by Neve Gordon
Watching Israeli public television (Channel 1) these days can be an unsettling experience, and lately I've abstained from the practice. But after being stuck for seventy-two hours with our two young children inside a Beer-Sheva apartment, the spouse and I decided to visit my mother, who lives up north, so that our children could play outside far away from the rockets. My mother, like most Israelis, is a devout news consumer, and last night I decided to keep her company in front of the TV.
For the most part, the broadcast was more of the same. There were the usual images and voices of suffering Israeli Jews along with the promulgation of a hyper-nationalist ethos. One story, for example, followed a Jewish mother who had lost her son in Gaza about two years ago. The audience was told that the son has been a soldier in the Golani infantry brigade and together with his company had penetrated the Gaza Strip in an attempt to save the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
"Because members of his company did not want to hurt civilians, they refrained from opening fire in every direction, which allowed Palestinian militiamen to shoot my boy," the mother stated. When the interviewer asked her about the current assault on Gaza, she answered that, "We should pound and cut them from the air and from the sea," but added that, "We should not kill civilians, only Hamas." The report ended with the interviewer asking the mother what she does when she misses her son, and, as the camera zoomed in on her face, she answered: "I go into his room and hug his bed, because I can no longer hug him."
Thus, despite the ever-increasing loss of life in the Gaza Strip, Israel remains the perpetual victim. Indeed, the last frame with the mother looking straight into the camera leaves the average compassionate viewer--myself included--a bit choked up. Over the past few years, I have, however, become a critical consumer of Israeli news, and therefore can see through the perpetuation of the image that Israel and its Jewish majority are the victims and how, regardless of what happens, we are presented as the moral players in this conflict. Therefore, this kind of reportage, where the huge death toll in Gaza is elided and Jewish suffering is underscored, no longer shocks me.
What did manage to unnerve me in the broadcast was one short sentence made by a reporter who covered the entry of a humanitarian aid convoy into the Gaza Strip on Friday.
My mother and I--like other Israeli viewers--learned that 170 trucks supplied with basic foodstuff donated by the Turkish government entered Gaza through the Carmi crossing. That the report had nothing to say about the context of this food shipment did not surprise me. Nor was I surprised that no mention was made of the fact that 80 percent of Gaza's inhabitants are unable to support themselves and are therefore dependent on humanitarian assistance--and this figure is increasing daily. Indeed, nothing was said about the severe food crisis in Gaza, which manifests itself in shortages of flour, rice, sugar, dairy products, milk and canned foods, or about the total lack of fuel for heating houses and buildings during these cold winter months, the absence of cooking gas, and the shortage of running water. The viewer has no way of knowing that the Palestinian health system is barely functioning or that some 250,000 people in central and northern Gaza are now living without any electricity at all due to the damage caused by the air strikes.
While the fact that this information was missing from the report did not surprise me, I found myself completely taken aback by the way in which the reporter justified the convoy's entrance into Gaza. Explaining to those viewers who might be wondering why Israel allows humanitarian assistance to the other side during times of war, he declared that if a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe were to explode among the Palestinian civilian population, the international community would pressure Israel to stop the assault.
There is something extremely cynical about how Israel explains its use of humanitarian assistance, and yet such unadulterated explanations actually help uncover an important facet of postmodern warfare. Not unlike raising animals for slaughter on a farm, the Israeli government maintains that it is providing Palestinians with assistance so that it can have a free hand in attacking them. And just as Israel provides basic foodstuff to Palestinians while it continues shooting them, it informs Palestinians--by phone, no less--that they must evacuate their homes before F-16 fighter jets begin bombing them.
One notices, then, that in addition to its remote-control, computer game-like qualities, postmodern warfare is also characterized by a bizarre new moral element. It is as if the masters of wars realized that since current wars rarely take place between two armies and are often carried out in the midst of civilian populations, a new just war theory is needed. So these masters of war gathered together philosophers and intellectuals to develop a moral theory for postmodern wars, and today, as Gaza is being destroyed, we can see quite plainly how the new theory is being transformed into praxis.
© 2009 The Nation
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University.
tirsdag den 6. januar 2009
Robert Fisk: Keeping Out The Cameras and Reporters Simply Doesn't Work
by Robert Fisk
What is Israel afraid of? Using the old "enclosed military area" excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game - in Jenin in 2000 - it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers - and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.
Now the Israeli army is trying the same doomed tactic again. Ban the press. Keep the cameras out. By yesterday morning, only hours after the Israeli army went clanking into Gaza to kill more Hamas members - and, of course, more civilians - Hamas was reporting the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Reporters on the ground could have sorted out the truth or the lie about that. But without a single Western journalist in Gaza, the Israelis were left to tell the world that they didn't know if the story was true.
On the other hand, the Israelis are so ruthless that the reasons for the ban on journalism may be quite easily explained: that so many Israeli soldiers are going to kill so many innocents - more than three score by last night, and that's only the ones we know about - that images of the slaughter would be too much to tolerate. Not that the Palestinians have done much to help. The kidnapping by a Palestinian mafia family of the BBC's man in Gaza - finally released by Hamas, although that's not being recalled right now - put paid to any permanent Western television presence in Gaza months ago. Yet the results are the same.
Back in 1980, the Soviet Union threw every Western journalist out of Afghanistan. Those of us who had been reporting the Russian invasion and its brutal aftermath could not re-enter the country - except with the mujahedin guerrillas. I received a letter from Charles Douglas-Hume, who was editor of the The Times - for which I then worked - making an important observation. "Now that we have no regular coverage from Afghanistan," he noted on 26 March that year, "I would be grateful if you could make sure that we do not miss any opportunity for reporting on reliable accounts of what is going on in that country. We must not let events in Afghanistan vanish from the paper simply because we have no correspondent there."
That the Israelis should use an old Soviet tactic to blind the world's vision of war may not be surprising. But the result is that Palestinian voices - as opposed to those of Western reporters - are now dominating the airwaves. The men and women who are under air and artillery attack by the Israelis are now telling their own story on television and radio and in the papers as they have never been able to tell it before, without the artificial "balance", which so much television journalism imposes on live reporting. Perhaps this will become a new form of coverage - letting the participants tell their own story. The flip side, of course, is that there is no Westerner in Gaza to cross-question Hamas's devious account of events: another victory for the Palestinian militia, handed to them on a plate by the Israelis.
But there is also a darker side. Israel's version of events has been given so much credence by the dying Bush administration that the ban on journalists entering Gaza may simply be of little importance to the Israeli army. By the time we investigate, whatever they are trying to hide will have been overtaken by another crisis in which they can claim to be in the "front line" in the "war on terror".
© 2009 The Independent
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-keeping-out-the-cameras-and-reporters-simply-doesnt-work-1225800.html
What is Israel afraid of? Using the old "enclosed military area" excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game - in Jenin in 2000 - it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers - and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.
Now the Israeli army is trying the same doomed tactic again. Ban the press. Keep the cameras out. By yesterday morning, only hours after the Israeli army went clanking into Gaza to kill more Hamas members - and, of course, more civilians - Hamas was reporting the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Reporters on the ground could have sorted out the truth or the lie about that. But without a single Western journalist in Gaza, the Israelis were left to tell the world that they didn't know if the story was true.
On the other hand, the Israelis are so ruthless that the reasons for the ban on journalism may be quite easily explained: that so many Israeli soldiers are going to kill so many innocents - more than three score by last night, and that's only the ones we know about - that images of the slaughter would be too much to tolerate. Not that the Palestinians have done much to help. The kidnapping by a Palestinian mafia family of the BBC's man in Gaza - finally released by Hamas, although that's not being recalled right now - put paid to any permanent Western television presence in Gaza months ago. Yet the results are the same.
Back in 1980, the Soviet Union threw every Western journalist out of Afghanistan. Those of us who had been reporting the Russian invasion and its brutal aftermath could not re-enter the country - except with the mujahedin guerrillas. I received a letter from Charles Douglas-Hume, who was editor of the The Times - for which I then worked - making an important observation. "Now that we have no regular coverage from Afghanistan," he noted on 26 March that year, "I would be grateful if you could make sure that we do not miss any opportunity for reporting on reliable accounts of what is going on in that country. We must not let events in Afghanistan vanish from the paper simply because we have no correspondent there."
That the Israelis should use an old Soviet tactic to blind the world's vision of war may not be surprising. But the result is that Palestinian voices - as opposed to those of Western reporters - are now dominating the airwaves. The men and women who are under air and artillery attack by the Israelis are now telling their own story on television and radio and in the papers as they have never been able to tell it before, without the artificial "balance", which so much television journalism imposes on live reporting. Perhaps this will become a new form of coverage - letting the participants tell their own story. The flip side, of course, is that there is no Westerner in Gaza to cross-question Hamas's devious account of events: another victory for the Palestinian militia, handed to them on a plate by the Israelis.
But there is also a darker side. Israel's version of events has been given so much credence by the dying Bush administration that the ban on journalists entering Gaza may simply be of little importance to the Israeli army. By the time we investigate, whatever they are trying to hide will have been overtaken by another crisis in which they can claim to be in the "front line" in the "war on terror".
© 2009 The Independent
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-keeping-out-the-cameras-and-reporters-simply-doesnt-work-1225800.html
Orwell, Blinding Tribalism, Selective Terrorism, and Israel/Gaza
by Glenn Greenwald
Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children. About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes (h/t John Cole via email):
The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.
That, of course, is just a slightly less profane version of Marty Peretz's chest-beating proclamation that the great value of the attack on Gaza is to teach those Arabs a lesson: "do not fuck with the Jews."
There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term. But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing: slaughtering innocent civilians in order to "send a message," to "deter" political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and -- best of all, from the Terrorist's perspective -- even their own children and other family members.
To the Terrorist, by definition, that innocent civilians and even children are killed isn't a regrettable cost of taking military action. It's not a cost at all. It's a benefit. It has strategic value. Goldfarb explicitly says this: "to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause."
That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it's the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including -- one might say, at least in Goldfarb's case: especially -- children.
* * * * *
One should be clear that this sociopathic indifference to (or even celebration over) the deaths of Palestinian civilians isn't representative of all supporters of the Israeli attack on Gaza. It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack. It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.
Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome. And many war supporters who fall into this more benign category are guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents and, relatedly, of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.
I can't express how many emails I've received in the last week from people identifying themselves as "liberals" (and, overwhelmingly, American Jews); telling me that they agree with my views in almost all areas other than Israel; and then self-righteously insisting that I imagine what it's like to live in Southern Israel with incoming rocket fire from Hamas, as though that will change my views on the Israel/Gaza war. Obviously, it's not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians, in exactly the way that American rage over the 9/11 attacks was understandable. But just as that American anger didn't justify anything and everything that followed, the fact that there are indefensible attacks on Israeli civilians doesn't render the (far more lethal) attacks on Gaza either wise or just -- as numerous Jewish residents of Sderot themselves are courageously arguing in opposing the Israeli attack.
More to the point: for those who insist that others put themselves in the position of a resident of Sderot -- as though that will, by itself, prove the justifiability of the Israeli attack -- the idea literally never occurs to them that they ought to imagine what it's like to live under foreign occupation for 4 decades (and, despite the 2005 "withdrawal from Gaza," Israel continues to occupy and expand its settlements on Palestinian land and to control and severely restrict many key aspects of Gazan life). No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years, one which builds walls around you, imposes the most intensely humiliating conditions on your daily life, blockades your land so that you're barred from exiting and prevented from accessing basic nutrition and medical needs for your children to the point where a substantial portion of the underage population suffers from stunted growth.
So extreme is their emotional identification with one side (Israel) that it literally never occurs to them to give any thought to any of that, to imagine what it's like to live in those circumstances. Nor does this thought occur to them:
I was trained from an early age to view this group as my group, to identify with them emotionally, culturally, religiously. Maybe that -- and not an objective assessment of these events -- is why I continuously side with that group and see everything from its perspective and justify whatever it does, why I find the Dick Cheney/Weekly Standard/neoconservative worldview repellent in every situation except when it comes to Israel, when I suddenly find it wise and vigorously embrace it.
Those who defend American actions in every case, or who find justification in attacks on Israeli civilians, or who find simplistic moral clarity in a whole range of other complex and protracted disputes where all sides share infinite blame, are often guilty of the same refusal/inability to at least try to minimize this sort of ingrained tribalistic blindness.
* * * * *
Still, there is a substantial difference between, on the one hand, basically well-intentioned people who are guilty of excessive emotional and cultural identification with one side of the dispute and, on the other, those who adopt the Goldfarb/Peretz psychopathic derangement of belittling rage over widespread civilian deaths as mere "whining" or even something to view as a strategic asset. The latter group is a subset of war supporters and evinces every defining attribute of the Terrorist.
Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human. For obvious reasons, one typically finds this full-scale version of sociopathic indifference -- this perception of brutal war as a blood-pumping and exciting instrument for feeling vicarious sensations of power and strength from a safe distance -- in the society's weakest, most frightened, and most insecure individuals.
Here's right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds revealing that wretched mindset for all to see:
“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively. Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.
Or, as Goldfarb put it: "it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us."
If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?
So many of these conflicts -- one might say almost all of them -- end up shaped by the same virtually universal deficiency: excessive tribalistic identification (i.e.: the group with which I was trained to identify is right and good and just and my group's enemy is bad and wrong and violent), which causes people to view the world only from the perspective of their side, to believe that X is good when they do it and evil when it's done to them. X can be torture, or the killing of civilians in order to "send a message" (i.e., Terrorism), or invading and occupying other people's land, or using massive lethal force against defenseless populations, or seeing one's own side as composed of real humans and the other side as sub-human, evil barbarians. As George Orwell wrote in Notes on Nationalism -- with perfect prescience to today's endless conflicts (h/t Hume's Ghost):
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them
For those who evaluate moral questions from that blindingly self-regarding perspective, anything and everything becomes easily justifiable.
Copyright ©2009 Salon Media Group, Inc.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children. About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes (h/t John Cole via email):
The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.
That, of course, is just a slightly less profane version of Marty Peretz's chest-beating proclamation that the great value of the attack on Gaza is to teach those Arabs a lesson: "do not fuck with the Jews."
There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term. But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing: slaughtering innocent civilians in order to "send a message," to "deter" political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and -- best of all, from the Terrorist's perspective -- even their own children and other family members.
To the Terrorist, by definition, that innocent civilians and even children are killed isn't a regrettable cost of taking military action. It's not a cost at all. It's a benefit. It has strategic value. Goldfarb explicitly says this: "to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause."
That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it's the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including -- one might say, at least in Goldfarb's case: especially -- children.
* * * * *
One should be clear that this sociopathic indifference to (or even celebration over) the deaths of Palestinian civilians isn't representative of all supporters of the Israeli attack on Gaza. It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack. It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.
Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome. And many war supporters who fall into this more benign category are guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents and, relatedly, of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.
