short summary:
i think the OP has no clue about life in gaza or he would not be asking for a money grab under the pretense that gaza has no support system
detailed waffle:
if you live in Gaza strip.. you would know that they do have money, people have jobs and yes even while news media is showing recordings of a few bombed buildings, people are still going to work.
when governments battle each other its best to use government funds to fix the problem after all bitcoins are not really useful there and any donation will just end up being converted to dollars and given to a UN humanitarian aid corporation. which is already well funded. thus wasted on their funding campaign advertising and corporate office wages.
i do love watching these media stories that like to show lots of tanks but then when you look closely, you see average joe resident smoking a cigarette doing their every day lives, or kids with their smart phones recording the tanks.
media make it sound like a whole country is being bombed and asked to evacuate when infact its only a few buildings. most of which, if known to be general residential buildings that just happen to have some strategic importance, the opposite side "roof knocks" with light yield artillery as a warning shot many minutes before actually using the heavy building busting artillery.
of course there are still casualties but it is not like the whole country is in an apocalypse zone of death. media shout that is a "massive" or "huge" loss of life, im sorry but the death toll OF A WHOLE COUNTRY is similar to the MH17 plan crash in the ukraine.
should planes be told not to fly if 300 people out of millions is "huge". i know wars and death are no laughing matter, but if people were to take away the propaganda of exaggeration and actually analyze the facts that do leak through, you too will see that people still go to work, drive their cars, go shopping. its not a world war... although America want you to believe it is.
it is not a desert country with no support system either.
watch this for instance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tdwbl1Yj1cat the start, people driving their cars, office workers having a smoke break, yes there's a missile hitting a building. but people are not running for cover afraid of their lives. instead they run towards it. then you see that the country has an emergency team.
i wish people would stop thinking that foreign countries are like native indians. or that wars affect EVERYONE, this is not a genocide event, life still happens and people are not running around for their lives.
"media make it sound like a whole country is being bombed and asked to evacuate when infact its only a few buildings"
OK, I'm not intending starting an argument, and I agree that the mains stream media are massively exaggerating OR UNDER-REPORTING on the situation depending on where you get your info, but to say that it's [sic] 'governments are fighting each other' and people are [sic] 'doing their everyday lives' is also misrepresenting the situation. If not then why have 10s of thousands fled the 'country' (IE Gaza) in the last days? Yes, it's not like Godzilla just arrived on the port and is causing mass panic and everyone screaming and running around like you see in the movies, but it's still bombs and shells being dropped on a small piece of land that is VERY densely populated by civilians (40% under 15 years old last I heard).
Gaza is about 30KM by 15KM, how far is 30KM from you (about 20 miles if youre still using C18 Empire measurement system, oh snap)?
Well, imagine one of the largest militarys bombing and shelling that area every day for the last week or more.
Also note that the only other piece of substantial Palestinain land is the west bank, so they are not bombing 'a whole country' its true, but its basically like bombing NYC and saying they are bombing the whole of NY state (assuming state is only about 5 times the size of the city - its actually 100s times bigger but its kinda anti New York either way, if you see what Im getting at).
I can imagine that many in Gaza are relatively relaxed about the situation (relative compared to how westeners would react if it were their local city/area), given that they have had to put up with Israeli occupation and attacks on their 'country' for decades, so I can see how people might not be going crazy but, man seriously, I would bet that everyone in Gaza are (or should) be scared that they will be bombed or shot any day at any time or that their house will be turned to rubble any day, any time... just because 'just' a few buildings get knocked down in this
latest incursion, doesnt mean its not a huge deal and considering its been 40+ years of this crap...
Anyway, my point is that while many in the media do exaggerate what is happening and only showing the worst of it (ie showing the worst aspects in Gaza and or overstating how 'bad' it is in Israel), it's still completely unacceptable and horrific. The facts are that hospitals are overwhelmed and are running out of supplies. Israel controls who goes in and who comes out. The Palestinians that do manage to get out well, lets see if they are allowed to return back in after this 'operation'. The ones that stay are being bombed, and live in fear of having their home destroyed and family blown away.
