23 proofs of Israel’s defeat in the 23-day war

Posted on January 23, 2009 by kf1

Israel began its Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008, an almost three-week long bloodbath which killed or wounded thousands of civilians.

Taking into consideration the lessons the regime learned from its defeat in the summer 2006 war against the Lebanese Hezbollah, Tel Aviv avoided setting out any specific objectives for its military operation in a bid to enable it to claim victory after the conflict ended.

The Israeli military initially presumed that it could settle its old score with Hamas and crush the movement in a matter of days. Relying on the support of some Arab states which viewed Hamas’s defeat as a blow to Iran, the regime, therefore, took the opportunity provided by the transitional period in the White House and escalated its bombing campaign into a full-blown ground offensive to kill Hamas leaders once and for all.

The plan, however, blew up in the face of its masterminds; everything spiraled out of control and the Israeli Army found itself stuck in a quagmire. Subsequently, the leaders of the Kadima Party who were on the brink of political bankruptcy and had resorted to the plan to save themselves ahead of the general elections, had to hastily find a way to clean up the mess.

They unilaterally declared a truce to break the deadlock while disguising their military failure as a humanitarian act.

However, Israeli military and political officials interestingly are still boasting about a decisive victory over Hamas. The reality on the ground proves the opposite; it indicates a defeat more humiliating than what the regime suffered in the 33-day war.

Israel was ,without doubt, the loser because:

1- From the military perspective, “the most powerful” army in the Middle East which faced only a militia group hardly advanced into the Gaza Strip’s urban areas. It faced fierce resistance and realized that the price of any military victory would be too high.

2- At the beginning of the operation, Israel announced that the operation was aimed at preventing rocket attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian groups against Israeli towns. Palestinians, however, continued striking Israeli targets, even in the last hours of the war.

3- Hamas extended the range of its rockets and managed to hit targets as far away as 60 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. In fact, the Israeli operation helped Hamas boost its military might.

4- In the course of killing civilians, the Israeli regime set up a factory for producing living time bombs which will jeopardize the security situation for Israel. Civilian casualties in any conflict always radicalize members of bereaved families. Following the massacre of civilians in Gaza, it is more likely that those Palestinians who adopted a nonviolent approach to resist the Israeli occupation, will now turn to military tactics. Keep in mind that many of them have noting to lose.

5- Israel hastily signed an agreement with the US-a third party which was not directly involved in the war-to prevent “the arm smuggling” into the Gaza Strip. The deal envisaged measures to prevent Hamas from rearming, going so far as to for example seek US assistance in policing sea routes to Gaza and providing Egypt with the equipment to destroy smuggling tunnels along its border with the coastal sliver. This was however nothing but a propaganda tactic to persuade public opinion that the war had had some achievements. Shin Bet’s announcement that Hamas will be able to rearm within a few months supports this notion. The Israeli media has also revealed that Washington has given no guarantees to Tel Aviv that Hamas would not be rearmed.

6- Hamas has vowed to restore its arsenals, dealing a blow to Israeli officials who claim that the movement has been “punished” and it knows that it cannot continue its armed campaign against Israel.

7- No high-ranking Hamas leader, except Said Siyam, was killed in the Israeli operation. In fact, it is estimated that out of more than thousands of victims of the Israeli offensive, only 95 people were Hamas members and most of them were killed on the first day of the attack when Hamas was caught off guard due to alleged betrayal of some Arab states.

8- Israel’s defeat by a small group has shattered the image of an invincible army that overpowered the army of several Arab nations in 1967. It would not be surprising if Israel’s arch foes were encouraged to settle their old score with the regime after its recent defeat. No matter what you have in your arsenals, you are considered the loser if you have been defeated in your enemy’s mind. Israel seems to have entered the spiral of decline.

9- From the political perspective, Israel’s situation is not any better than the one in the military arena. For the first time, two Israeli ambassadors were expelled, a big diplomatic humiliation for Tel Aviv.

10- The indiscriminate killing of civilians including women and children drew international condemnation to the point that the US, which always vetoes UN Security Council resolutions against Israel, was neutralized and gave in to mounting international pressure when the council voted on a binding resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

11- Israel’s strategy of decreasing Hamas’s popularity through putting pressure on the Gazans has obviously backfired. The Islamic movement emerged more popular than ever before after the war, because any group or person who deals a blow to Israel will be praised as a hero in the eyes of Arab nations. We witnessed the phenomenon during the 33-day war which made Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah the most popular Arab leader in the Islamic world.

12- Following the Gaza war, Mahmoud Abbas’s political life came to an end. Now, Abbas who was reportedly preparing himself for returning to Gaza after the Hamas government was toppled, has to desperately beg to political brokers to find a place for him in the political future of Palestine. If Abbas loses in the Palestinian Authority general elections – a strong possibility given the situation after the Gaza war- Israel will lose its partner for peace talks.

13- Kadima’s hopes for victory in the upcoming elections have been dashed. In other words, right-wing parties like the Likud and people like Israel Beitenu’s and Shas’s hawks will come to power, fanatics who do not even believe in peace. Israel should brace itself for days during which there would be no hope for a political solution to the current conflict.

14- The Gaza war managed another sort of uncalled for achievement for Israel: it united all Muslims and anti-Israeli parties across the world! The world has never witnessed such massive anti-Israeli rallies.

15- Hamas has set a good example for others. A small group managed to defeat the most powerful army in the Middle East. It would not be surprising if someday, we see Israel struggling to survive in a battle with a host of small or big groups and organizations which adopt military resistance as their approach.

16- The Israelis have realized that their leaders are unable to protect them; there is no safe place inside the occupied territories. It means that Israel’s worst nightmare is coming true: a dramatic rise in the rate of negative immigration followed by major demographical impacts. It could shake the foundation of the Israeli regime through changing the Jewish people to a minority group in occupied Palestine. The apprehensions about this issue have so far prompted the regime to deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to their land.

17- After the war, the world is recognizing Hamas as a major player whose role can no longer be ignored and it cannot be excluded from any political process in the Middle East.

18- Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called the war “Forqan”, a Quranic word meaning what separates good and evil. The outcome of the war weakened those Arab states who had adopted a pro-Israeli stance. On the other hand, it also highlighted the significance of the role of pro-resistance countries including Iran and Syria. Therefore, the balance of power has changed with regards to Israel’s interests.

19- Kadima leaders made a fool of themselves and showed that they lack the qualifications required to lead the regime. Kadima, which was set up by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the regime’s political deadlock, committed a political suicide by attacking Gaza.

20- The war also weakened the political base of those leaders of Islamic countries who are close to Israel. They have to face their people. The process has already started as we have witnessed demonstrations in some countries in which political or social protests are rare.

21- Despite nonstop bombing of the Gaza Strip by unconventional weapons, Gazans kept their high morale, a fact reported by Western journalists. There were no long queues of people at border crossings wanting to flee to a safe place. Inside Israeli towns, scores of people were treated for “shock” everyday. In other words, Israel has also lost the psychological war.

