Category Archives: Hamas

Mainstreaming realism

It was widely assumed that George Bush’s departure from Washington would coincide with a revival of strength for the reality-based community — the people the neocons swept aside for the sake of empire. But though the neocon dream was quick to perish, the reality-based community is still struggling to assert itself — at least inside the nation’s capital.

It turns out that Tampa, Florida, where CENTCOM is headquartered (and where General David Petraeus was in charge before being sent to Kabul), is more amenable to the expression of realism.

Since its publication in Foreign Policy yesterday, a report by Mark Perry has been causing a stir. In “Red Team — CENTCOM thinks outside the box on Hamas and Hezbollah,” Perry writes:

While it is anathema to broach the subject of engaging militant groups like Hizballah and Hamas in official Washington circles (to say nothing of Israel), that is exactly what a team of senior intelligence officers at U.S. Central Command — CENTCOM — has been doing. In a “Red Team” report issued on May 7 and entitled “Managing Hizballah and Hamas,” senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements. Instead, the Red Team recommends a mix of strategies that would integrate the two organizations into their respective political mainstreams. While a Red Team exercise is deliberately designed to provide senior commanders with briefings and assumptions that challenge accepted strategies, the report is at once provocative, controversial — and at odds with current U.S. policy.

Among its other findings, the five-page report calls for the integration of Hizballah into the Lebanese Armed Forces, and Hamas into the Palestinian security forces led by Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Red Team’s conclusion, expressed in the final sentence of the executive summary, is perhaps its most controversial finding: “The U.S. role of assistance to an integrated Lebanese defense force that includes Hizballah; and the continued training of Palestinian security forces in a Palestinian entity that includes Hamas in its government, would be more effective than providing assistance to entities — the government of Lebanon and Fatah — that represent only a part of the Lebanese and Palestinian populace respectively” (emphasis in the original). The report goes on to note that while Hizballah and Hamas “embrace staunch anti-Israel rejectionist policies,” the two groups are “pragmatic and opportunistic.”

To call the Red Team report a “deliberately provocative piece” — as Spencer Ackerman describes it — is to misinterpret the intelligence team’s brief in providing what they do call “unorthodox analysis.”

A Red Team’s approach merely attempts to look at an issue from a broader perspective than the one that military culture engenders. The goal, nevertheless, is objectivity. This isn’t simply an exercise in creative thinking.

Consider, for instance, this uncontroversial observation in the report (written before the recent international outcry demanding a swift end to the siege of Gaza):

The hardships in Gaza may be radicalizing more people, especially the young, and increasing the number of potential recruits for HAMAS. This is the opposite effect Israel thought the blockade would have in Gaza, hoping instead that people would see HAMAS as the cause of their suffering and turn against it.

Yet even today while it is clear to rest of the world that Israel’s divide-and-rule strategy in Gaza has failed, Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon wrote on Twitter: “Our position is to differentiate between Hamas, the occupiers of Gaza, and the civilian population.”

Gaza under occupation — by Hamas!

Ayalon might imagine he’s cleverly modifying the concept of “occupation” but the twist will persuade no one in Gaza, which — an ease to the restrictions on the flow of goods notwithstanding — remains the world’s largest prison.

Indeed, the seeming intransigence of Hamas has been in response to this very fact: that the reward for the moderation that the Palestinian Authority has already exhibited and in whose footsteps Hamas is being implored to follow is not self determination but an occupation with no end in sight. In this respect, Hamas, far from representing the extreme position it is claimed to hold, exhibits a sober realism, which is to say, it sees little evidence that concessions by Palestinians are matched with concessions by Israel.

CENTCOM’s Red Team may have concerned themselves only with the issue of “mainstreaming” Hamas and Hezbollah yet the possibility of that happening may depend less on the internal workings of each Islamist organization and more on the extent to which realism can be mainstreamed inside Washington.

The Obama administration’s support for the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in favor of a ridiculously broad interpretation of the meaning of “material support” (as applied to so-called Foreign Terrorist Organizations and thus both Hamas and Hezbollah) is not a promising sign.

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The terrorist-naming game

On September 11, 2001, George Bush changed the way Americans look at the world and the success with which he accomplished this feat is evident in the fact that his perspective largely remains unchallenged — even among many of his most outspoken critics. Bush’s simplistic for-us-or-against-us formula was transparently emotive yet utterly effective.

For almost a decade, Americans have been told to look at the world through the lens of “terrorism” and while differences of opinion exist about whether the lens has too wide or narrow an angle or about the extent to which it brings things into focus, those of us who say the lens is so deeply flawed that it should be scrapped, remain in a minority.

The Obama administration may now refrain from using the term itself, preferring instead “violent extremists,” but the change is merely cosmetic (as are so many other “changes” in the seamless continuity between the Bush- and post-Bush eras).

A couple of days ago Philip Weiss drew attention to the fact that when former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni described her parents as “freedom fighters,” Deborah Solomon, her interviewer in the New York Times, echoed Livni’s sentiment by saying that the fight for Israel’s independence took place in “a more romantic era.”