I can't express how many emails I've received in the last week from people identifying themselves as "liberals" (and, overwhelmingly, American Jews); telling me that they agree with my views in almost all areas other than Israel; and then self-righteously insisting that I imagine what it's like to live in Southern Israel with incoming rocket fire from Hamas, as though that will change my views on the Israel/Gaza war. Obviously, it's not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians, in exactly the way that American rage over the 9/11 attacks was understandable. But just as that American anger didn't justify anything and everything that followed, the fact that there are indefensible attacks on Israeli civilians doesn't render the (far more lethal) attacks on Gaza either wise or just -- as numerous Jewish residents of Sderot themselves are courageously arguing in opposing the Israeli attack.
More to the point: for those who insist that others put themselves in the position of a resident of Sderot -- as though that will, by itself, prove the justifiability of the Israeli attack -- the idea literally never occurs to them that they ought to imagine what it's like to live under foreign occupation for 4 decades (and, despite the 2005 "withdrawal from Gaza," Israel continues to occupy and expand its settlements on Palestinian land and to control and severely restrict many key aspects of Gazan life). No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years, one which builds walls around you, imposes the most intensely humiliating conditions on your daily life, blockades your land so that you're barred from exiting and prevented from accessing basic nutrition and medical needs for your children to the point where a substantial portion of the underage population suffers from stunted growth.
So extreme is their emotional identification with one side (Israel) that it literally never occurs to them to give any thought to any of that, to imagine what it's like to live in those circumstances. Nor does this thought occur to them:
I was trained from an early age to view this group as my group, to identify with them emotionally, culturally, religiously. Maybe that -- and not an objective assessment of these events -- is why I continuously side with that group and see everything from its perspective and justify whatever it does, why I find the Dick Cheney/Weekly Standard/neoconservative worldview repellent in every situation except when it comes to Israel, when I suddenly find it wise and vigorously embrace it.
Those who defend American actions in every case, or who find justification in attacks on Israeli civilians, or who find simplistic moral clarity in a whole range of other complex and protracted disputes where all sides share infinite blame, are often guilty of the same refusal/inability to at least try to minimize this sort of ingrained tribalistic blindness.
* * * * *
Still, there is a substantial difference between, on the one hand, basically well-intentioned people who are guilty of excessive emotional and cultural identification with one side of the dispute and, on the other, those who adopt the Goldfarb/Peretz psychopathic derangement of belittling rage over widespread civilian deaths as mere "whining" or even something to view as a strategic asset. The latter group is a subset of war supporters and evinces every defining attribute of the Terrorist.
Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human. For obvious reasons, one typically finds this full-scale version of sociopathic indifference -- this perception of brutal war as a blood-pumping and exciting instrument for feeling vicarious sensations of power and strength from a safe distance -- in the society's weakest, most frightened, and most insecure individuals.
Here's right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds revealing that wretched mindset for all to see:
“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively. Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.
Or, as Goldfarb put it: "it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us."
If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?
So many of these conflicts -- one might say almost all of them -- end up shaped by the same virtually universal deficiency: excessive tribalistic identification (i.e.: the group with which I was trained to identify is right and good and just and my group's enemy is bad and wrong and violent), which causes people to view the world only from the perspective of their side, to believe that X is good when they do it and evil when it's done to them. X can be torture, or the killing of civilians in order to "send a message" (i.e., Terrorism), or invading and occupying other people's land, or using massive lethal force against defenseless populations, or seeing one's own side as composed of real humans and the other side as sub-human, evil barbarians. As George Orwell wrote in Notes on Nationalism -- with perfect prescience to today's endless conflicts (h/t Hume's Ghost):
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them
For those who evaluate moral questions from that blindingly self-regarding perspective, anything and everything becomes easily justifiable.
Copyright ©2009 Salon Media Group, Inc.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
Israelske bomber rammer Folkekirkens Nødhjælp
Indsatsen for at hjælpe de mange sårede palæstinensere i Gaza har lidt endnu et knæk.
De israelske bombardementer i Gaza har smadret tre mobile skadestuer, som Folkekirkens Nødhjælp driver.
Det oplyser Folkekirkens Nødhjælp.
Der er tale om lastbiler, der er indrettet til at tage syge og sårede under lettere behandling. De mobile skadestuer blev ramt af bomber i forgårs, og de seneste dage har Folkekirkens Nødhjælp arbejdet på at få overblik over konsekvenserne.
Et stort tab
Ifølge pressechef i Folkekirkens Nødhjælp Lisbeth Engbo er det et stort tab.
»Hospitalerne i Gaza by er meget pressede. De mobile sundhedsklinikker kunne have været en aflastning, som der er hårdt brug for. Det er meget trist, at de er blevet bombet«, siger Lisbeth Engbo.
De mobile skadestuer havde endnu ikke været i brug. Folkekirkens Nødhjælp har arbejdet sammen med en lokal palæstinensisk nødhjælpsorganisation for at få projektet op at stå.
Ingen mennesker er kommet til skade ved bombardementet.
http://politiken.dk/udland/article623733.ece
De israelske bombardementer i Gaza har smadret tre mobile skadestuer, som Folkekirkens Nødhjælp driver.
Det oplyser Folkekirkens Nødhjælp.
Der er tale om lastbiler, der er indrettet til at tage syge og sårede under lettere behandling. De mobile skadestuer blev ramt af bomber i forgårs, og de seneste dage har Folkekirkens Nødhjælp arbejdet på at få overblik over konsekvenserne.
Et stort tab
Ifølge pressechef i Folkekirkens Nødhjælp Lisbeth Engbo er det et stort tab.
»Hospitalerne i Gaza by er meget pressede. De mobile sundhedsklinikker kunne have været en aflastning, som der er hårdt brug for. Det er meget trist, at de er blevet bombet«, siger Lisbeth Engbo.
De mobile skadestuer havde endnu ikke været i brug. Folkekirkens Nødhjælp har arbejdet sammen med en lokal palæstinensisk nødhjælpsorganisation for at få projektet op at stå.
Ingen mennesker er kommet til skade ved bombardementet.
http://politiken.dk/udland/article623733.ece
Obama’s Bay of Pigs
By Michael Carmichael
January 05, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- The volcano is erupting, and the lava pouring forth is a bold and deliberate challenge metaphorically slapping the face of President-Elect Barack Obama. The architect of Obama’s challenge is, of course, Lame Duck President George W. Bush.
During the US presidential campaign, Vice-President-Elect Joseph Biden predicted that Obama would be tested. “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama . . . Gird your loins,” Biden said while addressing a fundraiser in Seattle. Today, Biden seems like the proverbial prophets of the Old Testament uttering their dire predictions of imminent catastrophe for the people of Israel precipitated by the troubling policies of their monarchs. Even Biden did not conceive that Obama’s challenge would be the Parthian shot of a disgraced lame duck that could be morphing into Obama’s Bay of Pigs.
History appears to be repeating itself. In 1960 during the presidential campaign, JFK received top secret briefings from the CIA and Secret Service that informed him about US plans to back a counter-attack against Fidel Castro’s forces in Cuba manned by anti-Castro Cuban exiles marshaled into guerilla forces based in Florida and Guatemala. The plan for the attack was the product of the Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles, and Eisenhower’s designated White House liaison for the CIA, then Vice-President Richard Nixon. The Top Secret briefings presented the anti-Castro invasion to JFK as a fait accompli, and as a candidate for the presidency, he had no power to veto it.
After his inauguration, JFK scaled back US military involvement and the operation floundered on the Cuban beach engraved into the collective consciousness of that era as a massive military debacle known as The Bay of Pigs. JFK accepted the blame for the fiasco, and he ordered the retirement of Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell who bore responsibility for the failure. In the aftermath, JFK ordered the reorientation of the CIA that shifted from covert operations that produced searing blowback under Dulles to policing the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons under John McCone, the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission.
While it might seem uncanny, a similar scenario is now unfolding in Gaza. A counter-terrorist operation involving US military materiel and foreign troops is taking place before the inauguration of the next president, and there are some striking similarities between the Bay of Pigs and the Gaza War for the origins of both stem from the secret chambers of the previous administration.
Last Saturday, the Israeli Air Force launched its attack on Hamas via its aptly named Operation Cast Lead, a phrase from a popular children’s song during Chanukah to, “cast lead dreidels.” The dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, the favorite child’s toy during Chanukah. Sixty Israeli military aircraft including both F-16s and Apache helicopters are not dropping lead dreidels on the inhabitants of Gaza -- they are dropping high-tech 250-pound bombs provided by the “foreign aid” program of the Bush government courtesy of the United States of America.
The giant US arms manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin, produces the F-16 “Fighting Falcon” at costs of $70 million per fighter, while McDonnell-Douglas produces the Apache helicopters at an average unit cost of a paltry $14 million per unit. Boeing produces the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) at a cost of $70-90,000 each. In the first phase of Operation Cast Lead, fifty Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-16s dropped one hundred US-built bombs on 50 targets in Gaza. It should be noted that Hamas does not have an air force, nor supersonic bombers, nor attack helicopters, nor high-tech bombs so the current conflict has no pretensions of being a just war. It is naked aggression – nothing more, nothing less.
In contrast to the high-tech US-manufactured arsenal generously provided to Israel courtesy of American taxpayers, Hamas uses outdated and ineffective Katyusha and Qassam missiles. The Russians developed the Katyusha in 1941 as an un-guided artillery shell sometimes described as a multiple rocket launcher. The Qassam is a crude and inexpensive, home-made unguided rocket or ‘missile’ from 3-7 feet in length bearing a small explosive charge that works like a fourth of July rocket from a Chinese fireworks factory.
The official rationale for the 2008 Gaza War suggests that the massive military operation is a response to the end of the agreement for a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas that officially concluded on December 19th. Both sides claim violations of the truce. The government of Israel argues that a palpable escalation of rocket fire from Gaza killed one Israeli civilian and triggered the current crisis.
In contrast to the official Israeli rationale, Palestinians, Israeli journalists, Israeli writers and Israeli peace activists trace the breakdown of the truce to an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) military operation that raided a tunnel between Gaza and Egypt and led to the deaths of six Palestinians as the tipping point that precipitated the subsequent escalation of rocket fire from Gaza. On the fifth of November the morning news reported that Barack Obama had been elected to replace George Bush, and on that very day the IDF raided the tunnel killing six Palestinians in the process. In the aftermath of the tunnel raid, Hamas escalated rocket fire ultimately resulting in the death of one Israeli prior to the launch of Operation Cast Lead.
Last June, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt brokered the six-month truce agreement that began on June 18th and expired on the 19th of December. Last week, Prime Minister Tzipi Livni informed Hosni Mubarak that Israel would strike Hamas in retaliation to the rocket fire. Reports in Israel confirm that military planning for the current operation began six months ago, at the beginning of the truce. Less than two months into the truce, the New York Times reported the US would speed up delivery of high-tech bombs to Israel. On the first day of the Israeli assault more than 200 Palestinians died making it the bloodiest day of the Arab-Israeli conflict since the Six Day War of 1967.
In televised statements from Bush’s official spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, it is clear that the US is supporting the Israeli attack on Gaza. In a tremulous voice, Mr. Johndroe addressed a hastily assembled press conference in Crawford, Texas. In brief comments punctuated by “Ummms” and “Ahhhs,” Johndroe justified the conflict by the refusal of Hamas to accept the right of Israel to exist.
From his podium in Crawford, Johndroe intoned, “Hamas has a choice to make. Right now they are choosing to be a terrorist organization that fires rockets into Israel. That is not going to lead to a ceasefire.”
From Johndroe’s statements, the position of the US is sharp and clear. The people of Gaza must not defend themselves against the IAF bombardment or any future IDF ground assault. Through Johndroe’s statements, Bush has issued an ultimatum to the Palestinian people to restrain them from their natural compulsion to defend themselves against armed aggression. Bush’s policy is now perfectly clear, Palestinians will suffer even more severe punishment than Operation Cast Lead via the IDF – the forceful re-occupation of Gaza as a last gasp of Bush’s neoconservative hubris.
Johndroe revealed that President Bush was constantly monitoring the situation while conferring with Vice-President Cheney. During the Lebanon War of 2006, Vice President Cheney maintained close communications with the IDF in their assault that resulted in an embarrassing outcome for Israel for they did not achieve their principal objective of destroying Hizbullah, the armed Pro-Palestinian political faction in Lebanon. In the government of Lebanon, Hizbullah’s political strength is growing in both the parliament and the cabinet.
It now seems likely that the Gaza War will be counterproductive. Hamas will emerge more popular than before the US-backed Israeli attack. Five months after the failure of The Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara wrote a letter to JFK thanking him for the attack and stating that it strengthened the popularity of the revolution in Cuba.
Demonstrating the decline of US influence that has fallen off a cliff during the Bush presidency, the rest of the world is condemning the US-backed Israeli operation. Public protests against the Israeli attack began on Saturday morning when 1,000 Israeli protesters challenged the bombing of Gaza in a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv. Today, a wave of public protest is sweeping across the globe from Turkey to Pakistan in the Middle East to leading cities in Europe, Asia and the Americas – people are convulsed in a cascade of criticism aimed at the disproportionate attack. In several major cities, hundreds of angry protestors are surrounding Israeli embassies to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities. This Saturday, there will be a major demonstration in London’s Trafalgar Square.
However, statements from Israeli officials have made it clear that the confrontation will not end soon. Speculation is mounting about an Israeli ground assault to re-occupy Gaza and reverse the bold policy of Ariel Sharon who ordered the IDF withdrawal in 2005. This tactic is shaped by anticipation of a new foreign policy that will be unveiled by President-Elect Obama after he takes the oath of office in January.
In February, Israel will hold its elections. The ranking contenders are: Tzipi Livni, the current Foreign Minister; Ehud Barak, the current Minister of Defense, and Binyamin Netanyahu, the head of the right-wing party, Likud. All three support Operation Cast Lead. The outcome of the conflict may prefigure the outcome of the election.
During this phase of the conflict, President-Elect Obama, Vice-President-Elect Biden and Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton are maintaining a policy of non-intervention stating through spokespersons that there can be only one president at a time and that Obama will assume the presidency on the 20th of January. At the same time, Obama is receiving a stream of intelligence briefings on the crisis that has transformed his sojourn in Hawaii into a working holiday if ever there were one. During this period, Obama will be in routine contact with Jim Jones, his National Security Advisor.
Of all the problems facing President-Elect Obama, the Arab-Israeli conflict is the proverbial Gordion Knot. In order to move beyond the neoconservative era of Bush and Cheney, the first task facing the Obama administration is not merely the US withdrawal from Iraq, but the pacification of the Middle East. Unless there is a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Obama will face the untenable prospect of continuing the failed foreign policy of Bush.