22- The war unfortunately fueled anti-Semitic sentiments across the world. Although attacks on Jews or their property under any pretext are certainly condemned, the fact indicates that Israel, despite paying lip service to the world Jewry, never considers the interests of the Jewish. Tel Aviv even turned down a request by 11 prominent leaders of the British Jewish community who asked the regime to stop its offensive for the sake of their security.

23- There are and will be groups which will open legal cases against Israel in international courts for its war crimes in Gaza. If Hamas had been destroyed, Israeli leaders might have been able to claim that it had been worth paying such a heavy price. But without achieving anything , how can they justify their acts which have drawn a wave of international condemnation?

The Gaza war has certainly changed the status quo against Israel. History seems to repeat itself; the situation is the same as that of the days after the end of the 33-Day War except for one thing: this time, the regime has no excuse to justify its defeat; there was no inexperienced defense minister leading the war.

The Gaza war dealt the last blow to the Israeli regime and its end result is the start of a battle within the regime which will put its very existence at risk.

Those who make a mistake once may be considered as inexperienced but those who repeat their mistakes are certainly judged as being “incompetent and insane”. Shall we expect another Winograd report?

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Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel

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Nazi Israel

Posted on January 21, 2009 by kf1

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Bullets in the brain, shrapnel in the spine: the terrible injuries suffered by children of Gaza

Arab blogs: Tents in desert reveal Israeli plan to transfer Gazans to Egypt

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THE HISTORY OF PALESTINE

Posted on January 21, 2009 by kf1

Download your copy here

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The Truth About the Gaza Massacre

Posted on January 20, 2009 by kf1

Source: Obama team asked Israel to end offensive

Top defense official says president-elect’s aides wanted action before inauguration
Posted in Empire, Middle East, Multimedia, Palestine, Video | 1 Comment

Livni’s Smile – The Boss Has Gone Mad By URI AVNERY

Posted on January 20, 2009 by kf1

169 years before the Gaza War, Heinrich Heine wrote a premonitory poem of 12 lines, under the title “To Edom”. The German-Jewish poet was talking about Germany, or perhaps all the nations of Christian Europe. This is what he wrote (in my rough translation):

For a thousand years and more
We have had an understanding
You allow me to breathe
I accept your crazy raging

Sometimes, when the days get darker
Strange moods come upon you
Till you decorate your claws
With the lifeblood from my veins

Now our friendship is firmer
Getting stronger by the day
Since the raging started in me
Daily more and more like you.

Zionism, which arose some 50 years after this was written, is fully realizing this prophesy. We Israelis have become a nation like all nations, and the memory of the Holocaust causes us, from time to time, to behave like the worst of them. Only a few of us know this poem, but Israel as a whole lives it out.

In this war, politicians and generals have repeatedly quoted the words: “The boss has gone mad!” originally shouted by vegetable vendors in the market, in the sense of “The boss has gone crazy and is selling the tomatoes at a loss!” But in the course of time the jest has turned into a deadly doctrine that often appears in Israeli public discourse: in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly.

In this war, this has become political and military dogma: only if we kill “them” disproportionately, killing a thousand of “them” for ten of “ours”, will they understand that it’s not worth it to mess with us. It will be “seared into their consciousness” (a favorite Israeli phrase these days). After this, they will think twice before launching another Qassam rocket against us, even in response to what we do, whatever that may be.

It is impossible to understand the viciousness of this war without taking into account the historical background: the feeling of victimhood after all that has been done to the Jews throughout the ages, and the conviction that after the Holocaust, we have the right to do anything, absolutely anything, to defend ourselves, without any inhibitions due to law or morality.

* * *

WHEN THE killing and destruction in Gaza were at their height, something happened in faraway America that was not connected with the war, but was very much connected with it. The Israeli film “Waltz with Bashir” was awarded a prestigious prize. The media reported it with much joy and pride, but somehow carefully managed not to mention the subject of the film. That by itself was an interesting phenomenon: saluting the success of a film while ignoring its contents.

The subject of this outstanding film is one of the darkest chapters in our history: the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In the course of Lebanon War I, a Christian Lebanese militia carried out, under the auspices of the Israeli army, a heinous massacre of hundreds of helpless Palestinian refugees who were trapped in their camp, men, women, children and old people. The film describes this atrocity with meticulous accuracy, including our part in it.

All this was not even mentioned in the news about the award. At the festive ceremony, the director of the film did not avail himself of the opportunity to protest against the events in Gaza. It is hard to say how many women and children were killed while this ceremony was going on – but it is clear that the massacre in Gaza is much worse than that 1982 event, which moved 400 thousand Israelis to leave their homes and hold a spontaneous mass protest in Tel-Aviv. This time, only 10 thousand stood up to be counted.

The official Israeli Board of Inquiry that investigated the Sabra massacre found that the Israeli government bore “indirect responsibility” for the atrocity. Several senior officials and officers were suspended. One of them was the division commander, Amos Yaron. Not one of the other accused, from the Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon, to the Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, spoke a word of regret, but Yaron did express remorse in a speech to his officers, and admitted: “Our sensitivities have been blunted”.

* * *

BLUNTED SENSITIVITIES are very evident in the Gaza War.

Lebanon War I lasted for 18 years and more than 500 of our soldiers died. The planners of Lebanon War II decided to avoid such a long war and such heavy Israeli casualties. They invented the “mad boss” principle: demolishing whole neighborhoods, devastating areas, destroying infrastructures. In 33 days of war, some 1000 Lebanese, almost all of them civilians, were killed – a record already broken in this war by the 17th day. Yet in that war our army suffered casualties on the ground, and public opinion, which in the beginning supported the war with the same enthusiasm as this time, changed rapidly.

The smoke from Lebanon War II is hanging over the Gaza war. Everybody in Israel swore to learn its lessons. And the main lesson was: not to risk the life of even one single soldier. A war without casualties (on our side). The method: to use the overwhelming firepower of our army to pulverize everything standing in its way and to kill everybody moving in the area. To kill not only the fighters on the other side, but every human being who might possibly turn out to harbor hostile intentions, even if they are obviously an ambulance attendant, a driver in a food convoy or a doctor saving lives. To destroy every building from which our troops could conceivably be shot at – even a school full of refugees, the sick and the wounded. To bomb and shell whole neighborhoods, buildings, mosques, schools, UN food convoys, even ruins under which the injured are buried.

The media devoted several hours to the fall of a Qassam missile on a home in Ashkelon, in which three residents suffered from shock, and did not waste many words on the forty women and children killed in a UN school, from which “we were shot at” – an assertion that was quickly exposed as a blatant lie.

The firepower was also used to sow terror – shelling everything from a hospital to a vast UN food depot, from a press vantage point to the mosques. The standard pretext: “we were shot at from there”.

This would have been impossible, had not the whole country been infected with blunted sensitivities. People are no longer shocked by the sight of a mutilated baby, nor by children left for days with the corpse of their mother, because the army did not let them leave their ruined home. It seems that almost nobody cares anymore: not the soldiers, not the pilots, not the media people, not the politicians, not the generals. A moral insanity, whose primary exponent is Ehud Barak. Though even he may be upstaged by Tzipi Livni, who smiled while talking about the ghastly events.

