Daily Archives: January 12, 2009

DEMOCRACY AT WORK — ISRAELI STYLE

Democracy at work — Israeli style:
Israel bans Arab parties from coming election
Joseph Federman, Associated Press, January 12, 2009

Israel on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month’s parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country’s Supreme Court.

The ruling by parliament’s Central Election Committee reflected the heightened tensions between Israel’s Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.

Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country’s Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to some of Israel’s staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria.

The 37-member committee is composed of representatives from Israel’s major political parties. The measure was proposed by two ultranationalist parties but received widespread support. [continued…]

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EDITORIAL & VIEWS: Is the US ready to become even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

A new peace process demands new language
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 12, 2009

If almost 1,000 Israelis had just been killed and another 3,000 wounded, Israel as a nation would take justifiable offense at anyone who suggested to them that now was the time to return to the negotiating table. To approach ones enemy in such a moment is the ultimate expression of defeat.

For Palestinians in this moment, with no state, with no practical support from their vocal allies, a refusal to accept defeat is the thread upon which hangs their dignity and their hopes for a self-determined national identity.

If the Obama administration wants to grasp the political opportunity created by the current crisis, a clear and meaningful starting point can come through adopting new language for framing the issues.

“Choosing talks over terror” (see Richard Haass’ commentary below) is a repudiation of the Bush paradigm that has consistently devalued negotiation yet it reaffirms the language of the war on terrorism.

For over two weeks, a 1.5 million Palestinians have been terrorized. It would be absurd to claim otherwise. At any other time in any other location, if a state was raining down missiles and bombs on a population that was being encouraged to flee even while it was simultaneously being caged in, such a state would be accused of mercilessly terrorizing that population.

The choice that Palestinians — and Israelis — need to be persuaded to make is between negotiation and armed confrontation.

Only when our language refrains from taking sides can we begin to be seen as even-handed.

Secondly, if the US wants to grade the region’s actors in a meaningful way, it’s time to toss out another key element in the Bush paradigm: the idea that the Middle East is divided between “moderates” and “extremists.”

Instead of flattering US allies by calling them moderates, we should be paying attention to which countries and populations have a greater appetite for democracy and which regimes are nurturing or supressing that appetite. While none of America’s friends count well on that score, as the global Democracy Index indicates the most fertile ground for democratic development in the Middle East is among Palestinians.

When the seeds of Palestinian democracy started to take root in 2006, it was the US, Israel and Europe who were intent on aborting the birth of democracy (see the Christian Science Monitor commentary below for an excellent account of the US-sponsored sabotage of Palestinian democracy). The mistrust this democratic betrayal has engendered has created a huge obstacle that can only be removed by a new and tangible demonstration by the so-called facilitators of peace that they are now pursuing this goal in good faith. So far, the only clear message that has gone out across the region is that Israel enjoys unequivocal Western support however it chooses to act. That message provides no basis for a peace process.

An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering
By Norman H. Olsen and Matthew N. Olsen, Christian Science Monitor, January 12, 2009

Hamas never called for the elections that put them in power. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff, who had apparently decided they could steer Palestinians into supporting the more-compliant Mahmoud Abbas (the current president of the Palestinian authority) and his Fatah Party through a marketing campaign that was to counter Hamas’s growing popularity – all while ignoring continued Israeli settlement construction, land confiscation, and cantonization of the West Bank.

State Department staffers helped finance and supervise the Fatah campaign, down to the choice of backdrop color for the podium where Mr. Abbas was to proclaim victory. An adviser working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to incredulous staffers at the Embassy in Tel Aviv how he would finance and direct elements of the campaign, leaving no US fingerprints. USAID teams, meanwhile, struggled to implement projects for which Abbas could claim credit. Once the covert political program cemented Fatah in place, the militia Washington was building for Fatah warlord-wannabee Mohammed Dahlan would destroy Hamas militarily.

Their collective confidence was unbounded. But the Palestinians didn’t get the memo. Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas’s victory during her 5 a.m. treadmill workout. But that did not prevent a swift response.

She immediately insisted that the Quartet (the US, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) ban all contact with Hamas and support Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. The results of her request were mixed, but Palestinian suffering manifestly intensified. The isolation was supposed to turn angry Palestinians against an ineffective Hamas. As if such blockades had not been tried before.

Simultaneously, the US military team expanded its efforts to build the Mohammed Dahlan-led militia. President Bush considered Dahlan “our guy.” But Dahlan’s thugs moved too soon. They roamed Gaza, demanding protection money from businesses and individuals, erecting checkpoints to extort bribes, terrorizing Dahlan’s opponents within Fatah, and attacking Hamas members.

