Tag: war crimes

Posted on

Saudi Eyes on Gaza – in the aftermath of Israel’s massacre

Despite Obama’s statement that Gaza borders should be opened for aid and commerce, Israel still refuses to open border crossings for goods other than aid, thus continuing its strangulation and collective punishment of the Gazan people and preventing reconstruction of the devastated strip.

While tens of thousands of Gazans remain homeless, destitute and ill from Israel’s sociopathic aggression, Prince Turki al Faisal writes an article in the Financial Times making it clear in no uncertain terms that the US must stop footsying with the murderous, land-thieving Zionist enterprise or risk its alliance with Saudia. There is no mention of the oil weapon, yet that is the last thing the US needs to be wielded while it is in the throes of recession.

In my decades as a public servant, I have strongly promoted the Arab-Israeli peace process. During recent months, I argued that the peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia could be implemented under an Obama administration if the Israelis and Palestinians both accepted difficult compromises. I told my audiences this was worth the energies of the incoming administration for, as the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”

But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza, these pleas for optimism and co-operation now seem a distant memory. In the past weeks, not only have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told the UN Security Council that if there was no just settlement, “we will turn our backs on you”. King Abdullah spoke for the entire Arab and Muslim world when he said at the Arab summit in Kuwait that although the Arab peace initiative was on the table, it would not remain there for long. Much of the world shares these sentiments and any Arab government that negotiated with the Israelis today would be rightly condemned by its citizens. Two of the four Arab countries that have formal ties to Israel – Qatar and Mauritania – have suspended all relations and Jordan has recalled its ambassador.

America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has the Bush administration left a sickening legacy in the region – from the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib – but it has also, through an arrogant attitude about the butchery in Gaza, contributed to the slaughter of innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially its “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.

The incoming US administration will be inheriting a “basket full of snakes” in the region, but there are things that can be done to help calm them down. First, President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza and its causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas’s firing of rockets at Israel.

When he does that, he should also condemn Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians and support a UN resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians; declare America’s intention to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella for countries that sign up and sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab’ah Farms in Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq’s territorial integrity.

Mr Obama should strongly promote the Abdullah peace initiative, which calls on Israel to pursue the course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4 1967; to accept a mutually agreed just solution to the refugee problem according to the General Assembly resolution 194; and to recognise the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return, there would be an end to hostilities between Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get full diplomatic and normal relations.

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over “this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children” in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel. Today, every Saudi is a Gazan, and we remember well the words of our late King Faisal: “I hope you will forgive my outpouring of emotions, but when I think that our Holy Mosque in Jerusalem is being invaded and desecrated, I ask God that if I am unable to undertake Holy Jihad, then I should not live a moment more.”

Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most intractable of conflicts.

This brings to mind an ironic mirroring of the neocon mantra “Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot, Egypt the prize” where Israel becomes the tactical pivot and Palestine the prize.

Enduring America muses on Obama’s phone calls with the Saudi regime:

So the first message in Obama’s call was not to get active Saudi participation in the naval blockade of Gaza but assurances that Riyadh would not try to undermine it by moving cash and material to Palestinian groups in the area. The second message, however, is more important and hard to decipher:

Do those US-Saudi ties mean that Obama will accept Saudi ideas for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, for example, a revival of the 2002 Mecca proposals that the Bush Administration flagrantly rebuffed? Or is Washington expecting the Saudis to follow the lead of a yet-seen approach that will be unveiled in the visit of George Mitchell to the region?

Turki’s appeal is incongruous with Saudia’s blaming of Hamas for the Israeli pogrom in Gaza – on January 1, 09

Saudi Arabia yesterday blamed Hamas for Israel’s continuing offensive in the Gaza Strip and urged it to resolve bitter differences with the western-backed Palestinian Authority – even as divisions deepened with a new charge of treachery.

Arab League foreign ministers meeting in emergency session in Cairo warned it was not possible to help until the Islamist movement in control of Gaza returned to national unity talks with its rival Fatah.

and even more disjunctive with Saudia’s original support of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in February 2006 –

Saudi Arabia will continue supporting the Palestinian Authority despite the election of a government led by the Islamic militant group Hamas — because it does not want to punish ordinary Palestinians, the kingdom’s foreign minister said Wednesday.