As Weiss notes, Livni’s parents belonged to the Irgun, the Zionist group which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, killing 91 and injuring 46.

The first public account of what had happened that day was accidentally released in advance of the bombing.

In By Blood and Fire, Thurston Clark writes:

“Jewish terrorists have just blown up the King David Hotel!” This short message was received by the London Bureau of United Press International (UPI) shortly after noon, Palestine time. It was signed by a UPI stringer in Palestine who was also a secret member of the Irgun. The stringer had learned about Operation Chick but did not know it had been postponed for an hour. Hoping to scoop his colleagues, he had filed a report minutes before 11.00. A British censor had routinely stamped his cable without reading it.

The UPI London Bureau chief thought the message too terse. There were not enough details. He decided against putting it on the agency’s wire for radio and press until receiving further confirmation that the hotel had been destroyed.

Despite the efforts of Irgun leaders to restrict knowledge of the target and timing of Operation Chick, there were numerous other leaks. Leaders in both the Haganah and Stern Gang knew about the operation. Friends warned friends. The King David had an extraordinary number of last-minute room cancellations. In the Secretariat [the King David’s south wing that housed the headquarters of the British government in Palestine], more than the usual number of Jewish typists and clerks called in sick.

The next day the British prime minister, Clement Attlee referred to the bombing as an “insane act of terrorism” while a few days later the US president, Harry Truman, wrote “the inhuman crime committed… calls for the strongest action against terrorism…”

That was 64 years ago. From the sheltered perch of the New York Times, that’s apparently far enough back in history that it can now be referred to as a “romantic era.”

It’s hardly surprising then that many observers with an interest in justice for Palestinians take offense at the New York Times’ complicity in papering over the reality of Jewish terrorism. Yet here’s the irony: the effort to promote an unbiased use of the term “terrorism” simply plays into the hands of the Israelis.

The word has only one purpose: to forestall consideration of the political motivation for acts of violence. Invoke the word with the utmost gravity and then you can use your moral indignation and outrage to smother intelligent analysis. Terrorists do what they do because they are in the terrorism business — it’s in their blood.

So, when Tzipi Livni calls her parents freedom fighters, I have no problem with that — she is alluding to what they believed they were fighting for rather than the methods they employed. Moreover, by calling people who planted bombs and blew up civilians in the pursuit of their political goals, “freedom fighters,” Livni makes it clear that she understands that “terrorism” is a subjective term employed for an effect.

When Ehud Barak a few years ago acknowledged that had he been raised a Palestinian he too would have joined one of the so-called terrorist organizations, he was not describing an extraordinary epiphany he had gone through in recognizing the plight of the Palestinians. He was merely being candid about parallels between groups such as the Irgun and Hamas — parallels that many Israelis see but less often voice.

The big issue is not whether the methods employed by Zionist groups such as the Irgun could be justified but whether the political goals these groups were fighting for were legitimate. Zionism would not have acquired more legitimacy if it had simply found non-violent means through which it could accomplish its goal of driving much of the non-Jewish population out of Palestine.

We live in an era in which “terrorism” — as a phenomenon to be opposed — has become the primary bulwark through which Zionism defends itself from scrutiny. Keep on playing the terrorist-naming game and the Zionists win.

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Idiocy holds sway on the Supreme Court and inside the Obama administration

It seems hard to fathom but the evidence is now overwhelming: if someone repeats the word “terrorist” often enough their brain will become functionally useless.

Consider the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday in support of the Obama administration’s sweeping definition of “material support” as applied to so-called Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) — a designation applied by the State Department.

If an NGO such as the Humanitarian Law Project (HLP) wants to train a group such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes, then the HLP risks criminal prosecution. Why? Such training could help legitimize the PKK and also free up resources that it can dedicate to its terrorist activities.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan (who is nominated to become a Supreme Court Justice) argued the case for the Obama administration.

Kay Guinane described the decision:

The Court ruled that even though pure speech is entitled to a high level of constitutional scrutiny, it would forgo such scrutiny and defer to Congress and the executive branch, which asserted unsupported, theoretical findings that support aimed at countering violence can somehow indirectly support violence. The Court’s reasoning was that the matter involves national security.

With its overly deferential approach, the Court failed to fulfill its responsibilities in the checks-and-balances system that keeps our democracy healthy. If it had looked behind the broad generalizations cited by the government, it would have seen there are no facts either in the Congressional Record or elsewhere that support the Congressional or State Department “findings.” And even if there are some circumstances where conflict mediation and human rights training can be co-opted to support violence, it is not inevitable that it will happen in all cases.

For an obvious example of the fault in the findings, one need look no further than the Good Friday Accords that brought a lasting peace to Northern Ireland for the first time in more than eight centuries. For years, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had worked to bring violent factions of Catholics and Protestants to the bargaining table. Their work behind the scenes was instrumental in persuading those groups — “terrorists” in the eyes of most of their captive civilian populations, as well as the governments seeking to disarm them — to put down their weapons and negotiate a peaceful resolution to 850 years of violence.

