I completely agree with your analysis, Josh. One thing that is vital and has just emerged is that George Mitchell stands a chance of being the Palestinian/Israeli special envoy. I have just written on this at http://www.marcgopin.com/?p=1127. This could be the signal of a significant departure from the neoconservative disaster of the last eight years and the mistakes of the Middle East team of the last twenty years. It is vital that President Obama get feedback from all of us about this as soon as possible.

Clearly, everyone has lost because of the hatred and destruction caused by the Gaza invasion.

Professor Josh,

Isn’t this unfortunate? And before the Zionist onslaught everyone was so “hopeful” and “loving” and no one hated anyone.;)

All I can say is “Where’s Nahoul the Jew-eating Rabbit when you need him”?

The problem is not the “occupied territories”.
The problem is those elements in the ME and the Islamic world,
that will never accept Israel.

Now, let’s say Israel gives those “territories”; there is a Palestinian
state in those territories, and Syria gets the Golan.
But those who don’t accept Israel (Iran, HA, HZB, MB) continue to do every
thing to “annihilate” this “Zionist entity”. Then what?
.

Amir in Tel Aviv ,

Did the State of Israel expect the Islamic world to send its citizens a delivery from 1-800-flowers given the history of the past 60 years?

Had it been Arabs that located to a region where the Jews had lived and who then went on to establish their own state. Over sixty years, they imported more Arabs from Saudi Arabia and transplanted them in settlements on this land.

Would you have dialed 1-800-flowers or would you have fought to regain your rights?

The big lesson for Israel is how much an alliance with an Arab dictator (in this case Mubarak) can deliver.

Israeli strategists must be mulling that the same alliance on the Northern front with the Assad clan would guarantee that they have the Palestinians totally surrounded by enemies and then they will have to accept peace on any terms.

For the Syrian regime, being the last one to join the party will guarantee pay off not only from Israel and the US, but from Saudi and Egypt as well.

Hello,

for those of you that read German (probably not many…: )) here is an interesting article from one of Germany’s major papers. According to the report, which contradicts much of what’s been written in the English press, Hamas has LOST popular support in Gaza, as many Hamas members hid from the Israeli forces. Admittedly the article only quotes one doctor, who states that many “threw away their uniforms and shaved off their beards” to disguise themselves. Also mentions that a number of senior HAMAS politicians have not even emerged yet.

How knows how much truth there is to it – the guy writing is a fairly prominent correspondent though..

http://www.faz.net/s/RubB30ABD11B91F41C0BF2722C308D40318/Doc~E4D15768E7F67452AAFCCDD8C0145434F~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Nafdik,

The Syrian leadership is experienced enough and prudent enough to not underestimate the need to address the Palestinian cause. Syria wants an international conference that discusses all the remaining issues, not only the Golan Heights.

You said:
“Syria has benefited from the renewed international awareness that the Arab-Israeli conflict is crucial to any broader Middle East settlement. Obama will have to engage Syria if he wants to attenuate regional divisions and radicalism.”

That’s because Syria thrive on conflict and belligerence. It has a vested interest to keep the flames high. That’s why it arms (or help to arm) both Hizbullah and Hamas. That’s why it allowed “foreign fighters” enter Iraq.

Wars, unrest and conflict suit Syria just fine. May it be in Lebanon, Palestine or Iraq.

Syria is part of the problem, not the solution.

NAFDK #5 has just proven that Syria and particularly the ASSAD clan is waiting for the right moment to sell the Palestinians – assuming that the ASSAD’s haven’t done so already 40 years ago.

The question now should be posed to Dr. Landis: What is the difference between the “moderate” Arabs and so-called “radical” Arabs when it comes to the struggle of the Palestinian people?

It seems that the “moderate” Arabs are at least more honest in helping this people (Palestinians), which refuses to help itself, than the so-called radicals. They, the “moderates”, are also doing their best to improve their life when it becomes miserable due to the instigation of these radicals.

On another note what is the truth behind the empty rhetoric of Hezbollah’s “support” to the Palestinians? Isn’t Hezbollah actually more concerned about the upset of the sectarian balance in Lebanon that may arise as a result of granting the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the Lebanese citizenship than the legitimate rights of the Palestinians?

So who is more corrupt among the Arab regimes in this case when it comes to Palestinian rights?

Alex,

I admire your optimism and trust in the Syrian regime.

I think that history has shown that all dictators have as their first priority staying in power, the second priority is, in most cases, to maximize personal benefit from this power.

You will be surprised how easily the rhetoric will change when the regime will find that maximum benefit will be obtained by dropping Palestinian ’cause’.

As a historical reminder check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_al-Zaatar_Massacre

Finally I find it amusing that you call the Syrian regime the ‘Syrian leadership’, the prison guards are not the leaders of the inmates. If you don’t like the word regime, a neutral alternative is Syrian Government.

Carlos Slim rescues The New York Times.
I thought the jewish lobby was supporting that newspaper, what happpened? no more money?

Reuters – Le New York Times a annoncé qu’il allait bénéficier de 250 millions de dollars d’investissements (192 millions d’euros) du milliardaire mexicain Carlos Slim, un répit plus que bienvenu pour le groupe de presse américain confronté à des difficultés financières.

Agé de 68 ans, Slim, qui détient déjà une participation de 6,9% dans le groupe, devrait recevoir des “warrants” lui donnant la possibilité de porter ses parts à 17% au total. Cela ferait du milliardaire, le deuxième homme le plus riche du monde selon le magazine Forbes, l’un des plus importants actionnaires du groupe de presse après la famille Ochs-Sulzberger, lui contrôle cette véritable institution aux Etats-Unis depuis plus de 100 ans.

Cet investissement arrive à un moment crucial pour le groupe New York Times, qui doit rembourser plus de 1,1 milliard de dollars de dettes au cours des prochaines années alors même que ses recettes publicitaires déclinent.

Le Times, qui outre le quotidien éponyme, détient également le Boston Globe et plusieurs autres journaux locaux, dispose de 46 millions de dollars de liquidités mais il sera confronté en mai à l’expiration d’une facilité de crédit de 400 millions de dollars. Le groupe essaie de vendre sa participation dans la holding qui contrôle les Boston Red Sox, une équipe de baseball, et il pourrait aussi céder des biens immobiliers.

Slim, dont la fortune s’élève à 60 milliards de dollars (46,14 milliards d’euros) selon Forbes, n’a pas précisé quelles étaient ses ambitions vis-à-vis du Times. Un de ses porte-parole a refusé de répondre dimanche aux questions de journalistes qui voulaient notamment savoir si Slim avait l’intention d’acquérir le Times.

L’action du groupe américain a plongé de 70% depuis le plus haut d’un an inscrit en avril 2008 à 21,14 dollars pour clôturer à 6,41 dollars vendredi. Le directeur financier du Times, James Follo, a déclaré que Slim n’avait qu’un intérêt purement financier dans le groupe, confirmant ce que Slim avait déjà indiqué dans un communiqué datant de septembre, dans lequel il annonçait avoir acquis une participation de 6,4%.

Nafdik

Do you trust the Egyptian regime or the Saudi Regime?

Nafdik,

I said many times that I will be the first to use the term “Syrian regime” IF everyone agrees to stick to the same as follows:

“The Egyptian regime” (instead of Egypt, or Egytian President)
“The Jordanian regime” (instead of Jordan or King Abdallah)
“The American regime” (instead of President Bush and Vice President Cheney)
“The Fatah regime” (instead of President Abbas or the Palestinian authority)
“The Saudi Regime” (instead of King Abdullha, or Saudi Arabia or the Saudi monarch .. or the custodian of the two holly mosques!)

There is a shift in american policy,Obama called Abbas and promised a solution to M.E.,this is done early,the first day,the first hours,Israel lost a lot as Bush left the white house.Also the high court in Israel allowed the arabic party to participate in election.

EHSANI2,

You didn’t answer my question ( …and not that I was expecting you would ).

The “territories” are not the problem here.
Israel proved that when ever there was a Knesset decision to abandon
territories, and to evacuate Israelis, it was done till the last Israeli,
and to the last inch ( Sinai, Jordanian land, Gazza ).
.

Like all natural organisms, I trust all dictatorial regimes to act in a way that will maximize their chances of survival.

The Saudis and Jordanians have of course longer term interest than the Egyptians, Syrians or Libyans.

Maybe it is time for a Royalist Party in Syria that calls for the installation of the Assads as our kings.

The benefits are clear:

– Less hypocrisy
– Expansion of the horizon of interest of the Assads
– Royal narrative will bond Syrian society together
– US will be more comfortable backing a king
– Imagine the Paris-Match coverage
– Malek al-Falafel can become “Official Purveyor to the King of Syria”
– SyriaComment can become HisMajestiesVoice (only joking Joshua)

Alex,

You can use the language you want of course. My personal preference is to use regime (an ugly word) when discussing dictators (an ugly bunch) to keep us alert to the fact that these actors do not represent their people and hence to avoid insulting the poor citizen of these countries.

So US invaded Iraq and tortured prisoners in Abu Greib, I think is fair.

But Syria occupied Lebanon or destroyed the City of Hama, needs a little reminder that Syria is not truly responsible.

Nafdik,

That was very funny : )

But seriously, Hama was over a quarter of a century ago … “The Syrian Regime” changed I think since then.

Syria is still an authoritarian system of course, there is unbearable corruption, and a continuation of mismanagement (although things are considerably better there)

I am not his majesty’s voice if I criticize what is wrong.

But to criticize Syria’s regional policies even though I am almost completely impressed with how much wiser they are compared to almost everyone else’s would be wrong.

When it comes to vision for a new middle east, I am a willing promoter of the brilliant “Syrian regime” turkey and Qatar group.

I wouldn’t trust the Middle East to anyone else.

NAFDIK,

It was April of 2007 when I wrote the following on this topic:

https://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=219

Alex,

You say that:

Hamas was over a quarter of a century ago … “The Syrian Regime” changed I think since then.

Again history is our best teacher. Assad Sr started power as a benovelant dictator like his son, he only resorted to extreme violence when the regime faced an existential threat.

The question is not what Bashar is doing now, the question is what he will do when Syrian people decide to resist his rule. Will he simply pack his bags and head for uncle’s villa in Marbella?

After the Damascus Spring we saw that the regime will react to minor dissent with sufficient repression to eliminate it.

How will they react to armed resistance?

My guess is that the reaction will be exactly the same as 25 years ago.

Ehsani,

Damn, you beat to it. And I thought I will be given some honorary dukedom, with a full length sculpture in one of the royal sahat 🙁

Ehsani,

Just read your article and noticed it makes no reference to Malek Al-Falafel.

You might get Ehsani Saha, but I will get lifetime supply of Falafel 🙂

Nafdik,

I meant “Hama’ of course, not “Hamas” (I fixed it later)

For now all we know that they did change … allowing Lebanese demonstrators to chant anti Syria (and anti Assad) Slogans without firing a single bullet at them and without canceling that demonstration was not bad … and withdrawing form Lebanon after realizing that instead of the old 500 Aoun supporters demonstrating against Syria in the past, they were facing 500,000 …

I wouldn’t form my opinions based of being sure that they will kill people in the future if people threatened their power … his would be similar to saying Obama will be another George Bush because if another 9/11 took place he will invade Iran …

Alex,

I agree with you that the picture is not black or white.

How do you suggest we measure progress.

I know your preferred solution is slow transition from totalitarian regime to full democracy.

We need metrics that will indicate how well we are doing.

For example number of anti-government demonstrations, number of dissenting press articles, length of incarceration of dissidents, etc.

It would be great if we can find such a metric and have a consensus that this is the metric we want to improve and then put pressure on the Syrian Gov to follow a certain pace in their reforms.

So Alex your thinking is that all the Syrian people have to do is stage a sufficiently large demonstration complete with nannies, designer t-shirts and lots of flags.