Turki’s missive recounts the approaches by Ahmadinejad to King Abdul for a unification of Sunni and Shia in combined defence of the Palestinian people may supercede the analysis made by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, general manager of the satellite television station Al-Arabiya, who on January 20 saw Hamas as having been used as a tool by Iran, alienating members of the Arab League –

“Hamas must be aware that they were used by Iran to attack the Arabs in an unprecedented way that surpasses any previous antagonism. Iran has progressed as a result of this, and made advancements on the ground to an extremely dangerous point, which includes the attempt to create chaos in Arab countries opposed to it, and explicitly seeking to destroy Saudi Arabia, and incite the overthrow of the Egyptian regime. Such audacity serves only to unite Arab countries against Hamas. However it is also just and reasonable to say that the door is still open; it is up to the Hamas movement to choose between returning to the Arab family or remaining a weapon in the hands of Iran.

“Hamas is in a good position, and must negotiate with itself with regards to its own relationship with the Arabs, who can only respect Hamas and ensure its political and material rights on Palestinian soil. Generally speaking, we know that Hamas is not a singular organization, despite the similarity of its language and political façade; there is Hamas the hostage to Damascus and Tehran and whose leaders live in hotels, and there is the Gazan Hamas who have paid a high price in order to fulfill the orders of their brothers in Damascus, the results of which were always disastrous. The Gazan Hamas must chose between Tehran or Cairo.”

…

On the divisions among Arabs, the Middle East Times notes in an editorial that if both the Israelis and Hamas claim that they are victorious, “who are the losers? The Arabs, of course. Why? The Arab world comes out of this war far more divided than it has been in decades. Egypt and Syria, the two powerhouses in the Middle East remain as far apart as they have ever been.” “And one side has been working overtime trying to convince the rest of the Arab world that they should sever ties with the Jewish state (Syria’s view), while Egypt’s approach to the conflict is to keep negotiations with Israel going.

Haaretz reports on Obama’s overtures to the Middle East and omits ‘commerce’ from his statement that the borders of Gaza should be open for both ‘aid and commerce’, as reported in Al Jazeera and elsewhere.

Tipsy is given star treatment in Haaretz with as she shifts goal posts and indicates to Hillary Clinton that Israel is to continue its collective punishment of the Gazan people

Israel would not open the Gaza crossings without progress toward the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit

As Hamas begins to hand out aid to those whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Israel’s collective punishment. “Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defence Ministry official, met Egyptian officials in Cairo on Thursday to discuss ways to stop smuggling through tunnels between Egypt and Gaza”.

Haaretz reports that

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported Saturday that Hamas has suggested representatives of the Palestinian Authority be stationed at the Rafah crossing, but that they be residents of Gaza, not the West Bank.

A Hamas delegation comprising representatives from Gaza and Damascus traveled to Cairo is to meet with Egyptian officials on Sunday.

One Hamas official reiterated the group’s demand that Shalit be freed as part of a larger prisoner exchange, and that his release not be tied to the issue of opening Gaza’s border crossings.

Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told Asharq Al-Awsat that his group wants European Union and Turkish troops to patrol Gaza’s border crossings with Israel.

The discussions in Egypt will focus on a working paper to consolidate the cease-fire with Israel following the three-week offensive.

One official said the talks – slated for Sunday – will also address the fate of Israeli soldier Shalit, captured by militants in a June 2006 cross-border raid.

The Hamas officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

The six-day-old truce remains fragile. Israel wants a halt to arms smuggling to the militants, while Hamas wants an end to Gaza blockade. Hamas demands the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Enduring America perceptively comments:

These are quite clever proposals. Hamas is trying to separate the Shalit issue from the question of reopening the crossings, and their proposals for the border are very close to the Mubarak-Sarkozy plan pressed by Cairo soon after the initial Israeli attacks. If Cairo agrees, Egypt has effectively dismissed its earlier hopes of removing Hamas from power, and the diplomatic ball will be in Tel Aviv’s court.

Jews sans Frontieres has some valuable insights into Richard Falk’s assertion that Palestine is poised for victory. I’d like to be confident about that too, yet tend toward the JSF realism.

George Mitchell is due in the region next Wednesday – latest news is that

Western, Arab and Israeli diplomats said [George Mitchell] was expected to make stops in Egypt, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jordan, but they ruled out direct contacts with Hamas who rules the Gaza Strip.

With an illegitimate President Abbas and Fatah, collaborators with the illegal Occupation as his sole base for negotiating settlement, will Mitchell contemplate his past negotiations with the IRA which led to successful resolution in Northern Ireland, smf bite the bullet to deal with the only democratically elected government in Palestine, Hamas, despite their designation, proliferated so successfully after their election by Israel, as a terrorist organisation?

