I did not say the Jews do not have the right to any land. The original Jews living there owned land and lived in relative peace. The European Jews who fled Europe initially lived in relative peace as well but eventually ended up displacing many Palestinians through terror or force. This is documented history (Look up "Irgun" for one). The British obviously have a big hand in this problem. The Americans in the early days had a "one Arab state" idea for the middle east but ended up going into isolation which allowed the British and French to take over and divide causing all the problems.
Regarding all the peace agreements in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, they have all been biased towards Israel. The reason for this is because America does not supply the neutrality required. This has caused Palestinians to constantly reject the solutions (Oslo is a sham). The 1948 UN partition should have been accepted by the Arabs in those days but the massive displacement of Palestinians caused much anger which led to lack of good judgement. The Arabs should have realised they were only going to lose more from then on because the whole world has an interest in their resources.
Finally, the middle east is in the state its in because of all the Western meddling. As long as it continues there wont be any solutions. You say the middle east is controlled by muftis or terrorists, that is not correct. The Middle East is controlled by dictators placed their by the West to keep the populace under control. The populace is slowly but surely rebelling and adhering to religion for one to overcome the tyranny. This gives the clerics power to influence. The cycle has already been completed in Iran. In Saudi Arabia, the clerics and dictators (Royals) get along so no need for rebellion. In Eygpt and Syria, the dictators are still prospering and constantly crushing the "Muslim brotherhood".
'In a stunning admission, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser said that the purpose of the Israeli government's policy was to supend diplomatic moves to establish a Palestinian state. "The significance of the 'disengagement' plan is the freezing of the peace process," Dov Weissglas told Haaretz.
Weissglas, an initiator of the plan, explained that the deep freeze would prevent implementation of the "Road Map" backed by the Quartet of the United States, Russia, EU and UN: "when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."
"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," he said. "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
Asked by Haaretz's Ari Shavit why the disengagement plan had been hatched, Weisglass replied: "Because in the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support. And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest young people."
Weisglass trumpets that the main achievement of the Gaza plan was the freezing of the peace process in a "legitimate manner."
"That is exactly what happened," he said. "You know, the term 'peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... [W]hat I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."
Sharon, he said, could also argue "honestly" that the disengagement plan was "a serious move because of which, out of 240,000 settlers, 190,000 will not be moved from their place."
The full interview will appear in Haaretz on Friday.
Israel is targeting key Hamas locations, not random innocent people.
Ariel Sharon's fence between Gaza and Israel has saved millions of lives. Israel has done right by them. The world blaming them for defending against a preemptive strike, and continued militant attacks, from Hamas is pure ignorance.
Sure, Israel is just targeting key Hamas locations like a U.N safe house full of women and children, and the Israeli authorities have admitted there were no Hamas fighters in the vicinity. A war crime, pure and simple. Also shelling residential areas. That is also a war crime.
And the separattion barrier is illegal under international and constitutes a crime against humanity.
For anyone interested in some more info on the legality of the wall, the following are useful:
I already said arabs outnumbered the jews. That doesn't remove the fact that the jews still have ancestral ties to Palestine. Just cos there were more Arabs doesn't mean they don't have a right to any of the land.
Jews didn't forcibly create Israel..The leader of the zionist movement didn't even think it was possible, he knew their own powerlessness. You want to lay blame on anyone for that one, look to the brit's..They are the ones who took over the Palestinian lands.
And I never said anyone, Israel, Hamas, PLO, whomever, were not guilty of atrocities. Quite the opposite, I fully support charges for war crimes and I've said as much already. I am also very relieved Bush just disapproved their plans for to attack Iran.
saudi arabia were our allies long before Israel even was. Almost all the Islamic countries subject their people to many human rights violations. One difference is the saudi's don't tolerate terrorism. They have, since 2002, been systematically picking out known terrorists and either deporting them, or torturing them. I don't condone that method by any means, but fact remains, they are stable and don't have it out for us.
My own folk are shi'ite, but they are the minority and can't hold the kind of control the sunni's can. The only other country over there who would have the ability for such a task would be Iran, but they are entirely too unstable. I can count on one hand how many of those countries have established any form of stability since the fall of the Turks. Too many of the rest are falling under control of terrorists. You and I both know that mufti's or terrorists control the middle east, not these "governments" set up to make westerners feel better about the region.
