Palestinians blow hole in border wall... to go shopping.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

by iamelgringo • 19 years ago

9 20 19 years ago

news.yahoo.com

I know that this is off topic for Hacker News, but it was just too weird to let it pass.

iamelgringo• 19 years ago

I know this is off topic for Hacker News, but it was just too weird to pass up without sharing.

mynameishere• 19 years ago

I could never understand Israel with respect to Gaza. The closest I could come up with--Israel increases the pressure on Gaza to the near-breaking point, only to suddenly withdraw. At that point, they make a slight and subtle but meaningful advance on the West Bank. The West Bank, unlike Gaza, is economically and strategically valuable. But still...does it really take a blockade to do this?

curi8• 19 years ago

Israel's policy hasn't been entirely consistent in its aims. There are rival political forces which disagree. Just like US policies sometimes change after elections.

But Israel has other factors making it difficult to be consistent, too. Specifically, variable international pressure, and inconsistent support from the US.

The heart of the problem, which makes a policy difficult to agree on, is that on the one hand Israel ought to defend itself vigorously enough that zero innocent Israelis are killed by violent thugs. And on the other, Israel is under massive pressure not to do that, and not even the US will support Israel in defending its citizens enough to keep all of them alive.

jorgeortiz85• 19 years ago

Zero innocent Israeli civilians killed is obviously a noble goal.

But not at the expense of N>0 innocent Palestinian civilians killed.

Mistone• 19 years ago

an oddly titled article - its amazing to me that there is international political pressure to quickly re-contain / restrict a group of people in need of basic food, supplies, and services.

curi8• 19 years ago

I agree -- the international community should decisively deal with the problem of violent thugs in control of the Gaza Strip, and be done with it, rather than letting everyone involved suffer slowly, and then having to deal with it decisively at some later date.

Palestinians blow hole in border wall... to go shopping.

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