Israel

January 23, 2009December 12, 2020

Polls on Israel – an ongoing post

Poll flashbacks:

BBC poll: Israel has worst world image March 07 – Israel was viewed negatively by 56 percent of respondents and positively by 17 percent

2003 European Poll: Israel Biggest Threat To World Peace

Polls on Gaza in Jan 6-12/09 Poll, 36% of US citizens polled felt Israel used excessive force in Gaza, with 20% undecided.

Syd Walker poll commentary “The Invisible Gaza Opinion Polls”

Tipsy Livni ironically was ahead in the election polls in Israel before the advent of the Gaza massacre – now Netanyahoo leads.

While Israelis desperately try to minimise Gazan casualties

The latest opinion poll released gave Mr Netanyahu’s Likud 35 seats, up two and Miss Livni’s Kadima 25, down two and Mr Barak’s Labour 15, unchanged. It was the first double-digit lead for Mr Netanyahu over Kadima in the race for seats in the 120-member Knesset for weeks.

Israeli perceptions of US election candidates

Irish Times Poll Jan 23/09 – Do you think the West should lift its boycott on political contact with the Palestinian Hamas movement? 65% Yes 35% No

January 23, 2009December 12, 2020

History repeats – Israel steals more land under cover of war

From Kabobfest:

Just like it used Election Day in the U.S. as a chance to break the ceasefire, Israel used the Gaza invasion as a chance to confiscate even more West Bank land. Land confiscations in the West Bank are continuing, said Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs Jamal Bawatneh, and soon “there will be no land to hold a Palestinian state.” In a Tuesday letter the minister expressed his concern over the continued confiscations while “whole world was preoccupied with Gaza,” and accused Israel of using the attacks as a free-ticket to act in the West Bank. Hundreds of dunnums of lands in Yatta village [south of] Hebron were confiscated” during the Gaza invasion, said Bawatneh. He called on Arab and Islamic leaders to pay attention to the land grabs, and speak out against them.

More here.

There’s excellent historical coverage of Israeli military and terrortorial domination of Palestine in an article by Avi Shlaim at the The American Conservative Magazine “Captive Nation – How Gaza Became a Palestinian Prison”.

In August 2005, a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout, withdrawing settlers and destroying the houses they left behind. Sharon presented the withdrawal as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to peace but to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral move undertaken in what was seen as the Israeli national interest.

Israel’s settlers were withdrawn, but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and terrorize the hapless inhabitants.

Israel portrays itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognize the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely a terrorist organization.

America and the EU joined Israel in demonizing the Hamas government and trying to bring it down. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied.

Israel’s propaganda machine purveys the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antiSemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics. But the truth is that the Palestinians are a normal people with normal aspirations. They want a piece of land on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Oppression by Israel on the West Bank continues – IOF Arrests 31 Palestinians in West Bank –

Palestinian security sources reported that IOF arrested, Tuesday, twenty four Palestinians, ten of whom in Hebron, one in Rafat village near Ramallah, two in Bethlehem, and four from Nablus villages.

One the same day, seven children were arrested from Toura Al-Gharbeyya village, near Jenin. The seven children were between 13 and 17 years of age.

On Wednesday, IOF attacked several villages in the West Bank, and arrested eight Palestinians; seven of whom from Qaryout village near Nablus, and one from Qabatya town south of Jenin.

In West Bank : Welcome to the Occupation, Scott Harris has a look at life in Israel’s ‘other’ concentration camp, or rather series of concentration camps in the West Bank.

Opposition to the wall has meant years of legal challenges and protests by the residents of Jayyous, often resulting in clashes with the IDF. In recent weeks, the IDF has fired live ammunition during marches to the southern gate, where many of the protests take place, or during army incursions into the village. On January 9, Khalil Ryash, a photojournalist from the Ma’an News Agency, was shot in the leg with live ammunition while covering a demonstration, as were two residents of the village the following week after IDF soldiers entered the village.

