphasising instead a perceived reduction of civil liberties. Israel will not win the moral high ground until its dead number in the thousands. Fortunately, the IDF and the government and people of Israel will never let that happen.

Ray

Omanman - your argument still does alter the fact that Israel withdrew from Gaza in good faith, only to find itself still being bombarded daily by rockets fired indiscriminately at its civilian population. So why is it that you consider Israel, and not the Gazan rocket jockeys, to be the "impediment to peace and harmony"?

Lois Hembrow

How encouraging to have a journalist giving a fair assessment of the Israeli position

I Miller

Perhaps Ms Fitzsimons would care to do the arithmetic for the Palestinian half of the equation? Or don't the attacks by the IDF on Gaza count in the same way? Why is Israeli violence never the source of the problem? This is not telling even half the story. Every time there is a ceasefire the Israelis break it because they don't want peace they want the land and they want the elimination of the inhabitants of that land. The entire history of the conflict going back to before 1948 demonstrates this. Sharon left Gaza as a purely tactical move and anyone who imagines otherwise is naive in the extreme. The policies that the Israelis pursued after the withdrawal are sufficient indication of the fact that it was never intended to be permanent. Why is the European mentality so incapable of seeing the other point of view?

Omanman

In response to Ray, It is my opinion that Israel left Gaza with a view that that Israel will return later under more opportune conditions at a later date, we must of course take into consideration of the "1948 PLAN" You use the term 'good faith', a curious term, I follow no faith but I understand that is a term of trust.

Mike

And while all this is going on about Gaza, let's not forget that Israel continues to allow its citizens to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land on the West Bank.

alex thomas

24 Israelis killed since 2001. I don't see the number of Palestinians butchered during the same period though. This is a laughably biased article - so blatant that it loses all credibility on the first page. Personally, I favour neither side; both are guilty of atrocities. But I do object to such propagandist rubbish insulting my intelligence.

Peter Mone

This article is totally one-sided. There is no balance by giving detail of the number of attacks on Gaza by the Israeli forces.Are we to believe that the most armed country in the world cannot contain a small number of home made rocket attacks without invading the area? I am very disappointed that The Spectator is contributing to Israeli propaganda by talking up invasion of Gaza.

roz kadir

Israel is in an untenable situation. It surprises me how the BBC fail to report any of the suffering of the residents of Sderot. I cannot imagine the residents of one county in the UK sitting by whilst being attached by a neighbouring county without defending themselves. Every nation has a right to defend itself from evil and this is pure evil.

Roz Kadir

I am amazed that some readers criticize Israel. does Israel send missiles (up to 15 x a day) into Gaza. Are there any Jewish suicide bombers? I don't think so..

Mike

Congratulations on writing such an unbalanced and one-sided article. Good job

John Lewis

Regrettably, this article sums up the situation very accurately and this does not appear to be fully understood by our own politicians both in the UK and in the EU, who show far more concern for humanitarian aid for Gazans than Israeli casulaties. Israel is always accused of being disproportionate in its reactions.

Huldah

It's refreshing to see an article which balances the drip feed (or should it be torrent) of unjust criticism of Israel's attempts to protect its citizens from Arab terrorism. I doubt that any of the commenters harrumphing about the 'unbalanced' nature of Ms Fitzsimmons' article would whine about the hateful and hatefilled pieces which regularly disgrace the pages and airwaves of the UK media. Since 1948 Israel has shown herself willing to live peacefully alongside neighbours who've boasted that they want to drive Jewish Israelis into the sea, and who have, when the opportunity arose, done all they could to carry out their threat. The proof? One in every five Israeli citizens is of Arab descent, enjoying political and civil rights which their fellow Arabs in Arab-ruled countries can only dream of. How many Arab countries demonstrate equivalent commitment to anti-racism and democracy?

Babs Barron

Thank you, Ms Fitzsimmons, for a balanced and thoughtful article which sets out context if the dilemma which Israel faces. I doubt that her detractors will register the fact that she has shown great restraint so far in not retaliating to what are essentially acts of war, but it is excellent that you have reminded those of short and selective memory the context to any would-be action. No other country would be expected to stand by idly while her civilians were in such danger, so the blatant double standards are evident in that the world expects Israel to do so. It will be a great shame if Israel acts against Gaza, but bravo for setting out that if she did it would be from a position of having had no alternative.

Rosa Tray

Omanman, I wonder whether you are prepared to criticise equally here the Hamas propaganda, when it has been proven that Hamas takes food from its people's mouths and diverts electricity from its people to keep its rocket factories going, and then complaints to a gullible Western media that it is without electricity or food? The Palestinian people deserve far better than the government they were duped into electing - a government which cannot or will not control the factions which are launching rockets into Israel. The really shameful propaganda is that Hamas will make much of its people's status as victims in any encounter with Israel, but it will steer carefully away from its own role in forcing them to remain that way by not actively ensuing a LASTING peace, rather than a hudna so that it can rearm.

