Occupation 101

Must Watch Video Documentary

Award-winning documentary film on the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.

The film also details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace. The roots of the conflict are explained through first-hand on-the-ground experiences from leading Middle East scholars, peace activists, journalists, religious leaders and humanitarian workers whose voices have too often been suppressed in American media outlets.

The film covers a wide range of topics -- which include -- the first wave of Jewish immigration from Europe in the 1880's, the 1920 tensions, the 1948 war, the 1967 war, the first Intifada of 1987, the Oslo Peace Process, Settlement expansion, the role of the United States Government, the second Intifada of 2000, the separation barrier and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as well as many heart wrenching testimonials from victims of this tragedy.

How Israel Is Using Hamas To Create A Greater Israel

Arafat renounced violence, so Israel had to get rid of him. Israel needs wars in order to create a Greater Israel.

Israel does not want Palestinians to be peace-loving.
Because that would prevent Israel from having more wars to create a Greater Israel.
Israel wants violent Palestinians.

On 10 January 2009, we read Writing on the wall, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
(Herald chief correspondent Paul McGeough's new book, Kill Khalid: Mossad's Failed Hit … And The Rise Of Hamas, will be published early in March by Allen & Unwin.)
Among the points made:

1. Hamas emerged from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(Reportedly, the Muslim Brotherhood has long been used by MI6 and the CIA to weaken Moslem governments - Aangirfan)

2. Israel helped build up Hamas, which became a rival to Arafat's Fatah.

3. Arafat's PLO renounced violence and recognised Israel, prior to the Oslo peace talks.
(This did not suit Israel.)
Hamas refused to end violent resistance or to acknowledge Israel's right to exist.
(This suited Israel)

4. The Israelis, in the early 1990s, deported hundreds of key Hamas figures to south Lebanon, where they began working with Hezbollah.
(Israel needs Hezbollah if it is to have an excuse to take over South Lebanon, with its valuable water supplies.)

5. In 1997, Arafat had Hamas pinned down, and Arafat was rounding up Islamists by the thousand.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, organised the bungled assassination of Khalid Mishal. This helped Hamas to revive and survive.
(This suited Israel).

6. Mossad, under Efraim Halevy, came up with a plan, agreed to by the Bush, to get rid of Arafat.
(Arafat was too much in favour of peace.)

7. Abbas was presented by the media as being a puppet of the Americans.
Hamas triumphed in the 2006 elections.
(This suited Israel)

8. Israel and its allies blockaded Gaza.
(Israel had an excuse to further weaken the Palestinians.)

9. John Bolton (and Israel) would like to give the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt.
Then there would be no more Palestine.

10. Bolton believes Jordan and Egypt can be bribed.
Egypt relies on aid from the USA.

But Egypt fears it would be weakened if it had unhappy Palestinians under its control.

Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, January 11, 2009 A very large delivery of  US weaponry to Israel consisting of 3,000 tons of "ammunition" is scheduled to sail to Israel. The size and nature of the shipments are described as "unusual":  "Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.  "This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added. "Shipping brokers in London who have specialized in moving arms for the British and U.S. military in the past said such ship charters to Israel were rare. (Reuters, Jan 10, 2009)  The Pentagon has entrusted a Greek merchant shipping company to deliver the weapons to Israel:   "The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show. The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.  A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.(Ibid)  It is worth noting that a similar unusually large shipment of  US ordinance to Israel was scheduled in early December:   "Tender documents indicate that the German ship hired by the US in early December also carried a massive cargo of weapons that weighed over 2.6 million kg [2600 tons] and filled up to 989 standard 20-foot containers to Ashdod from North Carolina." (Press TV, 10 Jan 2009) Are These Large Shipments of Ordinance Connected to the Invasion of Gaza? The request by the Pentagon to transport ordinance in a commercial vessel, according to Reuters, was made on December 31, 4 days after the commencement of the aerial bombings of Gaza by F16 Fighter jets.  Analysts have hastily concluded, without evidence, that the 2 shipments of "ammunition" were intended to supply Israel's armed forces in support of its military invasion of Gaza. "A senior military analyst in London who declined to be named said that, because of the timing, the shipments could be "irregular" and linked to the Gaza offensive." (Reuters, January 10, 2009) These reports are mistaken. Delivery of ordinance always precedes the onslaught of a military operation. The ordinance required under "Operation Cast Lead" was decided upon in June 2008. Further to Tel Aviv's request under the US military aid program to Israel, the U.S. Congress approved in September 2008 the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster high precision GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39).  The GBU 39 smart bombs produced by Boeing were delivered to Israel in November. They were used in the initial air raids on Gaza:  "...The Israel Air Force has used the new lightweight GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb acquired from the USA, in the recent attacks in Gaza. The [Jerusalem] Post mentioned the new weapons ordered last September having arrived last month [November], and already put to action with the IAF fighters. These weapons could have been deployed by the Boeing/IAF F-15Is, since sofar SDB is cleared for use only with this type of aircraft. It is highly unlikely that the bulk of the weaponry included in these two large shipments, scheduled to arrive in Israel in late January, is intended to be used in Israel's military operation in Gaza. The GBU-39 is lightweight (130 kg). The entire shipment of GBU 39s (1000 units) would be of the order of a modest 130 tons. In other words, the specifications of the GBU 39 do not match the description of the "unusually large" and  "heavy" shipment of ordinance.  GBU-39 Escalation Scenario The shipment ordered on December 31 is of the order of 3000 tons, an unusually large and heavy cargo of "ammunition" pointing to the transfer of heavy weaponry to Israel.  According to US military statements, the ordinance is for stockpiling, to be used "at short notice" in the eventuality of a conflict:  "This previously scheduled shipment is routine and not in support of the current situation in Gaza. ...The U.S. military pre-positions stockpiles in some countries in case it needs supplies at short notice." (Reuters, 10 Jan 2009, emphasis added) Whatever the nature of these large weapons shipments, they are intended for use in a future military operation in the Middle East.  Since the launching of the Theater Iran Near Term Operation Operation (TIRANNT) in May 2003, an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria has been envisaged. TIRANNT was followed by a series of military plans pertaining to Iran. Numerous official statements and US military documents have pointed to an expanded Middle East war. What these shipments suggest is that the "escalation scenario" not only prevails, but has reached a more active stage in the process of US-Israeli military planning.  Whether these weapons will be used or not is not known. The central question, in this regard, is whether the Gaza invasion is part of a broader military adventure directed against Lebanon, Syria and Iran, in which heavier weaponry including US made bunker buster bombs will be used.  History of US Weapons Shipments to Israel  The stockpiling of US made bunker buster bombs by Israel has been ongoing since 2005:   "The United States will sell Israel nearly 5,000 smart bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years. Among the bombs the [Israeli] air force will get are 500 one-ton bunker busters that can penetrate two-meter-thick cement walls; 2,500 regular one-ton bombs; 1,000 half-ton bombs; and 500 quarter-ton bombs. The bombs Israel is acquiring include airborne versions, guidance units, training bombs and detonators. They are guided by an existing Israeli satellite used by the military. The sale will augment existing Israeli supplies of smart bombs. The Pentagon told Congress that the bombs are meant to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage [against Iran], and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests."(Jewish Virtual Library: September 21-22, 2004, Haaretz / Jerusalem Post.) The actual shipments of US made bunker buster bombs started in 2005. The US approved in April 2005, the delivery of:   some 5,000  "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 BLU 109 'bunker-buster bombs.  The (uranium coated) munitions are said to be more than 'adequate to address the full range of Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the [more powerful] BLU-113 bunker buster [a variant of the GBU 28]'" (See Michel Chossudovsky, Planned US-Israeli Nuclear Attack on Iran, Global Research, May 1, 2005) The BLU-109 is smaller than the GBU 28. "It  is a 2,000lbs warhead that can be used in combination with a GPS guidance kit [...], and can penetrate up to 15 feet of fortified concrete." (See F16.net) In 2006 at the height of the Lebanon War in August 2006, a major shipment of the 2.2 ton GBU 28 bombs, according to the New York Times, was dispatched to Israel.  The GBU 28 is produced by Raytheon. It was used against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, has the the capability of penetrating some 20 feet of reinforced concrete. (Haaretz, 9 Nov 2008)  In contrast to the GBU 39 smart bombs (130 kg) used against Gaza, each GBU-28 weighs a hefty 2.2 tons.   "The Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) is a special weapon developed for penetrating hardened Iraqi command centers located deep underground. The GBU-28 is a 5,000-pound laser-guided conventional munition that uses a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead." Federation of American Scientists,  (For a visual depiction see  "Bob Sherman, How the GBU-28 works", USA Today on-line.).   GBU-28 Video of GBU 28 on UTube The recent unusually large shipments of weaponry to Israel are part of the 2004 agreement between Washington and Tel Aviv, financed by US military aid to Israel.  As mentioned above, there is a history of delivery of bunker buster bombs (including the GBU 28), going back to 2005. While the nature and composition of these recent weapons shipments to Israel are not known, one suspects that they include the heavier version of the bunker buster bombs including the GBU-28.  In this regard, it is worth noting that last Summer, Israel requested the Pentagon to deliver GBU-28 bunker buster bombs. The stated purpose was to use them in the eventuality of a military operation directed against Iran.  In September 2008, according to US and Israeli press reports quoting Pentagon officials, Tel Aviv's request was turned down. According to the reports, Washington categorically refused to deliver the shipment of GBU 28 bunker buster bombs, to be used to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. "Instead" Washington accepted to deliver the lightweight GBU-39 for use against Gaza.  The U.S. had "rejected an Israeli request for military equipment and support that would improve Israel's ability to attack Iran's nuclear facilities." The Americans viewed [Israel's] request, which was transmitted (and rejected) at the highest level, as a sign that Israel is in the advanced stages of preparations to attack Iran. They therefore warned Israel against attacking, saying such a strike would undermine American interests. They also demanded that Israel give them prior notice if it nevertheless decided to strike Iran. In early September, Haaretz reported that the request had included GBU-28 "bunker-buster" bombs. In mid-September, the U.S. agreed instead to sell Israel 1000 GBU-39 "bunker buster" bombs which Israeli military experts said "could provide a powerful new weapon" in Gaza, AP reported. So: when Israel requested weapons that the U.S. expected would be used for bombing Iran, the U.S. said no, and added explicitly that it did not want to see an Israeli attack on Iran. And there was no Israeli attack on Iran. (Defense Update.com, December 2008) Media Disinformation The official statements and press reports are bogus. Israel and the US have always acted in close coordination. Washington does not "demand that Israel give them prior notice" of a military operation: The report in Haaretz suggests that the Bush Administration was adamant and did not want the Israelis to attack Iran. In fact, the reports suggested that the US would shoot down Israeli planes, if they tried to attack Iran: "Air-space authorization: An attack on Iran would apparently require passage through Iraqi air space. For this to occur, an air corridor would be needed that Israeli fighter jets could cross without being targeted by American planes or anti-aircraft missiles. The Americans also turned down this request. According to one account, to avoid the issue, the Americans told the Israelis to ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for permission, along the lines of "If you want, coordinate with him." (Haaretz Nov 9, 2008)  This Israeli report is misleading. Israel is America's ally. Military operations are closely coordinated. Israel does not act without Washington's approval and the US does not shoot down the planes of its closest ally.    The Nature and Composition of  the Recent US Weapons Shipments to Israel These unusually large shipments of ordinance would normally require Congressional approval.  To our knowledge, there is no public record of approval of the unusually large shipments of heavy "ammunition" to Israel.  The nature and composition of the shipments are not known. Was Israel's request for the delivery of the 2.2 ton GBU 28 accepted by Washington, bypassing the US Congress? Are GBU 28 bombs, each of which weighs 2.2 tons part of the 3000 ton shipments to Israel. Are tactical bunker buster mini-nuclear bombs included in Israel's arsenal? These are questions to be raised in the US Congress.   The two shipments of "ammunition" are slated to arrive in Israel, respectively no later than the 25th and 31st of January.  Secretary Robert Gates who remains at the helm of the Department of Defense ensures continuity in the military agenda.   Preparing for a Confrontation with Iran: Beefing Up Israel's Missile Defense System In early January, the Pentagon dispatched some 100 military personnel to Israel from US European Command (EUCOM) to assist Israel in setting up a new sophisticated X-band early warning radar system. This project is part of the military aid package to Israel approved by the Pentagon in September 2008: "The Israeli government requested the system to help defend against a potential missile attack from Iran.Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signed off on the deployment order in mid-September. ....   Once fully operational, the system will be capable of tracking and identifying small objects at long distance and at very high altitude, including space, according to U.S. Missile Defense Agency officials. It also will integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network. “This will enable the Israelis to track medium- and long-range ballistic missiles multiple times better than their current radar allows them to,” Morrell said. “It will … more than double the range of Israel's missile defense radars and increase its available engagement time.” This, he said, will greatly enhance Israel’s defensive capabilities. “There is a growing ballistic missile threat in the region, particularly from Iran,” Morrell said. “And no one in the region should feel more nervous about that threat than the Israelis. And they clearly do, and they have asked for our assistance.” (Defense Talk.com, January 6, 2009, emphasis added.) The new X-band radar system 'permits an intercept soon after launch over enemy instead of friendly territory" (Sen. Joseph Azzolina,Protecting Israel from Iran's missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008).  The X-band radar would "integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors." (Ibid)  What this means is that Washington calls the shots. The US rather than Israel would control the Air Defense system:  ''This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,' Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. 'So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.'" (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009, emphasis added).  In other words, the US military controls Israel's Air Defense system, which is integrated into the US global missile defense system. Under these circumstances, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without the consent of the US High Command.  The large shipments of US ordinance, slated to arrive in Israel after the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States and Commander in Chief are part of the broader program of US-Israeli military cooperation in relation to Iran.  The reinforcement of Israel's missile defenses combined with the large shipments of US weapons are part of an escalation scenario, which could lead the World under an Obama Administration into a broader Middle East war.  New Cold War? There has been a military build on both sides. Iran has responded to the Israeli-US initiative, by beefing up it own missile defense system with the support of Russia. According to reports (December 21), Moscow and Tehran have been holding talks on the supply by Russia of "medium-range air defense systems - specifically, S-300 surface-to-air missile systems" (Asian Times, January 9, 2009)

Rockets Hit Israel from Lebanon

January 8th, 2009

Via: BBC:

Rockets have been fired into northern Israel from Lebanon, raising fears the Israeli offensive in Gaza may spread.