: )

or minimal t-shirts… they don’t have to be designer brands.

From Reuter’s reports Israel is insisting one being the one to “benefit from its own invasion of Gaza”.

Very ineresting coverage:- http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE50K3KM20090121

ALEX,

I never thought that I would have the courage to join such demonstrations but the way you are envisioning it in your fine picture attachment, you are going to leave me with little option but to take the risk and show up.

Dear Trustquest,

I have NO IDEA why i wrote trust queen, i cannot see for the life of me how i misread your name. But believe me when i say that i thought that was your name (i guess i am just blind). I certainly did not mean it in a derogatory way and i apologize if i insulted you. As you can see from the rest of my comment i was just counter arguing and was not being hostile. And trust me when i say i never thought of you as an “enemy” at all, it was a simple misunderstanding.

From Wikipedia on George Mitchell:

“Since 1995, he has been active in the Northern Ireland peace process as U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland. Mitchell first led a commission that established the principles on non-violence to which all parties in Northern Ireland had to adhere and subsequently chaired the all-party peace negotiations, which led to the Belfast Peace Agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 (known since as the Good Friday Agreement). Mitchell’s personal intervention with the parties was crucial to the success of the talks. He was succeeded as special envoy by Richard Haass. For his involvement in the Northern Ireland peace negotiations, Mitchell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom[5] (on March 17, 1999) and the Liberty Medal (on July 4, 1998).

In 2000 Al Gore reportedly consider naming Mitchell his running-mate. Gore, however, ultimately selected Joe Lieberman[6]. Had Mitchell been nominated and the Democratic ticket won that year, he would have been the first Arab American to serve as the Vice President of the United States and just the second Vice President from Maine after Hannibal Hamlin.

Since 2002, Mitchell has been a Senior Fellow and Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Center for International Conflict Resolution, where he works to help end or avert conflicts between nations.

He has frequently been mentioned in the past in conjunction with potential appointment for the position of Commissioner of Baseball, but nothing to accomplish this has ever been effected. He also has been mentioned in both 2000 and in 2004 as a potential Secretary of State for a Democratic administration, due to his role as Senate Leader and the Good Friday agreements.

He is the Chancellor of the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and namesake of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship, which sponsors graduate study for twelve Americans each year in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

This could be the signal of a significant departure from the neoconservative disaster of the last eight years and the mistakes of the Middle East team of the last twenty years. It is vital that President Obama get feedback from all of us about this as soon as possible.

Rabbi Gopin,

I don’t conisder getting rid of Saddam Hussein to be a “mistake”. Do you?

I don’t consider creating an Arab democracy in the ME to be a mistake. Do you?

I don’t consider opening Libya’s WMD program up to American and British nuclear experts to be a mistake. Do you?

I don’t consider putting pressure on regimes that support terror like Iran and Syria to be a mistake. Do you?

I don’t consider destroying a North Korean nuclear facility in Syria to be a mistake. Do you?

A very liberal Jimmy Carter didn’t succeed with negotiating with Iran. Do you know why?

The Yafeh Nefesh of the World have caused more harm than good. Oslo was a creation of the Yafeh Nefesh. That was a real mistake.

Qifa Nabki

Although George Mitchell was not very friendly to Syria when Syrian troops were still in Lebanon (his mother is Lebanese), I am impressed so far with his selection … Not because he is an Arab American (I think he is much more of an Irish American) but because President Obama is going with someone who succeeded (Mitchell in Northern Ireland) and not someone who failed for over a decade (Dennis Ross in the Middle East).

I don’t think Mitchell has any experience with Syria … besides supporting Lebanese Americans who wanted Syrian troops out at the time, he only negotiated with, and talked to, “Arab Moderates”

Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis
Targeting civilians was a deliberate part of this bid to humiliate Hamas and the Palestinians, and pulverise Gaza into chaos

* Ben White
*
o Ben White
o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 January 2009 12.30 GMT

The scale of Israel\’s attack on the Gaza Strip, and the almost daily reports of war crimes over the last three weeks, has drawn criticism from even longstanding friends and sympathisers. Despite the Israeli government\’s long-planned and comprehensive PR campaign, hundreds of dead children is a hard sell. As a former Israeli government press adviser put it, in a wonderful bit of unintentional irony, \”When you have a Palestinian kid facing an Israeli tank, how do you explain that the tank is actually David and the kid is Goliath?\”

Despite a mass of evidence that includes Israel\’s targets in Operation Cast Lead, public remarks by Israeli leaders over some time, and the ceasefire manoeuvring of this last weekend, much of the analysis offered by politicians or commentators has been disappointingly limited, and characterised by false assumptions, or misplaced emphases, about Israel\’s motivations.

First, to what this war on Gaza is not about: it\’s not about the rockets. During the truce last year, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was reduced by 97%, with the few projectiles that were fired coming from non-Hamas groups opposed to the agreement. Despite this success in vastly improving the security of Israelis in the south, Israel did everything it could to undermine the calm, and provoke Hamas into a conflict.

Israel broke the ceasefire on 4 November, with an attack in the Gaza Strip that killed six Hamas members, and the following day severely tightened its siege of the territory. Imports were reduced to 16 trucks a day, down from 123 daily just the previous month (and 475 in May 2007). Following the unsurprising surge in Palestinian attacks, Israeli officials claimed that an all-out war was unavoidable; without mentioning that an operation had been planned for some months already.

Second, the current operation is only in a limited sense related to both the upcoming Israeli elections and restoring the IDF\’s so-called deterrence. While it has been pointed out that a hardline approach to Palestinian \”terrorism\” can play well with the Israeli public, wars are not necessarily Israeli politicians\’ tactic of choice – the Lebanon war was fought a few months after one.

Israel is also supposed to be restoring the reputation and \”deterrence factor\” of its armed forces, after their humiliation in Lebanon in 2006. Suffice to say that until this weekend\’s unilateral ceasefire, in an aid-dependent enclave defended by an almost entirely isolated militia, Israel\’s operation had already lasted three times longer than the 1967 war when Israel defeated its Arab neighbours and occupied the rest of Mandate Palestine.

These three suggested motivations have sometimes reached the level of assumed knowledge, providing the background for further comment and reporting. Based on this kind of analysis, then, criticism of Palestinian civilian casualties is framed as \”disproportionate\” or \”heavy-handed\”, but fundamentally a case of self-defence. It is understood that any democratic nation would have to respond to terrorist rocket fire, but Israel has gone a bit too far.

There is, however, no shortage of evidence available that points to rather different Israeli aims. Estimates for the proportion of civilian deaths among the 1,360 Palestinians killed range from more than half to two-thirds. Politicians, diplomats and journalists are by and large shying away from the obvious, namely that Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to – in the best colonial style – teach the natives a lesson.

Given the enormous scale of what Palestinians have described as a \”war of extermination\” – it appears that some 15% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed or collapsed and there is an estimated $1.4bn worth of destruction to vital civil infrastructure – it is impossible to list every atrocity. Israel has repeatedly hit ambulances, medics, clinics, and hospitals, while last week, aid volunteers who tried to douse a fire in a Red Crescent warehouse (attacked by Israel) were then shot at by Israeli forces.

UNRWA facilities have also been attacked, including several schools sheltering civilians – just this last weekend, a civilian refuge was repeatedly shelled. Last week, the UN headquarters was also shelled, hitting a vocational centre, a workshop, food warehouse, and fuel depot. Like the massacre of 6 January, Israeli officials quickly began to produce a confusing fog of denials, apologies, promised enquiries and contradictions.

Those are just some of the more shocking examples from a military operation that has targeted everything from schools, money-changers and a bird farm, to entire apartment blocks, harbours, and a market. Palestinians have been killed when Israeli tanks fired shells at residential neighbourhoods. Every day has brought fresh horrors; last Wednesday, for example, 70 unarmed civilians including 18 children were killed by the Israeli military. This week\’s Observer carried a story alleging Israel bulldozed homes with civilians inside (not for the first time) and shot those waving white flags. Little wonder that Israeli officials predicted with concern that \”negative sentiment\” towards the state would \”only grow as the full picture of destruction emerges\”.

Much of this is widely known, and easily accessible; yet still the analytical emphasis has remained on Palestinian rockets, Israeli elections, and deterrence. I would like to suggest three alternative purposes for Israel\’s Operation Cast Lead that go beyond the usual perspectives, and presuming with Yale professor David Bromwich that \”if Israel in 2009 reduces to rubble a large portion of the Gaza Strip and leaves tens of thousands homeless, there is a strong chance that this was what it intended to do\”.

The first aim is to humiliate and weaken Hamas. On the one hand, this seems obvious, but contrary to how the goal is often understood, this is not primarily to protect the Israeli public – as pointed out previously, ceasefires and negotiations are far more likely to deliver security for Israeli citizens – but rather it is a political goal. Hamas had withstood isolation, a siege, mass arrests, and an attempted western-backed coup. Moreover, cracks were appearing in the international community\’s resolve to parrot Israel\’s line on Hamas. The group, with its resilience and ability to deliver on negotiated ceasefires, was threatening the chance to make a deal with the Ramallah \”moderates\”, and so:

A hammer blow that shattered the movement, launching some of the resulting splinters in directions that once again put all of them beyond the pale, was the most effective way to keep at bay those third parties reaching the conclusion that engaging rather than excluding Hamas could enhance the prospects of peace.

Back in December, before both the end of the six-month truce and the start of Operation Cast Lead, foreign minister Tzipi Livni stated that an extended truce \”harms the Israel strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement\”. By the end of the month, Livni would be telling a press conference that \”Hamas wants to gain legitimacy from the international community\” and stressing that it is \”important to keep Hamas from becoming a legitimate organisation\” (apparently winning a democratic election isn\’t enough to confer legitimacy).

Just as Israel chose \”blood over diplomacy\” in order to avoid enhancing \”Hamas\’s image as a responsible interlocutor\”, so this weekend, Israel chose a unilateral ceasefire for the same reason, \”hoping to send the message that Hamas is not a legitimate actor\”. A war begun in order to delegitimise Hamas would not make way for a ceasefire in which Hamas was a partner at the negotiating table.

Hence Israel decided to shortcut the Egyptian-driven efforts at securing a ceasefire, and opt for a unilateral approach that allows Israel, the US, Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas, Britain – in fact, every interested party, except the Gaza Strip authorities – to work together on an apparent solution. It is also worth pointing out that the unilateral nature of the ceasefire frees Israel to define an infringement or collapse on its own terms.

The second aim of Israel\’s war is to teach a lesson to the Palestinians in Gaza, and elsewhere, that the only way to avoid the wrath of the Israeli military is to accept Israel\’s idea of a two-state solution, a generous concession to be gratefully received by Abbas and fellow moderates. It is a reflection of the approach outlined by the IDF chief of staff, Moshe Ya\’alon, in 2002 that \”the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people\”.

On 4 January, Israeli President Shimon Peres said that Hamas needed \”a real and serious lesson\”; days later, he was more explicit, reportedly declaring Israel\’s aim to be \”to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel\”. The next day, the Washington Post also described how Israeli officials were hoping that the attacks would mean \”that Gazans become disgusted with Hamas and drive the group from power\”.

This Israeli strategy was previously deployed in Lebanon in 2006, when senior military commanders redefined civilian villages as \”military bases\” which would be subjected to \”disproportionate force\” causing \”great damage and destruction\”. As I previously noted, the lessons learned in Lebanon were not just wrong, but criminal: a retired IDF major general and former adviser to the prime minister, Giora Eiland, reflected in a paper that \”the destruction of homes and infrastructure and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hezbollah\’s behaviour more than anything else\”.

Ironically, the same Peres who now justifies collective punishment, in 2002 chastised Avigdor Lieberman for suggesting that the IDF should bomb civilian targets, warning the minister that such a tactic would be a war crime. The last three weeks show that proposals made by Israel\’s political extremists and originally considered outlandish, do not take long to become normal policy.

