The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be at the top of Dubai’s wanted list if the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad is proven to be behind the killing of a senior Hamas official, the Dubai Police chief said yesterday.
Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim told The National that “Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to kill [Mahmoud] al Mabhouh in Dubai. We will issue an
arrest warrant against him.”
He did not, however, assert that Mossad was definitively responsible for the killing; Hamas has accused the Israeli agency of killing Mr al Mabhouh.
Members of a hit squad who killed a top Hamas military commander used Irish passports to enter and leave Dubai, it’s been claimed.
The suspected Israeli hit team, including at least one woman, entered the United Arab Emirates using Irish documents, police authorities said.
Before jumping to any conclusions about the nationalities of the assassins in Dubai, it’s worth remembering that when Mossad agents attempted to murder Hamas’ political leader Khalid Meshaal in Jordan in 1997, the Israelis were using Canadian passports.
Dubai’s chief of police, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, confirmed that a Hamas delegation would not be allowed to enter the UAE following the slaying of one of its senior operatives in the emirate.
Mahmoud al Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room on January 20.
Gen Tamim said: “We will not allow a Hamas delegation to enter the country, and we will only deal with the Palestinian Embassy and consulate, which are the official representatives in the country. We do not acknowledge the differences. For us, there is only one Palestine, not two.”
There is frustration in Hamas’ Damascus offices over the way the UAE has handled the killing of al Mabhouh, who they say was a frequent visitor to Dubai.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one senior Hamas official questioned the speed of Dubai’s response to the killing.
“Al Mabhouh was killed on January 20, but there was no announcement until 29 January. That’s almost 10 days. What was the reason for the delay?” he asked. “Such delays gave lots of time for the murderers to escape.”
When Obama took office, many citizens of this nation (including me) let out a sigh of relief, comforted by the thought that a reckless fool had been replaced a calm and sometimes inspiring realist.
How can a year seem like such a long time ago?
Engagement turned out to a piece of campaign pap that fizzled out when the administration discovered that face-to-face contact with Americans does not in the eyes of America’s adversaries have the irresistible appeal it was supposed to have. When you come to the table a smile and a handshake turns out not to be enough.
So what’s Obama’s fallback plan when it comes to confronting Iran?
First we should note that Obama never really challenged the Bush/neocon paradigm in the first place: confrontation with Iran.
Now, since talks went nowhere we’re into the phase escalation: Obama ditched the European missile defense plans (which might have been a smart way of placating the Russians) but now he’s sending in Patriot missiles to be positioned right on Iran’s doorstep. The New York Times reports:
“Our first goal is to deter the Iranians,” said one senior administration official. “A second is to reassure the Arab states, so they don’t feel they have to go nuclear themselves. But there is certainly an element of calming the Israelis as well.”
Adhmadinejad, on the other hand, promises a February 11 “telling blow to global powers.” What kind of blow? I predict it’ll be something symbolic and not quite as dramatic as his language suggests, but who knows.
Meanwhile, Gen James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, has warned that Iran might lash out at Israel through its surrogates, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Sorry, but this is exactly the kind of regurgitated conventional wisdom we should expect from a man who gives every appearance of functioning on autopilot.
What’s my point? Hariri, who might view Hezbollah warily nevertheless recognizes that it is not an Iranian surrogate waiting to be unleashed on Israel. The Islamist party’s primary focus is on its own domestic constituency and the wider interests of Lebanon.
If a war with Iran was to erupt, would Hezbollah and Hamas have a role? Quite likely, but that doesn’t mean that these groups are sitting around awaiting their commands from masters in Tehran. They have their own political agendas that are not subordinate to the interests of the Iranians.
And if my comments about Jones sound harsh, just watch his keynote address at the J Street conference in October last year where he said: “Of all the problems the administration faces globally, that if there was one problem that I would recommend to the president that if he could do anything he wanted, he could solve one problem, this [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] would be it.”
Ah, if only he was in a position to make such a recommendation. If only he had the president’s ear…
If only Obama’s push for Middle East peace hadn’t turned out to epitomize a wasted year in office.
The murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a leading member of Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, in Dubai ten days ago, is widely assumed to have been carried out by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
Speaking in Damascus, Hamas’ political leader, Khalid Meshaal said: “You may kill us, you may hurt us, but we’re going to kill your claimed legitimacy and we will tear the false image you’ve painted in recent decades.”
At this moment, when one might expect Hamas to be promising revenge (which it has), it is significant that it also makes a powerful political statement which thrusts right at the heart of the issue: Israel can kill individuals such as al Mabhouh, but it can’t kill the Palestinian cause. And while Israel might consistently overstate the military threats it faces, the threat that will not yield to sheer might — a threat that is indeed magnified by Israel’s bellicose posture — is the threat to its own legitimacy.
