Category Archives: Israel

Mofaz seeks meeting with senior Hamas officials

Mofaz seeks meeting with senior Hamas officials
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz, November 10, 2009

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…]

Hamas adopting more moderate stance?
By Fawaz A Gerges, CNN, November 4, 2009

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…]

Collapse feared for Palestinian Authority if Abbas resigns
By Ethan Bronner, New York Times, November 10, 2009

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…]

Vast majority of Gaza children suffer PTSD symptoms
By Aditya Ganapathiraju, Electronic Intifada, November 9, 2009

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…]

Mr Netanyahu, tear down this wall
By Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, November 9, 2009

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…]

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Obama hosts Netanyahu

Obama hosts Netanyahu
By Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2009

The prime minister’s visit comes as fears grow inside the Obama administration that its aggressive plans for promoting Mideast peace could be unraveling. Mr. Netanyahu hasn’t agreed to a complete freeze of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a precursor to talks, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he wouldn’t seek re-election in protest over the U.S. failure to deliver such a commitment.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fueled outrage in the Arab world when she visited Mr. Netanyahu just over a week ago in Jerusalem and praised the Israeli leader for his agreement to a partial freeze, rather than pushing him publicly for more.

Mrs. Clinton’s comments drew criticism in Arab capitals that Washington was tilting toward the Jewish state. U.S. officials briefed on the secretary’s visit said there also were tensions between Mrs. Clinton and her Israeli counterparts over the Israelis’ hard line. Mrs. Clinton, who is traveling in Germany, won’t be part of the White House meeting.

The brinksmanship over a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders represents a rare display of pique by the White House toward Israel. Mr. Netanyahu had long been scheduled to visit Washington to speak at the assembly of Jewish groups. While he had no confirmed plans to meet Mr. Obama, it would be rare, but not unprecedented, for an Israeli prime minister to visit Washington without meeting the U.S. president. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — A few days ago, the Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Nahum Barnea wrote: “For days the White House has refused to set a date for a meeting. It was embarrassing and humiliating. Netanyahu was angry. Not mildly angry. He was incensed.”

Thank God President Obama has come to his senses and is ready to do whatever it takes to please America’s most important ally.

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Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel

Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel
By Amir Oren, Haaretz, November 8, 2009

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said last week in Washington that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Mullen said he would prefer that the U.S. work diplomatically to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons, but hinted that should such efforts fail, the U.S. air force and navy could be put into action as well.

Ahead of Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to the Pentagon this week, Israeli military sources said they were satisfied with the progress in talks with their American counterparts over acquiring F-35 fighter jets. Israel will pay $135 million per jet if it buys 25, and $100 million if it buys 75.

Meanwhile, Washington has retracted its opposition to installing Israeli-made systems on the jets. However, a disagreement over Israel’s request for complete access to the planes’ computer systems is yet to be resolved.

At a conference at the National Press Club, Mullen said he has spent a significant amount of time with his Israeli counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and that “it’s very clear to me that a nuclear weapon in Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” according to a transcript released by his office. [continued…]

Iran said to ignore effort to salvage nuclear deal
By David E Sanger, New York Times, November 9, 2009

…members of the Obama administration, in interviews over the weekend, said that they had now all but lost hope that Iran would follow through with an agreement reached in Geneva on Oct. 1 to send its fuel out of the country temporarily — buying some time for negotiations over its nuclear program.

“If you listen to what the Iranians have said publicly and privately over the past week,” one senior administration official said Sunday, “it’s evident that they simply cannot bring themselves to do the deal.” The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were speaking about delicate diplomatic exchanges.

Iranian officials told the energy agency on Oct. 29 that they could not agree to the deal that their own negotiators had reached, but they never explained why. Iran has never publicly rejected the deal, but its official reaction has been ambiguous at best.

Dr. ElBaradei insisted he still had hope, but he conceded that the chances were receding.

“I have been saying to the Iranian leadership, privately and publicly, ‘Make use of that opportunity. Reciprocate,’ ” Dr. ElBaradei said last week. But he said that it now appeared that “the foreign policy apparatus in Iran has frozen,” partly because of the country’s own domestic turmoil.

So far, President Obama has said nothing about the stalemate threatening his first, and potentially most important, effort at diplomatic engagement with a hostile foreign government. When the first meeting in Geneva ended Oct. 1, Iranian and American officials said they would meet again later in the month to discuss the nuclear program and the potential for a broader relationship. That meeting never occurred, and none is scheduled. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — It’s hard to push the narrative that Israel faces an existential threat and that it provides a safe haven for Jews. The “existential threat” argument would simply seem to reinforce what has for decades seemed to be objectively true: America and Europe and much of the rest of the world provide a much safer haven for Jews than does Israel.

In light of this we are likely to hear another argument presented with increasing force: that Israel’s necessity rests in its providing the only base in the world for a Jewish army.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in an address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America on Sunday noted that the creation of Israel provided the opportunity for the creation of “the first Jewish defense force in 2,000 years” as, in the wake of the Goldstone report, the issue of Israel’s right to exist in now being made subordinate to its right to defend itself.

Haaretz reported:

[Oren] said Israel was now facing questions about its legitimacy, not only from its traditional enemies but also from young people in the U.S., both Jews and non-Jews.

He told the conference that Israel’s ability to withstand the “onslaught of delegitimization” depends on the unity of the Jewish people, not just in Israel, but in communities all over the world.

“Our strength derives from the belief that we have a right to independence in our tribal land, the land of Israel, and that Jews have a right to defend themselves, there and everywhere. That Jews have a right to survive as Jews and as a legitimate nation.”

He seems to be claiming that the ability of Jews to survive anywhere hinges on the ability of Israel to defend itself.

If a Qassam rocket gets fired at Sderot, subtly — perhaps almost imperceptibly — it gets a little more dangerous to be living in Brooklyn.

Really?

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Hezbollah gears up for new war

Hezbollah gears up for new war
By Mitchell Prothero and Peter Beaumont, The Observer, November 8, 2009

Hezbollah is rapidly rearming in preparation for a new conflict with Israel, fearing that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will attack Lebanon again prior to any assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Last week, Israeli commandos seized a ship in the Mediterranean loaded with almost 400 tonnes of rockets and small arms – which Israel claimed was being sent from Iran to its Hezbollah allies. In dramatic further evidence of growing tensions, the Observer has learned that Hezbollah fighters have been busy reinforcing fixed defence positions north of the Litani river.

Having lost many of its bunkers in the south, Hezbollah is preparing a new strategy to defend villages there.

Although the organisation denied last week that the weapons were intended for its use, senior commanders have done little to disguise the scale of rearmament. “Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006,” said a Hezbollah commander, speaking on condition of anonymity. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — “We expect the Israelis to come soon, if not this winter, then they will wait until spring, when the ground isn’t too soft for their tanks,” says a Hezbollah commander.

