Gaza.

I am not making it up. I am asking you for help

The events of the past few months would be disturbing if history had not already seen them played out time and time again before.  It appears that we are living in some sort of geo-political Groundhog Day in which, like the movie, we wake up hoping and expecting something different, but instead we are constantly having our worst fears confirmed and reconfirmed over again as we see that everything is just as it was the day before. Except it isn’t really Groundhog Day.  Although we appear to be living through the same events, the cast of characters, over time at least, changes.  

We are disturbed that Israeli ‘intelligence agency’ Mossad employs hit-squads to carry out extrajudicial activities, but it has happened before.  Although a case could be made that Mossad was given permission by Israeli authorities to execute Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai by first injecting him with muscle relaxant and then suffocating him with a pillow, this probably would not stand up in any court of law in Dubai where the actual killing took place.

Other ‘targeted assassinations’ perpetrated by Israel include Ahmed Ismail Yassin (in Gaza, 2004), Col. Mustafa Hafez and Col. Salah Mustafa, (Gaza, 1956), Dr. Heinz Krug, (Munich, 1962 as part of ’Operation Damocles’, a campaign of abductions and assassinations of German scientists working with Arab nations on military projects). The list could go on.  Even failed assassins are honoured in Israel, and this blog has already highlighted how Israel gives retrospective recognition and rewards for active participation in terrorism.

Most famously Steven Spielberg made the film ‘Munich’ based upon the real story of a Mossad hit squad being dispatched to visit vengeance upon the plotters behind the events of the Munich Olympics in 1972.  Indeed, Israelis so liked the idea of Ehud Barak dressing up as a women, illegally infiltrating a Beirut suburb, shooting up a terrorist cell involved with Munich and escaping they actually voted him Prime Minister.  By some accounts, vengeance for Munich was only complete with the killing of Atef Bseiso in Paris in 1992.

Unlike the media or certain governments, Israel has a decades long memory and has the patience to take its time waiting for the right moment in history to deal with it’s targets and take it’s opportunities.

 In 2003 Israel sent signals that it would no longer limit ‘targeted killings‘ to Gaza and West Bank, though as we have seen, history shows us that this was not so much a change in policy as an official confirmation of existing policy.

No sane person would argue that perpetrators and supporters of terrorism should not be brought to justice, but to use the methods and madness of terrorism against both terrorists and private citizens of another state conducting legal business is not the way of a modern and diplomatic country, of the kind which Israel constantly says it is.

This unbroken pattern of Israeli subterfuge is a worrying indication of the strength of the military mentality that has so obviously been at the forefront of Israeli foreign relations since it’s declaration of independence.  

Is it really that the solution to every diplomatic problem that Israel faces is the cold-blooded assassination of the people with whom Israel has an issue?

Britain is disturbed that Mossad used British passports to execute the mission in Dubai, but this is nothing new, as British daily paper The Telegraph informs us:-

Britain’s relationship with the Israeli security service reached an all-time low in 1986, when the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed down Mossad’s UK operation in response to a series of incidents including the discovery of a bag of forged British passports which had been lost by a Mossad agent.

Mossad was allowed to re-establish its presence in the UK only after it promised not to abuse British passports in the future.

The US and British authorities have been willing to turn a blind eye to Mossad ‘intelligence’ activities in the past, especially if those activities were aligned with their own strategic interests, however, there appears too have been a deliberate and high-profile adjustment of attitudes towards Israel.

To his credit, David Miliband stood up in parliament and, after telling us that the originals of the passports used in the Dubai killing were handed over to Israeli officials “either in Israel or in other countries” and found “no link to any other country”, and that due to the high quality of the forged copies of the passports  ”the government judges that it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service” and that “Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports”.  This alone is an astonishingly public accusation of Israel from a leading member of the current government.

And what about the settlements?  Far from the dealings of international spies and political intrigue, Israeli settlers continue to illegally build on land which does not belong to Israel as the United States tut-tuts and wags a finger from the sidelines whilst failing to take any really meaningful steps against Israeli intransigence.  Even a cursory glance at the situation in West Bank and Gaza will reveal that the construction of illegal settlements is hardly a fresh development.

And so, almost predictably, as if to offer up an opportunity to confirm to Israeli nay-sayers, incidents on the Gaza/Israel border escalate to the point of armed conflict and death, and the context of Israeli soldiers illegally entering Gaza to stop individuals (apparently authorised by Hamas - and the democratically elected political party charged with the political administration and defence of Gaza) planting explosive devices on the Gaza side of the border is lost on a media which first highlights the tragedy of the death of 2 Isreali soldiers, and names them as “Eliraz Peretz, 31, and 21-year-old Ilan Sebiatkovsky”, we are invited to mourn these brave soldiers whilst ignoring the fact that they were illegally entering land which does not belong to Israel and shot and killed two Palestinians identified only as “fighters” and “militants”.

