Woodshed Series with Ryan Dawson Continues for Pat Condell

Does Israel’s Zionist Project Require the Destruction of Palestine?

Interview with Gregory Harms

Global Research
Kourosh Ziabari

American journalist and scholar Gregory Harms believes that the recent 8-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip might have been waged to distract public attention from the internal socioeconomic crises and problems the Israeli regime faces, especially ahead of the January 2013 legislative elections. He believes that launching airstrikes on Gaza may serve to give Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party a secure vote in the upcoming elections.

“[P]ushing the Gaza button focuses Israelis on matters of security. The population in Israel is highly manipulated and taught to be fearful… Israel’s isolation is bad for the country and its people; it cultivates a very unhealthy national psychology. As a result – and quite similar to Americans – the public is easily turned around. When things are too calm, the people begin focusing on domestic issues and the economy. This has been a serious issue in Israel, with massive protesting occurring over housing costs and income disparity. Israel’s economy is better than most, but there are serious grievances, and when the Arab Spring took hold of North Africa and the Arab Middle East, its effects were felt in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv,” he said in a recent interview with me after the announcement of ceasefire between Hamas and Israel on November 21.

Gregory Harms is an independent scholar specializing in U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. He lectures, keeps a blog on Facebook, and publishes articles on CounterPunch, Truthout, and Mondoweiss. Harms has traveled throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and has been interviewed on BBC Radio.

His first book “The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction,” 3rd ed. (Pluto Press, 2012) is brief and general summary of the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the establishment of the Israeli regime in 1948.

I conducted an interview with Gregory Harms a few days after the conclusion of the Operation Pillar of Defense which claimed the lives of at least 170 Palestinians and caused serious damages to the infrastructure and civilian buildings in the besieged Gaza Strip. Following is the text of the interview.

Kourosh Ziabari: Ceasefire has now been declared between Hamas and Israel, but through the eight-day attacks and air-strikes of Israel against the Gaza Strip, some 180 Palestinians, many of whom innocent civilians, have been killed. Why do you think Israel renewed its assaults on Gaza?

Gregory Harms: The question of why is a matter of speculation; but we can make some reasonable guesses. It’s hard to imagine that the upcoming January elections in Israel are not a factor. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely looking to focus the country on security issues as well as consolidate Likud’s coalition in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He and Likud are the expected victors, but the elections are too near for this not to be a consideration.

Another possible factor is Hamas’s increased regional prestige. Because of the new leadership in Cairo under President Mohamed Morsi, the strong presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics, and Hamas’s severing of ties with its former sponsor in Damascus, relations between Hamas and Cairo have progressed. Hamas’s growing ties with Qatar and Turkey also signal the Islamist organization’s increased status. Israel’s strategic take on this is difficult to discern, but if this development did factor in the recent violence, it is Tel Aviv acting on its longstanding impulse of using the military first. One possible benefit, from Israel’s perspective, is that now that Morsi and company have played a key role in achieving a truce, Gaza has been pushed closer to Egypt. For Tel Aviv, the best-case scenario is that Gaza becomes Cairo’s problem altogether, as it was before 1967.

Iran could very well be a possible motive. If Tel Aviv plans on attacking Tehran’s nuclear facilities anytime soon, it will want Hamas’s weapon supplies diminished. If this is indeed a rationale, it raises the question of Hizballah’s caches and preparedness in Lebanon. Whether Iran is a factor is difficult to say. The Obama White House has to-date shown no interest in direct armed intervention in Iran, which in turn makes a unilateral Israeli operation an unpopular notion among the majority of Israelis. Furthermore, Iran is a very large country that can fight back, automatically making it a less likely candidate for US-Israeli action.

There is also the fast-approaching bid on the part of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to seek nonmember observer-state status for Palestine at the United Nations. By roughing up Gaza, there might be a hope of getting the Palestinian Authority to shift course. Israel’s foreign ministry has already talked of removing Abbas from power in the event the PA makes headway at the UN General Assembly – which is almost guaranteed. As stated in a foreign ministry paper, quoted in the Guardian (Nov. 14),

When Propaganda Masquarades as News

Global Research
Prof. James F. Tracy

The week-long Israeli onslaught against largely defenseless Palestinians in Gaza that began on November 14 provides a basis for assessing how Western corporate media whitewash the war crimes of America’s foremost ally in the Middle East. There are three often intertwined techniques consciously applied to such news coverage—historical context, sourcing, and objectification of the enemy to be targeted. Such practices can readily transform journalism into propaganda that acts to abet such crimes while at the same time allowing journalistic institutions to still claim the mantle of “objectivity.”

Such methods are on full display in the reportage of Israel’s most recent operation in Gaza. The use of such propaganda fits within a broader campaign of media disinformation that subdues potential outrage—particularly in the US—over Israel’s overwhelming use of force against an oppressed and vulnerable people, most of whom are civilians.

Meaningful historical context for understanding Israel’s aggression is almost entirely absent from most Western news coverage of the event. If present, such context would illuminate Israeli government officials’ true motivations for a military venture that involved 750 airstrikes in four days alone. “’Operation Pillar of Defense,’” Nile Bowie observes,

launched just months away from Israel’s elections, is a calculated component of the Netanyahu government’s strategy to topple Hamas and continue absorbing Palestinian territory. Decades of occupation and apartheid have shaped the current scenario; Israel has dehumanized an entire people by seizing their land and forcing them into prison-like ghettoes. Adherents to political Zionism have shown contempt for a genuine political solution to the Palestinian conflict, and the Netanyahu administration is poised to crush all opposition to the Jewish state.[1]

Major Western media focused instead on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) November 14 assassination of Hamas leader and Palestinian hero Ahmed al-Jabari, while blatantly omitting the fact that he was also a major figure in negotiations for a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel freshly brokered by Egypt. Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated,” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the day following the assassination, “he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”[2]

Apart from Western alternative media such critical details were quickly dispatched to the memory hole. Major news outlets almost systematically relied on Israeli government, military, and intelligence sources to shape its coverage, where Jabari was reviled as “the commander of the military wing of Hamas.” Reuters, for example, proceeded to source an IDF spokeswoman who proceeded to lay out the dominant frame for the coverage. “This is an operation against terror targets of different organizations in Gaza,” she declared. “Jaabari [sic] had ‘a lot of blood on his hands.’ Other militant groups including Islamic Jihad were on the target list.”[3]

A similar report in the UK Telegraph taking the tack of Israeli official pronouncements beings with the lead, “Ahmed Jabari probably didn’t event hear the missile that killed him, launched from a drone in the skies over Gaza City as he drove an ordinary saloon car through a quiet residential street.”[4] Emphasis on Jabari’s military status and alleged criminal and terrorist activities invariably legitimates Israel’s flagrant barbarism. Further, by holding Jabari up as a dangerous renegade supposedly representative of the Palestinian people the stage is set for attacks on civilians that are much more readily rationalized in the public mind.