After Obama announced the appointments of his national security team, a seismic surge of diplomacy has been the source of tremors presaging an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the announcement of her appointment, Hillary Clinton held a lengthy telephone conversation with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Shortly after their teleconference Olmert called for stronger US leadership from the next president in guiding Israel and the Palestinians toward peace. In a second interview Olmert criticized the systematic aggression of Israeli settlers on the West Bank that he characterized as a “pogrom” where Palestinian lands have been seized and occupied over the past forty years.
Obama’s key advisors have designed a diplomatic course that will relegate the neoconservatives to the dustbin of history. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft believe that Obama must resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict promptly in order to project a viable foreign policy. Obama’s designated National Security Advisor, Jim Jones proposed a NATO peacekeeping force to occupy the West Bank – a policy that would preclude any further assaults like Operation Cast Lead. Current UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticized the Israeli settlements on the West Bank as a blockade to peace. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who is now the Middle Eastern Envoy for the European Union told a reporter that a secret deal has been struck between the Arabs and Israelis. The new American pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby, J Street criticized the growing violence of the Israeli settlers. Now, J Street is now calling for the immediate cessation of Operation Cast Lead and the launch of peace negotiations.
Against the backdrop of a new American administration preparing to assume power and make changes, Lame Duck President George W. Bush authorized the Israeli assault on Gaza by pledging US support for the attack. It should never be forgotten that Bush is a dedicated Christian Zionist who broke into tears when he was fawningly eulogized in the Knesset during his last visit to Israel in May.
Like the portrait of Dorian Gray that morphed into increasingly hideous configurations while its subject descended into deeper levels of vice, immorality and personal corruption, Bush’s broken presidency is morphing into a crescendo of violence and pathos in a childish fit of pique designed to destroy Obama’s presidency before it begins – in effect foisting a catastrophe upon the incoming president before he has a chance to take the oath of office.
This macabre scenario vividly recalls the Bay of Pigs, the ill-conceived assault on Castro’s Cuba planned in secret by Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence, and then-Vice President Richard Nixon in the summer of 1960. JFK permitted the tragedy to unfold, and he took the blame for the fiasco that was the most searing foreign policy scandal of his short term in office.
Today, Obama is facing the same gambit on the chessboard as JFK – a disastrous last gasp of neoconservatism threatens to scuttle his presidency before it begins. This is the first major test of Obama predicted by Biden. Failure to respond appropriately to this challenge will plunge the Middle East into a maelstrom that could very well consume Obama’s presidency in a Cold War over energy with American prestige on the decline.
In ancient Persia, the Parthians produced one of the most devastating cavalry techniques in ancient warfare. While retreating from the battlefield, Parthian archers would turn in their saddles to fire a volley of arrows at their pursuers. While Bush is being democratically forced from power, he is firing a volley of military crises at Obama, and his fingerprints are all over the current crop of corpses in Gaza.
Obama is not JFK, and Gaza is not Cuba. With American prestige on the decline and the global economic meltdown, Obama is facing a distinctly different but equally challenging nightmare as JFK did in 1961 in the midst of recession and the macabre machinations of the Cold War.
Biden was right. Obama is facing a brazen challenge that will test his mettle for the office he will soon hold. Let us hope that history will not repeat itself marring a presidency long-anticipated as the vanguard of a new era of global progress.
SOURCES
Biden to Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html
U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html?hp
IDF Uncovers Tunnel Intended for Terror Attack in the Gaza Strip
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/the_Front/08/11/0501.htm
The 2008 Gaza War Update
http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/
Gaza humanitarian plight 'disastrous,' U.N. official says
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/28/gaza.humanitarian/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
US veto blocks UN anti-Israel resolution
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=79727§ionid=351020202
Israel strike may shift Obama plan
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16889.html
What's Next on Gaza/Israel and Why Americans Should Care
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-levy/what-next-on-gazaisrael-a_b_153743.html
Analysis: Israel trying to ensure that Hamas can't become another Hizbullah
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1230456504736
Air strikes on Gaza continue as death toll rises
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/28/gaza.israel.strikes/index.html
US Blames Hamas for Israel's Gaza Bloodbath
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=a4563212a6545b73ce00e91977138426&mode=details#a4563212a6545b73ce00e91977138426
Robert Fisk’s World: How can anyone believe there is 'progress' in the Middle East?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-how-can-anyone-believe-there-is-progress-in-the-middle-east-1212434.html
Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/27/israel-nationalism-beiteinu-likud-gaza
Scores dead in Israeli raid on Gaza
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/200812279451509662.html
Column One: Netanyahu's grand coalition
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728164511&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Catastrophe for Gaza
An Israeli blockade curtails food, fuel, medicine and travel.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-sarraj14-2008dec14,0,2658218.story
All conflicts can be resolved, says Nobel Peace laureate Ahtisaari
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i9mCfugpuu5q5mMbaBAVVGzBhmpg
Gazans Resort To Eating Grass And Taking Painkillers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/14/gazans-turn-to-painkiller_n_150862.html
Blair says that Palestinians and Israelis Reached a Secret Agreement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/blair-says-that-palestini_b_148639.html
Israel deports American academic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/15/middleeast-israelandthepalestinians
Palestinian PM Fayyad says West Bank settlement must end for peace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/15/fayyad-west-bank-israel
Israeli settlements are blockage to Middle East peace, says Gordon Brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/15/gordonbrown-middleeast
J Street / Tell Hoenlein to condemn violent Jewish settler extremism
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=505&hebron-email
Ed Asner, The Shminitsim
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-asner/shminisitim_b_150043.html
UN adopts Middle East resolution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7786602.stm
Palestinian President: Will Call General Elections 'Very Soon'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/16/palestinian-president-wil_n_151475.html
UN out of touch with reality
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/12/18/10268055.html
Poll: Most Israelis oppose Arab peace plan
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728221188&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Livni and Netanyahu vow to oust Hamas after Gaza rocket strikes
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/livni-and-netanyahu-vow-to-oust-hamas-after-gaza-rocket-strikes-1207398.html
Hamas agrees 24-hour Gaza truce, threatens suicide attack
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jhAET7wvkXGSTXy4YW--3Z3MzVVA
--------------------------------
Michael Carmichael is a senior political consultant, historian, author and broadcaster. Carmichael worked professionally in several US presidential campaigns: RFK; Gene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern; Lloyd Bentsen; Jimmy Carter and Dennis Kucinich. In 2008, he supported Barack Obama. From 1985, Carmichael was based in Oxford, England where he conducted academic research, held seminars and was invited to address international conferences in Modena, Malta, Lugano, Lucerne, Milan, Sardinia, London, Istanbul, Palermo and Kuala Lumpur. In 2003, Carmichael founded Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom and the USA. In 1998, Carmichael appeared as an academic expert on the British documentary series, Sacred Weeds. Carmichael has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC's Today, Hardtalk, PM, as well as numerous appearances on ITN, NPR and many other European broadcasts examining politics and culture. Carmichael’s political commentary has appeared on many websites including: The Huffington Post, Global Research; International Clearing House; Counterpunch and the Baltimore Chronicle. Carmichael can be reached through his website: www.planetarymovement.org - mc@planetarymovement.org
January 05, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- The volcano is erupting, and the lava pouring forth is a bold and deliberate challenge metaphorically slapping the face of President-Elect Barack Obama. The architect of Obama’s challenge is, of course, Lame Duck President George W. Bush.
During the US presidential campaign, Vice-President-Elect Joseph Biden predicted that Obama would be tested. “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama . . . Gird your loins,” Biden said while addressing a fundraiser in Seattle. Today, Biden seems like the proverbial prophets of the Old Testament uttering their dire predictions of imminent catastrophe for the people of Israel precipitated by the troubling policies of their monarchs. Even Biden did not conceive that Obama’s challenge would be the Parthian shot of a disgraced lame duck that could be morphing into Obama’s Bay of Pigs.
History appears to be repeating itself. In 1960 during the presidential campaign, JFK received top secret briefings from the CIA and Secret Service that informed him about US plans to back a counter-attack against Fidel Castro’s forces in Cuba manned by anti-Castro Cuban exiles marshaled into guerilla forces based in Florida and Guatemala. The plan for the attack was the product of the Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles, and Eisenhower’s designated White House liaison for the CIA, then Vice-President Richard Nixon. The Top Secret briefings presented the anti-Castro invasion to JFK as a fait accompli, and as a candidate for the presidency, he had no power to veto it.
After his inauguration, JFK scaled back US military involvement and the operation floundered on the Cuban beach engraved into the collective consciousness of that era as a massive military debacle known as The Bay of Pigs. JFK accepted the blame for the fiasco, and he ordered the retirement of Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell who bore responsibility for the failure. In the aftermath, JFK ordered the reorientation of the CIA that shifted from covert operations that produced searing blowback under Dulles to policing the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons under John McCone, the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission.
While it might seem uncanny, a similar scenario is now unfolding in Gaza. A counter-terrorist operation involving US military materiel and foreign troops is taking place before the inauguration of the next president, and there are some striking similarities between the Bay of Pigs and the Gaza War for the origins of both stem from the secret chambers of the previous administration.
Last Saturday, the Israeli Air Force launched its attack on Hamas via its aptly named Operation Cast Lead, a phrase from a popular children’s song during Chanukah to, “cast lead dreidels.” The dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, the favorite child’s toy during Chanukah. Sixty Israeli military aircraft including both F-16s and Apache helicopters are not dropping lead dreidels on the inhabitants of Gaza -- they are dropping high-tech 250-pound bombs provided by the “foreign aid” program of the Bush government courtesy of the United States of America.
The giant US arms manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin, produces the F-16 “Fighting Falcon” at costs of $70 million per fighter, while McDonnell-Douglas produces the Apache helicopters at an average unit cost of a paltry $14 million per unit. Boeing produces the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) at a cost of $70-90,000 each. In the first phase of Operation Cast Lead, fifty Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-16s dropped one hundred US-built bombs on 50 targets in Gaza. It should be noted that Hamas does not have an air force, nor supersonic bombers, nor attack helicopters, nor high-tech bombs so the current conflict has no pretensions of being a just war. It is naked aggression – nothing more, nothing less.
In contrast to the high-tech US-manufactured arsenal generously provided to Israel courtesy of American taxpayers, Hamas uses outdated and ineffective Katyusha and Qassam missiles. The Russians developed the Katyusha in 1941 as an un-guided artillery shell sometimes described as a multiple rocket launcher. The Qassam is a crude and inexpensive, home-made unguided rocket or ‘missile’ from 3-7 feet in length bearing a small explosive charge that works like a fourth of July rocket from a Chinese fireworks factory.
The official rationale for the 2008 Gaza War suggests that the massive military operation is a response to the end of the agreement for a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas that officially concluded on December 19th. Both sides claim violations of the truce. The government of Israel argues that a palpable escalation of rocket fire from Gaza killed one Israeli civilian and triggered the current crisis.
In contrast to the official Israeli rationale, Palestinians, Israeli journalists, Israeli writers and Israeli peace activists trace the breakdown of the truce to an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) military operation that raided a tunnel between Gaza and Egypt and led to the deaths of six Palestinians as the tipping point that precipitated the subsequent escalation of rocket fire from Gaza. On the fifth of November the morning news reported that Barack Obama had been elected to replace George Bush, and on that very day the IDF raided the tunnel killing six Palestinians in the process. In the aftermath of the tunnel raid, Hamas escalated rocket fire ultimately resulting in the death of one Israeli prior to the launch of Operation Cast Lead.
Last June, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt brokered the six-month truce agreement that began on June 18th and expired on the 19th of December. Last week, Prime Minister Tzipi Livni informed Hosni Mubarak that Israel would strike Hamas in retaliation to the rocket fire. Reports in Israel confirm that military planning for the current operation began six months ago, at the beginning of the truce. Less than two months into the truce, the New York Times reported the US would speed up delivery of high-tech bombs to Israel. On the first day of the Israeli assault more than 200 Palestinians died making it the bloodiest day of the Arab-Israeli conflict since the Six Day War of 1967.
In televised statements from Bush’s official spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, it is clear that the US is supporting the Israeli attack on Gaza. In a tremulous voice, Mr. Johndroe addressed a hastily assembled press conference in Crawford, Texas. In brief comments punctuated by “Ummms” and “Ahhhs,” Johndroe justified the conflict by the refusal of Hamas to accept the right of Israel to exist.
From his podium in Crawford, Johndroe intoned, “Hamas has a choice to make. Right now they are choosing to be a terrorist organization that fires rockets into Israel. That is not going to lead to a ceasefire.”
From Johndroe’s statements, the position of the US is sharp and clear. The people of Gaza must not defend themselves against the IAF bombardment or any future IDF ground assault. Through Johndroe’s statements, Bush has issued an ultimatum to the Palestinian people to restrain them from their natural compulsion to defend themselves against armed aggression. Bush’s policy is now perfectly clear, Palestinians will suffer even more severe punishment than Operation Cast Lead via the IDF – the forceful re-occupation of Gaza as a last gasp of Bush’s neoconservative hubris.
Johndroe revealed that President Bush was constantly monitoring the situation while conferring with Vice-President Cheney. During the Lebanon War of 2006, Vice President Cheney maintained close communications with the IDF in their assault that resulted in an embarrassing outcome for Israel for they did not achieve their principal objective of destroying Hizbullah, the armed Pro-Palestinian political faction in Lebanon. In the government of Lebanon, Hizbullah’s political strength is growing in both the parliament and the cabinet.
It now seems likely that the Gaza War will be counterproductive. Hamas will emerge more popular than before the US-backed Israeli attack. Five months after the failure of The Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara wrote a letter to JFK thanking him for the attack and stating that it strengthened the popularity of the revolution in Cuba.
Demonstrating the decline of US influence that has fallen off a cliff during the Bush presidency, the rest of the world is condemning the US-backed Israeli operation. Public protests against the Israeli attack began on Saturday morning when 1,000 Israeli protesters challenged the bombing of Gaza in a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv. Today, a wave of public protest is sweeping across the globe from Turkey to Pakistan in the Middle East to leading cities in Europe, Asia and the Americas – people are convulsed in a cascade of criticism aimed at the disproportionate attack. In several major cities, hundreds of angry protestors are surrounding Israeli embassies to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities. This Saturday, there will be a major demonstration in London’s Trafalgar Square.
However, statements from Israeli officials have made it clear that the confrontation will not end soon. Speculation is mounting about an Israeli ground assault to re-occupy Gaza and reverse the bold policy of Ariel Sharon who ordered the IDF withdrawal in 2005. This tactic is shaped by anticipation of a new foreign policy that will be unveiled by President-Elect Obama after he takes the oath of office in January.
In February, Israel will hold its elections. The ranking contenders are: Tzipi Livni, the current Foreign Minister; Ehud Barak, the current Minister of Defense, and Binyamin Netanyahu, the head of the right-wing party, Likud. All three support Operation Cast Lead. The outcome of the conflict may prefigure the outcome of the election.
