Scott Ritter: Israeli Assault on Gaza is Doomed to Fail
Posted by sashimi on October 11, 2023, 7:40 pm
11 Oct 2023
Israel has amassed some 300,000 troops, armed with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery, and supported by helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.
Their mission is to secure the perimeter around Gaza to make sure that Hamas fighters are not able to sortie forth and commit atrocities against the citizens of Israel like those that occurred on October 7 and 8. At some point it is estimated that these troops will be ordered into Gaza for the purpose of destroying Hamas as an organization. But the sad fact is that the Israeli Army today is not up to such a mission. It lacks the training and fortitude for a task like that, regardless of outcome, and will cost Israel thousands of lives if seen to fruition. Any Israeli assault on Gaza is doomed to fail before it even begins. -- Cont'd at https://sputnikglobe.com/20231011/scott-ritter-israeli-assault-on-gaza-is-doomed-to-fail-1114109205.html
Cynthia Pooler w/ Scott Ritter: The conflict in the Middle East
14:43 The Palestinian people are, by and large, peaceful. They are suffering egregious harm and, while they're angry, they aren't the ones perpetrating this violence. The people carrying this out, again the (most recent?) attack were done by hardcore Hamas fighters, people who've bought into the Muslim Brotherhood's very strict interpretation of Islam; people who have taken an oath to a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel. This isn't what the Palestinian people are doing, but once again it's the Palestinian people that are paying the heaviest price - those children who are dying in Gaza today because Israeli pilots flying American airplanes dropping American bombs are slaughtering them by the hundreds. Those are innocents. They have nothing to do with this but they're the ones paying the price. The Hamas fighters - they're underground in a bunker, living, waiting for the moment that the Israeli army crosses into Gaza so that they can rise up from a tunnel behind them and kill them, slaughter them like lambs - that's what Hamas is waiting for but not the Palestinian people. They don't want this, they didn't ask for this. All they want to do is live in their own land. They didn't ask to be confined in an open air concentration camp - some people call it an open air prison but it's not a prison. A prison is where you put convicts, people who've committed crimes. The Palestinia people are innocent, they haven't committed any crimes. Their only crime, apparently, in the eyes of the Israelis is to have been born. That is not a crime. They deserve to live normal lives. They don't deserve to be cooped up. They deserve the right of return. They should be allowed to go back to the land, the villages where their parents, their grandparents lived before they were forcefully evicted by the Israelis in 1948. That's what should be happening, but it's not happening and now innocent Israelis are paying the price, but again, let's put it this way - I don't believe any civilian should be killed. It's a war crime - shouldn't happen. Tired of talking about innocent Israelis. Let me give you an example - in the town of Sderot, north of Gaza, the Hamas fighters came in and they perpetrated crimes; they kicked down the doors and they killed the Israeli civilians - unarmed civilians who lived there and people go "Well, these innocent Israelis". Well, let me remind people that in 2014, these same innocent Israeli citizens were sitting up on a hill outside of Sderot while the Israeli airforce bombed Gaza, killing hundreds of innocent Palestinians and as the Israeli airforce bombed them, as the explosions went off, these people were eating a barbecue and cheering and when asked about this by the media, they said the Palestinians aren't humans, they're animals; they deserve everything they're getting. There's nothing innocent that. Those citizens of Sderot and those people who live around Gaza know damn well what's going on, just like the Germans that lived next to the concentration camps that were disposing of Jewish bodies in crematoriums and they'd wipe off falling ash from their shoulder and march on as if nothing happened. These people allowed this open air concentration camp to exist for decades, they cheered as the Israeli airforce dropped bombs on those people, those humans that lived just a few miles away from them, cheering while they were slaughtered and you want me to say they're innocent? Not on your life, they shouldn't have been killed - they're civilians, their death is a crime and hopefully there'll be justice for this, but there's nothing innocent about them
23:15 And I'm sorry it took the deaths of so many Israeli citizens, again, I'm not going to use the word innocent except children, but if you lived in Israel as an adult and you've tolerated the government that continues to perpetrate these ongoing crimes against the Palestinians; if you haven't spent your every waking moment demonstrating in the street saying "Not my Israel, not my government, not me", then you're not innocent - shouldn't have been killed but you're not innocent. Israel is not the innocent party here, Israel is not the victim, Israel is the victimizer and they've been victimizing the Palestinian people for decades but we pretend it's not happening. It's happening Cynthia. Why now? When's a good time for people to stand up and defend their rights? When is the right time to do it? It's not about convenience to the West, it's about people unable, unwilling to continue to be treated in this fashion and it's not the Palestinian people that did this, but it's Hamas feeding off the anger, feeding off the righteous outrage against Israel for what they do every day. Israel empower, Israel created Hamas, Israel empowered Hamas and now Israel is paying the price for its mistakes.
Scott on electrifying and inspiring form. The best I've ever seen
Posted by scrabb on October 12, 2023, 12:27 am, in reply to "On "Innocence""
nm
Re: On "Innocence"
Posted by Ian M on October 12, 2023, 1:46 pm, in reply to "On "Innocence""
Good to see I'm not alone in questioning the stated innocence of these people, and the point about cheering on the bombing of Gaza is well made. However I'm surprised to see the assumptions in the first quote about ordinary Palestinians not supporting the resistance. How does he know that 'they don't want this, they didn't ask for this'? The celebrations in Gaza would seem to suggest otherwise. I suppose it's possible that many disapprove of the attack on Israel for the inevitable backlash it would bring on civilians - always a dynamic of asymmetric resistance warfare - but seems like the burden of proof would be on the one claiming that ordinary Palestinians didn't support the action, given that Hamas were elected and afaik have enjoyed broad popular support up to this point.
Also surprising to see Ritter repeat the propaganda point about Hamas being dedicated to the 'destruction' of Israel. He should know that Hamas dropped this wording from their charter in 2006: https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2006/jan/12/israel
Nothing, it just plays into the depiction of Hamas as uncompromising racists who want to push Israeli Jews into the sea, which zionists then use as the justification for further atrocities because you can't negotiate with trrrists who only want to destroy you.Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
Re: What's wrong with flushing this apartheid tyranny roung the u-bend of history?