Some news that does 'leak through' as you put it (that is unverified yet): an ambulance was hit by Israeli strike that killed a paramedic, aAlso, the non western media are hit as usual:
https://twitter.com/PalAnonymous/status/490794487573381121/photo/1https://twitter.com/MaramAzzam/status/490818377795915776/photo/1Here you can see Israeli tanks just firing over the hill side into Gaza, (I don't think there's much precision there) along with the people flooding the hospital.
http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/live-gaza-bombing-continues-ceasefire/802MAybe all these pictures are fake or something, but if even 50% are not real, its still very bad, even if its just a few buildings here and there, no?
"and asked to evacuate when infact its only a few buildings. most of which, if known to be general
residential buildings that just happen to have some strategic importance, the opposite side "roof knocks" with light yield artillery as a warning shot many minutes before actually using the heavy building busting artillery. " (my emphasis)
They usually have 3 minutes to evacuate their homes before they are bombed. It's interesting that if anyone doesnt make it out of these
residential building in those 3 minutes and are killed its legal in Israel because they are then deemed human shields or worse because they were in a building getting bombed... How fast can you get out of your 6th story apartment and down all those flights of stairs assisting your injured mother and far enough away to safety (working elevators, yeah right) - 3mins enough?
Some buildings do have strategic value, but since Hamas funds and builds many civil buildings (they are basically their democratically elected government, despite their terrorist side), they are considered legit anyway - whether they had rockets firing from the roof or not.
"media shout that is a "massive" or "huge" loss of life, im sorry but the death toll OF A WHOLE COUNTRY is similar to the MH17 plan crash in the ukraine."
Wait, what? 300 people died in the plane that was shot down (probably by Russian armed groups). That was an incidental tradgy, I dont think they wanted to shoot down a civilian plane... so far 400+ people have died since Israel army started it's latest incursion on Palestinian territories (7 Israeli, 400 Palst). Maybe Im missing something of what youre saying here... but Israel attacks Palestine on purpose, the plane was almost certainly an accidental shooting, and there were less casualties...
"it is not a desert country with no support system either."
True, there are plenty supporting them, it's just that Israel gets 100s of times the level of support, I mean, the US is the largest donor of money and weapons but can't even
say that Palestinians have the right to defend themselves - of course Israel has every right under the sun, but not for the poor brown people. No sir.
http://palestinevisrael.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/equality-the-right-of-self-defece/A simple question to ask yourself is, how many tanks and aircraft and submarines and nuclear weapons do the Palestinians have? Do the Palestinians even have a country that appears on the maps and have equal representation compared to Israel? The answer is Palestine get crumbs while Israel gets to do whatever it wants with its huge arsenal. Does Palestine control the movement of Israeli people? Does it have troops in Israel arresting people? Does it control medicine, food, water supplies of Israel? Does it prevent Israel from having its flags on maps? Not really fair to say they have support and not highlight its only a minute amount when considering the other side's assets.
"i wish people would stop thinking that foreign countries are like native indians. or that wars affect EVERYONE, this is not a genocide event, life still happens and people are not running around for their lives."
OK, I'm going to skip your Native Am comment, not sure what the hell youre getting at there (Native American genocide is not the same as other genocides?) but this is where I can see the level of knowledge you have on this, I am not an expert at all compared to some others, I used to read a lot about it but slackened off the last 10 years for various reasons, but I still know enough to say that there is strong argument that this is a
slow genocide at worst, or at best, they are trying to get the Palestinians to move away/give up their land and never return.
