Israel's 'colonial tactics' decried

-mr

Informed Comment on Sayyid Najm :

Informed Comment on Sayyid Najm :

Sayyid Najm: "Tanks against Flesh is not War"

Aljazeera Arabic this evening interviewed Sayyid Najm, an Egyptian novelist and literature specialist on war in literature. He is author of, among other things, Ayyam Yusuf Mansi (Cairo: Zahran, 1990). He made some interesting points about the structure of war novels, and the way the pacing has to be picked up during the battles. The interviewer then asked about the current fighting.

Q. In light of your experience with war in literature, what do you have to say about Gaza today?

Sayyid Najm: If were were to speak about the literature of war with regard to today, I'd have to say that there is no war in Gaza. In Gaza today, all that we have experienced and lived through and dealt with the meaning of, tells us that a war is a conventional army fighting another conventional army. But here the tanks are going against flesh and human beings; bullets and bombs and fighter jets against bodies and eyes, children and women; death before blood and earth. This is no war. What is going on in Gaza, if we are to express it correctly, is state terror.

Helena Cobban on US arming of Isreal:

US rearming Israel from Greece?

On Dec. 31, the US Military Sealift Command published a solicitation for bids from shipping companies to ship two boats, each containing 168 TEU's (twenty-foot equivalent container units) of ammunition, from Greece to Israel.

(HT: Danger Room.)

That's a considerable amount of ammunition. Its type was not stated.

If the international community is serious about a ceasefire this must involve credible efforts to impose an arms embargo on both sides until the ceasefire is concluded.

US arms shipments to Israel are sent (free of cost to Israel) for the express purpose of "self defense." There is no way Israel's current war against Gaza could be described as self-defense without a truly Orwellian effort to bend the meaning of the term completely out of any logic or acceptability.

-mr

The Telegraph: 60 Family Members Killed at Zeitoun

-mr

At least 30 Gazans killed in strike on UN school; IDF: Troops fired in self-defense

Israel's declared goals include the halting of all cross-border rocket fire into southern Israel, in addition to the elimination of Hamas' infrastructure. For the Israel government that includes the deliberate and illegal destruction of the power plants and other civilian infrastructure, the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque (mid-prayer), the Islamic University (the largest university in Gaza), the American International School, civilian homes and refugee camps. Or one could just bomb a UN school sheltering civilians in Jabalya refugee camp.

Dr. Juan Cole, professor of history at University of Michigan, describes the inherent contradiction in Israeli's muddled policy:

Hamas won the elections for the Palestine Authority in January 2006 and formed a government; yet Livni objects even to speaking of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, because Hamas, she says, is just a terrorist organization. (It has engaged in terrorist tactics, just as Livni has committed state terror on a large scale, as with dropping a million cluster bombs on civilian areas of south Lebanon; but Hamas isn't "just" a terrorist organization, or Livni's bombing of policemen and the ministry of interior in Gaza would make no sense; she thinks it was the government of Gaza, obviously. Hamas has engaged in diplomacy, has called truces, etc. It is made up of human beings, not demons.)

• Situation Report from the Humanitarian Coordinator (the most recent of the daily reports): United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

• An Expert's Comment from Chatham House: Conflict in Gaza. 'The Israeli attack offers no remedy, rather it is a symptom and cause of the open-ended Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it is seriously harming a civilian population already enduring great hardship. Israel has tried and failed to crush Hamas and other Palestinian groups before and it has no clear plan for ending the conflict with Hamas or its occupation of Palestinian territory. Israel cannot impose its will by force and one day it will need to talk to the people it is currently punishing through bombardment and blockade.' - Robert Lowe

- mr

Palestinian Girl, Israeli Troops

Latest from Informed Comment:

Palestinian Girl, Israeli Troops

Korean television has video of a Palestinian girl confronting Israeli soldiers over their firing (rubber bullets?) at demonstrating Palestinian children and youth.



She is being identified by my facebook friends as Huwaida Arraf, a Detroiter married to Adam Shapiro, a University of Michigan Poli Sci graduate, and a founder of International Solidarity Movement, a nonviolent activist organization.

(Juan Cole @ 1/06/2009 11:50:00 AM)
-mr

Helena Cobban on the continuing crisis in Gaza:

• A negotiated ceasefire: The best Israel can expect.

• Not a war but a bloodbath.

• The roots of Hamas resilience.

-mr

"It's Hell in Here""They are Bombing 1.5 million People in a Cage"

Doctor Decries Israeli Attacks

Latest from Informed Comment:

Monday, January 05, 2009

"It's Hell in Here"
"They are Bombing 1.5 million People in a Cage"

CBS News broadcasts an interview with a Norwegian physician on the scene in Gaza.

He says he has seen one military casualty come into the hospital. Of 2500 wounded, 50% are women and children. Doing surgery around the clock. There are injuries you do not want to see-- children coming in with open abdomens, with injured legs, we had to amputate both of them. This is a war on the civilian population of Gaza. It is a very young population. They cannot flee. They are fenced in. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.




Casualty toll in Gaza as of Monday morning from the Mizan Center for Human Rights.

Also please write your representative and senator, send this link, and demand that the US intervene diplomatically to stop this atrocity.

(Juan Cole @ 1/05/2009 05:12:00 PM)

-mr