If the “material support” law had been in place, as authorized by the Supreme Court today, those organizations would have been criminals. And the people of Northern Ireland would likely still be victims of sectarian violence that only a very few supported.

“Orwellian” doesn’t begin to describe a law that makes it a crime to promote peaceful conflict resolution.

If the administration actually intends to uphold the law in the way they argue it should be applied, then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be expected to continue forever.

There is a rather broad consensus among foreign policy analysts in the US and Europe, that Hamas, a designated FTO, has far too much grassroots political support among ordinary Palestinians for the organization to be destroyed. Neither Israel’s war on Gaza nor it’s internationally supported siege of Gaza, succeeded in bringing the Islamist organization and democratically-elected government to its knees.

If the Obama administration wants to revive the Middle East peace process, sooner or later Hamas will have to be involved. It’s hard if not impossible to anticipate that those involved in the initial efforts to open dialogue with Hamas can avoid falling foul of the broad definition of “material support” that the Supreme Court has just upheld.

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court that the United States is engaged in an effort to “delegitimize and weaken” groups such as Hamas, yet it would behoove Washington and democratic governments everywhere to remember where political legitimacy springs from: not idiotic Supreme Court rulings, but the will of the people — and that includes the Palestinians.

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Turkey is the new Palestinian champion

Noting a historic shift in the regional balance of power, Alastair Crooke says:

The cause of the Palestinians is gradually passing out of the hands of Mubarak and King Abdullah bin Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. It is the leaders of Iran and Turkey, together with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who recognize the winds of change. Mubarak appears increasingly isolated and is cast as Israel’s most assiduous collaborator. Here in the region, it is often as not the Egyptian embassies that are the butt of popular demonstrations.

Mubarak’s motives for his dogged support for Israel are well known in the region: He is convinced that the gateway to obtaining Washington’s green light for his son Gamal to succeed him lies in Tel Aviv rather than Washington. Mubarak enjoys a bare modicum of support in the United States, and if Washington is to ignore its democratic principles in order to support a Gamal shoo-in, it will be because Israel says that this American “blind eye” is essential for its security.

To this end, Mubarak has worked to weaken and hollow out Hamas’s standing in Gaza, and to strengthen that of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, he has pursued this policy at the expense of Palestinian unity – his regular “unity” initiatives notwithstanding. Egyptian one-sided peace “brokering” is viewed here as part of the problem rather than as part of any Palestinian solution. Paradoxically, it is precisely this posture that has opened the door to Turkey and Iran’s seizing of the sponsorship of the Palestinian cause.

Meanwhile, Associated Press reports:

The Arab world’s top diplomat declared support Sunday for the people of blockaded Gaza in his first visit to the Palestinian territory since Hamas violently seized control of it three years ago.

The visit was latest sign that Israel’s deadly raid on a flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza has eased the diplomatic isolation of the Islamic militant group.

Israel, meanwhile, appeared to grow more isolated in the fallout over the May 31 raid as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak abruptly canceled plans Sunday to visit Paris.

Barak’s office said he canceled his trip while Israel forms a committee to investigate the raid. The statement denied that the decision was connected to attempts by pro-Palestinian groups to seek his arrest.

George Mitchell, having been President Obama’s so-called Middle East peace envoy for a year and a half and during that time having engaged in tireless and fruitless shuttle diplomacy, has yet to visit Gaza.

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Poland arrests alleged Mossad agent in connection with Hamas commander’s murder

For almost six months, at least 32 Mossad agents wanted in connection with the murder of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud Mabhouh, have managed to avoid arrest. Now that Uri Brodsky (or whatever his real name might be) has been caught, the Israeli government is going to be forced to break its silence on the case. For the Israelis, still struggling to deal with the political fallout from the Mavi Marmara massacre, the timing could not be worse.

The National reports:

Polish police have arrested a suspected Mossad agent sought by German authorities on suspicion of helping prepare for the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a senior Hamas figure, in a Dubai hotel in January.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Germany said the man was detained by Polish police on suspicion of illegally obtaining a German passport for one of the members of the hit squad.

Authorities in Poland were reviewing a request to extradite him to Germany, the office said.

“A person was arrested in Poland based on a European arrest warrant issued by Germany, and his extradition has been requested,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said. “The matter is now in the hands of the Polish authorities.”

The Dubai Police chief, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said last night that his department had been informed of the arrest. He could not be reached for further comment.

The German spokesman said the arrest was linked to the German investigation into the illegal obtaining of a passport in the name of Michael Bodenheimer, which was allegedly used by one of the assassins.

“There is a suspicion that he was involved in intelligence activity and that the procurement of the passport was linked to that,” the spokesman said, adding that the arrest took place at the Frederic Chopin International Airport in Warsaw early this month.

On February 23, 2010, Der Spiegel reported:

In the early summer of 2009, a man named Michael Bodenheimer went to the local residents’ registration office in Cologne, where he applied for a new passport and a new identification card. He claimed that he was a German citizen, unmarried, who had been born in Israel. He invoked Article 116 of the Germany constitution, which permits individuals persecuted by the Nazi regime, as well as family members who were expatriated, to regain German citizenship. He presented the Cologne authorities with the supposed marriage certificate of his parents and an Israeli passport, issued in Tel Aviv in November 2008.

