Gaza ghastliness . . .

SAD IRONY: children who were abused have a propensity to become abusers, and thus the misery proceeds into the future. Similarly, the survivors of the Holocaust have been working over the poor Palestinians in Gaza. The Israelis have been mendacious, to say the least, and today's web allows spin creation that's never been seen before.

The Iron Dome defense system fires
to intercept incoming missiles
from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod.

Juan Cole has a site, Informed Comment, where he lists the Top Ten Myths about Israeli Attack on Gaza, which sums up the state of things. The Israeli response to the Palestinian rocket attacks will fail in the long term, if only because the Israelis are seen as oppressors, because the Palestinian rocket attacks seem puny in comparison to the Godzilla-level Israeli response. Sorta like the Kaiser's feldgrau going through Belgium in 1914 got bad press. It's a 2GW solution to a 4GW problem, which means it's no solution.

Perhaps Egypt can make something happen within the next 72 hours, in the way of a cease-fire. Hamas might be ready to deal, as the imminent demise of the Syrian régime might result in a severe reduction in the supply of money and arms.

The world's new slinky

Yeah. It's amazing!

Let's say you're a small country. Very small. Your means of defence is arrived at by some convoluted deal in which the country with world's largest and most expensive military keeps you at a level of military capability which will keep you fighting for about three weeks. After that, your ass depends on that other country either having swayed world opinion in your favour, (and the global cavalry comes over the hill to save the day), or they park a couple of super-carriers on your doorstep and neither confirm nor deny that they have it within their means to turn your opposition's cities into glass parking lots.

Still, you have enough moxie to know what you need to keep yourself going for three weeks and have the history to demonstrate that, with the right resources, you can dispatch all comers before you have to pull the fire alarm.

The problem is, being able to pull off that three weeks is expensive and most of your TO and E is paid for by the foreign aid contribution of that large country. Still, you'd like to be able to pick your own stuff and maybe even modify it to suit your needs.

Then, along comes the F-35 Lightning II. You view it as expensive and unsuitable for your needs. You have something different in mind. Until that large country, your defence benefactor, tells you otherwise.

It now turns out that unostentatiously, while overseeing the Israel-Palestinian peace talks, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton busied herself last week in Jerusalem with an errand of equal important to Washington: bulldozing Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak into agreeing to buy 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning stealth warplanes for the Israeli Air Force at a cost of $4.7 billion.

This transaction Israel can ill afford. debkafile's military sources report it is opposed by senior ministers, especially Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, and even more fiercely by high IDF officers and heads of Israel's Aerospace Industries. Nonetheless, Clinton got her wish; a special committee the Prime Minister set up for the purpose approved the purchase after cutting down the final number of F-35 warplanes from 35 to 20 at a cost of "only" $2.7 billion.

Military chiefs, furious over Netanyahu's hasty action, said it makes nonsense of the drastic cuts just imposed on defense spending and means that the IDF will have to do without certain new weapons systems needed for facing up to threats from Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. One officer accused the prime minister of "shamefully and needlessly surrendering to American pressure."

Hmmm. DEBKA is unabashedly hawkish when it comes to Israeli defence and has a reputation for getting pretty chummy with right-wing journals. They also have a habit of using "unnamed sources" for just about everything. The problem, however, is that read as archival history, they have a reputation for accuracy.

The Israelis, no less than any other purchaser of a new and untested warplane, would want to be in on some of the production, and they, like any other country would want regional industrial benefits from such a purchase.

... military sources dismiss reports that Israeli industry will take part in manufacturing the F-35s on sale are untrue. On the contrary, the Americans have laid down tougher limitations than ever before against Israeli access to the production process.

Israeli aeronautical experts and technicians are denied access to the production lines of the plane. Israel's Air Force and Aerospace Industries are prohibited from installing their own homemade systems to the new plane or even altering the Lockheed Martin systems to meet their special needs without prior US consent.

Interesting...

A. You're buying this thing because it's "the best fighter ever". We don't care if you really want the Euro-fighter - in the end it's us paying for it;

B. No. You can't help build it. We already have "gentlemens' agreements" with other countries and if we jeopardize those IRBs they may cancel their order;

C. Lockheed Martin 'R' Us. We're in a world of hurt if we can't peddle this crate so ... shut up and buy them. Just tell everyone there was a competition and Boeing lost.

Even Israeli pilots will only see the finished product when it is ready for their instruction. This will happen towards the end of 2011. The first F-35s are scheduled for delivery in 2015.