Israel’s army responded with artillery to a barrage of at least three rockets. No group has claimed responsibility.

Israeli media later reported a second rocket attack, but an army spokesman said this was a false alarm.

The exchanges came as Israel launched 60 air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight, targeting facilities used by the militant Hamas group.

Related posts:

1. Israel Plans Attack on Gaza
2. Israel Attacks Gaza, Hundreds Dead: Who Made a Killing?
3. HEAVY FIGHTING IN GAZA; ISRAEL SLAUGHTERS DOZENS OF CIVILIANS
4. ISRAEL CARRIES OUT INTENTIONAL, OUTRAGEOUS SLAUGHTER OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS
5. Israel Plans Nuclear Strike on Iran

Hezbollah on full alert in wake of Gaza war

Press TV January 6, 2009

Hezbollah has stepped up security measures on the Lebanese border in response to the full-scale Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Citing an unnamed Lebanese official, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that the Lebanese resistance is fully prepared not to allow “Israel a chance to avenge its defeat in the July 2006 war and has therefore raised its alert level for defense purposes.”

Israel is expected to take advantage of the transition in the White House “to embark on a new adventure” and change the status quo on the Lebanese border, the Al-Hayat report adds.

In a recent report, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy revealed that Israel’s determination to curb Hezbollah’s military and political prowess has strengthened the likelihood of another Israel-Lebanon war.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Lebanese army announced that at least six Israeli warplanes had flown over several regions of the country in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which put an end to the 33-day war in the summer of 2006.

The Israeli overflights come as Israel has called up thousands of its reserve troops and put some of them along its northern border with Lebanon earlier this week.

Author of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy report Nicholas Blanford told Press TV correspondent Ali Rizk in an October interview that UN Resolution 1701, which ended the second Israeli war on Lebanon, would never be sufficient to maintain calm.

“Yes, 1701 stopped the war obviously in 2006. It stopped the fighting. I mean it saved the Israelis, the Israelis were obviously in deep trouble as various internal investigations and reports and commissions have elaborated,” said Blanford.

“It was kind of an unfinished war in many respects. Hezbollah, for their part, recognized Israeli unease and unhappiness with the outcome of the war,” he continued.

According to Blanford, the US presidential elections as well as the upcoming elections in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are key political developments that could easily ‘trigger a war’.

Other political analysts also believe that a third Israeli war against Lebanon may be in the offing.

“This is not the first time that the Israelis threaten Lebanon. There have been a lot of threats ever since the end of the July war in 2006 and its humiliating defeat has been a blow to the whole Israeli military institution,” says political analyst Ibrahim Moussawi.

While Israel claims it has no intention to open another front during its war on the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has announced that the Lebanese nation must maintain vigilance and be prepared to repel any possible attack by Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah has, however, dismissed Israeli allegations that it has plans to go to war with Israel.

BREAKING: Israeli ground forces storm Gaza

RAW STORY
Published: Saturday January 3, 2009

Update: the invasion has begun

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli ground troops have entered the Gaza Strip, an army spokesman told AFP on Saturday a week after the Jewish state launched its massive offensive on Hamas targets in the enclave.

"I can confirm that Israeli troops have gone in," she said.

Witnesses inside Gaza Strip said soldiers had entered the territory in the north.

Update: 'We have many, many targets'

The Associated Press reports:

Israeli tanks and infantry entered Gaza after nightfall Saturday, launching a ground offensive that the military said would be a "lengthy operation" in a widening war on Gaza's Hamas rulers.

Israeli security officials said the operation is likely to go on for several days, but that the objective is not to reoccupy Gaza. The depth and intensity will also depend on parallel diplomatic efforts, the officials on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

"We have many, many targets," Israeli military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich told CNN, adding that Hamas has been digging smuggling tunnels and other facilities. "To my estimation, it will be a lengthy operation," she said.

"The goal is to try and take over some of the those launching areas that were responsible for the many launches, thousands of launches in fact, toward Israeli civilians," she said. "The civilians are not our target. We are looking only after militants. Hamas militants."

DEVELOPING...

'Dramatic escalation' in Gaza as tanks 'moving toward the frontier'

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli artillery on Saturday bombarded the Gaza Strip in a dramatic escalation of the campaign against Hamas after a week of air attacks which have left more than 440 Palestinians dead.

Israeli tanks were seen moving toward the frontier as Howitzer guns fired dozens of shells across the border. AFP correspondents saw huge plumes of black smoke rise on the Gaza side.

The Israeli army made no immediate comment on the operation which came amid mounting speculation that Israel would send troops into Gaza.

With thousands of troops and tanks massed at the frontier, Israeli air strikes earlier killed a Hamas military commander and destroyed a school as the military campaign against rockets fired from Gaza entered a second week.

Israeli radio warned the public that rocket attacks could intensify in "coming hours".

Israel has staged more than 750 air raids against Hamas leaders and military targets since launching "Operation Cast Lead" on December 27. At least 442 Palestinians have been killed -- including 75 children -- and 2,290 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

Four people have been killed in Israeli by more than 500 rockets fired from Gaza over the same time.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal warned Israel on Friday of a "black destiny" if it invaded. But US leaders have given their key Middle East ally free rein to begin a ground operation, again blaming Hamas for the new conflict.

More than 30 air raids on Saturday hit Hamas targets across the densely populated territory.

One strike killed Mohammad al-Jammal, who Gaza sources said was a Hamas military commander. Israel said he was responsible "for the entire rocket launching enterprise in all of Gaza City."

Jammal's death came two days after an air raid killed top Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan.

Another raid demolished a school in northern Gaza and killed a guard there. Israel said its warplanes had targeted "a college used as a base for firing a large number of rockets."

Two people were killed when a strike hit their car in the southern city of Khan Yunis, medics said.

The Israeli strikes have so far failed in their declared aim of ending rocket fire from Gaza and there is mounting concern over the humanitarian impact of the Israeli operation.

Maxwell Gaylard, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said on Friday "there is a critical emergency in the Gaza Strip right now. By any definition this is a humanitarian crisis and more."

About 80 percent of the 1.5 million population relies on international food aid .

But the United States has given fresh backing to Israel, insisting that the key to a truce is Israel's demand that Hamas stop firing rockets.

