Razing Gaza

Israel grapples with abstract, impotent threats against its existence, while Palestinian villages are physically, and in actual fact, wiped off the map.

What if one, just one, Israeli town was ever razed? What if Palestinians had a single tank to do a little razing with!

This report from British Channel 4 displays the unimaginable level of destruction wrought by Israel's latest sanguinary binge. Veteran reporter Jonathan Miller has covered earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis and says that the "enormity of destruction" in Gaza "is as bad or worse" than anything that he has ever seen.

GAZA VILLAGES WIPED OFF THE MAP

'Calm Iraqi Election Marred as Thousands Denied Vote':

Saturday's balloting allows Iraqis to select provincial council members who in turn chose the governor of each Iraqi province. They are the equivalent of a state legislature.

Under Iraqi law, the power of provincial councils remains unclear. They have control over local security forces, public facilities and influence over the appointment of senior ministry officials in their province. But the Baghdad national parliament can remove governors and other provincial officials and the provincial budget will come from the federal government.

In Ameriyah Mohammed Allawi, 25, laughed when asked why he came to vote.

"We are an occupied country," he said. "I am voting only so that my vote will not be stolen by the corrupt people who are willing to do anything to remain firm on their seats."

His name was not on the roster's list and he left dejected.

READ MORE

-mr

Iraqi Elections and a Petarted Israel

Prof. Cole comments on the provincial elections in Iraq. Iraqis are increasingly voting for secular lists this time after being sorely disappointed by the religious councils' failure to improve daily life throughout Iraq since the last election in Jan. '05. Iraq is still plagued by violence, and suffering from grinding poverty, urban decay, 50% unemployment and a dearth of basic human services. Many mixed provinces remain political tinderboxes, such as restive Diyala. A proper homecoming remains a distant dream for over four million Iraqis internally and externally displaced by the war, like Riverbend and her family who escaped to Syria in '07.

Iraqi Voters select provincial Councils in Saturday's Vote

Iraqis go to the polls Saturday to vote in the first provincial elections since January, 2005. This time, two big things are different. The Sunni Arabs are not boycotting the election, as they did 4 years ago; and the Shiite parties are competing against one another rather than running as a monolithic coalition. These two changes bestow a dynamism on the process and make the outcome hard to predict. The final results may well tell us about likely changes in the composition of the Federal parliament in the national elections scheduled for December, 2009.

The LAT reports that the elections can only be held in Iraq via security arrangements that shut down traffic and interfere with ordinary life in other ways.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that despite a law forbidding campaigning within 24 hours of an election, most Iraqi parties went on trying to convince Iraqis to give them their votes right up to the last minute.

The number of candidates assassinated recently has risen to 8.

The Baghdad daily said that opinion polling done in Iraq recently suggested that voters will no longer confine themselves to casting their ballots for the religious (i.e. fundamentalist) parties, and that nationalist and secular parties are making a credible showing.

At the same time, clerics used their Friday prayer sermons to campaign for the political parties to which they belong. Cleric Muzaffar al-Musawi, the Imam-Jum`ah or chief Friday prayer leader in the East Baghdad slums of Sadr City, denounced anyone who did not vote for the Sadr Movement as a traitor to Iraq.

Meanwhile, in the Sunni Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad, Sheikh Abd al-Sattar al-Janabi read out a fatwa or considered legal opinion from the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq, Abd al-Karim Zaydan, affirming the duty to vote and disallowing past excuses for staying home on election day (such as that the election is being held under conditions of foreign military occupation or that the results of the polls are illegally fixed and predetermined. These allegations, Zaydan says, do not remove the duty of the individual to vote.

Ayad Allawi, a secular ex-Baathist of Shiite extraction who served as appointed, interim prime minister in 2004, accused incumbent parties of putting the resources of the government to work for them in their campaigns.

McClatchy reports that voters in Basra may be trying to settle political and personal scores by voting. Those Basrawis who hate the rigid, puritanical Mahdi Army may well vote for the Da'wa Party of PM Nuri al-Maliki, since al-Maliki sent the army last spring to crack down on the Sadrists in Basra.

McClatchy reports on a female, Sunni Arab candidate running in Diyala Province, whose husband (a provincial council member) has been kidnapped by insurgents; she is trying to use a seat on the provincial council to bargain for his release.

Israel may be hoist with its own petard, or so it goes. Uri Blau of Hareetz discusses the Secret Israeli database disclosing the full extent of illegal settlement in the West Bank. This is incredibly explosive stuff:

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. READ MORE

-mr

Headlines:

The Iraqi government refuses to renew Blackwater Worldwide’s license to operate in the nation.

"Tentative Hope Rises Ahead of Iraq Elections"

Israel attacks Rafah, while asserting it hasn't violated the ceasefire.

Hamas would recognize Israel with pre-1967 borders.

Obama loophole allows 'terrorist' detentions to continue.

Israeli soldiers find artistic expression in racist "throw-ups":

A series of slogans in both Hebrew and English were left on a house in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeytun, including "Arabs need 2 die," "Make war not peace", and "1 is down, 999,999 to go," The Guardian newspaper reported.

According to the media outlets, some of the graffiti was sprayed on the walls of a house belonging to the Samouni family, which lost 30 of its members during the IDF's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip. (see below)

-mr

WaPo reports on the As-Samouni family:

The Israeli military has an uncanny talent for near mechanistic slaughter. One family, the Samouni's, lost 29 members! If this small-town family of farmers weren't being herded into a crowded house and shelled by the IDF, they were being shot at while attempting to flee, detained while pleading for help, bearing witness to the slow death of trapped loved-ones (the children of whom were later found emaciated and clinging to corpses), or suffering the cruelty of being denied access to the emergency care of the Red Cross for over three days. The Israeli military is currently under investigation for committing war crimes in Zaytoun.

Two days before the shell struck Wael Samuni's house, the Red Cross had begun negotiating with the Israeli army to get ambulances into Zaytoun to evacuate civilians. "For the first two days, people were calling and literally begging us to come get them,' " said Antoine Grand, head of the Red Cross in Gaza, who declined to allow the ambulance teams working those days to be interviewed.

"We said: 'We're doing our best. Hang on,' " Grand said. "Then their mobile phone batteries died."

"We normally have good coordination about these things," he added. "But for days we asked for a green light to get in there, and it wasn't granted. I don't know why. It is extremely frustrating."

Leibovich, the Israeli army spokeswoman, declined to comment on why the army had not allowed the Red Cross into Zaytoun. Grand corroborated Leibovich's assertion that there were clashes in the neighborhood but said that should not have prevented emergency workers from being given access.

"Look, on the one hand, we don't want to go in while the fighting is going on. But they weren't fighting 24 hours a day for all those days," Grand said, adding that there was an Israeli army post 100 yards from where the Samuni house was struck. "Permission could have been granted earlier."