Neri Bar-On throws more light on Mitchell

The Mitchell announcement came after eight years during which there has been no American peace envoy, and the substance of the Mitchell’s previous work on Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine is both attracting attention and igniting a precious, if cautious, spark of hope that progress toward peace might just be possible.

Writing about the ‘Irish Lessons For Peace’ in the International Herald Tribune in May 2007 (together with Richard Haass), Mitchell suggested that “those previously associated with violent groups” should be brought in, preconditions be kept to an “absolute minimum”, parties be allowed to “hold on to their dreams”, and that sanctions be imposed for backsliding on commitments. All sound advice for anyone seeking to overcome the flaws in the current Middle East peace process.

Posted on

More Evidence of White Phosphorus Use Against Civilians by Israel

From Al Jazeera (one of the few principled, competent broadcasters left in our media-nobbled world):

Daniel Friedman, the Israeli justice minister, has been appointed to lead a defence team should war crimes charges be brought following the 22-day war on Gaza.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed to Al Jazeera on Friday that Friedman would lead an inter-ministerial team to co-ordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military.

Israel has been criticised by many human rights organisations for using excessive force, including flame-generating chemical munitions, in densely populated areas during its aerial, naval and ground assault on the coastal strip, which began on December 27.

The Israeli army has already banned the publication of the identity of military leaders who fought Hamas in Gaza.

Ali Kashan, the Palestinian justice minister, met Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, in The Hague on Thursday to discuss “allegations of crimes”, a special adviser to the prosecutor said.

Gaza medics put the death toll in Gaza at 1,330 with at least 5,450 wounded following Israel’s attacks. About 65 per cent of the dead were civilians, including 400 children and 100 women.

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

Richard Falk, a UN human rights expert, said on Thursday that there was evidence that Israel violated humanitarian law by conducting the offensive “against an essentially defenseless population”.

Phosphorus burns

20th January 2009
It is time for Ayman’s dressing to be changed. He cries out as the bandages are removed. A scarlet red wad of gauze is teased out of a deep hole in his back which it is filling in order to stem the bleeding. Five days after the attack, his wounds are still bleeding profusely. These are not normal burns. The wounds cover his upper back and right arm and his ankle has a deep wound down to the bone. He will need extensive plastic surgery. Shrapnel which entered Ayman’s back penetrated one of his lungs and he has undergone surgery to repair several tears. He screams as iodine solution is applied. It is unbearable to watch his suffering.

Ayman is a civilian, a minor. He was at home with his family when they were attacked. Israel claims its bloody war has been on Hamas. Ayman, Alaa’ and their grandfather were not Hamas operatives, neither were the thousands of other civilians killed and injured. Israel would call them “collateral damage”. However, the atrocities committed against them amount to war crimes, especially if weapons have been used illegally. What exactly is the substance which has inflicted such wounds – not on Ayman alone but countless others also? Israel won’t admit to the nature or composition of some of the less conventional weapons its military has been using on the population of Gaza.
– Photo & text courtesy of Rafahkid

Prosecuting the Israeli war criminals may not be easy – Al Jazeera’s Anita Rice reports on the difficulties of Gaza victims of Israeli aggression gaining justice.

Gaza is not formally recognised as a state by the UN and “the US, and perhaps other [security council] member states, would veto any resolution that would ask for the ICC to investigate Israel,” says Ellis.

“The ICC option is effectively closed.”

The second route would be for the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also based in The Hague, on the legality of specific actions taken by states.

However, the ICJ has no enforcement powers, as was witnessed by its inability to act following its ruling that Israel’s construction of a separation barrier breached aspects of international law.

The ICJ requested Israel rectify elements of the construction, which Tel Aviv ignored – something any state can choose to do, Ellis notes.

The third option involves states trying their own citizens or soldiers for war crimes – a requirement under the Geneva Conventions.

“That’s unlikely to happen on both sides, but that is still a responsibility of the state, body, or entity that’s responsible for, or has authority over, the individuals who have committed these crimes,” says Ellis.

Finally, Ellis points to a legal concept referred to as “universal jurisdiction”, where any state can choose to launch legal proceedings against any person, anywhere in the world, who is suspected of committing crimes such as genocide, torture, and other grave breaches of international law.

But states have already proven themselves reluctant to take responsibility for holding individuals to account for crimes committed in other countries and Ellis believes it is “highly unlikely that a third party is going to step up and bring actions against Israeli or Palestinian individuals”.