Two ministers, Steinitz and the former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon, are skeptical about the US plane's ability to contribute much toward enhancing the IAF's standards. Its design has met wide criticism in military aviation circles. They fear that the decision to purchase it was guided by politics rather than military considerations.

Now where have you heard that before?

Unnamed sources...

Hugh Tomlinson at the London Times might be wanting to have a word with some of his "unnamed sources". It would appear that the story, which Ed picked up on yesterday may well have been a deliberate plant.

According to Bloomberg's Glen Carey, the Times' story is a crock.

Saudi Arabia rejects “the violation of its sovereignty and the use of its airspace or territory by anyone to attack any country,” the official Saudi Press Agency said late yesterday, citing an unidentified official at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Oh good! Another unnamed source.

It's as if Dimitri Soudas got loose with his Blackberry.

Who knows?

I sure hope not . . .

THE LONDON TIMES has a scary report: "Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites". Oh boy, a big, steaming bowl of Not Good, as it appears that the Sunnis have decided . . . 

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

Media blackout in North America

You would think that 528 people from 17 countries in a 150-vehicle convoy carrying hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies all the way across Europe to Gaza would rate at least one line somewhere in the North American press, wouldn't you? But you would be wrong.

You can read about the Viva Palestina convoy in Europe, China, Iran, Malaysia and Brunei; you can even read about it in Israel and Egypt; you just can't read about it in the North American press.

The story has hardly lacked for drama.
In December Egypt refused the convoy entry to Gaza unless it first obtained permission from Israel. 85 year old convoy participant and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein began a hunger strike in protest.

There's a nice business story in there too - Israel and Egypt held the #1 and #2 top spots for US military aid until Iraq took over that honour in 2004. Israel must spend 75% of its $3-billion a year in US aid on military hardware made in the USA.

And for a local angle - as related in comments at Creekside, a Canadian from the Gulf Islands is on that convoy and yet I can't find the expected CBC interview anywhere.

Crickets. Why is that?
I'm guessing that business angle above has trumped every other possible viewpoint and trickled down to put everyone off.

The convoy is due to enter Gaza tonight to deliver its 150 vehicles filled with medical and humanitarian aid.
Unlike the North American press, you can follow their story here, with detailed updates from the UK contingent here.
Buy a t-shirt in support here.

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism

In February, Bernie Farber CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and 10 other Canadian parliamentarians attended the London Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism.

From Farber's Feb 25 article at CJC :

"Of all the strategies and tactics reviewed, one stood out for broader emulation. It was the development of all-party enquiries into the state of anti-Semitism in individual countries. Such a committee establishes a clear focus and accountabilities, a specific timeline for co-ordinated action by government ministries, agencies and law enforcement groups and a political check against any attempts at appeasement.

It ensures that the fight against anti-Semitism becomes validated by all parties, and avoids anti-Semitism serving as a wedge issue among politicians. It puts the onus for leadership of the battle on non-Jews who have the most credibility in pushing this agenda within civil society. "

And voilà! : The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism is born. (h/t Dr. Dawg)

The coalition will conduct a national inquiry into antisemitism in Canada.
Today’s announcement is intended to signal that in this country, legislators of all parties are deeply concerned about what seems to be a rising international tide of renewed antisemitism, on a scale not seen in my lifetime.

There will be hearings. There will be witnesses. You can make a submission by July 31.

The FAQs page assures us this is not an attempt to muzzle criticism of Israel.

Yet even as Farber noted in his column "the rise of new forms of anti-Semitism" such as "the linkage of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism", he informs us, apparently without irony or noticing the significance himself (italics mine):

"The U.K. Community Security Trust (CST), which co-hosted the London conference, has developed one of the leading evidentiary methodologies for tracking and understanding anti-Semitic incidents. Last week, it noted that a decrease in anti-Semitic incidents in 2008 (for the second year running) was totally overshadowed by an unprecedented rise during and after the Gaza operations."

Odd coincidence, that.

You know, if some of you guys would knock off conflating criticism of Israel's carnage in Gaza with anti-Semitism yourselves, like this recent nonsense concocted by Farber to punish Zerbisias, Jason Kenney's success in barring George Galloway from entering Canada, and Steve going all Godwin on us last year :

Criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, Harper says

Mike Souza, Canwest News May 09 2008

Some of the criticism brewing in Canada against the state of Israel, including from some members of Parliament, is similar to the attitude of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned yesterday.

"I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which I think is completely unacceptable," Harper said in an interview with CJAD radio.

... it would go some distance towards striking a blow against the actual anti-Semitism that really does need combating.

.

Critics of Israel's policies know anti-Semitism exists and we support legitimate attempts to combat it.

What we do not support is the weasely conflation of anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism/criticism of Israel by Israel's defenders in the underhanded attempt to muzzle any criticism of the policies of the State of Israel by calling all of it, in Steve's happy phrase, "good old-fashioned anti-Semitism".

Unfortunately I fear that whatever McCarthyite machinations are being brewed up in this parliamentary committee of Farber and Kenney's will only serve to further blur that line.
.

George Galloway runs afoul of the Canada-Israel "border"

Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, has stated repeatedly that the banning of George Galloway from Canada is not his responsibility.
Well of course it isn't.
It's the responsibility of the Canadian Border Services Agency under Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan.

Say, how's that Canada-Israel "homeland security" border coming along?

State of Israel - Ministry of Public Security :

"On November 17-26, a delegation from the Ministry of Public Security visited the United States and Canada on an official visit. The visit was within the framework of the joint work team with the American Department of Homeland Security on Science and Technology.

In March 2008 a Declaration of Intent was signed between the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety in order to promote mutual interests in the fields of the battle against organized crime, human trafficking, terrorist financing, managing crisis situations, border security, crime prevention and other aspects of homeland security.

The first work meetings of the two sides were held on November 24-26 in Ottawa, Canada, with the aim at forming a framework for the implementation of the agreement signed between the two countries.

The meetings were attended by the Deputy Director General of the Ministry, the Chief Scientist, representatives of the Israel Police and the Israel Prison Service, a representative of the Counter Terrorism Division in the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister, and representatives of the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety, the Canadian Police and Canadian Prison Service.

The meetings focused on the following fields:

• Security of strategic facilities
• Border control
• Emergency preparedness
• Correction facilities and services
• Crime and delinquency
• Science and technology – including law enforcement and counter terrorism
  technologies.

During the meetings the two parties surveyed their primary activities in their fields and examined potential projects of mutual interest. The meetings concluded by deciding on primary principles of the operational and technological cooperation between the two countries in the above fields. "

.
Public Safety Canada :
Declaration of Intent Between the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada and the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel :

To establish a Management Committee that would:
Be comprised of the Deputy Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, and the Director General of Public Security for the Government of the State of Israel;
Meet annually and as needed to develop and approve a program of work, consistent with the scope and objectives of this Declaration, for that upcoming year;

To achieve the following objectives:
Build on their shared commitment to facilitate and enhance cooperation to protect their respective countries’ population, assets and interests from common threats;

Integrate and coordinate of the identification, prioritization, and implementation of cooperative efforts between themselves in the area of public safety;

I'm guessing somewhere amongst all that "shared commitment" and "enhanced cooperation", George Galloway fell under the heading of "aspects of homeland security : projects of mutual interest" and "common threats" at a CBSA "program of work".

.
Harper is seen above on Thursday "urging all Canadians to confront what he calls a 'rising tide of anti-Semitism' around the world" :

Harper, who was joined by Conservative MP Peter Kent, who represents the area, urged all Canadians to "confront" anti-Semitism as a "moral evil."

Speaking of "moral evil", Harper has previously joined George Bush in publicly attempting to blur the lines between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.
.
Presumably he's referring in his speech Thursday to people like this or this or this or this .
.

What can you do? L-Girl has a list of actions.

.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Send me a memo. I'll look into it.

Israel is a nation state. Nothing more; nothing less.

When that nation state violates the rule of international law, behaves in a way which the world finds abhorrent, and reacts to an insurgency which is as much their own creation as it is that of the insurgents they are attempting to defeat, with unreasonable state-sanctioned force, we have every right to demand they be held to account.... without the functionaries of a minority government slapping their lips together in the name of a theocracy.

If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?

David Ben-Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1948 -1953, 1955 - 1963

Now... go read stageleft.

Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel

Once upon a time it actually meant something to accuse someone of anti-Semitism; lately it has just come to mean 'Shut up.'

Challenging the Commonplace :

This statement was rejected by both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail (as an op-ed). Please help this important statement get into broad circulation - pass it on to your networks (faculty, community, MPs, university presidents, unions, etc.). You might also write to the papers, expressing your dismay that they have chosen not to publish it.

March 10, 2009
Over 150 Jewish Canadians have signed a statement expressing their concerns about the campaign to suppress criticism of Israel that is being carried on within Canada. The signatories include many prominent Canadians, including Ursula Franklin O.C., Anton Kuerti O.C., Naomi Klein, Dr. Gabor Mate, and professors Meyer Brownstone (recipient of Pearson Peace Medal), Natalie Zemon Davis (former president of the American Historical Association), and Judy Rebick.

The signatories are particularly concerned that unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism deflect attention from Israel's accountability for what many have called war crimes in Gaza. They state that B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have led campaigns to silence criticism of Israel on university campuses, in labour unions and in other groups. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff unquestioningly echo the views of these particular Jewish organizations.

The signatories strongly state that they are against all expressions of racism. While firmly committed to resisting any form of prejudice against Jewish people, their statement explicitly states that these spurious allegations of anti-Semitism bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. The statement underlines the immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people due to the severe poverty, daily humiliations, and military invasions inflicted by the State of Israel.

Statement: Jewish Canadians Concerned about Suppression of Criticism of Israel

We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy "Never again" means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.

We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics. Charges that those organizing Israel Apartheid Week or supporting an academic boycott of Israel are anti-Semites promoting hatred bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. We believe this serves to deflect attention from Israel's flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.

B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have pressured university presidents and administrations to silence debate and discussion specifically regarding Palestine/Israel. In a full-page ad in a national newspaper, B'nai Brith urged donors to withhold funds from universities because "anti-Semitic hate fests" were being allowed on campuses. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have echoed these arguments. While university administrators have resisted demands to shut down Israel Apartheid week, some Ontario university presidents have bowed to this disinformation campaign by suspending and fining students, confiscating posters, and infringing on free speech.

We do not believe that Israel acts in self-defense. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, receiving $3 million/day. It has the fourth strongest army in the world. Before the invasion of Gaza on 27 December 2008, Israel's siege had already created a humanitarian catastrophe there, with severe impoverishment, malnutrition, and destroyed infrastructure. It is crucial that forums for discussion of Israel's accountability to the international community for what many have called war crimes be allowed to proceed unrestricted by specious claims of anti-Semitism.

We recognize that anti-Semitism is a reality in Canada as elsewhere, and we are fully committed to resisting any act of hatred against Jews. At the same time, we condemn false charges of anti-Semitism against student organizations, unions, and other groups and people exercising their democratic right to freedom of speech and association regarding legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.

Signatories


Related quote :

"Two years ago, an American friend took me on a helicopter ride from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights over the Palestinian West Bank. He wanted to show me how vulnerable Israel was, how the Arabs only had to cross 11km of land to reach the sea and throw the Israelis into it. I got this message but I also came away with another one. When I looked down at the West Bank, at the settlements like Crusader forts occupying the high ground, at the Israeli security cordon along the Jordan river closing off the Palestinian lands from Jordan, I knew I was not looking down at a state or the beginnings of one, but at a Bantustan, one of those pseudo-states created in the dying years of apartheid to keep the African population under control."
~Michael Ignatieff, The Guardian, April 19, 2002

Talking to Hamas : from Fisk to Frum

Robert Fisk : So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza...

"It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.

There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.

The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage. Yes, the Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming?"

An inaugural address is kind of like a birthday card, I guess - not really the appropriate venue in which to point out the recipient's various moral failings. And it's early days yet, although an Obama cabinet that includes Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton may never get further than promoting "blood transfusions".


Israeli writer David Grossman, front page of Tuesday's Haaretz :

"When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our brain. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us.

We must speak to the Palestinians : Instead of ignoring Hamas at this time, we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately, one that would allow us to reach an accord with the whole of the Palestinian people. We must speak to them and begin to acknowledge that reality is not one hermetic story that we, and the Palestinians, too, have been telling ourselves for generations. Reality is not just the story we are locked into, a story made up, in no small measure, of fantasies, wishful thinking and nightmares."

Canada's creepy one-time speech writer for George Bush on talking to Hamas, Reuters :

"U.S. analyst David Frum said talking to violent men was "an invitation to more violence." He wrote: "Advocates of talks with terrorists often present themselves as pragmatists. Not so. They are guided by unstated biases and pure wishful thinking."

Surely the very definition of wishful thinking here is expecting to achieve any kind of peace by ignoring Gaza's democratically elected government and the people being collectrively punished for having electing them.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Chomsky : Undermining Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Foreign Policy In Focus
January 16, 2009

DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?

CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population.

I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.

continued at FPIF ...

"Building facts on the ground"
The "ceasefire" negotiated by the 2nd highest recipient of US foreign aid, Israel, and the 3rd highest recipient of US foreign aid, Egypt, is the new name for the continued supervision of the collapse of Gaza. Previously it was called "ending the occupation" or "the disengagement".

h/t Waterbaby for FPIF link
Cross-posted at Creekside

UK Jewish MP : Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, friend to both David Ben-Gurion and Yasser Arafat, speaking in the British House of Commons :

"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszów. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. Madam Deputy Speaker, my grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.
The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw Ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."

An extraordinary contrast to the mealy-mouthings of Harper and Iggy.

What has your MP said? Write to 'em with a link to Kaufman's speech.

Update : YOUNGFOX CANADA: Take a walk through Gaza

Cross-posted from Creekside

Haaretz : Gaza - over 1000 dead, one third children

The following four news items are excerpted from today's Israeli paper Haaretz. The Israeli paper Haaretz.
What an embarrassment it is to compare its coverage and analysis to that of the sorry mealy-mouthed apologetics coming from our Canadian politicians and media.

Gideon Levy : The IDF has no mercy for the children in Gaza nursery schools

"About a third of those killed in Gaza have been children ... out of the 1,000 total killed as of Wednesday. Around 1,550 of the 4,500 wounded have also been children according to figures from the UN, which says the number of children killed has tripled since the ground operation began.
But the horrifying proportion of this war, a third of the dead being children, has not been seen in recent memory. About half of Gaza's residents are under 15.

The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing.
They did not die because they were used as human shields or because they worked for Hamas. They were killed because the IDF bombed, shelled or fired at them, their families or their apartment buildings. That is why the blood of Gaza's children is on our hands, not on Hamas' hands, and we will never be able to escape that responsibility."

Israel Foreign Ministry preparing for 'day after' IDF leaves Gaza

"The Foreign Ministry has created a special task force to prepare for the aftermath of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza operation. The team will submit proposals for two of the army's main concerns - Iran and Hamas taking control of Gaza's postwar reconstruction, and the harm the offensive might cause to Israel's image abroad.

The ministry hopes to avoid a situation similar to the one in southern Lebanon after the 2006 Second Lebanon War. There, Iran sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah to transfer to families whose homes had been destroyed, burnishing the militant group's reputation among the population.
Israeli officials believe after the fighting stops and foreign journalists are allowed entry into the territory that negative sentiment toward Israel will only grow as the full picture of destruction emerges.

The task force's preliminary recommendations highlight the need for Israel to project two kinds of messages abroad. The Arab world must receive a deterrent message indicating Israel will not accept a reality in which its civilians have to endure rocket fire.

The Western world, however, must be presented with the message that despite the scale of destruction rained on Gaza, Israel is a democratic state with a similar worldview to countries in Europe and the United States."

Still, Foreign Ministry officials are convinced that these public relations efforts will not suffice to restore Israel's image and will need to be backed up by diplomatic progress with the Palestinians."

U.S. may cut $1 billion in loan guarantees to Israel over West Bank settlements

"The United States administration plans to cut about $1 billion from the balance of its loan guarantees to Israel because of its investments in the settlements.
Israel has used about $4.4 billion of the $9 billion in loan guarantees extended by the U.S. in 2003.
The loan guarantees arrangement specifies that the U.S. will reduce the guarantees by the amount the Israeli government spends on settlements in the West Bank. The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv monitors that spending and the administration informs Jerusalem of the amount it is holding back from the guarantees."

ANALYSIS / Egypt's Gaza truce plan is mostly bad for Hamas

"After 19 days of fighting and more than 1,000 Palestinian fatalities, the first significant signs that Hamas is breaking could be seen Wednesday night. Hamas representatives to talks with Egypt announced an agreement in principle on Wednesday to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal.

The Egyptian proposal is mostly bad for Hamas. It doesn't let the organization bring the Palestinian public any political achievement that would justify the blood that has been spilled, and even forces on it the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, in the form of its renewed presence at the Rafah crossing (as a condition for its reopening).

Once the cease-fire is reached, the IDF will withdraw from the positions it captured in Gaza, and only then will the two sides begin to discuss the opening of border crossings and removal of the blockade, which was the reason Hamas gave for waging war.

Hamas representatives did say on Wednesday night they had not yet accepted the Egyptian proposal, but in the same breath they said it was the only proposal on the table."

And from the Jerusalem Post :
Israeli groups: Probe IDF 'war crimes'

"A forum of nine Israeli human rights organizations on Wednesday called on the country's political and military leadership to launch a domestic probe into "suspected war crimes" committed during Operation Cast Lead."

The text of their letter here. also details the extent of the damage done to public infrastructure in Gaza.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Canada backs the Gaza seige

Maps of Palestinian loss of land, 1946 to 2000.

Israel is about the same size as Vancouver Island; Gaza, that little green strip on the coast, is a little more than twice the size of the District of North Van, or a little smaller than Seattle.

.

Yesterday Canada stood alone in voting against a UN human rights resolution "adopted by a roll-call vote of 33 in favour, one against and 13 abstentions" which :

"strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military operation in Gaza, which had resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people, and demanded the occupying power, Israel, to immediately withdraw its military forces from Gaza".

The resolution also called for

"the end to the launching of the crude rockets against Israeli civilians that resulted in the loss of 4 civilian lives and some injuries"

Full UN text here.

Yes it was heavily weighted against Israel, causing European nations and others to abstain from the vote, but Canada's stated reason for voting against it merely repeated the US/Israeli line that Israel didn't start it (italics:mine):

"MARIUS GRINIUS (Canada), speaking in an explanation of the vote before the vote, thanked the Palestine delegation for its consultations, but said the draft text still failed to clearly recognize that rocket fire on Israel had led to the current crisis. It also used unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory language.
Canada therefore called for a vote and would vote against the resolution."

According to Reuters : "The resolution, whose wording diplomats said had been softened at the request of Palestinian envoys in an effort to get a consensus in the Council, was opposed outright by Canada."

So what did Hamas want?

Khalid Mish'al, head of the Hamas political bureau, speaking in Damascus on January 11, 2009 :

"Concerning us, we want the immediate and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the lifting of the unjust siege on Gaza that has led to the current situation.
Our other request is the opening of all border crossings including the Rafah border crossing.
We, with an open mind, will deal with any initiatives and decisions based on these three requests.
Therefore, we will not accept any negotiations for a truce in the light of and under the pressure of a military campaign and siege.
Let the military campaign stop, let the Israelis withdraw, and let the rights of our people be admitted to, let them recognize our rights to live without a siege and closed border crossings, just like other humans, then we are ready to discuss a truce, just like we did before.
We will not accept a permanent truce, because it will take the right of resistance from the Palestinian people. The resistance is against occupation and military campaigns and therefore as long as occupation exists, resistance will too…"

Canada's Dept of Foreign Affairs , via The Star :

"The resolution wholly failed to acknowledge Hamas's continual rocket attacks on Israel that brought about the current crisis, and ignored a state's legitimate right to self-defence," a spokesperson said in an email." [apparently without irony]

Not even CNN is still repeating that one.

The Guardian Nov 5, 2008 :

"A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory. Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, had personally approved the Gaza raid, the Associated Press said. The Israeli military concluded that Hamas was likely to want to continue the ceasefire despite the raid."

Back to Foreign Affairs :

"Canada remains deeply concerned about the ongoing hostilities ... and encourages all diplomatic efforts to achieve an immediate, sustainable and durable ceasefire. But first and foremost, Hamas's rocket attacks must stop so that a ceasefire can be realized."

In May last year, a month before he received the B’nai Brith International President’s Gold Medallion, Stephen Harper said :

"... anti-Israeli sentiment is really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism"

quite as if intelligent people would be unable to tell the difference.

In October 2007 Stockwell Day and Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter signed an interim mutual cooperation agreement on homeland security "to enable cooperation in the fields of combating terror and border security".

Dichter laid out guidelines for a Canadian-Israeli security cooperation similar to the Israel US Homeland Security Pact he signed in February in Washington DC. to the Canadian public security committee. The Canada Israel Declaration of Intent was signed on March 23, 2008.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Vatican cardinal : Gaza "a big concentration camp"

Reuters : "Pope Benedict's point man for justice and peace issues on Wednesday issued the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since the latest Mideast crisis began, calling Gaza a "big concentration camp".

NYTimes : "The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it had discovered “shocking” scenes — including small children next to their mothers’ corpses — when its representatives gained access for the first time to parts of Gaza battered by Israeli shelling.

The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.

