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By Jinjirrie, on May 22nd, 2010%
By Jinjirrie, on March 6th, 2009%
While Arab bloggers protest Israel’s despicable forced evictions and confiscations of Palestinian homes and land, in the West Bank, activist women prepare to march for International Women’s Day.
Tomorrow the nonviolent Palestinian resistance will take to their fields and towns, to their confiscated land to confront confiscation for the Wall and settlements.
Expectations are for a violent Israeli response that is an omnipresent aspect of the popular resistance. Western Ramallah’s Bil’in and Na’lin will demonstrate, as will Qalqilia’s Jayyous.
Tomorrow is a special day as every Friday the West Bank chooses a pertinent theme with which to devote demonstrations, in addition to protesting the general policy of the occupying Israeli authorities: last week it was the forcible destruction and eviction of East Jerusalem’s Silwan and Al Bustan to the south of Al Aqsa Mosque.
Tomorrow the honor will be paid to international women’s day. Southern Bethlehem’s Umm Salamuna is expected to come out in droves along with activists from throughout the province that received last week confiscation orders for dozens more dunams of its lands.
Women activists in Bethlehem issued an invitation to “all those of you who care about women’s issues.” Hundreds are expected on Friday.
Over at Jews sans Frontieres, Anthony Cordesman’s flawed CSIS report on Israel’s attack on Gaza is soundly examined and glaring omissions highlighted – Cordesman “diplomatically fails to mention the U.S. attempt to overthrow the elected Palestinian government that led to Hamas taking over”, “He also ignores that whole history of potential negotiations with Hamas”.
Cordesman’s work hards to absolve Israel from war crimes because he is concerned about the effects vigorous prosecution of such crimes would have on the deployment of U.S. forces.
…
Cordesman’s concern is to defend the right of the U.S. and it’s allies, whoever they may be, to fight “assymetric wars” that inherently depend on harm to civilians. International law in its present form is not congruent with the way U.S. strategic interests are evolving. (and U.S. hostility to the ICJ and other treaties that put limits on warfare is well known.) CSIS, and the corporate elite it serves, got its money’s worth.
On the boycott and apartheid front, the cessation of negotiations by the British Embassy with Leviev owned Africa-Israel, a company building on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank is a landmark decision, setting a terrific precedent for more UK divestments, boycotts and sanctions against Israel in the future.
Tony Greenstein is encouraged by the progress of the international boycott on apartheid Israel.
it is clear that the growing level of support for Boycott in the trade unions and similar organisations, coupled with a consumer boycott and individual businesses also refusing to trade with Israel is making its mark.
To keep an eye on – the “long-delayed trial of two former AIPAC staffers accused of passing classified info to the media and the Israeli government.” Gershom Gorenborg quotes Doug Bloomfield in the New Jersey Jewish News:
One of the topics AIPAC won’t want discussed, say these sources, is how closely it coordinated with Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1990s, when he led the Israeli Likud opposition and later when he was prime minister, to impede the Oslo peace process being pressed by President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.
That could not only validate AIPAC’s critics, who accuse it of being a branch of the Likud, but also lead to an investigation of violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“What they don’t want out is that even though they publicly sounded like they were supporting the Oslo process, they were working all the time to undermine it,” said a well-informed source.
Sphere: Related Content
By Jinjirrie, on February 10th, 2009%
Courtesy of the enterprising Mondoweiss, here’s a Google map of illegal Israeli settlements from the recently leaked database. The map will be updated as more data comes to light.
To help get the word out, Mondo reader Jamie Dyer has used the information in the translated excerpts of the database to create this google map. “Making the map helped me to see the strategic placement of these settlements. The hilltops are being systematically taken in a sort of inversion of the topography of justice,” Dyer writes.
Click on the blue teardrops for more in depth information.
Sphere: Related Content
By Jinjirrie, on January 31st, 2009%
Does anyone really take any notice of discredited Tony Bliar anymore? Still, as Middle East envoy for the Quartet, he has a whole story in Haaretz devoted to his thoughts on Hamas.
Blair is the Middle East envoy for the quartet of Middle East peace negotiators – the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.
Blair told the newspaper that that the strategy of “pushing Gaza aside” and trying to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank “was never going to work and will never work.”
“Yes, we do need to show through the change we are making on the West Bank that the Palestinian state could be a reality,” said Blair.
“The trouble is that if you simply try to push Gaza to one side then eventually what happens is the situation becomes so serious that it erupts and you deliver into the hands of the mass the power to erupt at any point in time.”
Blair repeated the Quartet position that there can be no talks, official or unofficial, with Hamas until they renounce violence and recognize Israel. However, he said that his “basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody.”
So what is he really saying? that his private position differs from that of the Quartet? furthermore has he REALLY noticed the changes on the West Bank in the past year?
In the Times, Bliar expands his position:
Hamas must somehow be brought into the Middle East peace process because the policy of isolating Gaza in the quest for a settlement will not work, …
In an interview with Ginny Dougary in the Saturday Magazine, Mr Blair says that the strategy of “pushing Gaza aside” and trying to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank “was never going to work and will never work”. He hints in references to how peace was eventually achieved in Northern Ireland that the time may be approaching to talk to Hamas … “My basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody.”
…
Mr Blair, speaking after talks with the new US envoy George Mitchell, says that Gaza will not be pushed aside because there are 1.25 million people there who want a Palestinian state.
However, he repeated the Quartet position that there can be no talks, official or unofficial, with Hamas until they renounce violence and recognise Israel.
Mr Blair then says that there is a distinction between the difficulty of negotiating with Hamas as part of a peace process if they would not accept one of the states in the two-state solution, and “talking to Hamas as the de facto power in Gaza”.
He declines to answer whether he has talked to Hamas unofficially, although his staff later insists that he has not, and that all contacts have been via Egyptian diplomats. Under intense questioning later he replies: “I do think it is important that we find a way of bringing Hamas into this process, but it can only be done if Hamas are prepared to do it on the right terms.”
Pressed to go further Mr Blair says that he has to be careful how he expresses things because “if you do this in the wrong way it can destabilise the very people in Palestine who have been working all through for the moderate cause”.
He added: “We do have to find a way of making sure that the choice is put before Hamas and the people of Gaza in a clear, understandable, unambiguous way, for them to choose their future. You have to find a way of communicating that choice to them in their terms. Now exactly what way you choose at the moment, that is an open question.”
Diplomats will point out that Mr Blair fully signed up to the Annapolis accord which envisaged the creation of a Palestinain state by the end of 2008 whether Gaza was part of it or not. Even though sceptics said that the goal was unrealistic, Mr Blair insisted that a deal could be done by the end of last year.
Why none of these Quartet goons recognise that it is the right under international law for an illegally occupied people to resist occupation with arms if necessary is beyond us. To not do so is to implicitly back fully Israel’s continued illegal occupation and repulsive domination of the Palestinian territories. Why are Palestinians denied the right to defend themselves from Israel’s obvious, disgusting aggression?
If Bibi Netanyahoo obtains power in the Israeli elections, extended confrontation between his goals to expand settlements and renounce previous agreements and Obama’s policies is liable to delay peace and the potential for a Palestinian state for years.
Hamas’ stance toward Israel’s demands is consolidated by senior member, Khalil Al-Hayya.
Hamas had not yielded on its demands that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza enclave be lifted and Gaza’s borders opened to normal trade, he said.
Hayya reaffirmed his group’s demands to conclude a prisoner swap with Israel that would see the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the return of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Gaza militants in 2006.
“Gilad Shalit will never see the light and life until our prisoners see the light among their women and children,” he said.
YnetNews steps up its vapid, transparent propaganda campaign, quoting unnamed sources in an attempt to show that Al Qaeda has thousands of supporters in Gaza. Who are they trying to kid? only the terminally stupid would believe such blatant manufactured claptrap.
Sphere: Related Content
By Jinjirrie, on January 30th, 2009%
From Haaretz, we find that a secret database has been revealed which details the extent of illegal Israeli settlements and how they were created and nurtured with the support of successive Israeli governments.
Just four years ago, the defense establishment decided to carry out a seemingly elementary task: establish a comprehensive database on the settlements. Brigadier General (res.) Baruch Spiegel, aide to then defense minister Shaul Mofaz, was put in charge of the project. For over two years, Spiegel and his staff, who all signed a special confidentiality agreement, went about systematically collecting data, primarily from the Civil Administration.
One of the main reasons for this effort was the need to have credible and accessible information at the ready to contend with legal actions brought by Palestinian residents, human rights organizations and leftist movements challenging the legality of construction in the settlements and the use of private lands to establish or expand them. The painstakingly amassed data was labeled political dynamite.
The defense establishment, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, steadfastly refused to publicize the figures, arguing, for one thing, that publication could endanger state security or harm Israel’s foreign relations. Someone who is liable to be particularly interested in the data collected by Spiegel is George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, who came to Israel this week for his first visit since his appointment. It was Mitchell who authored the 2001 report that led to the formulation of the road map, which established a parallel between halting terror and halting construction in the settlements.
The official database, the most comprehensive one of its kind ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. Here, for the first time, information the state has been hiding for years is revealed. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements – about 75 percent – construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police
stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.
Click here to view the secret Defense Ministry database on illegal construction in the territories. It should be noted that the information is given in Hebrew
The data, it should be stressed, do not refer only to the illegal outposts (information about which was included in the well-known report authored by attorney Talia Sasson and published in March 2005), but to the very heart of the settlement enterprise. Among them are veteran ideological settlements like Alon Shvut (established in 1970 and currently home to 3,291 residents, including Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun); Ofra (established in 1975, home to 2,708 residents, including
former Yesha Council spokesman Yehoshua Mor Yosef and media personalities Uri Elitzur and Hagai Segal); and Beit El (established in 1977, population 5,308, including Hagai Ben-Artzi, brother of Sara Netanyahu). Also included are large settlements founded primarily for economic motives, such as the city of Modi’in Illit (established in 1990 and now home to 36,282 people), or Givat Ze’ev outside Jerusalem (founded in 1983, population 11,139), and smaller settlements such as Nokdim near Herodion (established in 1982, population 851, including MK Avigdor Lieberman).