Israel has killed dozens of Hamas leaders and military figures, including its leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in a helicopter gunship attack in Gaza in 2004.
In the wake of the 1989 murder of the two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sadon, the Israeli army arrested al Mabhouh’s family members and demolished his home, the family said.
“They tried to kill him six times,” said al Mabhouh’s mother, Fatima. “They tried to kidnap and poison him in Lebanon and in Syria. As soon as I heard the news of his death, I knew it was the Israelis.”
“They even arrested us,” she said, “but we couldn’t tell them anything about where he was or what he was doing.”
The family said they attempted to travel to Syria for al Mabhouh’s funeral, held yesterday in Damascus, but were turned back at Gaza’s Rafah border with Egypt by Egyptian officials.
“We paid the Egyptian border guards money, and they even took our passports,” Abdel Raouf said. “And then when they saw our names, they said: ‘Are you the family of Mahmoud al Mabhouh?’ and we said: ‘Yes, is it a crime? He is a hero for our country.’”
The family also said they hoped Hamas would carry out a “strong retaliation” for al Mabhouh’s death.
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said he believes assassins of senior organization member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai arrived in the region as part of Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau’s entourage.
Landau recently took part in an environmental convention in Abu-Dhabi. In an interview with Al-Jazeera al-Zahar said it was possible the assassins had come with him and entered Dubai under assumed identities, using false passports.
“A week before the assassination Uzi Landau visited the emirates and he may have had people traveling with him under false names and additional citizenships,” he said.
Izzat Rashaq, a top member of Hamas exiled leadership in Damascus, was asked why his organization had waited nine days to issue a formal announcement of al-Mabhouh’s death. He told the Associated Press that Hamas delayed the announcement because it was trying to “reach the Israeli agents who implemented this operation.”
… there is little doubt that Netanyahu would be brazen enough to order the al-Mabhouh hit. It would mean little to him that the Emirates recently hosted on its soil an Israeli Minister, Uzi Landau, even in spite of his hard line stance toward Palestinians (Landau famously likened the PLO to Al Qaeda!).
As Netanyahu demonstrated in 1997, he is not afraid to send intelligence operatives into a friendly Arab guests home, break some china, and have them peace out as if nothing ever happened.
Only in this case, the Dubai police do not have the benefit of a captured operative. They’ll have to rely on whatever witness and forensic evidence they can collect. As a law enforcement agency the Dubai Police are known for mercurial investigative standards.
But given the embarrassment al-Mabhouh’s murder is causing, and the fact that other hits have taken place in the Emirates, they’ll likely up their game in this case to try and salvage some prestige.
As a senior member of Hamas’ military faction, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, al Mabhouh would typically be accompanied by security guards, Mr Nasser said, but had failed to do so on this occasion because no reservations had been made for them with the airline. “Everywhere he goes he takes bodyguards but there was no booking for them on this flight, so he travelled alone,” Mr Nasser explained. “The guards were due to follow him on the next available flight the following day.”
Al Mabhouh, who lived with his family in Damascus, flew to Dubai on January 19. He was murdered in the Al Bustan Rotana on January 20.
According to Hamas, citing information it said it received from Dubai authorities, he was electrocuted while walking in the hotel corridor, dragged into his room, and then strangled.
“We are now very carefully studying our security plans for all senior figures, we are reviewing all our measures to make sure that we are as well protected as possible,” Mr Nasser said.
“We do not have all of the details yet but maybe he [al Mabhouh] made a telephone call about his plans from a mobile that was intercepted.”
Mr Nasser added: “It is also standard for airlines to fax advance notice of their passengers, so that may have given the assassins a chance.”
Dubai’s police chief, Lt Gen Dahu Khalfan Tamim, confirmed that al Mabhouh had entered the country on a passport bearing his real name.
While involvement of Mossad, Israel’s overseas security agency, had not been ruled out as part of the ongoing investigation, Lt Gen Tamim said his officers were “pursuing individual suspects, not an organisation”.
“We know everything about the suspects’ identity due to the strong evidence they left behind, and we will contact several countries which are connected to the suspects to provide us with all the necessary information,” he said.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Dubai authorities said the suspects were mostly European passport holders and members of an “experienced criminal gang” who had been monitoring al Mabhouh’s movements.
* Consider how much the world has changed in the last decade. In 1997, Netanyahu was widely criticized for sending assassins into a neighboring friendly state. Canada recalled its ambassador from Israel in protest at the use of Canadian passports by Mossad operatives. President Clinton was quoted as saying of Netanyahu: “I cannot deal with this man. He is impossible.”
This time around, if it is proved that Israeli assassins are on the loose, will there be even a murmur from the State Department? Will a president who prefers the much blunter tool of a Hellfire missile when ordering an assassination have anything to say about how Israeli hit men conduct their operations?
