OK, I am going to lay out my thoughts on Israel and Palestine.
Yesterday, as you have almost certainly heard by now, Israel's Central Election Committee banned the two major Arab political parties in the country from running in next month's elections. The ruling will probably be overturned by the Israeli supreme court, but it is still a disturbing development for the future of Israel.
In the long-term, say 30 years or so, there will be one of two possible outcomes in Israel and Palestine:
An autonomous, Jewish majority Israel bordering an autonomous, Palestinian majority Palestine, with neither under occupation or threat of invasion. Essentially, a two-state solution. This is the outcome currently desired by 60-70% of both Palestinians and Israelis.
A single, democratic state with a Palestinian majority that encompasses all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. This is not a commonly discussed outcome now, but it is more possible down the road than most people think.
I provide an explanation for this view in the extended entry.
Wounded baby, outside Shifah Hospital in Gaza, Jan. 11, 2009
Reuters: The Palestinian death toll in the 17-day-old Israeli offensive reached 908, more than a third of them children, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Thirteen Israelis have been killed -- 10 soldiers, and three civilians killed by Hamas rocket fire.
AP: The army announced Sunday that it was sending reserve units into Gaza to assist thousands of ground forces already in the territory. The use of reserves is a strong signal that Israel is planning to move the offensive, which Gaza officials say has killed some 910 Palestinians, into a new, more punishing phase.
LA Times: 1 dead, dozens injured in Gaza by suspected white phosphorus munitions
By Richard Boudreaux and Yasser Ahmad
January 12, 2009
Reporting from Jerusalem and Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian villagers said the shelling came from the direction of the Israeli border, less than a mile away, scattering flaming objects in their midst and burning down 20 homes and the local United Nations-run school.
"One landed in my kitchen and caused a fire," said Zohair Mohammed abu Rejila, 35. "I went to put it out, but another one landed on Mayar, my baby daughter. It was like a block of fire, a piece of plastic on fire. When I knocked it off her, it exploded and out came this heavy white smoke with a very bad smell."
Doctors who treated Abu Rejila, his family and dozens of neighbors in southern Gaza said they were apparent victims of white phosphorus fired from Israeli artillery. One woman was killed. . . .
Yousef abu Rish, director of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, said 55 people from nearby Khoza were treated for burns, breathing difficulties, and throat and eye irritation after exposure to toxic white smoke from shells fired just after midnight Sunday.
The Israeli propaganda blitz around their attack on Gaza has been greeted with uncharacteristic skepticism by the American public and even by some of the mainstream US press. Even the Jewish American community is uneasy about this one, in a way perhaps unparalelled since the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon and siege of Beirut. Jews for Peace in Los Angeles are actively protesting the Gaza atrocities, and newspaper articles from around the US on local protests held this weekend often mention mixed Arab-American and Jewish-American rallies.
If it is true that Americans are greeting Israeli talking points with more criticism this time, is it because we have been intensively exposed for the past 8 years to precisely this sort of mental manipulation by Bush-Cheney and their stable of Neoconservatives?
Let's take some of the basic techniques of propaganda practiced by Bush and compare them to those deployed by the Israeli leadership in the past 8 days.
Well, of course, Jaun had no difficulty at all drawing parallels between the neocon propaganda and what's going on now in Israel vis-a-vis Gaza. But the important point is rather the flip side: not that an expert critic can see all these connections, but that even a wannabee dittohead can't avoid them. They can just feel their unspoken 5-0, 40-love advantage slipping away. The fate awaiting them all is that of Martin Indyk in the Democracy Now!interchange with Norman Finklestein that I wrote about earlier this week.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Because, you see, I've got a little secret to share with you all: Empires Fall.
Reuters: A total of 846 Palestinians and thirteen Israelis --- three civilians killed by rocket fire and 10 soldiers --- have been killed since the offensive began on Dec. 27.
Al Jazeera: The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 854 and more than 3,350 injured as the Israeli offensive entered its third week.
CNN: More than 800 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks, including 235 children, and about 3,300 people have been wounded, according to Palestinian medical sources. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died since the operation began.
Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor working at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera: "We have been to many war zones, but the special thing is that the 1.5 million Gaza population are completely locked in.