Israel’s readiness to launch an attack on Iran may hinge on its readiness to send tanks back into Lebanon.

The war on Gaza, even to the extent that it may have served as a training exercise in preparation for another round of fighting with Hezbollah, probably did little to dispel the haunting memories of 2006. The Merkava tank, previously one of the IDF’s most potent symbols of invincibility, ended up exposing Israel’s military vulnerability.

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Is using aid to Israel as leverage becoming a mainstream idea?

Is using aid to Israel as leverage becoming a mainstream idea?
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, November 8, 2009

Tom Friedman today has some very harsh words for both the Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom — he claims — are not serious about reaching a peace agreement. As a result, these are the principles which Friedman — rather surprisingly — advocates the U.S. should follow:

Let’s just get out of the picture. Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: “My fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It’s just you and me and the problem we own.”

Indeed, it’s time for us to dust off James Baker’s line: “When you’re serious, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Barack. Otherwise, stay out of our lives. We have our own country to fix.” …

If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties, then I say, let them enjoy it. I just don’t want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore. We need to fix America. If and when they get serious, they’ll find us.

The only specific course of action Friedman explicitly advocates to fulfill those principles is that the U.S. cease its efforts to forge a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stop trying to pressure them into concessions, instead leaving each side to stew in the status quo — in other words, do exactly that which the Netanyahu government would like most. That would be a perfectly fine suggestion if not for the fact that the U.S. is heavily invested in the outcome of that process and its interests substantially and directly impacted by what happens. That’s because we single-handedly enable Israeli behavior with our massive amounts of military aid, diplomatic protection, and weapons supplying, which means Israeli behavior is rationally perceived by much of the Muslim world as being one and the same as American behavior. Muslim anger towards Israel will inevitably translate into Muslim anger towards the U.S. for as long as we continue to flood Israel with aid and cover. [continued…]

Israel’s apartheid is worse than South Africa’s
By Yitzhak Laor, Haaretz, November 7, 2009

Regardless of whether there is a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, the United States became a distinctly pro-Israel world power after the 1967 war. It has no intention of being a “balanced mediator” when it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians.

Barack Obama’s public relations moves in the Arab world have frightened many average Israelis. But Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, allies of the final takeover of the West Bank, know very well that U.S. policy has not changed. It doesn’t take a genius to read the working papers of past prime ministers.

The prevailing attitude of all U.S. administrations was drafted by Henry Morgenthau, and was later updated by Kenneth Waltz. One line guided all of them – Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, George Mitchell – essentially, that any possible settlement must match the positions of the stronger party. [continued…]

Abbas charts new course by abandoning faith in the US
By Tony Karon, The National, November 8, 2009

‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second World War, and undermined the US ally Chiang Kai-shek. While the purge that followed is unlikely to be repeated, Washington may soon be asking itself, albeit quietly, “Who lost Fatah?”

Last week’s announcement by the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas that he would not seek re-election next January was a warning to the Obama administration, which had put Mr Abbas in an untenable position. Having retreated from its own demand that Israel halt all construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Washington expected Mr Abbas to open talks with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu without conditions.

For the Palestinians, however, the settlement-freeze demand was a test of Mr Obama’s willingness to pressure the Israelis into taking steps they won’t take by choice. Mr Abbas knows that Mr Netanyahu, if it were up to him, would not yield to a viable, independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. If the US is not prepared to pressure Israel, negotiations would not only be fruitless, they would actually help sustain a reality that is relatively comfortable for the Israelis but intolerable for the Palestinians. [continued…]

U.N.’s Goldstone criticizes U.S. reaction to Gaza report
Reuters, November 8, 2009

The head of a U.N. investigation that accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza, Richard Goldstone, has said he is disappointed there has been such a “lukewarm” reaction to his findings in the United States.

The report by Goldstone, a South African jurist, lambasted both sides in the December-January war, which killed up to 1,387 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher toward Israel.

It gave Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants six months to mount credible investigations or face possible prosecution in The Hague. Both Israel and Hamas denied committing war crimes. [continued…]

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U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society

U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, November 6, 2009

Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society, according to a new report from the U.S. State Department.

Despite boasting religious freedom and protection of all holy sites, Israel falls short in tolerance toward minorities, equal treatment of ethnic groups, openness toward various streams within society, and respect for holy and other sites.

The comprehensive report, written by the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, says Israel discriminates against groups including Muslims, Jehova’s Witnesses, Reform Jews, Christians, women and Bedouin.

The report says that the 1967 law on the protection of holy places refers to all religious groups in the country, including in Jerusalem, but “the government implements regulations only for Jewish sites. Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the government does not recognize them as official holy sites.” [continued…]

Israel… just another state
By Asaf Gefen, Ynet, November, 2009

One would think that the bitterness [among Israelis] towards the current president of America has to do with the fears about potential damage to Israel being realized. However, in practice, America’s confused policy brought grimmer results than our failed soccer team, while serving Netanyahu’s vision for four years of slumber at office.

From the very first moment, Israelis sensed the “he’s not one of us” feeling about Obama. Yet even this does not fully explain the acrimony.

It is clear that Obama is not getting on his knees and kissing the ground we walk on, yet even the paranoid Israeli public will find it difficult to present hard evidence that he is persecuting us.

And perhaps this is where the problem lies: It’s not about Obama being against us; rather, it’s the fact that he doesn’t care about us. He’s just indifferent. [continued…]

Half a meeting
By Nahum Barnea, Ynet (via TWN), November 6, 2009

Netanyahu is sure that he knows who is to blame [for strained US-Israeli relations]: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He heard inside information, from the White House, verified information. Emanuel drips venom. My sources may be less good, but the picture they paint is different. Netanyahu’s problem, they say, is not Emanuel. It is Obama.

Netanyahu is convinced that since the first day of his term, Emanuel has been plotting to isolate Israel from America, to shrink it in the eyes of its voters and to destroy it politically. This step failed. Support for Israel in American public opinion has only increased. It’s not Israel that is isolated in America, but rather the Palestinians. Personal admiration for him also increased. It increased in wake of his speech at the UN General Assembly. There are no other leaders in the world today that speak to Americans in their own language. They’ve known him in America for 30 years now. [continued…]

Good riddance, Abbas
By Saree Makdisi, Foreign Policy, November 6, 2009

The announcement that Mahmoud Abbas has decided not to stand for re-election as head of the Palestinian Authority should come as a relief to all Palestinians. In fact, Abbas’s departure will open a much-needed opportunity to take stock of where things stand and assess the future course of the Palestinian struggle.

Never an appealing or charismatic figure, Abbas has been losing popular support since his first day in office five years ago (his term technically expired in January 2009). Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which he played a prominent role, the official Palestinian leadership has been pursuing a formula for peace — the two-state solution — that has yielded nothing more than the intensification of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Those 16 years have been characterized by the further immobilization and immiseration of the Palestinian people, and an ever-growing list of civilian casualties, most recently in Gaza.

