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The Qassam rockets myths


Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

leninology.blogspot.com 

I warned you months ago: the magic word is ‘Sderot’. Any amount of barbarism can be justified by the frankly risible rocket attacks on southern Israel. The Israeli propaganda line, repeated with dogged fanaticism by its apologists everywhere, is that Israel performed an immense act of goodness in withdrawing its colonies from Gaza, and the native ingrates actually responded by sending a spray of Qassam rockets aloft in celebration. To add insult to injury, the bleeders even used former ’settlement’ buildings to launch the rockets from. Such beliefs have to be encouraged to justify such outrageous proposals as the levelling of Gaza. Before this gets out of hand and people start using the rockets to justify some sort of “holocaust”, let us at least bear the facts in mind for a while.

The Qassam rockets were being used as one component of an array of military tactics deployed by Gazan groups before the pull-out, the Gush Katif colonies being the prominent target. This was a response to a wave of violence and expulsions in which, for example, 13,350 residents of Rafah had their homes and life belongings destroyed in the year preceding the withdrawal, courtesy of Israeli tanks and Caterpillar bulldozers. Parts of Gaza came to resemble Grozny. The Israelis frequently attacked ambulances, at one point using the argument that UNRWA had allowed Qassam rockets to be loaded on board one such vehicle (this turned out to be a lie, but it is still repeated on many a media outlet and website). The vast majority of casualties from their use date back to the period of formal colonialism. After the withdrawal, the rate at which these were used diminished dramatically. Their use has spiked in response to serial atrocities against Palestinians, such as the slaughter of the Ghaliya family on the Gaza beach, (in which Hamas broke an eighteen month unilateral ceasefire).

There were few such rockets fired during the six-month ceasefire, even though Israel didn’t respect its terms, but their use was increased again as Israel broke the truce on November 4th (burn that date into your brain and remember it next time someone tells you that those nasty Hamas thugs wouldn’t renew the ceasefire). Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence. In fact, if the aim were truly to end Qassam rocket fire, the logical option would to be engage in a unilateral ceasefire and invite Hamas to enter into a process of dialogue. But that brings us to another myth, the myth of Hamas rejectionism, which is for another post.


Have Your Say: The Qassam rockets myths
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6 Responses to “The Qassam rockets myths”

  1. RICHARD RALPH ROEHL
    Posted: Dec 30th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    Arafat was right when he said that Zionism is racism. I think it’s more than that. I now see that Zionism is pure evil. The pogroms committed against the Palestinians of Gaza is the resurrection of Dachau… and the goal of the Israeli Zionist theoCRAZY is apartheid and then genocide. The Israelis are the new Nazi machine and maybe worse. This evil, racist, bigoted demon beast (Israel) must be $topped! One $trategy for doing this is to $top the beast that blindly $upports the beast: the United $tates!

    This can be accomplished in three ways.

    1. Employ a global oil bourse to replace the worthless petrodollar with a basket of currencies dominated by the Euro.

    2. Call in U.$. debt… or at least stop financing U.$. debt. $top enabling Amerika’s mindless and irresponsible consumerism, a consumerism that is destroying the planet!

    3. Create a consortium of nations, led by China, Russia, Opec nations (and other nations) to declare and impose a moritorium on all crude oil exports to the United $tates, again… the most irresponsible and violent nation $tate on the Planet Earth.

    If the United $tates is bankrupt, and it’s currency is made worthless, and it’s population is in open rebellion and/or practicing guerrilla war against the fascist ruling class on Wall $treet and K. $treet in $ewertown (Washington D.C.), the great whore that is Amerika CANNOT continue to wage imperialist hegemonic military adventurism in distant foreign lands for the sake of corp-rat war profiteering. Nor can it continue to blindly support the genocidal practices of evil theocratic regimes like Israel. Yesss… Old Coyote Knose that the recent bombings in Gaza are the acts of demon people!

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  2. Max
    Posted: Jan 2nd, 2009 at 1:07 am

    Who is making the Quassam rockets ? Two articles in Wikipedia and the American media state they are made by “Hamas”, implying the elected Hamas government is responsible. Is this true ?

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  3. Maximus V
    Posted: Jan 2nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm

  4. Phil
    Posted: Jan 5th, 2009 at 12:08 am

    Just about anyone with some simple tools and a welder could make these cheap rockets!
    I love how we Americans seem to always be blamed for such things happening.
    To fire a missile at unarmed civilians from the safety of the Gaza strip is downright cowardly!
    One thing I have always wondered about is why in the middle east the fighters aren’t honorable? By that I mean killing women and children or using them as shields is cowardly, unmanly without a shred of honor!
    Even during the 1st and 2nd Gulf war we used .50 Caliber sniper rifles to “knock” on a hanger door to give the occupants 20 minutes before we hit it with our missiles. This became known to other Iraqis and most of the buildings were empty when we took it out. This is fighting with honor!
    I guess a lot of it depends on how much value you place on another human beings life, in the military here in the United States we are taught be sure of our targets before we take it out, avoiding civilians at all costs. It is of course unavoidable that some civilians will be in the line of fire but to hide behind a woman’s skirt is not one of the things we do!!

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  5. Dan Dare
    Posted: Jan 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

    Phil (Jan 5th, 2009 at 12:08 am) wrote: “in the military here in the United States we are taught be sure of our targets before we take it out, avoiding civilians at all costs. It is of course unavoidable that some civilians will be in the line of fire but to hide behind a woman’s skirt is not one of the things we do!!”

    No, but you do do extraordinary renditions, illegal invasions, torture of innocents, Gitmo, economic assassinations, DU-tipped bombs, white phosphorous, nerve gas, UAVs, “smart” bombs that result in “collateral” damage, start wars of imperialist expansionism and fund proxy wars (such as in Gaza now), support propaganda and psyops, etc. That’s certainly very honorable Phil. You should be proud of yourself.

    If you bothered to dig a little deeper beneath the military brainwashing you’ve evidently survived, you’ll find that the “hiding behind women’s skirts” is further disinfo perpetrated by Israeli-US propaganda outfits to make the “enemy” less than human in the eyes of the assailants (easier to kill, and all of that). In Gaza, women and children are also soldiers fighting for their lives, not hiding, because Bush and his cronies have deemed Hamas to be a “terrorist” group, even though it was +democratically+ elected in fair and free elections (according to the UN watchdogs). This is presumably because Hamas do not place American imperial interests ahead of local interests?

    Phil, I don’t mean this personally because I obviously don’t know you, so this is merely a general statement: commenting on the idea of American wartime honor of late is a little like admiring the color of a serial killer’s eyes as a defense against his killing. A complete non sequitur.

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  6. Habu
    Posted: Jan 10th, 2009 at 4:47 am

    Dan Dare,

    Nice try at being the knowledgeable polemist but you’re so warped by BDS that you showed your entire raison d’être, along with your ass. Try some better propaganda. What a wad.

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