On Jan. 7, the Red Cross was finally permitted to enter Zaytoun, during a three-hour pause in combat operations to allow for humanitarian relief. The wounded had to be evacuated by donkey cart, because the Israeli army would not move earthen barricades it had placed in the road, according to the Red Cross's report. There was not enough time to retrieve the dead until Jan. 18, when at least 21 bodies were removed from the site, Grand said. The Red Cross's investigation of the events will be completed in the next few months, he added, and will be "shared privately" with the Israeli government. READ MORE

-mr

On not C-ing BS for once . . .

CBS breaks out of the mainstream mold and does some honest reporting. They probe Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank and interview actual Palestinians - including Dr.Bourgouti, who has been barred from re-entering his hometown of Jerusalem (where he'd been practicing as a doctor for 14 years) simply because he moved 10 miles out of town. This absurd banishment is four years in, and counting. CBS also visits a Palestinian family living in a house on the highest hill in Nablus. Their private life, rights and freedom of movement are constantly violated by Israeli soldiers who occupy their home at will due to its 'strategic value.'

Apartheid Checklist:
- humiliating and life crippling checkpoints
- massive separation barriers
- house demolitions
- institutionalized political inequality
- deliberate economic impoverishment
- internationally condemned settlements (insidiously choking all prospects for a two state solution)

A rapidly growing Arab population will outnumber Israeli Jews within a few short decades. This leaves Israel with three options: unbridled ethnic cleansing, a 'one man/one woman, one vote' democracy or apartheid - a process clearly already under way.

1- VIDEO: Please thank CBS because last night 60 Minutes Bob Simon Told the Truth About Jewish Settlers and the Israeli Army in West Bank to Prime Time Sunday Night American television. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n (Video & Audio Needed)

• CONTACT “60 Minutes” - They are getting a lot of “heat” from the vocal minority who support Israel’s brutal and counterproductive actions. It is important that those who value peace with justice in the region make the effort to support balanced media coverage. Tel: 212-975-2006 Fax: 212-975-2019 E-Mail: 60m@cbsnews.com, kev@cbsnews.com Copy to: info@cair.com

• Mail: 60 Minutes 555 West 57th St. New York, NY 10019

2- VIDEO Please watch this Video by a Israelis Women's group who is fighting for Palestinian justice and a Homeland since 2001.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGm-gxmxHw

3- BBC STORY Incitement against Palestinians by military chief rabbi

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7852025.stm

-mr

In Occupied Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops stormed the house of a former army officer Saturday in northern Iraq, killing the man and his wife, wounding their 8-year-old daughter and unleashing anger among residents at tactics they deemed excessive, police said. READ MORE

Anthony Shadid and Qais Mizher from the Washington Post report that U.S. forces killed an Iraqi couple, and wounded their eight year old daughter sleeping between them, in a night-time raid. Like the earlier murder of Hardan Al-Jubori - who was executed and had his finger amputated by U.S. troops on December 10th - the crime is being contested by Iraqi witnesses and authorities who allege US soldiers acted on their own, without the presence of Iraqi forces as required by the new Status of Forces Agreement.

Why did the US occupying army attempt to arrest Dhiya Hussein under the cover of darkness? Did they have a warrant for his arrest? If not, did they obtain the proper approval from an Iraqi judge for detaining him, as necessitated by the new security agreement? Were American forces accompanied by Iraqi security forces? These questions are currently being contested by local Iraqis and Gen. Jamal Tahir Bakir, head of the provincial police.

In the case of Hardan Al-Jubori, Ra’ed Jarrar writes on his blog:

The U.S. army declined to explain why Mr. Al-Jubori's finger was cut off, but CNN suggested that may have carried out this criminal act for "further identification" and "inclusion of his finger print and DNA in a US database,"as if giving such reasons would justify executing civilians in their homes then cutting their fingers off. What a great new system of justice: kill then identify.

I hope the U.S. army will not open a new Haditha-style fake investigation then find all U.S. troops innocent of any wrong doing. I urge you to contact the U.S. army and ask whether this execution and finger amputation is an official army policy:

CPICPRESSDESK@Iraq.centcom.mil

here is the email i sent:

Dear sir or madam at the Combined Press Information Center:

I am Raed Jarrar, and Iraqi blogger. I'm writing you to ask 3 questions regarding the execution and finger amputation of Mr. Hardan Al-Jubori on December 10th:

1- CNN reports that the reasons behind cutting Mr. Al-Jubori's finger after killing him might be "further identification" and "inclusion of his finger print and DNA in a US database". Are these speculations by CNN true?

2- CNN reports that Mr. Al-Jubori was an "Al-Qaeda suspect". Do you have a policy to execute al-qaeda suspects without a fair trial?

3- can you give a rough estimate of how many people in Iraq fall under this category of "Al-Qaeda suspects"?

thank you

Raed Jarrar
Washington, DC


Here are some stills from the video provided to CNN by al-Jubori family:

Al-Jubori's Family in front of their home

Hardan Al-Jubori's Mother

pool of blood in the bedroom

Mr. Al-Jubori's hand

Mr. Al-Jubori's dead body

-mr

Orientalist Redux

Guest writer on Informed Comment:

Jonathan Lyons writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

With the change of administration in Washington, the time has come to acknowledge the so-called war on terrorism for what it truly is: the latest reminder of the West’s enduring failure to engage in any meaningful way with the world of Islam. For almost 1,000 years, attempts at understanding have been held hostage to a grand Western narrative that shapes what can – and, more importantly, what cannot – be said about Islam and Muslims. This same narrative, an anti-Islam discourse of enduring power, dominates every aspect of the way we think, and write, and speak about Islam. It shapes how we listen to what they say and interpret what it is they do. As such, it exercises a corrosive effect on everything from politics, the history of ideas, and theology to international relations, human rights, and national security policies. This has left the West both intellectually and politically unable to respond to some of the most significant challenges of the early 21st century – the global rise of Islamist political power, the more narrow emergence of terrorism in the name of Islam, tensions between established social values and multi-cultural rights on the part of growing Muslim immigrant populations, and so on. READ MORE

-mr

US Patronage Equals Moral Culpability

Helena Cobban, Bill Hartung and Frida Berrigan record why we, as US taxpayers, are party to Israeli war crimes . . . and why we are on the wrong side of this anti-colonial struggle for political independence.

The right to self-determination is a right accorded to all citizens of the world, and accompanying this legal right is the entitlement to wage wars of national liberation. The American War of Independence (1775–1783) was such a war, in which the American colonists and their allies overthrew British rule.