We are left with no other conclusion than this: that the so-called peace process with which Abbas has been indelibly associated, albeit as the Israelis’ junior assistant, was calculated to produce exactly these results. The very first step of the Oslo process, undertaken with Abbas’s assent in 1993, was to fragment and separate the occupied territories into shards of land, disconnected from each other and from the outside world, under total, institutionalized Israeli domination. Take one look at a map and you can’t miss the separation of Gaza from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the further internal splintering of the West Bank, all of which is the direct result of Oslo. [continued…]

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UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war charges

UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war charges
By Patrick Worsnip, Reuters, November 5, 2009

In a move that angered Israel, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Thursday to urge the Jewish state and Palestinians to investigate war crimes charges leveled in a controversial U.N. report on the Gaza war.

The Arab-drafted resolution is nonbinding and unlikely to lead to inquiries by either Israel or the militant Palestinian Hamas movement that rules Gaza into their conduct during the December-January conflict.

But the outcome was seen by Arab states as a public relations coup and a public discomfiture for Israel, which has reacted with outrage to the findings of the U.N. report, as have American Jewish groups. [continued…]

No safe haven for suspected war criminals
By Daniel Machover, Huffington Post, November 5, 2009

The Jerusalem Post recently quoted Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the US, as lamenting the “tactical” problem of Israel being unable to defend itself without facing prosecution. He added that “no one in Israel buys” that the Israeli military targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead last winter.

“It goes not just against all of our principles, but the personal knowledge of people who participated in the operation,” he said, adding that he was speaking from personal experience.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, human rights campaigners and lawyers working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been collecting evidence of serious human rights violations by Israel’s military for many years. Some of those violations appear to amount to grave breaches (i.e. war crimes) contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, which protects civilians living under military occupation. After many years of placing the evidence of such war crimes before the Israeli legal system and attempting to seek justice locally, Palestinian victims have lost any faith in the Israeli legal system. [continued…]

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Report: U.S. stopped Israel from attacking ‘Hezbollah arms ship’

Report: U.S. stopped Israel from attacking ‘Hezbollah arms ship’
Haaretz, November 6, 2009

The United States informed Israel of a ship carrying tons of weapons allegedly en route from Iran to Hezbollah, but vetoed Israel’s plans to attack, the A-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Friday.

Israel raided the ship in the waters off the coast of Cyprus earlier this week and redirected it to the Ashdod port, where it unloaded 500 tons of weapons. The ship was released back onto its route to Turkey and Egypt late Wednesday, after Israel confirmed that the crew was not connected to the cargo found aboard.

In its report on Friday, A-Sharq Al-Awset cited Israeli sources as saying that Israel had intended to attack the ship but had refrained at the insistence of the U.S. No other source could confirm the report. Hezbollah has vehemently denied any link to the weapons and denounced “Israeli piracy” in international waters. [continued…]

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How Israel creates the scenario for the next war

The doomsday weapon
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, November 5, 2009

Every few weeks you have to sow fear, every few months you need to make threats, and once every year or two you have to have another little war. Blind cooperation between the defense establishment and the media holds the promise of another round of fighting. In that way, it’s possible to escape some of the blame from the Goldstone report and wallow in the conditions we love best: being the victim, feeling threatened and uniting in the face of the great external danger allegedly in the offing.

The Israel Defense Forces will be above it all and cleanse itself of a series of suspicions and failures. This can also translate into huge budgets, glorified importance and influence for both the generals and the military commentators. It also creates good television ratings and sells sensationalist newspapers and advanced weapon systems. What’s better than that for us?

The most recent cry of alarm: NASA in Palestine, Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in Gaza. Hamas launches an Iranian rocket – it must be Iranian – 60 kilometers. The head of Military Intelligence reported on it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke immediately about missile systems, and the media immediately broke into its favorite war dance. “Three million citizens within range,” “Confrontation in December,” “Are you within range?” “Outskirts of Tel Aviv in danger,” “Doomsday weapons” – frightening headlines accompanied by no less scary maps. “This is a new dimension confronting the IDF. It’s not a simple matter. It’s really a different story altogether. We should remember that there will be many casualties on the home front,” roared the national baritone – the military commentator on television.

So again we are dealing with the grotesque – a strip of land under siege wallowing in its distress and ruins, with a pitiful paramilitary organization whose weapons arsenal would be an embarrassment to an IDF basic training camp. And it already proved its inadequacy in the last war. But the militants are portrayed to us as a superpower. That’s how they create the scenario for the next war. That’s how they empower not just the enemy, but first and foremost the IDF, which can beat the enemy [continued…]

U.N. set to endorse inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza
By Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, November 5, 2009

The General Assembly is preparing to approve a resolution that would endorse a United Nations report calling on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate possible war crimes in the Gaza Strip within three months.

The assembly began discussing the nonbinding resolution, introduced by about 20 Arab League members, including Iraq, on Wednesday, but with about 50 nations scheduled to speak, a vote was not likely until Thursday. Given the widespread support for the Palestinian cause and broad criticism of Israel, passage of the measure seemed assured.

Some members of the European Union were threatening to abstain, however, holding out for changes. One issue was wording that would require Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to work with the Security Council on additional action; another was the resolution’s full endorsement of a decision last month by the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt the report completely, diplomats said. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, declares the Goldstone report as “conceived in hate and executed in sin.”

Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, is on his way to New York to assist in the PR campaign against the report. “This is war, and in war when you are sent a Tzav Shmone (emergency draft order), you enlist,” Gillerman tells Ynet.

The more overblown the rhetoric gets, the more Israel reinforces its international image as a nation governed by buffoons and demagogues.

The battle over Palestinian representation
By Nadia Hijab, Middle East Online, November 4, 2009

“From now on, Palestinian leaders will be judged by the stand they took on the Goldstone Report — anyone who tried to bury it, or who remained silent, will have lost their claim to leadership,” a Palestinian historian friend remarked after popular outrage forced the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas to rescind his decision to postpone the Report at the Human Rights Council.

Now the Report has moved to the United Nations General Assembly, where the United States, flanked by Israel and some European allies, has reportedly spent the weekend putting heavy pressure on representatives from African countries and others who might have wanted to uphold international law and end impunity.

Two key issues faced the General Assembly at its November 4 debate: Whether to endorse or simply “take note” of the Goldstone Report, as Israel’s supporters would like. And whether to exclude the High Commissioner for Human Rights from follow-up in favor of the UN Secretary General’s office. Seasoned UN observers fear that giving Ban Ki-moon’s office control over follow-up would effectively bury the report because of the political pressures that can, and are, placed on him. [continued…]

Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report
Jews Say No!, October, 2009

The primary author of the recently released UN Report on Gaza, the internationally respected jurist Richard Goldstone, has been attacked by establishment voices within the Jewish community. When those within a community try to “excommunicate” and dishonor truth-tellers, it is our obligation and responsibility to speak out vehemently on their behalf and on behalf of the truth they bring.