During this phase of the conflict, President-Elect Obama, Vice-President-Elect Biden and Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton are maintaining a policy of non-intervention stating through spokespersons that there can be only one president at a time and that Obama will assume the presidency on the 20th of January. At the same time, Obama is receiving a stream of intelligence briefings on the crisis that has transformed his sojourn in Hawaii into a working holiday if ever there were one. During this period, Obama will be in routine contact with Jim Jones, his National Security Advisor.
Of all the problems facing President-Elect Obama, the Arab-Israeli conflict is the proverbial Gordion Knot. In order to move beyond the neoconservative era of Bush and Cheney, the first task facing the Obama administration is not merely the US withdrawal from Iraq, but the pacification of the Middle East. Unless there is a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Obama will face the untenable prospect of continuing the failed foreign policy of Bush.
After Obama announced the appointments of his national security team, a seismic surge of diplomacy has been the source of tremors presaging an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the announcement of her appointment, Hillary Clinton held a lengthy telephone conversation with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Shortly after their teleconference Olmert called for stronger US leadership from the next president in guiding Israel and the Palestinians toward peace. In a second interview Olmert criticized the systematic aggression of Israeli settlers on the West Bank that he characterized as a “pogrom” where Palestinian lands have been seized and occupied over the past forty years.
Obama’s key advisors have designed a diplomatic course that will relegate the neoconservatives to the dustbin of history. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft believe that Obama must resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict promptly in order to project a viable foreign policy. Obama’s designated National Security Advisor, Jim Jones proposed a NATO peacekeeping force to occupy the West Bank – a policy that would preclude any further assaults like Operation Cast Lead. Current UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticized the Israeli settlements on the West Bank as a blockade to peace. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who is now the Middle Eastern Envoy for the European Union told a reporter that a secret deal has been struck between the Arabs and Israelis. The new American pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby, J Street criticized the growing violence of the Israeli settlers. Now, J Street is now calling for the immediate cessation of Operation Cast Lead and the launch of peace negotiations.
Against the backdrop of a new American administration preparing to assume power and make changes, Lame Duck President George W. Bush authorized the Israeli assault on Gaza by pledging US support for the attack. It should never be forgotten that Bush is a dedicated Christian Zionist who broke into tears when he was fawningly eulogized in the Knesset during his last visit to Israel in May.
Like the portrait of Dorian Gray that morphed into increasingly hideous configurations while its subject descended into deeper levels of vice, immorality and personal corruption, Bush’s broken presidency is morphing into a crescendo of violence and pathos in a childish fit of pique designed to destroy Obama’s presidency before it begins – in effect foisting a catastrophe upon the incoming president before he has a chance to take the oath of office.
This macabre scenario vividly recalls the Bay of Pigs, the ill-conceived assault on Castro’s Cuba planned in secret by Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence, and then-Vice President Richard Nixon in the summer of 1960. JFK permitted the tragedy to unfold, and he took the blame for the fiasco that was the most searing foreign policy scandal of his short term in office.
Today, Obama is facing the same gambit on the chessboard as JFK – a disastrous last gasp of neoconservatism threatens to scuttle his presidency before it begins. This is the first major test of Obama predicted by Biden. Failure to respond appropriately to this challenge will plunge the Middle East into a maelstrom that could very well consume Obama’s presidency in a Cold War over energy with American prestige on the decline.
In ancient Persia, the Parthians produced one of the most devastating cavalry techniques in ancient warfare. While retreating from the battlefield, Parthian archers would turn in their saddles to fire a volley of arrows at their pursuers. While Bush is being democratically forced from power, he is firing a volley of military crises at Obama, and his fingerprints are all over the current crop of corpses in Gaza.
Obama is not JFK, and Gaza is not Cuba. With American prestige on the decline and the global economic meltdown, Obama is facing a distinctly different but equally challenging nightmare as JFK did in 1961 in the midst of recession and the macabre machinations of the Cold War.
Biden was right. Obama is facing a brazen challenge that will test his mettle for the office he will soon hold. Let us hope that history will not repeat itself marring a presidency long-anticipated as the vanguard of a new era of global progress.
SOURCES
Biden to Supporters: "Gird Your Loins", For the Next President "It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html
U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html?hp
IDF Uncovers Tunnel Intended for Terror Attack in the Gaza Strip
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/the_Front/08/11/0501.htm
The 2008 Gaza War Update
http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/
Gaza humanitarian plight 'disastrous,' U.N. official says
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/28/gaza.humanitarian/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
US veto blocks UN anti-Israel resolution
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=79727§ionid=351020202
Israel strike may shift Obama plan
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16889.html
What's Next on Gaza/Israel and Why Americans Should Care
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-levy/what-next-on-gazaisrael-a_b_153743.html
Analysis: Israel trying to ensure that Hamas can't become another Hizbullah
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1230456504736
Air strikes on Gaza continue as death toll rises
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/28/gaza.israel.strikes/index.html
US Blames Hamas for Israel's Gaza Bloodbath
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=a4563212a6545b73ce00e91977138426&mode=details#a4563212a6545b73ce00e91977138426
Robert Fisk’s World: How can anyone believe there is 'progress' in the Middle East?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-how-can-anyone-believe-there-is-progress-in-the-middle-east-1212434.html
Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/27/israel-nationalism-beiteinu-likud-gaza
Scores dead in Israeli raid on Gaza
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/200812279451509662.html
Column One: Netanyahu's grand coalition
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728164511&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Catastrophe for Gaza
An Israeli blockade curtails food, fuel, medicine and travel.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-sarraj14-2008dec14,0,2658218.story
All conflicts can be resolved, says Nobel Peace laureate Ahtisaari
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i9mCfugpuu5q5mMbaBAVVGzBhmpg
Gazans Resort To Eating Grass And Taking Painkillers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/14/gazans-turn-to-painkiller_n_150862.html
Blair says that Palestinians and Israelis Reached a Secret Agreement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/blair-says-that-palestini_b_148639.html
Israel deports American academic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/15/middleeast-israelandthepalestinians
Palestinian PM Fayyad says West Bank settlement must end for peace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/15/fayyad-west-bank-israel
Israeli settlements are blockage to Middle East peace, says Gordon Brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/15/gordonbrown-middleeast
J Street / Tell Hoenlein to condemn violent Jewish settler extremism
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=505&hebron-email
Ed Asner, The Shminitsim
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-asner/shminisitim_b_150043.html
UN adopts Middle East resolution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7786602.stm
Palestinian President: Will Call General Elections 'Very Soon'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/16/palestinian-president-wil_n_151475.html
UN out of touch with reality
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/12/18/10268055.html
Poll: Most Israelis oppose Arab peace plan
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728221188&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Livni and Netanyahu vow to oust Hamas after Gaza rocket strikes
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/livni-and-netanyahu-vow-to-oust-hamas-after-gaza-rocket-strikes-1207398.html
Hamas agrees 24-hour Gaza truce, threatens suicide attack
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jhAET7wvkXGSTXy4YW--3Z3MzVVA
--------------------------------
Michael Carmichael is a senior political consultant, historian, author and broadcaster. Carmichael worked professionally in several US presidential campaigns: RFK; Gene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern; Lloyd Bentsen; Jimmy Carter and Dennis Kucinich. In 2008, he supported Barack Obama. From 1985, Carmichael was based in Oxford, England where he conducted academic research, held seminars and was invited to address international conferences in Modena, Malta, Lugano, Lucerne, Milan, Sardinia, London, Istanbul, Palermo and Kuala Lumpur. In 2003, Carmichael founded Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom and the USA. In 1998, Carmichael appeared as an academic expert on the British documentary series, Sacred Weeds. Carmichael has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC's Today, Hardtalk, PM, as well as numerous appearances on ITN, NPR and many other European broadcasts examining politics and culture. Carmichael’s political commentary has appeared on many websites including: The Huffington Post, Global Research; International Clearing House; Counterpunch and the Baltimore Chronicle. Carmichael can be reached through his website: www.planetarymovement.org - mc@planetarymovement.org
Independent: New powers for police to hack your PC.
Civil liberties groups raise alarm over extension of surveillance without warrant
By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor, Monday, 5 January 2009
Police have been given the power to hack into personal computers without a court warrant. The Home Office is facing anger and the threat of a legal challenge after granting permission. Ministers are also drawing up plans to allow police across the EU to collect information from computers in Britain.
The moves will fuel claims that the Government is presiding over a steady extension of the "surveillance society" threatening personal privacy.
Hacking – known as "remote searching" – has been quietly adopted by police across Britain following the development of technology to access computers' contents at a distance. Police say it is vital for tracking cyber-criminals and paedophiles and is used sparingly but civil liberties groups fear it is about to be vastly expanded.
Remote searching can be achieved by sending an email containing a virus to a suspect's computer which then transmits information about email contents and web-browsing habits to a distant surveillance team.
Alternatively, "key-logging" devices can be inserted into a computer that relay details of each key hit by its owner. Detectives can also monitor the contents of a suspect's computer hard-drive via a wireless network.
Computer hacking has to be approved by a chief constable, who must be satisfied the action is proportionate to the crime being investigated.
Last month European ministers agreed in principle to allow police to carry out remote searches of suspects' computers across the EU.
Details of the proposal are still being developed by the Home Office and other EU ministries, but critics last night warned it would usher in a vast expansion of police hacking operations.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights campaign group Liberty, said such a vast expansion of police powers should be regulated by a new Act of Parliament and that police should be forced to apply to a court for a warrant to hack into computers.
She said: "This is no different from breaking down someone's door, rifling through their paperwork and seizing their computer hard drive."
Ms Chakrabarti said the organisation believed it had strong grounds to challenge the practice both under British and European law.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "The exercise of such intrusive powers raises serious privacy issues. The Government must explain how they would work in practice and what safeguards will be in place."
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police carried out 194 hacking operations in 2007-08 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including 133 in private homes, 37 in offices and 24 in hotel rooms.
The spokesman said such surveillance was regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
"The police service in the United Kingdom will aggressively pursue serious and organised criminality, including where that takes the modern forms of hi-tech crime," he added.
The Government faces criticism over the erosion of civil liberties on a series of fronts. It is working on plans for a giant "big brother" database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom.
The first Britons will receive biometric identity cards at the end of the year, paving the way to the world's largest identity register. Genetic details of more than four million people are on the DNA national database, the highest proportion of any Western country. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Britain's policy of retaining samples from people never convicted of a crime – including children – breaches human rights.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-powers-for-police-to-hack-your-pc-1225802.html
Gaza Obama is losing a battle he doesn't know he's in
The president-elect's silence on the Gaza crisis is undermining his reputation in the Middle East
Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations.
Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.
But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.
The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun.
"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."
Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.
Obama's absence from the fray is also allowing hostile voices to exploit the vacuum. "It would appear that the president-elect has no intention of getting involved in the Gaza crisis," Iran's Resalat newspaper commented sourly. "His stances and viewpoints suggest he will follow the path taken by previous American presidents... Obama, too, will pursue policies that support the Zionist aggressions."
Whether Obama, when he does eventually engage, can successfully elucidate an Israel-Palestine policy that is substantively different from that of Bush-Cheney is wholly uncertain at present.
To maintain the hardline US posture of placing the blame for all current troubles squarely on Hamas, to the extent of repeatedly blocking limited UN security council ceasefire moves, would be to end all realistic hopes of winning back Arab opinion - and could have negative, knock-on consequences for US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.
Yet if Obama were to take a tougher (some would say more balanced) line with Israel, for example by demanding a permanent end to its blockade of Gaza, or by opening a path to talks with Hamas, he risks provoking a rightwing backlash in Israel, giving encouragement to Israel's enemies, and losing support at home for little political advantage.
A recent Pew Research Centre survey, for example, showed how different are US perspectives to those of Europe and the Middle East. Americans placed "finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" at the bottom of a 12-issue list of foreign policy concerns, the poll found. And foreign policy is in any case of scant consequence to a large majority of US voters primarily worried about the economy, jobs and savings.
On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas. But at the same time, he held out the prospect of radical change in western relations with Muslims everywhere, promising to make a definitive policy speech in a "major Islamic forum" within 100 days of taking office.
"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said.
As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost.
Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations.
Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.
But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.
The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun.
"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."
Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.
Obama's absence from the fray is also allowing hostile voices to exploit the vacuum. "It would appear that the president-elect has no intention of getting involved in the Gaza crisis," Iran's Resalat newspaper commented sourly. "His stances and viewpoints suggest he will follow the path taken by previous American presidents... Obama, too, will pursue policies that support the Zionist aggressions."
Whether Obama, when he does eventually engage, can successfully elucidate an Israel-Palestine policy that is substantively different from that of Bush-Cheney is wholly uncertain at present.
To maintain the hardline US posture of placing the blame for all current troubles squarely on Hamas, to the extent of repeatedly blocking limited UN security council ceasefire moves, would be to end all realistic hopes of winning back Arab opinion - and could have negative, knock-on consequences for US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.
Yet if Obama were to take a tougher (some would say more balanced) line with Israel, for example by demanding a permanent end to its blockade of Gaza, or by opening a path to talks with Hamas, he risks provoking a rightwing backlash in Israel, giving encouragement to Israel's enemies, and losing support at home for little political advantage.
A recent Pew Research Centre survey, for example, showed how different are US perspectives to those of Europe and the Middle East. Americans placed "finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" at the bottom of a 12-issue list of foreign policy concerns, the poll found. And foreign policy is in any case of scant consequence to a large majority of US voters primarily worried about the economy, jobs and savings.
On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas. But at the same time, he held out the prospect of radical change in western relations with Muslims everywhere, promising to make a definitive policy speech in a "major Islamic forum" within 100 days of taking office.
"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said.
As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost.
The American Puppet State
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 05, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- - President George W. Bush was in his stand-up comedian role when he declared that he wanted to be remembered as a fighter for human rights.
Seldom has a fighter for human rights amassed Bush’s death toll. According to Information Clearing House, Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in 1,297,997 dead Iraqis. Millions more have been wounded, and millions are displaced. Bush’s legions have taken out weddings, funerals, kid’s soccer games, hospitals, and mosques.
And that’s before we come to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan “we don’t do body counts” declared a commander of Bush’s imperial legions. But the thousands of dead civilians and school children have rallied Afghans to the Taliban, whose lightly armed fighters have retaken most of the country from the Unipower.
The Taliban doesn’t have an air force, or cluster bombs, or drones, or “smart missiles,” or tanks, or satellite capability. The Taliban has Afghan resistance to occupation.
Bush was fighting for human rights in 2006 when he prevented for one month the civilized world from stopping Israel’s massive bombing of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and civilian neighborhoods. Israel had intended to clear Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon in order to steal that part of the country for its water resources. When the vaunted Israeli Army was defeated and put to rout by a few lightly armed Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli rage took the Israeli defeat out on Lebanon’s civilian population--from the air, of course. The murder of Lebanon’s civilian population was enabled by the American weapons with which Israel is flooded.