The information contained in the database does not conform to the state’s official position, as presented, for instance, on the Foreign Ministry Web site, which states: “Israel’s actions relating to the use and allocation of land under its administration are all taken with strict regard to the rules and norms of international law – Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements.” Since in many of the settlements, it was the government itself, primarily through the Ministry of Construction and Housing, that was responsible for construction, and since many of the building violations involve infrastructure, roads, public buildings and so on, the official data also demonstrate government responsibility for the unrestrained planning and lack of enforcement of regulations in the territories. The extent of building violations also attests to the poor functioning of
the Civil Administration, the body in charge of permits and supervision of construction in the territories.
According to the 2008 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 290,000 Jews live in the 120 official settlements and dozens of outposts established throughout the West Bank over the past 41 years.
“Nothing was done in hiding,” says Pinchas Wallerstein, director-general of the Yesha Council of settlements and a leading figure in the settlement project. “I’m not familiar with any [building] plans that were not the initiative of the Israeli government.” He says that if the owners of private land upon which settlements are built were to complain and the court were to accept their complaint, then the structures would have to be moved somewhere else. “This has been the Yesha
Council’s position for the past years,” he says.
You’d never know it from touring several of the settlements in which massive construction has taken place on private Palestinian lands. Entire neighborhoods built without permits or on private lands are inseparable parts of the settlements. The sense of dissonance only intensifies when you find that municipal offices, police and fire stations were also built upon and currently operate on lands that belong to Palestinians.
On Misheknot Haro’im Street in the Kochav Yaakov settlement, a young mother is carrying her two children home. “I’ve lived here for six years,” she says, sounding surprised when told that her entire neighborhood was built upon private Palestinian land. “I know that there’s some small area in the community that is in dispute, but I never heard that this is private land.” Would she have built her home on this land had she known this from the start? “No,” she answers. “I wouldn’t have kicked anyone out of his home.”
Not far away, at the settlement’s large and unkempt trailer site, which is also built on private land, a young newlywed couple is walking to the bus stop: 21-year-old Aharon and his 19-year-old wife, Elisheva. They speak nearly perfect Hebrew despite having grown up in the United States and having settled permanently in Israel just a few months ago, after Aharon completed his army service in the ultra-Orthodox Nahal unit. Now he is studying computers at Machon Lev in Jerusalem. Asked why they chose to live here of all places, they list three reasons: It’s close to Jerusalem, it’s cheap and it’s in the territories. In that order.
The couple pay their rent, NIS 550 a month, to the settlement secretariat. As new immigrants, they are still exempt from having to pay the arnona municipal tax. Aharon doesn’t look upset when he hears that his trailer sits on private land. It doesn’t really interest him. “I don’t care what the state says, the Torah says that the entire Land of Israel is ours.” And what will happen if they’re told to move to non-private land? “We’ll move,” he says without hesitation.
A complicated problem
Even today, more than two years after concluding his official role, Baruch Spiegel remains loyal to the establishment. In a conversation, he notes several times that he signed a confidentiality agreement and so is not willing to go into the details of the work for which he was responsible. He was appointed by Shaul Mofaz to handle several issues about which Israel had given a commitment to the United States, including improving conditions for Palestinians whose lives were adversely affected by the separation fence, and supervision of IDF soldiers at the checkpoints.
Two years ago, Haaretz reporter Amos Harel revealed that the main task given Spiegel was to establish and maintain an up-to-date database on the settlement enterprise. This was after it became apparent that the United States, as well as Peace Now’s settlement monitoring team, was in possession of much more precise information about settlement construction than was the defense establishment, which up to then had relied mostly on information collected by Civil Administration inspectors. The old database had many gaps in it, which was largely a consequence of the establishment preferring not to know exactly what was going on in this area.
Spiegel’s database contains written information backed up by aerial photos and layers of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data that includes information on the status of the land and the official boundaries of each settlement. “The work took two and a half years,” says Spiegel. “It was done in order to check the status of the settlements and the outposts and to achieve the greatest possible accuracy in terms of the database: the land status, the legal status, the sector boundaries, the city building plan, government decisions, lands whose ownership is unclear. It was full-time, professional work done with a professional team of legal experts, planning people, GIS experts. And I hope that this work continues, because it
is very vital. One has to know what’s going on there and make decisions accordingly.”
Who is keeping track of all of this now?
“I suppose it’s the Civil Administration.”
Why was there no database like this before your appointment?
“I don’t know how much of a focus there was on doing it.”
Why do you think the state is not publicizing the data?
“It’s a sensitive and complex subject and there are all kinds of considerations, political and security-related. There were questions about the public’s right to know, the freedom of information law. You should ask the officials in charge.”
What are the sensitive matters?
“It’s no secret that there are violations, that there are problems having to do with land. It’s a complicated problem.”
Is there also a problem for the country’s image?
“I didn’t concern myself with image. I was engaged in Sisyphean work to ensure that, first of all, they’ll know what exists and what’s legal and what’s not legal and what the degree of illegality is, whether it involves the takeover of private Palestinian land or something in the process of obtaining proper building permits. Our job was to do the meticulous work of going over all the settlements and outposts that existed then – We found what we found and passed it on.”
Do you think that this information should be published?
“I think they’ve already decided to publish the simpler part, concerning areas of jurisdiction. There are things that are more sensitive. It’s no secret that there are problems, and it’s impossible to do something illegal and say that it’s legal. I can’t elaborate, because I’m still bound to maintain confidentiality.”
Dror Etkes, formerly the coordinator of Peace Now’s settlement monitoring project and currently director of the Land Advocacy Project for the Yesh Din organization, says, “The government’s ongoing refusal to reveal this material on the pretext of security reasons is yet another striking example of the way in which the state exploits its authority to reduce the information at the citizens’ disposal, when they wish to formulate intelligent positions based on facts rather than lies and half-truths.”
Following the initial exposure of the material, the Movement for Freedom of Information and Peace Now requested that the Defense Ministry publish the database, in accordance with the Freedom of Information law. The Defense Ministry refused. “This is a computerized database that includes detailed information, in different cross-sections, regarding the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria,” the Defense Ministry said in response. “The material was collected by the defense establishment for its purposes and includes sensitive information. The ministry was asked to allow a review of the material in accordance with the Freedom of Information law, and after consideration of the request, decided not to hand over the material. The matter is pending and is the subject of a petition before the Administrative Affairs Court in Tel Aviv.”
Ofra, Elon Moreh, Beit El
The database surveys settlement after settlement alphabetically. For each entry, it notes the source of the settlement’s name and the form of settlement there (urban community, local council, moshav, kibbutz, etc.); its organizational affiliation (Herut, Amana, Takam, etc.), the number of inhabitants, pertinent government decisions, the official bodies to which the land was given, the status of the land upon which the settlement was built (state land, private Palestinian or Jewish land, etc.), a survey of the illegal outposts built in proximity to the settlement and to what extent the valid building plans have been executed. Beneath each entry, highlighted in red, is information on the extent of construction that has been carried out without permission and its exact location in the settlement.
Among all the revelations in the official data, it’s quite fascinating to see what was written about Ofra, a veteran Gush Emunim settlement. According to a recent B’tselem report, most of the settlement’s developed area sits on private Palestinian land and therefore falls into the category of an illegal outpost that is supposed to be evacuated. The Yesha Council responded to the B’tselem report, saying that the “facts” in it are “completely baseless and designed to present a false picture. The inhabitants of Ofra are careful to respect the rights of the Arab landowners, with whom they reached an agreement regarding the construction of the neighborhoods as well as an agreement that enables the private landowners to continue to work their lands.”
But the information in the database about Ofra leaves no room for doubt: “The settlement does not conform to valid building plans. A majority of the construction in the community is on registered private lands without any legal basis whatsoever and no possibility of [converting the land to non-private use].” The database also gives a detailed description of where construction was carried out in Ofra without permits: “The original part of the settlement: [this includes] more than 200 permanent residential structures, agricultural structures, public structures, lots, roads and orchards in the old section of the settlement (in regard to which Plan 221 was submitted, but not advanced due to a problem of ownership).” After mentioning 75 trailers and temporary shelters in two groups within the old settlement, the database mentions the Ramat Zvi neighborhood, south of the original settlement: “There are about 200 permanent structures as well as lots being developed for additional permanent construction, all trespassing on private lands.” Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan responds: “I am not familiar with that data.”
Another place where the data reveals illegal construction is Elon Moreh, one of the most famous settlements in the territories. In June 1979, several residents of the village of Rujib, southeast of Nablus, petitioned the High Court, asking it to annul the appropriation order for 5,000 dunams of land in their possession, that had been designated for the construction of the settlement. In court, the government argued, as it did regularly at the time, that the construction of the settlement was required for military needs, and therefore the appropriation orders were legal. But in a statement on behalf of the petitioners, former chief of staff Haim Bar-Lev asserted that, “In my best professional judgment, Elon Moreh does not contribute to Israel’s security.”
The High Court, relying on this statement and the statements of the original core group of settlers of Elon Moreh, who also argued that this was not a temporary settlement established for security purposes, but a permanent settlement, instructed the IDF to evacuate the settlement and return the lands to their owners. The immediate consequence of the ruling was to find an alternative site for construction of the settlement, on lands previously defined as “state lands.” Following this ruling, Israel stopped officially using military injunctions in the territories for the purpose of establishing new settlements.
The lands that were originally taken for the purpose of building Elon Moreh were returned to their Palestinian owners, but according to the database, also in the new site where the settlement was built, called Har Kabir, “most of the construction was done without approved, detailed plans, and some of the construction involved trespassing on private lands. As for the state lands in the settlement, a detailed plan, no. 107/1, was prepared and published on 16/7/99, but has yet to go into effect.”
The Shomron regional council, which includes Elon Moreh, said in response: “All the neighborhoods in the settlement were planned, and some were also built, by the State of Israel through the Housing Ministry. The residents of Elon Moreh did not trespass at all and any allegation of this kind is also false. The State of Israel is tasked with promoting and approving the building plans in the settlement, as everywhere else in the country, and as for the plans that supposedly have yet to receive final validity, just like many other communities throughout Israel, where the processes continue for decades, this does not delay the plans, even if the planning is not complete or being done in tandem.”