Honest contextualization of the crisis leading readerships to greater understanding would involve consulting and publicizing both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives—an undertaking Western journalists are now adept at through their routine discussions with Syrian “activists” reporting on the alleged atrocities committed by the Syrian Army against Syrian citizens and the gallant Free Syrian Army “rebels” in that close by theatre.

Erdogan says Israel commits terrorist acts in Gaza

Albawaba

The State of Israel is committing "terrorist acts" in the Gaza Strip, said Monday the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the sixth day of the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave. "Those who equate Islam with terrorism condone mass murder of Muslims and turn their heads against the killing of children in Gaza," he said at the Eurasian Islamic Council conference in Istanbul. "For this reason I say that Israel is a terrorist state and that its acts are terrorist acts," said the head of the Turkish government.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Palestinian movements of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank Monday called in Ramallah for unity and vowed to "end the division" in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"From Ramallah, we announce with leaders of other movements that we end the division," said Jibril Rajoub, a senior Fatah figure, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, before a thousand of demonstrators waving Palestinian national flag . "Whoever speaks of the division after today is a criminal," assured Mahmoud Al-Ramahi, a Hamas leader in the West Bank.

Many clashes with Israeli security forces have erupted in recent days in the cities of the West Bank and Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem to denounce the Israeli offensive against armed groups in Gaza.

Russian TV office destroyed in Israeli attack on Gaza

PressTV

Smoke billows as debris flies from the explosion at the local Al-Aqsa TV
station in Gaza City on November 18, 2012, after it was attacked during an Israeli airstrike.

A Russian television network says its office in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed as buildings of press agencies are hit in the latest wave of Israeli aggression against the besieged Palestinian territory.

The Moscow-based Russia Today news station reported that the office on the top floor of the Showa Media Center "was destroyed after (an) Israeli airstrike hit the building" on Sunday, AFP reported.

The attack comes after the office of Iran's English-language Press TV channel in Gaza was hit twice in the Israeli aerial assaults.

During the bombings, a Press TV cameraman sustained injuries. He is in stable condition at a hospital in Gaza.

"At least six journalists were wounded, with minor and moderate injuries, when Israeli warplanes hit the al-Quds TV office in the Showa and Housari building in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City," Hamas Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

Most of the reporters evacuated after an initial strike, but they later returned to the site only to come under another assault.

Witnesses said the strikes caused extensive damage to the building.

The latest wave of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has claimed at least 53 lives since November 14. Ahmed al-Ja'abari, the popular and influential leader of the Hamas military wing, the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated in an Israeli attack on his car on Wednesday.

On November 16, Ahmed Abu Jalal, a field commander of the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the district of Maghazi in central Gaza.

Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in the Palestinian territory on Saturday, after Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a possible ground invasion.

The Israeli military frequently carries out airstrikes and other attacks on the Gaza Strip, saying the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, in violation of international law, disproportionate force is always used and civilians are often killed or injured.

Gaza has been blockaded by the Israeli regime since 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

Israel targets (and defends attacking) journalists in Gaza

MondoWeiss
Allison Deger

Al-Quds TV cameraman Khader al-Zahhar after Israeli air strike on media
building, Gaza, 18 November 2012. (Photo: Ali Hassan/Reuters)

Early this morning, just after dawn, the Israeli military targeted two media buildings in the Gaza Strip, injuring six journalists with one losing his leg in an amputation after the bombing. "We obviously know there are journalists in the building," said IDF spokesperson Avital Leibovich hours later, confirming the Israeli military knowingly targeted news organizations in a military strike to destroy an antenna that was located on the roof of the building.  Leibovich continued, "so we did not attack any other floor in the building, but my advice to journalist visiting Gaza is to stay away from any Hamas positions, or Hamas sites, or Hamas posts for their own safety."

The BBC's Middle East Bureau Chief, Paul Danahar, posted an excerpt of Leibovich's address to the press here.

British independent filmmaker and activist based in Gaza, Harry Fear, also confirmed over Twitter today that media outlets were phoned this morning to flee from their offices. "Israel agents phone Gaza media threatening to flatten their buildings to the ground unless they evacuate," said Fear on Twitter.

Located in Gaza City the offices included Sky News, al-Arabiya news network, Dubai TV al-Aqsa TV, Russia Today, and Lebanese, German and Italien news teams. Khader al-Zahhar, a cameraman for al-Quds TV was rushed to a hospital after the air strike.
The Guardian reports:

A number of media organisations are based in the al-Shawa building, including al-Quds television, which is associated with Islamic Jihad. Khader al-Zahhar, a cameraman with al-Quds TV, had his leg amputated as a result of injuries sustained in the attack.

A second air strike struck another media complex in the city, the al-Shuruq building. It houses Sky News, the al-Arabiya news network, Dubai TV and an office of al-Aqsa TV, which is affiliated with Hamas.

Sky News reporter Sam Kiley was sleeping in the offices when the missile struck shortly before 7am. 'The missile hit the floor above us. There was a big flash of light and the sound of breaking glass.'

 

The IDF spoke publicly for the first time today about the strike on the media offices over social media, tweeting "Roofs of the two buildings targeted tonight, were used by Hamas to place their electronic and communication infrastructure." Throughout the five-day assault on the Gaza Strip Israeli military officials have repeatedly utilized social media to explain what targets they have hit in what appears to be an attempt to build a discourse on the "precision" of their weaponry. But the @IDFSpokesperson's Tweets this morning signify a change in messaging, in which the military divulged they knowingly attacked civilians. "Hamas comms center, which was in civilian building. IDF only targeted devices on roof & left Hamas offices on 8th floor untouched."

‘Washington Post’ prints false narrative of how Gaza escalation started

MondoWeiss
Alex Kane

 Palestinian Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip
Ismail Haniya (R) and Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil
hold the body of a Palestinian baby boy who was killed
in an Israeli air strike on November 16, 2012 during a visit

You know the drill by now: an escalation occurs in the Gaza Strip that is automatically blamed on Palestinian fighters. The New York Times does it, as the Electronic Intifada's Maureen Murphy points out, and now the Washington Post prints a story with a similar narrative.
Here's how the Post reports on how the bombardment in Gaza started:

The latest round of fighting began Saturday, when militants from a non-Hamas faction fired an antitank missile at an Israeli jeep traveling along the Israel-Gaza border, injuring four Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with shelling and firing that Gaza medical officials said killed at least four people, including two children, and wounded about two dozen others. Militants then fired about 130 rockets and mortar rounds at population centers of southern Israel over several days. After mediation from Egypt, the flare-up appeared to have waned by Tuesday.