Now Israel is bombing civilians in Israel’s Gaza Ghetto. Nothing has been spared. Not the hospitals, the university, or the children. Again, President Bush, to America’s everlasting shame, is blocking the civilized world’s attempt to force a halt to the Israeli aggression against the civilian population in Gaza.
If only Bush were merely a stand-up comedian. In truth, he is a puppet. A puppet of Zionist Israel.
No one any longer listens to Bush’s radio addresses. Three-fourths of the American people cannot wait until the moron’s last Oval Office days are over. But his January 2 speech proves, yet again, that the president of the United States is Israel’s puppet. Listen to the “leader of the free world”:
Bush: “This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas--a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction. Eighteen months ago Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars.”
Fact: Neither Iran nor Syria calls for Israel’s destruction. Reporting from Jerusalem three years ago, Chris McGreal (The Guardian, 1-12-06) noted that “Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto.” On June 22, 2006, McGreal reported from Jerusalem that “Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognize Israel’s right to exist.” Hamas won the Palestinian election that Bush and the Israeli government demanded be held. The democratic result was unacceptable to Bush’s Israeli masters. Hamas was turned out of the West Bank Ghetto and a puppet government installed. However, Israel had withdrawn from Gaza in September 2005 in order to keep the occupied territories in the West Bank, and was unable to dispose of Hamas in Gaza. Israel has decided to dispose of Hamas by violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. George Bush supports this assault on democratic elections, as does the US Congress (except Dennis Kucinich), and the US print and TV media].
Bush’s January 2, 2009, radio address is one grand lie that would win the World’s Biggest Liar contest in Cumbria. Israel is turning Gaza into Auschwitz, and the idiot puppet in the White House is blaming the Gazans.
Listen to the blatant lies of the puppet president who wants to be remembered for his defense of human rights:
“Since Hamas's violent takeover in the summer of 2007, living conditions have worsened for Palestinians in Gaza. By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people [Hamas is the only organization that hasn’t sold out ]. America has helped by providing tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, and this week we contributed an additional $85 million through the United Nations. We have consistently called on all in the region to ensure that assistance reaches those in need [the last humanitarian ship was rammed by Israeli gunboats and turned away]. And as I told President Mubarak, America appreciates the role Egypt has played in facilitating the delivery of relief supplies in recent days In addition to reducing humanitarian suffering, all nations must work toward a lasting end to the violence in the Holy Land, and a return to the path of peace. The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected [the US is blocking a cease fire, as it did in Lebanon in 2006, so that Israel can continue killing]. Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable [Israel engineered the breaking of the ceasefire that was in place]. And promises from Hamas will not suffice -- there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace” [here the White House Puppet is saying that the elected government of the Palestinians is not legitimate. Unlike Bush’s own elections, Hamas’ election was not stolen].”
The president of the United States is a sick joke. He has falsified history.
Hamas was elected in free elections in 2006. The US and Israel responded by organizing sanctions against the Hamas government, including the suspension of all foreign aid. According to news reports, the US supplied arms to Fatah to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza. As for Hamas’ resources, Israel has given part of the Palestinian tax resources to its puppet Abbas and kept the rest. The role of the Israeli/American puppet Mubarak is to keep Palestinians pinned in Gaza where they can be bombed by Israel. Mubarak” refuses to open the frontier so that Palestinians can escape their slaughter by Israel.
Americans should be ashamed that their president is a puppet of a small, but ruthless, state in the Middle East that lives off American largess.
Nothing has changed with the election of Obama, whose first act was to put Israel in charge of the White House. For the first time in its history the Americans have a duel citizen, an Israeli who served in the Israeli military, as chief of staff of the White House.
My friends in the Israeli peace movement are despondent that America, “the light of the world,” is overcome by evil and serves wickedness.
Compared to Russia with its energy and leadership and to China with its modern industry, the United States is a second rate power. The US has nukes but can continue its wars of aggression only as long as the dollar can survive as reserve currency. American power has been exhausted by mismanagement. The United States is a discredited country, a bane on the world, its nuclear arsenal a threat to life on earth.
Political scientist Michael Haas has just published a book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes. Haas writes that Bush’s violations of law and the Constitution “transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none.” http://www.uswarcrimes.com/
America has entered its decline. America has exported its manufacturing so that CEOs and Wall Street crooks could claim large bonuses while the working class declined. The American financial industry is discredited and in chaos, having resorted to stealing one trillion dollars from American taxpayers, while putting the rest of the world into financial crisis, including the destruction of Iceland’s currency.
Most of the world now has reasons to hate and to distrust the United States.
American unemployment is high and rising despite the massive printing of money and budget deficits that are too large to be financed, except by the printing of more money.
The damage done to the American people in the first decade of the 21st century by their own government is comparable in some ways to the damage American hubris and self-righteousness have inflicted on the civilian populations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and South Ossetia. Instead of losing their homes to bombs, more than one million Americans have lost their homes to the subprime mortgage fraud. We are spied upon without warrants or cause. Our civil liberties are endangered.
Does anyone believe that George Bush, who assaulted his own country’s civil liberty, will be remembered as a “fighter for human rights”?
January 05, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- - President George W. Bush was in his stand-up comedian role when he declared that he wanted to be remembered as a fighter for human rights.
Seldom has a fighter for human rights amassed Bush’s death toll. According to Information Clearing House, Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in 1,297,997 dead Iraqis. Millions more have been wounded, and millions are displaced. Bush’s legions have taken out weddings, funerals, kid’s soccer games, hospitals, and mosques.
And that’s before we come to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan “we don’t do body counts” declared a commander of Bush’s imperial legions. But the thousands of dead civilians and school children have rallied Afghans to the Taliban, whose lightly armed fighters have retaken most of the country from the Unipower.
The Taliban doesn’t have an air force, or cluster bombs, or drones, or “smart missiles,” or tanks, or satellite capability. The Taliban has Afghan resistance to occupation.
Bush was fighting for human rights in 2006 when he prevented for one month the civilized world from stopping Israel’s massive bombing of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and civilian neighborhoods. Israel had intended to clear Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon in order to steal that part of the country for its water resources. When the vaunted Israeli Army was defeated and put to rout by a few lightly armed Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli rage took the Israeli defeat out on Lebanon’s civilian population--from the air, of course. The murder of Lebanon’s civilian population was enabled by the American weapons with which Israel is flooded.
Now Israel is bombing civilians in Israel’s Gaza Ghetto. Nothing has been spared. Not the hospitals, the university, or the children. Again, President Bush, to America’s everlasting shame, is blocking the civilized world’s attempt to force a halt to the Israeli aggression against the civilian population in Gaza.
If only Bush were merely a stand-up comedian. In truth, he is a puppet. A puppet of Zionist Israel.
No one any longer listens to Bush’s radio addresses. Three-fourths of the American people cannot wait until the moron’s last Oval Office days are over. But his January 2 speech proves, yet again, that the president of the United States is Israel’s puppet. Listen to the “leader of the free world”:
Bush: “This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas--a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction. Eighteen months ago Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars.”
Fact: Neither Iran nor Syria calls for Israel’s destruction. Reporting from Jerusalem three years ago, Chris McGreal (The Guardian, 1-12-06) noted that “Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto.” On June 22, 2006, McGreal reported from Jerusalem that “Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognize Israel’s right to exist.” Hamas won the Palestinian election that Bush and the Israeli government demanded be held. The democratic result was unacceptable to Bush’s Israeli masters. Hamas was turned out of the West Bank Ghetto and a puppet government installed. However, Israel had withdrawn from Gaza in September 2005 in order to keep the occupied territories in the West Bank, and was unable to dispose of Hamas in Gaza. Israel has decided to dispose of Hamas by violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. George Bush supports this assault on democratic elections, as does the US Congress (except Dennis Kucinich), and the US print and TV media].
Bush’s January 2, 2009, radio address is one grand lie that would win the World’s Biggest Liar contest in Cumbria. Israel is turning Gaza into Auschwitz, and the idiot puppet in the White House is blaming the Gazans.
Listen to the blatant lies of the puppet president who wants to be remembered for his defense of human rights:
“Since Hamas's violent takeover in the summer of 2007, living conditions have worsened for Palestinians in Gaza. By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people [Hamas is the only organization that hasn’t sold out ]. America has helped by providing tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, and this week we contributed an additional $85 million through the United Nations. We have consistently called on all in the region to ensure that assistance reaches those in need [the last humanitarian ship was rammed by Israeli gunboats and turned away]. And as I told President Mubarak, America appreciates the role Egypt has played in facilitating the delivery of relief supplies in recent days In addition to reducing humanitarian suffering, all nations must work toward a lasting end to the violence in the Holy Land, and a return to the path of peace. The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected [the US is blocking a cease fire, as it did in Lebanon in 2006, so that Israel can continue killing]. Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable [Israel engineered the breaking of the ceasefire that was in place]. And promises from Hamas will not suffice -- there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace” [here the White House Puppet is saying that the elected government of the Palestinians is not legitimate. Unlike Bush’s own elections, Hamas’ election was not stolen].”
The president of the United States is a sick joke. He has falsified history.
Hamas was elected in free elections in 2006. The US and Israel responded by organizing sanctions against the Hamas government, including the suspension of all foreign aid. According to news reports, the US supplied arms to Fatah to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza. As for Hamas’ resources, Israel has given part of the Palestinian tax resources to its puppet Abbas and kept the rest. The role of the Israeli/American puppet Mubarak is to keep Palestinians pinned in Gaza where they can be bombed by Israel. Mubarak” refuses to open the frontier so that Palestinians can escape their slaughter by Israel.
Americans should be ashamed that their president is a puppet of a small, but ruthless, state in the Middle East that lives off American largess.
Nothing has changed with the election of Obama, whose first act was to put Israel in charge of the White House. For the first time in its history the Americans have a duel citizen, an Israeli who served in the Israeli military, as chief of staff of the White House.
My friends in the Israeli peace movement are despondent that America, “the light of the world,” is overcome by evil and serves wickedness.
Compared to Russia with its energy and leadership and to China with its modern industry, the United States is a second rate power. The US has nukes but can continue its wars of aggression only as long as the dollar can survive as reserve currency. American power has been exhausted by mismanagement. The United States is a discredited country, a bane on the world, its nuclear arsenal a threat to life on earth.
Political scientist Michael Haas has just published a book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes. Haas writes that Bush’s violations of law and the Constitution “transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none.” http://www.uswarcrimes.com/
America has entered its decline. America has exported its manufacturing so that CEOs and Wall Street crooks could claim large bonuses while the working class declined. The American financial industry is discredited and in chaos, having resorted to stealing one trillion dollars from American taxpayers, while putting the rest of the world into financial crisis, including the destruction of Iceland’s currency.
Most of the world now has reasons to hate and to distrust the United States.
American unemployment is high and rising despite the massive printing of money and budget deficits that are too large to be financed, except by the printing of more money.
The damage done to the American people in the first decade of the 21st century by their own government is comparable in some ways to the damage American hubris and self-righteousness have inflicted on the civilian populations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and South Ossetia. Instead of losing their homes to bombs, more than one million Americans have lost their homes to the subprime mortgage fraud. We are spied upon without warrants or cause. Our civil liberties are endangered.
Does anyone believe that George Bush, who assaulted his own country’s civil liberty, will be remembered as a “fighter for human rights”?
'People Are Being Killed in Their Homes'
An Eyewitness Account of Conditions on the Ground in Gaza
RAFAH, Gaza, Jan. 5, 2009 —" ABC News -- The Israeli assault in Gaza is taking a particularly cruel toll on children who have been caught in the crossfire.
Gaza's hospitals are said to be at a breaking point, with medical supplies running low and paramedics among the many attacked. Western media have not been allowed into Gaza so far to witness and report on the situation there.
Jenny Linnel is a British volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, and has been working in the Gaza Strip since August. Since the Israeli assault on Gaza began Dec. 27, Linnel has been working alongside other volunteers to "witness and document the devastation" in Gaza.
Since the ground invasion, Linnel and other ISM activists have been working alongside medical personnel in the territory. Here is her eyewitness account of conditions on the ground in Gaza.
What we are seeing now is like nothing that's ever been seen before in the Gaza Strip. The ground invasion will only worsen things.
Ambulances have been attacked, adding to the great difficulty we are having reaching people. Yesterday five paramedics were killed on duty, three by a missile, and I think the other two were shot.
Conditions in Gaza's hospitals are growing more desperate. At least 2,500 Gazans have been wounded in these attacks. The hospitals here are dealing with such huge numbers. They were already running out of medical supplies before the attacks.
The director of the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis, Dr. Abdullatif el-Haj, just sent me a list of very basic supplies, supplies that any other hospital would have plenty of. They need latex gloves, gauze, bandages, syringes, oxide plasters, antibiotics. They are running out because there are so many traumas, and so many people susceptible to infections. They are massively overstretched.
And now, ambulance staff are being targeted. Just today, a missile landed in the car park next to the Al Awda hospital, the entrance of the hospital's emergency room has now been damaged.
There have been so many casualties. Last Tuesday, on the 30th of December, two of my colleagues in Beit Hanoun, in northeast Gaza, witnessed a missile strike that killed three children. These kids went to take out the rubbish. They were afraid to go out alone, so they went out together. The 4-year-old girl died instantly, her 12-year-old sister died upon arrival at the hospital and their 11-year-old brother, who was injured, died a few days later.
I have seen whole families being killed. Five sisters killed in Jabaliya, when their house was hit by a missile. & Their bodies being pulled out from under the rubble, all holding on to each other. I know another family that fled their home near the Gaza airport worried about their safety. They were killed yesterday while making their way to a relative's home. Nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, the 29th of December, three boys were killed in their home in Rafah by a missile. They were 4, 12, and 13 years old. We met their sister, who was injured and in a state of shock. Their mother was seriously injured, their father was injured as well. There are so many stories like this.
In Al-Garara village near Khan Younis, three children were killed, a 11-year-old girl and two 9-year-old boys. They were hit by a missile from an unmanned aircraft, locally known as drones. We see them flying over constantly, monitoring the situation. The uncle of these children told us that one of the boys. & His head was missing.
This is just a handful of the stories here. People are being killed in their homes, in their beds while they are sleeping.
Here in Rafah, the border opens intermittently and for very brief moments of time, allowing a trickle of aid to come through. If things continue like this, there will be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
We are waiting. & We may find that areas will be sealed off, as is already happening in the north of Gaza, so my colleagues will either be stuck in certain areas or won't be able to get into areas. We know Israeli troops are outside Rafah. In time Rafah too could be sealed off, which will make our mobility very difficult. We just have to wait and see. We will continue to do the best we can for as long as we can.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6578174
RAFAH, Gaza, Jan. 5, 2009 —" ABC News -- The Israeli assault in Gaza is taking a particularly cruel toll on children who have been caught in the crossfire.
Gaza's hospitals are said to be at a breaking point, with medical supplies running low and paramedics among the many attacked. Western media have not been allowed into Gaza so far to witness and report on the situation there.
