Once again, Israel goes to war and the American left is consumed. Some, are pro Israel, many are anti-Israel. I write it that way, because it just seems to me that the root cause is an anti-Israel bias. Of course, a lot of it is this idea that the Palestinians are the down trodden masses who deserve their own nation. I happen to agree that they deserve their own nation, I just don’t agree that they deserve the whole of Palestine, as they see it. I am also tired of the back and forth about who started the latest dust-up.
- Did Israel or Hamas violate the truce?
- There is a second issue; is Israel pursuing a policy of Genocide against the Palestinian people with their continued war against Hamas in the GAZA strip?
- There is a third issue; is Isreal pursuing “total war” against Hamas in the Gaza.
The map below displays the range of Rockets fired by Hamas into Israel and shows the relative size of Gaza.
December 1987
A clash in the Jebaliya refugee camp sets off Palestinian uprising, which lasted until 1993 and claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 192 Israelis. The militant Islamic Hamas is formed early in the uprising.
-StarTribune.com Minneapolis – St. Paul Minnesota
September 2005
Israel withdraws its troops and all of its 8,500 Jewish settlers. It retains control of Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters and border crossings.
-StarTribune.com Minneapolis – St. Paul Minnesota
June 14 2007
Hamas seizes Gaza after overpowering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah forces in a week of fighting in which at least 100 people are killed.
Abbas dismisses Hamas-led unity government and appoints a Fatah-backed administration, led by Salam Fayyad, a technocratic economist favoured by the West.
Israel and the new Palestinian government open formal contacts. The Jewish state tightens a blockade of Gaza.
-Mail&Guardian online
March 3
Israeli troops pull out of the Gaza Strip after five-day offensive that has killed more than 120 Palestinians.
-Mail&Guardian online
March 4
Egypt calls for ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
-Mail&Guardian online
March 6
A Palestinian gunman kills eight students at Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. Hamas officials claim the deadliest attack on Israelis in two years.
-Mail&Guardian online
March 23
Fatah and Hamas sign Yemeni-sponsored deal promising to revive direct talks but dialogue falls apart amid differences over whether Hamas must first cede control of Gaza.
-Mail&Guardian online
June 19
A truce begins between Hamas and Israel. It calls for Hamas to stop cross-border rocket fire and for Israel to gradually ease its embargo on Gaza.
-Mail&Guardian online
August 2
Factional fighting kills three Hamas policemen and six pro-Fatah gunmen in the Gaza Strip in the worst fighting since June 2007.
-Mail&Guardian online
November 5
Hamas fires dozens of rockets at Israel after Israeli forces kill six Palestinian militants in an eruption of violence that has disrupted the four-month-old truce.
– Palestinians resume rocket and mortar fire into Israel after Israeli incursion. The Israeli army says clashes erupted late Nov. 4 after its forces uncovered a tunnel in central Gaza that militants planned to use to abduct Israeli soldiers. (StarTribune.com)
–(Original Story in the Guardian)Hamas militants fired more than 35 rockets into Israel today, hours after the Israeli army killed six people in the Gaza Strip in the first major exchange of fire since a truce took effect in June.
The violence came after the Israeli army said its forces had uncovered a tunnel 250 metres inside Gaza that it said militants planned to use to abduct Israeli soldiers.
-Mail&Guardian online
December 14
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is quoted as saying the group will not renew the six-month-old truce with Israel.
-Mail&Guardian online, Reuters Bussiness & Finance
-December 18
Hamas Islamists declare the end of the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, which expires the next day with a surge of cross-border fighting.
-Reuters Business & Finance
December 24
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip ratchet up rocket fire towards Israel.
-Mail&Guardian online, Reuters Business & Finance
December 26
Israel allowed approximately 90 trucks of medicine, fuel, cooking gas and other vital goods into Gaza. The shipment included more than 500,000 litres of fuel and 200 tons of natural gas.
-BICOM Britain Israel Communications & research Center
December 27
Israel launches air strikes on Gaza in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas ended the six-month ceasefire.
–Israel launches a fierce air offensive, killing more than 200 Palestinians in the first day. The government says the open-ended campaign is aimed at stopping rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel. Most of the casualties are security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead. (StarTribune.com)
(The following comes from BICOM Britain Israel Communications & research Center)
–Ashkelon, Netivot, Kiryat Gat, Ashdod and additional communities through the south. Hamas has ordered its operatives to attack Israel with missiles, rockets and mortar rounds. Israeli residents throughout the south of the country have been ordered to remain in bomb shelters.