Bodenheimer provided the authorities with an address in Cologne’s Eigelstein district. However his name is not listed on the mailbox at the address, a modest beige-colored apartment building. The building is in an area near the train station and has a high turnover of tenants — the perfect place for someone who doesn’t want to be noticed.

Bodenheimer claimed that his Israeli residence was in Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv. But the trail ends there, in the city’s business district. Although Michael Bodenheimer is listed as the name of a company in the lobby of a modern, four-story office building, a security guard says that the company moved out half a year ago. As coincidence would have it, the Mossad headquarters is only one kilometer away.

Bodenheimer received his German papers on June 18, and it seems very likely that the assassination was completed with the help of an official German government document. Bodenheimer was apparently in charge of communications for the hit team. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation on Friday into alleged document falsification. Federal prosecutors are considering initiating an investigation into possible activities by intelligence agents. Because of such investigations, the affair could expand into a serious strain on German-Israeli relations.

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“All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns”

“All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns.” These are the words of Ken O’Keefe, a former US Marine who was just deported from Israel after surviving the Mavi Marmara massacre.

In 2002, O’Keefe initiated what some would regard as a quixotic endeavor: an effort to prevent the war in Iraq by positioning Western volunteers as human shields at strategic sites in Iraq. The Truth Justice Peace action failed, but O’Keefe’s passion to follow the dictates of his own conscience has continued unabated.

This is part of a statement O’Keefe made upon arriving in Istanbul on Friday after his expulsion from Israel:

I remember being asked during the TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq if I was a pacifist, I responded with a quote from Gandhi by saying I am not a passive anything. To the contrary I believe in action, and I also believe in self-defence, 100%, without reservation. I would be incapable of standing by while a tyrant murders my family, and the attack on the Mavi Marmara was like an attack on my Palestinian family. I am proud to have stood shoulder to shoulder with those who refused to let a rogue Israeli military exert their will without a fight. And yes, we fought.

When I was asked, in the event of an Israeli attack on the Mavi Mamara, would I use the camera, or would I defend the ship? I enthusiastically committed to defence of the ship. Although I am also a huge supporter of non-violence, in fact I believe non-violence must always be the first option. Nonetheless I joined the defence of the Mavi Mamara understanding that violence could be used against us and that we may very well be compelled to use violence in self-defence.

I said this straight to Israeli agents, probably of Mossad or Shin Bet, and I say it again now, on the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day. One brother with a bullet entering dead center in his forehead, in what appeared to be an execution. I knew the commandos were murdering when I removed a 9mm pistol from one of them. I had that gun in my hands and as an ex-US Marine with training in the use of guns it was completely within my power to use that gun on the commando who may have been the murderer of one of my brothers. But that is not what I, nor any other defender of the ship did. I took that weapon away, removed the bullets, proper lead bullets, separated them from the weapon and hid the gun. I did this in the hopes that we would repel the attack and submit this weapon as evidence in a criminal trial against Israeli authorities for mass murder.

I also helped to physically separate one commando from his assault rifle, which another brother apparently threw into the sea. I and hundreds of others know the truth that makes a mockery of the brave and moral Israeli military. We had in our full possession, three completely disarmed and helpless commandos. These boys were at our mercy, they were out of reach of their fellow murderers, inside the ship and surrounded by 100 or more men. I looked into the eyes of all three of these boys and I can tell you they had the fear of God in them. They looked at us as if we were them, and I have no doubt they did not believe there was any way they would survive that day. They looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father.

But they did not face an enemy as ruthless as they. Instead the woman provided basic first aid, and ultimately they were released, battered and bruised for sure, but alive. Able to live another day. Able to feel the sun over head and the embrace of loved ones. Unlike those they murdered. Despite mourning the loss of our brothers, feeling rage towards these boys, we let them go. The Israeli prostitutes of propaganda can spew all of their disgusting bile all they wish, the commandos are the murders, we are the defenders, and yet we fought. We fought not just for our lives, not just for our cargo, not just for the people of Palestine, we fought in the name of justice and humanity. We were right to do so, in every way.

While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.

In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.

In conclusion; I would like to challenge every endorser of Gandhi, every person who thinks they understand him, who acknowledges him as one of the great souls of our time (which is just about every western leader), I challenge you in the form of a question. Please explain how we, the defenders of the Mavi Marmara, are not the modern example of Gandhi’s essence? But first read the words of Gandhi himself.

“I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence…. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.” – Gandhi

And lastly I have one more challenge. I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context. I want to debate with you on the largest stage possible. Take that as an open challenge and let us see just how brave Israeli leaders are.

I doubt that there is a single Israeli official who would have the guts to take up O’Keefe’s challenge. Instead, the IDF has issued a laughable claim:

Ken O’Keefe (Born 1969), an American and British citizen, is a radical anti-Israel activist and operative of the Hamas Terror organization. He attempted to enter the Gaza Strip in order to form and train a commando unit for the Palestinian terror organization.