However, it could be argued that America's war of independence was more akin to a civil war fought on foreign soil, for the combatants were comprised of both nations' residents and viewed as ethnically similar. In this respect the level of Israeli brutality, by now routine in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in incomparable to British aggression in colonial America, because it's steeped in the special wrath reserved for peoples racialized as 'other' and inferior.

Helena Cobban of 'Just World News:'

The United States is very far from a "neutral party" in the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. As I've noted before, the US government not only gives Israel essential political support (e.g. by blocking resolutions at the security Council); it also provides most of the high-tech arms the Israelis use against their opponents including during the assault on Gaza.

This recent short report by Bill Hartung and Frida Berrigan shows that,

Israel’s intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S.-supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars:

· During the Bush administration (from FY2002 through FY2009) Israel has received over $21 billion in U.S. security assistance, including $19 billion in direct military aid under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.

· The bulk of Israel’s current arsenal is composed of equipment supplied under U.S. assistance programs. For example, Israel has 226 U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter and attack jets, over 700 M-60 tanks, 6,000 armored personnel carriers, and scores of transport planes, attack helicopters, utility and training aircraft, bombs, and tactical missiles of all kinds.

· During 2008 alone, the United States made over $22 billion in arms sales offers to Israel, including a proposed deal for as many as 75 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters worth up to $15.2 billion; nine C-130J-30 aircraft worth up to $1.9 billion; 4 Littoral combat ships and related equipment worth as much as $1.9 billion; and up to $1.3 billion worth of gasoline and jet aviation fuel.

Hartung and Berrigan have tracked US arms transfers to Israel for some years now. Go to that link above-- and to the onward links from there-- to learn more details, including about which US military-industrial corporations won those contracts from the Pentagon, which helped yet further to boost their shareholders' profits.

I was interested to be reminded how many F-16s Israel has in its air force. 226! What on earth are they all for? Where on earth do they even park that many large hulks of metal?

The F-16s and Israel's Apache helicopters performed many deadly deeds in the recent war, including destroying a university, several schools, and the seat of the Palestinians' elected legislature. I also learned Thursday that the headquarters of the truly excellent Gaza Community Mental Health Program was badly damaged in the shelling. (More details here.)

Someone-- I forget where-- quoted a Hamas supporter as saying if the Israelis really are as terrified of the Palestinians' arsenal of extremely primitive rockets as they claim to be, then he would be happy to trade that entire arsenal for just one of Israel's F-16s. Well, the IOF would still have 225 other F-16s left, of course. But you get the general drift of the argument...

Meantime, we US citizens need to start holding our own government-- administration and congress-- accountable for the absolutely vital, multi-pronged support it has given to Israel's war on Gaza.

We should call for a total ban on all arms supplies to the Middle East pending the conclusion of final-status peace agreements between Israel and its three neighboring nations of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. Those peace agreements will certainly include provisions for longer-term follow-on arms control and security regimes. But we need to start implementing this arms embargo now. Perhaps it will help persuade Israelis that they need to solve their problems at the negotiating table, not by sowing death and destruction among their neighbors.

But if the US goes on arming one side to the conflict while pretending to be a "neutral mediator" in the peacemaking?? That idea is simply laughable.

-mr

Helena Cobban responds to the thought-obstructing banality: "Israel had no choice"

There are numerous other things it could have done to defuse tensions along its border with the Strip, other than launch the "shock and awe" war of December 27- January 18.

The Israeli government could have:

1. Placed considerably more value on the tahdi'eh (ceasefire) it concluded-- through the Egyptian intermediary-- back last June, and sought to fulfill the terms of that ceasefire and then use it as a basis for building an even more robust agreement with Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians. It didn't do that. It did nothing to lift the siege, as the Hamas negotiators would happen as the ceasefire progressed. That ceasefire had a six-month initial term, and for the first four and half months it was pretty well observed by both sides. But then, on Nov 4-- election day in the US-- the Israeli government authorized a large-scale IDF operation against Gaza that directly contravened the terms of the ceasefire and set in motion a new cycle of violence that, though it went through ups and downs, set the stage for the failure of the ceasefire-extension negotiation.

2. Even though the ceasefire-extension negotiations at the end of November and the beginning of December were held in a situation of cross-border tensions, still, the Israeli government could have pushed for a successful extension and strengthening of the ceasefire. True, the Hamas negotiators made clear they would only do so if the Israelis agreed to lift the siege of Gaza. So why didn't the Israeli government make strenuous efforts to explore ways for that to happen-- even including ways to verify that the re-opened borders would not allow a significant rearming by Hamas? Those ways exist. They are being actively explored by the diplomats right now. So why-- as both Chaitin and Chazan write-- did Israel have to go through this ghastly and damaging war in order to arrive at a diplomatic place it could have reached in mid-December without launching that war at all?

3. In general, if someone is doing something that really bothers or harms you, there are always scores of ways that intelligent people can use to try to prevent them from taking those harmful acts. So maybe Israel didn't want to talk to Hamas directly? It could talk through the Egyptians or the Turks, or numerous other potential intermediaries. So Hamas had its own conditions, too? Why not? They are people, after all, and could not be expected simply to lie down under the harsh siege forever without demanding that it be lifted. (Also, a blockade/siege is, strictly speaking itself an act of war.) Besides, having a Gaza population that is busily engaged in economic development and through that development acquires an increasing socio-economic stake that it would be reluctant to put at risk in a renewal of hostilities with Israel surely makes a lot more sense, for Israelis, than having 1.5 million neighbors in Gaza who feel a deep sense of grievance and also feel they have little or nothing to lose in any new round of hostilities?

-mr

Sderot Obama vs. Jabaliya Obama

Courtesy TomDispatch:

Change Obama Can Believe In:

Lest President Barack Obama's opportunistic silence when Israel began the Gaza offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians (more than 400 of them children) be misinterpreted, his aides pointed reporters to comments made six months earlier in the Israeli town of Sderot. "If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama had said in reference to the missiles Hamas was firing from Gaza. "I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Residents of Gaza might have wondered what Obama would have done had he been unfortunate enough to be a resident of, say, Jabaliya refugee camp. What if, like the vast majority of Gazans, his grandfather had been driven from his home in what is now Israel, and barred by virtue of his ethnicity from ever returning? What if, like the majority of the residents of this refugee ghetto-by-the-sea, he had voted for Hamas, which had vowed to fight for his rights and was not corrupt like the Fatah strongmen with whom the Israelis and Americans liked to deal?

And what if, as a result of that vote, he had found himself under an economic siege, whose explicit purpose was to inflict deprivation in order to force him to reverse his democratic choice? What might a Gazan Obama have made of the statement, soon after that election, by Dov Weissglass, a top aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, that Israel's blockade would put him and his family "on [a] diet"?