In his weekly Saturday radio address, the text of which was released by the White House, President George W. Bush called on Hamas "to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

Bush blamed Hamas for the violence and rejected calls for a unilateral ceasefire that he said would allow the Islamists to continue targeting Israel with rocket and mortar fire.

Thousands of Israeli troops with tanks have been waiting along the 60-kilometre (37-mile) border with Gaza for the green light from the government to advance.

Amid new diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to meet French President counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Ramallah on Monday. He was then to travel to New York to appeal for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday met Iran's Supreme National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili to discuss the Gaza crisis, Syria's official SANA news agency reported.

Jalili also met the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah on Friday, a Palestinian source said.

In a televised speech on Friday night, Meshaal warned Israel: "If you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you."

The week of Israeli strikes has destroyed Hamas government buildings, the homes of senior Islamist officials, mosques, schools and other buildings said to have stored weapons, and roads and tunnels used to smuggle arms and supplies.

Israel has kept the territory virtually sealed since Hamas seized power there in June 2007 from Fatah forces loyal to the secular Abbas.

(original story)

Israel assault on Gaza enters second week, ground troops ready for invasion

RAW STORY
Published: Saturday January 3, 2009

Update (at bottom): leaflets warn civilians to leave; troops 'prepared to enter Gaza' at moment's notice

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli air strikes claimed a Hamas military commander and destroyed a Gaza school on Saturday as an assault on Gaza which has so far killed more than 440 Palestinians entered its second week.

Troops and tanks massed at the border remained on alert to advance into Gaza after seven days that have seen more than 750 air raids launched against Hamas leaders and military targets.

Israeli media reports said a ground offensive was imminent.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal warned Israel of a "black destiny" if it invades. But US leaders have given their key Middle East ally free rein to begin a ground operation, again blaming Hamas for sparking the new conflict.

More than 30 air raids on Saturday hit Hamas targets across the densely populated territory.

One strike killed Mohammad al-Jammal, 40, who Gaza sources said was a Hamas military commander. Israel said he was responsible "for the entire rocket launching enterprise in all of Gaza City."

Jammal's death came two days after an air raid killed top Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan.

Another raid demolished a school in northern Gaza and killed a guard there. Israel said its warplanes had targeted "a college used as a base for firing a large number of rockets."

Two people were killed when a strike hit their car in the southern city of Khan Yunis, medics said.

Militants responded with some 10 rockets and mortar rounds, lightly wounding two people in the Israeli port of Ashdod, officials said.

The Israeli strikes have so far failed in their declared aim of ending rocket fire from Gaza. Militants have fired some 500 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel over the past week, killing four people and wounding several dozen.

There is mounting international concern over the humanitarian impact of "Operation Cast Lead" which has left at least 442 Palestinians dead and 2,290 wounded. At least 75 of those killed have been children, Gaza medics said.

Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said on Friday "there is a critical emergency in the Gaza Strip right now. By any definition this is a humanitarian crisis and more."

About 80 percent of the 1.5 million population relies on international food aid .

But the United States has given fresh backing to Israel, insisting that the key to a truce is Israel's demand that Hamas stop firing rockets.

"I think any steps they are taking, whether it's from the air or on the ground or anything of that nature, are part and parcel of the same operation," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In his weekly Saturday radio address, the text of which was released by the White House late on Friday, President George W. Bush called on Hamas "to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

Bush blamed Hamas for the violence and rejected calls for a unilateral ceasefire that he said would allow the Islamists to continue targeting Israel with rocket and mortar fire.

Thousands of Israeli troops with tanks are waiting along the 60-kilometre (37-mile) border with Gaza for the green light from the government to advance.

Amid new diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to meet French President counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Ramallah on Monday. He was then to travel to New York to appeal for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday met Iran's Supreme National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili to discuss the Gaza crisis, Syria's official SANA news agency reported.

Jalili also met the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah on Friday, a Palestinian source said.

In a televised speech on Friday night, Meshaal warned Israel: "If you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you."

The week of Israeli strikes has destroyed Hamas government buildings, the homes of senior Islamist officials, mosques, schools and other buildings said to have stored weapons, and roads and tunnels used to smuggle arms and supplies.

Israel has kept the territory virtually sealed since Hamas seized power there in June 2007 from Fatah forces loyal to the secular Abbas.

Update: leaflets warn civilians to leave; troops 'prepared to enter Gaza' at moment's notice

"Due to the terrorist actions undertaken by terrorist elements from the region of your residences against the state of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to respond immediately in the region of your residences. For your safety, you are ordered to leave the area immediately," CNN said the leaflets read.

SATIRE:

Israel Attacks US

By Jerry Ghinelli

January 01, 2009  "Information Clearinghouse"' -- The government of Israel today launched a massive air assault on suspected terrorist targets along major coastal cities in the United States of America. In an operation termed “Friendly Enemy,” hundreds of Israeli F-16 fighter jets streaked across the Atlantic in precise formation and fired surgical air strikes at alleged terrorist strongholds in densely populated Muslim communities all along the northeast corridor of the United States. The American-made Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets then continued south, inflicting massive destruction in densely populated Muslim communities along many southeastern US states as well. 

Reaction to the attacks on the US was swift. President Bush and President-Elect Obama both appealed for restraint, but stated emphatically, “Israel has the right to defend itself.” 

President Bush, who took an oath to defend the US and to preserve, protect and defend it against all foreign and domestic enemies, stated that the War on Terror must be fought anywhere and everywhere in the world, even on US soil, if necessary. “Our close relationship with Israel, our steadfast ally in the War on Terror, requires extraordinary sacrifices by the American people and requires exceptions to both US and international law,” said Bush. 

President-Elect Barack Obama reiterated, “There is only one president at a time, and President [George] Bush speaks for the United States of America until January 20th…” Obama did, however, declare his “unconditional, unquestioning support of Israel's right to self-defense and to wage preemptive attacks whenever and wherever necessary to combat terrorism.” He said, “There will be no change in my administration when it comes to our unquestioning allegiance to the State of Israel…that is a promise you can [most certainly] believe in,” said Obama.

Earlier in the day, the US Senate had passed a nearly unanimous resolution supporting Israel. Even northeast Senators Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Charles Schumer (NY), Joe Lieberman (CT) and John Kerry (MA), whose states were attacked, voted along with 93 other US Senators, backing Israel’s right to “self-defense.” Only Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold voted against the resolution. There were two absentees.

In an emergency special session of the US Senate, Hillary Clinton claimed there were terrorists hiding in US cities who had links to Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. Hillary Clinton, President-Elect Obama's incoming Secretary of State, who has been a staunch supporter of Israel during her tenure as senator from New York, pledged her continued unwavering and unquestioning support of Israel. America's position “[when it comes to Israel] is unchanging, our resolve unyielding, our stance non-negotiable,” she emphasized. 

Vice-President Elect, Senator Joe Biden (DE), who is currently the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also declared his unwavering support for the Jewish state. “You don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist,” Biden declared.