Finally, in mid-2007, faced with increasing chaos and the widely known implementation of a US-backed militia, Hamas – the lawfully elected government – struck first. They routed the Fatah gangs, securing control of the entire Gaza Strip, and established civil order. [continued…]

Bring in the diplomats
By Richard Haass, Newsweek, January 10, 2009

Every crisis holds within it the seeds of opportunity, and this one is no exception. But to take advantage of it, Washington must give Palestinians a reason for choosing talks over terror. The only way to do this is to demonstrate that talking—negotiating—will deliver more than fighting.

Sooner rather than later the new president should publicly articulate the contours of what the United States believes would constitute a just settlement of the Middle East conflict. This means calling for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state based on 1967 lines, with territorial compensation for those borders altered to take into account Israel’s large settlement blocs and legitimate security requirements. Palestinian refugees would receive financial compensation and the right to settle in the new country of Palestine but, with few exceptions, not in Israel. Palestinians would enjoy some foothold in Greater Jerusalem (so that they could claim it as their capital) and authority over Muslim holy places.

Aid and investment can also strengthen the hands of moderates, although it needs to be complemented by easing the movement of goods and people in and out of the West Bank and Gaza. It is essential to rein in Israeli settlement activity lest Palestinians conclude their state will never be viable. And it’s worth trying to drive a wedge between Hamas and Syria. The United States should join with Turkey in mediating between Syria and Israel. A deal ought to be possible in which Israel returns all of the Golan Heights (which are then demilitarized for a set period of time) in exchange for peace and a halt to Syrian support for Hizbullah and Hamas. The United States would then ease economic sanctions against Damascus.

We have learned in Iraq and elsewhere that political and economic progress cannot take place without security. This means we should continue to build up Palestinian police and military forces. It could also mean creating an international force, possibly one drawn from Arab and Islamic countries, to maintain calm in Gaza. The alternative is to depend on Israeli deterrence and Hamas’s restraint, which as recent events demonstrate are prone to breaking down.

It is too soon to know whether the moderates would win out over the radicals or, as happened in Northern Ireland, many of the radicals would evolve and become more moderate. This should be encouraged; over time, elements of Hamas might conclude that their only hope of realizing a Palestinian state is by trading in their guns. Those willing to embrace this approach could become part of a Palestinian coalition government. [continued…]

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ISRAEL’S WAR ON THE MEDIA

Al Jazeera: Gaza and the information war

My hero of the Gaza war
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, January 11, 2009

My war hero likes to eat at Acre’s famed Uri Burri restaurant. He thinks it’s the best fish restaurant in the world, and told me as much yesterday from the porch of the central Gaza City office building from which he has broadcast every day for the past two weeks, noon and night, almost without rest.

My war hero is Ayman Mohyeldin, the young correspondent for Al Jazeera English and the only foreign correspondent broadcasting during these awful days in a Gaza Strip closed off to the media. Al Jazeera English is not what you might think. It offers balanced, professional reporting from correspondents both in Sderot and Gaza. And Mohyeldin is the cherry on top of this journalistic cream. I wouldn’t have needed him or his broadcasts if not for the Israeli stations’ blackout of the fighting. Since discovering this wunderkind from America (his mother is from the West Bank city of Tul Karm and his father from Egypt), I have stopped frantically changing TV stations. [continued…]

Jailing journalists
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz, January 11, 2009

The Israel Defense Forces has learned from past wars. Take the Falklands War – in 1982 the British Navy sailed thousands of kilometers to liberate, 19th century-style, the remote and scarcely populated islands, which had been seized by the Argentine Army. British war correspondents were on board, plied with Defense Ministry briefings, on which they depended to write their reports. If those reports did not meet censorship criteria, they were simply tossed out. Journalists were turned into hostages.

The IDF has not gone so far in placing limitations on the media, nor has it had to. It was enough that during most of the of war it prevented journalists from entering Gaza. Instead of direct and independent reporting, the Israeli public is receiving partial coverage that has passed through the monitoring and filtration of the military censors and IDF press officers. [continued…]

Why Israel’s war is driven by fear
By Chris McGreal, The Observer, January 11, 2009

Yeela Raanan says she would prefer not to know about the war in Gaza. She doesn’t want to see the pictures of dead children cut down by Israeli shells or read of the allegations of war crimes by her country’s army as it kills Palestinians by the hundreds.