January 23, 2009December 12, 2020

Israelis murder children in cold blood

As Tipsy Livni shifts the goal posts in traditional Israeli style by refusing to open Gaza’s borders until progress in made on the release of Gilad Shalit, more and more evidence is coming to light of Israel’s barbarity. Obama has said the borders should be open for aid and commerce as part of a lasting peace – expect Israel to serially invent new reasons to maintain its control of the world’s largest concentration camp in Gaza.

Israel has all but ruled out fully reopening border crossings with the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas rules the enclave or stands to benefit from easing of the restrictions, a top adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

Hamas has made a shaky ceasefire, which ended Israel’s 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, conditional on Israel lifting its blockade, which, the adviser made clear, would not happen anytime soon.

Collective punishment is of course a war crime – yet apparently Israel can continue its evil without censure, even-handedness of George Mitchell notwithstanding.

The adviser said Israel would allow the “maximum” flow of food, medicine, oil and gas to the Gaza Strip to help its 1.5 million residents recover from the offensive, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, but a wider range of goods, including steel and cement needed for rebuilding, would have to wait.

Israel believes the restrictions will give it leverage to pressure Hamas to free Gilad Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier. Diplomats and aid agencies say the restrictions will doom Gaza’s reconstruction, estimated to cost at least $2 billion.

My disgust could not be greater.

George Mitchell, who helped broker the Good Friday peace accord in Northern Ireland, has been named by Obama as US special envoy for the Middle East.

Syd Walker notes that Abe Foxman, ADL head honcho, is displeased, as George Mitchell is ‘too even-handed’.

In a pleasurably insightful analysis, Jim Lobe gives us some cause for hope that Mitchell will be able to tread the ME tight rope to bring peace.

The Task Force then helpfully goes on to quote from a 2007 article co-authored by Mitchell and Haass regarding lessons learned from the Northern Ireland process:

“Confidence needs to be built before more ambitious steps can be taken. Front-loading a negotiation with demanding conditions all but assures that negotiations will not get under way, much less succeed.

“Parties should be allowed to hold onto their dreams. No one demanded of Northern Ireland’s Catholics that they let go of their hope for a united Ireland; no one required of local Protestants that they let go of their insistence that they remain a part of the United Kingdom.

“They still have those goals, but they have agreed to pursue them exclusively through peaceful and democratic means. That is what matters.

“Including in the political process those previously associated with violent groups can actually help. Sometimes it’s hard to stop a war if you don’t talk with those who are involved in it.”

If that indeed is the vision that Mitchell is authorized to take to the Middle East as ambassador plenipotentiary, then there may be grounds for some hope.

A senior Likud official boasts that

“What matters is that Netanyahu has built up good relations with Obama. There was chemistry between them in their two meetings. Netanyahu’s ties with the Obama administration are so deep that nothing can get in the way.”

Netanyahu praised Obama on Monday, saying that there was symbolism in his election and that the United States “displayed its greatness” when it elected him president.

In other news an Israeli captain escapes conviction by Israeli courts for the murder of a Palestinian school girl a year ago. This accentuates the message that Israelis can kill Palestinian children with impunity within range of Israeli concentration camp outposts.

Capt R then “clarifies” why he killed Iman

“This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.”

Henry Siegelman, in an excellent article in this month’s London Review of Books, outlines the history of Israel’s oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and points to the collective Western blindness and double standards inculcated by Israeli propaganda.

… when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.

Siegelman highlights the counterproductivity of Israel’s current strategies:

Anthony Cordesman, one of the most reliable military analysts of the Middle East, and a friend of Israel, argued in a 9 January report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the tactical advantages of continuing the operation in Gaza were outweighed by the strategic cost – and were probably no greater than any gains Israel may have made early in the war in selective strikes on key Hamas facilities. ‘Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal, or at least one it can credibly achieve?’ he asks. ‘Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process? To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes.’ Cordesman concludes that ‘any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends.’

Mondoweiss makes a wry observation – that the spreading of jokes about Israel may signal the end of Israel’s victimhood:

The 60 years of pulling the wool over Americans’ eyes and saying it’s equitable to the indigenous population and it makes sense when we drop white phosphorus on their children–it’s over. The politicians will be the last to turn, but when they do, katy bar the door. So my advice is you better get out of the way of the wave right now and join J Street if you want to try and grab the two-state solution. Or try.