The IDF spelled his name correctly and the year he was born — thereafter, the errors and deceptions follow. O’Keefe renounced his US citizenship in March 2001. He is now an Irish and Palestinian citizen, though describes himself as “in truth a world citizen.”

If the IDF had a shred of evidence that O’Keefe was heading to Gaza to train a commando unit for Hamas, I guarantee he would not now be in Istanbul. He would be in an Israeli jail awaiting trial. (In an interview with Al Jazeera appearing below, he does indeed dismiss Israel’s claims.)

But when O’Keefe says that all he saw in Israel was “cowards with guns” he points to a fundamental truth that reveals the character of the Jewish state.

As a nation that revels in its willingness to crush its opponents, Israel operates with the mindset of every bully: it only feels convinced of its strength when facing a weak opponent.

Lacking the courage to hold its own among equals, Israel operates in a world defined by dominance and oppression.

(Thanks to Ann El Khoury at Pulse for reporting on O’Keefe’s statement.)

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Hamas welcomes EU proposal to monitor crossings

The Ma’an news agency reports:

Hamas officials have supported a proposed EU plan to monitor Gaza crossings and life the Israeli-lead siege on the coastal enclave, statements issued Sunday indicated.

Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardawil called statements by Spanish Minster of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos, whose country currently holds the head of the rotating EU parliament, said the movement would welcome a European presence at all Gaza border crossings.

“We spoke with the team of the chief (foreign) representative yesterday and we are going to make a proposal over the next few days so that situations like the ones that happened (this week) will not be repeated,” Moratinos told Agence-France Presse on Saturday, referring to the Israeli attack on a Turkish aid ship carrying nationals from around the globe that killed at least nine.

The ship was carrying 10,000 tons of aid, including cement, books, prefabricated houses and medical equipment in an attempt to break Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza, from which it says it unilaterally withdrew in 2005.

The plan reportedly includes the activation of the EU monitoring committee at Rafah, and developing similar initiatives at at least three other crossings as well as assisting in sea patrols so that the Gaza Port could open.

“Hamas welcomes this proposal in all its aspects,” Al-Bardawil said, saying first that the party “does not mind at all” EU or international presence at Rafah, and reaffirmed the party’s refusal to accept Israeli policing in the south.

“Secondly, Israel should not obstruct any convoys or ships coming to the Gaza port,” the official said, reiterating the importance of having a “seaport that links Gaza with the world.”

As for the details, Al-Bardawil said, they need to “be studied by the Palestinian government so a consensus can be reached” on what is acceptable in terms of having international patrols in Gaza waters.

Breaking the siege on Gaza, the official said, would “contribute to the building of a modern seaport in Gaza,” which he described as an essential ingredient to the revitalization of all of Gaza.

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A message to America from Hamas

When Israeli officials are pressed to justify the fact that Israel has prevented the reconstruction of thousands of homes it destroyed during the war on Gaza, they say that if construction materials were allowed into Gaza, these would be commandeered by Hamas and used to fortify its bunkers.

In an interview Khalid Meshaal, the Hamas political bureau chief in Damascus, gave with Charlie Rose this week, the Hamas leader directly addressed this issue.

Meshaal’s message to the Obama administration and to the American people was this:

It’s time to end this embargo on Gaza, because it’s immoral, unethical and it failed in achieving its political objectives. And it is the right of the Palestinian people in Gaza to live like all other people without any embargo, because Gaza today is the biggest prison in the world and in history.

You know that Israel in the last war destroyed tens of thousands of houses, hospitals and universities, and it is the responsibility of the international community and especially of the United States of America to reconstruct what [has] been destroyed by Israel in Gaza. And we do not have it as a condition that this construction operation to be done through Hamas. No. As I told [Russia’s] President Medvedev, the international community can develop an international mechanism that is independent to introduce the construction materials into Gaza and to supervise the rebuilding, reconstruction of the houses and schools destroyed by Israel. Because our mission is to service our people. We want the Palestinian people in Gaza to live simply in houses in winter and in summer. And this is the responsibility of the international community. Unfortunately, some Palestinian leaderships lie to the Americans and to the Europeans when saying that Hamas has it as a condition to supervise the reconstruction. We do not have this as a condition. We tell the whole world, come to Gaza. Reconstruct the destroyed houses.

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Russia’s Middle East moves

While Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan are like lead weights that limit the flexibility of the United States in the Middle East, other powers are now taking advantage of Washington’s inability to function as an agent of change.

After Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Turkey this week, commentator Semih Idiz wrote:

[I]f U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey was the highlight of 2009, Medvedev’s visit to Turkey is the highlight of 2010. In fact, one can even go further and suggest that the latter visit has produced much more in terms of concrete results than the former.

There is no doubt, for example, that Washington is looking on with a certain chagrin as Turkey awards a $20 billion nuclear power plant contract to Russia and signs documents that propose a $100 billion volume of trade as well as billions of dollars worth of investments, all suggesting a rapidly growing strategic partnership.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Russia has rejected criticism from Israel after Medvedev met the leader of Hamas in Damascus.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply disappointed” that Medvedev had met Khaled Meshaal, the group’s exiled leader, during a visit to Syria this week.