Beit El, another veteran settlement, was also, according to the database, established “on private lands seized for military purposes (In fact, the settlement was expanded on private lands, by means of trespassing in the northern section of the settlement) and on state lands that were appropriated during the Jordanian period (the Maoz Tzur neighborhood in the south of the settlement).”
According to the official data, construction in Beit El in the absence of approved plans includes the council office buildings and the “northern neighborhood (Beit El Bet) that was built for the most part on private lands. The neighborhood comprises widespread construction, public buildings and new ring roads (about 80 permanent buildings and trailers); the northeastern neighborhood (between Jabal Artis and the old part of the settlement) includes about 20 permanent residential buildings, public buildings (including a school building), 40 trailers and an industrial zone (10 industrial buildings). The entire compound is located on private land and has no plan attached.”
Moshe Rosenbaum, head of the Beit El local council, responds: “Unfortunately, you are cooperating with the worst of Israel’s enemies and causing tremendous damage to the whole country.”
‘One giant bluff’
Ron Nahman, mayor of Ariel, was re-elected to a sixth term in the last elections. Nahman is a long-time resident of the territories and runs a fascinating heterogeneous city. Between a visit to the trailer site where evacuees from Netzarim are housed and a stop at a shop that sells pork and other non-kosher products, mostly to the city’s large Russian population, Nahman complains about the halting of construction in his city and about his battles with the Civil
Administration over every building permit.
Ariel College, Nahman’s pride and joy, is also mentioned in the database: “The area upon which Ariel College was built was not regulated in terms of planning.” It further explains that the institution sits on two separate plots and the new plan has not yet been discussed. Nahman confirms this, but says the planning issue was recently resolved.
When told that dozens of settlements include construction on private lands, he is not surprised. “That’s possible,” he says. The fact that in three-quarters of the settlements, there has been construction that deviates from the approved plans doesn’t surprise him either. “All the complaints should be directed at the government, not at us,” he says. “As for the small and communal settlements, they were planned by the Housing Ministry’s Rural Building Administration. The larger communities are planned by the ministry’s district offices. It’s all the government. Sometimes the Housing Ministry is responsible for budgetary construction, which is construction out of the state budget. In the Build Your Own Home program, the state pays a share of the development costs and the rest is paid for by the individual. All of these things are one giant bluff. Am I the one who planned the settlements? It was Sharon, Peres, Rabin, Golda, Dayan.”
The database provides information attesting to a failure to adhere to planning guidelines in the territories. For example, an attempt to determine the status of the land of the Argaman settlement in the Jordan Rift Valley found that “the community was apparently established on the basis of an appropriation order from 1968 that was not located.” About Mevo Horon, the database says: “The settlement was built without a government decision on lands that are mostly private within a closed area in the Latrun enclave (Area Yod). There was an allocation
for the area to the WZO from 1995, which was issued as in a deviation from authority, apparently on the basis of a political directive.” In the Tekoa settlement, trailers were leased to the IDF “and installed contrary to the area’s designation according to a detailed plan? and some also deviate from the boundaries of the plan.”
Most of the territories of the West Bank have not been annexed to Israel, and therefore regulations for the establishment and construction of communities there differ from those that apply within Israel proper. The Sasson report, which dealt with the illegal outposts, was based in part on data collected by Spiegel, and listed the criteria necessary for the establishment of a new settlement in the territories:
1. The Israeli government issued a decision to establish the settlement
2. The settlement has a defined jurisdictional area
3. The settlement has a detailed, approved outline plan
4. The settlement lies on state land or on land that was purchased by Israelis and registered under their name in the Land Registry.
According to the database, the state gave the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and/or the Construction and Housing Ministry authorization to plan and build on most of the territories upon which the settlements were constructed. These bodies allocated the land to those who eventually carried out the actual construction of the settlement: Sometimes it was the Settlement Division of the WZO and other times it was the Construction and Housing Ministry itself, sometimes through the Rural Building Administration. In several cases, settlements were built by Amana, the Gush Emunim settlement arm. Another body cited in the database as having received allocations and being responsible for construction in some of the settlements is Gush Emunim’s Settler National Fund.
Talmud Torah
@Text: Regular schools and religious schools (Talmudei Torah) have also been built on Palestinian lands. According to the database, in the southern part of the Ateret settlement, “15 structures were built outside of state lands, which are used for the Kinor David yeshiva. There are also new ring roads and a special security area that is illegal.” Kinor David is the name of a “yeshiva high school with a musical framework.” The sign at the entrance says the yeshiva was built by the Amana settlement movement, the Mateh Binyamin local council and the
WZO settlement division.
The data regarding Michmash also make it very clear that part of the settlement was built on “private lands via trespassing.” For example, “In the center of the settlement (near the main entrance) is a trailer neighborhood that serves as a Talmud Torah and other buildings (30 trailers) on private land.”
On a winter’s afternoon, a bunch of young children were playing there, one of them wearing a shirt printed with the words “We won’t forget and we won’t
forgive.” There were no teachers in sight. A young woman in slacks, taking her baby to the doctor, stopped for a moment to chat. She moved here from Ashkelon because her husband’s parents are among the settlement’s founders. When her son is old enough for preschool, she won’t send him to the Talmud Torah. Not because it sits on private land, but just because that’s not the type of education she wants for him. “I don’t think there’s been construction on private land here,” she said. “I don’t think there ought to be, either.”
In the Psagot settlement, where there has also been a lot of construction on private land, it’s easy to discern the terracing style typical of Palestinian agriculture in the region. According to the database, in Psagot there are “agricultural structures (a winery and storehouses) to the east of the settlement, close to the grapevines cultivated by the settlement by trespassing.” During a visit here, the winery was abandoned. Its owner, Yaakov Berg, acquired land from the Israel Lands Administration near the Migron outpost and a new winery and regional visitors’ center is currently under construction there.
“The vineyards are located in Psagot,” says Berg, who is busy with the preparations for the new site. From the unfinished observation deck one can see an enormous quarry in the mountains across the way. “If I built a bathroom here without permission from the Civil Administration, within 15 minutes, a helicopter would be here and I’d be told that it was prohibited,” Berg complains. “And right here there’s an illegal Palestinian quarry that continues to operate.”
The politicians did it
Kobi Bleich, spokesperson for the Ministry of Construction and Housing: “The ministry participates in subsidizing the development costs of settlements in Priority Area A, in accordance with decisions of the Israeli government. Development works are carried out by the regional councils, and only after the ministry has ascertained that the new neighborhood is located within an approved city plan. This applies throughout Israel as well as in the areas over the Green Line. Let me emphasize that the ministry’s employees are charged with implementing the policies of the Israeli government. All of the actions in the past were
done solely in keeping with the decisions of the political echelon.”
Danny Poleg, spokesperson for the Judea and Samaria district of the Israel Police: “The issue of the construction of police facilities is the responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Security, so any questions should be addressed to them.”
The Internal Security Ministry spokesman responds: “And for construction by the police is allocated by the Israel Lands Administration in coordination with the Internal Security Ministry. There is no police station in Modi’in Ilit, but a rapid response post for the local residents on land allocated by the local authority. The land in Givat Ze’ev was allocated by the local council and the police station is located within the municipality. The road to the police headquarters was built by the Housing and Construction ministry and is maintained by the local council.”
Avi Roeh, head of the Mateh Binyamin regional council (whose jurisdiction includes the settlements of Ofra, Kochav Yaakov, Ateret, Ma’aleh Michmash and Psagot): “The Mateh Binyamin regional council, like the neighboring councils in Judea and Samaria, is coping with political decisions regarding the manner of the the communities’ expansion. However, this does not remove the need for proper planning procedures in order to expand the settlements in an orderly manner and in accordance with the law.”
For its response, the WZO sent a thick booklet, a copy of which was previously sent to attorney Talia Sasson in response to her report. “Settlement in Judea and Samaria, as in Israel, has been accompanied by the preparation of regional master plans,” says the booklet. “Steering committees from various government ministries, the Civil Administration and the municipal authorities were involved in the preparation of these plans? The (settlement) department worked solely on lands that were given to it by contract from the authorities in the Civil Administration and all the lands that were allocated to it by contract were properly
allocated.”
The Civil Administration, which was first asked for a response regarding the database more than a month ago, has yet to reply.
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By Jinjirrie, on January 29th, 2009%
Mitchell has his plate full – Zionist land thieving in the form of settlements and outposts accelerated more rapidly in 2008 than in 2007 according to Peace Now’s latest report.
… there were 285,800 settlers living in the West Bank as of 2008, with 1,518 new structures built in the territories last year, including 261 outposts.
Sixty-one percent of the new structures were built west of the route of the separation fence and 39% were built east of it. A quarter of the new structures east of the fence were built in outposts.
At least 1,257 new structures were built in existing settlements, including 748 permanent buildings and 509 caravans compared to 800 structures in 2007 – a 60% rise. In addition the ground was prepared for the construction of 63 new structures.
…
Yesha Council said in response, “Once again we thank Peace Now for allocating the money they get from the European Union towards documenting the most important Zionist enterprise of our generation – settling in Judea and Samaria.”
The Council added that “some of the data are not exactly accurate. The number of settlers today according to official data stands at over 300,000 Israelis.
“Regarding the allegations of ‘taking advantage’ of the war to pave roads, all of Israel knows who took advantage of the war to demonstrate against IDF soldiers and who sent their sons to the front line to give their soul in defense of the State.”
Meanwhile, the Yesha Council plans to welcome American Envoy George Mitchell.
On Wednesday, settlers will put on a special presentation titled “A Palestinian state will blow up in our face”, in an attempt to illustrate the “dangers establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samara would pose on central Israel, following the lessons learned from the disengagement, the rockets on Beersheba, Gedera and the war in the south”.
NEWSFLASH!
On Friday 30th January at 10am Sydney time, Cameron Reilly of GDay World Podcasting will be organising a live Twitstream in conjunction with his show. Special guest is Antony Loewenstein, journalist, blogger and author, on the show to discuss the recent and current events in Gaza.
Visit GDay World for more information.
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By Jinjirrie, on January 27th, 2009%
Barak brands Livni as ‘dangerous’ – how’s that for a whopping Pot, Kettle, Black?
Netanyahoo is ahead in the Israeli election polls – Barak may be positioning himself in a future Knesset coalition.
