Israeli leaders are warning of an imminent conflagration in Gaza after Palestinian militants aimed rockets at the southern city of Ashkelon.
The deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a “bigger holocaust” in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.
Israeli air strikes have killed about 30 Palestinians, including six children in the past two days.
. . .
“The more [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio.
Correspondents say the “holocaust” is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
[From BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel warns of Gaza ‘holocaust’]
Dear Arabist,
Kindly remove the abusive comments made to me by Mp. And also see that my objective response to him is to be published.
Regards
Amre
Amre
It seems that my posts tend to attract flees from every part. Godamn . The funniest thing about banal windbags especially the ones originally from the doomed middle east and their comrades in idleness and stupidity throughout the global village, is how incapable of critical thinking they tend to be. They think that by reiterating the one dimensional discourses with which media is infested, even the alternative one, they have become innovative anti-.machine rebels. However once they have run up against ideas which stem out of premises with which they are not familiar, they promptly go back to the real roots! Prosaic primitive metrics ( afeya) which clearly demonstrate their incredible skills in vocabulary and browsing the net�
SP, So I guess you are woman then. No problem, have some dignity and honour as to reveal your identity when you decide in one of you courageous fits to rub off your banalities on others. Trust me you are not doing forsoothsayer any god by your misdemeanour
Arabist. Kindly don’t allow personal attack on your web site, since it plies this serious and educational website.
The BBC took liberties with translating the Hebrew term “shoah,” which in lower-case form and without an accompanying definitive article refers generically to a devastation or catastrophe. To-wit: the Palestinians are going to bring a catastrophe upon themselves. (A sentiment that strikes me, anyway, as self-evident.) Contrast “Ha-Shoah” which was *not* used but would mean “The Holocaust.” See further discussion on this point, here: http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2008/02/29/lost_in_translation.php.
I wonder, too, whether Arabist thinks the Palestinians “classy” in their persistent provocations.
Tyroler, as much as I disagree with Arabist on all-things-Israel, he seems quite classy himself.
But thank you for the link, you spared me having to send an angry email/letter to some ministry somewhere or other. First time I’d have been compelled to.
Tyroler, as a Israeli – and a classy one if I may add so myself – while you are technically correct, any Israeli hearing the word Shoa will think of the Shoa. Just as I believe any Arab Palestinian hearing the word Nakba will think of THE Nakba. There are plenty of other words for a catastophe (e.g Ason) which Vilnai could and should have used, if he insists on a catastrophe.
And if we’re at it, the rockets are not ‘provocations’, they are lethal bits of metal scraps that kill civilians. But anyone thinking that further catastrophes in Gaza (that would kill many more civilians) would help to solve anything, is as stupid as the rocket launchers.
Dan:
I think you misread my post. I merely wondered whether Arabist would ponder the Palestinians’ “classy” nature, as he did Israel’s.
Mink:
any Israeli hearing the word Shoa will think of the Shoa.
So, then, when you heard Vilnai, you concluded that he was threatening genocide? Give me a break.
And if we’re at it, the rockets are not ‘provocations’, they are lethal bits of metal scraps that kill civilians
You are quite right. But the rockets not only provoke response, that is quite what they are meant to do. It isn’t that “the rocket launchers” are “stupid,” as you would have it. Rather, it is that they are homicidal (I have in mind other, harsher-still characterizations but I’ll leave it at that). “The rocket launchers” have a program: 1) carry out an intent to kill as many Jews as possible and terrorize the bulk of the population into flight; 2) delegitimize the state by subjecting it to hysterical condemnations when it does, as it inevitably must, respond to deadly provocations.
What would you do? Lavish Hamastan with money, food and utilities as the UN and NGOs want, so that “the rocket launchers” can refine and intensify their efforts? Talk to them so you can discern what they really, truly want?
Indeed it is problematic to translate shoa as “a” holocuast – the terms carry different conotations, even though in the definitive, both refer to the “same” historical event. The holocuast’s original Greek meaning of a ‘burnt sacrifice’ renders it unsuitable for many to describe the destruction of Europe’s Jewery, and this is why many, like Claude Lanzman, use the Hebrew Shoa. And quite rightly, the word Shoa has no literal relation to genocide.
All this does not change the fact that the word is not used lightly in Israel – I invite you to google in Hebrew “LeHamit Shoa” – the expression Vilnai used – and see that most uses refer either to “the Shoa” or to events of “utter destruction” – which is how I would jave translated it.
For the sake of comparison, please consider the reactions when Ahmedinajed threatens Israel with destruction.
The intolerance of—or maybe blindness to?—the ironies evident in the Jewish state having turned Gaza into a huge concentration camp is sometimes a little grating. It is one thing to clear away an indigenous population—no honest north American (oops—that should be “non-indigenous North American,� and let’s the leave out the Australians, who seem to be in the throes of some kind of buyer’s remorse just now) will deny some measure of gratitude for the sterling work done in this department by our forbearers—it is quite another to expect us all to go along with these shop worn tropes of victimhood and provocation. I dunno—I guess denial is a good first line of defense, but… but who was it that said “who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?�
Purely coincidentally (want to buy a bridge? I got a nice one, hardly used at all) I was reading a piece this morning in the Independent on the Zimbardo prison experiments done at Stanford in the early 1970s. The URL is ridiculously unwieldy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/maverick-academic-philip-zimbardo-says-we-are-all-capable-of-evil-is-he-right-789161.html
this issue keeps coming up. Do you think IDF spokesman’s office reactions in the future (this operation) will be different giving the considerable evidence coming to light about Al-Dura ?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959836.html
MC, have you considered at all your placing the blame on the Gaza situation squarely on Israel is wrong, even if partly? When Israel left Gaza, no one forced Gazans to fire rockets into Israel (engendering Israeli response), to bomb their own borders (engendering border closure), to threaten their own reporters and kill dissenters, to use their boats to smuggle in weapons instead of to fish, to concentrate on hurting Israel instead of helping themselves. Ask yourself: would Israel be launching air strikes into Gaza if Hamas were not firing rockets on Israel? Would Israel have *any* excuse to close Gaza border crossings if Hamas had not bombed them? I recall even reading a quote from a Hamas official, a few years back, saying something to the effect: “y’know, maybe bombing our *own* borders was… not the wisest thing to do. Dunno, just a thought.”