But that's now how "the latest round of fighting began." The Institute for Middle East Understanding published an excellent timeline that shows how the fighting actually began:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Following a two-week lull in violence, Israeli soldiers invade Gaza. In the resulting exchange of gunfire with Palestinian fighters, a 12-year-old boy is killed by an Israeli bullet while he plays soccer.
Shortly afterwards, Palestinian fighters blow up a tunnel along the Gaza-Israel frontier, injuring one Israeli soldier.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10
An anti-tank missile fired by Palestinian fighters wounds four Israeli soldiers driving in a jeep along the Israel-Gaza boundary.
An Israeli artillery shell lands in a soccer field in Gaza killing two children, aged 16 and 17. Later, an Israeli tank fires a shell at a tent where mourners are gathered for a funeral, killing two more civilians, and wounding more than two dozen others.

As you can see, the escalation began when Israel killed a 12-year-old boy. The rockets and missiles fired in response were what the Gaza-based militant group Popular Resistance Committees called a "revenge invoice."

Inciting war crimes: Israel minister says force Gaza population into Egypt, cut off water, electricity

Electronic Intifada
Ali Abunimah

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in Gaza city on 15 November 2012.

An Israeli minister has called for the army to bomb Gaza until the population flees en masse into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, and for water and electricity supplies to be cut, a clear case of incitement to war crimes.

Israel Katz, Israel’s transport minister, was quoted on the Orthodox website B’Hadrei Haredim on 11 November:

Israel must act in Gaza with a very clear policy. The leadership of the Hamas, which is responsible for all the attacks and shooting, must be eliminated. Beyond that, we must detach from Gaza in a civilian manner – electricity, water, food, and fuel – and transition into a policy of deterrence, just like in Southern Lebanon.”

Why don’t they shoot at us from Southern Lebanon and do from Gaza? Because there is no clear boundary with Gaza. Because the civilian link with Gaza is unreasonable. Gaza should be considered a border, and every time we are hurt, hurt back [retaliate]. When I see Palestinian citizens escaping into Sinai, the way Lebanese citizens escape toward Beirut when there is a round of fire against Israel – we will then know that the deterrence has been achieved.”

Calling for war crimes

Katz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, appears to be inciting war crimes of the kind Israel committed in Lebanon and previously in Gaza.
In July 2006, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Lebanon fled their homes to escape an indiscriminate Israeli onslaught that left 1,200 people, mostly civilians, dead, and the country’s infrastructure devastated.

Israel’s bombardment of the civilian areas came to be known as the “Dahiya doctrine” after the southern suburb of Beirut that was leveled by Israeli attacks.

According to the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, Israel applied the “Dahiya doctrine” again during its 2008-2009 attack on Gaza. The report said on page 23:

The tactics used by Israeli military armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.

The Goldstone report noted that Israeli officials had explicitly articulated the goals and methods of this strategy.

Such use of indiscriminate and “disrproportionate” force (there is no such thing as proportionate force against civilians), calculated to destroy civilian infrastructure and cause suffering, amounts to a war crime.

Now, just as in those previous cases, Israeli ministers are not shy about publicly stating their criminal intent, confident of the international impunity and complicity that has so far protected them from accountability.

Israel’s current assault, which it began by breaking a truce with Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, has claimed at least 22 Palestinian lives in recent days, with dozens of injuries.

Sixteen Palestinians have been killed since 14 November, the latest a 10-month old baby named Hanin Tafish. Yesterday, Israeli bombardment killed 11-month-old Omar Masharawi, the son of a BBC staffer in Gaza.

Three Israelis were killed this morning in retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza.
With thanks to Dena Shunra for spotting and translation.

The Invasion of Gaza: Part of a Broader US-NATO-Israel Military Agenda. Towards a Scenario of Military Escalation?

Global Research
Michel Chossoduvsky

On November 14,  Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari was murdered in a Israeli missile attack. In a bitter irony,  barely a few hours before the attack, Hamas received  the draft proposal of a permanent truce agreement with Israel.

“Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”(Haaretz, November 15, 2012)

The targeted assassination  of  Ahmed Jabari was followed by an extensive bombing campaign under Operation Pillar of Cloud.  The latter consists of a carefully planned military endeavor.

F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters and unmanned drones were deployed. Israeli naval forces deployed along the Gaza shoreline were  involved in extensive shelling of civilian targets.

Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barack has confirmed a scenario of military escalation, blaming Palestine for having committed acts of aggression:

 “[t]he provocations we have suffered and the firing of rockets to the southern settlements within Israel have forced us to take this action. I want to make clear that Israeli citizens will not suffer such actions. The targets are to hit the rockets and to harm the organization of Hamas.”

The Israeli attacks were followed by the firing of dozens of rockets by Hamas against Israel.

Palestine’s response was known to Israeli war planners. The resulting Israeli civilian casualties are now being used to justify military escalation on humanitarian grounds.
What we are dealing with is a carefully planned operation, a clear act of provocation. The deaths of Israeli civilians (envisaged and foreseen by IDF military planners) are being used to muster the support of the Israeli  public.

Meanwhile, the Israeli attack is casually portrayed by the Western media as part of a legitimate counter-terrorism agenda.

The Obama administration is blaming the victims of Israeli atrocities. The victims are portrayed as “terrorists”.  According to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:

“Hamas [is] a U.S.-designated terror group, which governs the Gaza strip, that is instigating the violence. … Attacking Israel on a near daily basis does nothing to help Palestinians in Gaza or to move the Palestinian people any close to achieving self-determination.” (ABC News, November 15, 2012)

A scenario of military escalation has already been announced. Reports confirm that Israeli is contemplating a ground war, including an invasion of Gaza:

There are also reports that Israel may be preparing for a ground operation as it moves troops near the border. A ground incursion by Israel into Gaza could signal the beginning of an all-out war. (Ibid)

The Broader Middle East War

The attack on Gaza must be understood in relation to the broader Middle East war. The Israeli attack was approved by president Obama. It  has a direct bearing on US-NATO-Israeli war plans pertaining to Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

The timing is of utmost significance: one week following the US presidential elections.
Operation Pillar of Cloud is a deliberate act of provocation, intended to lead to military escalation.

The Israeli public is firmly opposed to a broader Middle East war including the conduct of Israeli surgical strikes directed against Iran’s  nuclear facilities.

Is the attack on Gaza  a trigger mechanism which could lead the World into a broader Middle East war?