Deliberately targeting civilians and vital infrastructure for political purposes links smoothly, into the post-conflict phase, with the Israeli and US plan to try and rescue the deeply discredited image of the Palestinian Authority through a politicised reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. As US state department spokesman Sean McCormack coyly put it, the \”military solution\” must be followed up by investing in infrastructure and helping the population \”so that they can make a different kind of political decision\”.

The third aim of Israel\’s attack on the Gaza Strip is to further \”catastrophise\” the territory, reducing the capacity for continued existence to the barest of minimums – perhaps to bring about \”an end to the persistence of Gaza\’s ordinary people in wanting the chance of a peaceful and dignified life\”. One obvious benefit to Israel of pulverising \”civilian Palestinian infrastructure\” is that \”people who lack collective institutions and are reduced to scrabbling for their very survival are easier to dominate\”.

Yet, there is more going on here. Israel seeks to turn the Gaza Strip into a depoliticised humanitarian crisis, always on the brink of catastrophe, always dependent; its population reduced to ration-receiving clients of international aid. Yitzhak Rabin famously wished that Gaza \”would just sink into the sea\”, but perhaps the best Israel can do is to share the problem with the international community, possibly to the extent of troops on the ground.

Increasingly focusing on Egyptian responsibility is also part of this, whether in terms of arms smuggling, aid supplies, or for some, direct rule.

In all of this, the Gaza Strip has become a laboratory for future possible scenarios in the West Bank (where a process of \”development-isation\” and NGO-funded occupation is well established). All three of these Israeli aims – to delegitimise and sideline Hamas, to persuade Palestinians to give up their resistance and to shirk responsibility for a shattered Gaza Strip – require the deliberate commission of war crimes and gross human rights abuses. As time will tell, they are also doomed to fail.

Thanks Alex for the article.

Israel does not understand the real challange it faces.

The world is a fast changing place where the technical and economic superiority of the west could be dislodged or reduced greatly.

In a world where Turkey could become more powerful than France and Iran more so than the UK, where China and India overtake the US, what would be the situation of Israel?

The answer lies mostly in having built good relations with its neighbors.

Israel should be working full time to win the hearts and souls of the next generation of Arabs and Muslims or at least to reduce the hatred they have.

Clearly the Gaza massacre does not help.

U.S Council on foreign relations….”its inevitable that the US will have to talk to HAMAS.

Read:http://www.cfr.org/publication/18298/inevitable_that_us_will_have_to_deal_with_hamas.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fpublication_list%3Ftype%3Dinterview

بعث الرئيس بشار الأسد برقية تهنئة إلى الرئيس الاميركي باراك اوباما بمناسبة تنصيبه رئيسا للولايات المتحدة الاميركية وعلى خطابه بعد أداء القسم ونجاحه في الاعلان عن سياسته التي أكد من خلالها الرغبة في احلال السلام في العالم، واعتماد الامل بدلا من الخوف كأساس في مقارباته السياسية.
وعبر الرئيس الأسد عن تطلع سورية إلى حوار مثمر مع الولايات المتحدة مبني على اساس المصالح المشتركة والاحترام المتبادل يقود إلى سلام عادل وشامل في المنطقة على اساس قرارات الامم المتحدة ذات الصلة.‏

I don’t agree fully with this article but may be of interest to some.

Bringing the Arab-Israeli War Home

by Michael Scheuer

If America were blessed with a noninterventionist foreign policy, we could all thank Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for giving President-elect Barack Obama a thoroughgoing lesson in the absolute irrelevancy of Israel and Palestine to the national interests of the United States. More than a week into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, America is still alive and kicking and none of our citizens are dead, which is the way it should be, as this is their religious war and not ours. If stubborn noninterventionism were our creed – as the Founders intended – the Gaza war could continue for two more days or two more months and we could simply shrug and mutter “Who cares?” America could simply go on its way, rebuilding its economy and marveling over the madness of two religions fighting to the death over a barren sandpit at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, America today is run by a political and media elite that is addicted to intervention. This would be bad enough if these men and women had the brains to intervene and produce a result that benefits U.S. interests, but they are not. They are instead – despite their Ivy League diplomas – uneducated and naïve people who still live in the Cold War, foolishly believing that America is the boss of a strong Western/NATO community (which is now in its death throes on Afghanistan’s plains); that other nations are eager to do America’s dirty work; and, most fatally of all, that the national security interests of the United States and Israel are identical.

There should be no mistake among Americans about what is going on in Gaza. Although Israel has billed its invasion as an attempt to destroy Hamas and thereby protect Israelis, its main goal is to ensure that Obama is tied as tight as Gulliver to the status quo of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. In addition to hurting Hamas, Israel’s invasion of Gaza was designed to and has successfully underscored the salience of Osama bin Laden’s now 12-plus-year-old message to the Muslim world:

* First, that the United States – under Republicans or Democrats – will allow Israel to do anything it pleases in regard to starving and bombing the Palestinians. This has been underlined for Muslims by the words of President George W. Bush, the silence of President-elect Obama, and, according to the Jerusalem Post, by the blame-it-all-on-the-Palestinians visits of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Congressman Gary Ackerman, and leaders of major U.S. Jewish organizations.
* Second, that the ruling Muslim regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere are impotent “agents” of the Zionists and Crusaders and will do nothing to protect Muslims when they are attacked by the U.S.-led West, be those attacks in Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, or Afghanistan. “[The] failure of the Arab foreign ministers at their meeting in Cairo to take any position to confront the continuing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip,” explains the independent and influential UK-based Arabic daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, “confirms the theory that says the Israeli aggression has come as a result of coordination and the blessing of influential Arab states, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia.”
* Third, that Muslims are regarded by the West as subhumans, and their blood, lives, and children are – for America, Israel, and Europe – worthless and expendable. The Gaza score to date will indelibly make this point across the Islamic world: to date, 500 dead and 2,300 wounded Palestinians and less than 10 dead Israelis. As Pakistan’s Frontier Post has said, the West silently watches as “Israel is set to starve the Palestinian Muslims into nonexistence. … No respect for Muslim life! Muslim blood is cheaper than water!”

After the Gaza invasion, Israel will have accomplished two vital goals. It will have reenergized Hamas, which will in turn renew the suicide bombings inside Israel that allow America’s Israel-firsters – including Obama’s IDF-veteran chief of staff – to portray their country-of-first-allegiance as the poor, put-upon innocent. It will also have produced the end of whatever slim hope there was of an Arab-Israeli peace settlement over the course of Obama’s term. What is likely to become known across the Islamic world as the “Gaza slaughter” will ensure the continued growth of the Sunni insurgency al-Qaeda leads and inspires. All told, Israeli leaders at the conclusion of the Gaza invasion will be able to more credibly quote President Bush and say that their “mission” has been accomplished.

Now, there is no reason for Americans to be angry at Israel. Hamas is a nagging military threat to Israel, and Israel’s leaders can defend their citizens in the manner they deem appropriate. Indeed, had various U.S. governments abstained from continuously intervening in the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past 30 years, it may well have been long since settled and over – one way or another.

The American people should be livid, though, with their bipartisan political elite and the Israel-firsters at Commentary, the New York Times, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Washington Post, as well as that hive of anti-American U.S. citizens that fund and lead AIPAC, for involving them in this barbarous mess. At some point down the road, every U.S.-taxpayer-funded bomb, artillery shell, and bullet aimed at the Palestinians will yield Americans killed at the hands of al-Qaeda, its allies, or those it inspires in attacks launched in response to U.S. support for Israel. Those Americans will be killed because their political and media leaders – corrupted to the bone by AIPAC – have involved them in a religious war that threatens nothing vital to their country’s principles or national security, their personal economic well-being, or their children’s lives.

And worse is yet to come. Israel’s Gaza invasion has produced an unusual number of public anti-Israel demonstrations by American Muslims around the United States. The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war produced similar events, but the current, Gaza-focused demonstrations are angrier and larger in number. How long, one wonders, will it be before Israel’s military actions lead to violent clashes in America?

If this occurs, Israel and its American supporters will have the insurance policy they desire above any other, one they are desperate to obtain before Israel takes harsh action – by forced deportation or other means – against its rapidly growing and radicalizing Arab population. Once the Arab-Israeli religious war has been brought into the United States and is producing blood in America’s streets, the Israel-firsters will claim the carnage proves that secular America and theocratic Israel are in the same boat and facing the same enemies. Flogging this plausible but palpable lie, AIPAC-owned American leaders will consign this country to an unending war against Islam, the same catastrophe that is Israel’s lot.

3. Amir in Tel Aviv said

If Israel continues to act as a sociopathic colonialist bigoted state then the moment it wavers in its deterrence it will disappear as a Zionist entity. It must change its Zionist supremacist philosophy and then the Arabs will be hospitable. If it continues to behave as it has since its colonization of Palestine then it will doom itself.

This latest aggression by Israel has convinced me that there is no possible peace track with a Zionist Israel nor a two-state solution, just as there could not have been a peace track with Apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany.

Dear Alex,
You might already know that but I wanted to share my humble thoughts with others;
I’ve been watching John Stewart since 1999 and I’m a huge fan of his intelligence, sarcasm and sense of humor.
He changed a lot after 9/11 and I think he is one of the smartest American media man on TV and I believe that he has the power to change American’s views of our ‘blessed’ region without being labeled as a bad Jew or an anti anything, I personally respect him so much.
I wonder if we could ask him to write an article about his views on SC…crazy idea but hey it worth a try..

It is time now,that the leaders of Israel,along with Bush,Rumsfield,and Cheney,all must be taken to court,and try them for the crimes they commited.

This was quite an insightful article. It’s funny how people can recognize the severity of the Arab-Israeli conflict (particularly as it relates to the Palestinian Territories) yet overlook how central it is to all Middle Eastern-originated conflicts, including al-Qaeda. If we’re moving to an era of diplomacy, it would help if the Obama administration approaches the Middle East from the perspective of a Middle Eastern country’s actions as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Having said that, I think Amir in Tel Aviv raises an interesting point – (paraphrasing) some people will never be satisfied, even with a free Palestinian state. The trick will be convincing any remaining hawks in the West that diplomacy doesn’t mean caving in to the demands of terrorist groups and other radical elements while at the same time robbing those groups of political ammunition to continue their violent agendas.

Jad,

I have much funnier comedy for you, are you ready?

“Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn’t been ‘even handed’ — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support.

“So I’m concerned,” Foxman continued. “I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.”

It never stops striking me how we all live in different worlds and galaxies, everybody according to his own set of rules and customs yet we all are ready to give up our souls and concise just to prove that we are right even when all signs pointing the wrong way on every level.
It’s amazing!
Thank you Alex for the wakeup call…is this man for real? What more that he wants? I wonder, why don’t they nuke us all to end this ugly chapter of our miserable life, nobody will even say a word…it’s the perfect solution for this endless conflict.
Just one wish though, If they decide to do that, I just want them to tell me in advance so I can go back home and be ‘nuked’ with my family, it’ll be sad to live alone…

Sorry for the many comments I wrote so far, I know they are not related to the subject but it’s a good observation to talk about;
Today I went to a university debate between two famous professors; the subject they were debating was very advance, regarding future visions and strategies, I wanted to tell those guys to go and check out our world to get a feel of the real world other countries are living in but I didn’t want to be related to the heart attack they will get by just trying to work with our environmental and lack of developments problems so I kept my thoughts deep to where they should always be.
The debate was going in such a great way that you forget those two men are actually attacking each other and disagreeing on every and each point they discuss yet, none of them raises his voice or dared to call his opponent’s idea’s less than “great ”. I was smiling imagining their debate on SC with bunch of ‘us’ stubborn ME commentators, we will defiantly end up with a beautiful ‘scene’ 😉
I suggest having a study subject call ‘Debating’ in our school system deals with teaching debating skills and manners.