Israeli voters do not like governments with bad relations with the US as would probably be the case if Mr Netanyahu relied solely on the right-wing parties. Instead he will probably bring in Labour or Kadima to give his coalition a more moderate image but without diluting his basic opposition to concessions to the Palestinians.
Far right Yisrael Beiteinu leader and genocidalist Avigdor Lieberman is suspected of money laundering with several associates including family members being arrested.
Anti-arab ethnic cleansing fervour is now rampant amongst Israeli youth -
anti-Arab sentiment in the country has never been greater. The Lieberman party “ultimately seeks a direct clash with the Arab citizens in Israel” he said. And he worries that “there’s no serious effort to stop it.”
The 100 people at the Yisrael Beitenu rally for English-speaking voters Thursday night in Jerusalem certainly don’t want to stop it. “It’s the clarity of it that’s so appealing,” said Yona Triestman, a thirtysomething who works helping new immigrants settle in Israel. And the message certainly is straightforward. At the end of the night, Uzi Landau, a former Likud cabinet minister now running for Yisrael Beitenu, leaned forward and wagged his index finger at the audience. “There’s just one thing you have to remember about our platform,” he said, “just one thing to tell your friends: ‘No loyalty, no citizenship.’ “
Mondoweiss draws attention to the actions of the International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK), a non-governmental organization registered with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The organisation has
submitted a “Letter of Notification and Referral” to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court outlining the case for the arrest of 15 Israeli political and military leaders for crimes committed in Gaza in violation of the Rome Statute and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
It has also issued an international appeal for information about the undermentioned war crimes suspects. Members of the public in Israel and throughout the world who have information about the travel plans or whereabouts of the undermentioned suspects when they are outside Israel should report this immediately to:
The Prosecutor
P.O. Box 19519
2500 Hague
Netherlands
Fax +31 70 515 8 555
otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int
The Israeli war crimes suspects are:
1. Ehud Barak
2. Amir Peretz
3. Binyamin Ben Eliezer
4. Avi Dichter
5. Carmi Gillon
6. Dan Halutz
7. Doron Almog
8. Ehud Olmert
9. Eliezer Shkedy
10. Gabi Ashkenazi
11. Giora Eiland
12. Matan Vilnai
13. Moshie Bogie Yaalon
14. Shaul Mofaz
15. Tzipi Livni
Uri Avnery points out that Israel Screwed Itself Over with Its Gaza Assault; the World Sees It as a ‘Blood-Stained Monster’
There is widespread anger in Egypt at Mubarak regime
Muhammad lights up a cigarette and quietly utters an oath directed at Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The 25-year-old expresses what many Egyptians think at present: “Mubarak is a swine who has worked together with Israel to turn Gaza into a prison and is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians.”
The student from downtown Cairo continues to speak harshly about the government. Today, three days after Israeli troops began to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, he remains angry and criticizes the role played by Egypt in the Gaza conflict. “Probably Mubarak gave [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni permission to attack Hamas, which he regards as a thorn in his side.”
In fact, Livni met Mubarak two days prior to the Israeli attack and, according to a report in the Israeli daily Haa’retz, Egyptian government officials were informed in advance of the planned offensive.
US Media Accused of Racist Gaza Coverage
Though Becker criticized the corporate media as a whole for its coverage of Gaza and Israel-Palestine issues, the Jan. 16th protest sponsored by ANSWER and MAS (the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation) demonstrated at the Post in particular because, at the height of Israel’s assault on Gaza, four major protests against Israel’s actions took place in Washington and the Post did not cover any of them.
“Not one word has been written about any of the protests”, Becker complained. While the Post is usually seen as one of the four most prestigious and influential newspapers in the U.S. and is expected to cover important national issues and debates on foreign policy, their news blackout on the protests also had a local component: “The Post prides itself on having very strong local coverage,” Becker claimed. “The Arab-American community, which is an important part of Washington, D.C., came out in tens of thousands and were totally ignored by the Post.”
More symptoms of Israeli fascism – Army rabbi ‘gave out hate leaflet to troops’
The Israeli army’s chief rabbinate gave soldiers preparing to enter the Gaza Strip a booklet implying that all Palestinians are their mortal enemies and advising them that cruelty is sometimes a “good attribute”.
…
In one section, Rabbi Aviner compares Palestinians to the Philistines, a people depicted in the Bible as a war-like menace and existential threat to Israel.
In another, the army rabbinate appears to be encouraging soldiers to disregard the international laws of war aimed at protecting civilians, according to Breaking the Silence, the group of Israeli ex-soldiers who disclosed its existence. The booklet cites the renowned medieval Jewish sage Maimonides as saying that “one must not be enticed by the folly of the Gentiles who have mercy for the cruel”.
Jimmy Carter has weighed into the conflagration stating:
Israel will face a “catastrophe” unless it revives the Mideast peace process and establishes an independent Palestinian state.
Carter pointed out in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land in the foreseeable future.
He said that would leave Israel with three options: expelling many Palestinians, keeping the Palestinians but depriving them of equal voting rights, or giving them equal voting rights, which would give the Palestinians a majority.
He said that with the third option, one would no longer have a Jewish state.
In Ynetnews, Carter’s comments are expanded:
Hamas can be trusted, former US President Jimmy Carter said Monday, in an interview on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. Carter spoke with NBC’s Meredith Vieira about his perspective on the Middle East conflict, and his new book, “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land.”
According to the former president, Hamas never deviated from their commitments as per the ceasefire agreement. He said that, during his meetings with Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza, he was promised that Hamas would honor agreements between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, as long as they were supported by public referendum.
Hamas did bad things. I’m not defending them. But they did adhere to the ceasefire fully, Carter maintained. He added that Israel has a choice between a one-state solution – which is, for Israel, a catastrophe, and a two-state solution, which everyone would support.
…
Sunday, Carter met with President Barack Obama’s new US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. While Carter is not certain Obama should speak directly with Hamas, he believes that Mitchell should, explaining that “there won’t be peace in the Middle East without Hamas involvement.”
But despite the obstacle of Hamas involvement, the former president expressed optimism for peace. “Despite the recent lack of progress, I see this as a unique time for hope, not despair. The outlines of a peace agreement are clear and have broad international support,” he told NBC.
“There is a remarkable compatibility among pertinent United Nations resolutions, previous peace agreements reached at Camp David and in Oslo, the publicly declared policy of the United States, the Geneva Accord, key goals of the International Quartet’s Roadmap for Peace, and tentative proposals made by all Arab nations for reconciliation with Israel,” he said.
“Perhaps most important, there is an overwhelming common desire for peaceful and prosperous lives among the citizens of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt,” he added.
Francis A. Boyle discusses international law and Israel’s war on Gaza. He sets the agenda for an international legal response:
First, we must immediately move for the de facto suspension of Israel throughout the entirety of the United Nations system, including the General Assembly and all UN subsidiary organs and bodies. We must do to Israel what the UN General Assembly has done to the genocidal rump Yugoslavia and to the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa! Here the legal basis for the de facto suspension of Israel at the UN is quite simple:
As a condition for its admission to the United Nations Organization, Israel formally agreed to accept General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) (1947) (partition/Jerusalem trusteeship) and General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) (1948) (Palestinian right of return), inter alia. Nevertheless, the government of Israel has expressly repudiated both Resolution 181 (II) and Resolution 194 (III). Therefore, Israel has violated its conditions for admission to UN membership and thus must be suspended on a de facto basis from any participation throughout the entire United Nations system.
Second, any further negotiations with Israel must be conducted on the basis of Resolution 181 (II) and its borders; Resolution 194 (III); subsequent General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions; the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949; the 1907 Hague Regulations; and other relevant principles of public international law.
Third, we must abandon the fiction and the fraud that the United States government is an “honest-broker.” The US government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the US has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians. We need to establish some type of international framework to sponsor these negotiations where the Palestinian negotiators will not be subjected to the continual bullying, threats, harassment, intimidation and outright lies perpetrated by the United States government.
Fourth, we must move to have the UN General Assembly impose economic, diplomatic, and travel sanctions upon Israel pursuant to the terms of the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), whose Emergency Special Session on Palestine is now in recess.
Fifth, the provisional government of the State of Palestine must sue Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for inflicting acts of genocide against the Palestinian People in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention!
Sixth, An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) can be established by the UN General Assembly as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter. Article 22 states the UN General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offenses against the Palestinian people.
On Jan. 4, 2009, Nobel Peace laureate, Mairead Maguire wrote to the UN Secretary- General, Ban Ki-moon and Father Miguel D’Escoto, president of United Nations General Assembly adding her voice to the many calls from international jurists, human rights organizations, and individuals, for the UN General Assembly to seriously consider establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel in view of the ongoing Israeli atrocities against the people of Gaza and Palestine.
Maguire said:
“In November 2008 I visited Gaza and was shocked at the suffering of the people of Gaza, being under ‘siege’ as they are for over two years. This collective punishment by the Israeli government, has led to a great humanitarian crisis. Collective punishment of the civilian community by the Israeli government breaks the Geneva Convention, is illegal and is a war crime and crime against humanity.
“Instead of protecting the civilian community of Gaza and relieving their suffering by lifting the ‘siege’, the Israeli military have carried out 7 days of consecutive bombardment of civilians, by sea and air. Dropping Israeli bombs from the air and sea on unarmed civilians, many women and children, destroying mosques, hospitals, and homes, and infrastructure, is illegal and constitutes war crimes. The deaths of people in Gaza are now over 1,500 with over 5,500 people injured – many of them women and children. The infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed, and the people cut off from the world – including journalists, humanitarian workers, locked out of Gaza, and unable to go to the aid of the people.
“The UN must help uphold human rights and justice for Palestinian people, by seriously considering establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel, (ICTI) in order that Israeli government be held accountable for war crimes.”
The Fringe’s post on BBC partiality to Israel has been updated with numerous new sources detailing interference with the BBC by Israel.
Time Magazine reveals more about Israeli use of white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza.
“I saw my mother coming towards me. She was on fire. I threw a blanket around her to try to put out the flames but she kept on burning. I went to Saadallah who was lying on the ground with his three young kids wrapped inside his coat. He was trying to protect them. But the coat had caught fire, too. When I tried to pull the kids away, their flesh came off in my hands.”