Why do I say this? I’ve gotten two Israel jokes in my email in the last couple days. Americans are making Israel jokes. More important: they get the joke.

Joke 1:
An Israeli landed at Kennedy Airport in New York

At the control the officer asked:
– ” Occupation ? ”

The Israeli answers:
– ” No, just for visit. ”

Joke 2. This is from The Onion:
Vacation To Israel Canceled Due To History Of Israel

HOBOKEN, NJ—With only three weeks to go before embarking on a much-anticipated vacation to Israel, 34-year-old Jeff Kaufmann made the difficult decision to cancel his trip yesterday, citing unfavorable exchange rates and the entirety of the Jewish nation’s 60-year existence. “I’d been looking forward to this for months, but hotel prices started going up, things got kind of crazy at work, and also Israel’s whole history is basically a decades-long horror show of ethnic violence, harsh reprisals, and geopolitical madness.” Kaufmann said. “The Negev Desert is supposed to be amazing, but on the other hand, ever since its founding in 1948, Israel has been spinning downward in a chaotic spiral of fear, hatred, and death. So it’s a tough call.” Kaufmann added that he hopes the Arab and Jewish peoples will be able to put aside a century of bloodshed before his travel voucher expires in June.

Also from the London Review of Books, which this month offers a compendium of views on Israel’s pogrom against the Gazan people, are the thoughts of Tariq Ali –

The war on Gaza has killed the two-state solution by making it clear to Palestinians that the only acceptable Palestine would have fewer rights than the Bantustans created by apartheid South Africa. The alternative, clearly, is a single state for Jews and Palestinians with equal rights for all. Certainly it seems utopian at the moment with the two Palestinian parties in Israel – Balad and the United Arab List – both barred from contesting the February elections. Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu, has breathed a sigh of satisfaction: ‘Now that it has been decided that the Balad terrorist organisation will not be able to run, the first battle is over.’ But even victory has its drawbacks. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Isaac Deutscher warned his one-time friend Ben Gurion: ‘The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase “Mann kann sich totseigen!” — you can triumph yourself to death. This is what the Israelis have been doing. They have bitten off much more than they can swallow.’

Five hundred courageous Israelis have sent a letter to Western embassies calling for sanctions and other measures to be applied against their country, echoing the 2005 call by numerous Palestinian organisations for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on the South African model. This will not happen overnight but it is the only non-violent way to help the struggle for freedom and equality in Israel-Palestine.

Eric Hobsbawm comments on the negative effect on Jews of Israel’s horrific behaviour:

For three weeks barbarism has been on show before a universal public, which has watched, judged and with few exceptions rejected Israel’s use of armed terror against the one and a half million inhabitants blockaded since 2006 in the Gaza Strip. Never have the official justifications for invasion been more patently refuted by the combination of camera and arithmetic; or the newspeak of ‘military targets’ by the images of bloodstained children and burning schools. Thirteen dead on one side, 1360 on the other: it isn’t hard to work out which side is the victim. There is not much more to be said about Israel’s appalling operation in Gaza.

Except for those of us who are Jews. In a long and insecure history as a people in diaspora, our natural reaction to public events has inevitably included the question: ‘Is it good or bad for the Jews?’ In this instance the answer is unequivocally: ‘Bad for the Jews’.

Yitzhak Laor delivers the meta view:

Israel is engaged in a long war of annihilation against Palestinian society. The objective is to destroy the Palestinian nation and drive it back into pre-modern groupings based on the tribe, the clan and the enclave. This is the last phase of the Zionist colonial mission, culminating in inaccessible townships, camps, villages, districts, all of them to be walled or fenced off, and patrolled by a powerful army which, in the absence of a proper military objective, is really an over-equipped police force, with F16s, Apaches, tanks, artillery, commando units and hi-tech surveillance at its disposal.