"The civilian population has no way to hide. The population density is so high you can not do attacks like this without knowing that you are attacking the civilians.
As dissenting Jewish voices in America are increasingly being heard, as they have long been heard in Israel, the hawkish, rightwing-oriented establishment epitomized by AIPIC is growing increasingly irrational. A rational discussion is trying to break through, but a rational discussion is the last thing that AIPAC establishment wants. There are demonstrations against Israel's attack on across the country tomorrow, in Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Portland, OR, Sacramento, CA, Urbana, Ill as well as around the world.
Even Time magazine's cover proclaims, "Why Israel Can't Win", while the accompanying cover story asks, "Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?" As with the Wall Street meltdown, the old ideology has visibly self-destructed, yet it's defenders still fight on, not realizing they've already lost. Unfortunately, in neither instance does that mean that sanity has yet won. But debate is spreading where there was only silence before. And the growing outspokenness of Jewish-American opposition to what is being done in our name--as well as to Israel--is a heartening sign. Some examples:
An article in the New York Jewish Week, "Fresh Rift Emerges Over War Response", emailed out by J Street, discussed the heightened level of controversy that J Street has elicited:
"Other peace groups issued statements, but they're not seen as serious people," said the leader of a major pro-Israel group this week. "But J Street includes serious people with serious connections with the new administration, and people are very worried. They don't have much power now, but there's a feeling that they could gain a lot of influence in the new Congress and with the new administration."
Rosanne Barr, loudmouth Jew extraordinaire, kicked off her new local radio show on KPFK Pacifica with a blistering attack on warmongering and bigotry of all kinds taking primary aim on how she feels her faith has been distorted and abused. (Listen here.) It was truly refreshing to hear a pro-peace, anti-imperialist Jewish voice without one second of defensiveness in a 60-minute program. How soon can they start syndicating her?
On Democracy Now!yesterday, Amy and Juan had Former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk on to discuss his new book, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. But they also had on Norman Finkelstein, author of several books, including The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, and Martin Indyk just about had a cow. He was, quite literally, incapable of arguing with Finklestein, and tried to make a virtue of necessity by presenting it as a matter of honor and principle that he would not debate Finklestein. But he lost embarrassingly, anyway. Details--or should I say, morsels--on the flip.
The new bullet is very small and makes no sound as it is fired. It is designed so that it enters the body when fired from under 50m and has been shown to cause serious internal bleeding. UPDATE beneath original story.
Earlier this week I introduced the International Solidarity Movement organization, founded by the Americans Huwaida Arraf (above) from Detroit and Michigan Poli Sci graduate Adam Shapiro. Interestingly, since I posted that, ISM's primary website has been hacked apparently and shut down. Here's a link to their London office. The following is a report from ISM about what has been happening in the West Bank while all eyes have been focused on Gaza:
The Israeli army have shot six people with a new weapon in the West Bank villages of Jayyous and Ni'lin while the villages were demonstrating against the Israeli massacres in Gaza.
Three men have been shot in Jayyous, including a journalist in clearly marked as a press official. Two were shot in the leg and one above his hip.
Three Palestinians have also been shot by the new bullets in Ni'lin.
The new bullet is very small and makes no sound as it is fired. It is designed so that it enters the body when fired from under 50m and has been shown to cause serious internal bleeding.
The Israeli commander for the area phoned the mayor of Jayyous earlier in the morning to warn that Israeli forces would use live ammunition against any demonstration by the annexation wall. Immediately as residents of Jayyous gathered by the wall the new ammunition was fired into the crowd.
Swedish international solidarity activist Maria Johannson witnessed the attacks;
"As soon as we got to the wall many shots were fired. Three people immediately fell. They think that while the world is watching Gaza that they can use these acts of extreme violence against Palestinian non-violent protest because no one will notice"
New weapons, including the new bullet used today and a new type o tear gas that can be fired up to 500m and is extremely heavy, are being tested by Israeli forces as the international community's attention is focused on Gaza.
Four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli use of live ammunition against demonstrations against the Israeli massacres in Gaza.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.
__________
ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's point man for justice and peace issues on Wednesday issued the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since the latest Mideast crisis began, calling Gaza a "big concentration camp."
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, made his comments in an interview in the Italian online newspaper Il Sussidiario.net.
"Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp," Martino, whose informal title is Vatican "justice minister," was quoted as saying.
Pope Benedict has made several general appeals for an end to the violence in Gaza but has not openly criticised Israel.
' I am dismayed by the rhetoric from US politicians and pundits to the effect that "if the US were under rocket attack from Mexico or Canada, we would respond like the Israelis". This a gross insult to US servicemen; I can assure you that we would NOT respond like the Israelis... Israel has indeed taken a small number of casualties from Hamas rocket fire (about 20 killed since 2001), but we have taken thousands of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, including many civilian personnel. Hundreds of American casualties have occurred due to indirect fire, often from mortars. This is particularly true in or near the Green Zone in Baghdad. This fire often originates from densely populated urban areas.
Americans do not, I repeat DO NOT, respond to that fire indiscriminately. When I say "indiscriminately", I mean that even if we can precisely identify the source of the fire (which can be very difficult), we do not respond if we know we will cause civilian casualties. We always evaluate the threat to civilians before responding, and in an urban area the threat to civilians is extremely high. If US servicemen violate those rules of engagement and harm civilians, I assure you we do our best to investigate -- and mete out punishment if warranted. There are differing opinions on the conflict in Iraq, but I am proud of the conduct of our servicemen there.
With that in mind, I find the conduct of the Israeli army in Gaza to be brutal and dishonorable, and it is insulting that they and others claim that the US military would behave in the same way. follow similar rules of engagement rings hollow; I see little evidence for this claim I know the Israelis are operating under difficult circumstances, but their claim that theygiven the huge number of civilian casualties they have caused from indirect fire. '
This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation,
and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
It is the seventh day of the month, a date that now lives in infamy. On this occasion, she passed. She was killed by an attack that was all too sudden. Her physical presence on Earth did not end in the month of December. The year was not 1941. The events at Pearl Harbor did cause my Mom's heart to stop. Indeed, she only ceased to exist in a form that I can see with my eyes or touch with my hand, less than a decade ago. Truly, it feels as if Mommy just took her leave.
In every moment, she is still with me. All these years later, I mourn my loss. Oh, if only I could bring her back. She enters into my dreams almost daily. Since childhood, I knew, if she were gone, I might not be able to go on. Today, on the anniversary of her bodily discorporation, I mourn, as I trust she would, the casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Israel, and anywhere that war delays, defers, or denies family time, space, and a proper setting in which to grieve.
This report by Steven D of Booman Tribune this morning about the Gaza tragedy is highly quotable and for its grim news reluctantly passed on (links are in the original article). More dead Palestinian children. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 660 Palestinians have been killed since 27 December, including 176 children and 86 women.
This diary is based on videos provided by Haitham Sabbah, a Palestinian exile living in the Middle East and the proprietor of Sabbah's Blog. The first one is cynically entitled, To Israel, With Love.
But a line in the second video actually caught my attention, We just want to be free, because it describes the rock bottom cause of the present Gaza and Middle East conflict. For more than forty years, Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza have been living under a military occupation, while their lands were (are) being confiscated by Israeli settlers enforced by Israeli military. Although Gaza was relinquished in 2005, it has been surrounded by Israeli military forces in what amounts to nothing less than a brutal siege.
Israel does not target civilians, it says. Then why not let international reporters into Gaza in order to make that determination. Al Jeezera, however, is on the ground and providing what information it can through these videos.
Via Juan Cole: Huwaida Arraf confronts Israeli soldiers over their firing (rubber bullets?) at demonstrating Palestinian children and youth. Arraf and her boyfriend Adam Shapiro founded the International Solidarity Movement organization which currently has activists inside Gaza working with medical teams and blogging the violence.
Say you're on a bowling team called "The Ducks," and one of your friends on the team has a drinking problem. Call him "Joe." If Joe asks you to buy him a drink, and you do, does that make you "pro-Joe"? And "pro-Duck"? And if you don't buy him a drink, does that make you "anti-Joe"? Does it make you "a self-hating Duck"?
Those are the questions I have to ask when I see how routinely people seem to misconstrue what I'm saying when I criticize Israel's self-destructive policies against the Palestinian people which have gone on for decades now, leading only deeper into dead ends, denial and despair.
