The Israeli Assault on Gaza, Cont'd, with links to multiple sources

Here are some more links for coverage of the situation in Gaza.

UNRWA is the United Nations relief agency which provides most of the assistance to Gaza.

On Juan Cole's blog you can find summaries of  current Arab press reports and proposed Arab actions as well as additional links.

Here is the link to the BBC's current coverage, and to Al Jazeera's.

Jeffrey Goldberg is a pro-Israel writer.  He is a pretty reasonable guy, and I think when you read just a bit of him, you get a sense of how some moderate Israelis and pro-Israeli Americans feel.  It's worth paying attention. 

And here is today's New York Times's main article.  The New York Times is by long-standing tradition pro-Israeli, but not shrilly so.

The hard facts are that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are no "nicer" than Israelis, but they are the ones who have been reduced to a very poor existence by Israel's overreactions.  The list of barriers Israel has thrown up to anything resembling normal life ranges from the wall which hampers their very movement to their own land and their jobs to access to food, water and medicine.  Their homes and streets and stores in many cases have been reduced to rubble by bombs and gigantic tanks which plow through their neighborhoods. The powers that be in the US and Israel puff up and say the Palestinians, via Hamas, "start" the aggression and "provoke" Israeli's reactions. One can imagine that if somehow the Palestinians managed to try peaceful demonstrations en masse or passive resistance it might have some effect, but first of all, it's not a natural response under the circumstances and second of all, there's no guarantee it would work.  And the demand that somehow the Palestinians "act nicely" sounds really thuggish to me.

The list of events during which Israel and its allies might have acted differently is long.  One of the most obvious is that after having demanded democratic elections in Palestinian territory, the US might have recognized the result: that Hamas won fair and square.  They didn't.  So of course Hamas feels justified in acting the ay it is since when it tried the other way, it didn't get anywhere.

Hamas might have itself continued to act aggressively even if its election had been recognized, but then Israel's actions would be seen in a different light.

Israel is stuck.  The US is stuck, I suspect, by its ties to Israeli lobbyists who don't represent all Israeli, all Jewish thinking by any means: only the more right-wing.  Kind of like in the US where the Right screams and shouts and demands violent response. 

When I read the NY Times articles, I am struck by how oddly impersonal they seem: almost as if they are reporting on the playing of board games where all that matters is the actions of a few leaders who are seen to play fair or not play fair.  I suspect to side with Israel you have to depersonalize your reactions. Meanwhile, Palestinians are being brutalized, aggression against Israel has risen and the whole Arab world is protesting, as well they might.  In photos, you might notice that the Palestinian rockets seem to result in very little damage to buildings or people, compared to the damage Israelis are causing.  I am sure, though, to the Israelis under attack the comparison is meaningless.  If I were under attack, I suspect proportionality wouldn't matter to me, either.