Barack Obama’s incoming Chief of Staff, former US Representative Rahm Emanuel, 5th Congressional District of Illinois, who has dual American and Israeli citizenship and is known as the Zionist pit bull, remained uncharacteristically silent. Embroiled in the Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich scandal, Emanuel refused to comment on the Israeli attacks on US cities. Blagojevich was arrested and charged with trying to sell President-Elect Obama’s vacated Illinois senate seat. Congressman Emanuel had made several “suggestions” on who the embattled Governor should appoint. Emanuel has not been charged with any wrongdoing at this time. 

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, key Democrats, most notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, harshly criticized the Bush administration for mismanaging the economy, ignoring the 2001 Bin Laden threats, and botching the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Now they are criticizing President Bush for not doing enough to investigate potential terrorist sanctuaries in US cities, thereby forcing the Israelis to act unilaterally.

The Israeli incursion was the first on American soil by a foreign government since the December 1941 incursion by the empire of Japan. But on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli jet fighters also attacked a neutral US Navy technical research ship named the USS Liberty, killing 34 crewmen and wounding 172 others. Israel later apologized for the incident, suggesting its forces had attacked the USS Liberty in error. The Israelis claimed it had misidentified the Liberty as an unknown destroyer. Surviving Liberty crewmen claim that the attack was deliberate and premeditated. Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty remains the only major maritime incident in American history not investigated by Congress. 

Across the US, those Americans unaffected by the Israeli attacks were mainly concerned how this incident might affect the already fragile US economy. Most Americans continued their holiday vacations, largely unconcerned with the massive loss of life but quite concerned whether stricken areas might further impact the plummeting value of their homes. 

The mainstream media, always cautious of being branded anti-Semitic and thus losing advertising revenue, especially during difficult economic times, repeatedly defended the Israeli attacks as proportionate and justified. 

Any critics who called the Israeli incursion an attack on the US and demanded retribution were labeled anti-Semites and soft on terrorism. 

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni defended her country’s use of force. “There are no safe havens anywhere in the world when it comes to fighting terror,” said Livni. The American death toll is expected to be “only” in the hundreds, still far below the deaths that occurred on 9/11 by Islamic terrorists. Israeli pilots use only the finest precision weapons. Terrorists use crude devices like box-cutters, suicide vests and IEDs (Impoverished Explosive Devices). “We abhor the death of any innocent Americans killed by our precision air strikes, but you have to lay the blame on the terrorists who are hiding in these crowded American cities,” she rationalized.

Livni’s justification for the US incursion relied heavily on US Vice-President Richard “Dick” Cheney’s “1%” doctrine, which treats suspicions of terrorist involvement with a likelihood of even 1% as a certainty. “[If] we think, therefore there are,” she said philosophically. 

The British and Canadian Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown and Stephen Harper respectively, also supported the Israeli incursion into the US. Both deeply regretted the loss of any innocent American lives. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the Israeli incursion “just and proportionate.” President Bush phoned Prime Minister Brown and thanked him for his support during this difficult time.

President Bush noted that the American casualties from the Israeli raids were not equal to those killed in terrorist attacks on 9/11. “There is no moral equivalence between those killed in self-defense by Israeli warriors fighting for a democratically elected government and those killed by rogue [Al-Qaeda] terrorists who hate the freedoms we enjoy,” Bush suggested.

Despite some minor collateral damage to some synagogues, traditional liberal Jewish-American leaders remained steadfast in their unwavering defense of Israel. There was far more criticism and debate of the Israeli attacks on the US in the Knesset and among the Israeli public than there was in the US Congress or the American Jewish community, respectively.

Those few critics of the incursion contend that all Americans are protected by American and international law, and the strikes against the US should be construed as war crimes. US law prohibits the use of American-made weapons to be used for offensive purposes. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey stated that the war on terror supersedes all constitutional guarantees, and international law does not apply to anyone engaging in or even thinking about engaging in terrorism. Israel’s actions were in self-defense, he added.

In the UN, a Security Council resolution introduced by France, condemning the Israeli attacks on the United States was vetoed by the United States.

Local hospitals overflowed with American survivors of the Israeli air strikes. This time, though, the victims asked not “why do they hate us?” but “why do we love them?”

jerryghinelli@earthlink.net

Gaza Update

Iran on full alert in wake of Israeli raids

Global Research, January 1, 2010

Press TV - 2008-12-31 Israeli tanks taking position on the northern border with the Gaza Strip. Iran's Air Force is on alert after the country's president envisaged major regional developments in the wake of the Israeli raids on Gaza. The chief Iranian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi said on Wednesday that the ongoing critical situation in the Middle East has prompted the Iranian military to take necessary measures to ensure readiness in the event of the country becoming the target of an offensive. "Iran's Air Force has of late carried out 120 successful sorties along with long-range flights of 2,000 kilometers, and has also conducted unprecedented aerial missions," Brig. Gen. Shah-Safi said. The Air Force commander added that the enemy has been closely monitoring Iranian military planes. He went on to say that "unless Iran's military remains constantly vigilant the enemy will deliver a blow, even a minor one, to our forces". The remarks come as Israeli strikes on Gaza entered a fifth day, without an end in sight to the largest assault on the beleaguered strip in decades. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that the fierce Israeli air assault on Gaza, which "aims to root out Hamas and the Palestinians", would only lead to the "disintegration of the Israeli regime". Facing growing international pressure, Israel's top leaders have so far rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire. Israel is also massing its gunboats near the Gaza port and its ground forces along the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground offensive. Earlier on Monday, a senior Iranian commander floated the idea that the time has come for Muslims to militarily stop Israeli crimes in Gaza. "Only the military option can save Gaza," said Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, Head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense. The real goal of the slaughter in Gaza Hamas cannot be defeated, so it must be brought to heel by Jonathan Cook Global Research, January 1, 2010 Ever since Hamas triumphed in the Palestinian elections nearly three years ago, the story in Israel has been that a full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip was imminent. But even when public pressure mounted for a decisive blow against Hamas, the government backed off from a frontal assault.   Now the world waits for Ehud Barak, the defence minister, to send in the tanks and troops as the logic of this operation is pushing inexorably towards a ground war. Nonetheless, officials have been stalling. Significant ground forces are massed on Gaza’s border, but still the talk in Israel is of “exit strategies”, lulls and renewed ceasefires.   Even if Israeli tanks do lumber into the enclave, will they dare to move into the real battlegrounds of central Gaza? Or will they simply be used, as they have been in the past, to terrorise the civilian population on the peripheries?   Israelis are aware of the official reason for Mr Barak’s reticence to follow the air strikes with a large-scale ground war. They have been endlessly reminded that the worst losses sustained by the army in the second intifada took place in 2002 during the invasion of Jenin refugee camp.   Gaza, as Israelis know only too well, is one mammoth refugee camp. Its narrow alleys, incapable of being negotiated by Merkava tanks, will force Israeli soldiers out into the open. Gaza, in the Israeli imagination, is a death trap.   Similarly, no one has forgotten the heavy toll on Israeli soldiers during the ground war with Hizbollah in 2006. In a country such as Israel, with a citizen army, the public has become positively phobic of a war in which large numbers of its sons will be placed in the firing line.   That fear is only heightened by reports in the Israeli media that Hamas is praying for the chance to engage Israel’s army in serious combat. The decision to sacrifice many soldiers in Gaza is not one Mr Barak, leader of the Labor Party, will take lightly with an election in six weeks.   But there is another concern that has given him equal cause to hesitate. (read full article)

The truth about those Hamas rockets

Global Research, January 1, 2010

Online Journal

Five years ago, the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction to dupe us into supporting an illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq.