Also to say that war doesn't affect everyone is true, I'm sure there are plenty of people in African or Amazonian tribes that aren't affected or maybe somewhere there is a nation that has no UN representation that therefore hasn't voted for or against a peace effort or two (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_UN_resolutions_concerning_Israel_and_Palestine - whats interesting here is how many times the whole world votes for a peace process or some kind of 'end the occupation or violence' motion and at the same time the USA and Israel just veto it and it
never appears in the media)...)
but the fact is that governments that
WE pay taxes to - out of our pockets - and are
representing us, either supports Israel by selling weapons, supporting them economically by doing business with them or culturally in some way or another, or by keeping quiet on their crimes etc etc and / or they support Palestinians by voting for peace talks or sending them aid (or in small number of cases, sending them some crappy weapons like the current rockets that are terrorizing Israeli cats:
http://youtu.be/bpqiHchsbE0) or whatever it is they do. They represent us, they are doing something.
Every country in the 'west' (and plenty beyond) has had some stake or level of involvement in this. So to say it doesnt affect us or is nothing to do with us etc is just putting your head in the sand or looking the other way. Fair enough if you dont want to know or get involved or just want to opt out, but dont say its nothing to do with you or me - with all due respect, be a grown up and take responsibility for what you
can do and what you can effect, no matter how remote the situation is. You know, the difference between those that step in when they see a kid getting hit with a hammer and those that just watch and say 'its nothing to do with me'.
'It's always been like that', 'there's always fighting between Jews and Arabs', etc etc is just LAZY BS that people tell themselves to feel better and skip the hard work of educating themselves on what's happening and what they can do about it. This isn't happening on Mars, we have the internet now, we can get info around pretty quick. There are no real reasons to say this is nothing to do with you or me and there is no excuse for not knowing.
On your 'its not genocide' point, first and simplest step is to check the map of the territory since Israel was created. Just do a google image search for Palestine map or whatever, and you can see how much of the land that was Palestine before WW2, the
legal 1967 boarder and where we are today. Since Israel are not fans of letting the world see how much they have annexed over the last 40 odd years, it's not easy to verify exactly, but no one disagrees that Israel is significantly over the '67 boarder, and has taken more and more every year and that the annexation has never stopped advancing (even during peace talks and even when they are giving tiny amounts of useless land back etc).
Next check what Israel says. Many in Israeli government have said publicly it's their intent is to remove Palestinians and deny them the right to a state etc, and to create a stalemate whenever Peace process is on the table so the settlements can keep on getting built.
Then look at what they do to the Palestinians, they control their medical, food and water supplies, they control their movement, they disallow them access to certain roads that are build for Jews only, they do not allow refugees to return home etc etc etc etc Israel is very much in control here, and the level of treatment of the people of their occupied territory reflects their intent and attitudes. So while its
maybe not genocide, its certainly push them off the boat and let them swim for it.
When I was a kid, in South Africa the Apartheid was 'the bad thing' and people were still doing something about it in their local communities, spreading awareness etc. even before the internet. I mention that situation because many people say its the same thing happening in Palestine, but by all expert accounts on it, its actually way worse in Palestine. So even without the internet and those bad bad things happening to far far away non white people, we still felt that it was 'our'
responsibility to do something, not to say 'its not my fight' and walk away.
I'll let you do your own research here on this. If you want to find out more you can, its not that hard and if I just hand it to you, it wont affect you the same way. After you have seen as much as you can handle, then try to tell me it's not that bad over there and try to tell me we in the west have nothing to do with it and we cant do anything (this is today,
http://rt.com/news/174116-gaza-israel-campaign-protests/ note, how many times have you seen that in the major western media?). While it's not much to protest, these things are taking into account by local governments and it shows them people are aware. I personally recommend boycotting ISraeli products as that hits them in the balls the most.
Final point I'm going to make on this as Im out of time and people can draw their own conclusions about what it means and why would it need to be true: Israel has stated that the
Geneva conventions do not apply to the occupied territories (yes, the ones created to punish the Nazis for their actions in WW2 etc). Now really, why would that be so? Why would a simple set of rules that could never be excusable to break under any circumstances not apply to territories that Israel occupies... and worst of all, why don't we (our governments and media too) call them out on it? What excuse can you think of?
/exhales