Nachon

Where is it written, Omanman, that Israel should have no right to defend herself against attack, or that her supporters should not have the right to argue that right to defend herself? Your first post here seems to shriek "propaganda!" against Israel, but you carefully ignore the lies Hamas tells its people and the rest of the world. Israel is not the impediment to peace and harmony in the Middle East. Hamas, by inculcating Palestinian children into hatred of Jews and Israel from kindergarten age, are grooming the next generation of suicide murderers and infringing their human rights. Where is your condemnation of that? And you are mistaken when you say that the kassams suit Israel's agenda. Unlike Hamas, whose actions demonstrate that it believes that ordinary Palestinians' lives are easily expendable, Israel values every one of her citizens. Why, therefore, should she want them shelled?

Rodin

Israel grudgingly returned the Gaza strip as its control became untenable. It did not return Gaza out of any sense of decency or moral obligation but down to earth local power play and logistics. When Israel returns all the lands that it has stolen (the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Sheeba farms and east Jerusalem) perhaps it will merit peace from its neighbours. Until then it reaps what it has sown.

Denis Vandervelde

Ms.Fitzsimons is basically right, but ignores a possible Third Way, between accepting the steadily accelerating murder of her citizens, and mounting a major military assault on Gaza. Israel should announce that, unless the purported rulers of Gaza (i.e. both the P.A. and HAMAS) declare a cessation of all attacks on Israel in the next four weeks, Israel will declare that all Gazan land within 3 kms of Israel will be a free-fire zone. That is, that Israel will have given the population in the border zone a warning that they must move out until their government stops allowing attacks on a neighbour It will then be vital that Israel fulfills that commitment,with frequent daily 'drone' overflights, of which a couple a day would drop bombs on sites from which rockets had been fired. The real intent would be to encourage the long-suffering Gazans to rise up against HAMAS and refuse to allow their homeland to be a terrorist base. But there are more immediate benefits. Firstly, the 'iron dome' defence system against rockets etc. which Israel is installing is ineffective against missiles fired from less than 3 kms. but (hopefully) very effective in destroying those from more distant sites. Secondly,the use of drones, (which Israel already has). means that even if no bombs are dropped, a panic comparable to the terror inflicted daily on the people of Sderot can be turned off and on at will, as its effects are apparent. And thirdly that all this should be achievable without risking a single soldier's life, (& with care, the loss of drones should be preventable) None of this precludes the use of targeted assassinations of known terrorists, nor the steady diminution of the fuel and powers supplies to an enemy entity. These should help to reinforce the message - peace with Israel means a return to normality and a decent standard of life, whch Gaza only ever enjoyed when it was peaceful, under Israeli sovereignty.

Sven

Wow, the extent of anti-Semitism in British society, as becoming evident from reading most of the comments here, is always astonishing to me. Maybe it stems from a hurt ego, considering Britain's role in the history of the region, but in any way, it is simply disgusting. For all the fuss about Britain's long tradition in liberalism and tolerance, this dark spot of widespread anti-Semitism in Britain's society shows them as cocky ignorant bastards that are just as prejudiced and bigoted as your average German, Russian, or Spaniard.

Arif Jayish Al Amiriki

"Hamas, as an Islamist, expansionist organisation that angrily rejects the status quo" Excuse me, Hamas IS the status quo...

Hereford

A great article, clearly defining the lose or lose situation that Israel is in and, rarely for western media, acknowledging the fact that Israel is and has acted with restraint which would not be expected of any other nation in the world suffering such continuous attacks on its territory. The rest of the Islmaophile Western media needs to be as balanced. If Israel does invade, expect Jeremy Bowen and his like to be stood, in their flak jackets amongst the poor downtrodden Pals decrying the disproportionality of the evil Israeli response.

Max Kaye

Omanman amused me with his comment: " It is time for the rest of the civilised nations to recognise Israel for what is truly is, the impediment to peace and harmony in the middle east."

I suppose that if Israel were to disappear tomorrow the Middle East would suddenly become a beacon of enlightenment.

(This, of course, assumes that Israel is responsible also for the internecine strife, repression and bloodshed in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran... not to mention Afghanistan, Pakistan, south Thailand, the Philippines...)

carl larson

This is amazing to me, that Mrs. Fitzsimons could write such unadulterated propaganda. Her article sounds like it comes straight from an IDF statement. "With a heavy heart" indeed! I especially like the repeated reference to how Israel has "fulfilled it's part of the bargain" by withdrawing from Gaza. So what part of the bargain was it to to close the borders and turn Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison? 1.5 million people, shut up for THREE YEARS(!), unable to get in or out or even to have adaquate food, medicine, electricity & fuel. Read it for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

Mrs. Fitzsimons repeatedly refers to a military incursion into Gaza as "the only solution" for Israel, but for some strange reason refuses to mention the OTHER alternative; to negotiate with Hamas. Hamas has made over 10 cease-fire offers to Israel, when was the last time you heard that in your news? So what if their constitution calls for Israel's destruction; Israel has negotiated with Egypt, Jordan, Syria & others who have(& sometimes still do) called for the end of Israel. What matters is ACTIONS, and Hamas is offering a 10-year truce, ensured by international observers. Research the issues. Look behind the media bias. The truth is out there.