Alex
In reponse to the article (post # 33), i think that one should also consider ammending phrases such as (Israel attacked) by saying Israeli soliders and pilots did so and so, or Israeli terrorist did so and so. We must remember that these murders had to be ordered by someone, but committed by hit men and women, who by any international law, and by the nuremberg trials, are as guilty as those ordering the massacres

OTW,

94% of Israelis supported their sweet young IDF heroes .. those pilots who were risking their lives (by pushing a button inside their F16s) to protect Israel when they successfully murdered 1300 Palestinians and injured 5000

Wouldn’t you love to make peace with them right now?

Imagine if they won against Hibollah?

Seriously, I have no idea why israelis thinks that they are better than the Arabs.
They have the same mentality and same words too, this songs sucks big time…I liked the rhythm though..Hilarious..

Saudi Leadership Crisis Looms: Health of Crown Prince Falters
By Simon Henderson
January 21, 2009

After months of speculation about the health of the designated successor to King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan, Saudi officials are now openly talking about Sultan’s ill health. The kingdom — a close U.S. ally, the self-professed leader of the Islamic world, the world’s largest oil exporter, and most recently the much-needed source of financial capital for the world’s struggling economy — is heading for a period of changing leadership. The identities of the future kings, however, are so far unknown and largely unpredictable.
Sultan Undergoing Treatment

Crown Prince Sultan, who is also the kingdom’s long-serving defense minister, is currently in Morocco after six weeks of treatment in New York City. Last week, his son Khaled, the assistant defense minister, said in a briefing of Saudi armed forces commanders that his father would be returning to the United States in a month for more tests and treatment. Although Khaled said his father was “getting better and his health condition is progressing,” analysts have recalled that in 2005 Sultan was operated on for colon cancer and in April 2008 flew to Geneva for what were claimed to be routine medical tests.

If Sultan (who turns 85 this year) dies before King Abdullah (86), a new crown prince will be appointed. The selection of the crown prince was formerly the sole prerogative of the king, but in 2006 Abdullah established a new body, the Allegiance Council. The council, which is made up of senior sons and grandsons of the kingdom’s founder Abdulaziz (also known as Ibn Saud), is a wider group than has been consulted in the past and will now share responsibility for the choice.

Unlike most other monarchies, Saudi succession is fratrilineal, passing from brother to brother, rather than from father to son, for nearly fifty years. Since the death of Abdulaziz in 1953, the throne has passed between the first of his thirty-five sons in descending order of age. This mechanism — with an occasional jump when a son has been unwilling, unable, or otherwise deemed unqualified to reign — has allowed a nominated crown prince to serve alongside the king in a leadership partnership that has usually resulted in smooth successions.

Five Kings in Five Years?

An unintended consequence of this system is that Saudi kings are becoming older when taking the throne: Abdullah’s predecessor, Fahd, was sixty-one, and Abdullah was eighty-two (although he was de facto ruler from 1996 to 2005 after Fahd was crippled by a series of strokes). Unless the Allegiance Council makes an imaginative choice of a much younger monarch, the current system of respecting (old) age, government experience, and the brother-to-brother line could result in a rapid succession of kings in the next several years.

Abdullah is clearly preparing the ground for the council’s work. The council’s chairman, the king’s half-brother Mishal, is regularly seen at Abdullah’s side during important kingdom meetings. Although Mishal was defense minister in the 1950s and governor of Mecca in the 1960s, he has otherwise eschewed government service in favor of developing his business interests. Mishal’s role is likely to be crucial in developing the workings of the council. Perceived as an ally of Abdullah, his own claim to the throne is weak. He will likely face great challenges within the council from the most powerful faction — the Sudairi seven — the largest group of full brothers, which now numbers six since the death of Fahd. This faction includes Sultan, Interior Minister Prince Nayef (also reported to be unwell), and the governor of Riyadh province Prince Salman.

Several scenarios could occur over the next few months:

Death of Prince Sultan. The Sudairi princes are likely to press for the next crown prince to be selected from among them. Prince Nayef has a claim but is not considered sufficiently popular. His younger brother Prince Salman is a possible choice.

Death of King Abdullah. Despite his many public appearances, the monarch, now the oldest surviving son of Abdulaziz, is said to be increasingly limited in his abilities. If Sultan is still alive when Abdullah dies, the crown prince will almost certainly become king. Theoretically, the Allegiance Council law allows for the possibility of either the king or the crown prince being declared medically unfit by a committee of medical experts. This step, however, is unlikely against a powerful royal. As king, Sultan could abolish the council and appoint his own crown prince.

Succession follows existing lines. Some of the other eighteen surviving sons of Abdulaziz are considered ineligible to be king because several of them have non-Saudi mothers or are considered eccentric. Excluding these, the next possible candidates are Abdulrahman (78), Nayef (76), Abdulillah (74), and Salman (73). All except Abdulillah, who was made an advisor to the king in 2008, are Sudairis.

Succession pattern changes. The simplest way of avoiding a rapid turnover of increasingly old and infirm kings is to skip over older candidates and choose a younger man, either from within the younger ranks of the sons of Abdulaziz or from among his grandsons. Of the sons, Salman qualifies as a younger option, as does the 66-year-old Muqren, who heads the kingdom’s foreign intelligence service. And although many of the grandsons already have decades of government experience, the Sudairis predominate and are likely to resist being bypassed.

Challenges for U.S. Policy

Not knowing who will be king matters less if the process is known. But the deliberations of the untested Allegiance Council system, whose procedures are known only in outline, will be secret. In addition, when Sultan and other senior royals die, Washington will lose familiar interlocutors. Sultan’s son Khaled effectively runs his father’s defense ministry, as does Nayef’s son Muhammad at the interior ministry. Will these fiefdoms be acknowledged? Will these sons be elevated to replace their fathers, or will a new king replace them by other, less well-known princes?

None of the Saudis best known to the U.S. public are in the running to be king: foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal is chronically ill with Parkinson’s disease; his brother, former intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal, was sacked from the former job and sidelined in the latter; former ambassador to the United States and now Saudi security council chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan is excluded because his mother was an African servant; and businessman Prince al-Walid’s father Talal has a record of publicly criticizing the royal family.

U.S.-Saudi relations have had their ups and downs in recent years. Although counterterrorism cooperation has somewhat improved, the Saudis were not particularly helpful against Osama bin Laden before the September 11 terrorist attacks, in which fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis, and Riyadh was unsympathetic when oil prices rose over $100 per barrel last year. But working relationships have persisted and seem likely to continue. The Obama administration’s likely new Iran envoy, Dennis Ross, wrote in Newsweek last month that Washington “needs” the kingdom for its policy of forcing choices on Tehran.

Washington hopes to avoid an internal Saudi royal dispute like the one that occurred between Abdulaziz’s eldest son King Saud and his eventual successor Faisal, which crippled the kingdom’s government between 1958 and 1964. Riyadh will be allergic to external interference or advice on such matters, but the outcomes of the probable transitions in the next few months will be of intense interest to the United States and much of the world.

Simon Henderson, Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute, is author of the Institute’s 1994 policy paper After King Fahd: Succession in Saudi Arabia. The sequel, After King Abdullah: Succession in Saudi Arabia, will be published in Spring 2009.

Why-Discuss said:

Carlos Slim rescues The New York Times.
I thought the jewish lobby was supporting that newspaper, what happpened? no more money?

Why-Discuss,

So the next time we discuss the evil “Jewish Lobby”, will you be reminding the audience here about Carlos Slim and his Arab ethnicity?

I doubt it. It’s always be about pointing fingers at Jews and Israel and ignoring Arab actions: breaking cease fires, lobbing thousands of missiles, etc, etc. Sweep it all under the rug why don’t you?

Anybody want to predict when the next major Middle East-born terror attack against the US will occur?

Perhaps the winner gets a free 2-week trip to Syria?

Professor Josh,

Can we get some funding from the University of Oklahoma, Center of Peace Studies?

Back

Analysis: US, Israel could coax Hamas to moderate

2009-01-22 12:38:02 –

JERUSALEM (AP) – Postwar Gaza could become a test of President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech offer to Muslims to «extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
The extended hand would be open borders and international reconstruction money for the Hamas militants who rule Gaza. The unclenched fist would be the Islamic militants of Hamas giving their moderate Fatah rivals a foothold in Gaza and holding its fire against Israel.
After an Israeli offensive that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians and left much of Gaza in ruins, the new U.S. administration and a soon-to-be new Israeli government have a chance to forge a fresh strategy toward Hamas.
The war appears to have shaken up Mideast politics and the international community could leverage Gaza’s postwar reality to boost moderates in the region, taking advantage of the fact that Hamas desperately needs help following the Israeli onslaught.
That could mean giving Hamas what it most wants _ an open border with Egypt _ as long as Fatah and international monitors control it. Any such deal would also require providing assurances to Israel that Hamas will stop smuggling weapons over the Egyptian border.
Extending Hamas a hand runs the risk of cementing the militants’ power in Gaza. But a deal with strings attached could chip away at Hamas’ stranglehold on the territory, which has been the main impediment to U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Hamas, which has been holding victory rallies in Gaza despite suffering enormous losses from Israel’s assault, is not about to suddenly recognize the Jewish state or join the peace talks between Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
But the war proved Hamas is not a monolith. Divisions emerged between the group’s Syria-based leadership, which opposed a cease-fire, and those inside Gaza who felt the bloodletting had to stop.
Hamas appears to have evolved since the days when it regularly invited youngsters to strap on bombs and blow themselves up inside Israel. Today, after violently seizing control of Gaza in June 2007, the group seems as interested in successful governance as attacking Israel.
Many Israelis believe Hamas’ decision to fire rockets at Israel at the end of a six-month truce _ a decision that sparked the latest war _ was based solely on the group’s hatred of Zionists. But the reality is more complicated.
Hamas was deeply disappointed the original truce did not bring a deal to reopen the borders of Gaza, which Israel and Egypt have blockaded since Hamas seized power. The closure destroyed almost all private enterprise in the territory of 1.4 million people, exacerbating misery in a place where 80 percent of the people need U.N. food handouts to survive.
Gazans found themselves without cement to build new apartments or make gravestones for the dead. Ninety percent of the territory’s 3,600 factories shut down because of a lack of spare parts and raw materials.
And Israel’s military offensive inflicted an estimated $2 billion in damage.
Rebuilding would seem impossible under the current border regime.
«Nobody in his right state of mind can talk about reconstruction in Gaza with the crossings continuing to be … closed,» Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in the West Bank this week.
Since trade links between Israel and Gaza are unlikely as long as Hamas remains sworn to Israel’s destruction, efforts to ease the blockade are concentrating on opening the border with Egypt.
Fayyad made an urgent plea for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, saying the alternative is a permanent rift that will destroy Palestinians’ dreams for a state of their own.
Current international proposals for a durable Gaza truce envision allowing Fatah back into Gaza to help monitor a reopened crossing into Egypt, an outcome that could be a first step toward moderates regaining a foothold in Gaza.
Hamas leaders have been defiant since a tentative cease-fire took hold Sunday, But Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum made a point of not rejecting Obama’s inaugural overture.
Israel remains Hamas’ enemy, he said. «That does not mean we cannot open a new page with the whole world, including the new elected American administration if they support the Palestinian people’s just rights.
To be sure, no truce deal will be possible unless Israel is assured Hamas will stop firing rockets at Israel and smuggling increasingly lethal weapons across the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israel has scheduled an election Feb. 10 and none of the top candidates for prime minister has shown any willingness to rethink the position on Hamas. And the front-runner is hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made clear he favors sticks over carrots when it comes to Hamas.
Steven Gutkin is The Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Press release: http://www.pr-inside.com
Kontaktinformation: e-mail

Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in these press releases please contact the company added in the press release. Please do not contact pr-inside. We will not be able to assist you. PR-inside disclaims contents contained in this release.