"The Palestinians will get a lot thinner," Weissglass had chortled, "but [they] won't die."

Starting last June, the Sderot Obama would have noticed that, as a result of a truce brokered by Egypt, the rocket fire from Gaza had largely ceased. For the Jabaliya Obama, however, the "Weissglass Diet" remained in place. Even before Israel's recent offensive, the Red Cross had reported that almost half the children under two in Gaza were anemic due to their parents' inability to feed them properly.

Who knows what the Jabaliya Obama would have made of the Hamas rockets that, in November, once again began flying overhead toward Israel, as Hamas sought to break the siege by creating a crisis that would lead to a new cease-fire under better terms. He might well have had misgivings, but he would also have had plenty of reason to hope for the success of the Hamas strategy.

Ever committed to regime change in Gaza, Israel, however, showed no interest in a new cease-fire As Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News, "Expecting us to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like expecting you to have a cease-fire with al-Qaeda." (Barak apparently assumed Americans would overlook the fact that he had, indeed, been party to just such a cease-fire since June 2008, and looks set to be party to another now that the Gaza operation is over.)

A canny Sderot Obama would have been all too aware that Israel's leaders need his vote in next month's elections and hope to win it by showing how tough they can be on the Gazans. Then again, a Sderot Obama might not have been thinking much beyond his immediate anger and fear – and would certainly have been unlikely to try to see the regional picture through the eyes of the Jabaliya Obama. READ MORE

-mr

Israel finally confesses . . .

. . . to at least one war-crime: the deployment of white phosphorus in its attack on Gaza. White phosphorus can serve as a smokescreen in battle, but is severely restricted by international law and is prohibited from being deployed in civilian areas. Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth. Ample photographic and video evidence attests to its illicit use in heavily populated areas, for example the firing of white phosphorous shells at a UN school in Beit Lahiya on January 17. The Israel government may reverse these claims - i.e. bona fide lies - but hubris and corruption prevent it from doing little else than ironically denying its original denials.

'CHANGING TUNE'

January 5 The Times reports that telltale smoke has appeared from areas of shelling. Israel denies using phosphorus

January 8 The Times reports photographic evidence showing stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells. Israel Defence Forces spokesman says: “This is what we call a quiet shell – it has no explosives and no white phosphorus”

January 12 The Times reports that more than 50 phosphorus burns victims are taken into Nasser Hospital. An Israeli military spokesman “categorically” denies the use of white phosphorus

January 15 Remnants of white phosphorus shells are found in western Gaza. The IDF refuses to comment on specific weaponry but insists ammunition is “within the scope of international law”

January 16 The United Nations Relief and Works Agency headquarters are hit with phosphorus munitions. The Israeli military continues to deny its use

January 21 Avital Leibovich, Israel’s military spokeswoman, admits white phosphorus munitions were employed in a manner “according to international law”

January 23 Israel says it is launching an investigation into white phosphorus munitions, which hit a UN school on January 17. “Some practices could be illegal but we are going into that. The IDF is holding an investigation concerning one specific unit and one incident” Source: Times database READ MORE

"A Shameful War: Israel in the Dock Over Assault on Gaza"

Up to 10 times as many Palestinians were killed as Israelis. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says 1,314 Palestinians were killed, of whom 412 were children or teenagers under 18, and 110 were women. On the Israeli side, there were 13 deaths between 27 December and 17 January, of whom three were civilians killed by rockets fired from Gaza. Of the 10 soldiers killed, four were lost to "friendly fire".

-mr

Sadder and Wiser

Obama shatters 18 innocent lives in Pakistan as he continues to dash voters' hopes for sustained 'change.' It appears that the commencement of hope and other heartwarming abstractions have begun and ended in the same hard-boiled breath as the US actively engages a sovereign nation within the usual format: illegal unilateral military strikes.

Obama's strategies have the appearance of LBJ in 1965 - it is worth recalling that LBJ was also the 'peace' candidate ushered in with a massive inauguration crowd. As of now, Obama is on the road to escalation in Afghanistan (increased troop levels, bombing campaigns, cross-border operations etc) and not the stepped-up support for post-war state building that many were hoping for. Hope may keep the desire for change alive, but it does little to generate it. Only through the exhaustive efforts of diplomacy and direct action can 'change,' the abstraction or glossy campaign slogan, enter the immediacy of lived life.

"President Orders Air Strikes on Villages in Tribal Area"

"Thousands Attend Funeral of Drone Victims in Pakistan"

Iraqi Ra'ed Jarrar who attended the inauguration comments on Obama's first executive orders and statements:

While Obama's order to close the secret CIA prisons around the globe is positive, it is still just a gesture that must be followed by real orders to stop all the CIA's illegal overt operations around the world.

While Obama's call on Israel to open Gaza's borders for commerce and humanitarian aid was a nice gesture, it must be followed by real steps to reevaluate the U.S. blind and unconditional support to the Israeli occupation(s).

While I deeply appreciated all these nice gestures, they all were dwarfed by yesterday's attack on Afghanistsn that killed 25 people, and today's attack on Pakistan that killed 20 people. These new criminal attacks on Pakistan and Afghanistan not only killed dozens of civilians in their homes, but also exposed and shattered Obama's hollow promises. Obama's choice to continue the same old U.S. policy in disregarding other nation-states' sovereignty cannot be excused, and the bombs that assassinated Pakistanis and Afghans during the last couple of days cannot be sugarcoated by some nice gestures.

If Obama really wants to "seek a new way forward" with the Muslim world based on "mutual interest and mutual respect", I think a good start would have been to stop assassinating Muslims in their homes.

-mr

Told you so . . .

Prof. As'ad AbuKhalil from The Angry Arab News Service, who recently spoke at Evergreen, comments on Obama's latest speech on the Middle East. As'ad is suffering an acute case of vindication as President Obama remains faithful to the Zionist path of US foreign policy, and contributes to the welter of misrepresentation plaguing the conflict and distorting the realities on the ground.

But Obama's speech was quite something. It was like sprinkling sulfuric acid on the wounds of the children in Gaza--those who survived the Israeli terrorist festival of butchery and massacres. His remarks leave you with the impression that there are two sets of problems in the holy land: that there was terrorism against civilians in "southern Israel" and then there is some undefined civilian suffering in Gaza from some undefined natural disaster--an earthquake or hurricane. He specifically mentioned the violence against "southern Israel" left it unclear as to what happened in Gaza. He then did the typical dance: of saluting Mubarak for not only oppressing his own population but for oppressing the Palestinians and imposing the siege on them. READ MORE

-mr

Unprecedented Criminality in the Holy Land

Several human rights and relief agencies have finally been permitted to enter Gaza, many for the first time since last November due to the Israeli imposed blockade. They report their unspeakable findings. This is exactly why the Israeli government is expected to pass a bill this Sunday to grant aid and succor to IDF officers accused of Gaza war crimes, but as Dr. Juan Cole comments dryly: "It is ironic that an Israeli defense minister seems unaware that the Nuremberg trials established the principle that following orders is no defense for a soldier charged with atrocities."