John Mearsheimer may have it right:

The Gaza war is not going to change relations between Israel and the Palestinians in any meaningful way. Instead, the conflict is likely to get worse in the years ahead. Israel will build more settlements and roads in the West Bank and the Palestinians will remain locked up in a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. The two-state solution is probably dead.

‘Greater Israel’ will be an apartheid state. Ehud Olmert has sounded a warning note on this score, but he has done nothing to stop the settlements and by starting the Gaza war he doomed what little hope there was for creating a viable Palestinian state.

The Palestinians will continue to resist the occupation, and Hamas will still be able to strike Israel with rockets and mortars, whose range and effectiveness are likely to improve. Palestinians will increasingly make the case that Greater Israel should become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. They know that they will eventually outnumber the Jews, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This proposal is already gaining ground among Israel’s Palestinian citizens, striking fear into the hearts of many Israelis, who see them as a dangerous fifth column. This fear accounts in part for the recent Israeli decision to ban the major Arab political parties from participating in next month’s parliamentary elections.

There is no reason to think that Israel’s Jewish citizens would accept a binational state, and it’s safe to assume that Israel’s supporters in the diaspora would have no interest in it. Apartheid is not a solution either, because it is repugnant and because the Palestinians will continue to resist, forcing Israel to escalate the repressive policies that have already cost it significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished its global image.

Israel may try to avoid the apartheid problem by expelling or ‘transferring’ the Palestinians. A substantial number of Israeli Jews – 40 per cent or more – think that the government should ‘encourage’ their fellow Palestinian citizens to leave. Indeed, Tzipi Livni recently said that if there is a two-state solution, she expects the Palestinians inside Israel to move to the new Palestinian state.

Why would American and European leaders intervene? The Bush administration, after all, backed Israel’s creation of a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza, first with a devastating blockade and then with a brutal war. European leaders reacted to this collective punishment, which violates international law, not to mention basic decency, by upgrading Israel’s relationship with the European Union.

Many in the West expect Barack Obama to ride into town and fix the situation. Don’t bet on it. As his campaign showed, Obama is no match for the Israel lobby. His silence during the Gaza war speaks volumes about how tough he is likely to be with the Israelis. His chief Middle East adviser is likely to be Dennis Ross, whose deep attachment to Israel helped squander opportunities for peace during the Clinton administration.

In a recent op-ed about the Gaza war, Benny Morris said that ‘it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow.’ I rarely agree with Morris these days, but I think he has it right in this case. Even bigger trouble is in the offing for Israel – and above all for the Palestinians.

Fatah is losing support in the West Bank. Husam Kadr points to the realities on the ground:

The Islamic movement Hamas is taking over from Fatah, the party created by Yasser Arafat, as the main Palestinian national organisation as a result of the war in Gaza, says a leading Fatah militant. “We have moved into the era of Hamas which is now much stronger than it was,” said Husam Kadr, a veteran Fatah leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, recently released after five-and-a-half years in Israeli prisons.

“Its era started when Israel attacked Gaza on 27 December.”

The sharp decline in support for Fatah and the discrediting of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, because of his inertia during the 22-day Gaza war, will make it very difficult for the US and the EU to pretend that Fatah are the true representatives of the Palestinian community. The international community is likely to find it impossible to marginalise Hamas in reconstructing Gaza.

The rise of Hamas and the demise of Fatah is best explained by the failure of President Abbas to achieve anything through negotiations for ordinary Palestinians. “We in Fatah have failed to remove a single Israeli checkpoint,” admits Mr Kadr. “It takes me as long to reach Ramallah 50 kilometres away as it would to fly from Jordan to Ankara.”

He believes the Gaza war has spread the seeds for another Palestinian uprising. “The coming uprising will be very hard for both the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he warns, though he does not forecast when it will occur. He points to a television in his office on which a young Palestinian girl called Dalal is shown picking through the ruins of her house in Gaza where all her family had died and only her cat had survived. “Can you imagine how Palestinians feel when they see this?” he asks.

Iran states the obvious – that people resisting colonialist movements such as the Zionists’ have a right to arms.