With help from the neighbors, they got the burn victims into the back of a pick-up truck, but as Mahmoud said of his family: “They were hardly human. They were like coal.”
Their appalling luck got worse. As they were driving to the hospital, an Israeli sniper, possibly fearing suicide bombers, shot and killed the driver, Mahmoud says. His wife and daughter were also among the phosphorus victims, and still alive. “I pleaded with the soldiers not to shoot again. I explained that we were taking our family to the hospital. They made me take off my clothes and when they saw I didn’t have a bomb or a weapon, they let me carry my wife and daughter to the hospital –-on foot.”
Munir Chalabi’s article at ZNet makes better points on US support of its blood-stained policeman in the ME than Chomsky.
The overwhelming indications are that the Israeli war on Gaza was not just an attempt by the Israeli army to stop the home-made Hamas rockets being fired on Southern Israel, as the Israelis together with the US administration, European governments and the so-called ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ want us to believe.
It was a pre-planned war by all the above parties in this US/Israeli-led alliance against the Palestinian people and their resistance movements in Palestine. It represents the final attempt by the US neo-conservatives, before the Bush administration leaves office, to resolve the Palestinian problem once and for all. The Israeli war on Gaza was only another step in the plan of the US, Israel and the ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ to build their ‘New Middle East’.
The scale of this war was an indication of its goals, and the steps taken and statements made by the many leaders in this camp, including the public statements by King Abdulla of Jordan and Middle East envoy Tony Blair during and prior to the start of the war, corroborate such a conclusion.[1]
The war on Gaza is the second stage in the plan. The first stage was the 18 month economic siege of Gaza by Israel, Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas’s corrupt and illegal government in Ramallah, which aimed to topple Hamas and all the other Palestinian resistance movements by using the blockade on all of life’s basic necessities to the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in order to force them to surrender.
In this plan against the Palestinian resistance, Egypt moved to become one of the most significant players by openly taking on a major supporting role. The siege of Gaza was not only an Israeli blockade, but also a well coordinated blockade by Egypt, following complete closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
In order to understand how the Israeli war on Gaza was an integral part of this plan, we have to stop and have a more comprehensive look at the political map of the Middle East and the strategies of all the parties involved.
Since the neo-conservatives took control of all the positions of power in the US, both battle grounds in the Middle East — the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab region and the Arab/Persian gulf region — became deeply divided into two political camps, with two opposing strategies, and no prospect for peace in the foreseeable future.
The first camp is the US/Israeli-led camp or, as it is called in the West, ‘The Moderate’s alliance’, which consists mainly of three devoted and corrupt pro-western Arab regimes. The first is the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, with their financial might, headed by King Abdulla and his foreign minister Prince Faisal, and from behind the scenes, by Prince ‘Bender bin Sultan,’ the head of the Saudi intelligence services, who is a close friend of the Bush family. The second is the Egyptian regime headed up since 1981 by the Egyptian ruler and air force General President Mubarak, his chief of the intelligence service, General Suleiman, together with their foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.[2] The third is the Jordanian regime, where all the power is in the hands of the King, assisted by his well established internal security forces.
As well as the above three main Arab partners of the US/Israeli plan, there stand several Arab governments and political groups within a number of other Middle Eastern countries.
First among them is the pro-Oslo illegitimately ruling Palestinian group in Ramallah (part of the old Fatah movement’s traditional leadership, which were spared their lives by Israel for political reasons), which is headed by President Mahmud Abbas with his illegally appointed Palestinian government of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah. The second is the 14th of March group in Lebanon which is in command of the existing Lebanese government and headed by the Saudi/Lebanese young Sheikh, Al-Hariri. The third are the US friends in the ‘front of the moderates’ government in Iraq, whose role is restricted to the Gulf area, but the US has difficulties with them as they cannot trust all of their Iraqi acquaintances in the long term. There are other governments in the Arab world which are part of this camp: They include five of the kingdoms and states of the ‘Gulf Council States’ and the North African Arab governments.
The main objectives of the US/Israeli strategy for this alliance is to integrate Israel so it becomes part of the Middle East region, and at the same time continue their old policy of ensuring that Israel will be developed more effectively as the US’s policeman for the area, using its military and economic superiority as the main tool. In order to do so, they first needed to constitute Israel as the check on Iran, which was portrayed as a looming threat to the Arab world. This undertaking, which is part of America’s project for a “New Middle East,” was kicked off prior to Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006 and was presented as the concluding phase of the neo-conservatives’ plan for the area.
That is why we are able to recognise a number of similarities between US and Israeli policy, similarities that are clearly apparent in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon — the three countries representing the front lines of the war. These are under either full or partial US or Israeli occupation and the Israeli policies here are dominated by the US Administration.
All the US/Israeli policies are based on increasing the political divisions in every Arab and Muslim country and creating two separate and opposing fronts. The first, which is influenced by them, is called the “moderate front,” and the second, which is opposed to their policies, they call the “terrorist front” or the front which is controlled by Iran.
In all three countries, the US/Israeli policies involve pressurising their allies to take full control of the political arena, instigating conflicts between the two sides in each country to bring it to the edge of armed conflict or even start violent confrontations between them. They attempt to play on the sectarian divisions, as in the cases of Iraq and Lebanon — and where such divisions do not exist, they will instead use political divisions, as in the case of Palestine.
It is also noticeable that the divisions between the two fronts in most cases are between the political parties and movements who are opposed to the US and Israeli military occupation and the ones who are ready to accept their influence and co-operate with them.
The second camp is the resistance camp and in it stands a coalition of governments and movements which to diverse degrees reject the US/Israeli domination plans and are called ‘the terrorists’ by the US and Israelis, or ‘the extremist’ governments and movements by most of the European governments. This alliance includes the Iranians, the Syrian government, the democratically elected government of Hamas and their allies, Al-Jihad Al Islami movement in Palestine, together with Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance in Lebanon. It also comprises the Sadr movement in Iraq and the Muslim brotherhood movement in Egypt, together with many other smaller political parties and groups. However, the most important asset this alliance has comes from the increasing support given to them by the vast majority of ordinary people around the Arab and Islamic world.[3]
The developing strategy of the core of this resistance camp is that they consider the US and Israel to be the key enemies to the people in the area. They believe that the US is a foreign imperialistic power, which wants to control the destiny of the region’s people by using Israel as its main instrument, and their friends, the Arab rulers in the ‘coalition of the moderates’ as a secondary, but important internal tool to implement the neo-conservative strategy.
The main driving force of this camp is Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas. Iran is like any other country in the Middle East that wants to stay independent from US control but is today surrounded by US forces on all sides, which creates a very real threat to them. They are always considered by the US to be the “Great Satan” and Israel is its principal enemy in the Middle East. Most of the other parties in this alliance share this belief, but to various degrees. All of the US administrations and Israeli governments have considered the Iranian and Syrian governments, Hezbollah and Hamas as their main enemies and the major obstacle to their control of the Arab and Islamic world.
The war on Gaza has widened the support for the resistance camp, gathering additional backing from other Muslim people and governments who previously felt that this struggle was not part of their political agenda. Of most significance has been the support from the Qatari government and the massive support from the millions of ordinary Turkish people and their government to the Palestinian people. This further support has strengthened this camp, but on the other hand these additional elements should not be counted as internal parts of the resistance alliance.
The division between the two camps which exists in the Palestinian occupied territory, the alliance of all the Palestinian resistance movements on the one hand and the pro-Oslo group lead by Abbas, who hijacked the leadership of Fatah movement and the control of the West Bank on the other, is deepening.
This is evident when we look at the division between Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine. The Gaza strip is now represented by the Palestinian resistance movements and the legally elected Palestinian government of Mr. Haniya. Conversely, we see that the West Bank is ruled by the pro-Oslo group led by Abbas and the illegally appointed government of Salam Fayyad — which utilises over 10,000 armed personnel (trained by Egyptian and Jordanian security services), the so-called ‘National Palestinian police force’ and ‘Presidential guards’ who are under the control of US General Dayton with the assistance of another two US generals and in full co-operation with the Israeli security services. Over 1,000 prisoners from Hamas and other resistance movements have been put in Abbas’s jails, in addition to over 13,000 political prisoners in Israeli prisons.
So how should we envisage relations between these two camps developing?
Throughout the Arab and Islamic world many are calling for a united front involving all the Arab and Islamic states in the area, in the struggle against the US/Israeli policies in the region. But with the two opposing strategies of both camps and with one camp being a vital part of US/Israeli plans, it is becoming an impossible task to achieve. Some of these calls are coming from the pro-US camp who want to keep the upper hand in controlling official Arab policies with the Arab moderates, and in particular, in the organisation of the ‘Arab League’ which has been controlled by the Egyptians and the Saudis for a long time. However, there are also other calls coming from some Arab nationalists who have stated that public disunity will inevitably harm both sides.
Many in the resistance camp believe that what is needed today is not in fact a call for unity — which is unlikely to be achieved, but instead an attempt to ensure that none of the internal national, political, ethnic or sectarian disagreements, which exist deeply within the Arab and Islamic world, should lead to the use of force or the shedding of blood between the two national sides, and that the fight should be on the political front only, using any democratic methods available.
This understanding would exclude the fight against the foreign powers including Israel, which came to occupy or control the area.
This could be achieved in a comparable way to the existing means which are being carried out today in Lebanon by Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance. At the same time, the methods used during the Iraqi experience should be avoided at all costs, i.e. where the Iraqi Baathists, together with their new friends Al Qaida, used the weaknesses prevalent throughout multi-sectarian Iraqi society to create a bloody sectarian division with the help and the participation of the US occupying forces and their foreign mercenaries.[4]
Conclusions:
1. The US backed Israeli war on Gaza was the final attempt by the neo-conservatives before the Bush/Cheney administration left office, to succeed in their failing effort to create the ‘New Middle East’ — A Middle East which would be controlled by the US and policed by Israel and would end once and for all the Palestinian dream to set up their own state.
2. The failure of the Israeli war on Gaza to achieve any of Israel’s political goals including the destruction of Hamas and all the resistance movements, ending control of Gaza by Hamas and finally stopping the firing of resistance home-made rockets on Israel, represent a political success for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance camp.