No, because we now live in an age where politically-sanctioned murder has been legitimized by a press corp that kowtows to political norms however questionable might be their legality or moral legitimacy.
Ethan Bronner writes a N.Y. Times report on a new propaganda offensive by the IDF against the Goldstone Report. It seems Israel has finally decided to engage with the document’s claims that Israel may have committed war crimes during last year’s Gaza war. Of course, it could’ve done so by testifying to the UN investigative body so that Israel’s perspective could’ve been incorporated into the finished document. At the time, Israel evidently judged it could filibuster and disparage this effort, as they have so many previous international attempts to hold Israel accountable for its actions concerning the Palestinians. But for some reason, Goldstone has developed much more staying power than other similar past efforts. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — Richard Silverstein does a nice job of critiquing the Bronner article — the only other thing I was struck by was the Netanyahu quote naming Israel’s three-pronged axis of evil: “We face three major strategic challenges: The Iranian nuclear program, rockets aimed at our civilians and Goldstone.”
Wow! Richard Goldstone, the diminutive and rather modest judge from South Africa, now poses an existential threat to Israel!
Or am I reading that the wrong way round? Maybe Netanyahu is moderating his rhetoric and conceding that Israel does not actually face external existential threats. Existential threats may well persist, but these would be the ones of Israel’s own making.
Palestinian Legislative Council speaker Aziz Dweik on Thursday denied reports by Israeli news outlets that he said on Wednesday Israel has a right to exist.
“The media reports in question were inaccurate,” he said in a statement, adding that since his release from an Israeli prison last year, Israeli news outlets have repeatedly misrepresented his views.
The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, quoted Dweik as saying on Wednesday that the Islamic movement has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for dismantling the state.
The remarks were said to have been made during a meeting in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams, who reportedly maintains close ties with senior Israeli and British government officials.
Dweik told Ma’an, however, that he offered no such recognition of Israel’s “right to exist on Palestinian land,” as was reported, and moreover, that he told Abrahams the PLO had made a mistake by nullifying its charter.
“The PLO canceled its charter, and Palestinians achieved nothing,” he said. “This is Hamas’ stance and the opinion of any Hamas leader regarding the nullification of [its] charter.”
Dweik said the talks was held at Abrahams’ request, and came within a series of meetings with the PLC’s leadership with international officials, delegations and other news outlets. There was nothing unusual about Abrahams’ visit, he said. [continued…]
Hamas has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Aziz Dwaik, Hamas’s most senior representative in the West Bank, said on Wednesday.
Dwaik’s remarks are seen in the context of Hamas’s attempts to win recognition from the international community.
Dwaik is the elected speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He was released a few months ago after spending nearly three years in an Israeli prison.
Dwaik was among dozens of Hamas officials and members who were rounded up by Israel following the abduction of IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit near the Gaza Strip in June 2006.
His latest remarks were made during a meeting he held in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams, who maintains close ties with senior Israeli and British government officials.
Abrahams is scheduled to brief British Foreign Secretary David Milliband this weekend on the outcome of his meeting with Dwaik and other top Hamas officials in the West Bank.
Abrahams, a major donor to Britain’s Labor Party, told The Jerusalem Post he would urge Milliband to “consider the implications of Hamas’s positive overtures.” [continued…]
Speaking to reporters last night Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hammered away on one of his favorite points: the Palestinian precondition, no peace talks without a comprehensive freeze on West Bank settlement construction. “Let’s stop piling preconditions.” Said the Prime Minister, “Let’s get on with it. Let’s get on with peace negotiations.”
During the same speech, Netanyahu also insisted that East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want for a Capitol of their future state, is not up for negotiation and will remain part of Israel at the end of a peace deal. He demanded that Israel maintain a presence “on the Eastern side of a Palestinian state” to keep militants from using the territory to launch rockets at Israel ’s heartland. The Prime Minister was not clear if that simply meant a military presence on the Jordanian border or if Israel would keep the Jordan valley. Either way, it would leave the future Palestinian state as an Island with no control of its border. [continued…]
The Palestinians on Thursday rejected the idea of an Israeli presence on the eastern border of their future state, which was mooted by Israel’s hawkish prime minister.
“The Palestinian leadership will not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the Palestinian territories after the end of the occupation,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP. [continued…]
The underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are a lifeline for those trapped inside the blockaded Strip, but along with the clothes, furniture and food that make their way through the tunnels, a dangerous drug – Tramadol – is also entering the territory. Tramal, as it is known in Gaza, is a dangerously addictive painkiller which is illegal without a prescription, but an increasing number of Gazans are becoming hooked on it. Uncomfortably Numb talks to some of those addicts, those who are trying to help them and the authorities seeking to crack down on drug abuse.