By all accounts, Judge Goldstone, who has a deep connection to Israel, approached his task with no pre-conceptions about what he and his team would find as they investigated the circumstances and aftermath of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Goldstone is a former South African constitutional law court judge who also served as a prosecutor of the Yugoslav and Rwandan war crimes tribunals. His credentials for this task are impeccable.

For following where the truth led him and releasing a report detailing human rights abuses and violations of international law by Israel, as well as by Hamas, Judge Goldstone should be applauded for his honesty and integrity. Instead, he and the report have been viciously and relentlessly attacked by many within the Jewish community.
When it comes to Israel, hard-core censorship and intimidation by those claiming to speak in the name of the Jewish people have been the order of the day. Our saying, “Three Jews — four opinions,” reflects the traditional Jewish encouragement to argue and debate. However, the reality, sadly, is that diverse opinions are welcome — except when it comes to Israel. [continued…]

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Israel proposes work camps for illegal migrants

Israel proposes work camps for illegal migrants
By Dana Weiler-Polak, Haaretz, November 5, 2009

The government is considering establishing work camps in the south of the country, where illegal migrant workers will receive shelter, food and medical care, Army Radio reported Wednesday. In exchange, illegal migrants would perform manual labor outside the camps, but would not earn a salary.

They would stay at the camp until their asylum claims are decided, which could take months or years.

The proposal, part of the effort to address the problems posed by illegal migrants, would place asylum seekers at jobs in communities in the Negev and Arava. Their salaries would go to the state, in order to fund the camps.

The issue of illegal foreign migrants and refugees has made the headlines due to the efforts by human rights organizations to block the deportation of 1,200 foreign workers’ children. One of the main arguments by deportation advocates, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas), is that allowing them to stay would bring hundreds of thousands more illegal migrants.

They would bring in “a range of diseases such as hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis and AIDS [as well as] drugs,” said Yishai.

“I fear how far we have fallen,” said MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) in reaction to the work camp proposal, adding that he thinks the plan would encourage many more asylum seekers to try to enter Israel.

“The plan [would] induce refugees to come to Israel. A bed is an incentive compared to where they come from. Israel has the right to close its borders, but when someone comes here, you cannot fight with him. This shows that we haven’t learned a thing, as people living in a country established by refugees for refugees,” Khenin added. [continued…]

Israel’s illegal immigrants — and their children
By Matthew Kalman, Time, October 21, 2009

Israel started recruiting workers from East Asia 20 years ago, after the first intifadeh ended the flood of day laborers from the West Bank and Gaza. The migrants support entire families back in their home countries. Noa Kaufman of the Israeli Children pressure group, says Israel encourages deporting workers after five years or when they have children. But then those departing workers are simply replaced by new arrivals who go through the same turmoil. “The recruitment companies only get money for new workers. If a worker moves jobs once he’s here, the recruitment company doesn’t get any money,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense that there is no naturalization process for someone who was born here or someone who lived here as a refugee for 10 years. They are people, not machines. You can’t expect them not to fall in love, not to give birth.” [continued…]

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Israel moves to rein in right-wing extremists

Israel moves to rein in right-wing extremists
By Josh Mitnick, Christian Science Monitor, November 4, 2009

A US native from this isolated settlement was arrested by Israeli security services nearly a month ago amid allegations that he killed two Palestinians more than a decade ago and attempted to murder two others more recently. The local media are calling it the latest case of Jewish terrorism.

The accusations against Yaakov Teitel, the son of a US Navy dentist, is fanning concern in Israel that nationalist vigilantes in Israel still have the ability to carry out attacks aimed at sabotaging peace negotiations and expected land concessions.

The case is even more loaded because security services publicized it Sunday – just days before the Nov. 4 anniversary of the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir, which derailed the peace process for years. [continued…]

Teitel affair attests to lack of deterrence vis-à-vis violent radicals
By Alex Fishman, Ynet, November 2, 2009

When a murderer like Yaakov Teitel walks around freely for 12 years, carries out attacks, trains, creates an explosives lab, and builds up a weapons depot with no interruption, this means there is no deterrence.

In other words, the Shin Bet security service and police are not there. And when there is no deterrence, there is high likelihood that the next “patriotic” murderer is already walking amongst us.

And what does the next murderer think to himself, the person who dreams – like Yaakov Teitel – of being the nation’s savior and guardian of our race? How simple it is, he must be telling himself. You can murder, plant explosives, and create provocations freely and nobody will snitch on you or capture you.

After all, Yaakov Teitel did not hide in a large city like Tel Aviv. He lived in a very small community, Shvut Rachel. It’s impossible that he raised no suspicions for such a long time. But the fact is, nobody informed authorities. Even when he was held up for questioning, he was released for lack of evidence.

So what does the next murderer conclude about the Shin Bet’s ability to cover and penetrate such small communities? There is nobody to fear. Law enforcement authorities don’t reach these places. [continued…]

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Israel’s unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood

Some victims we are
By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, October 28, 2009

The kill ratio was 100-to-1 in our favor. The destruction ratio was much, much greater than that. To this day, thousands of Gazans are living in tents because we won’t let them import cement to rebuild the homes we destroyed. We turned the Gaza Strip into a disaster area, a humanitarian case, and we’re keeping it that way with our blockade.

Meanwhile, here on the Israeli side of the border, it’s hard to remember when life was so safe and secure.

So let’s decide: Who was the victim of Operation Cast Lead, them or us?

No question – us. We Israelis were the victims and we still are. In fact, our victimhood is getting worse by the day. The Goldstone report was the real war crime. The Goldstone report, the UN debates, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, B’Tselem, the traitorous soldiers of Breaking the Silence and the Rabin Academy – those were the true crimes against humanity. This is what’s meant by “war is hell.”

It is we who’ve been going through hell from the war in Gaza. It is we who’ve been suffering.

Gazans? Suffering? What’s everybody talking about?

We let them eat, don’t we?

This imaginary monologue is how we actually see ourselves today. We initiated the war in Gaza, we waged one of the most one-sided military campaigns anyone’s ever seen – and we’re the victims.

We’re fighting off the world with the Holocaust; witness Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the UN with his Auschwitz props. “We won’t go like lambs to the slaughter again,” vowed his protégé, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in a cabinet discussion of the Goldstone report.

Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter, Operation Cast Lead. To Israelis today, it’s all of a piece, it’s one story, one unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood.

The truth is that the State of Israel has never been a victim, and our likening of ourselves to the 6 million has been embarrassing from the beginning – but now? After what we did in Gaza? With the stranglehold we have on that society, while we over here live free and easy?