All that Israel managed to achieve during its war on Gaza was the killing and injuring of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of over 20,000 civilian houses, government buildings, police stations and a large number of schools and private businesses.[5] Many Israeli government and military leaders are now facing the possibility of being charged in International criminal courts.[6]
3. The Israeli war on Gaza has helped the resistance camp a great deal and created the conditions for it to grow faster than ever before. The ideological divisions between the two camps are deepening.
The whole of the Middle East is now divided into two political camps with two opposing strategies, developing in to one large battle ground between the two ideologies.
The two battle fronts of the Arab/Persian Gulf and the Arab/Israeli region are very much interlinked today. Any failure or success to either camp in one region will reflect on their strength on the other front.
4. It looks that corruption is a common quality among all in the pro-US/Israeli camp .It is very obvious that all the governments who are part of the ‘coalition of the moderates’ are dictatorial and enormously corrupt. It is also noticeable that the corruption is a characteristic of the latest two Israeli governments and the Bush/Cheney’s administration.
5. We should not expect any genuine changes in the US strategy from the new Obama/Biden administration towards the Middle East. It is very likely that the new US administration will continues Bush/Cheney’s policies.[7]
6. There is a strong belief that for the first time in the Middle East, the formation of this anti-US/Israeli/moderate Arab front will give some hope and optimism to the ordinary people in the Arab and Islamic world and will be a big setback to the Islamic terrorist ideologies of Al Qaida.
It has reduced the level of desperation felt by the majority of the ordinary Arab and Muslim people when they see that there is a sizable resistance front from Muslim and Christian sectors — as in Lebanon — which is growing in strength in their societies to resist and stop the US/Israeli plans. Therefore, the disappointment resulting from the growth in size and strength of the resistance camp will affect not just the neo-conservative’s Christian and Zionist Jewish terrorist ideologies, but also Al Qaida’s Muslim terrorist ideology.
7. There is a growing belief within the Arab population that for the first time in the Palestinian people’s history, there is genuine public understanding and recognition in the West concerning the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state and against the US/Israeli attempt to deny them this right. However, there is also recognition that this change is not reflected in the policies of the western governments as support by the European governments for the Israeli aggression not only continued but increased.
The Arab TV stations have played a very important role in exposing the real face of Zionism during the war on Gaza. For the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, the mass killings of civilians and the size of the destruction of civilian properties in Gaza, revealed that the Zionist ideology today is no different from the Nazi ideology of the Second World War.[8]
In Gaza, UNRWA is struggling to cope with human needs.
It is estimated that $2 billion is needed to repair the 21,000 homes damaged or destroyed, along with factories and government buildings, in the three-week Israeli attack to end Hamas’ rocket-firing. Fundraising has hardly begun, and the question of how the money will be funneled remains unanswered.
“We’re delivering the services of a state, until the state is established,” John Ging, the head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, told The Associated Press this weekend.
…
The organization is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from countries, its largest donors include the United States, the European Union, Sweden and Britain. Louis Michel, the European Union’s humanitarian chief, said the EU is by far the largest overall donor to the Palestinians.
Ging says UNRWA is able to take on the daunting task of rebuilding Gaza refugee camps. But, he says, this will only be possible if Israel allows the blockaded territory to receive enough of the humanitarian aid already piling up at its border.
Paul Woodward comments on Osama Hamdan’s, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon statement that the peace process is irreversibly over -
Hamas on the other hand, in spite of the devastation of Gaza, is still committed to politics.
The political imperative of the moment is one of clarification. Hamas sees that Palestinian unity and a Palestinian national movement cannot be built on an illusory foundation.
Meanwhile, Tzipi Livni claims that the carnage in Gaza has advanced the peace process. This is an Orwellian, obscene, and outrageous insult to common sense. It displays a sociopathic view of human suffering.
But it also serves as a reminder and confirmation that Osama Hamdan is right: the peace process is irreversibly over.
If this is a conclusion which can commonly be agreed upon, where do we go from here? Is this not a conclusion that will feed utter despair or a justification for endless conflict?
I believe not.
Political change can only gain traction when it is rooted in objective reality. We can only advance from the conditions we actually inhabit.
For several years now the peace process has floundered because of a glaring contradiction between Israel’s stated aim — a two-state solution — and its actions, which consistently advanced in the opposite direction.
By its own choice, Israel has abandoned the goal of a two-state solution. The so-called peace process has provided the water and the sustenance that has allowed the occupation to flourish.
America has been the enabler. It has provided a stage upon which a pantomime of peace could be performed. It has quite effectively silenced those who would disrupt the performance and insisted that we all silently enjoy a show whose tedious enactment perpetually held out the promise of a happy ending.
“When Israel supports a solution of two states for two people, the pressure won’t be on Israel,” Tzipi Livni correctly observed over the weekend.
George Mitchell’s duty, the duty of the international community and of all Palestinian leaders, is to say: the game is up, the show is over. The charade has gone on for long enough. Israel has stated its position on the ground. It’s words have proved to be of no consequence.
Sphere: Related Content
By Jinjirrie, on January 27th, 2009%
Barak brands Livni as ‘dangerous’ – how’s that for a whopping Pot, Kettle, Black?
Netanyahoo is ahead in the Israeli election polls – Barak may be positioning himself in a future Knesset coalition.
Israeli voters do not like governments with bad relations with the US as would probably be the case if Mr Netanyahu relied solely on the right-wing parties. Instead he will probably bring in Labour or Kadima to give his coalition a more moderate image but without diluting his basic opposition to concessions to the Palestinians.
Far right Yisrael Beiteinu leader and genocidalist Avigdor Lieberman is suspected of money laundering with several associates including family members being arrested.
Anti-arab ethnic cleansing fervour is now rampant amongst Israeli youth -
anti-Arab sentiment in the country has never been greater. The Lieberman party “ultimately seeks a direct clash with the Arab citizens in Israel” he said. And he worries that “there’s no serious effort to stop it.”
The 100 people at the Yisrael Beitenu rally for English-speaking voters Thursday night in Jerusalem certainly don’t want to stop it. “It’s the clarity of it that’s so appealing,” said Yona Triestman, a thirtysomething who works helping new immigrants settle in Israel. And the message certainly is straightforward. At the end of the night, Uzi Landau, a former Likud cabinet minister now running for Yisrael Beitenu, leaned forward and wagged his index finger at the audience. “There’s just one thing you have to remember about our platform,” he said, “just one thing to tell your friends: ‘No loyalty, no citizenship.’ “
Mondoweiss draws attention to the actions of the International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK), a non-governmental organization registered with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The organisation has
submitted a “Letter of Notification and Referral” to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court outlining the case for the arrest of 15 Israeli political and military leaders for crimes committed in Gaza in violation of the Rome Statute and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
It has also issued an international appeal for information about the undermentioned war crimes suspects. Members of the public in Israel and throughout the world who have information about the travel plans or whereabouts of the undermentioned suspects when they are outside Israel should report this immediately to:
The Prosecutor
P.O. Box 19519
2500 Hague
Netherlands
Fax +31 70 515 8 555
otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int
The Israeli war crimes suspects are:
1. Ehud Barak
2. Amir Peretz
3. Binyamin Ben Eliezer
4. Avi Dichter
5. Carmi Gillon
6. Dan Halutz
7. Doron Almog
8. Ehud Olmert
9. Eliezer Shkedy
10. Gabi Ashkenazi
11. Giora Eiland
12. Matan Vilnai
13. Moshie Bogie Yaalon
14. Shaul Mofaz
15. Tzipi Livni
Uri Avnery points out that Israel Screwed Itself Over with Its Gaza Assault; the World Sees It as a ‘Blood-Stained Monster’
There is widespread anger in Egypt at Mubarak regime
Muhammad lights up a cigarette and quietly utters an oath directed at Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The 25-year-old expresses what many Egyptians think at present: “Mubarak is a swine who has worked together with Israel to turn Gaza into a prison and is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians.”
The student from downtown Cairo continues to speak harshly about the government. Today, three days after Israeli troops began to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, he remains angry and criticizes the role played by Egypt in the Gaza conflict. “Probably Mubarak gave [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni permission to attack Hamas, which he regards as a thorn in his side.”
In fact, Livni met Mubarak two days prior to the Israeli attack and, according to a report in the Israeli daily Haa’retz, Egyptian government officials were informed in advance of the planned offensive.
US Media Accused of Racist Gaza Coverage
Though Becker criticized the corporate media as a whole for its coverage of Gaza and Israel-Palestine issues, the Jan. 16th protest sponsored by ANSWER and MAS (the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation) demonstrated at the Post in particular because, at the height of Israel’s assault on Gaza, four major protests against Israel’s actions took place in Washington and the Post did not cover any of them.
“Not one word has been written about any of the protests”, Becker complained. While the Post is usually seen as one of the four most prestigious and influential newspapers in the U.S. and is expected to cover important national issues and debates on foreign policy, their news blackout on the protests also had a local component: “The Post prides itself on having very strong local coverage,” Becker claimed. “The Arab-American community, which is an important part of Washington, D.C., came out in tens of thousands and were totally ignored by the Post.”
More symptoms of Israeli fascism – Army rabbi ‘gave out hate leaflet to troops’
The Israeli army’s chief rabbinate gave soldiers preparing to enter the Gaza Strip a booklet implying that all Palestinians are their mortal enemies and advising them that cruelty is sometimes a “good attribute”.
…
In one section, Rabbi Aviner compares Palestinians to the Philistines, a people depicted in the Bible as a war-like menace and existential threat to Israel.
In another, the army rabbinate appears to be encouraging soldiers to disregard the international laws of war aimed at protecting civilians, according to Breaking the Silence, the group of Israeli ex-soldiers who disclosed its existence. The booklet cites the renowned medieval Jewish sage Maimonides as saying that “one must not be enticed by the folly of the Gentiles who have mercy for the cruel”.
Jimmy Carter has weighed into the conflagration stating:
Israel will face a “catastrophe” unless it revives the Mideast peace process and establishes an independent Palestinian state.
Carter pointed out in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land in the foreseeable future.
He said that would leave Israel with three options: expelling many Palestinians, keeping the Palestinians but depriving them of equal voting rights, or giving them equal voting rights, which would give the Palestinians a majority.
He said that with the third option, one would no longer have a Jewish state.