Despite this, lawyers across the globe, and particularly in the Arab world, are seeking ways to take legal action in relation to events they believe constitute war crimes.

Dr Abdullah Al-Ashal, a professor of international law at the American University in Cairo and a former Egyptian foreign minister, belongs to both the Arab Bar Association and the Arab Federation of Lawyers (AFL).

He believes that Israel has breached all four Geneva Conventions that cover conduct during armed conflict with relation to civilians, prisoners of war, sick and injured combatants, weapons used and how troops engaged in fighting.

Al-Ashal claims that Jordan, the Comoros Islands and Djibouti – all signatories to the Rome Statute – have committed themselves to bringing war crimes cases against Israel to the ICC if needs be, following the recent Kuwait-hosted Arab summit on Gaza.

In addition, members of the AFL are set to meet in Tunis on Thursday, January 29, to “discuss how to progress the prosecution of Israel for war crimes”, and Al-Ashal said that Arab lawyers are “seriously pursuing” all options to put Israelis on trial.

Meanwhile, both sides say they acted in self-defence and within the confines of international law.

Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, insists Israel takes “extremely seriously any allegation of either improper or illegal behaviour by servicemen in combat” and carries out its own investigations.

On Israel’s refusal to sign up to the Rome Statute, he cites Israeli concern over “the politisation of the international human rights mechanisms in the international judicial system”, a reference to resolutions that Israel regards as hostile and were passed by UN bodies without the backing of western states.

Going back to Ellis’ “accountability gap”, the IBA chief puts the blame squarely on nation states – including the US – for failing to accept the legitimacy of the ICC.

“The ICC is probably the most important body with regard to individual responsibility for these crimes … it is the responsibility of all civilised nations to agree that if these types of crimes have been committed, they should be brought to justice.

“Ultimately, that’s where we want to be and we are a long way from that today,” he says.

Israel to approve aid for IDF officers accused of Gaza war crimes

UN human rights official: Gaza evokes memories of Warsaw Ghetto

[Richard Falk said there was] compelling evidence that Israel’s actions in Gaza violated international humanitarian law required an independent investigation into whether they amounted to war crimes.
Advertisement
“I believe that there is the prima facie case for reaching that conclusion,” he told a Geneva news conference.

Falk said Israel had made no effort to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

“To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,” Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw’s Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.

“There could have been temporary provision at least made for children, disabled, sick civilians to leave, even if where they left to was southern Israel,” the U.S. professor said.

Falk said the entire Gaza population, which had been trapped in a war zone with no possibility to leave as refugees, may have been mentally scarred for life. If so, the definition of casualty could be extended to the entire civilian population.

UNRWA calls for independent probe into alleged Gaza crimes

John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called on Friday for the establishment of an independent international investigation into the alleged war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead.

At a press conference held in Geneva, Ging said that a credible investigation of the death and destruction in Gaza was necessary especially in light of the growing anger of Gazans, the increasing number of extremists in the Strip and their lack of faith in the rule of law, Reuters reported.

It is urgent to establish accountability for death and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure through a credible mechanism which would “channel this emotion to confidence in the rule of law,” Ging reportedly said.

Ging told reporters that the number of extremists in the Strip had grown as a result of the three-week operation against Hamas, and stressed that it was important to prove that justice could be delivered in a lawful way.

The extremists “are very confident in their rhetoric that there should be no expectation that justice will be delivered through the rule of law. Now we must prove that wrong,” he reportedly said.

According to the report, the UNRWA head noted that Israeli civilians had also suffered, and therefore, the investigation had to examine “legitimate allegations” on both sides.

Ging expressed his hopes that new US Middle East envoy George Mitchell will talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.

“My first request to the US administration is talk to the ordinary people in Gaza. Come to Gaza and talk to the ordinary people — the mothers, fathers, leaders of civil society, the people who are not involved in politics,” said Ging.

Flashpoint live report from Gaza – Middle East Childrens’ Alliance director Barbara Lubin bears witness to the devastation in the Gaza Strip; Nora Barrows-Friedman reports from occupied Palestine and Israel. The broadcast also includes discussion with Professor Hatem Bazian about the illegitimacy of Abbas’s position as his term as President expired on the 9th January.

More opinion on procedure to bring Israeli war criminals to justice by Paul Rafferty:

The best recourse, however, is through the International Court of Justice, ICJ or “The World Court”, an integral part of the United Nations system. Since Israel is a Member-State of the U.N. and therefore bound to observe the Charter of the United Nations, any ICJ Decision is binding.