A few days ago, Israel trotted out only an infinitesimally more credible excuse -- the Hamas rockets case -- as justification for its own murderous shock and awe in Gaza, a long-planned campaign perniciously aimed at ousting a “regime” that came to power via popular, democratic vote.

Yes, such rockets exist, but they’re little more than slingshots against Israel’s incredible military might, and they’re used out of desperation by Palestinians who’ve never been accorded the democratic space within which to gain redress of their eminently just grievances.

Israeli apologists have presented absurd propaganda about those devices.

We’ve been asked, for instance, what would we do if rockets were being launched on our homes in New York or Texas, from Canada or Mexico?

The proper answer is that, if those two nations had been unlawfully occupied or embargoed by the United States for 60 years of relentless oppression and repression, and if all attempts at peaceful change had been forcefully prevented or scuttled by the U.S., then such attacks would be an understandable, indeed a justifiable attempt at gaining intolerably deferred liberty.

Our appropriate response wouldn’t be to bomb the hell out of the nearest Canadian or Mexican city, but to collectively look into mirrors and earnestly ask ourselves, “What have we done wrong to incur their wrath?”

And then act to correct the situation.

Conscientious Israelis acknowledge that the Hamas rockets rationale is fraudulent. For instance, Jerusalem Post writer Larry Derfner has noted, “We don’t want to see how people in Gaza are living, we block it out of our minds -- which, I suppose, is natural for a society at war, but which also keeps that war going longer than it might if we would recognize that Gaza is getting so much the worst of it.

“The [Palestinian] Kassam [rockets] have terrorized the 25,000 people in Sderot and its environs, but have caused very, very few deaths or serious wounds. By contrast, Israel has terrorized 1.5 million Gazans, locked them inside their awfully narrow borders, throttled their economy, and killed and seriously wounded thousands of them . . .

“This is crazy. Israel is the superpower of the Middle East, but because we still think we’re the Jews of Europe in the 1930s, or the Israelites under Pharaoh, we spend a lot more time fighting our enemies than we might if we looked at the whole picture, not just our half of it . . .”

As Gazan hospitals and morgues fill beyond capacity because of an ongoing air assault that cruelly began at precisely the hour when countless children were heading home from school, we’re expected to believe that small craters mostly in empty Israeli fields constitute this terrible episode’s chief sin.

Bugs bothered by sporadically impacting, glorified fireworks cobbled together in backyard garages are ludicrously supposed to be the primary problem, not human limbs and lives shattered by the most destructive weapons that military science can produce!

At any point during the past six decades, Israel could have had peace, simply by assenting to the great moral imperative of our time, namely the Palestinians’ right to their own, unitary, sovereign homeland.

Something which Israel continues to resist tooth and nail.

(read full article)

Israel’s Lie Machine is Working Flat Out

by Stuart Littlewood

Global Research, December 31, 2008

Middle East Online

The core issue in this struggle is the illegality of Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel goes to great lengths to avoid and suppress all mention of it and play-acts the pathetic victim, notes Stuart Littlewood.

While the murderous assault on Gaza continues, I notice there's a briefing document on the website of the Israeli Embassy in London which has a lie in every line. The West's mainstream media repeat them, and even the most senior TV and radio interviewers don’t bother to challenge them.

The document is a transcript of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's statement to the Israeli press dated 27 December 2008 – a day that will live in infamy. It is a perfect example of the falsehoods used to dupe not only us westerners but Israel’s own people. The statement shows how the regime's view of itself is constructed on a web of dishonesty and self-delusion.

For example:

- "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from Gaza for years."

Palestinians have been under harsh Israeli occupation for 60 years.

- "Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortars shells were fired at Israeli civilian communities."

Only one in 500 Qassam rockets causes a fatality. How many thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles, rockets, grenades and tank-shells have been blasted into the crowded city and towns of the Gaza Strip by Israel’s high-tech weaponry?

- "Until now we have shown restraint. But today there is no other option than a military operation."

The only legitimate option for Israel is to end the occupation and withdraw behind its 1967 border, as required under international law and UN resolution. Israel has been killing Palestinians at the rate of 8 to 1 since 2000, and children at the rate of nearly 12 to 1 (B’Tselem figures). This is somebody’s idea of restraint?

- "We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza."

Self defence is not a right exclusive to Israel. Palestinians have an equal right to protect their citizens from the terror tactics of Israel.

- "Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace."

Israel never left Gaza. It still occupies Gaza's airspace and coastal waters and controls all entrances and exits.

- "In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace."

Hamas was voted into power as the legitimate government of Palestine. Israel chose not to accept the people's choice, which amounted to a denial of their human rights, and immediately set about obliterating it.

- "We have tried everything to reach calm without using force. We agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel, hold Gilad Shalit and build up its arms."

Try talking. The Israelis' ongoing siege and economic blockade, begun shortly after Hamas was elected early in 2006, was never going to generate calm. And why is Shalit considered more important than the 9,000 Palestinians abducted and held prisoner by Israel? As soon as a Hamas government was formed Israeli troops arrested 8 Hamas ministers and 20 other parliamentarians, making the work of government impossible.

- "Israel continues to act to prevent humanitarian crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."

Every agency operating in Gaza has warned of the deepening humanitarian crisis and protested about the starvation and suffering, especially of children many of whom show evidence of stunted growth.

- "The responsibility for harm to civilians lies with Hamas."

Not according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

- "Hamas is a terrorist organization, supported by Iran, that does not represent the legitimate national interests of the Palestinian people but a radical Islamist agenda that seeks to deny peace for the peoples of this region."

Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election. It is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel receives mega-support from the US. When it comes to terror, it is Israel's conduct which fits the US definition of terrorism so perfectly - see Bush's Executive Order 13224, Section 3 - http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/terror/terror.pdf

- "While confronting Hamas, Israel continues to believe in the two State solution and remains committed to negotiations with the legitimate Palestinian Authority in the context of the peace process, launched at Annapolis."

Israel is busy establishing irreversible facts on the ground that make a viable Palestinian state impossible. As everyone knows, the regime has reneged on the peace process and carries on building illegal settlements and the illegal Wall, and demolishing Palestinian homes. Months ago Hamas accepted a Palestinian state based on internationally recognized (pre-1967) borders, in accordance with UN resolutions, with full sovereignty and its capital in Jerusalem, but this has been ignored. Hamas also offered a 10-year truce, also ignored. Earlier, Arafat and the PLO recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement but what good did it do? Today’s US-backed, Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority is not representative of the Palestinian people.