We are not dealing with an isolated event. The invasion of Gaza is part of the broader US-NATO-Israel military agenda.

Back-flash to December 2008. Operation Cast Lead

It is also important to understand Israeli’s current plans to invade Gaza in relation to the December 2008 bombing and ground invasion of Gaza under Operation Cast Lead.  (See below)

Michel Chossudovsky, November 15, 2012
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 4, 2009
The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analysed in a historical context. Operation “Cast Lead” is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:

“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”(Barak Ravid, Operation “Cast Lead”: Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

It was Israel which broke the truce on the day of the US presidential elections, November 4:

“Israel used this distraction to break the ceasefire between itself and Hamas by bombing the Gaza strip.  Israel claimed this violation of the ceasefire was to prevent Hamas from digging tunnels into Israeli territory.
The very next day, Israel launched a terrorizing siege of Gaza, cutting off food, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities in an attempt to “subdue” the Palestinians while at the same time engaging in armed incursions.
In response, Hamas and others in Gaza again resorted to firing crude, homemade, and mainly inaccurate rockets into Israel.  During the past seven years, these rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 17 Israelis.  Over the same time span, Israeli Blitzkrieg assaults have killed thousands of Palestinians, drawing worldwide protest but falling on deaf ears at the UN.” (Shamus Cooke, The Massacre in Palestine and the Threat of a Wider War, Global Research, December 2008)

Planned Humanitarian Disaster

On December 8, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was in Tel Aviv for discussions with his Israeli counterparts including the director of Mossad, Meir Dagan.
“Operation Cast Lead” was initiated two days day after Christmas. It was coupled with a carefully designed international Public Relations campaign under the auspices of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Hamas’ military targets are not the main objective. Operation “Cast Lead” is intended, quite deliberately, to trigger civilian casualities.

What we are dealing with is a “planned humanitarian disaster” in Gaza in a densly populated urban area. (See map below)

The longer term objective of this plan, as formulated by Israeli policy makers, is the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestinian lands:

“Terrorize the civilian population, assuring maximal destruction of property and cultural resources… The daily life of the Palestinians must be rendered unbearable: They should be locked up in cities and towns, prevented from exercising normal economic life, cut off from workplaces, schools and hospitals, This will encourage emigration and weaken the resistance to future expulsions” Ur Shlonsky, quoted by Ghali Hassan, Gaza: The World’s Largest Prison, Global Research, 2005)

“Operation Justified Vengeance”

A turning point has been reached. Operation “Cast Lead” is part of the broader military-intelligence operation initiated at the outset of the Ariel Sharon government in 2001. It was under Sharon’s “Operation Justified Vengeance” that  F-16 fighter planes were initially used to bomb Palestinian cities.

“Operation Justified Vengeance” was presented in July 2001 to the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon by IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, under the title “The Destruction of the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces”.

“A contingency plan, codenamed Operation Justified Vengeance, was drawn up last June [2001] to reoccupy all of the West Bank and possibly the Gaza Strip at a likely cost of “hundreds” of Israeli casualties.” (Washington Times, 19 March 2002).

According to Jane’s ‘Foreign Report’ (July 12, 2001) the Israeli army under Sharon had updated its plans for an “all-out assault to smash the Palestinian authority, force out leader Yasser Arafat and kill or detain its army”.

Decision bombing? Israel's 'election attack' triggers Gaza war spiral

Russia Today

A Palestinian youth walks amid destruction following an Israeli air strike
on a residential neighbourhood in Gaza City in the
early hours of November 15, 2012.

Israel is bombarding Gaza for a second day, with 13 Palestinians killed, including four children, and over 100 injured. The attack’s timing is under question with a looming Israeli election, as is the precision of airstrikes which kill civilians.

­Israel’s military operation started on Wednesday with a strike killing Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari. Since then, reports say, the IDF has struck around 200 targets in Gaza. Furthermore, Israel is threatening to go as far as initiating a ground operation, sparking fears of a repetition of the Cast Lead scenario.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which has engaged in a Twitter showdown since the very beginning of the strikes, said it targets only “terror sites”. However, this has been questioned by witnesses on social media who point out that only four people of the 13 so far killed by Israeli airstrikes were Hamas militants, while the rest were civilians, including women and children. 

Civilian casualties included the baby of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad Masharawi, who lost his 11-month-old son, along with his sister-in-law. He also has a brother wounded by a strike.

A Palestinian boy pushes his bycicle through the rubble in an area
targeted by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City in the early hours of November 15, 2012. 

­Israeli strikes have led to a spiraling escalation of conflict, with Hamas already saying it is now in a state of “open war” with Israel and threatening to send in suicide bombers.
The IDF stated that more than 130 rockets were fired from Gaza at locations in Israel during the last 24 hours. Three people have been killed on the Israeli side.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has announced it is launching “Operation Shale Stones” in response to Israel’s “Pillar of Defense”.

These kinds of statements call into question how long the conflict is actually going to last and spark fears of even further escalation which would draw more civilian casualties.

Palestinians check their damaged house after Israeli air strikes in
Gaza City November 15, 2012. (AFP Photo / Suhaib Salem)

­

‘Timing of attack no coincidence’

Meanwhile, experts are starting to question the timing of the Israeli attack on Gaza which is not viewed as accidental. Israel will hold a general election on January 22 and conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to retaliate harshly against Hamas.

Eric Draitser, a geopolitical analyst for Stop Imperialism sees the attack as fitting in with the pre-election campaign to influence Israel's general election.

“The timing of the attack is not a coincidence. Even though Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seen as the only option, he was also pushing hard for Romney to win,” Draitser told RT. “And now this attack could be one of the ways Netanyahu is trying to exercise his own power in the country, showing that Israel is not weak and that the administration will push forward with this imperialistic agenda no matter who won the US election.”

Palestinians watch the funeral of Hisham Ghalban in the southern Gaza Strip,
on November 15, 2012. (AFP Photo / Said Khatib)

­Freelance journalist Lior Sternfeld has drawn a direct parallel between the pre-election November 2012 attack on Gaza and the 2008-2009 pre-election attack.

Even though Netanyahu does not face much opposition, “he knows that the way to ensure his victory in the upcoming elections will be by diverting the public discourse from demands of social justice to existential threats imposed on Israel by the bogeyman – Hamas,” Sternfeld argues in his column for Informed Comment.

He also believes that Hamas’ retaliatory response was predictable and even more so, encouraged.

“With the 2013 elections just months away, Israel decided to break a ceasefire and assassinate the Hamas senior military persona, Ahmed Jabari,” Sternfeld writes. “And as expected Hamas responded with firing rockets on Israel’s southern regions and a full-scale war is being evolved.”

