While I slept, Gaza bled

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An Op-Ed in the LA Times by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of Hamas' political bureau.

Renewed calls today for our movement to "recognize the right of Israel to exist," in the face of murderous onslaught, ring as hollow as Israel's continuing claims to be acting in "self-defense" as her jets bomb civilians. Without debating here the Zionist state's fictive, existential "right," which of the many Israels, precisely, would the West have us recognize? Is it the Israel that militarily occupies land belonging to three of its neighbors, ignoring international law and scores of U.N. resolutions over decades? Is it the Israel that illegally settles its citizens on other people's land, seizes water sources and uproots olive trees? Is it the Israel that in 60 years has never acknowledged the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their farms and villages as the foundational act of its statehood and denies refugees their right to return?

And from Tel Aviv: