If you listened to some leaders, you'd think Gaza was occupying Israel

Responses to five commonly heard pro-war talking points.

1) CLAIM: Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.RESPONSE: Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate. In contrast, … with the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations. 

Noura Erakat (July 22, 2014) Five Israeli Talking Points Debunked, The Nation 

2) CLAIM: Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.RESPONSE:  Although in 2005 Israel removed approximately 8000 Jewish settlers who had been living in illegal colonies in Gaza under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s so-called “disengagement” plan, Israel continues to exercise "unconsented-to effective control," the legal definition for qualifying as an occupying power. Israel continues to control Gaza’s airspace, coastline, and all of its entry and exit points except for one controlled by Egypt, which has cooperated with Israel in maintaining the siege and blockade of Gaza. This status has been affirmed by the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the U.N., and the U.S. State Department, among others.  

Institute for Middle East Understanding (July 31, 2014) Fact check: Israeli claims about the assault on Gaza

3) CLAIM: Gaza proves there can be no Palestinian stateRESPONSE: To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.

Peter Beinart (July 30, 2014) What American Jews Haven’t Been Told About Gaza, Ha'aretz   

4) CLAIM: Hamas started this latest assault
RESPONSE: Israel’s assault on Gaza, as pointed out by analyst Nathan Thrall in the New York Times, was not triggered by Hamas’ rockets directed at Israel but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy.

Henry Siegman (July 22, 2014) Israel provoked this war. It's up to President Obama to stop it. Politico

 

5) CLAIM: Israel is acting under self defense. RESPONSE: All nations have a right of self-defense, including Israel. But that right may be exercised lawfully only in limited circumstances. Israel cannot validly claim self-defense in its recent onslaught against Gaza for two main reasons.

First…Israel remains an occupying power under international law, bound to protect the occupied civilian population. Israel can use force to defend itself, but no more than is necessary to quell disturbances. Hence this is not a war – rather, it is a top military power unleashing massive firepower against a penned and occupied Palestinian population. Second, self-defense cannot be claimed by a state that initiates violence, as Israel did in its crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, arresting more than 400, searching 2,200 homes and other sites, and killing at least nine Palestinians.  
George Bisharat (July 22, 1014) Israel Has Overreacted to the Threats It Provoked The New York Times

Israel's historic use of human shields and war crimes

The use of civilian human shields is prohibited by Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel ratified this convention in 1951.

Israeli forces have a long history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. From the years 2000 to 2005, they admitted to using human shields more than 1,200 times. This practice was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2005, but human rights groups have accused the Israeli army of continuing to use it. During the Gaza massacre of 2008-2009 Israeli occupation forces were accused by Amnesty International, as well as former Israeli soldiers, of using Palestinian children as human shields. It continues till today

 The argument that Hamas is using human shields has no weight. There is no evidence that this is actually occurring en masse. Gaza is tiny. It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. There is no place where Hamas could stockpile arms away from a population centre. Furthermore, the Israeli army continually uses human shields. Israel is so militarised that nearly every Israeli bus or fast-food joint has armed soldiers – soldiers are ubiquitous in Israeli society.

• The Israeli army has killed more than 1700 Palestinians so far in this latest reckless adventure Operation Protective edge .According to the United Nations, approximately 80% of those killed are civilians.
• A UN agency is housing 167 269 displaced Palestinians.
• Rocket fire from Gaza has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai migrant worker.
• About 64 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat, all as a result of the army’s ground invasion.
• More Gazan children were killed in the first week of bombing than the total number of Israelis killed by Hamas rockets in the past 13 years.
• Israel has bombed schools, hospitals, a clinic for the disabled, a UN refugee centre and more. You do the maths.

A thousand and one prisoners.

A thousand plus Palestinians are being freed from Israeli jails in exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured some five years ago. No doubt their respective families have welcomed this especially as we approach the holiday season.
Again no doubt those involved in the negotiating process faced numerous obstacles till the conditions for an agreement suited both the Israelis and Hamas and their ultimate masters.
It is not that the Israelis value human life more than their Palestinian counterparts or that Hamas were brilliant at negotiating. There are practical considerations on both sides. The cost of incarceration and the erosion of human values on both parties has been high.
Hundreds of Palestinians denied due process and a young Israeli soldier kept in incommunicado  exposes the worst in our frail humanity.
 Rumor  and counter rumor surround  the politics involved behind the swap, from the distancing of Hamas from Syrian / Iranian patronage and American need to have closer ties to Islamic groups ,to the desire of Netenyaho to humiliate Abu Mazin for his unilateral application for full membership to the U.N despite American threats to exercise their veto at the Security council. Whilst there may be truth in these, and many more fanciful theories , the extent of subterfuge and backstabbing particularly as details emerge of the close working relationships between the intelligence agencies of America Israel Egypt and Palestine never fails to impress.

Let us hope that Marwan Barghouti is also released and this era heralds better understanding between all the parties involved. The value of human life is important and nobody has a monopoly on that.

Extrajudicial killings and a one term President

The extrajudicial  killing of two American citizens in Yemen, ordered by President Obama has set  another dangerous precedent  that has serious and far reaching implications for the US Constitution and its controls on the restraint of executive power.
At some point the American government changed its policy of kidnapping terrorist suspects and flying them to Guantanamo for trial,  to just killing them. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial or even unfair trial blown out the window by the drones they employ or in the case of Bin Laden the Navy seals that made up the assassination squad.
This must surely be a deeply disturbing development and Obama's refusal to allow the advice he was given to be interrogated publicly bodes badly for his presidency.
For an eloquent man he has become increasingly incompetent and unable to convert his vision either at home or abroad.
The economy is in shambles, his confused and hypocritical foreign policy especially with regard to the Arab Spring and his continued blind support for Israel , is isolating America and harming its long term interests. From a man of promise he has become a man of promises.
Gone are the chants of " Yes we can"  and now only faint echoes of the man who was elected can be heard.
Whether it is the office of the Presidency that has caused this insolence or whether the advice he is receiving is tainted and corrupt only time will tell, however this looks increasingly like a one term Presidency.
In the meantime, as he reflects on his opposition to a Palestinian state or he grapples with the murders he has ordered for political gain he would do well to remember the following thought from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic…but one must take it because it is right".

Palestine and the miracle of statehood.

Two recent articles sum up what recently is on my mind one in the observer and an article by Henry Siegman. I have posted both below.

Henry Siegman writes:

"Is there anyone familiar with the history of the Israel-Palestine peace process who still believes that this Israeli government would defy the over half-a-million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — by far the most influential political force in Israel — and their networks of supporters within Israel, and present Palestinians with a reasonable peace plan for a two-state solution that would be acceptable to even the most moderate and accommodating of Palestinian leaders?

Shelly Yachimovich, an Israeli Knesset Member who is a leading candidate for the Labor Party’s leadership, recently declared that Israel’s settlement project is “not a sin or a crime” since it was initiated by a Labor government, and therefore “a completely consensual move.” Leaving aside the bizarre notion that the consensus of thieves legitimizes their theft, if these are the views of candidates for Labor Party leadership in today’s Israel, what prospect can there possibly be for an acceptable peace accord to emerge from the peace process?

And is there anyone who witnessed the frenzied applause that greeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent speech before the U.S. Congress in which he left no doubt about his government’s intentions for East Jerusalem and for the West Bank, or heard President Obama’s assurances to AIPAC’s conventioneers that the ties that bind the U.S. to Israel are forever “unbreakable,” who still believes that the U.S. will ever exert the kind of pressure on Israel that will finally change its cost/benefit calculations with regard to its colonial project?

These incontestable realities give the lie to America’s absurd insistence — expressed most recently by President Obama on September 12 — that a Palestinian state can be achieved only as a result of an agreement between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. Surely President Obama must know that left to their own devices, Netanyahu and Abbas will never reach a two state agreement, and that the only purpose a resumed “peace process” would serve is to continue to provide a cover for further Israeli land grabs in the West Bank."

For the Zionist movement seeking an independent state of Israel, desire became reality in November 1947, when the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Resolution 181 supporting the establishment of a Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine.

That state was declared on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish people's council in a Tel Aviv museum. The state of Israel was recognised that evening by President Truman of United States and by the Soviet Union a few days later.

More than six decades later, Palestinians, who at first refused to accept the partition plan of the newly minted UN, are seeking similar recognition, firstly in front of the Security Council, asking for their own state based on the 1967 borders free from occupation and settlement by half-a-million Israelis, able to determine their own affairs.

The idea of a Palestinian state should be uncontroversial. The United States supports the notion, as does the UK. Indeed, in his 2009 Cairo speech, President Barack Obama insisted: "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's."

Yet Obama appears determined to veto the move towards Palestinian statehood, while Britain has hinted it is likely to abstain in a Security Council vote.

Should the Palestinian request fail at the Security Council, it will then go to the General Assembly, where it seems likely that close to 130 states will vote to support a Palestinian resolution which will be able only to grant an enhanced status to become the equivalent of the Vatican – an "observer state". It will, however, be a deeply symbolic moment providing a political, moral and diplomatic victory for the Palestinian cause that the world will find difficult to ignore.

It will, significantly, also allow Palestine to become a signatory to the International Criminal Court, permitting it to pursue claims against Israel.

While it seems certain that European countries such as France and Spain will support recognition, what is less clear is how the UK will vote in the General Assembly, amid increasing speculation that it might support an enhanced Palestinian status of "observer state" with the right to complain to the International Criminal Court, but only if cases cannot be raised retrospectively.

The objections to a Palestinian state – driven by Israel with the support of the US – are dangerous and transparently self-serving ones, not least in the midst of an Arab Spring where the US and Europe have tried to present themselves as being supporters of democracy, freedom and justice.

The only valid mechanism for the creation of a Palestinian state, this argument goes, is the ongoing peace process, but in fact it is a moribund peace process, which Israel has done its best to smother under the obstructionist leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Equally contentious is the claim by some supporters of Israel that in seeking their own state through the declaration of the international community rather than direct talks, Palestinians are seeking to "delegitimise" Israel.

The reality is that what those opposing the moves at the UN are demanding is that Palestinians adhere to a non-existent peace process in the good faith that at some time it might be revived in the future under American guidance.

They also require Palestinians to refrain from moves that would expose the double standards of the White House and Congress which, while supporting a two-state solution in words, has not only failed to deliver one but now threatens actively to block that outcome.

Palestinians are right to be wary of the vague promise that things might be better in a revived peace process at some unspecified time in the future. Despite Oslo and 20 years of peace negotiations, as comparison of maps makes only too clear, the space available for a Palestinian state has only shrunk with each passing decade as Israel has continued to appropriate more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The actions of the Israeli army in the occupied territories, as the recent book of a decade's worth of soldiers' testimonies by the servicemen's group Breaking the Silence has recently demonstrated, have not changed in the desire to control and disrupt ordinary Palestinian life on a daily basis.

The truth is that the occupation has become self-sustaining, both for the Israeli army which is implementing the policy, and for a partly militarised society and its politicians, who cannot persuade themselves to bring the occupation to an end.

There are risks, inevitably, in taking the issue of statehood to the UN, even in the end if it is only for the upgrading of its observer status. Moves on statehood threaten the long-fractious relationship between Fatah and Hamas, the latter of which opposes the statehood moves, particularly in its stronghold, Gaza, raising the risk of more political violence between the rival factions.

There is the danger, too, that the tactic will feel like a damp squib on the day after when Palestinians wake up to see nothing in their lives has changed.

But already the strategy has shed important light on a Middle East peace process in which a United States that has long cast itself as an impartial broker (while vetoing every crticism of Israel raised at the UN) is a far from neutral referee, even as its influence in the region has appeared diminished.

That new reality was dramatised last week with the explicit threat by Saudi Arabia that its important relationship with the US will be downgraded should America choose to use its veto. As in November 1947, we stand at a crossroads of history.

As British ministers deliberate how they will vote in the Security Council, they are confronted with the choice between what is morally right – supporting a Palestinian state – and hypocrisy justified in the name of pragmatism.

The state of Israel was founded amid risk and uncertainty, which those who supported it fully recognised. They did not argue that a Jewish homeland was possible only in the most ideal and secure conditions. That argument should not be used to further delay Palestinian statehood."

Maybe Mahmoud Abbas has finally found his backbone by his unilateral move and the Americans can finally shake off the AIPAC yoke that has been hindering their role as an honest broker. We not only have to believe in miracles but to rely on them. 

Yemen Syria and the Chineese Victory

Lying in a Saudi military hospital Ali Abdullah Saleh seems unlikely to return to Yemen. For him it may have been a face saving strategy as he concludes a financial and political immunity deal and with most of his immediate family out it is up to his son who controls the Republican Guard or his brother who controls the Air force to ensure his ultimate deal.
Meanwhile in Syria the brutal regime continues to slaughter it's own unarmed civilians unchecked by the International Community. With estimates of over fifteen hundred slaughtered I am wondering how many more have to be killed before real action is taken?
With the death of young Hamza Alkhateeb , the thirteen year old boy who was tortured and mutilated prior to his death giving the Syrian uprising a second wind and with the opposition in exile having met in Turkey a more coordinated effort may result.
The Good Doctor who was preparing to declare victory after offering a political amnesty but now after having a taste of blood will wish to extract revenge on his citizens. If this is not a crime against humanity than what the hell is? His Iranian sponsors are going to have to work overtime.
The Saudis having given up on American reliability are a contemplating raising a Sunni Army to combat what they perceive to be a Shia threat emanating from Iran. No doubt their Oil reserves and financial capability will serve them well in creating more mayhem.
The UAE took the easier option of giving Eric Prince's Blackwater a six hundred million US dollar contract to put down any counterinsurgency.
In Libya Mad Mo has shown no signs of leaving despite continued NATO battering. Tripoli will soon feel the effects of food shortages and his grip of terror is loosening.
With Willie Hague turning up in Benghazi, albeit without his Defense Minister Liam Fox, the stalemate might be over. Mission creep seems to be working as there are more European troops actively coordinating the efforts. So much for boots on the ground, perhaps they were wearing sandals?
No doubt in years to come unless Wikileaks or similar give us a glimpse to the secret machinations of Foreign policy deals sooner it will emerge that the Europeans and Americans have agreed with the Russians at the last G8 meeting to regime change in Libya in exchange for letting Assad remain in Syria.
So much for supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Arabs !
As to Israel it seems that demography and intransigence is making a two state solution more and more unlikely and so like the rest of the Middle East it is their government that will be their ultimate downfall.
Arrogance and hypocrisy will keep the region embroiled for some time to come and while Obama and Cameron discuss their essential relationship their influence and relevance in the Middle East is waning fast. Their failing policies will be destined to go on the BBQ of history as bad plans badly executed.
At least China is happy with all this chaos keeping the West tied down from Libya to Iraq and Afghanistan, it can quietly evolve into the " super" market and super power it is destined to become.