But there is no escape. Raanan can hear the relentless Israeli bombardment by air, sea and land from her home, just three miles from the Gaza border. Hamas rockets keep hitting her community. And somewhere in the maelstrom of Gaza, her 20-year-old son is serving as an Israeli soldier.

“I’d rather not know. I can’t do anything about it. We didn’t see the pictures of the Palestinian kids who were killed. It’s easier not to feel,” she said. “I just turn on the news for five minutes a day and that’s it, just to see if anybody says anything about my kid.”

But when Raanan thinks about her son – whom she prefers not to name – she also thinks about Palestinian mothers and their sons in Gaza. And that’s when she finds her herself out of sync with the neighbours. “I don’t talk to the neighbours about it any more,” she said. “Hamas is violent. Hamas is stupid. I don’t like what they are. But I don’t feel angry towards them. I understand why they were elected, I understand why they act as they do.” [continued…]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITOR’S COMMENT: January 12

Why the Gaza calm crashed
By Alastair Crooke, Conflicts Forum, January 11, 2009

many have asked in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, how Hamas, if it saw the consequences of ending the ceasefire — and Hamas did foresee the likelihood of disproportionate Israeli military action — nonetheless could have acquiesced to the inevitable bloodshed — bloodshed that an Israeli army, fixated on restoring its deterrence after its failed 2006 war with Hesballah, would visit on the citizens of Gaza. Some may read into this decision the cynicism of a movement that prioritises resistance; but to do so would be to misread how Hamas analyses their situation and understands the nature of resistance.

At one level, the six month ceasefire simply had failed to satisfy two key litmus tests: The circumstances of life of the Gazan people continually had deteriorated, and the ceasefire was not seen to be taking the Palestinian people any closer to a political solution. On the contrary, Hamas saw a settlement receding further into the distance.

In short, Israel — abetted by the US and Europe — had used the six month ‘ceasefire’ not as a building-block towards doing serious politics and real negotiation, but to squeeze the pips out of the people of Gaza in the hope that a desperate people would turn on their own representatives, leaving Hamas discredited and marginalised. No Israeli had died during this ceasefire, but instead of alleviating the conditions in Gaza, as agreed at the outset, Israel incrementally aggravated them. Not surprisingly, the calm eroded — and finally unravelled — following Israel’s military incursion and breach of the ceasefire with its armed incursion into Gaza on 5 November, in which six Hamas members were killed. [continued…]

How many divisions?
By Uri Avnery, Middle East Online, January 11, 2009

Nearly seventy years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured. [continued…]

Enough. It’s time for a boycott
By Naomi Klein, The Guardian, January 10, 2009

It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era”. The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause – even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for “the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions” and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. “The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves … This international backing must stop.” [continued…]

Health clinic blown to pieces
DanChurchAid, Reuters, January 12, 2009

“The clinic is completely destroyed with all its equipment and medical supplies,” reports Zack Sabella from the council’s Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees. The clinic was situated in Shaja’ih in Gaza city and is run by the Middle East Council of Churches. The clinic was totally destroyed, but no one was injured, since the building had been previously evacuated. “Minutes before the missile hit the building, which hosts the clinic, the Israeli Air Force fired a warning missile next to it, forcing all residents of the building and the adjacent buildings to flee the area. A short while after, the army directly hit the building and razed it completely.” The health clinic has been part of women’s and childrens health programmes in the area, and DanChurchAid recently started a programme checking more than 10.000 children for mal- and undernourishmanet. “Well have to see how to raise funds for a new clinic, once the war is over.” says Malene Sønderskov, Middle East Coordinator for DanChurchAid. [continued…]

IDF: Hamas rocket fire down 50% since start of Gaza offensive
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, January 12, 2009

he Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that there has been a dramatic drop in the ability of Hamas to launch rockets against Israel. Currently, the launches have dropped by 50 percent compared to to the first day of Operation Cast Lead, 17 days ago.

Meanwhile, Palestinian militants have continued their rocket fire on Israel every day since the offensive began.

A Grad rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip scored a direct hit on a home in the northern Negev city of Ashkelon on Monday. Earlier Monday, a rocket fired from Gaza exploded in an open field near Kiryat Gat, causing no casualties or damages.

A total of 22 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck Israel on Sunday, one of which exploded in an empty school playground in the northern Negev city of Ashdod. There were no casualties in the incident. Gaza militants fired another 21 rockets at Israel on Saturday. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — To put these numbers in perspective, in 2008 the peak number of rockets fired from Gaza prior to the ceasefire was fewer than 9 a day. During the ceasefire (up until Israel broke it), rocket fire was down to three per month.

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