Just to make things perfectly clear, I'd like to call attention to the positions of J Street, the newly formed organization that describes itself as "the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement." J Street has a section on its website, devoted to FAQs on the recent violence in Gaza. The answers they provide there are, I think, far more rational, positive, and objectively pro-Israel than anything you will here from the chest-thumping crowd.
Although I might express myself somewhat differently, and come at some things from a different angle, there is not one thing in J Streets FAQ that I read that I would hesitate to defend. They do an excellent job of demonstrating what a real pro-Israel position looks like. I'd like to underscore a few highlights on the flip.
The contention that Hamas is Israel's latest and perhaps only remaining red herring, the culmination of its "war on terror" or terrorist-victim propaganda (see the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, and The Promised Land: Part I and Part II), which is intended to avoid peace negotiations, comes home in this article by Michael Scheuer, Bringing the Arab-Israeli War Home.
The strategy contended here is that Hamas permits Obama to avoid the conflict, as Clinton and Bush II did, possibly until the last year of his second term, guaranteeing failure. Failure means the Palestinians missed another opportunity in the land for peace formula (read, deceit).
In the meantime, while Palestinians are dying in Gaza by the hundreds, Palestinians also keep dying in the West Bank and East Jerusalem protesting the continuing confiscation of their lands. The
International Solidarity Movement site provides weekly updates on Israel's colonialism in the territories, which reveals that the cement has never stopped flowing, not even interrupted by the Gaza action.
Richard Silverstein writes (link below excerpt): The hasbara brigade strikes again! You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation. Everyone knows it's going on but usually the process happens through dedicated volunteers like those involved with Giyus. Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to fill news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.
A friend has received the following e mail which documents both the efforts and the agency that originated them. The solicitation to become a propagandist also includes a list of media links which the ministry would like flooded with pro-Israel comments:
Dear friends,
We hold the military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it's a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote - the more likely we gain positive sentiment.
I was asked by the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange a network of volunteers, who are willing to contribute to this effort. If you're up to it you will receive a daily messages & media package as well as targets.
If you wish to participate, please respond to this email.
My friend did so and received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Solid Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Here are the links s/he was asked to respond to:
Blog from Southern Israel, Morit Rozen - http://soundsofwar.wordpress.com/
If you visit any of those articles you will identify the hasbaraniks easily through the pseudo-polite style they adopt and the programed arguments they advance.
Remember when the defense department was paying public relations companies to insert articles praising the Iraq war in U.S. newspapers? There rightly was a media uproar about the manipulation. We'll see whether the same happens over this.
I just hope the foreign ministry doesn't get a pass on this one. They view this as maximizing their efforts to "explain" Israel's position in the world media. I view it as a cynical attempt to flood the web and news media with favorable flackery in a vain attempt to tilt the war effort favorably toward Israel. Not only does it do Israel a disservice, it stains every legitimate effort that the ministry might make to explain Israel to the world, since no one will believe a word it says knowing it engages in such outright propaganda efforts.
From Al Jazeera twitter on January 5th: Barack Obama, US president-elect, says he is concerned about Gaza, but will not interfere as "we can't have two voices" coming out of the US.
A recently declassified World War II manual on sabotage recommends such techniques to derail any effective action: "Advocate 'caution.' Be 'reasonable' and urge your fellow-conferees to be 'reasonable' and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on... Be worried about the propriety of any decision - raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon."
No matter what you think of the current conflict between the Israelis and Hamas, it is clear that neither side seems willing to give even a little. Israel's ability to outweigh Hamas in its attacks by what looks like a 15 to 1 margin may be justifiable in the face of rocket attacks from Gaza and Hamas' refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, but it will not end the conflict.
This diary was originally posted by Mattes on Booman Tribune and is reposted by permission. It attempts to break down the falsehoods that lie behind Israel's current attack on Gaza. Does anyone remember in the weeks before the ceasefire terminated when UN relief centers in Gaza reported that they had to close down because there was no food left to distribute?
Mattes writing on Sat Jan 3rd, 2009
Hamas stopped the rockets and mortars, but Israel only tighten it's death grip.
Data from Israel's own website (below) show that rocket attacks on southern Israel stopped with the ceasefire but then resumed. Why?