Alex –

94% of Israelis supported their sweet young IDF heroes .. those pilots who were risking their lives (by pushing a button inside their F16s) to protect Israel when they successfully murdered 1300 Palestinians and injured 5000

Apparently the F-16s weren’t as indiscriminate as the Hamasniks would like you to believe Alex. Sort of like the big Jenin “Massacre”:

Gazan doctor says death toll inflated

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3660423,00.html

But then again, that’s what you get when you fire thousands of missiles against Israel to Free Palestine. Take it to the International Court of Law Alex, I’d love to see a law suit.

AP:

comment #51 of yours was fantastic! I laughed out loud.

Sean Alexander:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while it is severe, as you noted, does not seem as central as it appears to be or as some would want us to believe. Often times, leaders use it to galvanize their populations behind a nationalist cause, while directing people’s energy away from domestic issues. Even if there was a resolution to the conflict, we would still have sectarian divide in Lebanon, sectarian conflict in Iraq, and the conflicts that are arising over the emegence of Iran. Every single country in the region has a border conflict with at least one of its neighbors.

A.P.,

I hope very much that no further terror attacks start from the Arab/Muslim territories and that 94% of Israeli public continues to distinguish itself with its support of the IDF killing women and children and destroying the foundation of civilian life.

I hope that things will not be so frustrating and hard on the Arabs and the Mulims being pushed by their corrupt dictators as well as Israel, the EU, the Soviets etc..that they would end up losing their humanity and supporting terror, much better being the victims of nukes ourselves as Jad has pointed out.

It is good news that the U.S. is considering cutting loan guarantees to Israel over west bank settlements
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055585.html

And DIVEST please !!!! This from Naomi Klein

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090126/klein?rel=hp_currently

Syria-based Hamas official dismisses reconciliation talks with rival Fatah group
By Associated Press
7:40 AM EST, January 22, 2009
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A senior Hamas official has dismissed any reconciliation talks with the rival Fatah group.

His remarks Thursday followed claims by the militants that they emerged victorious after the group survived a relentless three-week offensive by Israel on the Gaza Strip.

Sami Khater, a member of the militant group’s Damascus-based branch, says Arab and international donations to reconstruct the war-devastated Gaza should go directly to Hamas and not to rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose faction rules the West Bank.

Khater says Abbas and his Palestinian Authority cannot be trusted.

Khater says a Hamas delegation will travel to Cairo this weekend for talks with Egyptian mediators on ways to consolidate a Gaza cease-fire in place since last Sunday.

E

A.P.

You are hilarious. So an “unnamed Palestenian doctor” gives a “so-called interview” and we should believe him because the Jewish media are telling his story. Ha! Ha! Ha!
and everybody else is a liar. How cute! and convenient!

Chris,

You’re right that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not be a cure-all. I didn’t mean to suggest that. What I was thinking was that with that issue null and void, other nations would not be able to use that as a battle cry leading to continued destabilization in the Middle East. I still believe that region-wide it is THE central issue that must be resolved. With that in mind, we will have to then face, as you pointed out, the internal sectarian issues dividing Lebanon and Iraq for example. As for Iran, without the Palestinian issue potentially garnering them support from Sunnis, they will be limited in their ability to influence the region just as they were thirty years ago at the outset of the revolution.

Thx AP,

Now I feel much better.

Unidentified Doctor’s assessment put my mind at ease.

I hate it when the IDF inflates its casualty figures, they should be taken to the ICJ just for that.

World Health Organization

Statement
15 January 2009

WHO deplores the shelling of hospitals in Gaza

WHO deplores the attack on Al Wafa and Al Fata Hospitals, and the Al Quds which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. WHO expresses deep concern about the serious implications on patients, medical staff, health infrastructure and the provision of critical health services.

WHO calls for the discontinuation of the current violence, the removal of the blockade for the safe passage of patients, health personnel, food, fuel and medicines, and the respect of the inviolability of the health facilities in conflict zones.

The details with pictures:

http://www.who.int/hac/crises/international/wbgs/gaza_operational_plan_13January2009.pdf

Background
As Israel’s military operation in Gaza enters its
third week, the civilian population is bearing the
brunt of the violence. More than 880 people have
been killed and over 4000 injured in just sixteen
days. Gaza is one of the world’s most densely
populated places; it is clear that more civilians will
be killed and more homes, buildings and civilian
infrastructure destroyed if the conflict continues.
Health services in Gaza are under enormous strain
and require urgent and wide-ranging support.
Pressures include:
1. Exhausted health service providers.
Emergency medical services (EMS) and
trauma teams (physicians, nurses and other
emergency staff) have worked constantly since
the current conflict began on 27 December
2008. Urgent reinforcements are needed to help
care for the critically wounded and avoid the
risk of serious medical/surgical errors.

2. Restricted movement. The intensity of aerial
bombardment and ground hostilities (dividing
Gaza into three distinct, impenetrable portions)
are seriously constraining the movement of
patients, EMS, referral care, and critical health
personnel.

3. Inefficient use of hospital capacity. Hospital
emergency operations (emergency admissions,
intensive care units, operating theatres) have
been overwhelmed due to reportedly
ineffective triage and restrictions on
movements of the health workforce and
patients. There have been reports of wounded
lying on the ground in health facilities while
beds lie unused elsewhere.

4. Damage to infrastructure of hospitals/health
facilities. There are reports of damage to
hospitals and health facilities close to targets
that have been bombed/shelled – shattered
glass, damage to walls and windows, and
water/electricity pipes, all of which are
essential to the effective functioning of these
facilities.

5. Limited electricity/fuel supplies are seriously
affecting infection control, blood transfusion,
instrument sterilization, and basic sanitation
and hygiene in hospitals, operation theatres and
ICUs, with the potential for life-threatening
hospital-borne infections (gangrene,
septicaemia, tetanus, shock, etc.).

6. Difficulty in transferring the critically
wounded outside Gaza due to insecurity,
movement restrictions and the closure of
crossing points.

7. Critical gaps in life-saving supplies. IV fluids,
parental antibiotics, corticosteroids, surgical
supplies/consumables, parental analgesics and
other medicines and supplies are needed
urgently. Many donations are held up at the
border because of security constraints.

Since the ground incursion was launched on
3 January 2009, over 28 116 people have been
displaced with no or extremely limited support
services (health care, safe water, food, basic
sanitation and hygiene) because of poor access and
insecurity. The physical and mental trauma of the
civilian population in Gaza, the continuing and
prolonged disruption of basic health services, and
WHO Emergency
Operational
Plan
Gaza Crisis
13 January 2009
Health Action in Crises © IRIN/Wissam Nassar.

As far as the question of whether or not Syria will benefit is concerned, I believe the actions of those with whom Syria is allied tells us something. During the conflict, the leaders of Hamas who were residing in Damascus, actively opposed any cease-fire agreement between Israel, while the Hamas leaders within Gaza were much more interested in brokering an agreement. Those Hamas leaders who had a closer (literally) relationship with the Bashar family regime actively opposed any cease-fire agreement. As far as who believed they might benefit during the crisis, I think this goes a long way in answering that question.

I didn’t see the dictator of Damascus press very hard for a cease-fire.

comment #51 of yours was fantastic! I laughed out loud.

Chris,

Sarcasm and irony works well doesn’t it!;)

I hope very much that no further terror attacks start from the Arab/Muslim territories…

Alia,

You mean like the already broken cease fire? That was a “given”. However, I’m thinking that a US target is in the offing. Barrack Obama will be tested like every other US president in recent memory:

GWB – 9/11
Clinton – Saddam Hussein
GHWB – Gulf War
Reagen – Lebanon
Carter – Hostages in Iran
Ford – I don’t remember;)
Nixon – Yom Kippur War
Johnson – 6 Day War

This is the “terror-driven” foreign policy the Arabs have perfected. Will it be “al-Queda”, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah? Undoubtedly, the professional terrorists will cover their tracks perfectly.

I hope that things will not be so frustrating and hard on the Arabs and the Mulims being pushed by their corrupt dictators…

Alia,

Don’t be too hard your “corrupt dictators”, its all AIPAC’s fault;) Then again, if Arabs are willing to die in intifada’s, how difficult is it to get a couple million Arabs to peacefully demonstrate in a major Arab capital? Frankly, I’m tired of the complaining about “corrupt dictators”.

“…much better being the victims of nukes ourselves as Jad has pointed out.”

What nukes? 20,000 dead in Hama wasn’t from any nuke; it must of been from Israeli F-16s.

It is good news that the U.S. is considering cutting loan guarantees to Israel over west bank settlements.

It wouldn’t bother me a bit. At this point, it is a small symbolic gesture. It may even give Israel a boost to drop it.

Conisdering the US will find it impossible to negotiate with the extremists, and considering Obama is ready to capitulate, the ONLY entity they can lean on will be the “Zionist Entity”. Been there, done that. The Arab Street will be happy of course, but the fighting and the violence will only increase.

This is the price one must pay to ignore the obvious.;)

Barrack is setting himself up to be a 1-term president like Jimmah.

January 22, 2009, 7:25 AM
Syrian Leader Reaches Out To Obama
Posted by George Baghdadi

(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)In a congratulatory wire sent to Barack Obama, President Bashar al-Assad voiced his hope Wednesday that Syria and the United States could will be able to build a “constructive dialogue,” according to Syrian officials.

America’s image in the region has been greatly by Israel’s 22-day military operation in the Gaza Strip. Most Arabs believe Israel wouldn’t have dared to perpetrate the offensive without a green light from Washington.

“Assad sent the cable after Obama was sworn in and gave his speech in which he succeeded in declaring his policy, which affirmed a desire to achieve peace around the world and resort to hope rather than fear as a basis for political approaches,” read the cable.

Assad’s message expressed Syria’s “hope for a constructive dialogue with the United States based on common interests and mutual respect, leading to a just and comprehensive peace in the region based on relevant U.N. resolutions.”

Syria and Israel, which have not held face-to-face talks in decades, held four rounds of indirect talks last year mediated by Turkey, but the talks made no significant headway and it is not clear when they might resume.

Syria has been subject since 1979 to stiff economic sanctions because of its place on the U.S. State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism.”

In December 2003, Congress added an additional layer of penalties when it passed the Syria Accountability Act, seen by many here as an attempt by the Bush administration to prompt regime change.

The Bush White House also worked hard to isolate and weaken Syria on the international scene. It has repeatedly blocked the World Trade Organization (WTO) from accepting Syria’s membership application.

In February 2005, when former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, the U.S. and France both loudly blamed Syria and the U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Damascus. There has been no U.S. ambassador here since.

Syria has, however, regained a degree of approval in Europe after supporting a peace pact with Lebanon and forging diplomatic ties with its neighbor country after years spent dominating it.

Observers say Syria, which has good relations with a broad range of actors in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese political scenes, could contribute a lot to any international push to build a stable peace in the region.

Last week, Obama told CBS News he was going to work toward a comprehensive peace in the Middle East “on day one” of his presidency, and that this would include Syria. “We’re going to have to take a regional approach. We’re going to have to involve Syria in discussions,” he said.

“That was music to the ears of the Syrians, since under the Bush White House, nobody believed Syria’s sincerity over peace talks,” says Syrian political analyst Sami Mubayed.

“The Bush team wrongly believed that the Syrians were more interested in returning to Lebanon than in restoring the Golan (Heights). That was untrue and unfair to Syria,” he added, referring to a tiny piece of land which has been disputed by Israel and Syria.

Mubayed suggested there were immediate overtures that Obama could start with.