- "Israel expects the support and understanding of the international community, as it confronts terror, and advances the interest of all those who wish the forces of peace and co existence to determine the agenda of this region."

Israel, next to the US, is the biggest purveyor of terror in the region and only advances its own interests. It may get the support of Israel lobby stooges in other western governments but is rapidly earning the contempt of everybody else.

From a statement dated 22 December 2008:

- "Hamas, backed by Iran, has regularly stated its desire to see the complete destruction of Israel."

Israel is itself a leading destroyer and currently engaged in trying to wipe out Hamas and the Gazans. Iran’s Ahmadinajad quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - fair comment considering Jerusalem, with Bethlehem, was designated an 'international city' under the UN Partition Plan. Israeli propaganda twisted the Iranian’s words to read “Israel must be wiped off the map”. Zionist sources and the manifestos of Israeli political parties have made it clear for a long time that Israel plans to wipe Palestine off the map, and every act and lie is directed towards that end.

- "Our fight is not with the people of Gaza; it is with the extremists of Hamas."

Then why does the Israeli navy harass and fire on peaceable Gazan fishermen who are well within their own territorial waters? Why does Israel prevent Palestinian students from taking up places at foreign universities and block hospital spares, medicines, foodstuffs and foreign medics from entering Gaza? Why has the Israeli navy just rammed a mercy vessel in international waters taking doctors and medicines to Gaza? Latest air-strikes have hit the Islamic University and the ministry of education. These are direct attacks on Gazan civil society and its infrastructure.

- "Hamas started this conflict, and it bears responsibility for any harm to civilians on either side."

The conflict, started by Jewish terrorists, has been going on for 60 years, decades before Hamas came into being.

- "Israel’s only responsibility is to protect Israeli citizens."

As the occupying power Israel has a duty to see that the people of the occupied territories come to no harm.

- "Just as Israel seeks to defend its civilian population, Hamas seeks to kill them."

This reads far better the other way round: “Just as Hamas seeks to defend its civilian population, Israel seeks to kill them.”

- "Rocket attacks have continued for years and are now a daily occurrence. How long does the international community expect Israel will wait before defending itself against them?"

The rocket attacks will end when Israel ends the occupation and stops terrorizing its neighbours.

- "In the south of Israel, Israeli citizens live with air raid sirens sounding every day - sometimes every hour. Their situation is intolerable."

Not half as intolerable as it is for the Gazans, who live in constant fear of air raids and re-invasion and are constantly under surveillance by armed drones which can fire missiles under computer control from an armchair in Israeli headquarters.

- "For years, the international community has turned a blind eye to this onslaught. Only when Israel seeks to stop the rockets do they take notice."

For years the international community has turned a blind eye to Israel's violations of international law and human rights, which is why the problem remains unsolved.

- "Hamas is not only the enemy of Israel - it is the enemy of every Palestinian who believes in peace."

Israelis just can’t come to terms with the Palestinians' democratic choice and are bent on obliterating it.

- "It is Hamas' attacks - not Israel's reactions - that destroy every opportunity we have for peace."

The world has managed to work out by now that Israel doesn't want peace until it has stolen all the land and water it needs to expand its racist state into a ‘Greater Israel’. It is well on the way to achieving this and won’t be thwarted.

- "Palestinian militants targeted by Israel are not just the enemies of the Israeli people; they are criminals under international law, and enemies of peace."

Israel is in no position to preach international law.

- "What is collective punishment? 'Collective punishment' is a city - schools, hospitals, homes - civilians being bombarded every single day by rockets and mortars."

Collective punishment is keeping a whole population bottled up under siege and blocking supplies and exports, smashing their infrastructure, wrecking their economy and starving their children. Trying to equate Sderot with what’s happening in the Gaza Strip is idiotic.

- "Today's Middle East is divided between extremists and pragmatists. Hamas, backed by Iran, belongs to the extremists, who must be defeated for the sake of the future of the Middle East.... Israel’s primary goal is peace."

Israel's primary goal is the expansion of Israel by making the occupation of the West Bank permanent and bringing the Gazans to their knees.

The core issue in this struggle is the illegality of Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel goes to great lengths to avoid and suppress all mention of it and play-acts the pathetic victim. As the official statements (above) show, the strategy is to frame and define the situation in Israel’s own terms regardless of the truth. It uses advanced propaganda skills, and the elaborate Israel lobby network, to persuade western politicians and media to accept Israel’s version of events (and even use Israel’s biased language) and not question its motives.

In political PR terms it works wonderfully well. The loony leaders of my own government happily spread the poison and don’t seem interested in halting Israeli aggression and the vaporizing, dismembering and crushing of Gaza’s population. In human PR terms it is a disaster.

I have been listening to the BBC’s senior interviewers these last few days. None has had the gumption to ask Israeli spokesmen the only question that matters – the ‘killer’ question on which hangs the key to peace: WHEN IS ISRAEL GOING TO END ITS OCCUPATION AND RETURN TO THE PALESTINIANS THEIR LANDS AND FREEDOM?

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.

Slaughter in Gaza: Another Chapter in the Global Elite Master Plan

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars 
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008

Israel is using U.S. munitions against the Palestinians. From the Jerusalem Post:

The Israel Air Force used a new bunker-buster missile that it received recently from the United States in strikes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday.

The missile, called GBU-39, was developed in recent years by the US as a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision and low collateral damage strikes.

The claim that Israel is employing the bomb because it minimizes “collateral damage” is sadistically absurd, to say the least — the Gaza Strip is incontestably the most populated tract of land on earth and any munition, even a “smart” one, will undoubtedly cause “collateral damage.” The 1.3 million Palestinians living on the Gaza Strip are little more than fish in a barrel due to the fact Israel controls Gaza’s airspace, coast and most of its borders.

Israel received approval from Congress to purchase 1,000 units in September and defense officials said on Sunday that the first shipment had arrived earlier this month and was used successfully in penetrating underground Kassam launchers in the Gaza Strip during the heavy aerial bombardment of Hamas infrastructure on Saturday. It was also used in Sunday’s bombing of tunnels in Rafah.

Yaakov Katz, writing for the Jerusalem Post, fails to mention that the tunnels are also used to smuggle food and medicine, items the Israelis have blocked from entering Gaza. “Merchants invented the system,” writes Amira Hass. “The tunnels are not only for weapons and drugs, but for medicine, basic food commodities and cigarettes, at prices much more suitable for poverty-stricken Rafah. They are a way to break an economic siege. The weapons in the hands of the armed men of Rafah prove that the tunnels are not being used to smuggle sophisticated weapons. Nonetheless, the tunnels have turned into a scarecrow that justifies every strike at civilian lives and civilian property.”

On Sunday, head of the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration Col. Moshe Levy was interviewed by several Arab news outlets during which he stressed that Israel was not against the Palestinian public in Gaza but was operating against Hamas.