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Amnesty International: Houses in Shocking State

United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA): Phosphorus Shells Hit UN School

BBC: UN 'Shocked' by Gaza Destruction

-mr

Latest round-up on Gaza from Prof. Juan Cole at Informed Comment:

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

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

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

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

So what is the outcome of this dirty little war?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Aljazeera English reports that the Muslim world has been disappointed in Obama's silence on Gaza, and that he needs to do some fence mending.

"They even killed the cats!"

Some 50,000 Palestinians have been left homeless by the Israeli war on the people of Gaza, with 400,000 now lacking access to running water. Rebuilding what the Israeli military destroyed will cost billions of dollars.
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

Ashraf Khalil of the LAT reports that the Israelis destroyed 21,000 buildings. Khalil writes from the scene:

' In the village of Fukhari, outside Khan Yunis, it seemed as if a powerful earthquake had struck, flattening a collection of 15 homes belonging to a single extended family, a swath of destruction the size of a city block. Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled through this agricultural patch last week, destroying every building in sight. . . "They even killed the chickens and the turkeys!" shouted Faour Atteya, a 50-year-old high school teacher. "They killed the cats!"'

Aljazeera English reports on innocent civilian families buried in the rubble of farmhouses and other buildings demolished by Israeli air strikes.



Saudi Arabia pledged $1 bn. toward rebuilding Gaza at the Arab summit in Kuwait. This aid will likely be the main source of reconstruction, since Europe and the US refuse to deal with the Hamas government of Gaza, which the Israelis failed to dislodge. It should be pointed out that Saudi money will likely come with some strings attached, and may be disbursed in such a way as to try to spread the rigid Wahhabi branch of Islam. The Palestinians are the most secular people in the Arab world, but Israeli actions are pushing them into the arms of the conservative Gulf states. I don't think the Israelis will like the outcome down the road very much. But they seem to be unable to foresee the likely consequences of their actions. They invaded and occupied southern Lebanon in 1982, and seemed surprised when that occupation turned the Shiites against them and produced Hizbullah. They encouraged Hamas as an alternative to the secular Fatah in the late 1980s, and now seem surprised that Hamas overshadows Fatah.

The Israelis' brutal murder of hundreds of innocent Gazans, and wounding of thousands of women and children, in the war they just concluded will rebound on them in some horrible way. The campaign likely has already probably ensured the reelection in Iran of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had faced a tough campaign this June. Likewise, the war much weakened the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah party of PA president Mahmoud Abbas, because the Palestinian public perceived it to be implicated in the attack on Gaza. The US and Israel won't talk to Hamas, and if Fatah has been discredited with the Palestinians, then the Iraelis really have no one to talk too. That may suit them now, but timeis not on Israel's side.

I recommend to both sides Leo Tolstoy's short story, "A Lost Opportunity."

Anyway, it seems obvious that Hamas's control of Gaza has not been destroyed, if that was the goal of the Israeli leadership, since Hamas's security men reemerged on Monday to combat looting and gouging among the survivors.

Stephen Walt points out at his new blog that the Israelis think they got deterrence with regard to Hamas because the operation restored their own confidence. But you only get deterrence if you break the will of the enemy, which manifestly did not happen.

If the point was to stop the rockets being fired by Hamas, the ceasefire of last June did that, despite Olmert's propaganda to the contrary, and a further ceasefire could have been arranged. If the point was to destroy Hamas, well, they didn't accomplish that.

Mark Levine asks, "Who will save the Palestinians?"

Tomdispatch.com has been doing good work intracing military influence on civilian society in the US.

-mr

Counting the Dead

Olmert declares an Israeli victory, yet there is little proof that Hamas's leadership has been destroyed or surrendered, that Hamas's rocketing capabilities (crude as they may be) or its capacity to build more rockets have been destroyed or that Gazans and other Palestinians have started to oppose Hamas. In the meantime, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh insists “The enemy has failed to achieve its goals.”

There is plenty of proof that Israel has criminally evacuated, shattered, and leveled more of the build world in its latest round of asymmetrical bloodshed. As the fighting comes to a halt and the details are debated, the dead will continue to be plucked from the rubble and the Gaza death toll will rise.

And the aggrieved will demand accountability.

Abu Al-Aish recounted the shelling of his home: "I freaked out for the first few minutes after the incident. I didn’t know what was going on. It felt as though I was being slaughtered. I ran around in the apartment, looking at body parts – who is dead and who stayed alive. I saw that Mayer (his daughter) was gone. Bisan, the eldest, took her last breath. I began counting the bodies and then ran downstairs to scream."

The funerals of Abu Al-Aish's daughters Bisam (20), a business administration student, Mayer (15), Aya (13) and the niece Nour (14) were held in Gaza Saturday, but the doctor, who is tending to his injured daughter Shada (18), could not attend.

"Gazans pick up the pieces as the guns fall silent:"

Mr Atar did not know what to do next.

“What kind of plans can I make? I am at the mercy of God. The Israelis left nothing for us to survive on. We will have to stay in the UNRWA school until we can find somewhere to live.”

"Rafah, a Landscape scarred by Israel's war:"

Mr Harb, who works for the humanitarian organisation, Care, said he had felt helpless during the airstrikes as he snuggled against his children, trying to comfort them with the idea that the bombing they could hear would be "very temporary".

He recalled that when he had said this, his 15-year-old daughter, Banyas, had replied: "This is temporary for ever", meaning that she "is forever moving from war to war since she was born. Then my six-year-old son, Ziad, asked me 'are we going to die?' That really broke my heart."

"Gazans confront shattered lives:"

By the time she was found - she is not sure if it was three or four days later - she hardly knew her own name. But she remembers details.

"I got a glass of water, I wanted to fill it with water from the tap, but it fell down on the floor, and then there was blood all over the glass so I couldn't use it. I waited a bit and then I drank directly from the tap.

She says she wanted to leave, but her father was lying across the door.

"I didn't want to step on him in case I hurt him."

-mr

Zionism and its Victims

A binational state is the only long term, truly equitable, solution to the conflict in Palestine and Israel. Physically, geographically, economically, the place is much too small for each side to completely avoid one another, especially under the weight of perpetual hostility. And Israel's assiduous colonization of the West Bank has made a two-state solution nearly impossible. Edward Said, prominent Palestinian-American intellectual and spokesperson for the Palestinian cause, writes:

"The involvement of each in the other, largely due to the aggressiveness with which the Israelis have entered Palestinian territory, and from the very beginning have invaded Palestinian space, suggests that some mode of arrangement has to be established that allows then to live together in some peaceable form. It is not going to be through separation. The South Africans in a country twenty times bigger couldn't for long maintain apartheid."