Any and all U.N. Member-States (plus some U.N. agencies) may apply to the World Court for a Hearing on Gaza and Israel. (4)

Of course, ICJ Decisions must be implemented by the Security Council of the U.N. and since the U.S., as one of the five Permanent members of the Security Council, holds Veto Power over any proposed Security Council Resolution, there is little chance that Israel will be forced to do anything, whatever happens.

Nevertheless, all World Court Decisions carry a Moral Authority and should Israel be found Guilty of War Crimes, this in itself MIGHT help change the situation.

It didn’t after the non-binding ICJ Advisory Opinion on the “Separation Wall”, but who knows what may happen, in future ? (5)

Israel may welcome an opportunity to explain its actions, in an open impartial Courtroom.

Regev loses it on Channel 4 – nicely skewered and roasted to a crisp by Jon Snow. Then watch the translation of the interview at “Inside the Mind of Mark Regev”.

Ban Ki Moon is treading delicately through the hasbara mines on the UN Security Council.

New York (UNN) Division among the Security Council members regrding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is seeking the body’s advice on how to investigate the latest hostilities in Gaza and southern Israel.

Briefing the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement on his latest trip to the Middle East, including Gaza, Ban said he has not taken a decision regarding an inquiry into the conduct of the parties to the Gaza conflict before and during hostilities but he has asked the council to guide him.

“I have not taken a decision but have raised the issue with the Security Council and have asked its members to give serious consideration to the question, and to advise me of their views, Ban siid.

He reiterated his conviction that there should be a thorough investigation, full explanation and, where it is required, accountability.

He also told NAM he already asked Israel to investigate itself about the bombing of UNRWA schools and other UN facilities in Gaza, and once he gets the results “I will then decide on appropriate follow up action.” He added that an investigation into the damage to UNRWA facilities will be undertaken by the UN Secretariat, but the “precise format and the identity of the panel or members comprising the inquiry has not been determined as yet” although it is receiving consideration.

Posted on

Gaza – a disaster zone thanks to Israel’s colonialism

Edward Jayne gives a cogent overview of Israeli deceptive political strategy aimed at disrupting Palestinian lives and demonising opposition while more territory is acquired for the purposes of a Greater Israel.

Israel is attempting to manipulate regime change in the Gaza strip by controlling aid.

Defense officials said that Israel preferred that all of the money donated to rehabilitating the Gaza Strip be transferred to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, since it could be a way for the Fatah leader to reassert his control over Gaza.

“This is a way for Abbas to get back in control of the Gaza Strip,” one official said. “If he is in charge of the money, Hamas will have to work with him and he will be involved in what happens in Gaza.”

Hamas is starting to make overtures to Fatah supporters:

Hamas called Thursday for reconciliation with supporters of rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but insisted on pursuing resistance against Israel.

The condition appeared to preclude any agreement with Abbas, who seeks a peace deal with Israel and whose moderate Fatah faction was not among the groups that backed the statement by eight Damascus-based radical Palestinian factions including Hamas.

Earlier on Thursday, a senior Hamas official dismissed any reconciliation talks with rival Fatah group.
Sami Khater, a member of the militant group’s Damascus-based branch, said Arab and international donations to reconstruct the war-devastated Gaza should go directly to Hamas and not to rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas whose faction rules the West Bank.

Khater said Abbas and his Palestinian Authority cannot be trusted.

…

Palestinian Authority Social Affairs Minister Mahmoud Habbash earlier on Thursday accused gunmen from the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip of hijacking dozens of trucks carrying aid intended for residents reeling from the three-week-long Israeli assault.

Habbash, of the Fatah-led government based in the West Bank, told Voice of Palestine Radio that the trucks were supposed to come under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Hamas, however, says the supply trucks were dispatched by Arab donors specifically for the Hamas administration in the Strip, and to no other group, to distribute to the people of Gaza.

As a result, on arrival in the Strip the trucks were directed to Hamas warehouses, officials from the Islamist movement said, adding that they have papers from the donor countries showing that the supplies were sent to the Hamas administration.

UN officials have also said that none of its supply and aid trucks have been hijacked or attacked by any armed group inside Gaza.

The story fails to mention that according to Hamas, Abbas’ presidential term ended on the 9th January 09.

Abbas’s supporters however cite a different provision of the constitution which says that presidential and parliamentary elections should be held together, which would extend Abbas’s term to January 2010.