“Hamas is not an artificial structure,” Andrei Nesterenko, the Russian foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday.

“It is a movement that draws on the trust and sympathy of a large number of Palestinians. We have regular contacts with this movement.

“It is known that all other participants of the Middle East quartet are also in some sort of contact with Hamas leadership, although for some unknown reason they are shy to publicly admit it,” Nesterenko said.

Joshua Landis says:

Russia will fish in the troubled waters of the Middle East. American isolation can only redound to its advantage. The Arabs and Iran will look to Russia for arms. Russia can also be gratified by the deterioration of Turkey’s relations with both Israel and the United Stats. It will continue to look for ways to frustrate U.S. efforts to add teeth to its sanctions regime against Iran.

So long as America’s No. 1 foreign-policy goal in the region is to hurt Iran and help Israel, Russia will be drawn back into the region and a new Cold War will take shape. Washington’s failure to realign relations with Iran and Syria dooms it to repeat its past. But this time Israel will be more of a millstone around its neck as it thumbs it’s nose at international law and human rights.

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A view of life in Gaza

In a bloggingheads.tv interview, Robert Wright speaks to Bassam Nasser, who works for the Catholic Relief Services in Gaza. Though Wright’s questions tend to be somewhat uninformed and predictable, Nasser’s responses provide a much richer and more nuanced view of life under siege and Israeli occupation than can be gleaned for standard news reports.

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Hamas rule in Gaza: three years on

Prof. Yezid Sayigh writes:

More than a year after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, and with the crippling siege well into its fourth year, the rule of the Islamic Resistance Movement/Hamas over the narrow strip of territory looks set to endure. Fortuitous circumstances and the mistakes of others, rather than the coherence of its own policies, played a major role in the early consolidation of the “de facto” government headed by Hamas prime minister Ismail Hanieh; but a stable system is emerging nonetheless: one that often proceeds through trial and error, but which also shows considerable adaptability and a marked learning curve. Much of the government’s success in building a functioning public administration is due to its close, in some respects seamless relationship with Hamas, but that relationship also brings unexpected dilemmas and challenges in its wake. Above all, Hamas fears repeating the mistakes of its rival, the long-dominant Fatah, with respect to its symbiotic relationship with the Palestinian Authority: Fatah, it believes, was drawn by the mundane needs of governing daily life and the desire to preserve power into compromising on national goals—and Hamas sees Fatah and the PA as so closely bound together that the fate of the one determines the fortunes of the
other.

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Britain kicks out Mossad chief

After a recent warning from US military leaders that Israel is putting at risk the lives of American soldiers in the Middle East, the British government has warned that actions by Israel present “a hazard for the safety of British nationals in the region.”

This latest warning comes after a criminal investigation has concluded that Israel stole the identities of 12 British citizens in order to murder the Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January. As a result of that investigation Britain today expelled an Israeli diplomat from London who is understood to be the UK-based Mossad chief.

From London, the Daily Telegraph reports:

An investigation by the Serious and Organised Crime Squad (SOCA) has concluded that there are “compelling reasons” to believe that Israel was responsible for the “misuse” of a dozen British passports.

A senior diplomat at the Israeli Embassy in London – widely believed to be a member of Mossad, the feared Israeli secret service agency – is being expelled from the Untied Kingdom as a result.

As the diplomatic row escalated, Mr Miliband told the House of Commons that he had demanded that the Israeli government give assurances that British citizens will never again be drawn into such an operation.

Describing the passport holders as “wholly innocent victims,” the Foreign Secretary aid that the fact that Israel was a “friend” of the United Kingdom added “insult to injury.

The British government has also taken the unusual step of warning British passport holders not to hand over their passports to Israeli officials unless “absolutely necessary.”

Since it’s impossible to enter any country without handing over your passport, perhaps this advice should be interpreted to mean that British citizens should only travel to Israel when absolutely necessary.

Aryeh Eldad, a National Religious Party member of the Knesset suggested that the British are worse than dogs when told Sky News: “I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don’t want to offend dogs on this issue, since some dogs are utterly loyal, who are they to judge us on the war on terror?”

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Which is worse for women? Hamas oppression or Israeli oppression?

Ever since Hamas assumed full political control of Gaza in June 2007, there have been occasional reports that the Islamist movement is finding ways to impose a more rigidly conservative and religiously intolerant way of life in the Palestinian enclave — changes that would impact secular, liberal-minded women more harshly than any other social group.

The BBC spoke to five Palestinian women ranging in age from 21 to 36 to find out how they have personally been affected by living under Hamas’ rule. The consensus was pretty clear: nothing Hamas has done has had a fraction of the effect that Israel has had through imposing a brutal economic siege on the population of 1.5 million.

Mona Ahmad al-Shawa, 36, who runs the women’s unit at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said:

The siege of Gaza, which Israeli tightened when Hamas took control in June 2007, makes women’s lives much more complicated.