And neither could the United States. Legal structures of power and coercion that create, maintain and exploit sociopolitical differences in the interests of a dominant group are not just morally offensive and indefensible, but impractical.

For over 60 years Palestinians have been shackled by Israeli power, and the target of its genocidal intentions. In this material relationship of inequality, Israel occupies the position of superiority - militarily, economically and politically. Israel's military is among the world's leading five, and the Israeli state is the second largest recipient of US aid. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs writes that: "Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes."

Israel speaks the language of power, while Palestinians and their fractured authority (which hardly amounts to anything resembling a sovereign, effectual entity) remain stateless, and as Middle East expert Juan Cole argues, virtual slaves interned in open-air camps. This state of constant deprivation and debasement amounts to nothing less than slow-motion ethnic cleansing.

Israel is a Vulgarian State that has distorted and mocked the very existence of the Palestinian people in order to deliberately cleanse a people from their ancestral homeland. It is unwilling to confront the monstrosity of what it means to exist at the expense of another people, whom they have either killed, driven away or legally deprived of every civil, political and human right. The only solution to this apartheid, as with all others, is a solution predicated on equality, on the co-citizenship afforded only through the decolonization and reintegration of a violently partitioned land.

Palestinians and Israelis are invested in each other; their enemy is their only partner. However for any genuine partnership or negotiation to take root, both must occupy positions of equal strength. It cannot be the same tired equation of Israel the aggressor and Palestine the aggrieved. Nir Rosen describes this colonial dialect of domination and oppression, and the few options it permits:

A Zionist Israel is not a viable long-term project and Israeli settlements, land expropriation and separation barriers have long since made a two state solution impossible. There can be only one state in historic Palestine. In coming decades, Israelis will be confronted with two options. Will they peacefully transition towards an equal society, where Palestinians are given the same rights, à la post-apartheid South Africa? Or will they continue to view democracy as a threat? If so, one of the peoples will be forced to leave. Colonialism has only worked when most of the natives have been exterminated. But often, as in occupied Algeria, it is the settlers who flee. Eventually, the Palestinians will not be willing to compromise and seek one state for both people.

Zionism, the exclusive and totalizing ideology legitimating Israel's imperial aggressions in the region is a dangerous brand of ethnic nationalism that diminishes all hopes for a peaceful resolution.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's brand of Zionism is a form of ethnic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism differs in important ways from civic nationalism. Civic nationalism is based not on ethnicity but on national ideals. The mainstream of French nationalism since 1789, for instance, has been civic, not ethnic. That is why a Senegalese African like Blaise Diagne could be elected to the French parliament in 1914. Senegal was a colony but a few districts were seen as French soil and so could send representatives to Paris. This would be as though in the same period Tanzanians could serve in the German parliament or Uzbeks in the Tsarist Russian Duma. Obviously, French society is made up of fallible human beings and there is practical discrimination against French of black African heritage, but it isn't legal discrimination.

If Israel is to flourish, it must recognize itself as a multi-ethnic, civic state. It already has 1.4 million Palestinian-Israelis, and at least 300,000 non-Jewish Russians, according to the 2008 census. It also has a growing population of Thai, Sudanese and other guest workers, who are not citizens but who may never go back home. (Germany's experience with the Turkish guest workers was that many became citizens in the end). Excluding guest workers condemns a capitalist society to demographic and economic stagnation. Where guest workers are already present, disallowing them citizenship creates enormous social problems. Israel will be a Jewish-majority state for some decades. But it can't remain that way in the long run without doing some very unpleasant things that will make its leaders really look like Milosevic. READ MORE

The latest and most gruesome super-blitz into Gaza has really been about dominating all of historical Palestine. The annexation wall and settlements continue to enfeeble the West Bank by carving up Palestinian communities into isolated, non-viable Bantustans, while the blockade of tiny Gaza continues to asphyxiate those who managed to survive Israel's latest turkey shoot - which wasn't about Hamas or makeshift rockets, but about permanently subjugating the Palestinian people and further entrenching Israeli control of Palestinian land, air and water.


Latest from Informed Comment:
Prof. Juan Cole describes the expanding boycotts of Israeli goods, an increasingly global trend as Israel continues to offend world-wide audiences with its wanton killing of Palestinian civilians:

Wholesale food distributors in Jordan, the UK and the Scandinavian countries are quietly imposing an informal boycott on Israeli fruit, according to Ynetnews, in response to the war on Gaza. My guess is that if the Apartheid situation in the Occupied Territories becomes formalized, such boycotts will spread.

Cole also comments in more detail on Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who's anguished, soul-churning laments were aired on the Israeli news station he regularly appeared on (the video is posted under "Aftermath," below this one):

Israel pursued its attacks on Friday and on Saturday morning, killing 55 Palestinians, including a houseful of girls, daughters and a niece of a physician working in Israel who was being interviewed on Israeli television when the news reached him. AFP writes:

' At least 55 Palestinians were killed on Friday, including at least 10 people who died when a tank shell slammed into their house in Gaza City during a funeral wake, according to Palestinian medics . . . In the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory, three daughters and a niece of a Palestinian doctor working in Israel were killed in an Israeli air strike. "They were girls, only girls. I want to know why they have they killed them. Who gave the order to fire?" the children's sobbing father Ezzedine Abu Eish said on Israeli television. Palestinian militants meanwhile fired over 20 rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel on Friday, wounding five people, the Israeli military said. Over 700 such projectiles have been fired since the start of the war.'

The father of the dead little girls, Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, appears to have been a sort of an Arab "Dr. Sanjay Gupta" who came on Israeli television frequently. He was about to do an interview on Israeli television when the word reached him of the atrocity against his family. His wife had earlier died of cancer, so his children were all he had left. He commuted to Tel Aviv from Gaza and told the girls to sleep near the stone walls to stay safe in his absence.

The Israeli anchors put his anguished lamentations on the air for over 3 minutes, which I take to be their own little protest against Olmert's Butcher Shop. The physician is heard repeatedly crying out, "Ya Rabb, ya Allah" (O Lord, O God!) as the image of the mangles small bodies invades his mind.

In the News:
Noam Chomsky lucidly paraphrases Israel's long-term intentions, and Hamas's willingness to accept a political solution:

. . . . There`s a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it`s a very rational theme: `Let`s delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we`ll `build facts on the ground.`` So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what`s left of the indigenous population.

I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.