The border between Gaza and Israel extends to a 1 kilometre wide no-mans land on the Gaza side.  We are told that “tanks and bulldozers moved towards the Southern town of Khan Younis before withdrawing”, it is funny how quickly a “security wall” can be opened when the Israeli military will it to be so, and yet we also observe how excruciatingly slowly it is opened when Israeli politicians say that they are allowing humanitarian aid flow freely.

Assasinations. Fake passports. Illegal settlements. Needless border skirmishes and illegal entry into foreign territory by Israeli forces. Not to mention the ongoing collective punishment and context-less media reporting. It’s all the same as it ever was, isn’t it? Groundhog Day.

Well, no.  There have been changes which in isolation may well achieve nothing, but which when chained together form a stronger motivation for a reformation of Israeli strategy.

Contrary to my opening assertion, we are not living a movie.  A bearded Russell Crowe will not win an Oscar for playing Yasser Arafat in the Hollywood adaptation of this story.  Sandra Bullock will not apply her talents to perfecting Tzipi Livni’s accent.  And Dustin Hoffman will not method act his way into Avigdor Lieberman’s shoes.  This movie will never be made.  But the reality is being lived.

The media made much over the apparently premature awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama.  But let us not forget that this too has happened before.  In 1994 Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.  A full sixteen years later and peace in the Middle East is still eluding us, but the political dynamic has changed, both in the US and elsewhere.

Obama has shown that he has both the imagination and political impetus to push through healthcare reform - a matter that was beyond the wit and will of Hilary Clinton in 1993, - whilst also agreeing with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals. A large part of the Obama strategy was the ‘reset’ of the relationship between the US and Russia. Elements of the Russian reset can be seen in the way Obama addressed ‘the Muslim world’ in Cairo.  Perhaps Obama will be able to focus more on Middle East issues now that he has all but concluded healthcare reform and the Russian reset?

The signs are good.  Whilst Netanyahu got an welcome reception at the AIPAC conference in the US, delivering a set-piece speech to 7,500 guests, his visit to the Whitehouse was not quite the greeting one would expect from a long-term ally, though perhaps this was to be expected after deeply embarrassing US Vice-President Joe Biden by announcing house building in East Jerusalem on the day he visited Israel in an attempt to “kick start” the peace process.  The BBC tells us of Netanyahu’s visit that:

It began at 1730, shortly after the news had emerged of the granting of permits for another controversial building project in East Jerusalem.

We waited at the hotel for indications of how the meeting had gone. The signs were ominous for Mr Netanyahu - only official photographers, no public handshake or remarks in the presence of the press.

Sometime after 1900 it emerged that the meeting was over. A senior Israeli official told me there would be time for a drink in the bar before a statement came.

There turned out to be enough time, had we wanted it, for a tour of Washington’s bars. And still no statement came from the White House or the Netanyahu staff…

The following morning, all media engagements for Netanyahu were cancelled.

His staff wouldn’t say a word, but it was written all over their faces that things were not good for the prime minister.

This coming so close to Israeli Apartheid Week and amongst growing calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in support of Palestinians.

The (accepted) leadership of the Palestinians is also changing tact.  Having been humbled by the global reaction after his refusal to press home any advantage offered by the Goldstone Report in the UN, Mahmoud Abbas at least had the sense to reverse his stance on that issue, and now is taking a stronger line on the issue of settlements, that is to say, there can be no peace talks until settlement building is halted.  Though he is a President with no electoral mandate, and therefore no legal legitimacy in any democratic sense, Abbas is at last taking the peaceful, pragmatic and principled steps of resistance which one might have expected Palestinian leadership to have taken many decades ago.

So we can see that whilst the facts on the ground in Gaza and West Bank have not changed for the better in many decades, the politics surrounding them have been evolving rapidly, especially since Operation Cast Lead highlighted the impunity with which Israel feels it can act towards civilian infrastructure - including UN buildings.

Israel is gradually growing more isolated from it’s international allies who are increasingly not afraid to voice in public the things which have been left unsaid for too long. The Goldstone Report lends legitimacy to the calls for arrest warrants for leading Israeli politicians and Army figures. And a growing peaceful and popular global movement against Israeli action can only further highlight the disparity between what Israel says, and what she does, as well as the complicity of other governments in their lack of action.