FOR the record, Israel broke the ceasefire:
Israel breaks Gaza ceasefire, assassinates six Report, 5 November 2008
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest possible terms the killing of six Palestinians carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip yesterday evening and this morning. The victims were all killed by air strikes. This escalation is the first of its kind since the tahdia (the Egyptian-brokered truce between Palestinian resistance groups and Israel) entered into force on 19 June 2008.
4 November, an IOF infantry unit moved almost 400 meters into Wadi al-Salqa village, east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. IOF troops raided a house belonging to Mofeed Suleiman al-Rumaili. They held the family hostage in one room, and used the house as a military base. Additional IOF troops besieged a house belonging to Hassan Suleiman al-Humiadi, using a megaphone to order the 23 residents to leave the building.
snipAt approximately 10:30pm, an IOF aircraft fired a missile at members of the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, killing Mazen Nazmi Abu Sada (32). In the early hours of Wednesday, 5 November, IOF destroyed al-Humaidi's house, razed 2.5 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) of agricultural land, and also arrested six members of the family, including four women.
In Khan Yunis, at approximately midnight on Wednesday, 5 November, an IOF aircraft fired two missiles at four members of the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades in the east of al-Qarara village, near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The four members of the Brigades were killed:
1.Mahmoud Taha Abdul Rahman Balousha (21);
2.Omar Saleem Khader al-Alami, (20);
3.Wajed Nizam Hamza Muhareb, (19);
4.Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed Awadh, (26).
Beginning of Nov. Israel started starving people...to soften them up for another invasion that had been planned for 6 months.
Gaza: Power and water cuts and bread shortage
On 5 November, Israel closed the crossings into the Gaza Strip and blocked the entry of goods and supplies, including basic foodstuffs. Since 18 November, Israel has allowed the entry of goods, though much less than in October. LIES: According to government officials, the crossings were closed in response to the firing of more than 100 rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Prior to the closing of the crossings, on 4 and 5 November, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians who were taking part in the hostilities.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that, from 5-18 November, the Gaza power station received 24 percent of the industrial fuel needed to operate the station at full capacity. As a result, power supply to Gaza City and the central Gaza Strip was interrupted for 16 hours a day, leaving some 650,000 residents without electricity at any given time. The power breaks also affected water supply: 20 percent of all Gazans received running water once every five days, and then only for six hours; 40 percent received water once every four days; and the remaining residents received water once every three days.
http://www.btselem.org/English...
25 December 2008
The Gaza Strip, home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians, will soon be without its most basic commodity: bread. snip
Yesterday, after I finished my lecture at one of Gaza's universities, my wife asked me to bring some bread from Gaza City. All bakeries in our area have stopped operating because of the lack of flour and cooking gas due to Israel's 18-month siege of the territory.
I drove throughout Gaza City to try to find some bread for my four children, instead finding a miserable scene. On the drive back to my home in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, I saw dozens of people lining up in rows to get bread from al-Yazji Bakery. I quickly realized that it would take one or two hours until it would be my turn in line, by which time I might not find bread at all. So I continued my drive back to Maghazi, without bread.
WHY you asked. Because Israel wants to provoke Iran into responding. Their temper tantrums DEMANDING that the United States bomb the shit out of Iran, just like we did in Iraq [per Jewish neo-cons] has not worked. And Hamas was close to controlling the chaos, [and stopping the rockets] that Israel had been creating by causing a civil war in Palestine. With a united Palestinian people, Israel would have been forced into a negotiated peace by the Obama administration. They had to act quickly to derail any chance the Palestinians had for peace.
(This brief diary takes on another aspect of the dominant narrative that obscures what's going on between Israeli and the Palestinians. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Defenders of Israel's policies often short-circuit any meaningful dialogue on the Arab-Israeli conflict by reducing the problem to the Arabs and their alleged "rejectionism," i.e. their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.
This argument conveniently removes Israel's actions from the realm of moral consideration because it implies that changes in Israeli policy will ultimately have no impact one way or another on the ongoing conflict. It is quite difficult for a moral, thinking person to justify Israel's treatment of the subjugated Palestinians. But the Arab rejectionism dodge allows AIPAC liberals to avoid confronting those uncomfortable questions -- "they will hate us no matter what we do!"
The rejectionism dodge is not credible for three reasons:
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