Talk:Gaza Strip

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Here is some of the text I was able to save from the BBC website when the story disappears[edit]

A Liverpool surgeon has said he felt a "big, big relief" when he was reunited with his family in the UK after fleeing Gaza. Dr Abdelkader Hammad, who has spent the past 10 years visiting the area to undertake kidney transplants and train local doctors,... Ottawahitech (talk) 19:24, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Surplus[edit]

  • The Hamas attack... shook the Middle East and shattered many assumptions and misconceptions about the region. It’s not that Israel was shocked at the daring nature of the attack, but that Israel had long assumed that the Palestinian problem is dead and that there is no need to engage in a so-called peace process — even if managed by the U.S., the least neutral party in the Arab-Israeli conflict outside of Tel Aviv. Reflecting the belief in the death of Palestine as a question, the Biden administration was the first U.S. administration since Lyndon Johnson to not even attempt to launch a peace process regarding the Palestinian problem, demonstrating its belief that the issue is over. Joe Biden fully subscribed to the Jared Kushner school of thought and diplomacy, which believes Arabs don’t care anymore about Palestine and Israel can simply reach peace agreements with individual Arab states, after which Arab public opinion would follow. Little is being said about Biden adopting Kushner’s view of Middle East politics, which makes Palestine irrelevant in U.S. foreign policy in the region.
  • Had this 'Spring' been genuine, it would've started in the backward Arab countries. Were it a call for freedom, democracy, justice, it would've began in the most oppressive and tyrannical states... There is no clearer evidence than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine?
  • There is another story, that we tried to impose upon him [Arafat] cantons, Bantustans. Total lie. We talked about 80%+ of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. How can it become non-contiguous? And if you have some reservation against this or that curl of the border, at some corner, come to the table, negotiate it, and demand that this will be removed. I can go with you more and more, and I cannot afford spending more time on it, but basically, all these were stories that were invented in order to explain to his own people, and maybe to try to convince honest people in the free world how come that such an opportunity had been missed. Of course, I had my own demands, to protect Israel, to ensure our security, to make sure that we know where do we head. I said loud and clear: we have to put an end to this asymmetric process where we are supposed to give tangible assets, and the Palestinians have just to give vague promises about the nature of future relationship. I said I'm ready to go very far, but I want to know, now, that there is a partner, which is ready and capable to make tough decisions, and painful decisions. I was a great supporter of the peace of the brave, but never a supporter of peace of ostriches, where you put your head in the sand, let whatever happen, happen, and then wake up and say, OK, that's what happened. We cannot afford this approach. That's the reality.
  • So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world. And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all. The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause. This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us. Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can. "By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone". For those people who lost their lives on September 11 and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial.
    • Tony Blair, Speech to the 2001 Labour Party Conference (2 October 2001).
  • Israel too has sharply criticized the ICC. While the court welcomes the membership of the so-called "State of Palestine," it has threatened Israel -- a liberal, democratic nation -- with investigation into its actions in the West Bank and Gaza to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks. There has also been a suggestion that the ICC will investigate Israeli construction of housing projects on the West Bank. The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel. And today, reflecting congressional concern with Palestinian attempts to prompt an ICC investigation of Israel, the Department of State will announce the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, DC. As President Reagan recognized in this context, the Executive has "the right to decide the kind of foreign relations, if any, the United States will maintain," and the Trump Administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to take steps to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel. The United States supports a direct and robust peace process, and we will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel's right to self-defense.
  • Dershowitz: The Israeli military then did an analysis, and they discovered, of course, that when they dropped that bomb and killed those people, they had no idea that those people were in the building, and the people who made the decision to drop the bomb were criticized and disciplined for it. The point I make is, when they knew, for sure, that family members were there, they withheld doing it. That doesn't deny the fact that on occasion they will accidentally make a decision that's wrong. The difference is deliberateness, willfulness… Norman Finkelstein: …That was a nice fairy tale, dropping a 1 ton bomb on a densely populated civilian neighborhood in Gaza, and they had no idea that civilians would be there. And then he goes on to fantasy #2, that those who did it were disciplined. Really, Mr. Dershowitz? I'd love the evidence for that. I mean, if I could get $10,000 for every one of your fraudulent statements…
  • Let me also say that in many ways this administration has been better than I would have guessed, at the team they have assembled for national security and more responsible then I would have guessed in their policies.  But there’s one thing they’ve announced that I think we should very aggressively question and challenge and that is a proposal to spend hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding the Gaza strip through agencies infiltrated by terrorists.  And let me be very clear.  There are still missiles being fired every day from Gaza.  We did not start rebuilding Germany in the middle of 1943 on the grounds that if we could only find good Germans that we could work with, they would take care of the bad Nazis.  And we did not start rebuilding Japan in 1943 on the grounds that if only we could find good Japanese they could convince the militarists to be pleasant.  We understood that when you have opponents who want to destroy you, you have to first win the war and then rebuild. The war does not have to involve American troops and the war does not actually have to involve much violence.  Ronald Reagan as you’ll see in our movie, defeated the Soviet empire in 10 years with a grand strategy and collaboration with Pope John Paul II and Prime Minister Thatcher.  North Korea, Iran, and Hamas are mortal threats to the survival of western civilization.  And it is absolutely irresponsible to believe that those regimes can stay in power and we can find a negotiated agreement.  In all three cases, we need nonmilitary but very sophisticated efforts at regime replacement and we need to say to the planet, somebody who threatens to destroy one of our cities is somebody we’re not going to tolerate and we’re not going to say well, we’ll get even after you take out our city.  The idea of trading Tehran for Washington was abhorrent to Ronald Reagan and it should be abhorrent to every American.  Mutual assured destruction is I think an immoral strategy and is not one that we can tolerate particularly against suicide bombers who would be thrilled to swap their capitol for our capitol.  And so I think we have to understand and this administration had better learn pretty quickly, we may not be interested in war, but our enemies are.  And our enemies are dangerous and some of these threats can be mortal.  And so I think this is a very important component.
  • Our humanitarian aid ensures more than half of the population, especially in the Gaza Strip, which lacks the most basic necessities for survival: food and basic health care. Hamas, on the other hand, offers them nothing but poverty and suffering. Hamas is not acting in the interests of the Palestinian people. And it is unfortunately foreseeable: The suffering and hardship of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip will only increase. Hamas is also responsible for this with its attack on Israel. Dear Colleagues: Even if it is difficult for us at the moment -- in view of the terrible reports and images from Israel and the Gaza Strip -- we must also look at the long-term perspective of the Middle East. There have certainly been changes for the better there in recent times: the normalization of relations between Israel; the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020; the end of the Qatar crisis in 2021; the resumption of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023; the last chance for a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as well. We must not allow terror to destroy these positive developments. And that may be precisely the goal of terror. All the more reason for us to continue to use diplomatic means to find solutions to the numerous conflicts in the region. In doing so, we will not give up the goal that our Israeli friends and the Palestinians who want peace will one day be able to live side by side and without terror, even if that seems further away than ever today.
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