Palestinians inspect a destroyed building in an area targeted by an Israeli air
strike in Gaza City in the early hours of November 15, 2012. (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)

­

War rhetoric, civilian casualties, anti-war protests

Israel’s National Security Minister Avi Dichter stated that “we have no intention to end this round of fighting and suffer more hits in the next.”

But Israeli civilians are already suffering. Three people were killed by a rocket strike from Gaza on Thursday, and there are dozens of injured including three children.
There have also been reports of Israeli residents experiencing panic attacks from Hamas rockets that were sent back in retaliation.

All schools within a 40km range of Gaza have been closed. People living within a 7km range of the Gaza border are not allowed to leave their homes and gatherings of over 100 people in one place are prohibited, Yeshiva World News reports.

About 100 people protested outside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s apartment in Tel Aviv Wednesday night following the start of the offensive on Gaza. The activists were shouting “Money for welfare, not war," thus indicating that they see the operation as an attempt to distract people’s attention from Israel’s own internal problems.

A Palestinian man sits amid the rubble in his bombed house
following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City on November 15, 2012. (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)

­Palestinian protesters also marched in the West Bank city of Ramallah in support of the people of the Gaza Strip and against Israeli airstrikes.

“It is killing children and women; it is injuring scores of people. The way it tries to assassinate military targets is illegal because it is using indiscriminate and reckless amounts of force,” documentary maker and activist Harry Fear, who is currently in the region, told RT.

“Tomorrow Israel expects to launch the ground incursion of the Gaza Strip, including central parts of Gaza City. International reporters and activists on the ground believe this is the beginning of another full-scale war similar to the one in 2008-2009,” he added.

‘This is travesty of American criminal justice’: Supreme Court denies Holy Land Five appeal

MondoWeiss
Allison Deger
Adam Horowitz
Annie Robbins

A rally for the Holy Land Five in New York City, October 25, 2012

The Supreme Court has denied the Holy Land Five appeal and will not be issuing a decision in the case. This almost definitely marks the end of the legal appeal process.

The Holy Land Five -- Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad el-Mazain, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader, Abulrahman Odeh -- were convicted of providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through zakat committees allegedly connected with Hamas. The case relied on "secret evidence" from an anonymous Israeli intelligence source. Four of the five defendants are now serving sentences in a Communication Management Unit, or CMU, an "experimental" detention facility outside of oversight from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where two-thirds of the inmates are Arab and/or Muslim. Detainees in these facilities are subject to arbitrary policies that restrict their movement within prison cells, and minimal contact with the families and attorneys.

Nida Abubaker, the daughter of Holy Land Five member Shukri Abubaker, announced the decision over Twitter:

The supreme court denied the case. They dont even want to look at it. They dont want to spill the truth& efda7 the US Govt bc of their lies
— Nida Guerzoni Baker (@SuperNida) October 29, 2012

She added on her blog:

That’s it. They denied it… So what now? Are these men going to sit in prison, for something they didn’t do, while the world all over the poor is getting even poorer? While the hungry is dying of starvation? While the sick is dying without medicine and blood? While the homeless is in desperate need of a home during The harsh winters? This is outrageous. I am at loss of words… God has a plan for everything and everyone. We must not give up. #FreeTheHolyLandFoundation #FreeMyBaba #FreeMyUncles

Mondoweiss talked to Holy Land Five attorney Nancy Hollander who explained this will most likely end the legal fight in the case, "Technically they can file a petition for writ of habeas corpus, but they would have to go back to original court and I don't think they will be successful. I fear this is the end of the road and far as the courts are concerned." Hollander added:

This is travesty of American criminal justice. I don't think American citizens understand that this effects all of us and the world that believes in the American criminal justice system. Anyone in any court in America now risks being convicted based on the opinion of someone who claims to be an expert without any opportunity to cross examine that person because everything about that so-called expert can remain secret. The right to Confrontation, so long enshrined in our justice system, died today.

Attorney Linda Moreno, who also worked on the case, told Mondoweiss:

We fought so hard for this case we believed in these men and we believed in the charity, their good will, their good works. I have always said they fed the wrong children. They were Palestinian children and for some reason Palestinian children, Palestinian widows do not deserve humanitarian aid.
And I will tell you this, I don't care what the government believes it has proved in this case, a decision that allows a man to be sentenced to 65 years in prison for feeding Palestinian children in my view is racist.

As Joe Catron wrote earlier today on Mondoweiss, even if the court denied the appeal, this doesn't mean work in solidarity with the Holy Land Five is over. On the contrary, it is time to redouble our efforts:

The imprisonment of the Holy Land Five is a conscious act of imperial repression against Palestine no less than those of Khader Adnan, Hana Shalabi, Mahmoud Sarsak, or Hassan Safadi, returning today to his family in Nablus. Like their freedom, the HLF prisoners' may boil down to a question not of laws, but of solidarity, mobilization, and power.

Green Party pres’l candidate misses crucial political opportunity by not talking up democracy in Israel/Palestine

MondoWeiss
Phillip Weiss

The following letter to Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president, was shared with us by Justine McCabe and Joel Kovel, two of its authors. The other signatories, also associated with the Green Party, are Lenni Brenner, Stan Heller and David Schwartzman. Links to documents appear at the end of the letter.

We publish the letter below in response to Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein’s latest press release (10/8) on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, issued on the occasion of the recent Russell Tribunal on Palestine in NYC.  We gladly acknowledge the positive movement represented by this press release and receive it as her attempt to address the critique we made to her previous statements, an earlier (9/26) version of this “open letter” to her campaign.

However, we regret that Jill’s statement is still lacking.

First, it still misrepresents the central and distinctive features of the GPUS Platform on this subject: our Party’s support for One Democratic State in Israel-Palestine; and for the non-violent means toward that goal--immediate end to all aid to Israel and support for the Palestinian Civil Society call for boycotts, divestments and sanctions to stop the institutionalized privilege of Jews over non-Jews in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a racism that is intrinsic to a Zionist Israel’s formation and existence.  The colonialism and racism on which Israel was founded cannot be ended--nor can sustainable peace be achieved--by the “two-state solution” which your statement supports in its praise for the Zionist Israeli Meretz party. This confuses the issue by diverting attention from the urgency of the One Democratic State proposal. (“Dr. Stein further applauded the actions of the Israeli political party Meretz in committing for the first time to support for a return to 1967 borders, including a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, and for supporting the 2002 Arab Peace Proposal.”)

The GPUS platform does not support a “two-state” solution that even many Israeli Jews acknowledge as a dead end and distraction.

Second, Jill’s statement does not respond to our request that she actively raise this important issue while she’s on the campaign trail.  