Turkey and Israel are at loggerheads again, and this should come as no surprise.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon recently staged a rebuke of the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv over the contents of a Turkish television show. Israel subsequently apologized, but this will go down as yet another milestone in the ongoing tension between Turkey and Israel.
Despite some Israeli and American efforts to paint Turkey’s objections to Israeli policies as “anti-Semitic,” people in the business of statecraft understand very well where Turkey is coming from.
They recognize that disagreements between Turkey and Israel are likely to continue provided there is no recognizable change in issues such as improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza. They also recognize the complete and immediate freezing of settlements and the overall posture of Israel toward the peace process – if one can still talk about such a process. [continued…]
The American editor of a Palestinian news agency was removed from Israel on Wednesday after being questioned by authorities about his “anti-Israeli” views…
“They judged me to have anti-Israeli politics,” Malsin, 24, said from a cellphone as he boarded the El Al plane. “It’s outrageous that would even appear in a legal argument, that a person’s politics would be a relevant issue.”
An official with the Israeli Interior Ministry said Malsin had refused to answer questions about his presence in Israel and had “exploited” the fact that he is Jewish to say he wanted to explore immigrating to Israel.
“He was asked, why would he want to make aliya and become an Israeli citizen, as his opinions are clearly anti-Israeli,” Interior Ministry official Mietal Rochman wrote in an account of Malsin’s interrogation at the airport, which included a check of numbers stored in his cellphone and a review of his writings on the Internet. “The passenger chose to remain silent.” Malsin’s attorney provided a copy of Rochman’s report. [continued…]
Next week, or the week after, Barack Obama may well see intelligence reports of tank battalions moving south and west along Israeli highways, and whole infantry brigades setting up camp in the western Negev.
The countdown to the Second Gaza War has begun in earnest. Date it, if you like, to Sunday, and a coolly terrifying analysis by Yom Tov Samia, former overall Israeli military commander of the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Negev.
Or date it, if you prefer, according to axiom of contemporary Israeli history which reads: A future war becomes practically inevitable the moment a key IDF reserve major-general declares it so.
Alternatively, date it from the moment that selective amnesia allows Israeli political figures to court the illusion that Hamas can be invaded to death.
All this and more was to be had from an interview Samia gave Army Radio this week, which should give pause not only to the Palestinians and Israelis who may fall victim to a Second Gaza War, but to Washington as well. [continued…]
Just back from Israel/Palestine, the overwhelming sense I carry away is that the present state cannot last. Just how it goes down I have no idea. But conditions are so obviously discriminatory, and the knowledge of these conditions now so widespread– among the Christian pilgrims in my Jerusalem guesthouse, among European leaders, and now too among the Israeli elite and American left–that the situation is reminiscent of the delegitimizing of communism in the 70s and 80s. The period of apartheid struggle that Ehud Olmert warned of two years ago is upon us. So too his warning of possible “national suicide.”
The surprise for me is that the indifference of American Jews to this injustice is more than matched by that of the mass of Israelis: They live inside the bubble of their opinion that Israeli society is fair. So this trip has left me pretty depressed, even as it has renewed my sense of ethnocentric purpose: I will do what I can to bring the American Jewish community into the world conversation about the reality of Israel/Palestine.
This will happen. A few weeks back Israeli activist Micha Kurz said that a war had begun between one part of Israeli society and another; and I come home knowing that that war is about to erupt inside American Jewish life. You might say that it has already erupted: J Street’s emergence and all the liberal Zionists in the New York Review of Books attacking the occupation are signs. But we ain’t seen nothing yet. We are on the verge of a Jewish intifada, and about time too. [continued…]
But Israel needs Barghouti as well. He is the key to the future of the two-state solution, and therefore, to an Israel which is democratic without qualification, peaceable without biennial war, demographically Jewish without apartheid, a true neighbor to its neighbors – for once, a full member of the community of nations, economically, diplomatically, and, on the level of one-on-one human interaction.
Israeli leaders who have worked with Barghouti – even some who had him arrested and nearly assassinated – know the potential value to a future peace of his political skills, his standing and charisma among Palestinians, his work on behalf of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the past.
The senior Israeli security and government officials who have lobbied for Barghouti’s release include former senior Shin Bet official and ex-public security minister Gideon Ezra, and cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who served as defense minister under Ariel Sharon during the second intifada. [continued…]
Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have stopped torturing Hamas prisoners, ending two years of systematic abuse, Hamas inmates said in jailhouse interviews.
The change in practice, said to have taken effect in October, was confirmed by a West Bank Hamas leader, human rights activists and the Palestinian prime minister. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the decision to halt any abuse was part of an effort to make sure a future state is built on the right foundations.
Hamas legislators and human rights researchers said the worst behavior — prisoners beaten with clubs and cables; suspended from the ceiling while tied up in painful positions; and forced to stand for days — had ended.