Interestingly, representatives from the two main Palestinian factions were due to meet in Cairo on November 4 08 to try to agree on a national unity government. November 4 was the day Israel breached the cease fire in Gaza. Of course, a national unity Palestinian government would be the last thing Israel wanted – that would be the end of the Israeli divide and conquer strategy.

Chomsky concurs with me in his scholarly analysis of Israeli monstrosity.

Despite the Israeli siege, rocketing sharply reduced. The ceasefire broke down on November 4 with an Israeli raid into Gaza, leading to the death of 6 Palestinians, and a retaliatory barrage of rockets (with no injuries). The pretext for the raid was that Israel had detected a tunnel in Gaza that might have been intended for use to capture another Israeli soldier. The pretext is transparently absurd, as a number of commentators have noted. If such a tunnel existed, and reached the border, Israel could easily have barred it right there. But as usual, the ludicrous Israeli pretext was deemed credible.

What was the reason for the Israeli raid? We have no internal evidence about Israeli planning, but we do know that the raid came shortly before scheduled Hamas-Fatah talks in Cairo aimed at “reconciling their differences and creating a single, unified government,” British correspondent Rory McCarthy reported. That was to be the first Fatah-Hamas meeting since the June 2007 civil war that left Hamas in control of Gaza, and would have been a significant step towards advancing diplomatic efforts. There is a long history of Israel provocations to deter the threat of diplomacy, some already mentioned. This may have been another one.

Possibilities for rehabilitation of Hamas into a peace partner are discussed in ANALYSIS-Gaza truce, Obama fuel talk of talking to Hamas

Seizing on signs that Europe, disturbed by killing and poverty in Gaza and emboldened by change in Washington, might reconsider its ban on contact with the Palestinian Islamists, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal claimed “victory” and said on Wednesday: “I tell European nations … it is time for you to deal with Hamas.”

It is a sentiment that is finding some echo elsewhere, even if a dramatic front-page appeal by leading Israeli writer David Grossman in Haaretz newspaper remains a marginal view in Israel:

“Instead of ignoring Hamas … we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately,” he wrote in Tuesday’s piece.

Only dialogue could avert mutual destruction, Grossman said.

Hamas rejects talks that would imply recognition of Israel, though does not rule out all contact. Unlike other Palestinian groups, it has not accepted Israel and wants all its territory, but Hamas leaders have also offered Israel a “long-term truce”.

At a meeting on Wednesday with Israeli officials, EU foreign ministers were asked if they should now speak directly to Hamas. Finland’s Alexander Stubb said cautiously: “It is time to start slowly reflecting how we get all parties round the table.”

“No comprehensive solution can be taken without Hamas.”

“The option of negotiating with Hamas has never been really taken into consideration,” French expert Olivier Roy wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday’s Saudi Gazette, looking at Obama’s options in the region. “It is time to consider that option.”

ADDITIONAL LINKS

A battle over what happened in Gaza

“We are witnessing a moral corrosion that is destroying everything at a fantastic pace,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer with Volunteers for Human Rights in Tel Aviv. “We’ve reached a threshold of insensitivity that we had never reached in the past.”

The offensive “on Gaza may be squeezing Hamas, but it is destroying Israel,” Ari Shavit wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz in the days before the operation ended. “Destroying its soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama’s America.”

Liberating Palestine – some useful ideas for peace from Malaysia

In an unprecedented move, the BBC is refusing to run ads for the DEC campaign for alleviation of human suffering in Gaza – perhaps the DEC could try again with an appeal to save Gaza wildlife, as apparently the lives of humans in Gaza are not counted as important to the BBC.

Prisoner swap deals are on the horizon –

Israel might be prepared to swap hundreds of jailed Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip for more than two years, senior Israeli officials indicated yesterday.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, said yesterday that the Israel Defence Forces’ operation in the Gaza Strip had created “renewed momentum” to strike a deal with Hamas for Shalit’s return.

Hamas officials in Gaza and the West Bank insisted, for their part, that Shalit, who was captured in a cross-border raid, “would not see the light of day” unless Israel agreed to the release of up to 1,400 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s Supreme Court has overturned the Central Elections Commision’s decision to exclude two arab parties from the February 10 elections.

This week, the Supreme Court accepted a petition by two Arab Knesset factions – Balad and United Arab List-Ta’al – and overturned the Central Elections Commission’s decision to bar them from running in the upcoming elections. This ruling, which did not ignore the problematic elements of both parties’ platforms, rescued the political system from the disgrace it inflicted on itself and the voting public by disqualifying these slates.

Israel to open Gaza Strip crossing to journalists

Posted on

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.