In rebutting Jill’s press releases on the subject, we neither wish to derail her campaign nor cause conflict within the Green Party of the United States whose formation we have all worked hard for more than a decade.  Instead, we believe we uphold the work and integrity of our party as a real opposition party to the status quo.  This can only be done by respecting the actual proposals of the Party’s Platform. It is Jill Stein’s disavowal of the Party Platform that sows the seeds of intra-party conflict.

In sum, our analysis is that the Stein Campaign obscures the GPUS Platform on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue of vital importance to US foreign policy and world peace, and has missed an excellent opportunity to provide the public with an understanding of the conflict’s origins and ongoing consequences--an understanding that is quite different from that presented by the US media and the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.    

OPEN LETTER TO JILL STEIN:

MAKE ISRAEL-PALESTINE A CAMPAIGN ISSUE

Dear Jill and the Green Party “Stein for President” Campaign,

We acknowledge and appreciate the sacrifice and enormous effort you make representing the Green Party of the United States.  Indeed, we have supported your presidential campaign by donating our time and money.

We write now to continue to challenge you attend to a significant foreign policy issue: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Do you fully support the excellent GPUS Platform on Israel and Palestine? Do you acknowledge more than just its rectitude, which means forcefully speaking out on the issue and making your voice unmistakably heard?

We’re writing from two concerns:

First, your three public statements on the conflict—a May 15 press release, an earlier Truthout interview (1/29/12), and October 8 press release—do not represent the intent of the GPUS Platform, and neglect a chance to educate the public about the conflict’s cause and the negative impact of US Palestine-Israel policy on the security of Americans as well as those in the Middle East.

Second, failing to assert this issue on the stump— which is different from defensively responding to our push--misses a strategic opportunity to mobilize a significant portion of the voting population who do not support the Republican and Democratic policies toward Israel and would support GPUS’ distinguishing foreign policy on this.  Moreover, by asserting this, you would enhance the seriousness of your campaign for president, especially in light of the recent and growing anti-American sentiment in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

1. GPUS policies on this issue developed thoughtfully, over a decade. The two key points of this platform are support for the right of Palestinian refugees to return home and the One Democratic State solution. The concrete, nonviolent actions to achieve these goals are immediately ending all US aid to Israel and supporting the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.  

Unlike your earlier statements, we’re pleased that your latest press release (10/8) does mention BDS as “boycotts and divestment,” and our long-standing support for the Palestinian right of return.  However, you still do not place these Platform planks in context: Why BDS? How, why did Palestinian refugees leave their native land?  Why will Israel not allow them to return?

Similarly, while your recent press release paraphrases a statement from the GPUS Platform, which “specifically recognizes the rights of self-determination of all peoples in Israel-Palestine,” it omits a crucial phrase from that Platform, “which precludes the self-determination of one at the expense of the other.”  How can ongoing settler-colonization and occupation of Palestinian land by Zionist Israelis be “self- determination”?  How can it not be seen as precluding the self-determination of one at the expense of the other?

Most significantly, as in the earlier press release and interview, your recent press release does not mention our support for the “One State Solution,” which in addition to calling for an immediate end to US aid to Israel, support for the right of return and BDS, are positions that clearly distinguish our party from others and actually address the conflict’s source.

Netanyahu Tells Egypt: Keep Tanks out of Sinai

IsraelNationalNews
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Netanyahu has demanded that Egypt cease sending tanks into the Sinai without approval, a “blatant violation” of the 1979 peace treaty.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has demanded that Egypt cease sending tanks into the Sinai without Israel's approval, a “blatant violation” of the 1979 peace treaty, the Maariv Hebrew-language website reported Tuesday.

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister, told Arutz Sheva, “We are not commenting” on the report.

An Egyptian newspaper reported that local Bedouin claimed that Egypt already has sent dozens of tanks to the northern Sinai, near the Israeli border. The report has not been confirmed, and most other media outlets have reported that Egypt is preparing to send in tanks, planes and additional soldiers to combat rampant terror.

Al Qaeda-linked terror cells, Bedouin and Hamas terrorists have taken control of the Sinai Peninsula in recent years, particularly since the end of the Mubarak regime.

A source close to Prime Minister Netanyahu told Maariv the planned buildup, if it already has not taken place, is “a blatant violation of the peace treaty.”

The Obama administration wields influence over Egypt because of its $1.3 billion annual aid to Cairo, and the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu has appealed to the White House to pressure Egypt to stop the deployment.

Israel knows that it is to its benefit if the new Egyptian regime can defeat terrorists in the area, but it also fears that Egypt will not be successful and that terrorists could gain possession of tanks.

Another concern is that Egypt would maintain its new military presence for an unlimited amount of time and establish “facts on the ground: that would represent a de facto change in terms of the treaty, which requires Israeli approval for additional forces.

An unstated concern of almost every Israeli who remembers the Yom Kippur War is that a renewed Egyptian military presence in the Sinai could set the stage for another war, especially if Iran or Hizbullah attacks from the north.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi is scheduled to visit Iran next week to re-establish ties with Tehran, despite the objections of the United States.

Former Obama administration Middle East envoy Dennis Ross wrote in The Washington Post Monday that the U.S. must make clear to Egypt that if it continues to violate its commitments under the Camp David Accords, it would jeopardize its U.S. funding.

Ross said that Egypt's current rulers, the Muslim Brotherhood, must “come to terms with reality,” that they were committed to the Accords. He said that the denial by Egyptian President Morsi that he had responded to a letter of congratulations sent to him by President Shimon Peres, and the attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to blame the Mossad for the Sinai terror attack, prove that the group cannot tolerate any circumstances that contradicts its philosophy.

US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan – and the west stays silent

Guardian
Glenn Greenwald

The US government has long maintained, reasonably enough, that a defining tactic of terrorism is to launch a follow-up attack aimed at those who go to the scene of the original attack to rescue the wounded and remove the dead. Morally, such methods have also been widely condemned by the west as a hallmark of savagery. Yet, as was demonstrated yet again this weekend in Pakistan, this has become one of the favorite tactics of the very same US government.

A 2004 official alert from the FBI warned that "terrorists may use secondary explosive devices to kill and injure emergency personnel responding to an initial attack"; the bulletin advised that such terror devices "are generally detonated less than one hour after initial attack, targeting first responders as well as the general population". Security experts have long noted that the evil of this tactic lies in its exploitation of the natural human tendency to go to the scene of an attack to provide aid to those who are injured, and is specifically potent for sowing terror by instilling in the population an expectation that attacks can, and likely will, occur again at any time and place:

"'The problem is that once the initial explosion goes off, many people will believe that's it, and will respond accordingly,' [the Heritage Foundation's Jack] Spencer said … The goal is to 'incite more terror. If there's an initial explosion and a second explosion, then we're thinking about a third explosion,' Spencer said."