Jenny Linnel is a British volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, and has been working in the Gaza Strip since August. Since the Israeli assault on Gaza began Dec. 27, Linnel has been working alongside other volunteers to "witness and document the devastation" in Gaza.
Since the ground invasion, Linnel and other ISM activists have been working alongside medical personnel in the territory. Here is her eyewitness account of conditions on the ground in Gaza.
What we are seeing now is like nothing that's ever been seen before in the Gaza Strip. The ground invasion will only worsen things.
Ambulances have been attacked, adding to the great difficulty we are having reaching people. Yesterday five paramedics were killed on duty, three by a missile, and I think the other two were shot.
Conditions in Gaza's hospitals are growing more desperate. At least 2,500 Gazans have been wounded in these attacks. The hospitals here are dealing with such huge numbers. They were already running out of medical supplies before the attacks.
The director of the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis, Dr. Abdullatif el-Haj, just sent me a list of very basic supplies, supplies that any other hospital would have plenty of. They need latex gloves, gauze, bandages, syringes, oxide plasters, antibiotics. They are running out because there are so many traumas, and so many people susceptible to infections. They are massively overstretched.
And now, ambulance staff are being targeted. Just today, a missile landed in the car park next to the Al Awda hospital, the entrance of the hospital's emergency room has now been damaged.
There have been so many casualties. Last Tuesday, on the 30th of December, two of my colleagues in Beit Hanoun, in northeast Gaza, witnessed a missile strike that killed three children. These kids went to take out the rubbish. They were afraid to go out alone, so they went out together. The 4-year-old girl died instantly, her 12-year-old sister died upon arrival at the hospital and their 11-year-old brother, who was injured, died a few days later.
I have seen whole families being killed. Five sisters killed in Jabaliya, when their house was hit by a missile. & Their bodies being pulled out from under the rubble, all holding on to each other. I know another family that fled their home near the Gaza airport worried about their safety. They were killed yesterday while making their way to a relative's home. Nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, the 29th of December, three boys were killed in their home in Rafah by a missile. They were 4, 12, and 13 years old. We met their sister, who was injured and in a state of shock. Their mother was seriously injured, their father was injured as well. There are so many stories like this.
In Al-Garara village near Khan Younis, three children were killed, a 11-year-old girl and two 9-year-old boys. They were hit by a missile from an unmanned aircraft, locally known as drones. We see them flying over constantly, monitoring the situation. The uncle of these children told us that one of the boys. & His head was missing.
This is just a handful of the stories here. People are being killed in their homes, in their beds while they are sleeping.
Here in Rafah, the border opens intermittently and for very brief moments of time, allowing a trickle of aid to come through. If things continue like this, there will be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
We are waiting. & We may find that areas will be sealed off, as is already happening in the north of Gaza, so my colleagues will either be stuck in certain areas or won't be able to get into areas. We know Israeli troops are outside Rafah. In time Rafah too could be sealed off, which will make our mobility very difficult. We just have to wait and see. We will continue to do the best we can for as long as we can.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6578174
Israeli tanks enter South Gaza's largest city.
Israeli tanks blasted their way into the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis for the first time this morning, Palestinian witnesses said, as heavy fighting raged on the northern edges of Gaza City itself.
As Israeli forces move deeper into Hamas-controlled cities and shanty towns, where hundreds of thousands of impoverished Gazans are struggling to get by without electricity, running water or adequate food supplies, they are paying an increasingly heavy price. Three soldiers were killed and 30 wounded in a “friendly fire” incident, when the building they were occupying was hit by one of their own tanks.
Israel said it had killed 130 Hamas fighters since launching its ground offensive on Saturday night, as the Islamist guerrillas fought pitched street battles using mortars, rockets grenades and small arms.
The Israeli offensive has created a swath of destruction and death as the armoured columns push into heavily populated shanty towns populated by refugees of previous wars and their descendents.
Facing them are up to 15,000 Hamas fighters, who have been waiting for just such a battle on the ground of their choosing: booby-trapped alleys filled with tunnels they have dug to outmanoeuvre the Israelis, and primed with booby traps.
The Israeli army did not immediately confirmed that its forces had pushed into Khan Yunis, a sprawling city that was the scene of constant clashes with the Gush Khatif settlement bloc that occupied the nearby coast until the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.
Israeli analysts were warning that Operation Cast Lead, which started with a week-long aerial blitz that killed hundreds of Palestinians, could be nearing a decisive phase. The government and top brass have to decide whether to escalate the battle by moving into the dangerous urban landscape of Gaza City, home to 400,000 people, or accept one of the ceasefire proposals being forwarded by the international community.
Both sides have so far refused a truce, with Israel pushing deeper into Gaza and Hamas firing more missiles at southern Israel this morning.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, and a high-level EU delegation are touring the region to press for an end to hostilities as UN and aid agencies say that food, power, water and medicine are at dangerously low levels. The population was already living on the very basics after months of Israeli closure of the strip, which has declared a “hostile entity since Hamas took control by force in June 2007.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to even exist, though its more moderate wing has offered a long-term ceasefire.
Hamas leaders were in fighting mood yesterday, breaking cover despite Israeli bombers swooping over Gaza to try and kill them, in order to send messages threatening yet more bloodshed.
Mahmoud Zahar, the hardline political leader believed to have been a driving force behind Hamas’ summer war with mainstream rivals Fatah in 2007, promised to repay Israel in kind for the killing of more than 100 Palestinian children in the latest offensive.
“They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine,” he said in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. “They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.”
Abu Obeida, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, also made his first appearance on Gaza television, his face masked in a red and white scarf, to goad Israeli forces massed outside the Gaza City “We have prepared thousands of brave fighters who are waiting for you in each corner of the street and will welcome you with fire and iron,” he said.
A spokesman for Islamic Jihad, a smaller but even more fanatical faction than Hamas, said his men were outflanking the encroaching Israeli forces.
"A Jihad unit is taking part in the clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza. They attacked the rear lines" of the Israeli forces…Communications with our fighters are cut at the moment but it is still going on."
In central Gaza, in the town of Deir al-Balah, four Hamas gunmen and two Islamic Jihad fighters died when the house they were in was hit by Israeli tank fire, witnesses said.
And in the southern town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, witnesses said an elderly woman was killed by an Israeli air strike. At least 18 people have been killed so far this morning, Palestinian medics said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5456486.ece
As Israeli forces move deeper into Hamas-controlled cities and shanty towns, where hundreds of thousands of impoverished Gazans are struggling to get by without electricity, running water or adequate food supplies, they are paying an increasingly heavy price. Three soldiers were killed and 30 wounded in a “friendly fire” incident, when the building they were occupying was hit by one of their own tanks.
Israel said it had killed 130 Hamas fighters since launching its ground offensive on Saturday night, as the Islamist guerrillas fought pitched street battles using mortars, rockets grenades and small arms.
The Israeli offensive has created a swath of destruction and death as the armoured columns push into heavily populated shanty towns populated by refugees of previous wars and their descendents.
Facing them are up to 15,000 Hamas fighters, who have been waiting for just such a battle on the ground of their choosing: booby-trapped alleys filled with tunnels they have dug to outmanoeuvre the Israelis, and primed with booby traps.
The Israeli army did not immediately confirmed that its forces had pushed into Khan Yunis, a sprawling city that was the scene of constant clashes with the Gush Khatif settlement bloc that occupied the nearby coast until the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.
Israeli analysts were warning that Operation Cast Lead, which started with a week-long aerial blitz that killed hundreds of Palestinians, could be nearing a decisive phase. The government and top brass have to decide whether to escalate the battle by moving into the dangerous urban landscape of Gaza City, home to 400,000 people, or accept one of the ceasefire proposals being forwarded by the international community.
Both sides have so far refused a truce, with Israel pushing deeper into Gaza and Hamas firing more missiles at southern Israel this morning.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, and a high-level EU delegation are touring the region to press for an end to hostilities as UN and aid agencies say that food, power, water and medicine are at dangerously low levels. The population was already living on the very basics after months of Israeli closure of the strip, which has declared a “hostile entity since Hamas took control by force in June 2007.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to even exist, though its more moderate wing has offered a long-term ceasefire.
Hamas leaders were in fighting mood yesterday, breaking cover despite Israeli bombers swooping over Gaza to try and kill them, in order to send messages threatening yet more bloodshed.
Mahmoud Zahar, the hardline political leader believed to have been a driving force behind Hamas’ summer war with mainstream rivals Fatah in 2007, promised to repay Israel in kind for the killing of more than 100 Palestinian children in the latest offensive.
“They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine,” he said in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. “They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.”
Abu Obeida, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, also made his first appearance on Gaza television, his face masked in a red and white scarf, to goad Israeli forces massed outside the Gaza City “We have prepared thousands of brave fighters who are waiting for you in each corner of the street and will welcome you with fire and iron,” he said.
A spokesman for Islamic Jihad, a smaller but even more fanatical faction than Hamas, said his men were outflanking the encroaching Israeli forces.
"A Jihad unit is taking part in the clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza. They attacked the rear lines" of the Israeli forces…Communications with our fighters are cut at the moment but it is still going on."
In central Gaza, in the town of Deir al-Balah, four Hamas gunmen and two Islamic Jihad fighters died when the house they were in was hit by Israeli tank fire, witnesses said.
And in the southern town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, witnesses said an elderly woman was killed by an Israeli air strike. At least 18 people have been killed so far this morning, Palestinian medics said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5456486.ece
Analysis: Nothing good to say, Obama mum on Gaza
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama's studied silence on the subject of Israel's 10-day-old war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip is only partly out of deference to the man who still has the big job for two more weeks.
Obama's reserve is also a political calculation that saying nothing is the better of his unappealing options. At least it lets all sides think he's in their corner for a little while longer.
Obama's promises to start fresh in the Middle East, and Arab hopes for a more sympathetic U.S. ear are part of that calculation. So are the strongly pro-Israel views of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state.
Anything Obama says about the crisis, either now or on Jan. 21, will be taken as a clue to his longer-term approach to peacemaking, and it is bound to disappoint someone.
There is little in Obama's resume or his public statements to suggest he suddenly would be tough on Israel or brimming with fresh ideas to address the dismal web of interlocking economic, political and security problems in the Palestinian territories. Obama's only extensive remarks about the Israel-Palestinian conflict during the presidential campaign were strongly pro-Israel.
Clinton was considered naive for a gaffe as first lady in which she kissed PLO leader Yasser Arafat's wife, but as a New York senator she's been consistently pro-Israel.
Nonetheless, Palestinians look to Obama.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki expressed disappointment that the president-elect has refused to comment on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, even though he made a statement on the recent attacks in Mumbai, India.
"We expected him really to be open and responsive to the situation in Gaza," Malki said Monday. "And still ... we expect him to make a strong statement regarding this as soon as possible."
Talking about the crisis in the same terms Bush uses would drain the goodwill of Palestinians and the Arab intermediaries Obama needs, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and a scholar at The Century Foundation. It also would limit Obama's maneuvering room later.
Talking about Gaza in markedly different terms — for instance, by calling for an unconditional truce — would be awkward in the extreme, Levy said.
"I've been getting briefed every day. I've had consistent conversations with members of the current administration about what's taking place," Obama told reporters Monday in his only comments on the Gaza crisis.
"I will continue to insist that when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time, because there are delicate negotiations taking place right now, and we can't have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake."
The voice that is coming out belongs to a president who is a stout defender of Israel, as he affirmed Monday.
"I understand Israel's desire to protect itself," President George W. Bush said in the Oval Office. "The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas."
Over the weekend, Israel began moving tanks and troops into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after a week of punishing aerial bombing of Hamas targets, which caused dozens of civilian casualties and drew widespread condemnation in the Muslim and Arab world. By moving ground forces into Gaza, Israel has raised the risk of escalating the latest Mideast conflict into urban warfare, which would surely increase the casualties and consequences for the region.
Bush, however, laid the blame squarely on Hamas, which the United States labels a terrorist organization.
Israel may end its broad ground war before Obama takes office on Jan. 20, but the festering problem of Israeli-Arab hostilities will remain.
In the near term, if the Israeli incursion continues under an Obama administration, Obama must decide whether to continue Bush's policy of defending Israel even in the face of mounting world criticism of civilian deaths.
If the war ends quickly, Obama would be left to help administer whatever cease-fire terms or other international arrangement Israel agreed to, and to choose a response in the very likely event that the truce proves imperfect.
Even if Obama isn't talking, there's no shortage of Mideast hands hoping he is listening.
The advice includes a position paper provided to The Associated Press that carries the signature of one of Obama's own transition advisers, former diplomat Wendy Chamberlin.
"The Obama administration should lead an international effort to arrange a two-phase process: an immediate cease-fire, followed by a longer term armistice," the paper from the Israel Policy Forum said.
"Thus, if a cease-fire has not been established by the time Obama takes office, his team should work assiduously, through intermediaries, to establish a viable cease-fire," said the paper signed by Chamberlin and a dozen others.
Obama's reserve is also a political calculation that saying nothing is the better of his unappealing options. At least it lets all sides think he's in their corner for a little while longer.
Obama's promises to start fresh in the Middle East, and Arab hopes for a more sympathetic U.S. ear are part of that calculation. So are the strongly pro-Israel views of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state.
Anything Obama says about the crisis, either now or on Jan. 21, will be taken as a clue to his longer-term approach to peacemaking, and it is bound to disappoint someone.
There is little in Obama's resume or his public statements to suggest he suddenly would be tough on Israel or brimming with fresh ideas to address the dismal web of interlocking economic, political and security problems in the Palestinian territories. Obama's only extensive remarks about the Israel-Palestinian conflict during the presidential campaign were strongly pro-Israel.
Clinton was considered naive for a gaffe as first lady in which she kissed PLO leader Yasser Arafat's wife, but as a New York senator she's been consistently pro-Israel.
Nonetheless, Palestinians look to Obama.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki expressed disappointment that the president-elect has refused to comment on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, even though he made a statement on the recent attacks in Mumbai, India.
"We expected him really to be open and responsive to the situation in Gaza," Malki said Monday. "And still ... we expect him to make a strong statement regarding this as soon as possible."
Talking about the crisis in the same terms Bush uses would drain the goodwill of Palestinians and the Arab intermediaries Obama needs, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and a scholar at The Century Foundation. It also would limit Obama's maneuvering room later.
Talking about Gaza in markedly different terms — for instance, by calling for an unconditional truce — would be awkward in the extreme, Levy said.
"I've been getting briefed every day. I've had consistent conversations with members of the current administration about what's taking place," Obama told reporters Monday in his only comments on the Gaza crisis.
"I will continue to insist that when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time, because there are delicate negotiations taking place right now, and we can't have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake."
The voice that is coming out belongs to a president who is a stout defender of Israel, as he affirmed Monday.