(on Hamas accepting a two-state solution). . . . .That`s their official position taken by Haniya, the elected leader, and Khalid Mesh`al, their political leader who`s in exile in Syria, he`s written the same thing. And it`s over and over again. There`s no question about it but the West doesn`t want to hear it. So therefore it`s Hamas which is committed to the destruction of Israel.

In a sense they are, but if you went to a Native American reservation in the United States, I`m sure many would like to see the destruction of the United States. If you went to Mexico and took a poll, I`m sure they don`t recognize the right of the United States to exist sitting on half of Mexico, land conquered in war. And that`s true all over the world. But they`re willing to accept a political settlement. Israel isn`t willing to accept it and the United States isn`t willing to accept it. And they`re the lone hold-outs. Since it`s the United States that pretty much runs the world, it`s blocked. READ MORE

Israel bombs the University Teachers Association in Gaza. Oxford University academic Karma Nabulsi has termed Israel's vicious targeting of Gaza's academic institutions: `scholasticide,' Israel`s systematic and intentional destruction of Palestinian education centers:

In its current war on Gaza alone, Israel has bombed the ministry of education, the Islamic University of Gaza, and tens of schools, including at least 4 UNRWA schools, after having largely destroyed the infrastructure of teaching throughout the year and a half of its illegal and criminal siege of the densely populated Gaza Strip. READ MORE

-mr

Aftermath

With Israel and Hamas both declaring temporary ceasefires, the worst may seem over. However, Hamas has stated its intention to resume fighting if Israeli troops do not leave Gaza within a week.

Reports are already coming in of Israel violating the ceasefire. Given Israel's past disrespect for ceasefires this is likely to continue for some time.

But Gaza, already littered with ruins and bullet-riddled buildings before the Israeli assualt, now lays devasted. Some are already estimating the damage is nearly $1 Billion Dollars. Given how poverty-stricken Gaza is this means the ruins will be the new face of Gaza for some time.

Many bodies remain trapped underneath collapsed buildings and the Palestinian death toll could continue to rise significantly.



As Gaza Doctor and Peace Activist Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish delivered a press conference on how three of his daughters and a neice were murdered by Israeli tank fire, hecklers condemned the Grief-stricken father for "Talking Against Israel". While the hecklers stated with absolute certainty that the girls deserved to die because "they had weapons inside the home". The Israeli military differed, simply saying that they had come under sniper fire.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish is unique in that he was trained in Israel and speaks Hebrew and was one of the only Palestinian voices on Israeli TV during the invasion. During an interview with him Israeli viewers got a brief glimpse of the suffering in Gaza.



While polls show that 94% of the (Non-Arab) Israeli population supported the war there is growing dissent in Israel that the operation did not go far enough.

Are Gazans Slaves? The Dispossession of Liberty:

Latest from Informed Comment
Israel in Gaza increasingly seen as Rogue State by EU, Red Cross, Lancet; Are Gazans Slaves?

As of Thursday morning, the Israelis have now killed 1038 and wounded 4850 Palestinians.

The BBC reports that "More than 300 of the dead are said to be children, 76 are women and more than 4,500 people have been injured, of whom 1,600 are children and 678 are women." In addition, many of the dead or wounded are just Gaza police and municipal authorities that the Israelis are counting as "Hamas" when they may be no such thing. Tens of thousands of civilians have been rendered homeless, which is to say that there are thousands of families and children without shelter in the middle of winter (the low tonight in Gaza is 6 C./ 42 F.)

Aljazeera English reports on babies who died because of the interruption in transportation and hospital care.


Cont'd

The head of the Red Cross remarked on Wednesday that the situation is "shocking."

' "I saw this dramatic humanitarian situation. There's an increasing number of women and children being wounded and going to hospitals," Jakob Kellenberger told reporters in Jerusalem. "It is shocking. It hurts when you see these wounded people and the types of wounds they have. And I think that in addition the number of people coming to these hospitals is increasing," he said. The Red Cross president called for improved access for ambulances inside Gaza seeking to recover the wounded and to rescue civilians sheltering from the fighting, saying Israel's daily three-hour pause in operations is "not sufficient." "It is a positive step that you have a three-hour stop in the fighting, for doing humanitarian work, but it is not sufficient," he said. "Civilians who are being wounded, who are being trapped with problems of hunger, without water, you must be able to say that you can reach them." '

It is now estimated that Israel has inflicted $1.4 bn. in damages on Gaza, which was already desperately poor. It is being accused of deliberately and wantonly targeting civilian targets, on the grounds that they are 'symbols of government' and Hamas had gotten into control of the government.

The respected medical journal Lancet let the Israeli leadership have it in an editorial this week:

' "We find it hard to believe that an otherwise internationally respected, democratic nation can sanction such large and indiscriminate human atrocities in a territory already under land and sea blockade," The Lancet said. "The collective punishment of Gazans is placing horrific and immediate burdens of injury and trauma on innocent civilians. These actions contravene the fourth Geneva convention." The editorial also blasted "national medical associations and professional bodies worldwide," accusing them of keeping silent as the destruction unfolded. "Their leaders, through their inaction, are complicit in a preventable tragedy that may have long-lasting public-health consequences not only for Gaza for also for the entire region," it said.'

The Lancet editorial board used the same word as I have, "atrocities," for what is being done to the civilian population, and agrees with my charge of indiscriminate fire on civilians (a war crime) and contravention of the international law governing treatment of subject populations in occupied territories (Israel controls Gaza's borders, air and sea access and denies it statehood, and so is the occupying authority. Having merely removed its colonists does not mean it is no longer an occupier; colonizing an occupied territory is itself illegal). The Israeli military's apparent targeting of clinics and other medical facilities at a time when they are most needed for care of civilians seems to have especially angered the Lancet editors.

Palestinian human rights organizations are calling on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to convene to investigate Israeli abuses of the law.

Unlike the obsequious US press, Britain's Channel 4 is capable of challenging the propaganda that Hamas was intensively bombarding Israel with rockets during the 2008 ceasefire. The anchor was given a report by the Israeli government that showed that Hamas did not in fact send rockets on Israel in that period. Only 20 rockets were fired from Gaza between June and December of 2008, and they were fired by organizations other than Hamas. No Israelis were killed in that period by these little home made projectiles.

Trita Parsi takes on the glib charges about Iran and Gaza, and warns that the Gaza War is a trap for Obama in his proposed opening to Iran.

The European Union has put off plans to declare Israel a privileged partner in trade, diplomacy and political ties on Wednesday. The falling through of this program is a blow to Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who had hoped to campaign on the achievement in her bid for the prime ministership (the election is Feb. 10).

The plan was derailed by commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who has been involved in trying to broker peace in Sri Lanka and in freeing imprisoned Bulgarian nurses in Libya. She has been an activist in helping children AIDS victimes. She is a former Austrian foreign minister.