But they said they still received sporadic reports of prisoners being slapped or forced to stand for several hours during interrogations. And security forces often arrest Hamas activists and hold them for lengthy periods without charge. [continued…]
Israeli troops yesterday shot dead six Palestinians in two separate incidents, as evidence emerged that an increasingly fragile ceasefire between armed groups loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement and Israel appeared to be in danger of breaking down.
The shootings, the most serious violence in months, came a day before today’s first anniversary of the outbreak of Israel’s war against Gaza in which almost 1,400 Palestinians died – and as allegations have emerged from Israeli human rights campaigners who opposed the war that they are facing concerted attempts to silence them.
Three of the Palestinians were killed in an airstrike just inside the Gaza border. According to Israeli officials they had been scouting the area for a possible infiltration operation, but according to Hamas officials and medics they had been searching for scrap metal to salvage.
More serious in its implications, however, was the shooting dead of three members of Fatah’s armed wing – the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – in a raid on the northern West Bank city of Nablus, apparently in retaliation for the shooting of an Israeli driving near the settlement at Shavei Shomron. Relatives who witnessed the Nablus shootings said soldiers fired at two of the men without warning. An Israeli army spokesman, Major Peter Lerner, said troops fired after the three men failed to respond to calls to surrender. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — To be an Israeli soldier is to be able to murder with impunity. It’s as simple as that.
The reporting on the murder of three members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is quite extraordinary. An Israeli commander is quoted saying: “we have the responsibility to act against whoever executed the attack [in which a Jewish settler was murdered on Thursday] and settle the score with them.”
Ynet reported: “The defense establishment is investigating why the three, who are considered fairly mature, decided to execute the attack themselves, and why they acted so shortly after being released from the Israeli prison.”
Suspects can be arrested and put on trial, but if settling scores is the name of the game then we’re not talking about suspects — we’re talking about targets for killing.
Haaretz reported: “According to B’Tselem, in two of the three cases the troops behaved as if they were preparing for an execution, not an arrest. Relatives and eyewitnesses told B’Tselem that the two were unarmed and did not attempt to flee, and that the soldiers weren’t trying to stop them, but rather shot them from close range once their identity was revealed. There were no witnesses to the shooting of the third man.”
Then we have what might be called the torturers’ defense: look, we didn’t suffer a scratch — proof that we were exercising restraint.
A senior IDF officer told Ynet: “The fact that no soldier was injured in the incident shows that we did not act too aggressively and that everything was done properly despite the extremely complex and dangerous mission.”
The Islamist group Hamas is masterminding efforts to have senior Israeli leaders arrested for alleged war crimes when they visit European countries including Britain, a top Hamas official involved in the effort has told The Times.
The claim comes amid continuing diplomatic fallout after a British arrest warrant was issued last week against Tzipi Livni, who served as Foreign Minister during Israel’s Gaza offensive last winter. The warrant was withdrawn when it became clear that Ms Livni, now leader of the opposition, was not in the country. Its existence apparently prompted her to cancel a trip to attend a meeting in London.
President Peres described the incident as “one of the greatest political mistakes” that Britain could have made and calling for the law to be changed. “Everything is based on … a hostile majority public opinion,” he said last week. “The British promised they would fix this and it is time that they do so.” [continued…]
In important global dynamic today bridges the worlds of politics, morality and violence. Societies are grappling with the challenge of how to hold accountable the political leaders who are accused of various degrees of criminal behavior, including war crimes, torture — even genocide or crimes against humanity. The most outrageous cases are tried in special international tribunals or at the International Criminal Court. Other cases reflect more contested situations and raise critical issues of the universality of ethics and law.
Two cases last week in the United States and Israel are interesting in this respect, because these two countries remind us twice a week — and more often in war time and on patriotic national holidays — that they are democracies whose values should be spread around the world. Well, the world at the receiving end of their moral munificence frequently asks an important question to which it has yet to receive a clear answer:
Are the United States and Israel subject to the same standards of accountability for their behavior as everyone else in the world, or do they operate at a higher plane of impunity when it comes to using violence to kill, torture, and invade or occupy other peoples? [continued…]
Amid swirling speculation about an imminent Israel-Hamas prisoner swap, the possible release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti could change the political dynamic in stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
More than any other of the hundreds of Palestinians that are expected to be freed by Israel in return for Sgt. Gilad Shalit after three years of captivity in Gaza, the possibility of a Barghouti release carries political repercussions beyond the actual swap.
A proponent of the militarization of the Palestinian uprising that broke out in late 2000, Barghouti was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2004 on five counts of murder, including a shooting attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant.