"I understand Israel's desire to protect itself," President George W. Bush said in the Oval Office. "The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas."
Over the weekend, Israel began moving tanks and troops into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after a week of punishing aerial bombing of Hamas targets, which caused dozens of civilian casualties and drew widespread condemnation in the Muslim and Arab world. By moving ground forces into Gaza, Israel has raised the risk of escalating the latest Mideast conflict into urban warfare, which would surely increase the casualties and consequences for the region.
Bush, however, laid the blame squarely on Hamas, which the United States labels a terrorist organization.
Israel may end its broad ground war before Obama takes office on Jan. 20, but the festering problem of Israeli-Arab hostilities will remain.
In the near term, if the Israeli incursion continues under an Obama administration, Obama must decide whether to continue Bush's policy of defending Israel even in the face of mounting world criticism of civilian deaths.
If the war ends quickly, Obama would be left to help administer whatever cease-fire terms or other international arrangement Israel agreed to, and to choose a response in the very likely event that the truce proves imperfect.
Even if Obama isn't talking, there's no shortage of Mideast hands hoping he is listening.
The advice includes a position paper provided to The Associated Press that carries the signature of one of Obama's own transition advisers, former diplomat Wendy Chamberlin.
"The Obama administration should lead an international effort to arrange a two-phase process: an immediate cease-fire, followed by a longer term armistice," the paper from the Israel Policy Forum said.
"Thus, if a cease-fire has not been established by the time Obama takes office, his team should work assiduously, through intermediaries, to establish a viable cease-fire," said the paper signed by Chamberlin and a dozen others.
mandag den 5. januar 2009
Palestinians want UN resolution demanding Gaza truce
Palestinians want UN resolution demanding Gaza truce
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said on Monday Arab countries were drafting a U.N. Security Council council resolution demanding an immediate end to "Israeli aggression" in Gaza.
He said Arab foreign ministers were meeting at the United Nations on Monday to discuss the draft as Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza in an offensive to halt rocket fire against its cities from the Palestinian territory.
Malki told reporters that Arab League chief Amr Moussa along with ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states would discuss the crisis with representatives of the five permanent Security Council members and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Then we will continue our deliberations in order to prepare for a draft resolution that hopefully will be ... passed in the Security Council tomorrow," Malki said.
He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be first to address Tuesday's council meeting. Foreign ministers of some of the 15 council members might also attend, diplomats said.
Malki said the Arabs wanted "a resolution that will permit first of all ending the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, lifting the siege, opening the crossings between Gaza and Israel, and also between Gaza and Egypt."
They wanted the resolution to call for international observers to be stationed at the border crossings with Gaza as well as an "international force" deployed to protect the 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom depend on humanitarian aid.
Israel has already rejected the idea of placing outside observers in the Gaza Strip. It says it will not halt the offensive, which began after Hamas allowed a six-month ceasefire to lapse, until it had ensured its citizens' safety.
A U.N. spokeswoman said Ban Ki-moon told U.N. staff on Monday the situation in Gaza has "worsened dramatically" over the last 48 hours. Ban also pressed Israel to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to ease the crisis.
The council issued a non-binding statement last month calling for an end to the violence. Diplomats say getting a legally-binding resolution passed will not be easy.
The United States on Saturday blocked an effort by Libya, the sole Arab member of the Security Council, to persuade members to renew their call for an immediate ceasefire following Israel's ground invasion, saying it would make no sense to issue a statement Hamas militants would ignore.
Washington has repeatedly said that any statement or resolution on Gaza state that the Palestinian militant group Hamas is a terrorist organization that seized power in the territory from the legitimate Palestinian Authority.
Arab states last week circulated a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza but Western council members said it was not balanced. The council has taken no action on that draft. (Editing by Alan Elsner)
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said on Monday Arab countries were drafting a U.N. Security Council council resolution demanding an immediate end to "Israeli aggression" in Gaza.
He said Arab foreign ministers were meeting at the United Nations on Monday to discuss the draft as Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza in an offensive to halt rocket fire against its cities from the Palestinian territory.
Malki told reporters that Arab League chief Amr Moussa along with ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states would discuss the crisis with representatives of the five permanent Security Council members and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Then we will continue our deliberations in order to prepare for a draft resolution that hopefully will be ... passed in the Security Council tomorrow," Malki said.
He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be first to address Tuesday's council meeting. Foreign ministers of some of the 15 council members might also attend, diplomats said.
Malki said the Arabs wanted "a resolution that will permit first of all ending the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, lifting the siege, opening the crossings between Gaza and Israel, and also between Gaza and Egypt."
They wanted the resolution to call for international observers to be stationed at the border crossings with Gaza as well as an "international force" deployed to protect the 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom depend on humanitarian aid.
Israel has already rejected the idea of placing outside observers in the Gaza Strip. It says it will not halt the offensive, which began after Hamas allowed a six-month ceasefire to lapse, until it had ensured its citizens' safety.
A U.N. spokeswoman said Ban Ki-moon told U.N. staff on Monday the situation in Gaza has "worsened dramatically" over the last 48 hours. Ban also pressed Israel to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to ease the crisis.
The council issued a non-binding statement last month calling for an end to the violence. Diplomats say getting a legally-binding resolution passed will not be easy.
The United States on Saturday blocked an effort by Libya, the sole Arab member of the Security Council, to persuade members to renew their call for an immediate ceasefire following Israel's ground invasion, saying it would make no sense to issue a statement Hamas militants would ignore.
Washington has repeatedly said that any statement or resolution on Gaza state that the Palestinian militant group Hamas is a terrorist organization that seized power in the territory from the legitimate Palestinian Authority.
Arab states last week circulated a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza but Western council members said it was not balanced. The council has taken no action on that draft. (Editing by Alan Elsner)
The True Story Behind this War Is Not The One Israel Is Telling.
By Johann Hari
January 03, 2009 "The Independent" -- The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.
The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.
It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.
The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.
Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.
The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.
The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."
Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."
January 03, 2009 "The Independent" -- The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.
The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.
It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.
The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.
Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.
The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.
The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."
Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."
Robert Fisk: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony
How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which – in any other conflict – journalists would be writing about in their first reports: that the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.
That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.
But watching the news shows, you'd think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.
Both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres said back in the 1990s that they wished Gaza would just go away, drop into the sea, and you can see why. The existence of Gaza is a permanent reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their homes to Israel, who fled or were driven out through fear or Israeli ethnic cleansing 60 years ago, when tidal waves of refugees had washed over Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and when a bunch of Arabs kicked out of their property didn't worry the world.
Well, the world should worry now. Crammed into the most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world are a dispossessed people who have been living in refuse and sewage and, for the past six months, in hunger and darkness, and who have been sanctioned by us, the West. Gaza was always an insurrectionary place. It took two years for Ariel Sharon's bloody "pacification", starting in 1971, to be completed, and Gaza is not going to be tamed now.
Alas for the Palestinians, their most powerful political voice – I'm talking about the late Edward Said, not the corrupt Yassir Arafat (and how the Israelis must miss him now) – is silent and their predicament largely unexplained by their deplorable, foolish spokesmen. "It's the most terrifying place I've ever been in," Said once said of Gaza. "It's a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa."
Of course, it was left to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to admit that "sometimes also civilians pay the price," an argument she would not make, of course, if the fatality statistics were reversed. Indeed, it was instructive yesterday to hear a member of the American Enterprise Institute – faithfully parroting Israel's arguments – defending the outrageous Palestinian death toll by saying that it was "pointless to play the numbers game". Yet if more than 300 Israelis had been killed – against two dead Palestinians – be sure that the "numbers game" and the disproportionate violence would be all too relevant. The simple fact is that Palestinian deaths matter far less than Israeli deaths. True, we know that 180 of the dead were Hamas members. But what of the rest? If the UN's conservative figure of 57 civilian fatalities is correct, the death toll is still a disgrace.
To find both the US and Britain failing to condemn the Israeli onslaught while blaming Hamas is not surprising. US Middle East policy and Israeli policy are now indistinguishable and Gordon Brown is following the same dog-like devotion to the Bush administration as his predecessor.
As usual, the Arab satraps – largely paid and armed by the West – are silent, preposterously calling for an Arab summit on the crisis which will (if it even takes place), appoint an "action committee" to draw up a report which will never be written. For that is the way with the Arab world and its corrupt rulers. As for Hamas, they will, of course, enjoy the discomfiture of the Arab potentates while cynically waiting for Israel to talk to them. Which they will. Indeed, within a few months, we'll be hearing that Israel and Hamas have been having "secret talks" – just as we once did about Israel and the even more corrupt PLO. But by then, the dead will be long buried and we will be facing the next crisis since the last crisis.
That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.
But watching the news shows, you'd think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.
Both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres said back in the 1990s that they wished Gaza would just go away, drop into the sea, and you can see why. The existence of Gaza is a permanent reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their homes to Israel, who fled or were driven out through fear or Israeli ethnic cleansing 60 years ago, when tidal waves of refugees had washed over Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and when a bunch of Arabs kicked out of their property didn't worry the world.
Well, the world should worry now. Crammed into the most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world are a dispossessed people who have been living in refuse and sewage and, for the past six months, in hunger and darkness, and who have been sanctioned by us, the West. Gaza was always an insurrectionary place. It took two years for Ariel Sharon's bloody "pacification", starting in 1971, to be completed, and Gaza is not going to be tamed now.
Alas for the Palestinians, their most powerful political voice – I'm talking about the late Edward Said, not the corrupt Yassir Arafat (and how the Israelis must miss him now) – is silent and their predicament largely unexplained by their deplorable, foolish spokesmen. "It's the most terrifying place I've ever been in," Said once said of Gaza. "It's a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa."
Of course, it was left to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to admit that "sometimes also civilians pay the price," an argument she would not make, of course, if the fatality statistics were reversed. Indeed, it was instructive yesterday to hear a member of the American Enterprise Institute – faithfully parroting Israel's arguments – defending the outrageous Palestinian death toll by saying that it was "pointless to play the numbers game". Yet if more than 300 Israelis had been killed – against two dead Palestinians – be sure that the "numbers game" and the disproportionate violence would be all too relevant. The simple fact is that Palestinian deaths matter far less than Israeli deaths. True, we know that 180 of the dead were Hamas members. But what of the rest? If the UN's conservative figure of 57 civilian fatalities is correct, the death toll is still a disgrace.
To find both the US and Britain failing to condemn the Israeli onslaught while blaming Hamas is not surprising. US Middle East policy and Israeli policy are now indistinguishable and Gordon Brown is following the same dog-like devotion to the Bush administration as his predecessor.
As usual, the Arab satraps – largely paid and armed by the West – are silent, preposterously calling for an Arab summit on the crisis which will (if it even takes place), appoint an "action committee" to draw up a report which will never be written. For that is the way with the Arab world and its corrupt rulers. As for Hamas, they will, of course, enjoy the discomfiture of the Arab potentates while cynically waiting for Israel to talk to them. Which they will. Indeed, within a few months, we'll be hearing that Israel and Hamas have been having "secret talks" – just as we once did about Israel and the even more corrupt PLO. But by then, the dead will be long buried and we will be facing the next crisis since the last crisis.
Gaza Hospital Fills Up, Mainly With Civilians.
GAZA — A missile hit their uncle’s house, which was made of concrete and so, the Basal family had thought in taking refuge there, safer than their more flimsy one. Fida Basal, 20, was not there when it struck. But her sister, Hanin, 18, was.
On Sunday, the day after Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza, Fida found Hanin at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. One of Hanin’s legs, her sister was told, had been amputated.
“I want her leg now!” Fida screamed at her mother, blaming her for moving them to the concrete house. “God has no mercy! You get me her leg now!”
Her uncle lost both legs in the missile strike on Sunday. Another woman found only half of the body of her 17-year-old daughter in the Shifa morgue. “May God exterminate Hamas!” she screamed in a curse rarely heard these days. In this conflict, many Palestinians praise Hamas as resisters, but Israel contends the group has purposely endangered civilians by fighting in and around populated areas.
The scene at the hospital, a singular and grisly reflection of the violence around it, was both harrowing and puzzling. A week ago, after Israel began its air assault, hundreds of Hamas militants were taken to the hospital. Yet on Sunday, the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one.
The casualties at Shifa on Sunday — 18 dead, hospital officials said, among a reported 30 around Gaza — were women, children and men who had been with children. One surgeon said that he had performed five amputations.
“I don’t know what kind of weapons Israel is using,” said a nurse, Ziad Abd al Jawwad, 41, who had been working 24 hours without a break. “There is so much amputation.”
“It’s so hard when you do it to women,” he said, adding grimly that even the devastating 1967 war here was over in six days.
For nine days now, doctors have been battling to keep Shifa running under the most adverse circumstances. Sanitation workers constantly mop up blood while Hamas security officers stand guard. But scant resources are being stretched to a breaking point, and a terrible stench is in the air.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian who was allowed into Gaza last week to give emergency medical aid, and who has worked in many conflict zones, said the situation was the worst he had seen.
The hospital lacked everything, he said: monitors, anesthesia, surgical equipment, heaters and spare parts. Israeli bombing nearby blew out windows, and like the rest of Gaza, here the severely limited fuel supplies were running low.
Oved Yehezkel, the Israeli cabinet secretary, said Sunday that from the information at Israel’s disposal, “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Many here would dispute that. With power lines down, much of Gaza has no electricity. There is a dire shortage of cooking gas.
The Israeli government says it has allowed 10,000 tons of essential humanitarian aid, mainly food and medicine, to be delivered to Gaza throughout the past week, even as Hamas has fired its longer-range rockets into major cities in Israel’s south.
Among the donations were 2,000 units of blood from Jordan, five ambulances from Turkey and five transferred on behalf of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society from the West Bank.
In recent days, most of those arriving at Shifa appeared to be civilians. On Sunday, there was no trace here of the dozens of Hamas fighters that the Israeli military said its ground forces had hit in the past few hours in exchanges of fire. The reason was not clear. Many ambulance drivers refused to go near the fighting. It also seemed possible that Hamas and Israeli fighters were still battling at some less lethal distance. It was difficult to know whether fighters were at other hospitals.
But at Shifa, most of the men who were wounded or killed seemed to have been hit along with relatives near their homes or on the road. Two young cousins and a 5-year-old boy from another family were killed by shrapnel as they played on the flat roofs of their apartment buildings.
A woman who came to the hospital with a daughter, 15, who was wounded by shrapnel, said soldiers had taken over their house in Beit Lahiya, in the north, and had detained the men, who she said were farmers. The family said the daughter was wounded when Israeli forces fired on the upper floors of the house.
The combat was not taking place inside Gaza City on Saturday night and Sunday but in areas like Beit Lahiya and east, closer to the Israeli border. At least five civilians in Gaza City were killed Sunday morning, however, when Israeli shells or rockets landed in the city’s market, Palestinian medical officials said. An Israeli military spokesman said the circumstances were being checked.