It should be noted that Hamas claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats in 2006, as the Washington Post reported at the time. Fatah won only 43 seats, mostly because many Palestinians realized the organization was heavily comprised, corrupt, and in league with Israeli intelligence and the CIA. Fatah’s relationship with the CIA became apparent last year when Fatah security compounds in Gaza were raided by Hamas — “they found huge supplies of American-made weaponry including 7,400 M-16 assault rifles, dozens of mounted machine guns, rocket launchers, seven armored military jeeps, 800,000 rounds of bullets and 18 US-made armored personnel carriers,” writes Mike Whitney, who cites Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.

They also discovered something far more valuable — CIA files which purportedly contain “information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza.

“Fatah equals CIA is not a good selling point,” mused Robert Baer, a former Middle East CIA operations officer. “Baer is right. The uncovering of the documents is ‘big trouble’ for Abbas who is already facing a loss of public confidence from his closeness to Israel and for his appointment of Salam Fayyad, the ex-World bank official who the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz calls ‘everyone’s favorite Palestinian,’” adds Whitney.

A “favorite Palestinian” for the globalists and banksters, not the Palestinian people.

The corporate media in the U.S. has bent over backwards to portray Hamas as the villain in the latest round of mass murder and carnage. In fact, Hamas has attempted to implement a ceasefire with Israel on numerous occasions. “Israel rejected a cease-fire offer from the Palestinian group Hamas as a humanitarian aid crisis erupting in the Gaza Strip threatened wider instability,” the Christian Science Monitor reported in April. “[The] Palestinian group offered to cease cross-border rocket attacks if Israel opens crossing points into Gaza and ends military incursions into the Palestinian territory,” Al Jazeera reported.

In fact, Israel is notorious for violating ceasefires. For instance, on June 19, 2008, Hamas and the Palestine Information Center accused the Israelis of violating an agreed upon ceasefirethree times on the first day of its implementation. “The Center reported that Israeli navy boats fired four shells at fishermen in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, while soldiers opened fire at farmers east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip,” the media center reported on its website. “Also, eyewitnesses reported that soldiers fired at farmers in Khuza’a town, near Khan Younis, and fired at a number of houses in AL Qarara town, east of the city.”

Israel fully exploited a Hamas declaration on December 19 to not renew the above ceasefire “because the Zionist enemy has failed to respect the conditions,” according to Joshua Lapide, reporting for Asia News. “The Israeli government blames Hamas for not stopping attacks often carried out by smaller Palestinian factions, while the Islamists claim Israel also broke the truce by failing to lift its blockade of the impoverished territory. Israel responded to a surge of violence in early November by tightening sanctions and closing crossing points with Gaza, halting deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies, basically transforming the Strip into one huge gulag.”

Jonathan Cook, writing for ZNet, details Israel’s brutal recruitment of Palestinian collaborators. “Recent reports in the Israeli media, for example, suggest that the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, far from reducing the opportunities for collaboration, may actually have increased them. The current siege of the Strip — in which Israel effectively governs all movement in and out of Gaza — has provided an ideal point of leverage for encouraging collusion… In the past 17 years alone, 150,000 Palestinians have been prosecuted by the military regime. According to the Israeli group Yesh Din, 95 per cent of these trials end in plea bargains, offering yet another chance to persuade a detainee to turn informant in return for a reduced sentence.”

Is it possible the above mentioned “smaller Palestinian factions” engaging in attacks are false flag groups unleashed to ensure an Israeli pretext – in fact, A New World Order pretext – for continued violence against the Palestinian people and make sure there is never an agreeable peace deal between the two?

In 2002, “Palestinian security forces … arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported. “The arrests come two days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged al-Qaeda militants were operating in Gaza and in Lebanon.” An anonymous Palestinian official told the newspaper the alleged collaborators sought to “discredit the Palestinian people, justify every Israeli crime and provide reasons to carry out a new (military) aggression in the Gaza Strip.”

As noted on December 22, the “less influential Islamic Jihad was behind most of the rocket attacks” on Israel, although Hamas has approved of such attacks.

Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were created by the Muslim Brotherhood, a documented CIA and British intelligence asset. “According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955,” writes Said Aburish in his book, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite. “When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East… This signaled the beginning of an alliance between the traditional regimes and mass Islamic movements against Nasser and other secular forces.”

It is also a documented fact that Israeli intelligence created Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO and Arab nationalism. Israel “aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO ,” Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies, told UPI correspondent Richard Sale. “According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928,” writes Sale (see Yossi Schwartz, Palestine: The origins of Hamas and its role today).

As Peter D. Goodgame details in The Globalists and the Islamists: Fomenting the “Clash of Civilizations” for a New World Order, the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and related manifestations are part of a larger plan on the part of the ruling elite to destabilize Muslim and Arab societies and thus curtail the “threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries,” as a leading Australian scientist suggested in a secret report to the Australian Defense Department in 1947.

Goodgame writes:

This explosion of violence throughout the Middle East in the late ’70s and early ’80s was referred to by Zbigniew Brzezinski as the “Arc of Crisis.” It was not something that occurred by chance, but was in fact the result of the deliberate plan developed by the Globalist strategists such as Dr. Alexander King, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and British operative Dr. Bernard Lewis. The Middle Eastern “Arc of Crisis” was not a spontaneous internal conflagration, it was something that came about as a result of Western policy in league with the Muslim Brotherhood. Without help from the West radical Islam would have remained the illegitimate, repressive minority movement that it has always been, and the Middle East would have remained stable and prosperous.

Israel undoubtedly has it own imperialistic and chauvinistic reasons for long brutalizing the Palestinians — as documented by Ralph Schoenman in his book The Hidden History of Zionism — but at the end of the day Israel is essentially a client state not so much under the control of the United States as the New World Order and the eugenicists of the global elite.

(On a side note: the ultimate creation of the state of Israel was a pet project of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Baron Edmond James (Avrahim Binyamin) de Rothschild (1845-1934) is the known as the “Father of the Settlement” (Avi ha-Yishuv). In 1982, Israel released a commemorative Independence Day coin bearing Rothschild’s likeness.)

Bush and Obama have deferred to this ongoing plan to victimize the Palestinians. Earlier today, the Bush administration placed the blame for Israelis bombing of the densely populated Gaza Strip — apparently including the use of GBU-39 missiles provided by the United States — squarely on Hamas (see the above video).

“Mr. Obama’s election has raised expectations, among allies and enemies alike, that new American policies are forthcoming, putting more pressure on him to signal more quickly what he intends to do. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, Mr. Obama has not suggested he has any better ideas than President Bush had to resolve the existential conflict between the Israelis and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza,” reports the New York Times.

Indeed, Obama has not “suggested he has any better ideas than President Bush” because both take orders from the global elite and do not actually formulate policies of their own. As for the “existential conflict” in the Occupied Territories, it is part of a larger Malthusian plan on the part of our eugenicist rulers, a plan spelled out well in advance by the United Nations, the Club of Rome, the Tavistock and Aspen Institutes.