OxBlog

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

# Posted 8:49 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

NOTES FROM THE WEST BANK: Here's something interesting Scott Wilson of the WaPo told PBS a few days ago:
You are seeing Hamas gunmen using private property, whether it's people's garages or their orchards or their rooftops, usually, most likely, against the people inside's will, to go ahead and to stage the attacks on the Israeli tanks and troops.

Yesterday, I saw a woman out in a street as Hamas gunmen were laying mines along a street, burying them under piles of garbage, running detonators into backyards, essentially. A woman came out of her house and started screaming at them and gesturing them to go away, to go away. And they ignored her.

So, there is some sense in these communities that this kind of resistance only makes things much worse for them.
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Comments:
So tell me, why do you think Israeli troops are shooting water tanks on top of civilian houses?


I guess Hamas gunmen are crouched inside them, right???
 
As Wilson notes, the Hamas gunmen positions themselves on rooftops.

As you observe, the rooftops are where the water tanks are.
 
oddly, belgravia dispatch thinks this is only about the kidnapped soldier, and ignores the constant provacations to which Israel has been subject since Hamas came to power. He also echos the accusation that this is "collective punishment" ignoring the real military rationales behind Israeli actions.

He further pokes at "right wing blogs" (reynolds?) for ignoring deeper analysis, which is odd, considering how shallow his own analysis is.

He implies that the failure of the Pals to develop civil society is due to Israeli "collective punishment", which is so misleading, and so unfair, as to be on the point of revolting.

I point this out here, as he does not have a working comments feature, and is another "centrist" blog.

Carry on.
 
"oddly, belgravia dispatch thinks this is only about the kidnapped soldier, and ignores the constant provacations to which Israel has been subject since Hamas came to power."

That guy is a State Department/"Realist"/Big media conventional wisdom thinker. Deeply unserious person.
 
I beg to differ. Belgravia (aka Greg) is a very serious and thoughtful person who carries no brief for the State Department, realists or big media.

He even worked at a point for one of the most hawkish, anti-realist, anti-State Department, anti-big media conservatives.
 
Wow, those must be some pretty big water tanks, or else Israeli soldiers must be consistently rather poor shots.

I imagine Hamas gunmen were entwined around the power generators as well?? Were they hiding up in the branches of the olive trees the settlers pulled down???
 
"He even worked at a point for one of the most hawkish, anti-realist, anti-State Department, anti-big media conservatives."

The key word; "worked" Certainly not anymore, he's almost unreadable. He's like Sullivan. Supports a war and then wants to disassociate himself from the obstacles and chaos that are inherent in any conflict. That's the most unrealistic, dishonest and unserious position that anyone can take.
 
NDK, I believe you've set yourself up quite well. Here is the passage from Scott Wilson's report that precedes the excerpt provided in my original post:

"You are seeing Hamas gunmen using private property, whether it's people's garages or their orchards or their rooftops, usually, most likely, against the people inside's will, to go ahead and to stage the attacks on the Israeli tanks and troops."

To be fair, Wilson doesn't specify what kind of orchards. Olive? Lemon? Orange? But clealry, Palestinian fighters are using them for cover during battle.

On the bright side, it isn't a violation of the laws of war to use trees for cover. I'm really more concerned about Hamas using hospitals and mosques and places like that.

Yet amazingly, the Israelis almost never blow up the mosques or the hospitals. As you suggest, the best explanation for this may be that the Israeli soldiers are known for being poor shots.
 
Its interesting but not unusual, most guerilla warfare has to traverse through civilian areas. Remember also, that in a place like Gaza, which I was looking up, houses 1.5 million people incredibly tightly (one of the densest population areas on Earth) there probably isn't a singe area that doesnt have civilians in it.
 
"... there probably isn't a singe area that doesnt have civilians in it."

That isn't the case. It's not wall to wall people there despite the density numbers. It's just that urban areas make up a relatively large part of the area.

Picture Washington, DC. It is about half the size of the Gaza Strip and has a population density roughly 25% higher than the Gaza Strip. If you are familiar with the city, you know there is a lot of open area there.

I'm going to weigh in about Belgravia Dispatch. I had actually sent Greg a note about that post before reading the criticism here (touching on some of the points raised here, and others).

What's the old saying - a conservative is a liberal mugged by reality.

Greg strikes me as a neo-conservative mugged by reality and a still smarting a bit from the attack.

I think he is very much worth reading. I just think he tried to address two separate topics in too short a post and it came out muddled and overly simplistic. I think his reference to collective punishment was referring to the cutting off of aid to Hamas (a premise I also disagree with).

The so-called collective punishment of the Gaza crisis is actually a result of Hamas' unwillingness even to try to implement democratic/governmental norms (i.e., not letting one's territory be used as a base from which attacks on another country are launched), not because of it.

The so-called collective punishment of the aid cutoff is the result of the same root cause - the Palestinian governments refusal to adopt democratic/governmental norms, which include recognizing a UN member state and not supporting terror attacks against it - not the cause of it.
 
"I beg to differ. Belgravia (aka Greg) is a very serious and thoughtful person who carries no brief for the State Department, realists or big media.

He even worked at a point for one of the most hawkish, anti-realist, anti-State Department, anti-big media conservatives"

I dont disagree hes serious and thoughtful. Why i used to read him.

But lately hes gotten vicious about the neocons, about democracy promotion in the ME, and yes, rather defensive about the State Dept and realists.

I dont know who he used to work for. Hes obviously a conservative. But lately hes been focusing on quoting George Will, Bill Buckley, Henry Kissinger and Brezinski against the neocons. Havent seen him quote Jim Baker (yet), but for a hawkish liberal, or liberal hawk, or pro-democratization democrat, or whatever, its become very uncomfortable - not just that we are in disagreement (that ok) but that hes become very disagreeable about the disagreement. He thinks his arrows are aimed at Frank Gaffney or Richard Perle or the National Review, but the substance of them hits equally, if not more, at Bill Kristol, and even Paul Berman.

You should have seen his defense of Mubarak, for ex.
 
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