A 2007 report from the US department of homeland security christened the term "double tap" to refer to what it said was "a favorite tactic of Hamas: a device is set off, and when police and other first responders arrive, a second, larger device is set off to inflict more casualties and spread panic." Similarly, the US justice department has highlighted this tactic in its prosecutions of some of the nation's most notorious domestic terrorists. Eric Rudolph, convicted of bombing gay nightclubs and abortion clinics, was said to have "targeted federal agents by placing second bombs nearby set to detonate after police arrived to investigate the first explosion".

In 2010, when WikiLeaks published a video of the incident in which an Apache helicopter in Baghdad killed two Reuters journalists, what sparked the greatest outrage was not the initial attack, which the US army claimed was aimed at armed insurgents, but rather the follow-up attack on those who arrived at the scene to rescue the wounded. Fromthe Guardian's initial report on the WikiLeaks video:

"A van draws up next to the wounded man and Iraqis climb out. They are unarmed and start to carry the victim to the vehicle in what would appear to be an attempt to get him to hospital. One of the helicopters opens fire with armour-piercing shells. 'Look at that. Right through the windshield,' says one of the crew. Another responds with a laugh.

"Sitting behind the windscreen were two children who were wounded. 

"After ground forces arrive and the children are discovered, the American air crew blame the Iraqis. 'Well it's their fault for bringing kids in to a battle,' says one. 'That's right,' says another. 

"Initially the US military said that all the dead were insurgents."

In the wake of that video's release, international condemnation focused on the shooting of the rescuers who subsequently arrived at the scene of the initial attack. The New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadourian explained:

"On several occasions, the Apache gunner appears to fire rounds into people after there is evidence that they have either died or are suffering from debilitating wounds. The rules of engagement and the law of armed combat do not permit combatants to shoot at people who are surrendering or who no longer pose a threat because of their injuries. What about the people in the van who had come to assist the struggling man on the ground? The Geneva conventions state that protections must be afforded to people who 'collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.'"

He added that "A 'positively identified' combatant who provides medical aid to someone amid fighting does not automatically lose his status as a combatant, and may still be legally killed," but – as is true for drone attacks – there is, manifestly, no way to know who is showing up at the scene of the initial attack, certainly not with "positive identification" (by official policy, the US targets people in Pakistan and elsewhere for death even without knowing who they are). Even commentators who defendedthe initial round of shooting by the Apache helicopter by claiming there was evidence that one of the targets was armed typically noted, "the shooting of the rescuers, however, is highly disturbing."

But attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalismdocumented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:

"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"

Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: "On [4 June], USdrones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali." Moreover, "between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera."

In June, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, said that if "there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime." There is no doubt that there have been.

(A different UN official, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, this weekend demanded that the US "must open itself to an independent investigation into its use of drone strikes or the United Nations will be forced to step in", and warned that the demand "will remain at the top of the UN political agenda until some consensus and transparency has been achieved". For many American progressives, caring about what the UN thinks is so very 2003.)

The frequency with which the US uses this tactic is reflected by this December 2011 report from ABC News on the drone killing of 16-year-old Tariq Khan and his 12-year-old cousin Waheed, just days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest US drones:

"Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed's deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene of an attack."

Not only does that tactic intimidate rescuers from helping the wounded and removing the dead, but it also ensures that journalists will be unwilling to go to the scene of a drone attack out of fear of a follow-up attack.

This has now happened yet again this weekend in Pakistan, which witnessed what Reuters calls "a flurry of drone attacks" that "pounded northern Pakistan over the weekend", "killing 13 people in three separate attacks". The attacks "came as Pakistanis celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan with the festival of Eid al-Fitr." At least one of these weekend strikes was the type of "double tap" explosion aimed at rescuers which, the US government says, is the hallmark of Hamas:

"At least six militants were killed when US drones fired missiles twice on Sunday in North Waziristan Agency. 

"In the first strike, four missiles were fired on two vehicles in the Mana Gurbaz area of district Shawal in North Waziristan Agency, while two missiles were fired in the second strike at the same site where militants were removing the wreckage of their destroyed vehicles."

An unnamed Pakistani official identically told Agence France-Presse that a second US drone "fired two missiles at the site of this morning's attack, where militants were removing the wreckage of their two destroyed vehicles". (Those killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan are more or less automatically deemed "militants" by unnamed "officials", and then uncritically called such by most of the western press – a practice that inexcusably continues despite revelations that the Obama administrationhas redefined "militants" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone".)

It is telling indeed that the Obama administration now routinely uses tactics in Pakistan long denounced as terrorism when used by others, and does so with so little controversy. Just in the past several months, attacks on funerals of victims have taken place in Yemen (purportedly by al-Qaida) and in Syria (purportedly, though without evidence, by the Assad regime), and such attacks – understandably – sparked outrage. Yet, in the west, the silence about the Obama administration's attacks on funerals and rescuers is deafening.

But in the areas targeted by the US with these tactics, there is anything but silence. Pakistan's most popular politician, Imran Khan, has generated intense public support with his scathing denunciations of US drone attacks, and tweeted the following on Sunday:

As usual, US policies justified in the name of fighting terrorism – aside from being rather terroristic themselves – are precisely those which fuel the anti-American hatred that causes those attacks.

The reason for the silence about such matters, and the reason commentary of this sort sparks such anger and hostility, is two-fold: first, the US likes to think of terror as something only "others" engage in, not itself, and more so; second, supporters of Barack Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, simply do not want to think about him as someone who orders attacks on those rescuing his victims or funeral attendees gathered to mourn them.

That, however, is precisely what he is, as this mountain of evidence conclusively establishes.

The calm may not last for ever

The Economist

Despite several years of peace and a rise in prosperity, frustration is bubbling up

FIVE years after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, dismissed an elected government run by the Islamists of Hamas and decided to rule instead by decree, the Palestinian Authority (PA) that oversees the West Bank is being dangerously challenged from within. In Nablus, the first city where Mr Abbas chose to fill the security vacuum with his American-trained national-security battalions, turf wars have recently erupted between rival commanders, puncturing four years of calm. The walls of Jacob’s Well, a local church, a theatre and the UN office all bear the scars of recent shooting sprees. “It’s hell,” says a social worker in Balata, the city’s largest refugee camp, which suffered grievously during two previous intifadas (uprisings), in 1987-93 and 2000-05. Now people are beginning gloomily to wonder whether there will be a third intifada, this time aimed at the PA as much as at the Israelis occupying the West Bank.