“One gesture would be sending a U.S. ambassador to Damascus, to fill a post that has been vacant for years,” Mubayed said. “Then he could invite Arabs, Israelis and world leaders to a conference — similar to Annapolis — to discuss peace in the Middle East.”
Read More Posts In World Watch
Share & Save: del.icio.us digg Find Related: Sphere It
E-Mail This Post Printable Version

Comments

I am not sure that I understand why “only militant passions can win back their land and restore lost dignity”. Regarding militant passions, well suffice to say that both Egypt and Jordan got back their lands by acting cooly and calmly and going to Jerusalem. They got back every inch. Nothing militant was required.

Regarding their lost dignity – if they lost it, then the only ones who can give it back are themselves. Syrian dignity has nothing to do with Israel, it has to do with Syria.

AP,

This splitting of messages and answering out of context is the strategy of intellectual weakness (ditto :chris the Zionist Wannabe so called student)

The rest is wishful thinking. So what if Obama is elected only for one term?

It is better for Obama to behave as an honest effective leader like John Adams, who made great personal sacrifices in the service of his country, and be elected only once, than being the laughing stock of American Presidency (GWB) and crawling out of sight despised by his own people- Less than 29% positive ratings at the end of his presidency, think about it concretely if you had that kind of rating at your job How wonderful you would feel about yourself…

Beside their stealing of land, torturing of Palestinians, the Israelis have infected the Western world with a disregard for ethics. The United States was not built on this garbage.
Your talk is the personification of opportunism, lying and propaganda that are the hallmark of the Pariah nation that you are defending.

For those that still doubt the war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli leadership this is very important reading
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20316

Observer,

I think right around the time I became legally able to drink I stopped reading Noam Chomsky. His analysis is extremely simple: anything the U.S. does is an atrocity. His tone is annoyingly condescending. He ought to stick to linguistics, where what he contributes is meaningful.

‘55% of Israelis want deal with PA’

Jan. 22, 2009
Elana Kirsh , THE JERUSALEM POST
Over half of Israelis, some 55 percent, support holding negotiations with Palestinians with the aim of reaching a permanent agreement, according to a ‘New Wave’ poll commissioned by the Geneva Institute. Sixteen percent disagreed, saying that only an interim, or limited agreement should be sought, while 68% of respondents said they supported increasing US involvement in such talks.

The findings of the survey, released on Thursday, show that 23% felt that the selection of Barack Obama for the US Presidency increased the chances of reaching permanent agreement in the Middle East, while 16% believed the likelihood of a deal was lessened by the choice. 39% said the choice of US president makes no different to a Middle East peace agreement.

In terms of the Palestinians, 46% of respondents said they would prefer the next Israeli government negotiate with the Palestinian Authority with the aim of coming to a permanent agreement, as opposed to 18% that backed the government negotiating with Syria.

A further 21% said they would prefer the government hold talks with both the PA and Syria, while 10% prefer negotiating with Hamas over the PA.

The poll, taken during IDF Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, found that a solid 73% of the general public oppose any negotiations with Hamas, up 18% from July 2008, when only 55% opposed. Regarding the operation itself, 43% were of the opinion that the offensive increased the chances of a permanent agreement with the Palestinians. 22% disagreed, saying the operation lessened the chances of such an agreement.

Some 25% of respondents said the operation made no differences to the chances of reaching a permanent agreement.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1232292939014&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]
Copyright 1995- 2009 The Jerusalem Post – http://www.jpost.com/

NPR reported today that the Israeli Defense Minister issued an edict not to publicize the names of military commanders in the latest operation lest they be prosecuted for war crimes
The following post from Juan Cole today is very informative how this campaign has resulted in a debacle: the tunnels are operating again, Hamas is stronger in Gaza, Fatah is weaker in the West Bank, Egypt is humiliated, SA is without an initiative, the European public and the Muslim and Arab world are angrier than ever

Here is the entire post today:

Gaza Aftermath Raises Question of War Crimes:
Obama Must Overcome Initial Muslim Distrust

The Israeli assault on Gaza has drawn to an end, now that its Great Enabler (W.) is no longer in the cockpit of the Calamity Machine, and its architect, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is the lamest of lame ducks.

Those hawks who proclaimed so loudly that Israel had no choice but to just fall upon the Gazans, and that the Palestinians of Gaza were unalterably dedicated to war-making on Israel, have fogotten a mid-December poll that showed 74% of Palestinians wanted to see the truce extended, and 51% of Israelis did. Let me just repeat that. In calling Hamas’s bluff to break off negotiations, and massively punishing Gaza civilians, the Olmert government was ignoring the majority view among Israelis and the vast majority of Palestinians who wanted a truce. Of course, once hostilities began, people rallied around their flag. But if Olmert had been forced to hold a referendum among Israelis on whether to do this horrible thing, he would have lost.

The last Israeli troops left Gaza on Wednesday. The three week long shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise killed, on the Palestinian side, 280 children and minors, 111 women, and 503 male noncombatants. Gaza police accounted for 167 of the dead; can you just read off Gaza police as “Hamas militants”? Or were they traffic cops & etc.? The Palestinian Center for Human rights estimated that the Israelis killed 223 Hamas guerrillas. In other words, if this count is correct, the Israelis managed to kill more children than real militants.

So what is the outcome of this dirty little war?

The fundamentalist group Hamas is reasserting itself in Gaza as Israeli troops withdraw, and now has a new pretext to target members of the Fatah group, secular nationalists loyal to Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. So the Israelis may have actually politically strengthened Hamas and further weakened Fatah, which is already notorious for corruption, political repression, inefficiency, and, increasingly collaboration with Israel.

Although Israel claimed to have destroyed 60 percent of the tunnels whereby Gazans bring food, medicine, and sometimes explosives into the Strip via the Sinai Peninsula, reports Wednesday indicated that the tunnels were already active again. Even if only 40 percent of them are operational, it is hard to see what was achieved. The others can be redug, and anyway a lot of materiel can be brought in with the 40 percent surviving tunnels.

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

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

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

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

UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon visited Gaza and was reported absolutely appalled at the scenes of human destruction he witnessed there. He demanded that nothing like the Gaza campaign ever be undertaken again (i.e. by Israel) and he said he would do what he could to establish accountability.

Amnesty International is accusing Israel of using white phosphorous in such a way that it constituted a war crime. The New York times clearly takes the charges seriously, underlining my thesis that what the government of Ehud Olmert disturbed many American Jews.

Aljazeera English reports on the aftermath of the Israeli assault on Gaza, including questions about the use of white phosphorous on densely populated civilian areas, producing burns and destroying food warehouses in the midst of a famine. Many Gaza civilians are camped on the rubble of their former homes, searching frantically for loved ones who may no longer be among the living.

AP and Chris
Nothin is funny about possible or immaginable terrorist act. Would both of you be dancing at the ruins, you are already doing that over gaza’s ruins. Fun in this context is a previlage only only a sick mind can afford. Have you both no shame?

Chris
I do not think that Chomksy is losing sleep over your inability to grasp his outrage at injustice and self declared hypocritical rightuousness of much of what the US does. It is telling, though, that you stopped reading him the moment it became legal for you to get drunk. Obviously you have not gotton over the first drink you had since then, I wonder what was in that drink?

OTW:

The part that was funny, was not the commission of a terrorist act by some Islamic fundamentalist, but rather, getting rewarded for guessing when it might happen with a free trip to Syria.

More importantly thought OTW, the insults really aren’t conducive to a constructive political discussion. A forum like this is meant to facilitate dialogue, not acrimony.

ONE more instance where some on this blog are too adult and wise to read as they blabber the same thing again and again
Another indictment of the apartheid regime

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057670.html

Beside their stealing of land, torturing of Palestinians, the Israelis have infected the Western world with a disregard for ethics.

Alia,

I suppose it will take a long time until Israel and her “infected” American allies “rise” to the level of ethics the Arabs and their jihadist heroes display on a daily basis:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34346,00.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/25/world/main626196.shtml

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28634522/

http://us.oneworld.net/article/358427-boys-death-spotlights-abuse-egyptian-schools

http://www.memri.org/antisemitism.html

Dear OTW, How are you? Hope everything is good from your side, I’m a big fan of your writing as you already know..

You wrote
(Nothing is funny about possible or immaginable terrorist act….Have you both no shame?)
I was thinking the same way when I read the comments you are describing but as you and many others asked to ignore those comments, I didn’t want to write back.
I think ignoring them is working just fine, let them write and hear their own echoes instead of reading their naive comments as a reply…

Interesting analysis on the recent Arab League conference, scheduled to be about development, but now about Gaza.

________________________________________________________
January 22, 2009
NEWS ANALYSIS
At Arab Gathering on Development, the Talk Is All About Gaza
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
KUWAIT — Two and a half years ago, a group of Arab leaders decided it was time to try to set aside their political differences and deal with what was ailing their countries: widespread illiteracy, ineffective schools, unemployment, inadequate water and food resources.

So they called for an extraordinary summit meeting to be held in Kuwait City this week. The plan was for the 22 members of the Arab League to agree on concrete ways to improve the lives of their 330 million citizens. Instead, they bickered over how to handle the Gaza crisis.

At nearly every turn, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains an obstacle to development in the Middle East. It inflames public emotions, serves as a convenient distraction for leaders unable or unwilling to reform their nations and is a tool in the hands of those seeking to promote their own regional standing, often at the expense of the Palestinians.

“The Arab-Israeli conflict reinforces the puritanical, radical, traditional and also the authoritarian because everyone holds onto what they have and there is no third way,” said Shafeeq Ghabra, a political science professor at Kuwait University. “Basically, this is a region stuck in time, stuck in space and in history and in conflict.”

When the presidents, kings and emirs arrived in Kuwait, they were scheduled to discuss regional cooperation to improve education, ease trade and travel barriers, improve food security and lift their citizens out of poverty. But they were barely talking to one another because of differences over how to deal with Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

“Yes, military occupation is a serious matter that needs to be addressed,” said Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League. “But backwardness in our societies needs to be taken care of.”

There was a suffocating sense of despair hanging over the Kuwait meeting as the Gaza crisis eclipsed every other issue.

“The Arab ship is sinking,” Mr. Moussa said on the first day of the conference.

The Arab world has been in the same self-defeating fight for decades. In 1975 the Arab League took out an advertisement in The New York Times to celebrate its 30th anniversary. The headline said, “Political, economic and social unity in action.” The text said solving the Palestinian crisis was the group’s “first priority.”

But that headline was as much an illusion then as the headlines declaring that Arab leaders had reconciled their differences after the first day of the conference. The flash point has not always been Israel. But the victim has always been a unified effort to improve regional economic and social development.

Arab leaders certainly have the ability to improve conditions at home, even amid the feuding. In that way, the Palestinian cause can become a useful distraction for authoritarian rulers reluctant to make changes that risk instability, or that might strengthen regional competitors.

The need for regional cooperation rests on data. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon said that the Arab states would need to create 50 million jobs in the next 20 years simply to keep unemployment at current levels. He said Arab universities were collapsing and scientific research was almost nonexistent.

By many measures, the Arab world is slipping further and further behind in its ability to compete globally. Perhaps the single greatest drag on the region, one that afflicts wealthy Persian Gulf states as well as poorer countries like Egypt, is the quality of schools. International trends in math and science among fourth- and eighth-grade students show that in math, for example, among fourth-graders, the bottom four nations out of 36 were Tunisia, Kuwait, Qatar and Yemen. In science, eighth-grade students in Qatar placed second to last.

Since the 1940s, Arab leaders have been promising the creation of an economic union along the lines of what the Europeans have achieved. They have repeatedly said that Arabs should invest in and trade with Arabs first.

They were still talking about that this week.

In Kuwait, there were complaints that the region had failed to coordinate its electric grids, transportation systems and customs regulations. But the Palestinian issue so consumed the meeting they barely had the chance to discuss such matters.