But Barghouti also supports a two-state compromise with Israel and is a Hebrew-speaking, charismatic warrior-statesman with public opinion ratings among Palestinians that rival Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Some say Barghouti could succeed Mr. Abbas, unify the Palestinians and provide Israel with the powerful partner it has lacked since the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004. [continued…]
Fatah strongman Marwan Barghouti said in an interview on Wednesday that he intends to run in the next Palestinian presidential election, and remarked that the abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit by Gaza militants achieved what no negotiations could ever achieve.
Shalit was kidnapped in a cross border raid in 2006, and has been held prisoner by Hamas for over three years. Recent reports suggest that Israel and Hamas are closer than ever to reaching an agreement on a deal that would see hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Shalit’s freedom. It is unclear whether Barghouti will be among those prisoners, as he is currently serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in murderous terror attacks. Continue reading →
hy is it permissible to talk to Hamas about the fate of one captive soldier and another several hundred prisoners, but forbidden to talk to them about the fate of two nations? Never has Israeli logic been so distorted. Now, when our hearts look forward to the deal’s implementation, when every human heart should look forward to Gilad Shalit’s release – and yes, to the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, some of them political prisoners for all intents and purposes, not just “terrorists with blood on their hands” – now is the time to finally rid ourselves of some of the foolish prohibitions we have imposed on ourselves and the entire international community.
It is now clear that there is someone to talk to. In Gaza and Damascus sit tough but reasonable statesmen. They are also concerned, in their own way, about the fate of their people, they too aspire to bring them freedom and justice. When the deal is implemented we will also discover that they can be taken at their word. Were it not for the fact that Israel is holding tens of thousands of prisoners – some who used base means to achieve a just objective – who are judged differently from Jewish murderers and criminals, perhaps Hamas would not have had to use the weapon of kidnapping. Continue reading →
Hamas has won an agreement from other militant groups in Gaza to halt rocket fire into Israel for the first time in almost a year, asboth sides indicated progress on a deal to release a captured Israeli soldier.
The agreement, announced , appears to be an attempt by the Palestinian Islamist movement to prevent another descent into fighting at a time when reconstruction has barely begun almost 12 months after the devastating conflict with Israel.
It also reflected more progress in secretly mediated talks to release Gilad Shalit, the soldier captured more than three years ago, in exchange for the return of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. [continued…]
Water in the Gaza Strip is so salty that it is unfit for human consumption, a Palestinian official in charge of water supplies inside the besieged coastal territory said on Saturday.
“The water is no longer fit for human consumption, with analysis and international studies showing that just 10 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is usable… threatening the lives of Palestinians,” Munzir Shiblak warned.
He called in a statement for “the necessary measures to be taken to end the problem of salinity in Gaza water supplies, a problem that is getting worse.” [continued…]
For 41 years, Washington turned a blind eye. It protested a bit, scolded a bit, and mostly made do with periodically stating that its policy has not changed – it still opposes settlements in the territories and does not recognize the annexation of East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. Suddenly, it gave us a resounding slap, but one of the frustrating kind that misses the cheek and flies through empty air. Because the American demand that we freeze construction in the settlements, that “strong message” containing a threat, has become a personal duel between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, in place of a clear policy presented by the latter.
Obama will win, of course. He can set a meeting with Netanyahu late at night, not answer the prime minister’s phone calls, warn him from the Great Wall of China and even order his officials to give Israel’s requests the cold shoulder. Obama already has managed to garner international support for his demand that Israel freeze settlement construction, even in Jerusalem, and American public opinion is on his side. If Obama wants to undermine Israel’s trust in the United States, or to prove to Netanyahu who is stronger, he does not have to work hard.
The American demand is proper, even if it is very late and unusually aggressive. However, its lack of context is infuriating. Freezing settlements is not a policy. Its entire purpose is to give Mahmoud Abbas, the resigning Palestinian Authority president, a reason to get back to negotiations. But negotiations cannot be a final goal, just as freezing settlements cannot be considered the ultimate achievement. What then? Is Abbas doomed to be a constant negotiator in endless negotiations? Does Washington have a plan for continuing negotiations? Continue reading →
Palestinian election officials said they can’t hold planned elections in January, which could give President Mahmoud Abbas a way to stay in office despite his threat to stand down — but could further roil Palestinian and Israeli politics.
Mr. Abbas’s threat, and a wider breakdown of U.S.-led peace efforts, are beginning to take a toll in the Palestinian territories and on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel. The premier has begun to come under fire for not making headway toward peace, including from within the Israeli leader’s ruling coalition, .
Speaking at a televised news conference in Ramallah, Palestinian election officials said Hamas’s opposition to polling is the main obstacle. Hamas has rejected holding new elections until reaching a long-stalled reconciliation accord with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah Party. [continued…]
… if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes.
Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Rather, it marked not only a continuation of Israel’s behaviour during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, but “highlights a common thread of the interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians which emerged clearly also in many cases discussed in other parts of the report.
