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Middle East
Israel Vows War on Hamas
2003-06-13
EFL and New news
JERUSALEM - Israel pledged on Friday a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas but an opinion poll showed a majority of Israelis oppose the stepped-up attacks on leaders of the militant Islamic group.
If the JPost asked their readers I bet you'd get a different attitude
With his peace "road map" threatened by Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed 38 people in two days, President Bush planned to send a veteran U.S. diplomat to Israel this weekend to try to stem the bloodshed.
Not poor Zinni, I hope?
In the latest violence, gunmen fired at an Israeli car near the Jewish settlement of Neve Tzuf in the West Bank, wounding two women, one of them seriously. "As a government responsible for the security of its citizens, we must wage a war to the bitter end (against Hamas) because no one else, at least at this stage, will do it," Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Army Radio.
Pretty much clear on the concept
But a poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily found 67 percent of Israelis wanted what the survey termed the "assassination policy" to stop, at least temporarily, to give new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas a chance to grow stronger. Keeping up pressure on Hamas, which opposes the existence of the Jewish state, Israel launched a helicopter missile strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday that killed seven people, including senior militant Yasser Taha, his wife and one-year-old daughter. At their funeral processions on Friday, gunmen fired in the air and a Hamas loudspeaker blared: "God's revenge is coming soon and the Zionists will pay the price of their crimes."
"We pledge Dire Revenge™..."
The army issued a statement expressing "sorrow over the death" of Taha's family.
But not over Taha...
In separate incidents near the West Bank city of Jenin, gunmen killed an Israeli civilian buying charcoal in a Palestinian village and soldiers shot dead two militants. Hamas' armed wing claimed responsibility for the Israeli's death. On Wednesday, helicopter gunships killed four militants and seven bystanders in Gaza, after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 on a Jerusalem bus, an attack that followed the wounding of senior Hamas figure Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a missile strike. In what it called a message to "terrorists and their accomplices," the army demolished the family house of the Jerusalem bus bomber, Abdel-Mua'ti Shabana, 18, in the West Bank city of Hebron, leaving nine people homeless. The army also destroyed another militant's home in the West Bank village of Dura.
Posted by:Frank G

#10  Fred, You absolutely have to put that last quote from Anon1 on your site somewhere. It's genius, pure genius.
"...like when the curtain was whipped away from the Wizard of Oz-you can see the levers and pullies after Rantburg."
I knew I liked the Australians.
Posted by: Mike N.   2003-06-13 16:08:28  

#9  MANY THANKS FRED MHW is right. Without this site i'd still be sucking on the teat of the free-to-air commercial media in Australia and would have no idea.

Rantburg really changed my view around.

Pre-S11, pre-Rantburg, I was as pro-Paleo as any other brainwashed western young person.

Now though I see the propaganda spin quite obviously, like when the curtain was whipped away from the "wizard" of Oz - you can see the levers and pullies after rantburg
Posted by: Anon1   2003-06-13 15:35:01  

#8  ...true enough non-Proxmirean, although this road kill would be too foul for even the flies to buzz around.
Posted by: Dripping Sarcasm   2003-06-13 13:41:44  

#7  Occasionally on the road we see animals runover and known as roadkill. Hamas may be the roadkill on the Roadmap to Peace
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire   2003-06-13 12:22:44  

#6  To Dripping Sarcasm: the points you make are legit; the sad thing is that until very recently virtually no one in the US was willing to face the facts (many people are still not willing to do so). Many thanks are do to Fred Pruit, LGF etc. who have made the unhappy truth accessible to people who would otherwise have been forced to get their news from CNN, NPR etc.
Posted by: mhw   2003-06-13 11:46:03  

#5  At their funeral processions on Friday, gunmen fired in the air and a Hamas loudspeaker blared: "allah's revenge is coming soon and the Zionists will pay the price of their crimes."

Firing guns at funerals, slicing heads open to let the blood run out to commemorate martyrs, beating people to a pulp and showing their victorious bloody hands to a cheering crowd, publicly lynching one of their own - just on the suspicion that he was an informant ...

Compare this to Israel, who jails for life, rather than puts to death, the man who actually killed the nations' Prime minister.

Let's imagine for the moment that as of tomorrow, Israel and palestinian arabs sign a treaty and a state is created for said Arabs. Would this new statehood suddenly transform this culture into civilized human beings, someone anyone would want to be neighbors with? the Arab states created the "palestinian people" They kept them in refugee camps rather than absorb their "poor brothers and sisters" into their own countries.

Again, contrast this to Israel, who somehow managed to absorb millions of refugees after WW2 and create a productive civilized society, only a few years after it's founding.

By the way, do any of the people polled remember that these terrorists targeted and assasinated a few government officials of their own? A U.S. ambassador, An Israeli MK, A U.S. agency operative in Jordan? Where was the outrage and indignation back then?
Posted by: Dripping Sarcasm   2003-06-13 11:18:12  

#4  First, the word 'leaders' in the poll probably caused all kinds of confusion. For example, is Arafat a terrorist leader (most Israelis are against killing him)? The science of 'fixing' polls is almost as well developed in Israel as in the US.
Secondly, we are all waiting to hear what Mubarak, etc. have to say about the possibility of taking out Yassin. If they say nothing publically and they say 'OK' privately, then Yassin is a goner.
Posted by: mhw   2003-06-13 10:15:02  

#3  (How come there's no headline/link to this article up top?)

Reuters is known for doing bogus polls. Makes me wonder about the accuracy of the financial news services that are their bread and butter.

If the majority of Israelis are truly opposed to taking out the enemy, all I've got to say is that we can't do it for them. They've got to do it for themselves. We can't give them the green light or send our guys to do it. It's more a case of do what you've got do, don't tell us about it beforehand, and we'll make a big stink in public afterwards, but we'll still be friends.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2003-06-13 10:03:07  

#2  I'm so happ;y the gloves are off, now Israel just has to NOT CARE about the court of world opinion and crush the Jihadis into the dust once and for all. I'm sick of all the years of this conflict being a raggedy arse running sore.

last night i couldn't log onto rantburg for hours, so i guess there must be many excited rantburgers just waiting for more news of hamas being ground to a bloody pulp
Posted by: Anon1   2003-06-13 09:07:14  

#1  no title? Que pasa? posting too early in the AM?
should've read: "Israel Vows War on Hamas, Poll Sees Public Opposed "
Posted by: Frank G   2003-06-13 08:40:12  

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