Even Heinrich Heine could not have imagined that.

* * *

THE LAST DAYS were dominated by the “Obama effect”.

We are on board an airplane, and suddenly a huge black mountain appears out of the clouds. In the cockpit, panic breaks out: How to avoid a collision?

The planners of the war chose the timing with care: during the holidays, when everybody was on vacation, and while President Bush was still around. But they somehow forgot to take into consideration a fateful date: next Tuesday Barack Obama will enter the White House.

This date is now casting a huge shadow on events. The Israeli Barak understands that if the American Barack gets angry, that would mean disaster. Conclusion: the horrors of Gaza must stop before the inauguration. This week that determined all political and military decisions. Not “the number of rockets”, not “victory”, not “breaking Hamas”.

* * *

WHEN THERE is a ceasefire, the first question will be: Who won?

In Israel, all the talk is about the “picture of victory” – not victory itself, but the “picture”. That is essential, in order to convince the Israeli public that the whole business has been worthwhile. At this moment, all the thousands of media people, to the very last one, have been mobilized to paint such a “picture”. The other side, of course, will paint a different one.

The Israeli leaders will boast of two “achievements”: the end of the rockets and the sealing of the Gaza-Egypt border (the co-called “Philadelphi route”. Dubious achievements: the launching of the Qassams could have been prevented without a murderous war, if our government had been ready to negotiate with Hamas after they won the Palestinian elections. The tunnels under the Egyptian border would not have been dug in the first place, if our government had not imposed the deadly blockade on the Strip.

But the main achievement of the war planners lies in the very barbarity of their plan: the atrocities will have, in their view, a deterrent effect that will hold for a long time.

Hamas, on the other side, will assert that their survival in the face of the mighty Israeli war machine, a tiny David against a giant Goliath, is by itself a huge victory. According to the classic military definition, the winner in a battle is the army that remains on the battlefield when it’s over. Hamas remains. The Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip still stands, in spite of all the efforts to eliminate it. That is a significant achievement.

Hamas will also point out that the Israeli army was not eager to enter the Palestinian towns, in which their fighters were entrenched. And indeed: the army told the government that the conquest of Gaza city could cost the lives of about 200 soldiers, and no politician was ready for that on the eve of elections.

The very fact that a guerrilla force of a few thousand lightly armed fighters held out for long weeks against one of the world’s mightiest armies with enormous firepower, will look to millions of Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims, and not only to them, like an unqualified victory.

In the end, an agreement will be concluded that will include the obvious terms. No country can tolerate its inhabitants being exposed to rocket fire from beyond the border, and no population can tolerate a choking blockade. Therefore (1) Hamas will have to give up the launching of missiles, (2) Israel will have to open wide the crossings between the Gaza Strip and the outside world, and (3) the entry of arms into the Strip will be stopped (as far as possible), as demanded by Israel. All this could have happened without war, if our government had not boycotted Hamas.

* * *

HOWEVER, THE worst results of this war are still invisible and will make themselves felt only in years to come: Israel has imprinted on world consciousness a terrible image of itself. Billions of people have seen us as a blood-dripping monster. They will never again see Israel as a state that seeks justice, progress and peace. The American Declaration of Independence speaks with approval of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. That is a wise principle.

Even worse is the impact on hundreds of millions of Arabs around us: not only will they see the Hamas fighters as the heroes of the Arab nation, but they will also see their own regimes in their nakedness: cringing, ignominious, corrupt and treacherous.

The Arab defeat in the 1948 war brought in its wake the fall of almost all the existing Arab regimes and the ascent of a new generation of nationalist leaders, exemplified by Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. The 2009 war may bring about the fall of the current crop of Arab regimes and the ascent of a new generation of leaders – Islamic fundamentalists who hate Israel and all the West..

In coming years it will become apparent that this war was sheer madness. The boss has indeed gone mad – in the original sense of the word.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

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Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn’t it time for a war crimes tribunal?

Posted on January 20, 2009 by kf1

It’s a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel’s primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza. Continue reading →

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Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans By JONATHAN COOK

Posted on January 19, 2009 by kf1

Nazareth.

This week the death toll in Gaza passed the 1,000 mark, after nearly three weeks of Israeli air and ground attacks. But surprisingly, no one has reported an even more appalling statistic: that there are some 1.5 million injured Palestinians in Gaza. How is is possible that such an astounding figure could have passed the world’s media by?

The reason apparently is that they have been relying on the highly unreliable statistics provided by official Palestinian sources. It appears that the Palestinian health ministry only records as wounded those Gazans who need to stay in hospital because of the severity of their injuries.

That means they only count the more than 4,500 Gazans who have suffered injuries such as severe burns from exploding Israeli phosphorus shells; shrapnel wounds from artillery rounds; broken or lost limbs from aerial bombardment; bullet wounds; physical trauma from falling building debris; and so on.

But in fact there is another, far more reasonable standard for assessing those injured, one that provides the far higher total of 1.5 million Gazans – or every surviving Palestinian in Gaza. The measure I am referring to is the one employed by Israel.

Here is an example of its use. In September 2007, the international media reported that 69 Israeli soldiers had been wounded when Palestinian militants fired a rocket into the Zikim army base near the Gaza Strip. The rocket struck a tent where the soldiers were sleeping.

It is worth noting the details of the attack. Israeli officials related that, of the 69 wounded, 11 had moderate or severe injuries and one was critically injured. A few more had light wounds. The rest, probably 50 or more, were injured in the sense that they were suffering from shock.

So, if we apply the same standard to Gaza, that would mean 1.5 million Gazans have been wounded. Or is there still some doubt about whether the weeks of bombardment of Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth, have left the entire civilian population in a deep, and possibly permanent, state of shock?

Talking of Gaza’s civilians, where did they all go? Israel’s so-called “war” on Gaza must be the first example in human history of a conflict where there are apparently no civilians. Or, at least, that is the impression being created by the world’s leading international bodies, from the World Health Organisation to the United Nations. Instead they refer to a new category of “women and children”.

Thus, those 1,000-plus dead Gazans are broken down into percentages defined in terms of “women and children” and the rest. The earliest figures stated that about 25 per cent of Gaza’s dead were “women and children”, and that has steadily climbed close to the 50 per cent mark since Israel’s ground invasion got under way.

The implication – one with which Israel is presumably delighted – is that the rest are Palestinian fighters, or “terrorists” as Israel would prefer us to call them. It also suggests that every man in Gaza over the age of 16 is being defined as a non-civilian – as a combatant and, again by implication, as a terrorist. In short, all Gaza’s men are legitimate targets for Israeli attack.

This is not very far from the position recently attributed to Israeli policymakers by the daily Jerusalem Post. The newspaper reported that officials had come to the view that “it would be pointless for Israel to topple Hamas because the population [of Gaza] is Hamas”.

On this thinking, Israel is at war with every single man, woman and child in Gaza, which is very much how it looks. Maybe we should be glad that the category of “women and children” is still being recognized – at least, for now.

Myths about the Blockade and Onslaught

The myths about the blockade of Gaza are so legion it is almost impossible to disentangle them. But let’s try tackling a few.