For their part, Palestinian leaders have changed tact and are now apparently willing to hold out on peace talks until such time as Israel quits building on occupied land, this removes the fig-leaf of respectability which Israel has used in the past to cover it’s actions.  No longer can Israel point to interminable rounds of peace talks whilst at the same time encroaching even further into Palestinian land on a daily basis. The Israeli political class must come to terms with the fact that the Palestinian leadership has nothing to lose by becoming firm on the issue of settlements and are legally and morally staking out the high ground in their stance.

As he was mounting a final push to get his healthcare reforms passed, Barack Obama made a speech in which he said:-

We are not bound to win.  But we are bound to be true.  We are not bound to succeed. But we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.

There is a rallying cry in there for all those who profess solidarity with the Palestinians. We may not have the resources of a state at our disposal, and even if we did, justice for Palestinians would not be assured, but we are bound to be true using the peaceful means that we do have.

Even success in the context of Palestinians means different things to different people, but we must keep striving to bring to light the hypocrisy and double-dealing of the Israeli state, and not just those events that we see happening in the contemporary setting, but the unbroken chain of injustice towards the Palestinian people stretching back through the decades all the way back to the Nakba and even further back than that.

And what of Groundhog Day?  Well, in the film, Bill Murray plays Phil, a man who seems destined to repeat the same day over and over again until he becomes less selfish and more sincere in his approach to his predicament.

Perhaps there is also lesson there.

Netanyahu turns to Nazi Language

There are words with meanings corrosive as acid. Heavy with the stench of historic crimes. Words that damn those who use them. One such word is “Judenrein”, the Nazi-era word that means “cleansed of Jews”. It is a surprise, then, to learn that it is a word that has been appropriated byBinyamin Netanyahu to describe the Palestinian demand for the dismantling of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. More shocking still, according to reports yesterday, it was used in talks between Netanyahu and Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreign minister of a country still haunted by the guilt of its Nazi past – who was compelled to nod in embarrassed silence.

Netanyahu has not been alone in using “Judenrein” in recent months to describe the prospect of the removal of Israeli settlements in a future peace deal to create a Palestinian state .

As frustration among Israeli rightists has been mounting against the new policies of President Obama, the word has been creeping into the discourse, first in the rightwing blogosphere and now penetrating the mainstream media in Israel.

It is not the word “Judenfrei” – equally offensive – that Netanyahu used but its even stronger and more despicable companion. A word, under the Nazi race laws, that meant all trace of Jewish ancestry had been removed. The justification for its employment has been somewhat historically self-serving, arguing two things.

First, it contends that because Jewish communities historically lived on the West Bank and in Jerusalem before 1967 (over 3,000 years except for 19 years of Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967, according to this argument) any insistence on the removal of the settlements would amount to a de facto ethnic cleansing.

Secondly it argues – as Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi did on 2 July in Yediot Ahronoth – that the international community has accepted an unequal proposition, “that the Palestinians should be allowed to establish a country based on the religion of the majority of its citizens” while denying that same right to Israel. By that logic, he concludes, “international politics will no longer have to deal with the ‘Palestinian problem’ but rather with the ‘Jewish problem’ in Palestine”.

It is an argument born of desperation that is as stunning for its sophistry as it is for its denial of what the settlement programme post-1967 represented. For while it is true that Jewish communities existed on the West Bank before the six-day war, the settlement programme that followed the occupation is regarded by most international bodies as a serious violation of international law. That view is based on the interpretation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention as well as a series of UN security council resolutions that have deemed aspects of the settlements to be illegal.

Indeed, according to a report acquired by the Peace Now group in 2006, which it claimed it had acquired from the Israeli government’s civil administration, as much as 32% of the land on which settlements are built is, in reality, privately owned by Palestinians.

The reality is that this is not about truth or the justness of Israel’s historical argument for the existence of communities in territories it calls by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria. The evocation of Judenrein by Netanyahu and by other commentators is the most cynical of ploys in a negotiation that his government feels that is going against it. Under pressure from Obama to freeze settlement building completely – including the construction that Israel likes to label as “natural growth” – it is being forced into ever more extreme language to defend the continued existence of the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories in language, like that used with Steinmeier, to embarrass and cajole.

There are words with particular meanings. Bloody with the worst offences. To use “Judenrein” so cheaply to score a political point dishonours the memory of history and its victims. It shames Israel’s prime minister.