In response, the Israeli military did not comment directly on the allegation. In a statement, it accused Hamas, its foe in Gaza, of deliberately using "Palestinian civilians as human shields" and said the Israeli Army "works in close cooperation with international aid organizations during the fighting so that civilians can be provided with assistance. "

Presumably this "close cooperation" began just yesterday, the first time the Red Cross was allowed access.
"Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do."


"....an eye for an eyelash..."

Meanwhile, over at the National Post, Kelly McParland happily quotes Jason Cherniak, "President of Liblogs, a site that aggregates blogs from writers identifying themselves as Liberals", who gives us a short history of Gaza in which Israel is astonishingly blameless.
I will refute each of Mr. Cherniak's remarks with those of someone much more expert than myself : Avi Shlaim, "Oxford Professor of International Relations who served in the Israeli army", writing in yesterday's Guardian . I urge you however to read Prof. Shlaim's short history in its entirety.

Cherniak : "In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. This was a complete and total withdrawal, where even settlers whose families had lived in Gaza for decades were withdrawn to Israel. It was everything the world had ever asked from Israel as far as the Gaza strip was concerned. Israel showed nothing but restraint from the summer of 2005 until December 2008 in its relations with the people of Gaza."
Shlaim : "The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children."

Cherniak : "Eventually, by June 2008, Israel was able to negotiate a cease fire with Hamas, the “State of Calm Agreement”, brokered by Egypt. That agreement fell apart in December 2008 when Hamas once again began attacking Israel with rockets imported from Syria and Iran."
Shlaim : "It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men."

Cherniak : People need to "demand that governments around the world start to take action to save the people of Gaza from their own elected government[Hamas]."
Shlaim : "The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood."

Shlaim writes that Gaza is "an open air prison".
This morning "Israel warned thousands of people in the Rafah zone on the Egyptian border to leave their houses ahead of planned air raids on Thursday."You have until 8am [06:00 GMT]," said leaflets which were dropped by the Israeli military."

Where are they to go for safety? Certainly not UN buildings or schools.

So which description do you personally prefer, Mr. Cherniak : "concentration camp" from the Vatican or "open air prison" from the Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford ?

Cross-posted at Creekside

Sign Amnesty International Canada's Open Letter to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon, to take action.

Canadian Jewish women occupy Israeli consulate in Toronto

Well done, sisters!

"Protesters are outraged at Israel's latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government's refusal to condemn these massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel′s violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people."
~ news release from Palestinian and Jewish Unity.
.
Here is Judy Rebick's account as related by Michelle at Rabble :

"They went into the consulate in small groups, and pretended they were there on other business. Once they were all in there, they sat down and told them this is a protest.

The officials in the consulate were absolutely irate over it. One of the security guards was "beside himself". He tried to intimidate them, saying, "You're in Israel now!" Judy retorted, "We are NOT. This is not the embassy."
(Apparently only the embassy is considered Israeli territory, not the consulate - they had legal advice going in.)

The security guard tried to drag the youngest woman out, and she resisted. Judy told him to take his hands off her or they'd charge him with assault.The security guard then tried to take the phone away from another woman, and when she wouldn't give it to him, he slapped her across the face. Judy told him that if he touches any of them again, he would be charged with assault. So the Israeli officials decided to let the police deal with them."

Continued at Rabble ...
.
Thank you for this, Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, Canadian Israeli peace activist, and the rest of you.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Gaza : a premeditated humanitarian disaster

Six children were killed when this mosque was levelled, one of several mosques hit, along with schools, hospitals, government buildings, police stations, television stations, prisons and the women's wing of the Islamic University.

Israel has extended its naval blockade of Gaza from six nautical miles to 20 nautical miles, preventing humanitarian aid and protest vessels from trying to break the siege.

Foreign reporters and Red Cross medical emergency teams have been denied access to Gaza.
Power lines have been cut. One and a half million people lack water, fuel, food and medical supplies.

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says there is no crisis.

The US has just blocked a UN Security Counsel ceasefire resolution.

Chris McGreal writes in The Observer from Jerusalem about the PR campaign to ensure that Israel's war was seen not in terms of occupation but of the west's struggle against terror and confrontation with Iran.

"Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN until a few months ago, was brought in by the Foreign Ministry to help lead the diplomatic and PR campaign. He said that the diplomatic and political groundwork has been under way for months.