It referenced continuous and systematic abuse, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment contrary to fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law”.
“The Mission concludes that the treatment of these civilians constitutes the infliction of a collective penalty on those persons and amounts to measures of intimidation and terror. Such acts are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute a war crime,” the report says.
Put simply, if there is blood on Israel’s hands, than it is has dripped all over America’s shirt.
Israel could not and would not have engaged in the level of wholesale destruction of Gaza painstakingly catalogued in the report without the support of the outgoing Bush administration, and acquiescence of the incoming Obama administration. [continued…]
Opposition MK Shaul Mofaz is planning to meet with senior Hamas officials, the Channel 10 website reported late Monday.
On Sunday, Mofaz presented his peace plan, which calls for the establishment within a year of a Palestinian state with provisional boundaries on 60 percent of the West Bank. He urged dialogue with Hamas as a means of achieving peace with the Palestinians.
Mofaz portrayed his proposal as a challenge not only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also to his own party’s leader, Tzipi Livni.
The plan sparked severe criticism, both from the Palestinians as well as within Israel. In response, Mofaz said Monday that “I will talk to the devil himself if that’s what will bring peace,” Israel Radio reported.
In recent years, Mofaz has vehemently rejected any contact with the Islamist Hamas, who violently seized control over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup in 2007. In a complete turnaround, Mofaz told Israel Radio Monday that if Hamas is voted to power in the upcoming elections – scheduled for January – he is willing to negotiate with them. [continued…]
Something is stirring within the Hamas body politic, a moderating trend that, if nourished and engaged, could transform Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli peace process. There are unmistakable signs that the religiously based radical movement has subtly changed its uncompromising posture on Israel.
For example, in the last few months top Hamas officials have publicly stressed that they want to be part of the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not part of the problem. What is happening inside Hamas’ mosques and social base shows a concerted effort on the part of its leadership to re-educate its rank and file about co-existence with the Jewish state and in so doing mentally prepare them for a permanent settlement in the future.
In Gazan mosques, pro-Hamas clerics have begun to cite the example of Salah al-Din al-Ayubi, a famed Muslim military commander and statesman, who, after liberating Jerusalem from the Western Crusaders, allowed them to retain a coastal state of their own. The moral lesson of the story is that if the famed leader could tolerate the warring, bloodthirsty Crusaders, then today’s Palestinians should be willing to live peacefully with a Jewish state in their midst. [continued…]
The possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s negotiating partner, loomed Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow.
“I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state, but he sees no state coming,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said in an interview. “So he really doesn’t think there is a need to be president or to have an Authority. This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?”
Mr. Abbas warned last week that he would not participate in Palestinian elections he called for, to take place in January. But he has threatened several times before to resign, and many viewed this latest step as a ploy by a Hamlet-like leader upset over Israeli and American policy. Many also noted that the vote might not actually be held, given the Palestinian political fracture and the unwillingness of Hamas, which controls Gaza, to participate.
In the days since, however, his colleagues have come to believe that he is not bluffing. If that is the case, they say, the Palestinian Authority could be endangered. [continued…]
More than 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Air strikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and other acts of violence have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza’s most vulnerable inhabitants. The most recent studies indicate that the vast majority of Gaza’s children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Soon after the Israeli winter assault, a group of scholars at the University of Washington discussed different aspects of the situation in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Dr. Evan Kanter, a UW School of Medicine professor and the current president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, delivered a somber talk describing the mental health situation among Gaza’s population. The numbers he cited described a staggering level of psychological trauma.
Dr. Kanter described studies that revealed 62 percent of Gaza’s inhabitants reported having a family member injured or killed, 67 percent saw injured or dead strangers and 83 percent had witnessed shootings. [continued…]
In the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow, when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli authorities refer to it as a “separation barrier,” but that’s misleading. The wall doesn’t separate pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank. If that’s all it did, it would be an entirely different political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact that Western countries that support the Israeli government – above all the United States – say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely rhetorical.
Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah. [continued…]
Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) told Al Jazeera: “The resolution [HR867] itself, I don’t think accurately characterizes the Goldstone report itself. It certainly doesn’t accurately characterize, nor does it really attempt to characterize, the reality on the ground and the devastation and death that occured there. And nor does it speak at all to the suffering of the Palestinian people or what needs to happen to try to move this situation forward. And I am concerned not only about that but about the general issue of what we can do proactively to get more relief to the people in Gaza in need immediately and what we can do to try to move the peace process forward, and that includes in my judgment, cessation of settlement expansion and moving towards real progress on the ground — tangible progress.”
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made the following statement on the House Floor about H. Res 867, which condemns the ‘Goldstone Report’ or the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict:
“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.
“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.
“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the “Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right” resolution.