There are shortages of water, electricity and cooking gas. It is very difficult to leave Gaza for medical treatment.

And after the war in Gaza last year, things got worse because many women lost their husbands. Women lost lives too, of course.

You can’t imagine how hard it is to be a disabled woman in this society. Or a widow.
Our Sharia law means that a widowed woman will lose custody of her children when a boy reaches nine years old and a girl 11.

Since the war, Hamas has ruled that a widow can keep her children if she doesn’t remarry. This is an improvement.

Women’s priorities in Gaza are focused on practical matters – a home, clean water and electricity. Finer points of human rights are not top of the list.

We have many problems with the Hamas authority, but we are not in a big fight with them about women.

People in Gaza feel they are in a big prison, they feel have no choices in life.
Conditions change according to the political situation.

When the first intifada started in 1987 most women covered up, because people could speak badly of you, or throw stones if you went uncovered in the streets. It is not as bad as that now.

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Hamas says rocket attacks are helping Israel

Once a strongman, always a strongman…

I don’t remember Ariel Sharon — or any other Israeli leader — being referred to as a “strongman”. I guess it’s a term reserved for men on the other side. Still, it’s funny (yet predictable) that a Hamas leader such as Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar will be referred to as a strongman even when what he is reported as saying is that rocket attacks on Israel do not serve Palestinian interests. It’s not exactly a strongmanish, belligerent observation to make. Be that as it may, this is how his comments are reported by Ynet:

Hamas strongman Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar on Saturday night slammed the Palestinian groups firing rockets at Israel. Zahar told the Iranian al-Alam television station that the rocket fire was a “suspicious action aimed at allowing the enemy to gain points in its favor in the public opinion and divert the attention from its crimes in the territories.”

According to Zahar, “The enemy wants to portray itself as defending itself against the rocket fire while being criticized by the Quartet. We are aware of the fact that there are elements wishing to help the enemy divert the attention from what is happening in Jerusalem.

“We are closely following those firing the rockets and are aware of the real motives behind the fire,” Zahar said, implying that the groups’ main goal was to undermine Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip.

He also slammed the Palestinian Authority for not allowing protests for Jerusalem, and noted that the International Quartet’s decision in Moscow was not serious. “It was more of a media event, and the most important thing is maintaining a popular movement for Jerusalem.”

Earlier, Al Jazeera reported:

A previously unknown Gaza group, Ansar al-Sunna, as well as the al-Aqsa Martrys Brigades, a wing of the mainstream Fatah movement, both claimed responsibility for the rocket attack from Gaza that preceded the air raids.

“The jihadist mission came in response to the Zionist assaults against the Ibrahimi and al-Aqsa mosques and the continued Zionist aggression against our people in Jerusalem,” Ansar al-Sunna said in a statement.

Matan Vilnai, the Israeli deputy defence minister, said that regardless of any claims of responsibility, Israel blamed the rocket strike on Hamas, the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip.

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Talking to terrorists

The Washington Post has a passage from Mark Perry’s new book, Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage With Its Enemies. As Perry notes, talking to groups that the US government has labelled as “terrorists” is not only necessary but is a choice that has already been pursued and shown highly effective. As he recounts: “the real gamble in Iraq was not in deploying more troops to kill terrorists; the real gamble in Iraq was in sending marines to talk to them”.

This is how that happened:

On July 23, 2005 Marine Corps Colonel John Coleman was sitting at his desk at Camp Pendleton, Calif. when he received a telephone call from Jerry Jones – an assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Jones was frantic, telling Coleman that a group of Iraqi insurgents were battling an al-Qaeda militia at al-Qaim – an Iraqi city on the Syrian border.

“They need help,” Jones said. “It’s night there now, but they’re surrounded and if we don’t do something they’ll be wiped out.” Coleman acted quickly, placing a call to the Marine Corps headquarters at Camp Fallujah in Iraq.

The next morning, at sunrise, a “package” of Cobra helicopters attacked the al-Qaeda fighters, killing dozens and scattering the rest into the desert. “It was pretty nip and tuck there for awhile,” Coleman remembers, “but I had real confidence in the Marines.”

The little-known Marine intervention in al-Qaim is now seen as a turning point in America’s war in Iraq. It was the moment at which al-Anbar tribes – the insurgents — “awakened,” turning their guns on al-Qaeda and siding with the Americans.

But the Anbar Awakening did not happen suddenly.

For eighteen months prior to the Battle of al-Qaim, U.S. Marine Corps officers had been talking to the leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a series of meetings that began in Amman, Jordan in July of 2004. The meetings were opposed by senior State Department and Pentagon officials, who castigated the Marines for “talking to terrorists.” The Marines vehemently disagreed, quoting an insurgent leader whom they had met in Amman. “We are not your enemy,” this leader said. “Al Qaeda is your enemy. We’re different. We’re not terrorists, we’re the insurgents. There’s a difference.”

Can what the United States did in Iraq serve as a model for a larger strategy – one that will bring stability to the entire region? More specifically, should America recruit the region’s more moderate Islamist parties (like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood) to help in its fight against al Qaeda?