"This was something that was planned long ahead," he said. "I was recruited by the foreign minister to coordinate Israel's efforts and I have never seen all parts of a very complex machinery - whether it is the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the prime minister's office, the police or the army - work in such co-ordination, being effective in sending out the message."

Hand in hand went a strategy to remove the issue of occupation from discussion. Gaza was freed in 2005 when the Jewish settlers and army were pulled out, the Israelis said. Israel portrayed Hamas as part of an axis of Islamist fundamentalist evil with Iran and Hezbollah. Its actions, the Israelis said, are nothing to do with continued occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza or the Israeli military's continued killing of large numbers of Palestinians since the pullout.

Lobby groups, such as the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom) in London and the Israel Project in America, were mobilised. They arranged briefings, conference calls and interviews. The Israeli military posted video footage on YouTube. Israeli diplomats in New York arranged a two-hour "citizens' press conference" on Twitter for thousands of people. At the same time, Israel in effect barred foreign journalists from witnessing the results of its strategy.

Continued...

Cross-posted at Creekside

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

This photo shows the shoes left at Whitehall for PM Gordon Brown by thousands of protesters against Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

It was done in the spirit of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush.

OK, now does anyone know why thousands of shoes were mysteriously dumped on the Miami Freeway yesterday?

It's a shoe-in. It's the rapture!

Would someone like to sing "Do they know it's Christmas?"

From Dec 27 to 29, 2008
Israelis : 5 dead, 31 wounded
Palestinians : 375 dead, 1500+ wounded

.
Haim Ramon, the deputy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert :
"The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas. We will stop firing immediately if someone takes the responsibility of this government, anyone but Hamas. We are favourable to any other government to take the place of Hamas."

.

In 2004 Hamas won a majority in a democratic election.
In 2006 Israel jailed one third of the Hamas cabinet
.
Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad official, on the economic blockade :
"It has not manipulated Palestinians into hating Hamas, but has probably been counterproductive. It is just useless collective punishment."

.
Haaretz :
"Israel has always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over."

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Robert Fisk :
"One and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza."

.
Center for Strategic and International Studies via the G&M:
"Israeli leaders synchronized their retaliatory attacks to the political calendar in the U.S., thinking it was better to strike before President George W. Bush left office on Jan. 20 because they weren't as sure about what president-elect Barack Obama's reaction would be.
The governing Labour and Kadima parties are believed to want to improve their odds in coming national elections, demonstrating that they are as tough as hawkish Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls."

Cross-posted at Creekside

Rebranding Israel : Babes in bikinis vs. the coronary stent

The Israeli consulate in Toronto is gearing up for "Brand Israel" , a $1M 10-month ad blitz campaign which will be displaying positive images of Israel in Toronto bus shelters, on billboards, on radio and TV starting in September. The ad here features the "Innovation Israel" coronary stent.

Consul general Amir Gissin promises the campaign will be "an attack on all the senses".
Given that it is sponsored by Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, Canada's largest radio broadcaster; Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation; and David Asper of Canwest Global, I'm sure it will be.

"The way to fix negative images of Israel is to present Israel in a positive light elsewhere," Gissin said. "Never has there been this [scale] of combination of business and philanthropy for Israel."

Well, that might be true if you don't count the last seven years of the Brand Israel campaign in the U.S.
ISRAEL21c boasts it "has placed more than 5,000 stories with positive images of Israel and Israelis in mainstream American media" and "tens of millions of eyes see ISRAEL21c reported stories, yet most of them don't know that ISRAEL21c is the source".

Their most famous stories include a former Miss Israel in a bikini on the covers of Maxim and the New York Post, and the Newsweek photospread "Babes in the Holy Land", financed in part by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The president of ISRAEL21c, formerly national president of AIPAC, explains the strategy :

"All the recent research on Israel's image or brand in America indicates that the one demographic group that has the least positive knowledge of Israel in America is men under 30. To them, Israel is a place of armed military conflict and little else."

David Saranga, the Israeli consular official based in New York who initiated the Babes in the Holy Land photoshoot, agreed :

"We have to find the right hook. And what's relevant to men under 35?
Good-looking women."

So this is what they got :

Figures, doesn't it?

The Americans are targeted with Babes in the Holy Land; Canadians will be getting the coronary stent.

P.S. Dear Jerusalem Post : All the wonderful goodwill generated by your report on the Branding Israel campaign is unfortunately somewhat diluted by your having a "Bomb Iran? Vote now!" NewsMax poll on the comments page accompanying the article.

Cross-posted at Creekside