It’s stupid to clear Israel of all blame for the situation, I don’t know or read anyone who does, but folks like you seem hellbent to absolve Palestinians of *all* blame. Israel hurt a lot of Palestinians a few days ago. I believe the majority of them were Hamas ‘gunmen’ or ‘militants’ or whatever you want to call them. And you know Hamas is hurting, ie Israel’s policy is working, because Hamas has only ever asked for a truce before when it was hurt. And it’s gotten so bad that Israel cannot accept the truce because it knows Hamas uses truces to regroup, get strong again, and then start the whole thing over again.
If you know a better way for Israel to get at these people, or to get them to stop, or to make things better, you should sit down and write someone important a very convincing letter.
Meantime maybe just for one second put yourself in an Israeli’s shoes, instead of weeping for the poor indigenous peoples of the world.
I hope that all made sense, I’m not re-reading it.
As for the shoa thing… I am now thoroughly confused. My Hebrew is too rusty for me to know for sure, but I suspect whatever Vilnai said stinks.
Why does nobody ever consider that the Palestinians might be firing rockets in response to Israeli attacks?
I find it hard to have sympathy for the Isrealis when the response is so disproportionate. I think the figures were about 2000 palestinians for 8 isrealis, with the vast majority of those palestinians being civilians, and large numbers being children.
Added to this, the horrific oppression of the occupied territories…
Still, the thing that disturbs me the most is the similarity in language between the Israeli government and the language of the third reich.
I’m not blaming anyone, I’m simply saying that the repeated re-invocation of “provocation” feels like someone pulling a cheese grater across my forehead. It’s a schoolyard excuse (“he hit me first”) and leads to pointless schoolyard arguments: “No he hit me first.” No prizes for guessing the next line. Repeat for 50 years. See where it gets you. Meanwhile I don’t give a crap which 6-dimensional Santa Claus signed off on what land registry, I just want the cheese grater business to stop.
What I mean is this: Reading where Dan wrote “no one forced Gazans…” and listed some of the nasty stuff they do, someone might say well, fine, but somebody did force them to become Gazans (in the sense that today we mean “Gazan,” viz. the occupant of a large open air cage, one of the most densely populated places on earth), and anybody in that situation is going to resort to violent means to get themselves and their families out of it.
Whoa! Look at that! “>” has done just that.
And now here comes that damned cheese grater again. Someone’s going to say “but they forced us to force them into that cage with their provocative acts of terrorism!”
And wouldn’t it be nice if we could avoid that somehow?
I wonder why there is never any mention of the classiness of the palestinians. I mean if you’re not going to admit that brainwashing kids to hate via cartoons is wrong, at least have the decency to admit that calling a rabbit, “assoud” (lion) is just plain wrong.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v6d2hTjUtMc
“I’m not blaming anyone, I’m simply saying that the repeated re-invocation of “provocationâ€� feels like someone pulling a cheese grater across my forehead”
Am sure there is no vaxime for your bites. That’s why you have to be handled with utmost caustion. But anyway I am sure that your pathetic brain can not handle anything more than ill-informed usless words spewd in order to make snse out of a usless pathetic life. Therefore I ma sure that caging you would be reltively easy. There I shall turn you into a friendly , good dog who thinks twice before it bites
LOL
Well, that moves the debate forward.
What’s “vaxime”?
I found this short article summed up the crappi–I mean craziness of the whole situation:
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10792645
(no subscription necessary for this one)
This article is mostly from an Israeli POV. I wonder if anyone knows of something similar from the Palestinian POV? What are their options? Keep fighting until Israel demolishes the whole strip, or wait until Israel gives up on demolishing the strip and then call that victory? Is that really Hamas’ logic?
I don’t understand why when one Israeli guy says something suddenly he represents the entire fucking nation. Such as this post.
Even when GWB says something stupid, like ‘the economy is booming and Iraq is at peace’, it’s not like the papers next day say “United States promises peace and riches.” A little parity please.
I mean, he is the deputy defense minister. Unless the Defense Ministry repudiates his comments specifically, he is speaking as an official representative of the Israeli government. Similarly, when Rice or Gates or other U.S. ministers say things in course of their official duties they are representative of the American position.
One difference that might be noted is that there is a major opposition party (such as it is) in the United States that does vocally disagree with much of “official” Bush policies and can arguably said to have more popular support than the sitting administration.
I never thought I’d cast the Democrats in a favorable light, but hell, they are a better opposition than anything in Israel currently, where the only parliamentary opposition comes from people who think the Israeli government isn’t genocidal enough.
What about the Arab MKs?
The Jews think they are above the law and above other people. If someone claims to have been subjected to a Holocaust, that person CANNNOT POSSIBLY inflict the same pain and/or threaten to inflict it on someone else…. which suggest that the ONLY real Holocaust that has taken place in our modern time is that against the Palestinians. This is the ONLY POSSIBLE LOGICAL conclusion that one can draw from the behaviour of the war criminals of the IAF and IDF.