For most Americans, the suggestion seems outrageous; but for increasing numbers of policymakers, there are stark differences between the three groups and al-Qaeda: each of the movements has participated in national elections (Hamas won the parliamentary vote in the Palestinian territories in 2006, while Hezbollah and the Brotherhood hold seats in the Lebanese and Egyptian parliaments), each represents a distinct and growing constituency (and provides services for them), and each has rejected al-Qaeda’s Jacobin revolutionary ideology – and is targeted by bin Laden and his followers for actually endorsing democratic principles.

“Our habit of lumping all of these groups together, of putting Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in the same class as al-Qaeda is a terrible mistake,” former Pentagon official James Clad says. “Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are the three most important movements in the region today – and we don’t talk to any of them. I can understand not talking to al-Qaeda, they’re dead-enders and don’t represent anyone, but refusing to have a dialogue with groups that are respected in their own societies is short-sighted and counter-productive.”

Former Marine John Coleman would agree. In the wake of the Battle of al-Qaim, Coleman points out, the Anbar Awakening united 42 Anbar clans against al-Qaeda and transformed the war in Iraq.

“Our strategy was not simply a shift in American tactics, but in American thinking,” Coleman says. “It meant abandoning the easy language of the war on terrorism for a more sophisticated strategy.” Which is to say: the real gamble in Iraq was not in deploying more troops to kill terrorists; the real gamble in Iraq was in sending marines to talk to them.

Maybe that’s what we should be doing for the entire region.

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What the Dubai assassination reveals

Robert Baer considers some of the wider implications of the assassination of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai in January:

If Mossad was indeed responsible, it means that blame for Mabhouh’s assassination can be put at the doorstep of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s Prime Minister has historically approved hits staged in countries with which Israel is not at war. Such details are unlikely to be made public any time soon, but it does make you wonder what the deliberations might have been leading up to Mabhouh’s assassination.

More than a few Middle East hands shrugged their shoulders at the question: Netanyahu wouldn’t have cared whether Israel was fingered for the assassination of Mabhouh or not. The whole point, they argue, was to send a reminder to Israel’s enemies that it will eliminate them anywhere it can find them. When Mossad went after the Palestinian Black September movement in retaliation for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, it didn’t give a damn about the diplomatic blowback. It was a case of an eye for an eye, and the belief that the best deterrence is to strike fear into your enemies.

But the evidence that the assassins tried to make it look as if Mabhouh died in his sleep belies the deterrence explanation. And it doesn’t answer the question why Mossad would risk exposing 26 operatives. A small intelligence service, Mossad cannot afford to take this many people out of circulation by having their pictures beamed around the world. It also doesn’t explain why the alleged assassins stole the identities of Israeli citizens. Israelis may be proud that their secret service can reach its enemies anywhere, but it serves no national or political interests to expose their own people to retribution.

If Netanyahu authorized the hit, though, the real question is whether he really considered the strategic implications. Look at the map. If Israel goes ahead and bombs Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will need over-flight clearances from the Gulf Arabs. Antagonizing the U.A.E. in this way, leaving almost no doubt Israel was behind Mabhouh’s assassination, does not seem the best way to facilitate such clearances.

Baer makes a good point. If everything had gone as planned not only would there have been no news about the killing, but Hamas’ leaders themselves would have had little reason to doubt that Mabhouh had died of natural causes.

As for Netanyahu’s strategic thinking, there are at least two ways of interpreting his action. Either it was purely opportunistic and a decision made without clearly thinking through the implications. Or, it can be taken as further evidence that despite the Israeli leader’s bellicose posture he does in fact have no intention of asking Arab states for over-flight clearances because — and this would be Israel’s most closely guarded secret — Netanyahu has in truth no intention of attacking Iran and that his thinly veiled threats are hollow.

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Dubai assassins employed by US companies

Bloomberg reports:

Suspected assassins of a Hamas leader in Dubai “fraudulently” acquired prepaid payroll cards and stole identities to obtain jobs at U.S. companies, according to card-issuer MetaBank.

Authorities informed Meta, a unit of publicly traded Meta Financial Group Inc., that the suspects used fake passports to get cards issued by the firm and other banks, according to an e- mailed statement from Meta yesterday. The lender, rooted in regions of Iowa and South Dakota tied to farming, said it followed proper procedures and that the people weren’t on federal lists designed to block potential terrorists.

“No other readily apparent method existed for Meta to determine that identity theft had been perpetrated on valid governments and their citizens,” said MetaBank, based in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Fourteen of the suspects in the January killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh used payment cards issued by MetaBank to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel, Dubai police said last month. Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim accused Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, of orchestrating the murder of al-Mabhouh, a founder of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas.

Next question: which US companies?

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Dubai police chief says to seek Netanyahu arrest

Reuters reports:

Dubai’s police chief plans to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s spy agency over the killing of a Hamas leader in the emirate, Al Jazeera television reported.

Dahi Khalfan Tamim “said he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for … Netanyahu and the head of Mossad,” the television said. It did not give details.

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