Victims? Lambs to the slaughter? Us?

No, this has gone beyond embarrassing; this is out-and-out shameful.

And, despite our excuses, it’s not that we’re “traumatized” by the past into believing that we’re still weak, still the frightened, powerless Jews about to be led to the gas chambers. Many Holocaust survivors still believe this, and to some very limited extent, this vestigial fear still takes up space in the Israeli mind.

But by now, 64 years after the Holocaust, 42 years after seeing in the Six Day War how strong we’d become, we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that we aren’t the victims anymore. We know we aren’t a continuation of the 6 million but rather a deliberate and stark departure from them.

THE REASON we tell ourselves and the world that we are victims is because we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that victimhood is power. Victimhood is freedom. A victim can’t be told to restrain himself. A victim fighting for survival can’t be accused of abusing his power because, after all, his back is to the wall, he’s desperate.

On the facts, it’s very hard to convince ourselves, let alone the world, that Gaza and its Kassams have pushed Fortress Israel’s back to the wall, that we’re desperate, that we’re struggling to survive. So, to convince ourselves and the world that this really is so, we do two things.

One, we refuse to acknowledge any facts that mar this image of ourselves as victims, and instead go over and over and over only the facts that fit the picture.

We talk only about the thousands of Kassams fired at Sderot; we never mention the thousands of Gazans we killed at the same time.

We talk only about Gilad Schalit; we never mention the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners we’re holding.

And we never mention our ongoing blockade of Gaza or the devastation it does to those people.

The second thing we do to convince ourselves and the world that we’re still victims is to never, ever, ever let go of the Holocaust – because that’s when we really were victims. Victims like nobody’s ever known, victims a million times worse than the Gazans.

Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter. Remember us, the people of the Holocaust? That wasn’t the Middle East’s superpower you saw fighting in Gaza.

That was the 6 million.

So you can’t blame us. We’re immune from your criticism. We’re the biggest victims the world has ever known. We’re desperate, so don’t tell us about kill ratios and disproportionate use of force and collective punishment. We’re fighting for our survival.

This is what we tell ourselves and the world, and, in the face of what we did and are still doing in Gaza, it has become intolerable. We are not the 6 million. The 6 million were powerless Jews three generations ago; we cannot wrap our abuses of power in their tragedy.

Instead, let’s take a good, hard look at what we did and what we’re doing in Gaza. Then let’s take a good, hard look in the mirror. And then let’s admit who’s the true victim here and now, and, more importantly, who isn’t.

Editor’s Comment — Larry Derfner is a columnist for the conservative Jerusalem Post. Presumably the paper’s editors feel moderately comfortable publishing his provocative commentaries because the paper provides “balance” with other pieces by rabid Likudniks like Caroline Glick. Still, at this time I doubt that there is a single newspaper editor in the United States who would have the guts to publish Derfner’s piece.

Even so, the times they are a-changin’.

Americans are losing patience with Israel and the media knows it. It will be a while before we see a New York Times editorial calling for a cooling in US-Israeli relations, but the views of ordinary Americans are now percolating up through newspaper letters pages. This is where editors are testing the water to see how much space they might dare provide for more honesty when the topic is Israel.

Views once only voiced at the political margins of the blogosphere are now moving into the mainstream. Only yesterday, Andrew Sullivan — not known as an anti-Zionist — had this to say:

One question that should always be asked of an ally: what is that ally doing for the US? Since the end of the Cold War, that question has been increasingly hard to answer with respect to Israel.

Strategically, Israel is obviously a huge burden for the US, making relations with Muslim or Arab nations much harder, and undermining any attempt to portray American intervention in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, as beneficent rather than predatory. It’s a big drain on the Treasury, as Israel consumes a vast amount of military and non-military aid.

Meanwhile, Congress continues to march in lockstep with the Israel lobby — but this can’t go on forever. As the taboos on criticizing Israel and questioning US-Israeli relations break down, members of Congress will come under increasing pressure to explain how they can justify supporting a country that has become a strategic liability at America’s expense. Israel’s most stalwart defenders should send their donations to a pro-Israel lobby of their choice, but they should no longer expect that support to be subsidized by the US taxpayer.

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Clinton: Israel’s settlement offer falls short of U.S. wishes

Clinton: Israel’s settlement offer falls short of U.S. wishes
Haaretz, November 2, 2009

Israel’s offer to restrain settlement expansion is an unprecedented and positive step but still falls short of Washington’s wishes, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

“The Israelis have responded to the call of the U.S., the Palestinians and the Arab world to stop settlement activity by expressing a willingness to restrain settlement activity,” she told reporters in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

“This offer falls far short of what our preference would be but if it is acted upon it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Now as always, the substance of US-Israeli relations is a process through which agreements can be found on language.

Israel seeks and promotes the “right” language and it vigorous fights against the “wrong” language.

Meanwhile Israel will do whatever it chooses. It’s only concern with its American friends is that they have the good manners to talk about Israel’s actions in a favorable way. Thousands of housings units will continue to be built on occupied Palestinian territory but even as this is happening, Israel will be lauded for its “restraint.”

Benjamin Netanyahu is no doubt now glowing with satisfaction as his erstwhile harsh teacher, an administration that only a few months ago admonished the Israeli leader for not doing his “homework” on halting settlement growth, has now become an obedient and loving student.

Israel’s pathological view of peacemaking
By Henry Siegman, New York Times, November 2, 2009

Like Israel’s government, Israel’s public never tires of proclaiming to pollsters its aspiration for peace and its support of a two-state solution. What the polls do not report is that this support depends on Israel defining the terms of that peace, its territorial dimensions, and the constraints to be placed on the sovereignty of a Palestinian state.

An American president who addresses the Arab world and promises a fair and evenhanded approach to peacemaking is immediately seen by Israelis as anti-Israel. The head of one of America’s leading Jewish organizations objected to the appointment of Senator Mitchell as President Obama’s peace envoy because, he said, his objectivity and evenhandedness disqualified him for this assignment.

The Israeli reaction to serious peacemaking efforts is nothing less than pathological — the consequence of an inability to adjust to the Jewish people’s reentry into history with a state of their own following 2,000 years of powerlessness and victimhood.

Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination by a Jewish right-wing extremist is being remembered this week in Israel, told Israelis at his inauguration in 1992 that their country is militarily powerful, and neither friendless nor at risk. They should therefore stop thinking and acting like victims.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s message that the whole world is against Israel and that Israelis are at risk of another Holocaust — a fear he invoked repeatedly during his address in September at the United Nations General Assembly in order to discredit Judge Richard Goldstone’s Gaza fact-finding report — is unfortunately still a more comforting message for too many Israelis. [continued…]

Palestinians say new U.S. approach imperils peace
By Howard Schneider, Washington Post, November 2, 2009

Palestinian officials on Sunday criticized the United States for what one called “backpedaling” on demands that Israel stop settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, saying the Obama administration’s change of approach on the issue damaged the likelihood of a peace agreement.