The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict by Peter Beaumont is published by Harvill Secker

Original Source : Comment is free

Netanyahu sets his agenda for Palestine

Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in which he explained his vision of Palestine. It is widely seen to be a reply to the Cairo speech given by US President Barak Obama.  It was not only a master class in historical revisionism, but also in how to present diplomatic illusions.

Obama himself made all the right noises:

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Netanyahu, whilst not overtly contradicting Obama directly in his speech, certainly made a good fist of subverting the spirit of what Obama was talking about.

Bizarrely, in a nod to the current economic climate, Netanyahu opened his speech by extending an invitation of peace and to meet with Arab leaders. The context of this invitation seemed to be about marketing the business opportunities available through Israel and the region as a whole as Netanyahu discusses gas and oil pipelines, tourism, solar power and industrial areas. Though what Netanyahu appeared to be saying was that with peace comes economic prosperity, this is surely a debaseing offer which can be understood only in the context of this open display of hypocrisy whilst Israel still has Gaza in an economic stranglehold.

Netanyahu made an attempt to set the context of the Palestine/Israel conflict, starting at what he sees as the “root” of the problem which he see as “the refusal to recognise the right of the Jewish people to a state of it’s own in it’s historic homeland.”.  Netanyahu spoke of the United Nations Partition Plan saying that “the entire Arab world” rejected the plan (though he neglects to explain why any country would not reject a plan which gave 56% of the most economically viable land to a minority group without allowing self-determination of all the people within the borders of that land).

Particularly interesting was Netanyahu’s attempt to paint current ill-will towards Israel as simple anti-Jewish feeling.  Though he correctly states that there was fighting between Arabs and Jews before even the State of Israel declared independence, this is painted in terms of being a “circle of enmity” that did not want Jews as a people to have a state anywhere.  Perhaps Arabs would have remained neutral had it not been for the fact that they felt that they could see independence from foreign rule (such as the Ottoman, British and French Empires) slipping from their grasp and that the land in which they had lived and fought for was about to be carved up as war booty.  Unlike Netanyahu, we should not forget the role of Zionist terrorist organisations who in their turn were part of the circle of enmity during the creation of the State of Israel.

Signaling  that he is ready to “begin negotiations immediately without preconditions”, what Netanyahu in fact meant by this was that the Palestinians should not attempt to place any preconditions upon meeting Israel, though Netanyahu did in fact set out a number of his own preconditions before he will recognise a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu accuses the Palestinians of “raising their demands” and that these demands are “inconsistent with a true desire to end the conflict”.  That as may well be the case if you think that justice is “inconsistent” with a true desire to end the conflict, but obviously,  Netanyahu has his own concept of justice.

In an attempt to explain why Isreali withdrawal from Palestinian lands would not bring peace, Netanyahu claims that Israel did withdraw(!) but that “every withdrawal was met with massive waves of terror”, though he later admits that there are still settlers whom he views as “pioneers” and “zionists”.   Whilst being a pioneering Zionist might be a good thing if you live on Israeli land, it is not such a great selling point if you are living on illegally occupied land which rightfully belongs to a Palestinian family.  Netanyahu committed to not talking any more new land specifically for settlers, but stuck to a policy of allowing “natural expansion” of the settlements.

Insisting that Israel evacuated “every last inch” of the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu failed to mention that by some reports the evacuated land was razed and in any case the evacuation was an empty gesture considering the erection of an apartheid wall which in 2003 the United Nations commented:-

is in departure from the Armistice Line of 1949 (Green Line) and which has involved the confiscation and destruction of Palestinian land and resources, the disruption of the lives of thousands of protected civilians and the de facto annexation of large areas of territory, and underlining the unanimous opposition by the international community to the construction of that wall

and expressed grave concern

at the even more devastating impact of the projected parts of the wall on the Palestinian civilian population and on the prospects for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and establishing peace in the region

Under the leadership and vision of Netanyahu, the continuation of the Israeli policy to illegally annex non-Israeli land and to separate Palestinians from their own property is assured.  Are these not actions that are - as Netanyahu himself would put it inconsistent with a true desire to end the conflict?

Netanyahu carries on to claim that Israel consists of land that is external to the recognised borders of the State of Israel.  His language is subtle, but not entirely opaque (editors notes in italics):-

…in this homeland of ours [meaning the Jewish homeland of Israel] lives a large Palestinian community [those that live in Gaza and the West Bank].  We do not want to rule over them.  We do not want to govern their lives and we do not want to impose our flag or culture on them.  In my vision of peace in this small land of ours [does he mean “ours” as in “land of the Jews” or “ours” as in “land of the Jews and the Palestinians”], two free peoples live side-by-side in amity and mutual respect.  Each will have it’s own flag, it’s own national anthem, and it’s own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other.  These two realities, our connection to the [biblical?] land of Israel and the Palestinian population living within it have created deep divisions in Israeli society…

As we can see, Netahyahu is claiming that Israel itself is much more than just the current State of Israel, and that even if Palestinians do achieve some sort of state for themselves, they will still in fact be living within the boundaries of what Netanyau claims for Israel.

