Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Consequences of their Actions

[Fragments of the Qassam rocket that killed a man at Nativ Haasara. Gaza has launched 8,500 of these at Israeli civilian areas since 2003. 5,700 have been launched since 2005 when Israel evacuated from Gaza.]
Washington's demarche against Israel is not just a diplomatic flap with no consequences. Apparently on the strength of the encouragement from Washington, rocket fire from Gaza has resumed. The Gazans killed a man with a rocket in the "cooperative agricultural town" of Nativ Haasara, presumably a kibbutz or moshav.

While the rocket fire and the murder of the man in Israel were going on, the Baroness Catherine Ashton, a representative of the European Union, was touring Gaza. The Gazans and the UNRRA director had the temerity to complain to her that not enough necessaries were getting into Gaza. Since food and medicine are getting in unhindered, presumably they meant rockets.

As an aside one notes that there is only so much Gazans can smuggle through the tunnels under the Egyptian border blockade. Gazans could have smuggled in baby clothes or korans but chose to smuggle in rockets instead. Which is why the blockade is there - because of the bad choices made in Gaza.

The connection between the attacks from Washington and the attacks from Gaza could not be clearer in spite of the NY Times' attempts to obscure it.

Ironically Biden said it himself while he was there. "The prospects for peace in the Middle East are greatest when there is no daylight separating Israel and the United States." Whereupon he violated his own advice and created a gulf between Israel and the United States. The daylight between the allies was followed immediately by the darkness of acts of war by Israel's enemies, just as Biden had predicted.

Biden either wasn't listening to himself or he was listening to his boss in Washington. Biden isn't in charge. It is Obama who decides and it is he who is up for reelection in two years. It is he who encouraged the Gazans to believe that withdrawal of American support would weaken Israel and encouraged the new attacks on a now possibly weaker victim.

Since Biden's speech shows they knew the likely consequences of their actions, the death of the farm worker in Nativ Haasara can fairly be blamed on Obama and his administration. So too the deaths to come on both sides of the Gaza border.

2 comments:

  1. Biden is an American hero who is willing to stand up to the worlds greatest fascist since Pinochet. Praise allah that a man of Bidens judgement should be vice President at this most fortunate of hours.

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  2. Hi Abood,
    Really, Abood? Is it only fascists who think that people who shoot 8,500 rockets like the one in the picture at their neighbors need their asses kicked until they stop?

    Biden's career ended when he accepted the Vice-Presidency. He has eyes and he can see how handsomely the Saudis paid to bribe Jimmy Carter.

    That's not heroism, that's baksheesh.

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