Comments on: Gush Shalom on Provocation in Ramallah

By: servant

servant — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:23:42 +0000

It is impossible for me to think at such granular levels whether the political controls the military or vice versa in this instance or in any other. In the long history of things, when peace seems to be near, someone has always managed to provoke Palestinians into acting against their own interest. Does it really matter whether it’s the political layer or the military layer? Israel is an evil country both politically, socially and militarily.

I’m one who holds my fellow citizens responsible for American atrocities that are going on Iraq (and soon Iran) and they always try to wiggle out of it by saying “no one knew” or “no one can control a few bad applies” or “yeah but” or “Kerry wasn’t that great either” or whatever the excuse is.

The people of the United States are the ultimate authority for who runs our government and I’m not going to let them get lost in the crowd when it goes bad. We elected this son of a [expletive deprecated] and we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves.

Now in Israel the level of self delusion is even worse. A Palestinian looking over the wall (if there is any place to look over the wall) cannot tell whether he’s been shot by Labor or Likud. The result is the same.

Sorry for the rant. I just think too much focus goes on the leadership and not on the will and wants of the people who drive them.

Have a good weekend.

By: peoplesgeography

peoplesgeography — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:01:40 +0000

Thanks Richard, and I appreciated reading your post and have linked to it. It's interesting that you caught from the J-Post too that it is entirely possible that Olmert and even Peretz were not informed that this was going to take place by the IDF West Bank Commander. If true, it sure seems to accord with Yossi Sarid and the observation that, unlike other countries that endeavour to be a democracy with a military, Israel is a military calling itself a democracy. As you say, the entire country is in effect under military rule. This spells disaster for Israeli citizens and Palestinians alike.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 09:47:15 +0000

I’ve written about this incident too (see link). I also link in my post to a scathing column by Yossi Sarid for Haaretz in which he says that the IDF essentially rule the country & that they feel no fear in deliberately subverting Olmert’s peace overtures with such a raid.

Had no idea the Post was reporting six dead. NYT is also reporting 4, though that doesn’t mean much.

Love the Heine drawing. It’s such a hopeful one considering how awful things are right now.

Wish I could get yr feed working for me at Israel Palestine Blogs. For some reason, WordPress rss plugin I’ve installed isn’t taking to your feed though I can read it perfectly well using any regular rss reader.