The first is that the blockade was a necessary response to the election of Hamas.

Tell that to John Wolfensohn, special envoy to the Quartet, comprising the US, UN, Europe and Russia, from May 2005. His job was to oversee the disengagement. Wolfensohn was succeeded by the far less principled Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.

In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper in 2007, Wolfensohn explained why he had resigned a year into his job, in April 2006. Shortly after the disengagement in summer 2005, he said, Israel and the US had violated the understandings made to ensure the border crossings into Gaza remained open after the Jewish settlers left. “Every aspect of that agreement was abrogated,” he said.

The economy collapsed as a result, as Gaza’s farmers saw their produce rot at the crossings, and unemployment and disillusionment among Gazans rocketed. “Instead of hope, the Palestinians saw that they were put back in prison. And with 50 per cent unemployment, you would have conflict.”

It was the closure of the crossings that Wolfensohn believes partly explains Hamas’ success in the subsequent elections, in early 2006. So, according to Wolfensohn, Israel’s blockade pre-existed Hamas’ rise to power and began when Fatah were still the rulers of Gaza.

The second myth is that the blockade was an attempt, if a futile one, to get Hamas to recognize Israel’s “right to exist”.

Tell that to Dov Weisglass, former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s fixer in Washington. It was he who suggested the true goal of the blockade, which Israel intensified immediately following Hamas’ electoral triumph. The policy would be “like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.”

In short, according to Weisglass, Israeli policy in Gaza was “collective punishment” inflicted on the civilian population for choosing Hamas – a policy that, should it need pointing out, is a grave violation of international law and a war crime.

The hope, it seems, was that Gazans would, as they sank into abject poverty, manage to summon up the energy to overthrow Hamas. It didn’t happen.

The third myth is that the blockade was designed to put pressure on Hamas to end the rocket fire into Israel.

Tell that to Ehud Barak, the defence minister, and Matan Vilnai, his deputy. This pair were plotting an invasion of Gaza throughout the six-month ceasefire with Hamas, and in fact much earlier.

In truth, they ignored every diplomatic overture from Hamas, including offers of indefinite truces, while they invested their energies in the coming ground invasion. In particular they worked on plans, noted in the Israeli media back in spring 2008, to “level” Gaza’s civilian neighbourhoods and create “combat zones” from which civilians could be expelled.

One aspect of the blockade that seems to have been overlooked is the way it has been used to “soften up” Gaza, and Hamas, before Israel’s attack. For three years Gaza’s population has been denied food, medicines and fuel.

Every general knows it is easier to fight an army – or militia – that is cold, tired and hungry. Could there be a better description of the Hamas fighters, as well as those “women and children”, currently facing Israel’s tanks and warplanes?

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest book is “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net

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Can Hamas still walk tall in Gaza’s streets?

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

Posted on January 19, 2009 by kf1

The fighting in Gaza is “war deluxe.” Compared with previous wars, it is child’s play – pilots bombing unimpeded as if on practice runs, tank and artillery soldiers shelling houses and civilians from their armored vehicles, combat engineering troops destroying entire streets in their ominous protected vehicles without facing serious opposition. A large, broad army is fighting against a helpless population and a weak, ragged organization that has fled the conflict zones and is barely putting up a fight. All this must be said openly, before we begin exulting in our heroism and victory.

This war is also child’s play because of its victims. About a third of those killed in Gaza have been children – 311, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 270 according to the B’Tselem human rights group – 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.

This is too large a proportion by any humanitarian or ethical standard.

It is enough to look at the pictures coming from Shifa Hospital to see how many burned, bleeding and dying children now lie there. History has seen innumerable brutal wars take countless lives.

But the horrifying proportion of this war, a third of the dead being children, has not been seen in recent memory.

God does not show mercy on the children at Gaza’s nursery schools, and neither does the Israel Defense Forces. That’s how it goes when war is waged in such a densely populated area with a population so blessed with children. About half of Gaza’s residents are under 15.

No pilot or soldier went to war to kill children. Not one among them intended to kill children, but it also seems neither did they intend not to kill them. They went to war after the IDF had already killed 952 Palestinian children and adolescents since May 2000.

The public’s shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing. One can blame Hamas for the death of children, but no reasonable person in the world will buy these ludicrous, flawed propagandistic goods in light of the pictures and statistics coming from Gaza.

One can say Hamas hides among the civilian population, as if the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv is not located in the heart of a civilian population, as if there are places in Gaza that are not in the heart of a civilian population. One can also claim that Hamas uses children as human shields, as if in the past our own organizations fighting to establish a country did not recruit children.

A significant majority of the children killed in Gaza 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.

The children of Gaza who survive this war will remember it. It is enough to watch Nazareth-born Juliano Mer Khamis’ wonderful movie “Arna’s Children” to understand what thrives amid the blood and ruin we are leaving behind. The film shows the children of Jenin – who have seen less horror than those of Gaza – growing up to be fighters and suicide bombers.

A child who has seen his house destroyed, his brother killed and his father humiliated will not forgive.

The last time I was allowed to visit Gaza, in November 2006, I went to the Indira Gandhi nursery school in Beit Lahia. The schoolchildren drew what they had seen the previous day: an IDF missile striking their school bus, killing their teacher, Najwa Halif, in front of their eyes. They were in shock. It is possible some of them have now been killed or wounded themselves.

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Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns – A Second Front? By FRANKLIN LAMB

Posted on January 16, 2009 by kf1

Beirut.

“The Resistance is one project and the resistance movement is one movement and has one course, one destiny, one goal, despite its different parties, factions, believes, sects and intellectual and political trends…Resistance movements in this region, especially in Lebanon and Palestine, complement one another and (Hezbollah and Hamas) are contiguous groups.”

— Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, 7/18/08

“In Lebanon, we, the Islamic Resistance, are ready and prepared to confront any Israeli stupidity. We are prepared to face any foolishness. We have the wisdom to act calmly and we will not be dragged to any act of which we are not convinced. But we will not accept becoming a target for anyone. Hezbollah’s level of readiness is greater than the enemy’s imagination.”

— Mohammad Raad, leader of the Hezbollah block in the Lebanese Parliament, 1/09/09

“Where is my friend Hussein?,” I asked some of the guys yesterday at my favorite motorcycle repair shop in Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah area in Beirut, as I helped, with my bandaged arm, off load my motorbike.

The problem was Beirut’s flash hailstorm on Sunday. Immediately upon entering Verdun street near the Dunes hotel, Silver, not being used to a surface road mixture of oil and ice, and having a van cut it off from the right, tried to maneuver and skidded on it side and I went tumbling (again!). This time against a hotel protective barrier as some army guys jumped out of the way then courteously helped me up with a friendly “Welcome to Lebanon.”

“Isn’t this about your third ‘divine accident’ this year?,” one of Hussein’s mechanics, Ali grinned, as payback for me telling him a Sunni joke the other day about Hezbollah’s string of “divine victories.”