Public recognition of Israel by Palestine

The Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people

Given that Netanyahu in this speech is apparently claiming the West Bank and Gaza as part of the land Israel, Israel must surely first agree set borders and remove any of their citizens from the Occupied Territories.  Additionally, Netanyahu is deftly flitting between definitions of the biblical land of Israel, and the current State of Israel, but which Israel is he referring to here?

Demilitarisation of Palestine

The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with iron clad security provisions for Israel

Perhaps some form of short-term demilitarisation of Palestine could be agreed, though this is doubtful, what sovereign government would accept a permanent restriction on the possibility of creating an army for the defense of the state?  What would be the security provision for the Palestinian state?  How would it defend against internal terrorists?

The very language of this statement - “territory under Palestinian control” - taken together with the other pre conditions in itself undermines the very idea of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.  It seems to suggest a territory “controlled” by Palestinians, but only in certain aspects.

Netanyahu’s insistence that peace can only be achieved by removing all arms from Palestinians suggests that his attitude is that any armed Palestinian poses an immediate threat to Israel, and yet, the pioneering settlers that Netanyahu so admires are allowed to be heavily armed despite living on occupied Palestinian land, a situation which leads to constant harassment of normal Palestinians by armed settlers.

Israel will not accept the resettlement of any refugees

“The Palestinian refugee problem must be resolved outside the borders of the state of Israel. Any demand to resettle refugees within Israel undermines Israel as a state for the Jewish people.”

This phrase alone demonstrates that, Netanyahu, and Israel as a state, is bigoted against non-Jews, and clearly wishes to maintain a Jewish majority.  This is one reason why people who advocate a single state solution - including Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in a single state - are facing an uphill battle.

Israel has a clear policy of demographic assault upon Palestine by allowing Israeli settlements on Palestinian land to “naturally” grow, whilst at the same time displacing Palestinian people using the apartheid wall, clearly in the long term, Israel is hoping for a single state, but one in which there is still a Jewish majority, and one which is still called ‘Israel’.

Peace, Netanyahu states can only be achieved if Palestine can not:

import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their air space to us [Israel]

Clearly, Netanyahu has no intention of allowing the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, indeed, he goes further:

it is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of the Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised

Now Israel does not even recognise even the principle of a Palestinian state, a principle which was recognised by the United Nations in 1947 when it adopted General Assembly Resolution 181, a resolution partly upon which Israel itself was founded.

Palestine not able to control their own foreign policy

in a future peace agreement… clearly it is obvious that the Palastinians will not be able to forge military pacts

This is in effect a triple whammy.  In the vision of Netanyahu, any Palestinian controlled territory will not have control over it’s own airspace, neither will it be able to import weapons, and neither will it be able to sign military pacts (such as mutual defence).

Other key conditions which Netanyahu made were claiming Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel - something which Palestinians would disagree with, and that whilst he is willing to conduct peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, he is not willing to speak with members of Hamas, ignoring the fact that Hamas won democratic elections.  This is a clear divide and conquer strategy in accepting the leadership of the West Bank, whilst refusing talks with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip (or “Hamastan” as Netanyahu called it).

All the above pre-conditions are based on the premise that the needs of Israel (in terms of both security and the requirement to maintain a majority Jewish state) take absolute primacy over the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.

Natanyahu actually links the basic human rights of Palestinians  - such as freedom of movement - to Palestinians agreeing to his demands, something which is abohorrant on many levels.

Perhaps the most galling revisionism espoused by Netanyahu was that Menachem Begin was a “pioneer of peace”. Begin was the leader of Jewish nationalist terrorist group Irgun at the time of the massacre of the village of Dier Yassin as well as the bombing of the King David Hotel.  The Irgun group claimed the whole of the British Mandate of Palestine for Israel, which includes not only the land of the current state of Israel, but also the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan.

Was there some sort of symbolism that Netanyahu chose to give this key speech from a centre in part dedicated to a terrorist whose own vision of Israel exceeded perhaps even the wildest dreams of Netanyahu?

See a reply to Netanyahu from Palestinian Economy Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on the BBC website.

Netanyahu, Aipac, two state solution and Palestinian responses