In Ynetnews, Carter’s comments are expanded:
Hamas can be trusted, former US President Jimmy Carter said Monday, in an interview on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. Carter spoke with NBC’s Meredith Vieira about his perspective on the Middle East conflict, and his new book, “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land.”
According to the former president, Hamas never deviated from their commitments as per the ceasefire agreement. He said that, during his meetings with Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza, he was promised that Hamas would honor agreements between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, as long as they were supported by public referendum.
Hamas did bad things. I’m not defending them. But they did adhere to the ceasefire fully, Carter maintained. He added that Israel has a choice between a one-state solution – which is, for Israel, a catastrophe, and a two-state solution, which everyone would support.
…
Sunday, Carter met with President Barack Obama’s new US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. While Carter is not certain Obama should speak directly with Hamas, he believes that Mitchell should, explaining that “there won’t be peace in the Middle East without Hamas involvement.”
But despite the obstacle of Hamas involvement, the former president expressed optimism for peace. “Despite the recent lack of progress, I see this as a unique time for hope, not despair. The outlines of a peace agreement are clear and have broad international support,” he told NBC.
“There is a remarkable compatibility among pertinent United Nations resolutions, previous peace agreements reached at Camp David and in Oslo, the publicly declared policy of the United States, the Geneva Accord, key goals of the International Quartet’s Roadmap for Peace, and tentative proposals made by all Arab nations for reconciliation with Israel,” he said.
“Perhaps most important, there is an overwhelming common desire for peaceful and prosperous lives among the citizens of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt,” he added.
Francis A. Boyle discusses international law and Israel’s war on Gaza. He sets the agenda for an international legal response:
First, we must immediately move for the de facto suspension of Israel throughout the entirety of the United Nations system, including the General Assembly and all UN subsidiary organs and bodies. We must do to Israel what the UN General Assembly has done to the genocidal rump Yugoslavia and to the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa! Here the legal basis for the de facto suspension of Israel at the UN is quite simple:
As a condition for its admission to the United Nations Organization, Israel formally agreed to accept General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) (1947) (partition/Jerusalem trusteeship) and General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) (1948) (Palestinian right of return), inter alia. Nevertheless, the government of Israel has expressly repudiated both Resolution 181 (II) and Resolution 194 (III). Therefore, Israel has violated its conditions for admission to UN membership and thus must be suspended on a de facto basis from any participation throughout the entire United Nations system.
Second, any further negotiations with Israel must be conducted on the basis of Resolution 181 (II) and its borders; Resolution 194 (III); subsequent General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions; the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949; the 1907 Hague Regulations; and other relevant principles of public international law.
Third, we must abandon the fiction and the fraud that the United States government is an “honest-broker.” The US government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the US has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians. We need to establish some type of international framework to sponsor these negotiations where the Palestinian negotiators will not be subjected to the continual bullying, threats, harassment, intimidation and outright lies perpetrated by the United States government.
Fourth, we must move to have the UN General Assembly impose economic, diplomatic, and travel sanctions upon Israel pursuant to the terms of the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), whose Emergency Special Session on Palestine is now in recess.
Fifth, the provisional government of the State of Palestine must sue Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for inflicting acts of genocide against the Palestinian People in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention!
Sixth, An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) can be established by the UN General Assembly as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter. Article 22 states the UN General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offenses against the Palestinian people.
On Jan. 4, 2009, Nobel Peace laureate, Mairead Maguire wrote to the UN Secretary- General, Ban Ki-moon and Father Miguel D’Escoto, president of United Nations General Assembly adding her voice to the many calls from international jurists, human rights organizations, and individuals, for the UN General Assembly to seriously consider establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel in view of the ongoing Israeli atrocities against the people of Gaza and Palestine.
Maguire said:
“In November 2008 I visited Gaza and was shocked at the suffering of the people of Gaza, being under ‘siege’ as they are for over two years. This collective punishment by the Israeli government, has led to a great humanitarian crisis. Collective punishment of the civilian community by the Israeli government breaks the Geneva Convention, is illegal and is a war crime and crime against humanity.
“Instead of protecting the civilian community of Gaza and relieving their suffering by lifting the ‘siege’, the Israeli military have carried out 7 days of consecutive bombardment of civilians, by sea and air. Dropping Israeli bombs from the air and sea on unarmed civilians, many women and children, destroying mosques, hospitals, and homes, and infrastructure, is illegal and constitutes war crimes. The deaths of people in Gaza are now over 1,500 with over 5,500 people injured – many of them women and children. The infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed, and the people cut off from the world – including journalists, humanitarian workers, locked out of Gaza, and unable to go to the aid of the people.
“The UN must help uphold human rights and justice for Palestinian people, by seriously considering establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel, (ICTI) in order that Israeli government be held accountable for war crimes.”
The Fringe’s post on BBC partiality to Israel has been updated with numerous new sources detailing interference with the BBC by Israel.
Time Magazine reveals more about Israeli use of white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza.
“I saw my mother coming towards me. She was on fire. I threw a blanket around her to try to put out the flames but she kept on burning. I went to Saadallah who was lying on the ground with his three young kids wrapped inside his coat. He was trying to protect them. But the coat had caught fire, too. When I tried to pull the kids away, their flesh came off in my hands.”
With help from the neighbors, they got the burn victims into the back of a pick-up truck, but as Mahmoud said of his family: “They were hardly human. They were like coal.”
Their appalling luck got worse. As they were driving to the hospital, an Israeli sniper, possibly fearing suicide bombers, shot and killed the driver, Mahmoud says. His wife and daughter were also among the phosphorus victims, and still alive. “I pleaded with the soldiers not to shoot again. I explained that we were taking our family to the hospital. They made me take off my clothes and when they saw I didn’t have a bomb or a weapon, they let me carry my wife and daughter to the hospital –-on foot.”
Munir Chalabi’s article at ZNet makes better points on US support of its blood-stained policeman in the ME than Chomsky.
The overwhelming indications are that the Israeli war on Gaza was not just an attempt by the Israeli army to stop the home-made Hamas rockets being fired on Southern Israel, as the Israelis together with the US administration, European governments and the so-called ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ want us to believe.
It was a pre-planned war by all the above parties in this US/Israeli-led alliance against the Palestinian people and their resistance movements in Palestine. It represents the final attempt by the US neo-conservatives, before the Bush administration leaves office, to resolve the Palestinian problem once and for all. The Israeli war on Gaza was only another step in the plan of the US, Israel and the ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ to build their ‘New Middle East’.
The scale of this war was an indication of its goals, and the steps taken and statements made by the many leaders in this camp, including the public statements by King Abdulla of Jordan and Middle East envoy Tony Blair during and prior to the start of the war, corroborate such a conclusion.[1]
The war on Gaza is the second stage in the plan. The first stage was the 18 month economic siege of Gaza by Israel, Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas’s corrupt and illegal government in Ramallah, which aimed to topple Hamas and all the other Palestinian resistance movements by using the blockade on all of life’s basic necessities to the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in order to force them to surrender.
In this plan against the Palestinian resistance, Egypt moved to become one of the most significant players by openly taking on a major supporting role. The siege of Gaza was not only an Israeli blockade, but also a well coordinated blockade by Egypt, following complete closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
In order to understand how the Israeli war on Gaza was an integral part of this plan, we have to stop and have a more comprehensive look at the political map of the Middle East and the strategies of all the parties involved.
Since the neo-conservatives took control of all the positions of power in the US, both battle grounds in the Middle East — the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab region and the Arab/Persian gulf region — became deeply divided into two political camps, with two opposing strategies, and no prospect for peace in the foreseeable future.
The first camp is the US/Israeli-led camp or, as it is called in the West, ‘The Moderate’s alliance’, which consists mainly of three devoted and corrupt pro-western Arab regimes. The first is the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, with their financial might, headed by King Abdulla and his foreign minister Prince Faisal, and from behind the scenes, by Prince ‘Bender bin Sultan,’ the head of the Saudi intelligence services, who is a close friend of the Bush family. The second is the Egyptian regime headed up since 1981 by the Egyptian ruler and air force General President Mubarak, his chief of the intelligence service, General Suleiman, together with their foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.[2] The third is the Jordanian regime, where all the power is in the hands of the King, assisted by his well established internal security forces.
As well as the above three main Arab partners of the US/Israeli plan, there stand several Arab governments and political groups within a number of other Middle Eastern countries.
First among them is the pro-Oslo illegitimately ruling Palestinian group in Ramallah (part of the old Fatah movement’s traditional leadership, which were spared their lives by Israel for political reasons), which is headed by President Mahmud Abbas with his illegally appointed Palestinian government of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah. The second is the 14th of March group in Lebanon which is in command of the existing Lebanese government and headed by the Saudi/Lebanese young Sheikh, Al-Hariri. The third are the US friends in the ‘front of the moderates’ government in Iraq, whose role is restricted to the Gulf area, but the US has difficulties with them as they cannot trust all of their Iraqi acquaintances in the long term. There are other governments in the Arab world which are part of this camp: They include five of the kingdoms and states of the ‘Gulf Council States’ and the North African Arab governments.
The main objectives of the US/Israeli strategy for this alliance is to integrate Israel so it becomes part of the Middle East region, and at the same time continue their old policy of ensuring that Israel will be developed more effectively as the US’s policeman for the area, using its military and economic superiority as the main tool. In order to do so, they first needed to constitute Israel as the check on Iran, which was portrayed as a looming threat to the Arab world. This undertaking, which is part of America’s project for a “New Middle East,” was kicked off prior to Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006 and was presented as the concluding phase of the neo-conservatives’ plan for the area.
That is why we are able to recognise a number of similarities between US and Israeli policy, similarities that are clearly apparent in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon — the three countries representing the front lines of the war. These are under either full or partial US or Israeli occupation and the Israeli policies here are dominated by the US Administration.
All the US/Israeli policies are based on increasing the political divisions in every Arab and Muslim country and creating two separate and opposing fronts. The first, which is influenced by them, is called the “moderate front,” and the second, which is opposed to their policies, they call the “terrorist front” or the front which is controlled by Iran.