USEFUL LINKS

Change Gaza can believe in

It is fanciful, today, to believe that, left to their own devices, Israel and the Palestinians will agree on where to set the border between them, on how to share Jerusalem, or on the fate of Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements. A two-state solution, if one is to be achieved, will have to be imposed by the international community, based on a consensus that already exists in international law (UN Resolutions 242 and 338), the Arab League peace proposals, and the Taba non-paper that documented the last formal final-status talks between the two sides in January 2001.

Robert Fisk thinks Obama has missed the point on Gaza so far despite George Mitchell’s appointment.

Hanan Ashrawi got it right. The changes in the Middle East – justice for the Palestinians, security for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, an end to the illegal building of settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, an end to all violence, not just the Arab variety – had to be “immediate” she said, at once. But if the gentle George Mitchell’s appointment was meant to answer this demand, the inaugural speech, a real “B-minus” in the Middle East, did not.

Disgracefully, Israel has shelled UK and Australian war graves in Gaza.

UPDATE FEB 6

Slow to react, Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin says “he is deeply distressed by the news and is seeking more information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.”

The Federal Government says the war graves of about 10 Australian soldiers have been damaged by the recent surge of fighting in the Gaza strip.

The story fails to mention the graves were clearly damaged by Israeli mortar fire. This is a further example of the bias in the Australian media toward Israel.

January 23, 2009December 12, 2020

A Child Speaks from Gaza

January 22, 2009December 12, 2020

Israel FAIL – The War Crimes Coverups begin

In the Times, there’s a brief outline of the problems associated with bringing Israeli war criminals to justice:

The regulations covering alleged war crimes are complex, carefully worded and restrictive. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague does not appear to have jurisdiction in Gaza because the Israelis are not signatories to the Rome statute that set it up.

However, individuals and nongovernmental organisations from nations that are signed up can make a case to the ICC; and the United Nations Security Council can also pass a resolution calling for a war crimes investigation, as it did over alleged genocide in Darfur. In terms of the ICC statute, the use of white phosphorus could be governed by Article 8(2)(b) under which a war crime is potentially committed if weapons, including projectiles (shells), are launched “to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict”.

It is up to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC chief prosecutor, to decide whether the allegations fall into line with the Rome statute definitions. Killing civilians is not a war crime in itself, unless there is an intentional attack directed against noncombatants or an assault is launched on a military objective “in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage” – this is the principle of proportionality. In the case of allegations against British troops in Iraq, the ICC prosecutor decided the relevant criteria for starting a formal investigation had not been satisfied.

In the case of Darfur, it was alleged that thousands of civilians had been wilfully killed by the Janjawid rebels. Israel has always insisted that its aim was to target Hamas fighters, not Palestinian civilians.

Juan Cole covers the potential for war crimes tribunals and Israel’s flailing attempts to protect their barbarous soldiers from prosecution:

Israeli politicians and military commanders are being urged to consult counsel before they travel in Europe, where some courts assert universal jurisdiction and where war crimes cases are being filed against Israeli leaders. In 1998, a London court ordered the arrest of Chilean dictator Gen. Augustino Pinochet, who had butchered thousands of community activists, asserting universal jurisdiction. Governments have attempted to reduce the prerogative of courts in this regard, but apparently there are loopholes in the current British legislation that would allow an Israeli leader or officer to be arrested if they journey to the UK. Ynet observes, “The Israeli. . . claim that Hamas has been using women and children as human shields never really took, said a source. Whenever it was used the response was the same: If you know that . . . women and children [were] there – hold your fire.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is setting up a legal defense of Israeli troops from potential war crimes prosecutions. Barak pledged that Israeli soldiers would not have to worry about prosecution: “The soldiers did not embark on a private operation . . .We will give them out full support.” It is ironic that an Israeli defense minister seems unaware that the Nuremberg trials established the principle that following orders is no defense for a soldier charged with atrocities.

Even as Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni visited Brussels, human rights organizations in Belgium were (wholly unrealistically) petitioning a court to have her arrested. However impractical the legal move, it was a humiliation for Tzipi.

The right-Zionists are always asking why Israel is held to a different standard. It isn’t. it appears to be being held to the same standard as Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic. It isn’t very nice company to be in, and many Israelis are deeply ashamed of what was done and demanding Israeli investigations of war crimes.

Disturbingly, Livni seems to have influenced some EU countries to back off on condemning Israel for its attacks on UN schools and other facilities.

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania are opposed to condemning the shelling of UN Relief and Works Agency infrastructure and do not want the EU to call for an international investigation of alleged war crimes by both Israel and the Hamas governors of Gaza, according to sources close to discussions amongst EU diplomats.

At the other end of the table, a coalition of five member states, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Sweden, is demanding that the bloc call for an international investigation in its conclusions to come out of a meeting of EU foreign ministers next week.

Other member states however do not support this position. Despite UK Prime Minister’s earlier strong words condemning Israel’s shelling of the UN headquarters in Gaza as “indefensible”, London is reportedly reluctant to back the five as it could set a dangerous precedent for its own military operations elsewhere.

The five have, however, managed to win language on the need to “respect and comply with obligations under international humanitarian law” into the draft text, which was not in the initial version of the document.

France meanwhile backs accountability for the attacks on the UN, but is working to achieve this “behind the scenes”, rather than through a statement by EU foreign ministers.

Livni exonerates her terrorist state from blame:

“The difference between Israel soldiers and the terrorists in Hamas is that we are acting against terror, trying to avoid any kind of civilian casualties, while these terrorists are looking, aiming and targeting civilians as part of their ideology.”

“I would like to be judged by the international community according to the same values by which the international community is working,” she continued. “There is a huge difference in any legal system … between a murderer and someone who kills by mistake.”

After visiting the ruins of the UNRWA compound in Gaza, UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday (20 January) called for those responsible for bombing UN-run buildings and schools in Gaza to be held accountable.

“There must be a full investigation, a full explanation to make sure it never happens again. There should be accountability through a proper judiciary system,” he said.

Despite Israel’s insistence that the UN buildings were not targeted, UN officials have said that they furnished Tel Aviv with GPS co-ordinates of all their buildings.

Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose nation currently chairs the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, said he trusted the Israeli court system mount a prosecution, rather than the International Criminal Court.

“I have heard the declaration of the UN secretary-general, but to tell you the truth, we consider Israel a democratic state, where the rule of law exists, so of course, in the case of such a criminal act, which can happen in any state, especially during the course of war,” he said, “then the Israeli prosecutor would take the steps that are necessary and then to a court where the case will be decided.”

“The ICC is only a last resort if a country itself doesn’t bring forward a case, [and] we are relying on the Israeli courts and the work of the prosecutor there.”

In view of Obama’s differentiated foreign policy, Livni illustrates she is living in the comfortable black and white Bush past:

She did however warn against opening direct dialogue with the Gaza government, calling on Europe to “continue to delegitimise Hamas.”

Some EU ministers, notably Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubbs, have said that such dialogue may be necessary.

Ms Livni said: “What is needed is a coalition against terror and not something that ends by an agreement with them.”

White phosphorus links:

Israeli army investigates use of white phosphorus in Gaza

Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes over its use of highly incendiary munitions in heavily-populated areas.

“Amnesty International delegates visiting the Gaza Strip found indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely-populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north,” the organisation said.

“We saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army,” said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert touring Gaza as part of Amnesty’s four-person fact-finding team.

Child victims in Gaza

Growing concern over Israel’s weapons use

If the investigation which the Israeli military announced this week into the use of white phosphorous is serious, it will have to examine the events at the Abu Kalima house here in this semi-rural suburb of of Beit Lahiya, among many other locations. It’s unlikely to dwell for long on the fact that the war saw the first use of artillery in Gaza since late 2006.

The military ended it after 18 members of one family were killed by shelling on a civilian house in Beit Hanoun in November 2006.