There is no talk of sanctions against Israel; what has happened is only that extra privileges are not being proffered. The EU officials are clearly very disturbed by the bloodbath in Gaza. Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, the EU ambassador to Israel, put the matter as delicately as he could: "In a war situation, in a situation in which Israel is at war, using its war means in a very dramatic way, in a powerful way in Gaza, everybody realises that it is not the appropriate time to upgrade bilateral relations."

"Using its war means in a very dramatic way" seems pretty clearly an implicit condemnation of the disproportionate use of force and the complete disregard for civilian life that has characterized Israel's massive bombardment of densely populated Gaza.

The thing I cannot understand is why it is only the war that should give Europe pause? What about the blockade on Gaza, which left 15 percent of Gazan children (and half of them are children) malnourished?

In fact, I would argue that until the 1.5 million people of Gaza are freed from Israeli control and abuse, there is no reason for the EU to reward Israel with special perquisites not given other non-European countries.

I would argue that Israel is keeping the Gazans in a state akin to slavery. Here are some similarities between the condition of the people of Gaza and classical slavery:

They were deprived of their basic rights as a result of a military conquest. (Peoples and individuals have often been enslaved as a result of being vanquished.)

They are stateless. In fact, US slaves at the time the constitution was written in the eighteenth century were at least counted as 3/5s of a citizen. Gazans are not counted as citizens at all by any existing state.

They have suffered what Orlando Patterson called "social death." Most Gazans are refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and used to live in what is now Israel, but had their property stolen by the European Jewish settlers. They are now trapped in Gaza, and are cut off from many other members of their clan. Social death occurs when the enslaved is removed from his or her original social and geographical context. The Gazans are certainly for the most part cut off in this way.

Gazans lack mobility, being trapped in the Gaza Strip. Israel controls their borders and their air and coastline. There is also a checkpoint on the short border with Egpt, but it is strictly policed. It is typical of the condition of slaves that they are deprived fo the liberty of movement.

They do not control their own property. Thus, Gazans cannot own a medical clinic, e.g.,and be sure of it not being bombed by the Israelis. They can never know from day to day what the Israelis will do to their property. They cannot export their goods via their harbor on the Mediterranean because Israel does not allow it. They cannot have a functioning airport. Likewise slaves do not actually own property, since the slavemaster actually owns it and can dispose of it as he likes.

Innocent Gazans may be killed or maimed with impunity by Israeli bombs and shells. Likewise, slavemasters in most societies can kill or beat their slaves with few repercussions.

Gazans can be deprived of enough nutrition to be healthy at will. A free person lacking nutrition can make arrangements to get more. A slave, because of lack of freedom of movement, is forced to simply go hungry.

It may be objected that Israelis do not make Gazans work for them for free. But forced labor is only one element of slavery. The essential characteristics of any slave system have more to do with the denial of liberty than with the precise economic form of exploitation practiced on the slave. That there has been Israeli economic exploitation of Gazans and their resources is in any case undeniable.

Unless and until the Gazans are freed by the Israeli Pharoah from their debilitating bondage, the violence will go on. And the Gazans, having been deprived of their liberty as Samson was deprived of his sight, are perfectly capable of bringing down the whole structure of Levantine security if this unhealthy and outrageous denial to them of the elements of basic human dignity does not cease once and for all.

(Juan Cole @ 1/15/2009 12:27:00 AM)
-mr

Israel prevents Palestinian ZOMBIE ATTACK!:

GAZA (Reuters) - Stench, debris and human remains greeted Palestinians in the city of Gaza on Wednesday after an Israeli missile strike at dawn -- but in this case no one died.

A big explosion tore through the increasingly packed Sheikh Redwan cemetery, shattering tombstones and ripping bones and recently buried flesh from the earth.

"The planes have struck even the dead. There is nothing the planes have not hit in the Gaza Strip," lamented Abu Fayez al-Shurafa, leaning on a cane. READ MORE

Gaza war rages as toll tops 1,000:

The Palestinian death toll stands at about 1,033 people and nearly 5,000 have been injured, with 40 per cent of the dead civilians and a third children, aid agencies and Palestinian medics say.

Raed, an Iraqi architect who lived through years of the US occupation of his country, reports on Israeli war crimes:

The UN human right council held a special session this week to discuss the Israeli crimes in Gaza, and they came up with the following:

1- The council "DECIDES TO DISPATCH FACT-FINDING MISSION TO INVESTIGATE VIOLATIONS AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN OCCUPIED TERRITORY"

The Council [...] decided to dispatch an urgent independent international fact-finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Council also requested the United Nations Secretary-General to investigate the latest targeting of UNRWA facilities in Gaza, including schools, that resulted in the killing of tens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children.


2- The council "adopts resolution on grave human rights violations in Gaza Strip"

In the resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 33 to 1 with 13 abstentions, the Council called for the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territory; demanded the occupying power, Israel, to immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied Gaza Strip; called upon the occupying power to end its occupation to all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967, and to respect its commitment within the peace process towards the establishment of the independent sovereign Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital; demanded that the occupying power stop the targeting of civilians and medical facilities and staff as well as the systematic destruction of cultural heritage; demanded further that the occupying power lift the siege, open all borders.

Prof. Juan Cole on Turkish boycott of Israeli goods, an increasing trend in the region:

The Turkish Consumers Association is spearheading a Turkish consumer boycott of Israeli-made goods.Turkey is Israel's eighth largest trading partner, with trade between the two countries worth over $2.6 bn a year in 2007

Israel's economy depends heavily on foreign trade, which accounts for 80 percent of its GDP.

There is a dispute about whether this downturn in relations between Turkey and Israel is a hiccup or whether it is a negative secular trend, with Turkey looking increasingly like the rest of the Middle East, which does very little business with Israel.

Even in Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel and had in the 1990s supplied up to a third of Israeli petroleum, the Gaza War is hardening attitudes and has produced massive demonstrations little covered in the US media. In 2005, Egypt had made a deal to sell natural gas to Israel, but the supreme court struck it down last fall on the grounds that such an arrangement requires the approval of parliament. It is hard to imagine even Egypt's docile parliament, dominated by the ruling party, voting for such a thing any time soon. Israel has replaced Egyptian petroleum for the most part with oil from Russia and Kazakhstan.

I think over time there is a real danger of Israel risking boycotts and economic strangulation if it continues with Apartheid policies in the Occupied territories.

Field Up Date on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
United Nations-Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

And how about a field update on human rights in Iraq: Human Rights in Iraq "extremely poor -HRW

Israel Shuts out World Press

Gaza's Blackening Beaches

At the Bedside of a Badly Wounded Girl in Gaza

Israeli banned Arab parties: We'll establish an alternative Arab parliament

-mr