In all three countries, the US/Israeli policies involve pressurising their allies to take full control of the political arena, instigating conflicts between the two sides in each country to bring it to the edge of armed conflict or even start violent confrontations between them. They attempt to play on the sectarian divisions, as in the cases of Iraq and Lebanon — and where such divisions do not exist, they will instead use political divisions, as in the case of Palestine.
It is also noticeable that the divisions between the two fronts in most cases are between the political parties and movements who are opposed to the US and Israeli military occupation and the ones who are ready to accept their influence and co-operate with them.
The second camp is the resistance camp and in it stands a coalition of governments and movements which to diverse degrees reject the US/Israeli domination plans and are called ‘the terrorists’ by the US and Israelis, or ‘the extremist’ governments and movements by most of the European governments. This alliance includes the Iranians, the Syrian government, the democratically elected government of Hamas and their allies, Al-Jihad Al Islami movement in Palestine, together with Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance in Lebanon. It also comprises the Sadr movement in Iraq and the Muslim brotherhood movement in Egypt, together with many other smaller political parties and groups. However, the most important asset this alliance has comes from the increasing support given to them by the vast majority of ordinary people around the Arab and Islamic world.[3]
The developing strategy of the core of this resistance camp is that they consider the US and Israel to be the key enemies to the people in the area. They believe that the US is a foreign imperialistic power, which wants to control the destiny of the region’s people by using Israel as its main instrument, and their friends, the Arab rulers in the ‘coalition of the moderates’ as a secondary, but important internal tool to implement the neo-conservative strategy.
The main driving force of this camp is Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas. Iran is like any other country in the Middle East that wants to stay independent from US control but is today surrounded by US forces on all sides, which creates a very real threat to them. They are always considered by the US to be the “Great Satan” and Israel is its principal enemy in the Middle East. Most of the other parties in this alliance share this belief, but to various degrees. All of the US administrations and Israeli governments have considered the Iranian and Syrian governments, Hezbollah and Hamas as their main enemies and the major obstacle to their control of the Arab and Islamic world.
The war on Gaza has widened the support for the resistance camp, gathering additional backing from other Muslim people and governments who previously felt that this struggle was not part of their political agenda. Of most significance has been the support from the Qatari government and the massive support from the millions of ordinary Turkish people and their government to the Palestinian people. This further support has strengthened this camp, but on the other hand these additional elements should not be counted as internal parts of the resistance alliance.
The division between the two camps which exists in the Palestinian occupied territory, the alliance of all the Palestinian resistance movements on the one hand and the pro-Oslo group lead by Abbas, who hijacked the leadership of Fatah movement and the control of the West Bank on the other, is deepening.
This is evident when we look at the division between Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine. The Gaza strip is now represented by the Palestinian resistance movements and the legally elected Palestinian government of Mr. Haniya. Conversely, we see that the West Bank is ruled by the pro-Oslo group led by Abbas and the illegally appointed government of Salam Fayyad — which utilises over 10,000 armed personnel (trained by Egyptian and Jordanian security services), the so-called ‘National Palestinian police force’ and ‘Presidential guards’ who are under the control of US General Dayton with the assistance of another two US generals and in full co-operation with the Israeli security services. Over 1,000 prisoners from Hamas and other resistance movements have been put in Abbas’s jails, in addition to over 13,000 political prisoners in Israeli prisons.
So how should we envisage relations between these two camps developing?
Throughout the Arab and Islamic world many are calling for a united front involving all the Arab and Islamic states in the area, in the struggle against the US/Israeli policies in the region. But with the two opposing strategies of both camps and with one camp being a vital part of US/Israeli plans, it is becoming an impossible task to achieve. Some of these calls are coming from the pro-US camp who want to keep the upper hand in controlling official Arab policies with the Arab moderates, and in particular, in the organisation of the ‘Arab League’ which has been controlled by the Egyptians and the Saudis for a long time. However, there are also other calls coming from some Arab nationalists who have stated that public disunity will inevitably harm both sides.
Many in the resistance camp believe that what is needed today is not in fact a call for unity — which is unlikely to be achieved, but instead an attempt to ensure that none of the internal national, political, ethnic or sectarian disagreements, which exist deeply within the Arab and Islamic world, should lead to the use of force or the shedding of blood between the two national sides, and that the fight should be on the political front only, using any democratic methods available.
This understanding would exclude the fight against the foreign powers including Israel, which came to occupy or control the area.
This could be achieved in a comparable way to the existing means which are being carried out today in Lebanon by Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance. At the same time, the methods used during the Iraqi experience should be avoided at all costs, i.e. where the Iraqi Baathists, together with their new friends Al Qaida, used the weaknesses prevalent throughout multi-sectarian Iraqi society to create a bloody sectarian division with the help and the participation of the US occupying forces and their foreign mercenaries.[4]
Conclusions:
1. The US backed Israeli war on Gaza was the final attempt by the neo-conservatives before the Bush/Cheney administration left office, to succeed in their failing effort to create the ‘New Middle East’ — A Middle East which would be controlled by the US and policed by Israel and would end once and for all the Palestinian dream to set up their own state.
2. The failure of the Israeli war on Gaza to achieve any of Israel’s political goals including the destruction of Hamas and all the resistance movements, ending control of Gaza by Hamas and finally stopping the firing of resistance home-made rockets on Israel, represent a political success for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance camp.
All that Israel managed to achieve during its war on Gaza was the killing and injuring of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of over 20,000 civilian houses, government buildings, police stations and a large number of schools and private businesses.[5] Many Israeli government and military leaders are now facing the possibility of being charged in International criminal courts.[6]
3. The Israeli war on Gaza has helped the resistance camp a great deal and created the conditions for it to grow faster than ever before. The ideological divisions between the two camps are deepening.
The whole of the Middle East is now divided into two political camps with two opposing strategies, developing in to one large battle ground between the two ideologies.
The two battle fronts of the Arab/Persian Gulf and the Arab/Israeli region are very much interlinked today. Any failure or success to either camp in one region will reflect on their strength on the other front.
4. It looks that corruption is a common quality among all in the pro-US/Israeli camp .It is very obvious that all the governments who are part of the ‘coalition of the moderates’ are dictatorial and enormously corrupt. It is also noticeable that the corruption is a characteristic of the latest two Israeli governments and the Bush/Cheney’s administration.
5. We should not expect any genuine changes in the US strategy from the new Obama/Biden administration towards the Middle East. It is very likely that the new US administration will continues Bush/Cheney’s policies.[7]
6. There is a strong belief that for the first time in the Middle East, the formation of this anti-US/Israeli/moderate Arab front will give some hope and optimism to the ordinary people in the Arab and Islamic world and will be a big setback to the Islamic terrorist ideologies of Al Qaida.
It has reduced the level of desperation felt by the majority of the ordinary Arab and Muslim people when they see that there is a sizable resistance front from Muslim and Christian sectors — as in Lebanon — which is growing in strength in their societies to resist and stop the US/Israeli plans. Therefore, the disappointment resulting from the growth in size and strength of the resistance camp will affect not just the neo-conservative’s Christian and Zionist Jewish terrorist ideologies, but also Al Qaida’s Muslim terrorist ideology.
7. There is a growing belief within the Arab population that for the first time in the Palestinian people’s history, there is genuine public understanding and recognition in the West concerning the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state and against the US/Israeli attempt to deny them this right. However, there is also recognition that this change is not reflected in the policies of the western governments as support by the European governments for the Israeli aggression not only continued but increased.
The Arab TV stations have played a very important role in exposing the real face of Zionism during the war on Gaza. For the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, the mass killings of civilians and the size of the destruction of civilian properties in Gaza, revealed that the Zionist ideology today is no different from the Nazi ideology of the Second World War.[8]
In Gaza, UNRWA is struggling to cope with human needs.
It is estimated that $2 billion is needed to repair the 21,000 homes damaged or destroyed, along with factories and government buildings, in the three-week Israeli attack to end Hamas’ rocket-firing. Fundraising has hardly begun, and the question of how the money will be funneled remains unanswered.
“We’re delivering the services of a state, until the state is established,” John Ging, the head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, told The Associated Press this weekend.
…
The organization is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from countries, its largest donors include the United States, the European Union, Sweden and Britain. Louis Michel, the European Union’s humanitarian chief, said the EU is by far the largest overall donor to the Palestinians.
Ging says UNRWA is able to take on the daunting task of rebuilding Gaza refugee camps. But, he says, this will only be possible if Israel allows the blockaded territory to receive enough of the humanitarian aid already piling up at its border.
Paul Woodward comments on Osama Hamdan’s, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon statement that the peace process is irreversibly over -
Hamas on the other hand, in spite of the devastation of Gaza, is still committed to politics.
The political imperative of the moment is one of clarification. Hamas sees that Palestinian unity and a Palestinian national movement cannot be built on an illusory foundation.
Meanwhile, Tzipi Livni claims that the carnage in Gaza has advanced the peace process. This is an Orwellian, obscene, and outrageous insult to common sense. It displays a sociopathic view of human suffering.
But it also serves as a reminder and confirmation that Osama Hamdan is right: the peace process is irreversibly over.
If this is a conclusion which can commonly be agreed upon, where do we go from here? Is this not a conclusion that will feed utter despair or a justification for endless conflict?
I believe not.
Political change can only gain traction when it is rooted in objective reality. We can only advance from the conditions we actually inhabit.
For several years now the peace process has floundered because of a glaring contradiction between Israel’s stated aim — a two-state solution — and its actions, which consistently advanced in the opposite direction.
By its own choice, Israel has abandoned the goal of a two-state solution. The so-called peace process has provided the water and the sustenance that has allowed the occupation to flourish.
America has been the enabler. It has provided a stage upon which a pantomime of peace could be performed. It has quite effectively silenced those who would disrupt the performance and insisted that we all silently enjoy a show whose tedious enactment perpetually held out the promise of a happy ending.
“When Israel supports a solution of two states for two people, the pressure won’t be on Israel,” Tzipi Livni correctly observed over the weekend.
George Mitchell’s duty, the duty of the international community and of all Palestinian leaders, is to say: the game is up, the show is over. The charade has gone on for long enough. Israel has stated its position on the ground. It’s words have proved to be of no consequence.
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2 comments - (Comments are closed) 
Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Politics, Zionism 
apartheid, boycott, divestment, gaza, Israel, land theft, Palestine, protest, west bank 