But it will have to take into account that the Amnesty International have no doubt that the shells which killed the Abu Kalima family contained phosphorus. Nafez al Shaban, the Glasgow and US trained head of Shifa Hospital’s Burns Unit is certain that the bone-deep tissue destruction sustained by Mrs Kalima, her critically injured daughter in law and grandaughter, were caused by it. And finally fragments of the brown spongy substance, with its unpleasantly pungent smell, are still lying in the debris outside the Abu Kalima house.

After a week of ceasefire Israel is facing growing questions not only about phosphorus but what other weapons it used. For the many thousands of Gazan civilians seeking to rebuild their ruined lives the hope that a new US president will be more active in the region than his predecessor still seems barely relevant. And this is not only because of an injury total put by the ministry of health in Gaza at 5,300, or worries about long-term psychological damage to their children. They also face a protracted dispute between Israel, the Ramallah based Palestinian Authority, and much of the international community on the one hand, and Hamas on the other before multi-billion dollar task of reconstucrion can even begin. For most Gazans peace is a return to their previous impoverished life under siege —only worse.

Israeli army probes use of phosphorus in Gaza: report

Depleted uranium:

UN to probe claim Israel used depleted uranium bombs in Gaza

United Nations organizations said yesterday that it will investigate complaints that Israel used depleted uranium projectiles in the course of the fighting in Gaza, causing health and environmental damage.

The inquiry will be conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Environment Protection Organization, at the request of the Arab states’ UN envoys.

Other illegal weapons:

Israel Admits It Lied Over Missile Raid on Camp

The Israeli military has admitted that it lied about a rocket attack on a Gaza refugee camp, which according to the army led to no casualties, but which the Palestinians have claimed killed 14 civilians.

A leftwing member of the Israeli parliament, Yossi Sarid, forced the confession from the air force chief after he threatened to release evidence that the military had used a weapon more destructive and indiscriminate than it had publicly claimed.

A month ago, the air force launched an assassination strike against a Hamas activist who was driving through Nuseirat refugee camp. The Palestinians claimed that the attack caused a large number of civilian casualties, but the air force commander, Major General Dan Halutz, produced video footage of the car being hit by two missiles that showed no one standing near the wrecked vehicle as the rockets struck.

The military said that Hellfire missiles were used, producing a concentrated explosion over a small area. Gen Halutz likened the effect of the missiles to “two grenades”. The video footage was widely shown on Israeli television.

But the army now admits that it lied in briefings to the Israeli and foreign press, because the second rocket was not a Hellfire missile.

The military refuses to identify the weapon used, on the grounds of “operational security”. But the speculation is that it was an American-made Flechette, which is illegal under international law because it fires thousands of tiny darts over hundreds of meters, causing horrific injuries. Israel has used similar weapons in Gaza in the past.

Indiscrimate disproportionate slaughter:

How IDF legal experts legitimized strikes involving Gaza civilians

War crimes:

War crimes convictions after Gaza?

Israel names justice minister to fight war crime charges

Daniel Friedman will lead an inter-ministerial team to coordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military, the source said.

Israel’s military censor has already banned the publication of the identity of the unit leaders who fought against Hamas Islamists on the Gaza Strip for fear they may face war crimes charges.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded Tuesday that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory should be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.

Amnesty International said it was “undeniable” that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law, charging that this amounted to a war crime.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate given the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as “terrifying.”

Richard Falk calls for investigation into systematic Israeli war crimes

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, said he had little doubt about the “unavoidably inhuman character of a large scale military operation of the sort that Israel has initiated… against an essentially defenceless population.”

Falk told journalists that Israeli military operations in the densely populated territory among a population weakened by an 18 month blockade “raises the spectre of systematic war crimes.”

“Unlawful targets have been selected” during the fighting, he alleged.

“The evidence of breaking of fundamental rules of international humanitarian law is so compelling,” he added, backing calls for an independent, international investigation.

Falk, a legal expert, insisted that the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip was effectively trapped in a war zone and prevented from fleeing, even if they were ill, wounded, or children.

The 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted by a large majority on January 12 to set up a probe into “grave” human rights violations by Israeli forces against Palestinians.