Again, I asked why my friend Hussein was absent. No response.
If one wants his motorcycle fixed cheap, well and quickly, even the pro government-anti Hezbollah Sunni repair shops in the central Beirut area of Hamra neighborhoods will tell you it’s best to take it to Ghouberi. “Ghouberi” is code language for the Hezbollah area of Dahiyeh/Haret Hareik, where most macho Hamra guys fear to tread as they continue to smart over “the events of May,” when Shia Hezbollah and some of their allies in Shia Amal and the Christian National Syria Socialist Party stormed parts of Sunni West Beirut and locked it down tight for around 72 hours before handing it over to the Lebanese Army. It was all about sending a message to the US-Israeli backed government not to mess with Hezbollah’s communication system or with their guys at the Beirut airport.

Once again the Hezbollah shop that took care of Silver did a great job. The mechanics, mainly Hezbollah reservists with ‘day jobs,’ apply the same work ethic of thoroughness and skill to their bike work as they do defending Lebanon against Israeli attacks. Space only allows for one example. As I inquired about the prospects that Hezbollah would open a second front, I noticed that a mechanic and his Palestinian dropout helper (quitting school is the growing pattern these days in Lebanon’s Refugee camps due to economic and political pressure), one with a screwdriver and the other with a wrench, literally checked and tightened every nut or screw on the bike. Never in 20+ years of riding and crashing motorcycles in more than a dozen countries had I seen mechanics do that.

“So where was Hussein?” I asked for the third time. “He not in Beirut,” one of the mechanics said.

I immediately understood.

There is quite a lot of code language used in Lebanon these days, and “He’s not in Beirut” in Hezbollah parlance means, “He’s been called up,” he’s off somewhere for a few weeks doing ‘training’ or he’s been posted with his 5-6 man unit.

While Hussein is “not in Beirut.” it’s likely no one among his family or friends will hear from him. He may spend days or weeks in a tree along the Blue Line electronically eavesdropping on Israeli soldiers or recording their movements and habits or any one of hundreds of preparatory tasks. Hussein will return as if he just completed his day off but will answer no questions that begin with where, what, why, who, when, are, can, do, etc. Quite likely he will look leaner, stronger, more serious than when he left and will parry inquires with a smile and a question about “what’s new with you,” etc.

One might gain some inkling where he has been from what he brings back as gifts for his pals. For example, if Hussein brings special pastries acquired only from a certain village, which he did last time for me, obviously he had been posted in the Bekaa Valley. If he returns with a bag of oranges perhaps he was down south. Iranian candies or Iran’s famous Pistachios? For sure he was, well …

Today, the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah remains on full alert, in the 1/10/09 words of Lebanon’s Oppositions leader in Parliament, Mohammad Raad, “in case Israel does something stupid, we are ready.”

Some Hezbollah officials took note of what might be an Israeli record of some sort. They pointed out that whereas in the July 2006 War, Israel killed approximately 1,100 Lebanese civilians in 33 days of carpet, frenzied and indiscriminate bombing, in Gaza they have achieved the killing of approximately the same number of Palestinians, in about half the number of days. No doubt some kind of a lesson the Israeli military learned from their failure in the earlier conflict.
Many questions are being asked throughout Lebanon about whether the Hezbollah leadership will yield to growing pressure from all parts of Lebanon and within its ranks to force Israel to lift its destruction of Gaza? If so, are there ways it could be done without a igniting a sixth war in Lebanon?

Contemporary Wisdom in Lebanon

Every day brings more questions from Resistance observers inside and outside of Lebanon: when is Hezbollah going to deliver on all those speeches by Party leaders expressing Hezbollah’s ‘sacred commitment’ to the bloodstream issue for all Arabs and Muslims: the liberation of Palestine?

These days the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah is on Full Red Alert and there is a palpable sense of foreboding in many Hezbollah supporting neighborhoods.

In the bike shop, with its “town meeting” atmosphere, some Hezbollah members are more explicit.

“We can hit Dimona with hundreds of rockets on the first day, if we get the order,” the veteran Abass explains. “The Zionists are very lucky I do not have the authority or we would have joined the battle when the first bomb fell on Gaza. It is just a matter of when, not if, we join the Gazan Resisters.”

The largest of dozens of demonstrations in support of the Gaza Resistance Hamas have been organized by Hezbollah. Thousands of those in attendance at every demonstration bristle with anger along with hundreds of millions all over the World. In Lebanon, many, not only in the Palestinian camps and Hezbollah areas, but north and south ache to do something to help the trapped and dying Gazans.
Regarding the likelihood that Hezbollah will come to the military aid of Gaza, the local conventional wisdom, much of it likely wrong, includes:

* Hezbollah is still regrouping its base from the July 2006 Israeli aggression and rebuilding thousands of homes and businesses and doesn’t want them destroyed again.

* Hezbollah may not yet be prepared militarily.

* Hezbollah has not completed its redeployment to the Bekaa Valley and to the strategic mountain tops where the next war with Israel will be largely based. This includes towns such as Sajad near Al-Rihan Mountain, north of the Litani River with its clear view of all of South Lebanon and the upper Galilee of occupied Palestine, as well as part of the Golan and the Mediterranean coastline. The geographic location of Sajad between the Al-Zahrani and Litani Rivers give it strategic importance and links the South and the Bekaa. They need more time.

* The certain massive destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, schools, would turn the populace against it and undermine its great political progress since 2006.

* That Hezbollah, having recently consolidated its base and formed a political coalition with Christian and some Druze leaders wants time to see its alliances grow stronger and free of potential military and political “unintended results.”

* Hezbollah wants to win the currently scheduled June 9, 2009 elections, and being seen as sparking another massive destruction of Lebanon would give its rival parties plenty to beat it over the head with at the polls. Every time Israel issues a new threat against Lebanon and announces in advance that it intends to commit war crimes by destroying Lebanon, this helps Hezbollah’s rivals in the polls as they take to the airwaves and argue that Hezbollah wants another war and does not care about destroying Lebanon like last time. Or, as scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb observed last week, intense domestic pressures to disarm, and possible, more externally manufactured, locally-executed conspiracies hatched against it that could drag it into the kind of civil warfare that the movement found itself in during May 2008.

* Hezbollah does not want to risk losing the June 9 election and wants to keep its lead in the polls.

* Hezbollah is currently behind in the polls and needs peace in Lebanon in order to convince swing voters that it will be behave responsibly if the voters will allow it to govern.

* Hamas is assured of winning the war in Gaza, given that Israel must win with its 1000 to 1 military advantage or it will be humiliated and, as Anthony Cordesman has pointed out, would likely in any case lose its deterrence position, likely for good.

* That the Israeli government and its supporters claim that Israel learned from their poor performance in July 2006 is wishful thinking and their performance to date strongly suggests Israel has learned nothing and will deliver to Hamas a silver platter with huge organizational and political gifts.

The “Varsity Squad” of Hezbollah has so trained the “Junior Varsity Squad” that there is no need to intervene unless Hamas is on the verge of total elimination which appears very unlikely. As one Hezbollah reservist noted, “If Hamas survives to fire even one rocket into Israel after Israeli forces eventually withdraw from Gaza, the world will declare Hamas the winner.” Israel discovered Hezbollah expertise last weekend when it learned that the capabilities of Hamas are much more than they anticipated including its ability to strike Beer Sheba.