“If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do the Palestinians have of reaching agreement” on the even more complex set of issues involved in final peace talks, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a written statement.

“We are at a critical moment,” Erekat said. “The way forward, however, is not to drop the demand for Israel to comply with its obligations.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — This is how the narrative has been twisted:

Although Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rebuffed the initial U.S. demand, he also offered alternatives that, while short of what the Palestinians wanted, were still characterized by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton over the weekend as “unprecedented” concessions made in hopes of helping direct talks resume.

Netanyahu has shown flexibility and the Palestinians are being intransigent. No suggestion that the Palestinians’ mistake was simply to believe that President Obama was a man of his word.

‘Barghouti to run for presidency if Abbas resigns’
By Ali Waked, Ynet, November 1, 2009

Marwan Barghouti instead of Mahmoud Abbas? The associates of the senior Fatah leader jailed in Israel are examining the possibility that he will announce his candidacy for president should elections be held as planned and should the current president surprisingly decide not to run again for the post.

Recently, following the dead end reached in the peace talks, officials close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reported that the Abbas is exhausted. However, Abbas has not threatened to resign, though his associates say that the option cannot be ruled out that he will not run in the upcoming presidential elections.

“True the president is exhausted; true he is not satisfied with the situation; and true he prefers not to contend, but, as of now, and I say this with confirmed information, the president will be the Fatah candidate in the elections. The question is whether the elections will be held,” said a senior Fatah source to Ynet. [continued…]

Jordan and Egypt accuse Israel of ‘derailing’ peace efforts
Haaretz, November 2, 2009

Leaders of Jordan and Egypt on Sunday warned that Israel’s unilateral actions in East Jerusalem and other Arab areas were “derailing” efforts aimed at resuming peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and would thereby have a “catastrophic” effect on the region.

The remarks came in a joint communique issued at the end of a whirlwind visit to Cairo by Jordan’s King Abdullah II where he held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to Jordan’s official Petra news agency.

The two leaders discussed the “catastrophic consequences on the region’s stability and security resulting from the failure to seize the current opportunity for making peace,” the statement said.] [continued…]

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America, stop sucking up to Israel

America, stop sucking up to Israel
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, November 1, 2009

Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don’t change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America’s automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world’s policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.

Illegal acts like the occupation and settlement expansion, and offensives that may have involved war crimes, as in Gaza, deserve a different approach. If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 – which left 400 Palestinians dead and severe infrastructure damage in the first major operation in Gaza since the disengagement – then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.

It is true that unlike all the world’s other troublemakers, Israel is viewed as a Western democracy, but Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. Anwar Sadat may have been the last leader to win our hearts with optimistic, hope-igniting speeches. If he were to visit Israel today, he would be jeered off the stage. The Syrian president pleads for peace and Israel callously dismisses him, the United States begs for a settlement freeze and Israel turns up its nose. This is what happens when there are no consequences for Israel’s inaction. [continued…]

Justice Goldstone and the Jews
By Tony Judt, Huffington Post, October 29, 2009

We Jews should be very proud of Richard Goldstone. In an ancient tradition of Jewish self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling, the author of the recent report from the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict has braved personal vilification and institutional mendacity to describe the crimes committed by Israeli forces in the course of their invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

To be sure, the Goldstone Report also itemizes the crimes of Hamas, notably in its campaign of rocket-firing into Israel. But the scale of human rights abuses by Israel vastly outdoes anything Hamas could hope to have achieved: Israeli civilian victims of Hamas rocket attacks numbered less than ten. The attack on Gaza by the IDF resulted in at least 1,100 Palestinian civilian deaths. The major perpetrator of human rights abuses in this conflict is without question the State of Israel, and Justice Goldstone records as much.

That the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen to conduct an international campaign against Justice Goldstone and his report need not surprise us. Israel refused to cooperate with the UN investigation; long before its conclusions were published, Netanyahu had set in motion a campaign to deny and denigrate them. More dispiriting, and of greater political consequence, is the pitiful and humiliating response of the Obama Administration. The “fierce urgency of now” apparently required that Washington join Tel Aviv in discrediting the Goldstone Report, and with it the UN inquiry. [continued…]

Israel wants to seek, not have, peace with Syria
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, November 1, 2009

It’s hard not to marvel at Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s rhetorical skills, how he constantly invents a new way – an original expression – to not say anything. Last week he described Syria as a “central brick in any stable peace agreement.” But there will be no peace with Syria because Israel, according to Barak, “has sought in the past and will continue to seek in the future ways to advance peace with Syria.”

Still, Syria will certainly earn a few more terms of endearment, maybe even move up from “central brick” to “cornerstone,” and if it behaves itself, “linchpin.” Who knows, Syria may even win the gold and become the “bedrock” of a stable peace agreement. But because Israel is so busy seeking ways to advance peace with Syria, there will be no peace. [continued…]

Gas from Gaza, mobile phones in Palestine and a $1m peace prize …Tony Blair and the Middle Eastern Eldorado
By David Rose, Mail on Sunday, November 1, 2009

… a Mail on Sunday investigation reveals that [Tony Blair] has been mixing business with Middle East politics since the early years of his premiership and that, since becoming a part-time peace envoy on leaving office in 2007, he has exploited his superb contacts to pursue a multi-million-pound fortune.

Some of the most potentially lucrative of those relationships can be traced back to that BG Gaza gas deal – connections that helped pave the way to the opening up of the Arab world’s new Eldorado, the colossal and mostly untapped wealth of Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya.

‘In Arabic, there is a special word – “eghtina”,’ said Khadr Musleh, a political analyst in the Palestinian West Bank capital, Ramallah.

‘It means “self-enrichment through public office”. It doesn’t imply anything illegal and in the Middle East it’s considered totally normal. Yet it is a little surprising to see a former British Prime Minister and international peace envoy behaving in the same way.’

Blair’s Middle East-focused business career has been a triumph. The access to the region’s rulers conferred by his position as an ex-PM and peace envoy must have huge attraction for potential clients of Tony Blair Associates, the secretive ‘consultancy’ that does not publish accounts which he runs with Jonathan Powell, his former Downing Street chief of staff. Its first clients are two of the world’s richest families – the royals of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.

Tony Blair Associates is modelled on Henry Kissinger Associates, an outfit led by President Nixon’s former Secretary of State. Fittingly, perhaps, Kissinger was on the jury that awarded Blair the $1million Dan David Prize earlier this year, the ‘Israeli Nobel Prize’. Like Blair, Kissinger is employed by American bank JP Morgan. The citation praised Blair’s ‘exceptional leadership’ and ‘moral courage’.