– An Israeli man was killed on Saturday and four others were seriously wounded when a missile hit a house in Netivot. Another man was seriously wounded when a rocket struck at the community of Mivtahim later in the afternoon. (BICOM Britain Israel Communications & research Center)
-Mail&Guardian online
December 28/29
Israel steps up air strikes and at least 307 Palestinians are killed, including about 180 Hamas security officers. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency says at least 51 of the Gaza dead are civilians.
Israel declares areas around the Gaza Strip a “closed military zone”.
Palestinian militants fire rockets deeper into southern Israel. Two Israelis have been killed since December 27. – Reuters
-Mail&Guardian online
December 28
Hamas says an Israeli air strike destroys a laboratory building at the Islamic University, a significant cultural symbol of Hamas.
– Israeli aircraft bomb some 40 smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip that provide a lifeline to the outside world.
-Reuters Business & Finance
December 29
Israel steps up its air strikes and bombs the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, the first air strike targeting a government building in the offensive.
– Israel declares areas around the Gaza Strip a “closed military zone.”
– Palestinian militants fire rockets deeper into southern Israel.
-Reuters Business & Finance
December 30
Israeli warplanes press on for the fourth day with attacks on Hamas targets.
– Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urges Palestinian groups to respond using “all available means” against Israel.
– Israel says its attacks herald “long weeks of military action.”
-Reuters Business & Finance
December 31
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh tells Palestinians that “victory is near.”
– Emergency session of U.N. Security Council to consider resolution drafted by Arab countries calling for immediate cease-fire adjourns without a vote.
-Reuters Business & Finance
January 1 2009
Israel kills Nizar Rayyan, a hardline Hamas leader, in an air attack on his Gaza Strip home.
– Palestinian casualties since December 27 are 412 dead and about 1,850 wounded. A U.N. agency says about a quarter of the dead are civilians.
– Three Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by Palestinian rockets since the air strikes began.
- Reuters Business & Finance
January 3 2009
Thousands of Israeli troops launch a ground offensive in Gaza.
-StarTribune.com Minneapolis – St. Paul Minnesota
>January 5, 2009
Islamic Hamas movement’s armed wing al-Qassam Brigades spokesman, Abu Obeida, vowed to kidnap more Israeli soldiers during the ongoing Israeli air and ground large-scale military operation carried out against Gaza. “Your colleague Gilad Shalit is missing you and wants to see you and we promised him to get him some of his friends.”
-China View Xinhuanet.com
January 7, 2009
Israel ceased military operations in parts of the Gaza Strip from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., as part of a plan to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian territory through an Israeli-controlled corridor. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner confirmed the lull will last for three hours beginning at 1 p.m. local time, or 6 a.m. ET.
CBC News
Month-by-month tally of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel in 2008 from BICOM Britain Israel Communications & research Center)
February 262
March 292
April 502
May 425
June (ceasefire declared 19 June) 235
July 20
August 8
September 2
October 2
November (Israeli operation to prevent kidnap attempt on soldiers – Nov 4) 193
December (latest available figures up to December 27)
Note: This time line is not complete. I will continue to update it on a daily basis as new events occur and I can research and find additional resources.
Tentative Conclusion 01 (Who Started it)
Now I understand why both supporters of Israel and Palestinian supporters blame each side for violating the truce. Both sides can make claims that the other side violated the cease fire with some truth. The assault on November 5th seems to bee the instigating incident, and both sides are guilty. Hamas built a tunnel to kidnap more Israeli soldiers (a planned attack on Israel) and Israel attacked the tunnel (a preemptive assault on Gaza). Depending on point of view, both sides have an accurate claim. An attack that had not happened yet might not be viewed as a violation, though it violates the spirit if not the letter of the truce. A preemptive assault to stop the attack might be viewed as justified due to the extensive preparations of building the tunnel to make the raid, but does violate the spirit of the truce if not necessarily the letter.
Tentative Conclusion 01 UPdate (Who Started it)
The original truce agreement between Israel and Hamas dictated that Hamas would cease firing rockets and mortars into Israel. Though they reduced the number of incidences of these attacks, the numbers from BICOM show that they continued a low level of assaults throughout the truce period (July 20, August 8, September 2, October 2). Any one of these attacks would legally be a violation of the truce, so even before November 5th, Hamas was clearly violating the truce, showing that they had no real intention of living up to the truce.
The last question concerning who started it will be answered once I find if Israel eased their embargo on the GAZA. Isarel was bound to ease the embargo.
As further details come to light, I may change this conclusion, but Hamas clearly was the first to violate their truce of June 19, 2009 from what I know now.
Sources