Based on conversations with several Hezbollah functionaries, Shia Hezbollah appears to have increasingly deep respect for Sunni Hamas. They share an ideology and a set of strategic goals that transcend their religious difference. Both were created as an alternative to failed Arab nationalist organizations in order to effectively confront the Zionist occupation. Hezbollah has been the primary role model, trainer, and “coach” of a “new” Hamas with apparent dramatic results.

Strategically, the fact that Sunni Hamas and Shia Hezbollah cooperate well, despite differing interpretations of some of the Koran, and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Mohammad), leads some observers to believe that this display of Muslim unity dampens the effects of the fiery rhetoric of Egypt’s Mubarak and Jordan’s Abdullah, among others, who regularly raise the chicken-little alarm of an Iranian constructed “Shia crescent.”

When Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated last February, one of the major projects he had been working on for nearly two years was to teach Hamas the lessons Hezbollah learned during the 22-year Israeli occupation of much of Lebanon as well as the 2006 Israeli aggression against Lebanon. The current conflict in Gaza may indicate how well Hamas learned from “Hajj Radwan,” Moghinyeh’s nom de guerre.

It was Israel that killed Imad. One reason was that he was deeply involved in training Hamas with the Hezbollah model of Resistance. He is known to have been very proud of the Palestinians and stated shortly before his death to Party colleagues: “They (Hamas) are becoming a very good resistance force.” Some in Lebanon refer to Hamas as the JV (Junior Varsity) or “red shirts” as opposed to the Hezbollah “Varsity” or “blue shirts,” and “Hajj Radwan” is the coach of both. In another Report to the Party, he expressed his admiration for their ability reporting that, “they are proving day after day that they are powerful people capable of facing all challenges.”

During Mughinyeh’s scores of tutorials, Israel was tipped off by certain Palestinians who had met with Imad and who knew or suspected his real identity from “the old days” when Imad spent years with the PLO and was close to Arafat and his inner circle. Most people, even those who worked closely with him, did not know his true identity and he tried to keep it that way even avoiding his home village where half the residents are Mughinyehs. Yet, some who met with him remembered him and ultimately betrayed him.

Some, including this observer, theorize this is why Mughinyeh was killed, almost certainly with the help of Syrians in Israel’s employ since every individual allowed in the Damascus “special security zone” where the killing occurred was closely vetted, examined and then carefully watched. A “full report” on the assassination was claimed to have been made by the Syrian government, which promised to release it within a few days. In two weeks the report will be exactly one year past the promised release date and no one claims to have seen it.

Yet Hajj Radwan is said to have helped revamp Hamas’ military command and replaced certain elements. One subject Mughinyeh is said to have stressed to Hamas during such meetings was the importance of “the communications network as a strategic weapon,” which included Hamas keeping in direct battlefield contact with other Resistance groups fighting Israel, and advising Hamas on ways of fighting Israel using a number of different tactics and bases in locations in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, according to the authoritative Beirut daily Al Akbar.

One of his communications to superiors in Hezbollah is said to have reported: “The way the bottom of the earth was transformed in (areas) around the Strip and inside cities indicates that if determination and leadership was provided to them (the Palestinians), they would achieve what hasn’t been achieved before.”

Other lessons Mughinyeh offered Hamas, based on the lessons from 2006, included that each Hamas small unit of approximately five fighters should be fully equipped and must have a clear plan to fight Israeli soldiers and to wage a long war of attrition until Israel withdraws. Another included instruction on ways to stockpile weapons that would allow Hamas to have quick access to them even if Israel occupied many areas in the Gaza Strip. It is some of these pre-positioned weapons that special Israeli search units try to find in order to exhibit them for propaganda purposes.

How well Hamas has learned from Hezbollah’s experience remains to be seen. Meanwhile plenty of suspicions and speculation remain concerning exactly who killed Hezbollah’s much loved Imad Mughinyeh and why.

As Hezbollah has leveraged its 2006 victory, Hamas will likely do the same, with the losers again being the American–Israel axis, the current PA leadership, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The winners, in addition to Hamas, are once more Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Never in American history has one US administration delivered such a long and consistent string of political victories to its declared adversaries while assuring the eventual collapse of its most favored nation, and managing to turn most of the World, and its own country, against itself.

Franklin Lamb, currently based in Beirut, drafted, for HOKOK, the International Coalition against Impunity, its Complaint/Submission filed, on December 10, 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Internationally Criminal Court in The Hague. The Case charges Israel with continuing Rome Statue International crimes in Gaza and throughout Occupied Palestine. He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

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The Sources of Arabs’ Shame: Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia

Posted on January 15, 2009 by kf1

Arab Leaders

by Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar / January 10th, 2009

Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.

– Arthur Miller

It is now over two weeks since Israel started its vicious assault on Gaza resulting, so far, in close to 600 dead and thousands of injuries mostly civilians. Israel true to its nature is once again ignoring all international laws and conventions. With its usual thirst for blood of the civilians, Israel is continuing its bombing of workshops, administrative buildings, roads, bridges, fuel depots, prisons, schools and mosques; killing and injuring large number of civilians in one of the world’s most impoverished and densely populated areas of the world. The Israelis are following their old method of destroying everything that makes a society a society, the infrastructure. The collective punishment of the Palestinians for what Hamas or Islamic Jihad is supposed to be doing or has done, reminds one of the collective punishments that Nazis meted out in the occupied areas in Eastern Europe during the WWII.

International Red Cross just issued a statement condemning Israel for its brutality against civilians. 1

There are several things that seem to have shocked the Red Cross. In one episode after several days of heavy pressure from the Red Cross, several ambulances were allowed to enter a neighbourhood to evacuate the injured civilians. In one house they found 12 bodies all civilians and mostly women and children. They also found four very young children still alive next to their dead mothers, too weak to stand. They have been holed-up in the same house for close to 4 days.

Apparently the whole neighbourhood was full of dead and injured civilians with Israeli forces only 80 meters away. According to the Red Cross the Israeli forces knew of the situation and not only didn’t do anything to help the civilians, but also were stopping Red Cross from providing assistance. Representative of the Norwegian Red Cross’ People’s Action calls this a war crime.

But this is only the tip of the ice berg. The Israeli forces have begun to use civilians as human shields. According to Amnesty International Israeli forces occupy civilian houses and keep the civilians as hostages on the first floor, while they position their soldiers on the second floor; ensuring that any fire on the house (especially with anti-tank or RPG missiles) kills the civilians as well.

In yet another report, the United Nations condemned Israel for targeting civilians. The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces categorically rejected the claim by Israel that Hamas fighters were in or even near the school. Israel bombed the UN run school, killing 43 children and injuring 100.2

Israel also targets ambulances and humanitarian relief convoys in Gaza. According to UN, at least one Palestinian was killed when UN relief convoy came under fire from Israeli forces. “The attack took place on Thursday as the lorries travelled to the Erez crossing to pick up supplies that were to have been allowed in during a three-hour ceasefire.”3

The atrocities committed by Israel is a genocide of a conquered people. Gaza is a concentration camp, and no amount of PR can reduce the magnitude of this horrible crime against humanity and decency.