Blair has promised to give most of the prize to his Faith Foundation, a charity set up to promote religious understanding. Thanks to his lucrative contract to advise JP Morgan for a salary of £2million a year, he does not need the money. [continued…]

Prosecutor: top scientist Nozette admitted actual spying for Israel
By Justin Elliot, TPMMuckraker, October 30, 2009

Did a federal prosecutor just make the inflammatory accusation that top government scientist Stewart Nozette has admitted to giving classified information to the Israeli government?

By our reading of this AP story, that’s exactly what happened at a hearing in U.S. district court in Washington yesterday.

Nozette is accused of attempted espionage for allegedly selling classified information to an FBI employee posing as a Mossad agent. But the Feds have explicitly said that Israel is not accused of any wrongdoing. [continued…]

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Why the Iranian nuclear deal was bound to fail

Why the Iranian nuclear deal was bound to fail
By Tony Karon, The National, November 1, 2009

The surest sign yet that the Iranian nuclear deal is in deep trouble is its endorsement by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“A positive first step,” Mr Netanyahu called the deal. This was in marked contrast to his own defence minister, Ehud Barak, who complained earlier that the agreement accorded Iran “legitimisation for enriching uranium for civilian purposes on its soil, contrary to the understanding that those negotiating with it have about its real plans”.

Mr Barak and Mr Netanyahu march in lockstep when it comes to Iran. The reason for their apparent disagreement is simple. Mr Barak dismissed the proposed deal when it looked as if Iran might accept it. Mr Netanyahu’s approval came only after Iran’s response was interpreted by the western powers as a “no”. [continued…]

Why Obama’s Iran policy will fail
By Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch, October 29, 2009

While the tone of the Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W. Bush, at their core both administrations subscribe to the same doctrine: Whatever the White House perceives as a threat — whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles — must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing.

In addition, by the evidence available, Barack Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor’s failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House were willing to consider Iran’s recent history. It is unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (then backed by the United States) to a standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the consequences of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington’s fresh threats of “crippling sanctions.” [continued…]

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Goldstone vs US House of Representatives

Goldstone vs US House of Representatives
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 31, 2009

“We were disturbed by the lethality and toxicity of weapons used in Gaza, some of which have been in Western arsenals since the Cold War, such as white phosphorous, which incinerated 14 people, including several children in one attack; flechettes, small darts that are designed to tumble upon entering human flesh in order to cause maximum damage, strictly in breach of the Geneva Convention; and highly carcinogenic tungsten shrapnel and dime munitions, which contain tungsten in powder form. There is also a whole cocktail of other problematic munitions suspected to have been used.

“There are a number of other post-conflict issues in Gaza that need to be addressed. The land is dying. There are toxic deposits from all the munitions that have been dropped. There are serious issues with water—its depletion and its contamination. There is a high instance of nitrates in the soil that is especially dangerous to children. If these issues are not addressed, Gaza may not even be habitable by World Health Organization norms.” — Colonel Desmond Travers, one of the four members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, interviewed by Ken Silverstein.

______

When the House of Representatives is about to pass a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone report [PDF] on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and Josh Block (spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) says: “AIPAC, in concert with every mainstream pro-Israel organization in the United States, supports this important resolution,” it’s fair to conclude that AIPAC doesn’t simply support the resolution; it almost certainly had a major role in drafting the resolution.

Rabid opposition to the Goldstone report reached a hyperbolic peak this week when the Simon Wiesenthal Center referred to this serious legal finding as “the ‘Magna Carta’ of international terrorists”.

Why the hysteria?

The UN General Assembly is set to debate the report on Wednesday and in so doing will further enhance the legitimacy of what has already become a highly influential document.

As Israel has framed the issue, the legitimization of Goldstone is part of a campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state. But on the contrary, in recognition of the effectiveness of Israel’s own legal system, the Goldstone report has called on Israel “to launch appropriate investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards, into the serious violations of International humanitarian and International Human Rights Law reported by the Mission and any other serious allegations that might come to its attention.”

The Washington Post, reporting on the move in the House, said:

The resolution, co-sponsored by the two senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), charges that the report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone for the U.N. Human Rights Council is “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy,” in part because it was based on “a flawed and biased mandate,” and that the militant group Hamas was able to “significantly shape the findings of the investigation.”

Goldstone categorically rejects that assertion: “The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it.”

The Post also said:

Goldstone, in a letter to Berman and Ros-Lehtinen, has complained of numerous inaccuracies in the resolution about his report. But Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for Berman, said that the chairman believes Goldstone’s letter contains “a number of points that are inaccurate” and that he will “issue a complete response” to Goldstone before the House vote.

What follows is Justice Goldstone’s letter where clause by clause he exposes the flaws in the House resolution:

The Honorable Howard Berman
Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

October 29, 2009

Dear Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen,

It has come to my attention that a resolution has been introduced in the Unites States House of
Representatives regarding the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which I
led earlier this year.

I fully respect the right of the US Congress to examine and judge my mission and the resulting
report, as well as to make its recommendations to the US Executive branch of government.
However, I have strong reservations about the text of the resolution in question – text that
includes serious factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken
grossly out of context.

I undertook this fact-finding mission in good faith, just as I undertook my responsibilities vis à
vis the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and
Intimidation, the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the
Activities of Nazism in Argentina, the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, and the
Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program in 2004/5.

I hope that you, in similar good faith, will take the time to consider my comments about the
resolution and, as a result of that consideration, make the necessary corrections.

Whereas clause #1: “Whereas, on January 12, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed Resolution A/HRC/S-9/L.1, which authorized a `fact-finding mission’ regarding Israel’s conduct of Operation Cast Lead against violent militants in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008, and January 18, 2009;”

This whereas clause ignores the fact that I and others refused this original mandate, precisely
because it only called for an investigation into violations committed by Israel. The mandate given
to and accepted by me and under which we worked and reported reads as follows:

“. . .to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian
law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that
were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether
before, during or after”.

Whereas clause #2: “Whereas the resolution pre-judged the outcome of its investigation, by one-sidedly mandating the `fact-finding mission’ to `investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by . . . Israel, against the Palestinian people . . . particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression’”

This whereas clause ignores the fact that the expanded mandate that I demanded and received
clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and as the report makes clear was so
interpreted and implemented. It was the report carried out under this broadened mandate – not the
original, rejected mandate – that was adopted by the Human Rights Council and that included the
serious findings made against Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups.

Whereas clause #3: “Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures;”

This whereas clause is factually incorrect. As noted above, the expanded mandate clearly
included the rocket and mortar attacks. Moreover, Chapter XXIV of the Report considers in
detail the relentless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and the terror they caused to the people
living within their range. The resulting finding made in the report is that these attacks constituted
serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

Whereas clause #4: “Whereas the `fact-finding mission’ included a member who, before joining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter on January 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions `war crimes’;”

This whereas clause is misleading. It overlooks, or neglects to mention, that the member concerned, Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics, in the same letter, together with other leading international lawyers, also condemned as war crimes the Hamas rockets fired into Israel.