The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasized that its operation is not aimed at Gaza’s residents. But, sensitive to deep opposition worldwide to the toll on civilians, the military repeated in a statement on Sunday that “the Hamas terror organization operates amongst civilians, using them as human shields.”
Parts of Gaza, a narrow coastal strip with a population of 1.5 million, are among the most densely crowded areas in the world. Artillery and tank fire can easily cause collateral damage. Israel all but stopped firing tank and artillery shells into Gaza in November 2006 after 18 Palestinian civilians, most from one family, were killed by Israeli shells that missed their target and hit a row of houses in Beit Hanoun.
Speaking by telephone on Sunday morning from her home in Shajaiya, near the border with Israel, Itidal Mushtaha, 58, said there was shelling all around. She, her four sons, their wives and 23 grandchildren had all huddled, terrified, on the ground floor with no electricity or water. The Israelis had destroyed many houses nearby that were identified as belonging to Hamas operatives, she said, adding, “We do not know where to hide.”
Yet Ms. Mushtaha, who is not usually a political woman, had nothing but praise for Hamas. “God bless these fighters. They are throwing themselves to death to protect us,” she said.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the body of Ahmad Abu Daf had been in the morgue for about two hours on Sunday when his relatives came to collect it. Mr. Abu Daf, 37, was hit and one of his children was wounded by Israeli shrapnel outside their house in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, the relatives said.
As the relatives carried Mr. Abu Daf’s body from the morgue on a stretcher for burial, they suddenly started to shriek. Blood was trickling out of the mouth, and a hand seemed to shake as if Mr. Abu Daf were alive.
Four doctors raced out of the emergency room. One of the men in the family yelled in anger at a doctor: “How could you keep him in this refrigerator for two hours?”
The doctors checked. Hope flickered out. “Believe us, he’s not alive,” one said. “Just pray for him. There is nothing you can do.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/middleeast/05gaza.html
On Sunday, the day after Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza, Fida found Hanin at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. One of Hanin’s legs, her sister was told, had been amputated.
“I want her leg now!” Fida screamed at her mother, blaming her for moving them to the concrete house. “God has no mercy! You get me her leg now!”
Her uncle lost both legs in the missile strike on Sunday. Another woman found only half of the body of her 17-year-old daughter in the Shifa morgue. “May God exterminate Hamas!” she screamed in a curse rarely heard these days. In this conflict, many Palestinians praise Hamas as resisters, but Israel contends the group has purposely endangered civilians by fighting in and around populated areas.
The scene at the hospital, a singular and grisly reflection of the violence around it, was both harrowing and puzzling. A week ago, after Israel began its air assault, hundreds of Hamas militants were taken to the hospital. Yet on Sunday, the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one.
The casualties at Shifa on Sunday — 18 dead, hospital officials said, among a reported 30 around Gaza — were women, children and men who had been with children. One surgeon said that he had performed five amputations.
“I don’t know what kind of weapons Israel is using,” said a nurse, Ziad Abd al Jawwad, 41, who had been working 24 hours without a break. “There is so much amputation.”
“It’s so hard when you do it to women,” he said, adding grimly that even the devastating 1967 war here was over in six days.
For nine days now, doctors have been battling to keep Shifa running under the most adverse circumstances. Sanitation workers constantly mop up blood while Hamas security officers stand guard. But scant resources are being stretched to a breaking point, and a terrible stench is in the air.
Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian who was allowed into Gaza last week to give emergency medical aid, and who has worked in many conflict zones, said the situation was the worst he had seen.
The hospital lacked everything, he said: monitors, anesthesia, surgical equipment, heaters and spare parts. Israeli bombing nearby blew out windows, and like the rest of Gaza, here the severely limited fuel supplies were running low.
Oved Yehezkel, the Israeli cabinet secretary, said Sunday that from the information at Israel’s disposal, “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Many here would dispute that. With power lines down, much of Gaza has no electricity. There is a dire shortage of cooking gas.
The Israeli government says it has allowed 10,000 tons of essential humanitarian aid, mainly food and medicine, to be delivered to Gaza throughout the past week, even as Hamas has fired its longer-range rockets into major cities in Israel’s south.
Among the donations were 2,000 units of blood from Jordan, five ambulances from Turkey and five transferred on behalf of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society from the West Bank.
In recent days, most of those arriving at Shifa appeared to be civilians. On Sunday, there was no trace here of the dozens of Hamas fighters that the Israeli military said its ground forces had hit in the past few hours in exchanges of fire. The reason was not clear. Many ambulance drivers refused to go near the fighting. It also seemed possible that Hamas and Israeli fighters were still battling at some less lethal distance. It was difficult to know whether fighters were at other hospitals.
But at Shifa, most of the men who were wounded or killed seemed to have been hit along with relatives near their homes or on the road. Two young cousins and a 5-year-old boy from another family were killed by shrapnel as they played on the flat roofs of their apartment buildings.
A woman who came to the hospital with a daughter, 15, who was wounded by shrapnel, said soldiers had taken over their house in Beit Lahiya, in the north, and had detained the men, who she said were farmers. The family said the daughter was wounded when Israeli forces fired on the upper floors of the house.
The combat was not taking place inside Gaza City on Saturday night and Sunday but in areas like Beit Lahiya and east, closer to the Israeli border. At least five civilians in Gaza City were killed Sunday morning, however, when Israeli shells or rockets landed in the city’s market, Palestinian medical officials said. An Israeli military spokesman said the circumstances were being checked.
The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasized that its operation is not aimed at Gaza’s residents. But, sensitive to deep opposition worldwide to the toll on civilians, the military repeated in a statement on Sunday that “the Hamas terror organization operates amongst civilians, using them as human shields.”
Parts of Gaza, a narrow coastal strip with a population of 1.5 million, are among the most densely crowded areas in the world. Artillery and tank fire can easily cause collateral damage. Israel all but stopped firing tank and artillery shells into Gaza in November 2006 after 18 Palestinian civilians, most from one family, were killed by Israeli shells that missed their target and hit a row of houses in Beit Hanoun.
Speaking by telephone on Sunday morning from her home in Shajaiya, near the border with Israel, Itidal Mushtaha, 58, said there was shelling all around. She, her four sons, their wives and 23 grandchildren had all huddled, terrified, on the ground floor with no electricity or water. The Israelis had destroyed many houses nearby that were identified as belonging to Hamas operatives, she said, adding, “We do not know where to hide.”
Yet Ms. Mushtaha, who is not usually a political woman, had nothing but praise for Hamas. “God bless these fighters. They are throwing themselves to death to protect us,” she said.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the body of Ahmad Abu Daf had been in the morgue for about two hours on Sunday when his relatives came to collect it. Mr. Abu Daf, 37, was hit and one of his children was wounded by Israeli shrapnel outside their house in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, the relatives said.
As the relatives carried Mr. Abu Daf’s body from the morgue on a stretcher for burial, they suddenly started to shriek. Blood was trickling out of the mouth, and a hand seemed to shake as if Mr. Abu Daf were alive.
Four doctors raced out of the emergency room. One of the men in the family yelled in anger at a doctor: “How could you keep him in this refrigerator for two hours?”
The doctors checked. Hope flickered out. “Believe us, he’s not alive,” one said. “Just pray for him. There is nothing you can do.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/middleeast/05gaza.html
The Rotten State of Egypt is too Powerless and Corrupt to Act
By Robert Fisk
January 04, 2009 "The Independent" -- There was a day when we worried about the "Arab masses" – the millions of "ordinary" Arabs on the streets of Cairo, Kuwait, Amman, Beirut – and their reaction to the constant bloodbaths in the Middle East. Could Anwar Sadat restrain the anger of his people? And now – after three decades of Hosni Mubarak – can Mubarak (or "La Vache Qui Rit", as he is still called in Cairo) restrain the anger of his people? The answer, of course, is that Egyptians and Kuwaitis and Jordanians will be allowed to shout in the streets of their capitals – but then they will be shut down, with the help of the tens of thousands of secret policemen and government militiamen who serve the princes and kings and elderly rulers of the Arab world.
Egyptians demand that Mubarak open the Rafah crossing-point into Gaza, break off diplomatic relations with Israel, even send weapons to Hamas. And there is a kind of perverse beauty in listening to the response of the Egyptian government: why not complain about the three gates which the Israelis refuse to open? And anyway, the Rafah crossing-point is politically controlled by the four powers that produced the "road map" for peace, including Britain and the US. Why blame Mubarak?
To admit that Egypt can't even open its sovereign border without permission from Washington tells you all you need to know about the powerlessness of the satraps that run the Middle East for us.
Open the Rafah gate – or break off relations with Israel – and Egypt's economic foundations crumble. Any Arab leader who took that kind of step will find that the West's economic and military support is withdrawn. Without subventions, Egypt is bankrupt. Of course, it works both ways. Individual Arab leaders are no longer going to make emotional gestures for anyone. When Sadat flew to Jerusalem – "I am tired of the dwarves," he said of his fellow Arab leaders – he paid the price with his own blood at the Cairo reviewing-stand where one of his own soldiers called him a "Pharaoh" before shooting him dead.
The true disgrace of Egypt, however, is not in its response to the slaughter in Gaza. It is the corruption that has become embedded in an Egyptian society where the idea of service – health, education, genuine security for ordinary people – has simply ceased to exist. It's a land where the first duty of the police is to protect the regime, where protesters are beaten up by the security police, where young women objecting to Mubarak's endless regime – likely to be passed on caliph-like to his son Gamal, whatever we may be told – are sexually molested by plain-clothes agents, where prisoners in the Tora-Tora complex are forced to rape each other by their guards.
There has developed in Egypt a kind of religious facade in which the meaning of Islam has become effaced by its physical representation. Egyptian civil "servants" and government officials are often scrupulous in their religious observances – yet they tolerate and connive in rigged elections, violations of the law and prison torture. A young American doctor described to me recently how in a Cairo hospital busy doctors merely blocked doors with plastic chairs to prevent access to patients. In November, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported how doctors abandoned their patients to attend prayers during Ramadan.
And amid all this, Egyptians have to live amid daily slaughter by their own shabby infrastructure. Alaa al-Aswani wrote eloquently in the Cairo paper Al-Dastour that the regime's "martyrs" outnumber all the dead of Egypt's wars against Israel – victims of railway accidents, ferry sinkings, the collapse of city buildings, sickness, cancers and pesticide poisonings – all victims, as Aswani says, "of the corruption and abuse of power". Opening the Rafah border-crossing for wounded Palestinians – the Palestinian medical staff being pushed back into their Gaza prison once the bloodied survivors of air raids have been dumped on Egyptian territory – is not going to change the midden in which Egyptians themselves live.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah secretary general in Lebanon, felt able to call on Egyptians to "rise in their millions" to open the border with Gaza, but they will not do so. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the feeble Egyptian Foreign Minister, could only taunt the Hizbollah leaders by accusing them of trying to provoke "an anarchy similar to the one they created in their own country."
But he is well-protected. So is President Mubarak.
Egypt's malaise is in many ways as dark as that of the Palestinians. Its impotence in the face of Gaza's suffering is a symbol of its own political sickness.
January 04, 2009 "The Independent" -- There was a day when we worried about the "Arab masses" – the millions of "ordinary" Arabs on the streets of Cairo, Kuwait, Amman, Beirut – and their reaction to the constant bloodbaths in the Middle East. Could Anwar Sadat restrain the anger of his people? And now – after three decades of Hosni Mubarak – can Mubarak (or "La Vache Qui Rit", as he is still called in Cairo) restrain the anger of his people? The answer, of course, is that Egyptians and Kuwaitis and Jordanians will be allowed to shout in the streets of their capitals – but then they will be shut down, with the help of the tens of thousands of secret policemen and government militiamen who serve the princes and kings and elderly rulers of the Arab world.
Egyptians demand that Mubarak open the Rafah crossing-point into Gaza, break off diplomatic relations with Israel, even send weapons to Hamas. And there is a kind of perverse beauty in listening to the response of the Egyptian government: why not complain about the three gates which the Israelis refuse to open? And anyway, the Rafah crossing-point is politically controlled by the four powers that produced the "road map" for peace, including Britain and the US. Why blame Mubarak?
To admit that Egypt can't even open its sovereign border without permission from Washington tells you all you need to know about the powerlessness of the satraps that run the Middle East for us.
Open the Rafah gate – or break off relations with Israel – and Egypt's economic foundations crumble. Any Arab leader who took that kind of step will find that the West's economic and military support is withdrawn. Without subventions, Egypt is bankrupt. Of course, it works both ways. Individual Arab leaders are no longer going to make emotional gestures for anyone. When Sadat flew to Jerusalem – "I am tired of the dwarves," he said of his fellow Arab leaders – he paid the price with his own blood at the Cairo reviewing-stand where one of his own soldiers called him a "Pharaoh" before shooting him dead.
The true disgrace of Egypt, however, is not in its response to the slaughter in Gaza. It is the corruption that has become embedded in an Egyptian society where the idea of service – health, education, genuine security for ordinary people – has simply ceased to exist. It's a land where the first duty of the police is to protect the regime, where protesters are beaten up by the security police, where young women objecting to Mubarak's endless regime – likely to be passed on caliph-like to his son Gamal, whatever we may be told – are sexually molested by plain-clothes agents, where prisoners in the Tora-Tora complex are forced to rape each other by their guards.
There has developed in Egypt a kind of religious facade in which the meaning of Islam has become effaced by its physical representation. Egyptian civil "servants" and government officials are often scrupulous in their religious observances – yet they tolerate and connive in rigged elections, violations of the law and prison torture. A young American doctor described to me recently how in a Cairo hospital busy doctors merely blocked doors with plastic chairs to prevent access to patients. In November, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported how doctors abandoned their patients to attend prayers during Ramadan.
And amid all this, Egyptians have to live amid daily slaughter by their own shabby infrastructure. Alaa al-Aswani wrote eloquently in the Cairo paper Al-Dastour that the regime's "martyrs" outnumber all the dead of Egypt's wars against Israel – victims of railway accidents, ferry sinkings, the collapse of city buildings, sickness, cancers and pesticide poisonings – all victims, as Aswani says, "of the corruption and abuse of power". Opening the Rafah border-crossing for wounded Palestinians – the Palestinian medical staff being pushed back into their Gaza prison once the bloodied survivors of air raids have been dumped on Egyptian territory – is not going to change the midden in which Egyptians themselves live.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah secretary general in Lebanon, felt able to call on Egyptians to "rise in their millions" to open the border with Gaza, but they will not do so. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the feeble Egyptian Foreign Minister, could only taunt the Hizbollah leaders by accusing them of trying to provoke "an anarchy similar to the one they created in their own country."
But he is well-protected. So is President Mubarak.
Egypt's malaise is in many ways as dark as that of the Palestinians. Its impotence in the face of Gaza's suffering is a symbol of its own political sickness.
Abonner på:
Opslag (Atom)