For the moment Mr Abbas has the upper hand. Dispatched from Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, his presidential guards have detained dozens of rogue security officers, some of them very senior, in Nablus and in Jenin, a smaller Palestinian city half an hour’s drive to the north, where the governor recently died of a heart attack after machinegun fire raked his house. In Jenin triumphant officers loyal to Mr Abbas patrol the streets with M-16 rifles captured from their rivals.

The PA’s Western donors praise Mr Abbas for his readiness to rein in his own rogues. Israel’s generals, who give him a security umbrella, welcome the belated prevention of anarchy. And for the first time in months camp residents are enjoying their first nights of sleep unbroken by gunfire.

Moreover, Nablus people still appreciate the relative prosperity that has revived the city since the second intifada ended in around 2005. Hundreds of businessmen have returned since Israel pulled back from the roadblocks at the city gates. Some 700,000 Arab citizens of Israel came shopping last year in the elegant medieval quarter. The governor hopes foreign tourists will follow, with plans for a “nativity trail” from Nazareth to Bethlehem to make a detour via Nablus. A new hotel and museum are due to open this summer on the ruins of a medieval khan, al-Wikala, which Israeli tanks pummelled during the second intifada. Unemployment has halved, say PA officials. In more affluent districts, young women are discarding veils.

But the camp’s residents are deeply divided. Though many are grateful for the calm that Mr Abbas and his appointed prime minister, Salam Fayyad, have brought in the past few years, others resent the heavy-handed security of the PA regime. Imposing muqatas (fortresses) are rising in all the West Bank’s main cities. Many Palestinians find the PA’s co-operation with Israel galling. “We give them the names and they arrest them,” says an Israeli officer. Many Palestinians fear they are being condemned to indefinite occupation. At a recent funeral for three local fighters whose bodies Israel recently returned to their families, mourners chanted “Down with the PA! Down with Abbas!”

Most worrying for Mr Abbas was the fact that the ringleaders of the recent trouble hailed from his own Fatah party, which provides the bedrock of the PA’s security forces. PA officials fear that certain senior Fatah commanders who have fallen foul of Mr Abbas—in particular a former intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, and a prominent strongman, Muhammad Dahlan—are stoking the unrest in the hope of creating a security vacuum they could later fill. Hamas, which still controls the Gaza Strip but is heavily suppressed in the West Bank by both Israel and the PA, awaits the tardy coming of the Arab spring to Palestine. The Israelis may be content to see Mr Abbas tied up with recalcitrant Palestinians rather than tackling Israel on the world stage.

Nablus’s commercial regeneration cannot cure a gnawing national malaise. “There is no political horizon,” say disgruntled Palestinians. They increasingly question the point of the PA. It has failed to usher in a Palestinian state, and appears powerless to prevent Israeli military incursions or the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. “All the windows are closed, and the political elite has no keys to open them,” says Raid Nairat, an academic. The West Bank’s 30,000 security forces seem unkeen on a recent quest for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas that would force them to share power. Their recent round-up of 150 Hamas men helped dampen hopes of a deal.

A fiscal crisis is compounding the political one. On paper the PA expects a budget deficit of $1 billion, equivalent to 10% of GDP. But this may well double when arrears owed to private businesses are added. Unpaid for years, suppliers refuse government orders on credit, and are having to cut production and their workforces. Palestinian builders complain that ministries pay them only when they give bribes. “We won’t let our financial system go down with the PA,” says a Palestinian banker.
Donors, too, are tired. Cash from the Gulf has dwindled, partly because the United Arab Emirates, which used to send $200m a year, seems to have sided with Mr Dahlan. “The crash is coming,” says an official in Mr Fayyad’s office. “If we can’t pay salaries over Ramadan [the Muslim month of fasting which starts on July 20th], there will be a revolt.”

Few Palestinians call for a renewal of violence. But such talk is again in the air. In some West Bank towns Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extreme Islamist group, has been making headway. “A Muslim army should defend Muslims, not Jews,” says an angry Islamist, denouncing the PA’s security co-ordination with Jewish kuffar (unbelievers).

Habib el-Adly Attempts to Blame Deaths of Arab Spring Demonstrators on Hamas

Ahram Online

Ex-Interior Minister Habib el-Adly is currently being tried
for killing demonstrators in Egypt.  He is also implicated
in the Coptic Church Bombing in Alexandria on New Years Eve, 2010.

Ismail Haniya denies claims by Egypt's former interior minister Habib El-Adly that Hamas members killed protesters during January 25 Revolution

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, has denied allegations by Egypt's former interior minister Habib El-Adly that Hamas members entered Egypt during the January 25 Revolution to sow chaos in the country and killed protesters.

El-Adly made the claims – without providing evidence – on the final day of his trial for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters during Egypt's revolution.

Hosni Mubarak, his two sons Gamal and Alaa, and six of El-Adly's aides are also on trial. The judge is due to deliver his verdict on 2 June.

Haniya spoke to journalists on Thursday after meeting Saad El-Katatni, speaker of the People’s Assembly.

“Hamas has never interfered in Egyptian issues, before or after the revolution,” said Haniya.  "During the revolution the Egyptian people presented a model that should be followed throughout the world."
Haniya congratulated Egypt on the success of the revolution and its new democratic system. He described his visit to Egypt's parliament as "historic."

The People’s Assembly is the "assembly of the Egyptian revolution," he added.
Haniya is visiting Egypt with a Hamas delegation to participate in talks with Fatah as part of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement supported by Egypt.

Palestinians Will Seek UN Membership on Sept. 23

AntiWar
John Glaser

The Palestinians will submit their request for full statehood membership at the United Nations on September 23, according to Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki. The vote will be put to the UN Security Council and subject to US veto.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will personally submit the request to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after addressing the General Assembly on the afternoon of Sept. 23. That same day, Netanyahu announced he will be addressing the General Assembly as well.

The impending US veto will starkly display the skewed American stance on Israel-Palestine as never before. The Obama administration has come up with no substantive objection to the Palestinians’ right to seek statehood at the UN beyond that it is an alternative route from the failed peace talks.

Palestinian recognition at the UN presents such a threat to Israel because Palestinian statehood may facilitate criminal prosecutions against the state of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Statements that Israel is in violation of the law with respect to their policies towards Palestine, like the one this week which deemed the naval blockade on Gaza illegal, will have greater force of law behind them if Palestine becomes a state.

On the one hand, the administration will feel domestic pressure from a pro-Israel Congress to veto the resolution. On the other hand, the administration understands that key allies will be lost if they veto and that it will be their most blatant denial yet of basic rights for Palestinians and Arab Muslims in general. The resolution currently the support of overwhelming majorities in the Middle East and around the world.