“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.
“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?
“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?
“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”
Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, director of Military Intelligence, announced Tuesday that Hamas launched a rocket some 60 kilometers into the sea, apparently as an experiment. Such a rocket, if fired from the northernmost point of the Gaza Strip, could strike the southern cities of the Gush Dan area – including Rishon Letzion, Holon and Bat Yam – and possibly reach as far as Tel Aviv itself.
Although Yadlin didn’t specify the type of the weapon used, it appears to be a standard, foreign-made rocket smuggled into Gaza. Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hamas has accumulated an arsenal of rockets slightly larger than the arsenal it possessed before last winter’s Operation Cast Lead.
The experiment hardly caught Israeli intelligence by surprise, as it had assumed Hamas had acquired a similar type of rocket several months ago. However, the importance of Yadlin’s report should not be underestimated as this is the first tangible piece of evidence that Hamas holds a weapon capable of striking Gush Dan. It would seem Hamas has used the lull in fighting with Israel to not only restore, but improve its capabilities. Still, and similar to Hezbollah, restoring the arsenal hardly testifies to restoring motivation to confront Israel militarily. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — How can you tell when an Israeli official is lying? You can see his lips moving.
I know, an old joke, but really: are we supposed to believe this?
Then there’s the dubious concept of missile testing in this context. One would assume that missiles constructed in Iran have undergone very thorough testing in Iran. “Testing” them in Gaza would simply mean depleting the inventory.
Haaretz says: “Israel believes Hamas considers the new rocket a strategic asset, a ‘doomsday weapon’ of sorts, and therefore avoided publicizing the experimental launch, in the hope of using the weapon as a surprise during some later confrontation.”
Wouldn’t a more effective way of maintaining the element of surprise be to skip the “test”?
Before the war on Gaza, Israeli hawks kept on saying that Hamas could not be trusted to maintain a truce and that it was building up its stockpile of longer-range missiles. Then Israel attacked and the long-range missile threat never materialized.
If Hamas really had such an arsenal, why didn’t it use it?
Were they afraid that Israel would abandon its “restraint”? Were they afraid that Israel might use disproportionate force?
The Obama administration is scaling back its ambitions for the Arab-Israeli peace process, focusing on maintaining some degree of low-level dialogue in the face of big divisions between the two sides.
U.S. officials began outlining Washington’s diminished expectations as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completes a one-week tour of the Middle East on Wednesday. She had tried to kick-start a new round of talks during stops in Israel and Arab capitals, but the divisions proved too wide to bridge.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused U.S. calls for a complete freeze of settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians have ruled out resuming negotiations without the freeze.
Mrs. Clinton subsequently pressed Arab leaders to agree to support talks with just a partial Israeli freeze. But barring that, U.S. officials said all sides might be forced to accept a lower level of engagement in the talks to guard against a new round of violence in the Palestinian territories.
There is a fear that militant groups, such as Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon, could use a political vacuum to spark renewed violence.
More on Mideast Peace Talks
“There’s value in having the process” in itself, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on Tuesday. In a sign of the administration’s changing focus, Mr. Crowley added: “If this particular path, we think, can’t get us there, we’ll look for others.” [continued…]
Police suspect that Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, who has confessed to murdering two Palestinians and carrying out a long list of other, less deadly, terror attacks, also murdered two traffic policemen in the Jordan Valley eight months ago – a crime originally attributed to Palestinian terrorists.
Haaretz reported on Tuesday that police suspected Teitel of other murders in addition to those of the two Palestinians, but at the time, a gag order was still in place that prevented specifying which murders.
The policemen, Warrant Officer David Rabinowitz and Senior Warrant Officer Yehezkel Ramzarkar, were shot while sitting in their patrol vehicle near Moshav Massua. The subsequent investigation indicated that the assailant had lain in wait at the turn-off from the main road to Massua and did something to make them stop and roll down their window. He then shot them from point-blank range. No damage was done to the vehicle, and nothing was taken from it.
Teitel denied responsibility for these murders, and it not clear what evidence the police have against him. But a police source said yesterday that Teitel’s modus operandi in the crimes he has admitted to “precisely matches” that of the policemen’s murder.
The police and the Shin Bet security service have long assumed that the policemen’s killer acted alone, and not as part of an organization, making it difficult to get information about the crime. And while the police considered the possibility that the murder was criminal rather than the work of terrorists, three different lines of inquiry had drawn blanks, leaving investigators utterly in the dark. [continued…]
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he murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a leading member of Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, in Dubai ten days ago, is widely assumed to have been carried out by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
mid swirling speculation about an imminent Israel-Hamas prisoner swap, the possible release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti could change the political dynamic in stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
pposition MK Shaul Mofaz is planning to meet with senior Hamas officials, the Channel 10 website reported late Monday.