Israel’s foreign minister has asked the UN to take a stand against the continued rocket fire from Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni demanded in a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday that the world stop ignoring attacks on Israel by Gaza militants.
Livni “demanded that the international community stop applying a policy of ignoring acts of terror aimed at hurting innocent people,” her office said in a statement.
“The international community must sound its voice and influence more clearly and decisively,” she said.
Yesterday the UN just commemorated International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People – as if having at least 12 organizations devoted to (perpetuating) the “Palestinian problem” isn’t enough. Mahmoud Abbas recently elected “President of the Palestinian State” gave a speech at the event yesterday that included a graphic (.pdf) – in the upper right hand corner – portraying all of Israel as Palestine.
Let’s remember of course that even if the UN and Palestinians complain about the lack of goods in Gaza, there’s one commodity that doesn’t suffer: rockets.
Inside this storage hold, the walls and windows had been decorated for our visit with the group’s black flags emblazoned with emblems and Arabic script. The Al-Nasser Brigades are an armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, indoctrinated by generations of Gaza’s Islamic resistance, and these days loyal to Hamas.
The room bristled with rockets in varying sizes and stages of readiness that three faceless men in balaclavas quietly choreographed in a showcase of firepower. There was even a spotlight to afford better lighting for the camera. Large red warheads filled with explosives were screwed into place atop black metal tubes and hoisted onto their launching stands.
Each rocket was labeled by hand with white paint to identify its brandname and strength: According to the group, the al-Nasr 2 reaches a distance of four kilometres. The slightly better al-Nasr 3 rocket can go nearly three times as far. t is the al-Nasr 4 — at a daunting two-plus metres in length — that is the triumph of their development efforts.
The rocket has a range of 20 kilometers, proven last May when one of them careened into a shopping mall in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. It happened to coincide with a visit to Israel by US president George W. Bush.
The famous tradeoff of guns and butter has been altered to today’s Gaza where the new paradigm is flour and rockets. From what I can tell, the rockets are winning.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
