I don’t have much to say but I wish HAMAS will be wise one day and know that it is really important to give life a meaning. The consequence of throwing missile into Israel is never at their advantage.

James Clinton

Response from Sis Zabrina

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email. We, at COMPLETE appreciate you taking the time to write us your comments and opinion.

After reading your email, here is our response.

We quote “Can you tell me the intention of HAMAS when they are throwing missiles into Israel?” and “You don’t initiate conflict with someone more powerful’.

May we bring your attention to a few facts:

a) A few days into the war, various news agencies including CNN, verified and confirmed that it was Israelis who had broken the ceasefire first which means that they are the ones who violated and attacked the Palestinians in Gaza. This means that their ’self-defense’ reasoning was a total lie. Unfortunately, due to unprofessional and biased reporting by the many media, only a handful has acknowledged their errors.

Kindly click on the independent links provided below as proof that the ceasefire was first broken by Israelis and not Hamas as claimed. If you need more sources, we would be glad to provide.

Source: Anti War. Title: Israel Rejected Hamas Cease-Fire Offer in December

Source: CNN. Title: CNN Confirms Israelis Broke Cease-Fire First

Source: Global Research (Center for Reserach and Globalization ). Title: Israel Slow Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine

Source: Redress Information and Analysis. Title: Israel Lies Machine Dodging Killer Question

b) We would also like to respond to your opinion that “you don’t initiate conflict with someone more powerful”.

1- First of all, the Palestinians are being occupied and the Israelis as the occupier. No one has refuted this basic fundamental fact.

2- Reflecting into history, the resistance by the occupied against its occupier is nothing new. Let us bring your attention to some historical facts below:

a- Refer back to the Vietnamese war where the villages armed with mediocre weapons and tunnel strategy against the mighty United States of America. Resisting and fighting against ’someone more powerful’ was seen as a necessary step to achieve independence from their occupier. This resistance against ’someone more powerful’ has led them to their freedom.

b- The Huk rebellion in the Philippines which can be considered as traditional insurgency group first surfaced as an armed force; had resisted the Japanese occupation of the Second World War.

c- The Indonesians fight against the Dutch using merely sharpened bamboos as bamboos are easily available; and they won. People need to use whatever resources they have around them to defend themselves against occupiers- whatever it may be.

d- The Somalis won and kicked the Americans out of their countries using normal mediocre weapons.

e- The British failed at Suez and Gallipoli against the people who resisted being occupied.

f- The Hezbollah won against Israelis noted as the 4th biggest army in the world by using mediocre weapons during the last Lebanese-Israeli war.

g- The Soviets lost badly in Afghanistan who simply used again, normal mediocre weapon as compared to their occupiers.

h- In fact, looking into history, resistance movements that had used normal mediocre weapons and was in ‘conflict’ against their so-called ’someone more powerful’ had won.

Should the people in the occupied land submit to their ‘fate’ without fighting for their rights, just because the occupiers are more powerful? We leave the answer to you, Sir.

And it is interesting that you mentioned Hamas should know the importance of giving life a meaning. We totally agree with you. But what would really give life a meaning to the Palestinians?

It is this- To RETURN back what is theirs.

And if only Israelis could act as such…

Sincerely,
Zabrina A Bakar
COMPLETE.

Response from Azra Banu

A. Thank you for your email. Your comments and opinions are valuable to us and most appreciated.

Any objective and just analysis of this situation must go beyond 27th December 2008. The latest invasion of Gaza cannot be looked at isolated and independent of the factors and circumstances that culminated in this ‘monstrosity’ as described by Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, President of the United Nations General Assembly.

An Egyptian brokered truce between Hamas and Israel took effect on 19th June 2008. Part of this truce included the lifting of Israel’s siege of Gaza, which it had imposed after the June 2007 Hamas takeover. Israel however failed to honour this and Gaza was left on the brink of a humanitarian crisis, with serious shortages of medicine, food, electricity, fuel; in essence all basic necessities to life.

It is a documented fact and reported by several news agencies that it was indeed Israel that had violated the truce when on November 4th 2008, it conducted an air raid that killed six Palestinians. This brings into question Israel’s constant line that it acted in self-defense. If the various news agencies had as a barometer, truth, objectivity and integrity, this fact would not have gone largely unnoticed.

For more on this kindly click on the links provided and should you require more sources, we will be more than happy to oblige.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4

http://www.ww4report.com/node/6572

As to the question that “you don’t initiate conflict with someone more powerful”, again to be fair, one must look beyond the borders of the apparent.

Israel is an occupying force. The Palestinians have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967 in their own land. They have been dispossessed, their lands stolen and made refugees in their own homeland. In fact the vast majority of people in Gaza are refugees made homeless with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. This fact is indisputable.

The loss of any life is tragic, be they Palestinian or Israeli, but the fact remains that many of the areas that were targeted by Hamas’s rockets were illegal settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, an act condemned by United Nations and the world at large. It would be highly unreasonable, in fact outrageous to expect the Palestinians to sit idly by and have their lands snatched by an intrusive force. And for these illegal settlers to demand that they be left to dwell in peace and tranquility by the people they stole from is unconscionable. Imagine a thief questioning his victim’s retaliation.

Hamas is not the first to fight Israeli occupation, nor will they be the last. The Palestinians have been resisting the Israelis since their land was first stolen from them. Man’s expansive history provides abundant examples of resistance to an occupying force or colonial masters. One need only look at the resistance in Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Algeria even the American war of independence; a pattern repeated through the annals of history across the globe. Where man has been oppressed, he has resisted.

These resistance movements always had a David versus Goliath slant. The occupied had the least sophisticated of weapons and suffered heavier casualties and losses but they fought on relentlessly till independence was achieved. Today the Palestinians are fighting for national liberation against a colonial Zionist state, an occupying force that is the fourth mightiest military power in the world, backed by the mightiest, the USA. So despite the odds, the Palestinians will continue to resist for to not do so would be to succumb to oppression.

It is indeed important to give meaning to life. Everyone deserves the right to live in peace in their homeland and not witness the atrocities committed on one’s people through generations. To compound matters, the world is disturbingly quiet. Is it too much to ask for the occupation to end and for the Palestinians to be given their land back and be allowed to return home? Or should the Palestinians just meekly surrender their homes and dignity, and leave their fate at the hands of a powerful and brutal force?

Azra Banu
Secretary
COMPLETE