“We have to be aware as Arabs that the absence of an Arab solution to the Palestinian issue also means the absence of continuous progress, major development, sustainable growth and agreement within our Arab world,” Mr. Siniora said at a conference in Kuwait before the summit meeting.

While no one was arguing that the Arab states should stop fighting for a Palestinian homeland, the summit meeting’s participants virtually begged leaders to separate political differences from common economic needs. Many speakers at the conference had said that economic, social and human development could only help bolster the region’s position in its confrontation with Israel. But no one actually offered a compromise on how to overcome those differences.

The sense of urgency in addressing the developmental issues has been compounded by the economic crisis. At the opening of the summit meeting, officials said that Arab countries had so far lost about $2.5 trillion, and that 60 percent of the development projects in the oil-rich gulf had been postponed or canceled.

There is no one who would argue that resolving the Palestinian issue would suddenly produce a united Arab world. But the issue continues to play havoc with agendas and expose hypocrisies.

“We have written many times, ‘If Hezbollah loves the Palestinians so much they want to fight Israel, why can’t they fight to give the Palestinians human rights in Lebanon?’ ” said Mohammad al-Rumaihi, a newspaper editor in Kuwait. But pressure over the issue is relentless.

“The masses,” he said, “their hearts are with the Palestinians.”

Mike Hanna (sorry if misspelled his name) on English Al Jezeera:
An opinion poll from Gaza and the west bank from after ‘Cast Lead’:

70% of Palestinians support a peace treaty with Israel.

Support for the Palestinian factions:
26% Fatah
16% Hamas
52% neither of them

82% for a unity government of Fatah and Hammas.

[ Sorry. Have no link. This is from watching English AJ live ]

Chris,

“I think right around the time I became legally able to drink I stopped reading Noam Chomsky”

This confirms the observed a negative correlation between alcohol consumption and Chomkyism.

He is very popular in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Yahoo! News
Gaza tunnels back in business
and Calamity Livni soon out of business!
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 1 min ago
RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Hundreds of workers toiled in southern Gaza Thursday to repair dozens of tunnels dug under tents or fake greenhouses while smugglers brought in food and fuel just days after Israel ended a barrage of bombs and missiles aimed at cutting off the supply route from Egypt.
The renewed smuggling underscored how difficult it could be for the Israeli military to meet one of the key goals of its three-week offensive: preventing Hamas militants from bringing weapons into Gaza through the porous Egyptian border.
Some 1,285 Palestinians, most of them civilians, died in the Israeli operation, launched Dec. 27 to end Hamas’ rocket fire on southern Israel and to cut the group’s suspected arms route from Iran.
The military said it had destroyed 60 to 70 percent of the tunnels before Israel declared a cease-fire on Saturday. The smugglers in Rafah, a southern Gaza border town where nearly all smuggling
tunnels are dug, told The Associated Press that the destruction was probably even higher.
“I’d say that only one out of 10 tunnels is still intact,” said Abu Rahman, a tunnel manager who asked to be identified by his nickname because of his smuggling activities…..

No more torture,G.Mitchel is envoy to M.E.,close Guantanamo.this is great,and american way.

Amir,

That poll says it all … Hamas is too extreme, Fatah is an American Israel Egyptian puppet …

The Palestinian people in Gaza want a solution and an end to the conflict … and they know that we will not be able to have a solution through extremists of through “Arab moderate” puppets alone, so they want them both to be there to watch each other.

Alex,

I don’t completely agree with you.

Hamas is a dogmatic religious movement. That’s why incapable to change and adopt.
Fatah is not a ‘puppet’. ( and I don’t like the ‘puppet’ / ‘stooge’
kind of talking, coz then, we adopt the extremists jargon ).

The Palestinians had a 3rd choice in the 2006 elections: the ‘Third Way’,
with good, decent and talented people, as Salam Fayyad, Hanan Ashrawi and
Yasser Abd Rabo. The ‘Third Way’ got 2.41% of the votes.

I hope that the Palestinians will learn from past mistakes.
Believe it or not… I’m quite optimistic.
.

Amir,

Fatah is full with “agents” for Israel … you did read the Vanity fair article, didn’t you?

They ARE puppets.

The third way did not win because of the same reasons third ways do not win in the United States … people worry that University professors and intellectuals alone can not run the affairs of a population… so they stick to the devil they know.

Parts of Hamas are reformable … other parts are a hopeless case. The solution is to empower the more reasonable ones and see if there is a chance.

recommended reading (Arabic)

By yosri fouda

http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=65597

and (English) by Zvi Bar’el

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057385.html

Alex,

Hamas is a dogmatic religious movement. That’s why incapable to change and adopt.

How would Amir in Tel Aviv describe Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas? The latest polls promise them together 57 seats in the Knesset, nearly halve of the seats. I suppose that crowd is not very interested in peaceful solutions. Aren’t Amir parts or whole of those parties dogmatic religious movements? They are also incapable to change and adopt or learn.

Hasn’t Fatah also an armed wing – Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades like Hamas has. So what is the difference. PA has not been able to provide anything to Palestinians, much to Israel. That is the problem for Palestinians. Rather understandable that the people are frustrated.

Amir if Israelis are entitled to choose extreme religious nuts to lead the country, why can’t Palestinians be given the same right.

The Palestinians had a 3rd choice in the 2006 elections: the ‘Third Way’, with good, decent and talented people, as Salam Fayyad, Hanan Ashrawi and Yasser Abd Rabo. The ‘Third Way’ got 2.41% of the votes.

Democracy is a “bitch” isn’t it Amir. Same observation as you did with Palestinian elections could be made with Israel. Where are there the compromise seeking parties, who are ready for a fair solution (67 borders)?

That is how Syria will win,

w w w . t u r k i s h w e e k l y . n e t

James Baker: Obama Has to Get Hamas Involved Peace Process

By Mehtap GUZEL, JTW

James A. Baker, former Secretary of State and former Treasury Secretary, told the Newsweek magazine that new American President Barack Hussein Obama must Hamas involved the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Baker said in the interview “you cannot negotiate peace with only half the Palestinian polity at the table. I would suggest an approach like we used leading up to the Madrid Conference in 1991. For the first time ever we got Israel’s Arab neighbors—all of them—to negotiate face to face with Israel. How? Back then, we nor Israel could talk to the PLO because, like Hamas, it was a terrorist organization. So we negotiated with Palestinians from within the territories whom we and Israel knew were taking their orders from [Yasir] Arafat in Tunis. But we both had deniability, and it worked!”

Baker further advised new president to engage Syria. “Syria’s marriage with Iran is one of convenience, and if we assured them they would get back the Golan and normalized relations with the U.S., we might wean them from Iran. Hamas has its offices in downtown Damascus. The Syrians claim that they can get Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. If they can do that, you would then have 100 percent of the Palestinian polity, with whom you might negotiate a peace accord” he added.

http://www.usak.org.tr
http://www.turkishweekly.net
http://www.usakgundem.com

War will be coming back to Gaza if Israel continues to starve the people there , It is time to make it clear to Israel that it responsible for the people under occupation.or give them a clear independence.

ABC Online

AM – Israeli economic blockade of Gaza continues

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2472892.htm%5D

AM – Friday, 23 January , 2009 08:13:00
Reporter: Matt Brown
PETER CAVE: The tense truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is nearing the end of its first week.

While Israel continues to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, most of the people there say they’re yet to see the benefits and the truce is under immense pressure.

Middle East correspondent Matt Brown reports from the Gaza Strip.

MATT BROWN: As the winter sun rose on Gaza city, the Mediterranean reflected just a wisp of cloud. Pairs of young men stood on tiny skiffs that looked like almond shaped surf boards and paddled out to catch a few fish in their nets.

(Sounds of patrol boat fire)

Israeli gunboats were quick on the scene.

The Israelis have been shooting at fishermen for years and they’ve killed several. Citing previous attempts to send terrorists up the coast into Israel, they keep the fishermen hemmed in.

(Sounds of patrol boat fire)

As the rounds crashed into the water behind them, these fishermen were about 800 metres from shore.

(Hassan Abu Ali speaking)

“We’re just fishermen, we were just fishing,” Hassan Abu Ali says. “We are not carrying missiles. We put out our nets, then the boats came.”

While the fishermen are supposed to be allowed at least 12 nautical miles out to sea, on any given day the Israeli military decides to enforce an even tighter limit. And the fishermen find out the hard way.

(Sounds of patrol boat fire)

This is supposed to be a ceasefire but the military told the ABC that the limit today was the beach.

(Hassan Abu Ali speaking)

“When they shot at us, we were really afraid and we just wanted to get out of there,” Hassan Abu Ali says. “We cut our nets to get away and we lost our catch.”

Five people were wounded as the gunboats patrolled up and down the coast.

Fishing is one of the few businesses not crushed by Israel’s long standing blockade.

There is, however another trade route not yet shut down. On Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the bulldozers are busy clearing tonnes of twisted steel and smashed concrete; the remains of homes hit in repeated Israeli air raids. Israel says it targeted the entrances to hundreds of tunnels used to bring weapons and food in beneath the border.

(Sound of a winch)

The winches are already back in action. Under the supervision of Hamas, the Islamists who run Gaza, the tunnel men are repairing their old supply routes to feed a still desperate black market.

(Man speaking)

“They can surround us, but we will even dig 70 metres underground to get bread,” this tunneller says. “The important thing is breaking the siege.”

Plenty of Gazans are angry at Hamas for the suffering Israel inflicts in response to their brand of resistance. But even amidst the rubble, many Hamas supporters are unbowed.

(Man speaking)

“Hamas didn’t come from the sky,” this tunneller says. “We elected Hamas and we want them.”

The three-week war caused widespread devastation and the loss of many civilian lives but not much has really changed at sea, or underground.

This is Matt Brown in the Gaza Strip, reporting for AM.

© 2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Copyright information: http://abc.net.au/common/copyrigh.htm
Privacy information: http://abc.net.au/privacy.htm

This is huge,

Obama urges Israel open Gaza crossings to aid
23/01/2009 11:42:00 AM
US President Barack Obama said he was dispatching new Mideast envoy George Mitchell to shore up the fragile truce in Gaza, as Israel warned it would strike again if Hamas is allowed to rearm.

Both Obama and United Nations officials also called on Israel to open Gaza border crossings.

“As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce,” Obama said, during his first visit to the State Department as president.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said the borders must be opened to allow reconstruction of the enclave.

“You have to have cement and construction materials and pipes and spare parts,” he said at a UN-run school hit by an Israeli missile in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

Since Israel began its 22-day offensive on December 27, the army said it had allowed 2,284 truckloads of humanitarian supplies into Gaza where the 1.5 million population relies on the border crossings for virtually everything.

Obama said his administration would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors.”

The President confirmed George Mitchell, a veteran diplomat renowned for negotiating the 1998 Good Friday agreement that helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, as his Middle East envoy.

He said he would be sending the former senator “to the region as soon as possible to help the parties ensure that the ceasefire that has been achieved is made durable and sustainable.”

In a call to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, new US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also vowed to work for a “durable and just peace as quickly as possible,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip for 22 days to reduce the threat from the Islamist group Hamas, before ceasefires on both sides came into effect this week.

But the Jewish state warned it would attack the territory again if Hamas uses smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border to rearm.

“Things must be clear – Israel reserves the right to react militarily against the tunnels once and for all,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said.

Her ministry said Livni told Clinton in a phone conversation that peace talks with the Palestinians should resume as soon as possible.

Livni stressed the necessity for a resumption of negotiations with Abbas, omitting Hamas.

A senior aide to Abbas, whose forces were booted out of Gaza by Hamas in May 2007, said that the Islamists would not be allowed to turn Gaza into a separate entity in the wake of the war.

“We will not allow the creation of a separatist entity, no matter what the price,” Yasser Abed Rabbo told a press conference. “The plot aiming to separate Gaza from the West Bank will not pass.”

