Yes, the D-word is being used.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of using disproportionate violence in its attacks on the Gaza Strip Saturday.
The bombardment must stop immediately, Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said in Paris.
Sarkozy also condemned the launching of rockets by Palestinian militants on Israel from the Gaza Strip and called for an end to the “unjustifiable provocation” that had led to the current situation.
There was no military solution in the Gaza Strip, he said.
Really? Because the world also said there was no military solution to Iraq and al-Qaeda, and they were, well, wrong. Say, so much for Sarkozy being a different French president, huh? (Jewish heritage? So what?)
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Saudi King Abdullah on Saturday called for an immediate halt to the Israeli raids, a Palestinian diplomatic source told the AFP news agency.
“President Abbas and the Saudi sovereign discussed developments in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and agreed to denounce it forcefully and urge an immediate halt to it,” the source told AFP by telephone from Rawdat Kharim south of Riyadh after the two leaders met.
Yeah, we don’t care what the oil ticks think, and Abbas is the guy that Hamas ignores.
Moscow added its voice Saturday to calls for an immediate end to Middle East violence.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko called on Israel to end its “combat activities which have already led to great loss and suffering among the peaceful Palestinian population.”
At the same time he called on the Hamas organization to stop its rocket attacks against Israeli territory.
Nesterenko stressed that the problems of the Middle East had to be solved at the negotiating table. An international conference is due to go ahead in Moscow in the New Year.
I have one word for you, Comrade: Georgia.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, according to CNN, said Israel needs to avoid civilian deaths in its operations against Hamas. But, in the same statement, Johndroe also lambasted Hamas for its attacks on Israel and its support for terrorism.
Yeah, that goes without saying. Good for you, W., for not kowtowing to the incoming administration’s anti-Israel crowd.
Islamic Jihad encouraged a different tactic. “All fighters are ordered to respond to the Israeli slaughter,” it said in a statement.
Yeah, the IDF should have bombed the PIJ rally on Friday. But now I know why they didn’t. They were prepping for today’s op.
What does Sarkozy think the current status of France would be had the U.S. and Britain not used “disproportionate violence” against Nazi Germany?
Question: What is Israel’s long term goal toward Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sanai Peninsula and the Golan Heights?
Next Question: What is the Palestinians long term goal toward Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sanai Peninsula and the Golan Heights?
Last Question: What can both sides do to truly, honestly and respectfully negotiate a REAL peaceful truce between these two very embittered and divisive peoples?
Say, Mary Jo, you are aware that Israel gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt in the 1970s, aren’t you? Right now, Israel’s plans for the Sinai are generally of the vacation variety. I hear there are some decent resorts there.
Methinks you need to do a little more homework before asking those tough questions.
Disproportionate? Absolutely; Israel is once again holding back.
Mary Jo, you are implicitly assuming that the Palestinian leadership values the same kind of things that normal people value: peace, economic growth, artistic creativity, life itself. I submit that there is not the slightest warrant for this assumption.
The motto of the Spanish Falangists was “long live death!” The worldview of the Palestinian leadership is similar but perhaps even more extreme.
Mary Jo,
The Palestinian Arabs’ long term goal towards Israel is the destruction of that country and the genocide of the Jews. How do you think Israel can compromise with that?
As for negotiating a real peace, the initiative is exclusively in the Arabs’ hands. There is nothing Israel can do to bring about peace, except possibly commit mass suicide, which most of us consider unacceptable (but which most Euros and some American policy makers seem to consider a viable option). Israel can do nothing to bring about peace, and the Arabs will do nothing, for they seek genocide of the Jews. That goes for the “embittered and divisive” people among the Pali Arabs.
The Palis do not want a state and do not want peace. They have petulently tossed away every opportunity they had, and they had many, to set up a state or to make peace. If they can kill Jews they will be content with whatever tyrant wants to oppress them. The Palis are marinated in their jihadist, nihilistic psychopathology, an unholy amalgam of modern day totalitarianism, antisemitism, and will to power, mixed together with backward looking Islamic supremacism and religious hatred.
The same mixture powers the jihadists who attack every non-Muslim group all over the world, as shown recently in India. So they came first for the Jews, but they are coming for you next. Beware lest you soon have to face the same choices Israel has had to face for decades, resistance or death. Kumbaya will not deflect the jihadists.