The Gaza Strip

Hamas on the defensive

The Islamists are again on the defensive

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Readers' comments



By artful pre-selection of facts, this article artfully mis-represents Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim. This article again reveals that The Economist is willing to effectively lie, to further its pro-Islamist agenda.


This unattributed revisionist article bears no relationship to the facts and must be written by Gazan reporters. It is quite a disgrace to the Economist. The main issues are that Israel never attacks Gaza except to thwart attacks. Gaza launched hundreds of rockets into Israel and Israel tried to protect its citizens. Gaza can live in peace and will always get peace in return.


It always was the Egyptian border with Gaza that was closed and the Israeli border that was open. That is why the tunnels were buitl to smugglw goods between Egypt and Gaza. It always has been Israel that has looked after Gaza's interests, from 1968 when they supplied Gaza with water after Egypt cut off their pipeline, through building schools and hospitals (that are now used to store missiles) and allowing Gazans into Israel for medical treatment, to say nothing of the factories and farms that were built to provide jobs (all destroyed by Hamas). The only thing that is new is that Hamsas might be recognising the extent to which Gaza has been helped by Israel.

Reluctant Polluter

Wow, it's not only Egypt that almost gave up on Hamas and Gaza as a whole - it's even Ms Froy! She dropped just one halfhearted, tepid comment, and never returned with her usual diatribes against evil Zionist entity. This tells you something: the Islamist terrorist enterprise in Gaza became liability even to Israel-hate junkies. Indefensible...

equilibrium in reply to F R O Y

You have always considered Israel to be the modern day equivalent of Nazi Germany. One of the few world leaders who unequivocally condemned Israel was the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

In your opinion, with the death of Chavez, did the world lose one of the few people capable of defending it from the Fourth Reich?


"Egypt’s government recently took unusually severe measures to stop goods, including all the strip’s fuel needs and much of its material for building, being transported through tunnels under its border"

Those evil Egyptians! How dare they!?
Will the usual rabble which cries out that Gaza is a prison camp denounce Egypt?
Probably not. Cheap propaganda is only fun when spewed against Israel.


"rockets that hit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv"

Sorry to disappoint you, but not a single rocket has hit either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Check your facts, please.


The Economist must really have it in for Israel.

" Israel’s tanks have rolled into Gaza or its snipers have fired on average once a day since the ceasefire"

This makes it seem as if the Israeli army just randomly and for no reason rolls in with tanks and/or shoots at the civilian population. It doesn't mention even once the shootings that took place from within Gaza onto the army vehicles in Israel (which promoted the tanks going in), nor does it acknowledge that by violating the buffer area, the Palestinians managed to kidnap Gilad Shalit, fire a missile at a school bus killing a boy, firing at army vehicles injuring soldiers and often just disguise terrorists as shepherds to watch and collect information on the army movement. I can sort of understand Israel being a bit funny about people violating the buffer zone (which by the way is there for that reason, not to punish the population as some charlatans would have you believe).



What!! The Gazans built tunnels for smuggling and the Hamas enjoyed huge tax revenues from their operations. I was lead to believe from the BBC and the Economist that the Gazans were under siege and dying from hunger because of this blockade. Bloggers were even calling it a concentration camp. So the BBC and the Economist have been duped yet again by Arab lies. Will they ever learn ? Not if the shoddy populist journalism of the Economist or the even darker motives of the BBC have anything to do with it.
In the meantime the Gazan resistance still remains "courageous" and Israel is still an "apartheid state" - really quite sad and pathetic.

leonmen in reply to F R O Y

Froy you have repeatedley written that Israel keeps the Gazans "caged". So all those tunnels do not change this definition of yours? Froy you are the ultimate "spin doctor"!
Interesting you don't blog on all the massacres in Syria and in the rest of the Arab world. But know doubt Arabs throttling Arabs don't bother you. What a caring, moral person you are.

Froy, considering there are only about 1.6 million people and through their policies Hamas has managed to destroy whatever small cooperation and economic recovery there was (Israel used to buy produce from Gaza, in case people have forgotten), $150M is probably more than could be raised through income tax.

Of course there are more important things that the money is distributed on such as arms from Libya, money to families of "martyrs", Hamas fighters and people close to the leadership, this why for example they've neglected to fix the hospitals, invest in sewage infrastructure and repair the energy station.

They thought Egypt would open Rafah border so goods and people enter via the main entrance and weapons and terrorists through the tunnels, but unfortunately for them, Egypt is a bit less suicidal and understood it can't just piss off the world withouth paying the price on its economy (oh no, colonialism is now trying to stop terrorism. Damn you imperialists!). Moreover allowing the terrorists to leave Gaza and slaughter Egyptian soldiers (on Ramadan nevertheless), before stealing their vehicle and driving it into the Israeli border fence, didn't do them any favours with Egypt.


Left and Right. in reply to leonmen

We do care , all humans are humans and should enjoy the right to life, freedom to think and act unhindered other than by the common interest and actually enjoy life. The faith could be part of this or not but in politically correct times no one dares state the obvious that just about all the problems in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran etc etc are manifestations of Islam. Does an Alawite have different DNA from his Sunni neighbour, no, it is just the faith. Cure that and problem over!

What about Bob in reply to leonmen

Cannot comment on the BBC remark, but the Economist has never portrayed the blockade to a point of denying basic necessities that would cause starvation. If they bother comment on it, it is only general economic problems it causes of the dual use items, such as concrete and rebar, used for both bunkers and normal buildings... The Economist has been extremely fair on the issue of the blockade, thus you need to look into the mirror about accusations of bias.
to be honest while many of the writers for the Economist have the slant and biases much more so than in the past (now even a 2 year old can see them) it is still better than most news sources sadly (very sad), but it is generally the comment sections that make my jaw drop actually.
In fact a number of years ago the Economist published an article detailing information about the tunnels and their goods. As I recall, that article detailed the most desired and profitable good from the tunnels was not weapons or food, but Viagra. A point, while now a years old, I cite routinely about the situation.

leonmen in reply to What about Bob

Kara no Kyoukai it might be that the Economist described the situation in Gaza as a "humanitarian disaster" whilst bloggers were using the "concentration camp" expression with all its hideous implications. I reported these blogs many times to the Economist that they should be removed as "hate mail" but the Economist never removed them ; like it never removes blogs that describe Israel as an apartheid state . This does not say much for the integrity of the Economist.

Reluctant Polluter

Morsi's cold shoulder to Hamas was one hundred percent predictable: his grip on Egypt is not firm at all, he has so many domestic problems, that the last thing he needs is any resemblance of a conflict with Israel. And there is no love lost between Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, as everybody knows.
A propos, what does the title of the last section in the article mean? "Don't mention the Jews"... well, TE didn't mention them in that section indeed... and so what? Is it just me?

Henry Tobias

Tyrants are tyrants, whatever their politics or religion. Would saying "I told you so" make me sound too cocky? It seems that after all the Gazans were better off under Israeli rule.



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