Two women, two children and an elderly man were wounded on Thursday by fire from Israeli navy boats patrolling the Mediterranean, medics said. The army said it fired warning shots at a fishing boat.

Four Palestinians were injured when two tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed, an Egyptian security official said on Thursday.

On Thursday morning a tunnel caved in, injuring Palestinian Sharif al-Shaer, in his 20s, who was hospitalised with broken bones and respiratory problems, he said.

Earlier the security official said another tunnel had collapsed on Wednesday and that three Palestinians were hospitalised in Egypt for respiratory problems.

During its offensive on Hamas, Israel bombed hundreds of tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border, destroying 150, according to Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

Israel declared a ceasefire on Sunday after guarantees from Cairo and Washington to secure the enclave’s porous border with Egypt.

In a final casualty toll, Gaza medics said the Israeli offensive had killed 1330 people, at least half of them civilians, including 437 children. Another 5450 were wounded, including 1,890 children.

A prominent Al-Qaeda figure, Abu Yahya al-Libi, on Thursday urged Islamist militants to launch attacks in the West, naming the United States and Britain, to avenge Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, according to a translation by SITE monitoring group of his video clip posted on the Internet.

Page: 12single page

© SMH Comments

Another display of new Saudi position …

Saudi patience is running out

By Turki al-Faisal

Published: January 22 2009 20:15 | Last updated: January 22 2009 20:15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prince Turki is chairman, King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh. He has been director of Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK and Ireland and ambassador to the US

I am intrigued to ask, what will Saudi Arabia do when it runs out of patience?

From “land for peace” to “an eye for an eye”

Rime Allaf

No sooner had Israel begun its most vicious onslaught yet before commentaries began to explain the massacre and put things into context. And though Israel surpassed its own previous savagery, few in the media rose above their usual mediocrity and instead continued to parrot the line spewed by the Israeli propaganda machine, images to the contrary notwithstanding. The more people Israel killed in Gaza, the more repugnant the justifications and lies on offer, and the more the media narrative succumbed to collective self-hypnosis.

We learned that barrages of rockets had forced Israel to defend itself after Hamas had ended the ceasefire. We read that police stations, ministries, utilities and media centers were all Hamas buildings, hiding among the civilian population. We discovered that hospitals, United Nations schools and mosques were terrorist shelters. We found that thousands of homes all over Gaza contained actual Hamas members and had to be bombed, that white phosphorous was not an illegal weapon (and that Israel was not obliged to disclose its arms of choice in the slaughter of Palestinians) and that medical reports of terrifying new weapons leading to massive organ failure and an unprecedented number of amputations (especially in children) were made by Hamas sympathizers and could not be “independently” verified.

And that was just in the Arab world. Or, to be precise, it was “moderate” Arab media, setting the tone for the sorry spectacle of competing Arab summits that, after three weeks of inaction, achieved nothing as Gaza was pulverized in front of Arab leaders’ very eyes. Not only are the Palestinians cursed with an enemy like Israel, they have the misfortune of having friends like these.

These “friends” have explained that the 18-month siege of Gaza, leading to the practical starvation, strangulation and slow death of 1.5 million people, couldn’t be broken until the government that Palestinians elected democratically (in Gaza and the West Bank) was forced to stop launching rockets, accept Israel and live by its diktat. Egypt, consequently, could not simply open the Rafah border to save the lives of these desperate people, so its foreign minister threatened to break the legs of any Palestinian daring to cross over and an Israeli leader was invited to menace Palestine from Cairo, home to the Arab League and the moderate club. Just do it (but this time finish the job), seemed to be the consensus in the face of the inconvenient resistance group that makes regimes look bad.

On all fronts, the war on Gaza crossed new thresholds, fully exposing the reality of Israel’s criminal intentions and bringing the Arab-Israel conflict to the point of no return. Never before have so many people regressed in their attitude toward Israel or given up on peace and been willing to act on it: never forgive and never forget.

Nevertheless, a depressingly large number of Arab commentators reduced the suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of their tormentors to a competition between opposing alliances in the region; instead of concentrating on the fundamental issue of the Palestinian cause, they have been analyzing the effects of the last three weeks and trying to figure out who will benefit and who will lose.

If it is admitted that Israel did not achieve its vaguely declared goals in Gaza, goes one argument, then it signifies a victory for the countries supporting Hamas. Hence, Syria (and Iran, which has been designated as an instigator by the “moderates”) comes out of its isolation for the umpteenth time. Indeed, obsession with Syria remains ripe in a number of Arab countries that would apparently prefer an Israeli victory over the possibility of any sign of Syrian influence. The moderates are thus squarely blaming Hamas for provoking Israel (by refusing to accept the blockade), for not falling apart under its mighty onslaught and for giving Syria and its allies a boost. Unforgivable.

Unforgivable, also, were the repeated attempts by the new counter-axis of Syria, Qatar, Algeria and friends (including an increasingly outspoken Turkey) to call for an emergency Arab summit to discuss Israel’s attack on Gaza, thereby forcing others to take a position. The moderate club stayed away from Doha, ensuring that neither the Palestinian president nor the head of the Arab League could pretend that Gaza’s catastrophe merited a special meeting, as the issue could be tackled during the Kuwait economic summit. In fact, had it not been for the rage sweeping through the region and the world, where millions took to the streets demanding action against Israel, several Arab regimes would have been tempted to allow Israel more time to continue the massacre while they looked the other way. Deja vu, in a way, but in far worse circumstances for the current victims.

Not that it matters what one axis or the other actually does or says, nor what various analysts have tried to advocate (pathetically, from “sitting on the fence” to “passive resistance” and throwing flowers to child killers). Israel is on the loose, seemingly throwing a tantrum like a bully picking on the poorest and weakest kid in the neighborhood, but actually continuing a systematic process begun decades ago: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the beating of its original inhabitants into submission. Whether it is Islamic or secular, no Palestinian leadership will ever be acceptable to Israel until it bows to the Jewish state.

In Kuwait, Syrian President Bashar Assad invoked “an eye for an eye” and was incorrectly deemed to be waving the flag of religious duty, an ironic feat for a nominally secular regime that has repeatedly called for renewed peace talks. While the moderate club weakly hinted that its Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 wasn’t on the table forever (to the relief of Israel), Assad designated Israel as the terrorist state that many (Arabs and others) now openly proclaim it is and requested that all ties with Israel be broken (including the indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiations), giving many hope that Syria is committing to more than lip service to the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israel conflict.

Neither land nor peace came to Arabs as they needlessly offered successive concessions to Israel. It’s time the neighborhood bully was told it can’t get away with its crimes. In its present uncivilized state, until it learns to live and let live, Israel deserves nothing more than a resurrection of the three nos.- Published 22/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Rime Allaf is associate fellow at Chatham House.

Alex : )

I was thinking maybe more of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBIW4epK3QU

this prince has clearly run out of patience.

Important Question of the Day: Is Ramirez Jewish?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IMAGES/CARTOONS/toon123108.gif\

Enjoy…

http://www.investors.com/editorial/cartoon.asp

John Mearsheimer: “The two state solution is probably dead” – London Review of Books

The one supporters of the one state solution are increasing. It seems that Israel is still to grasp the magnitude of its latest savagery.

Also don’t miss:

Israel’s Lies
By Henry Siegman (Former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America, Director of the US Middle East Project in New York, is a visiting research professor at SOAS, University of London.)

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

Today’s Middle East Keyword: “Puppet”

At all cost, don’t be a “puppet”…

(translation: don’t even TRY to make peace with Israel)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232643727590&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Have fun George…

A definitive compilation of Israel as a “rogue” whose primary goal is to dominate rather than make concessions for peace.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/jan/26/00009/

GHAT ,

I posted the article for reference.

Captive Nation

How Gaza became a Palestinian prison

Avi Shlaim

The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On June 2, 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders.” I used to think that this judgment was too harsh, but Israel’s assault on Gaza and the Bush administration’s complicity have reopened the question.

I served loyally in the Israeli army in the 1960s and have never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the 1967 War had little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic, and military control over the Palestinian territories.

With a population of refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza’s prospects were never bright. Yet this is not an instance of economic underdevelopment but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into hewers of wood and the drawers of water—a source of cheap labor and a captive market for Israeli goods. Local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination and establish the economic underpinnings essential for independence.

In 2005, Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25 percent of the territory, 40 percent of the arable land, and the lion’s share of scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in unimaginable misery. Eighty percent still subsist on less than $2 per day. Living conditions remain an affront to civilized values, a powerful precipitant to resistance, and a breeding ground for extremism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it moved toward pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire. But Israel refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.

It continued to play the old game of divide-and-rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel supported nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. American neoconservatives participated in the plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to preempt a Fatah coup.

The war on Gaza is the culmination of confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people who elected it to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas until it agrees to a ceasefire on Israel’s terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians are seen by the world as a humanitarian problem, derailing their struggle for statehood.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression, but the asymmetry of power leaves little room for doubt as to who the real victim is. To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak—terror. The damage caused by these primitive Qassam rockets is minimal, but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Israel has the right to act in self-defense, but its response has been disproportionate. In the three years since the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis have been killed by rocket fire. In 2005 to 2007 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas—and Israel’s record is one of unremitting brutality toward the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel maintained the blockade after the ceasefire came into force, which in the view of Hamas leaders amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip. Officially, 49.1 percent of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing civilians could protect Israel. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment forbidden by international law.

The brutality of Israel’s soldiers is matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. Its core messages are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel’s objective is the defense of its population; and that Israel’s forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt civilians. But it was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire, with a raid into Gaza on Nov. 4 that killed six Hamas men. Israel’s objective is not just the defense of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002: it involves concessions and compromises.

Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders.” A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses WMD, and practices terrorism—the use of violence against civilians for political purposes.

Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbors but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians are of course free to repeat lies and mistakes. But it is not mandatory to do so. __________________________________________

Avi Shlaim is author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace. This essay is adapted from a piece that originally appeared in The Guardian.

The American Conservative welcomes letters to the editor.
Send letters to: letters@amconmag.com

Photos from the smashed neighbourhood of Tel Al Hawa, Gaza:

You can see the red crescent building, drugs warehouse, Al Quds hospital and kids play area, all hit by Israeli shells.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7844948.stm#

oh yes, they were assembling Qassams in the warehouse, ofcourse I don’t know that but I can guess this is going to be the IDF’s line.

The Finnish public service media company’s reporter (stationed in Jerusalem) was finally allowed to Gaza. In her report she told for example that in the houses where Israeli soldiers were staying were signs of vandalism by the soldiers. Carpets were smeared with excrement. Food was deliberately spoiled.

A reporter from Helsingin Sanomat (the largest news paper in Finland) wrote a couple of days ago a column about his experiences in Israel during the Gaza war, when he was trying to cover the events. He said that the Israeli military and other spokespersons were astonishing hyperactive and aggressive in trying all the time unasked to push their (=Israel’s) views. He said that nothing those persons told ended to pages of the newspaper. He ended his column by begging Israel to have during the next war less spokespersons and less propaganda.

The Israeli ambassador here must be working overtime in writing threatening letters to the editors and other influential persons in the media companies. By the way when the war started ambassador Avi Granot wrote a long opinion to Helsingin Sanomat’s opinion pages. Normal Israeli propaganda and excuses. Israeli ambassadors are the most active, this was not the first time, among different countries diplomats to write to the newspaper’s opinion pages. I do not remember any other ambassador using that method of trying to influence the public opinion. It would be interesting if they did. The Zimbabwe ambassador could write a lengthy opinion – there is no cholera in Zimbabwe, the Sri Lanka ambassador could enlighten us that the army doesn’t kill civilians etc. Normal Finns would have no chance complaining in the opinion pages of politics, universities financing, childcare and other of numerous things that bother people.