Whereas clause #5: “Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate gave serious concern to many United Nations Human Rights Council Member States which refused to support it,
including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;”

This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The mandate that was given to the Mission was certainly not opposed by all or even a majority of the States to which reference is made. I am happy to provide further details if necessary.

Whereas clause #6: “Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate troubled many distinguished individuals who refused invitations to head the mission;”

This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The initial mandate that was rejected by others who
were invited to head the mission was the same one that I rejected. The mandate I accepted was
expanded by the President of the Human Rights Council as a result of conditions I made.

Whereas clause #8: “Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead;”

This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The findings included in the report are neither “sweeping” nor “unsubstantiated” and in effect reflect 188 individual interviews, review of more than 300 reports, 30 videos and 1200 photographs. Additionally, the body of the report contains a plethora of references to the information upon which the Commission relied for our findings.

Whereas clause #9: “Whereas the authors of the report, in the body of the report itself, admit that `we did not deal with the issues . . . regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding officers `in the fog of war.’;”

This whereas clause is misleading. The words quoted relate to the decision we made that it would have been unfair to investigate and make finding on situations where decisions had been made by Israeli soldiers “in the fog of battle”. This was a decision made in favor of, and not against, the interests of Israel.

Whereas clause #10: “Whereas in the October 16th edition of the Jewish Daily Forward, Richard Goldstone, the head of the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’, is quoted as saying, with respect to the mission’s evidence-collection methods, `If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.’”

The remark as quoted is both inaccurate and taken completely out of context. What I had explained to The Forward was that the Report itself would not constitute evidence admissible in court of law. It is my view, as jurist, that investigators would have to investigate which allegations they considered relevant. That, too, was why we recommended domestic investigations into the allegations.

Whereas clause #11: “Whereas the report, in effect, denied the State of Israel the right to self- defense, and never noted the fact that Israel had the right to defend its citizens from the repeated violent attacks committed against civilian targets in southern Israel by Hamas and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations operating from Gaza;”

It is factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense. The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law. What is commonly called ius ad bellum, the right to use military force was not considered to fall within our mandate. Israel’s right to use military force was not questioned.

Whereas clause #12: “Whereas the report largely ignored the culpability of the Government of Iran and the Government of Syria, both of whom sponsor Hamas and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations;”

This whereas clause is misleading. Nowhere that I know of has it ever been suggested that the Mission should have investigated the provenance of the rockets. Such an investigation was never on the agenda, and in any event, we would not have had the facilities or capability of investigating these allegations. If the Government of Israel has requested us to investigate that issue I have no doubt that we have done our best to do so.

Whereas clause #14: “Whereas, notwithstanding a great body of evidence that Hamas and other violent Islamist groups committed war crimes by using civilians and civilian institutions, such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, as shields, the report repeatedly downplayed or cast doubt upon that claim;”

This is a sweeping and unfair characterization of the Report. I hope that the Report will be read by those tasked with considering the resolution. I note that the House resolution fails to mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission. Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate.

This refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence.

Whereas clause #15: “Whereas in one notable instance, the report stated that it did not consider the admission of a Hamas official that Hamas often `created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the mujahideen, against [the Israeli military]’ specifically to `constitute evidence that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives against attack.’;”

This whereas clause is misleading, since the quotation is taken out of context. The quotation is
part of a section of the report dealing with the very narrow allegation that Hamas compelled
civilians, against their will, to act as human shields. The statement by the Hamas official is
repugnant and demonstrates an apparent disregard for the safety of civilians, but it is not evidence
that Hamas forced civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields. Indeed,
while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as
human shields, it has not identified any cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under
threat of force by Hamas or any other party.

Whereas clause #16: “Whereas Hamas was able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission’s report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others, as the report acknowledges when it notes that `those interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak about the presence of or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian armed groups . . . from a fear of reprisals’;”

The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the
witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it.

Sincerely,

Justice Richard J. Goldstone

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Turkish PM Erdoğan tries to cool Israeli rift

Turkish PM Erdoğan tries to cool Israeli rift
Hurriyet Daily News, October 28, 2009

Turkey would continue relations with Israel on an equitable basis despite the growing diplomatic tensions between the two countries, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during the second day of his official visit to Iran.

Referring to his public row with Israeli President Shimon Peres over the deadly Gaza offensive at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Turkish prime minister said that his reaction was not planned beforehand and added that it was spontaneous. “It would be wrong to assume that my reaction in Davos was a stance against the West,” Erdoğan said. “One side of Turkey’s face is turned to the West while the other is to the East,” he added. [continued…]

Erdoğan rejects claims Turkey diverging from West
By Abdulhamit Bilici, Today’s Zaman, October 29, 2009

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday ruled out any shift in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation in the wake of a crisis with Israel over Gaza and increasing rapprochement with neighboring Iran, accused by the West of harboring aspirations to develop nuclear weapons.

Erdoğan, speaking during a visit to Tehran, said Turkey will not sacrifice its relations with the West for the sake of building alliances with the East. Erdoğan’s visit to Tehran, during which he defended Iran’s nuclear program as peaceful and Turkish officials announced a deal to explore natural gas in Iran’s South Pars basin, has added to Western concerns that Turkey might be forsaking its alliance with the West to pursue a leadership role in its neighborhood. [continued…]

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EU lawyers join drive to indict Israeli officers

EU lawyers join drive to indict Israeli officers
By Vita Bekker, The National, October 27, 2009

Israeli military officers who took part in Israel’s incursion of the Gaza Strip last winter may need to think twice before travelling to Europe.

Israeli media reported yesterday that human rights lawyers in the European Union are drawing up lists of names of Israeli military commanders alleged to be linked to war crimes committed in Gaza. The lawyers are hoping that the evidence they are collecting, including testimonies from Palestinians, will prompt countries such as Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway to arrest those Israelis linked to possible war violations who arrive on their soil.

The reports come as Israel is forging a battle against international efforts to bring it before a war crimes tribunal for its actions during the 22-day assault in the Gaza Strip in December and January. [continued…]

Israelis targeting grassroots activists
By Mel Frykberg, IPS, October 28, 2009

Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating nonviolent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community.

Several weeks ago masked Israeli soldiers stormed the home of Ehab Jallad from the Jerusalem Popular Committee for the Celebration of Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture for 2009.

“Around 3 a.m. the soldiers started kicking and banging on the door and threatened to break it down if I didn’t open immediately. My young daughters were terrified as they didn’t know what was happening,” recalled Jallad, a young Palestinian architect from Jerusalem. [continued…]

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