On Thursday the UN passed a resolution calling for:
… an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Instead of honoring this resolution, however, Israel escalated its ground offensive over the weekend, demonstrating not only its determination to end this latest battle on its own terms but also the utter fecklessness of the UN to enforce its resolutions. (Recall that, between 1990 and 2000, Saddam Hussein ignored 16 UN Resolutions designed to ensure that Iraq posed no threat to international peace.)
Therefore, chances are very good that the number of Palestinians killed (almost 900) and wounded (3500) will increase commensurate with the intensity of this escalation. By contrast, only 13 Israelis have been reported killed. But their entire nation remains under paralyzing terror from the specter of Hamas rockets that continue to land indiscriminately.
Sadly, innocent Palestinian women and children will likely continue to comprise one third of the casualties of this war. But this is due far more to Hamas fighters using them as human shields than to their being collateral damage from Israeli bombs.
Meanwhile, I was surprised by the number of people who questioned why I opened my January 3 commentary expressing the cynical view that this is only the latest battle in the neverending story of a territorial (holy) war between Israelis and Palestinians. But perhaps the following view expressed by BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in his January 9 commentary will prove more authoritative in this respect:
The conflict has lasted the best part of a century, which suggests that this latest episode, bloody and brutal though it is, will not be decisive.
Related Articles:
Neverending story: territorial (holy) war
between Israelis and Palestinians (in Gaza)
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