But Israel is Israel. She has shown that cruelty is in her nature. Here I am talking about the successive Israeli governments and not Israeli people in general. I am sure there are many in Israel that if became aware of what really is happening would not approve of it. This of course excludes the settlers and the Zionist movement. These groups like the South African white supremacists consider others to be inferior to them; or that they have the god given right to do as they please.

But states seldom are representative of their people. It is the elite and / or the governing class that makes the decisions. The state of Israel is determined to never allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. The maximum that they are willing to allow is some form of Bantustan (South African) or North American reservation (for Native Americans). With carte blanche from US and most of the European powers, Israel has been implementing this policy. Setting-up such a system takes many years. People’s spirit has to be crushed through collective punishment, economic strangulation and above all excessive and continuing violence. This has to continue for many years so the people lose hope of ever achieving anything more than what is on offer.

This of course cannot be done without the approval of other countries. Israel has the approval of the world’s most powerful nation, the United States. In addition, because of her US connections, she has managed to get a nod and a wink from the Europeans as well. So with this carte blanche in hand she has set forth to change the “reality” on the ground in her favour. By systematically settling extremists in the middle of populated Palestinian areas, she has made the creation of a viable Palestinian state almost impossible. A simple look at the map of the Palestinian territories resembles a Swiss cheese, with pockets of densely populated Palestinian areas surrounded by settlements and their protective military garrisons.

The violence both official (state sponsored) and unofficial (settlers) has been incessant. Couple this violence with economic strangulation and you will see the reasons behind the Palestinians’ anger and frustration. Any resistance is automatically branded as an act of terrorism and punished with even more violence, with US and Europeans cheering the Israelis on the side lines.

If you recall, when Georgia invaded the Russian-protected enclave of Abkhazia, and met Russian counter attack, the whole Western world, with the US at its head, condemned Russia. Pushing for UN action and even sending warships with “humanitarian” supplies. Russians did not commit one thousandth of the Israeli atrocities and we had the Georgian president and other politicians talking day and night about the horrible things the Russians were doing. Yet today, we have US and European governments sitting silently watching this genocide taking place without doing anything. US even vetoes resolutions condemning Israeli actions, forgetting that no peace is ever made possible by killing so many innocent women and children.

But whenever a power tries to relocate a group of people by force, the Newton’s Third Law of Motion comes into effect. Newton’s Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that if you try to imprison a person that person will try to break out. If you try to subjugate a people they will resist. This is the underlying causes of most liberation movements. The same applies to the Palestinians. They are resisting. We can agree or disagree with their methods, but theirs is a reaction to actions taken against them; we call this self-defence.

Israel is trying to push Palestinians into submission and in the process forcing many to leave the occupied territories. They are trying to show the Palestinians that they are alone and resistance in the face of an overwhelming force is suicide. Israel has tried this tactics before and has failed. The children that had to stay with their dead mothers for four days will not forget. The starved people of Gaza are not going to forget this barbarity; and neither shall the people of honour and conscious, regardless of their nationality, Israelis included.

But as for one of those who have followed the Israel’s actions for the past 30 years, I can say that I didn’t expect anything different from Israel. The lies and deceits are all too familiar to fall for again. The current Israeli action in Gaza was not a reaction to the recent event, but planned a year ago. Just read the New York Times article in which among others they interview a senior Israeli military officer.4

Israel is now trying to portray herself as a nation that is defending itself, while the truth is that Israel is a cruel occupying power trying to force a people out of their land. And this is being done with the help of some Arab nations; the very same nations that constantly talk about Arab and Muslim solidarity. These nations are: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The Arab Collaborators

The often asked question, when it comes to the Palestinians, is about the role of Arab countries in the Palestinian struggle for freedom. The people not familiar with the political landscape of the area often see the Middle East as two camps, Arab countries on one side and Israel on the other. The reality is totally different. Israel has seldom been alone. Beside its usual American, French, British and other staunch allies, she has had the hidden backing of several Arab countries.

For close to 30 years now, many Arab countries have been collaborating with Israel; some like Egypt (gained independence: 1922) and Jordan (gained independence: 1946) openly, while others like Saudi Arabia (founded: 1932), UAE (founded: 1972) and Kuwait (founded: 1961) from behind the scenes. The reasons for this collaboration vary from country to country but they all have one thing in common: the rulers of these countries are all dictators and need foreign protection from their own people. Some such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and UAE were put in power by the British. The founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (the kingdom is name after him) was put in power by the British. The same goes for the others, except Egypt which experienced a coup by the army officers in 1952, resulting in the ousting of the monarchy and the accompanying British influence. But the Western influence returned with Anwar Sadat. All these countries are dictatorships and all are under pressure from their people. What they cannot accept is any democratically elected form of government in their mist. They fear that if an Arab government becomes democratic they may have to become one themselves, hence losing power. One of the things that they love about Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is that he won the election not by popular vote but by popular method of rigging the election; something that these Arab leaders understand and respect.

In contrast, Hamas really represented the aspiration of the people. As soon as Mahmood Abbas’ term as president is over and he had to stand for re-election, he would surely lose. In contrast, Hamas really won the municipal elections in 2005 and the Parliamentary election in 2006. The elections were supervised by international observers, many from Europe, and US.

Palestinians were fed-up with the corrupt regime of Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah. They wanted to clean house. But as soon as Hamas took over, the US and the Europeans put an embargo on Hamas, calling it a terrorist organisation and not a peace partner. Israel closed the borders and refused to let anything into Gaza. Egypt also did the same.

What is not mentioned much in the media is that this was done with the complete approval of the Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. After all, Egypt could have opened its border for transfer of food and fuel. The reasons behind this hostility were and are that Hamas is a truly elected government and worst of all, Hamas is a branch or an off-shoot of Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

Muslim Brotherhood has a branch or related organisation in Jordan as well. Egypt and Jordan are worried that should Hamas survive and show its resistance, their people may get the idea that they can also resist the tyrannical rule of these despots. One must not forget that Muslim Brotherhood represents the only serious challenge to the Mubarak’s rule in Egypt.

Egypt

The 81 year old Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has been “president” since 1981 (28 years). He has won every election with a comfortable majority. He is much loved by his secret services. Prior to every election he arrests and imprisons all the opposition, ensuring a “clean” election. Torture is so widely used and accepted in Egypt that US outsources torturing of some its prisoners to Egypt. This alone should tell you volumes about the nature of Mubarak’s rule. He is now trying hard to crown his playboy son as his successor. But the Americans are not so sure if the son is capable of keeping the 80 million Egyptians in line and are therefore looking for alternative candidates. The head of the feared main secret service is one of the prime candidates along with some of the top generals. Challenging him is the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, enjoying grass root support from all sections of the Egyptian society including Lawyers, doctors, judges and student associations. Not surprisingly, US and Israel call Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.

By all accounts, the Muslim Brotherhood be it in Jordan, Egypt or the occupied territories such as Gaza runs a clean operation, running many charity organisations and providing services to the poor and the needy. As such wherever they are, they pose a threat to the corrupt regimes, since they provide an alternative to the people of that area.

Jordan

King Abdullah II of Jordan, born of a British mother, educated in the West, including the Jesuit Center of Georgetown University, was brought to power by the CIA. His Uncle was a long time crown price, yet after his father died in a US hospital, Madeline Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of Estate flew to Jordan to inform the Jordanians that the King on his death bed had changed his will and named his son Abdullah as his successor. The new king Abdullah II is married to the Queen Rania, a Palestinian.

The majority of this Kingdom of 5 million people are Palestinians who are not very friendly to this King. In 1967 there was a Palestinian uprising (led by the PLO) against King Hussein (ruled: 1952-1999, the father of the current king), which resulted in heavy casualties among Palestinians. In addition, the Kingdom is currently full of Iraqi refugees who resent the King’s help to the Americans in invasion of their country. On top of all this, we have the Muslim Brotherhood which tries hard to abolish the monarchy. King Abdullah relies heavily on the US support and backing for staying in power. King Abdullah also sees a natural ally in Israel, a country that can come to its aid in case of another uprising.

Saudi Arabia (House of Saud)

I don’t have to tell you much about Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is run by the 84 year old, ailing Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. His personal wealth is estimated at $21 billion USD. He rules a clan of 8000 princes who in turn rule the country. Saudi Arabia is the centre of corruption in the Arab world. The Saudi rulers corrupt everything with their money. Lacking the necessary mental power or physical courage, they try to stay in power by subterfuge, lies, and deception. They fund the real extremists on the one hand while portraying themselves as the protectors of the Western interest on the other. They preach intolerance and xenophobia to their people decrying the Western decadence, while spending a lot of time enjoying the life in the West. They pay the West for protection against their own people and they pay the extremists to do their fighting elsewhere. Saudi rulers are indeed the worst of them all.

House of Saud is also the financier of the so called Arab Moderates and the extremism that they cause. House of Saud financed the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. They later financed the Taliban. They also paid Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. Then they paid the Americans and Egyptians to fight Saddam Hussein. They are the financiers of death and misery. They finance anything, anywhere, as long as this reduces the threat to their illegitimate rule. They are currently financing the civil war in Somalia, bandits in Baluchistan (Pakistan and Iran) and god knows what else. They are detested by their own people and neighbours yet loved by Bush, Cheney and the oil companies. As long as they provide the money and oil the US is willing to tolerate them. And guess what? The Muslim Brotherhood hates the House of Saud too. This makes them a threat and hence they have to be dealt with.

The Collaboration

As can be seen, each country has a selfish reason to eliminate Hamas, but each is restrained by its population. Israel has no such a restraint imposed on it. She not only can wage a terrible war, but she also gets assistance from Arab countries. Indeed it is the second time (the first was the invasion of Lebanon in 2006) that Israel is getting open and solid support from these Arab countries. The invasion of Gaza was discussed in Egypt before its implementation. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are Israel’s active partners.

Egypt is actively involved in stopping all aids from getting to Palestinians in Gaza save a token few trucks. These few trucks are allowed to go through so they can be filmed and shown to Egyptian people. All demonstrations are banned, and all Egyptian volunteers for Gaza are either arrested or sent back.

There are hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the Muslim world that are willing to go to the aid of the Palestinians, but the Egyptian authorities don’t allow them passage. Egyptians even stop medical aid from passing through their territory. This is part of a report from Associated Press:

RAFAH, Egypt: Frustration is mounting at Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, where many local and foreign doctors are stuck after Egyptian authorities denied them entry into the coastal area now under an Israeli ground invasion.

Anesthesiologist Dimitrios Mognie from Greece idles his time at a cafe near the border, drinking tea and chatting with other doctors, aid workers and curious Egyptians.

“This is a shame,” said Mognie, who decided to use his vacation time to try help Gazans. He thought entering through Egypt, which has a narrow border with the Hamas-ruled strip, was his best bet.

“That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won’t let us. This is crazy,” he added.5

In addition there are many Iranian cargo planes full of food and medicine which have been sitting on the tarmacs in Egypt for days waiting for permission to deliver their cargo. Egyptians even denied the medical aid sent by the son of the Libyan President Qaddafi to land in Egypt.6

One thing is clear: these three countries do not want the Israelis to fail in their mission of totally destroying Gaza. Hosni Mubarak said so himself. The daily Haaretz reported that Hosni Mubarak had told European ministers on a peace mission that Hamas must not be allowed to win the ongoing war in Gaza.

As Egypt physically aids the Israeli military by denying food, fuel and medicine to the civilians, the House of Saud helps Israel by giving her time and diplomatic cover. When Israel started its invasion there was an immediate call for an Arab summit. Saudi Arabia and Jordan (along with Egypt of course) delayed the summit. The Saudis along with the UAE said that they had another meeting to attend to and therefore Palestinian issue had to wait. After a few days when the summit was eventually held, they issued the same old statements. Yet this time same as the Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, they blamed the victims. In a statement, Saudi Arabia blamed Hamas for Israel’s continuing offensive in the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia, after blaming Hamas, declared that it will not even consider an oil embargo on Israel’s supporters. She then again blamed Hamas.

By this time, the three Arab countries along with Kuwait and UAE began singing the old song: international community is not doing anything about the catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza. It seems that these Arab tyrants have no shame at all. This reminds me of a quote from Marquis De Sade (1740-1814): “One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.”

These Arab leaders (many are indeed too old to blush) are complicit in the murder of so many civilians, especially young children. According to Agence France-Presse, quoting the medics on the ground, fully one third of all people killed have been children.7 How can these Arab leaders justify this to their people?

The answer is that they cannot. Israel knows this and for the second time can show the Arab street that their leaders are nothing but a bunch of old hypocrites. These Arab leaders are now exposed and can do nothing but to cooperate fully with Israel and US. What stand between them and their people’s rage is their army and secret services; which in turn are supported by US.

Israel has cleverly exposed these leaders for what they are: collaborators of the worst kind. These Arab leaders have brought an unimaginable shame to their people. To quote Lucien Bouchard: I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit. Our hope is now with the people of these countries to clean this stain from their honour.

  1. ABC News Norway. “Røde Kors sjokkert over Israel,” (Red Cross Shocked by Israel), 8 January 2009. [↩]
  2. Aljazeera.net. “UN: No fighters in targeted school,” 8 January 2009. [↩]
  3. Aljazeera.net. “Israel fires on UN Gaza convoy,” 8 January 2009. [↩]
  4. nytimes.com. “For Israel, 2006 Lessons but Old Pitfalls,” 7 January 2009. [↩]
  5. The Associated Press. “Doctors stuck at bottleneck on Egypt-Gaza border,” 6 January 2009. [↩]
  6. google.com: hosted news. “Egypt denies Kadhafi’s son permission to land at airport,” 6 January 2009. [↩]
  7. Agence France-Presse. “Children make up third of Gaza dead,” 7 January 2009. [↩]

Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a management consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He’s a former associate professor of Nordland University, Norway and can be contacted at: Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no. Read other articles by Dr. Abbas.

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