Who cares if they are over-indulgent. That's their will. Royals worldwide live like that. What makes them any more disgusting than the rest..They still don't go around like bullies trying to take over everywhere like Israel...Yes I said Israel.
The Oslo agreement was not rejected. Israel gave the Arabs control of Gaza, Palestinian Arabs recognised the state of Israel, and then Hamas was elected.
And regarding the bombing of schools and innocents dying, what makes Israel any different from our own in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan..'25 people die in an airstrike, 2 in the crowd were terrorists.'
This news story line is becoming too frequent.
And something you said before bothers me..I do not support any war in any form. That doesn't mean I can't be a realist and know that there is still going to be war.
The Zionist movement in Europe was pressuring Britain to act hence they are also responsible; and whatever the circumstances it does not mean the initial Zionist Jews are excused from the carnage that followed (once again research "Irgun"). Its funny how you blame the British, a Palestinian cleric, an American president and so on but I am yet to see any blame on one Israeli. The occupation is what fucked things up and the continuous occupation although initiated by the British is now solely a problem Israelis should be blamed for because they are expanding it to a stage where it can't be fixed.
And yes I mentioned the Arabs rejecting the 1948 Partition plan but that does not mean they are to be blamed for it. There is reasonable objection to just giving someone else your land. What I did say is that they should of realised they will only lose more because the whole world will be against them.
As for the ceasefires, most of the times they were actually broken by Israel, including this last one which caused the Gaza carnage (see the previous Fisk article I posted). The Israelis press for ceasefires yet continually suffocate the Palestinians until they react and once they do they play the sympathy vote around the world.
and excuse me, where do you get your facts? Wahhabism is not the fastest growing, its the Shi'ites; and no they don't get along that well either. Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia are not treated as well as Sunni muslims. Not to mention the problems which resulted from Saudi Arabia funding Iraq against Iran in the 1980-1988 war.
Finally, you should stop saying "as I said before" when you actually haven't said it before.
byrnzie-I already talked about how Israel should be charged with war crimes..I'm not getting into it anew with someone else.
Nok-reread my posts if you think I have not laid any blame on Israelis for anything. I did, for several things on several occassions.
Anytime I say "I've said before" it's cos I did..Not my problem if you don't care to go back and reread. shi'a is growing, but not at the rate of Wahhabism on a global scale, and I never said they got along. I'm over this, just the same thing getting regurgitated over and over.
You'll say I can't come up with anymore arguements or realised I can't win, and make a post stating something contradicting mine to show me how wrong I am..Fine by me.
Have fun.
You criticized Israel once and it was for bombing the school, for the occupation on the other hand you criticized Britian and Al-Hussieni. Shi'ites are out-growing Sunni muslims altogether including one of its divisions (Wahhabism). Not to mention that there are two forms of Wahhabism: Saudi Arabian and another form which is less strict.
The wounded and sick, as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object of particular protection and respect.
As far as military considerations allow, each Party to the conflict shall facilitate the steps taken to search for the killed and wounded, to assist the shipwrecked and other persons exposed to grave danger, and to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment.
Article 17
The Parties to the conflict shall endeavour to conclude local agreements for the removal from besieged or encircled areas, of wounded, sick, infirm, and aged persons, children and maternity cases, and for the passage of ministers of all religions, medical personnel and medical equipment on their way to such areas.
Article 21
Convoys of vehicles or hospital trains on land or specially provided vessels on sea, conveying wounded and sick civilians, the infirm and maternity cases, shall be respected and protected in the same manner as the hospitals provided for in Article 18, and shall be marked, with the consent of the State, by the display of the distinctive emblem provided for in Article 38 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949.
Article 49
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
Article 53
Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.
'...UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.
In the course of a war launched by Arab countries that sought to prevent the implementation of the UN partition resolution, Israel enlarged its territory by 50 per cent. If it is illegal to acquire territory as a result of war, then the question now cannot conceivably be how much additional Palestinian territory Israel may confiscate, but rather how much of the territory it acquired in the course of the war of 1948 it is allowed to retain. At the very least, if ‘adjustments’ are to be made to the 1949 armistice line, these should be made on Israel’s side of that line, not the Palestinians’...
....the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians agreed at the Camp David summit to adjustments to the pre-1967 border that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers – about 70 per cent – to remain within the Jewish state, provided they received comparable territory on Israel’s side of the border. Barak rejected this. To be sure, in the past the Palestinian demand of a right of return was a serious obstacle to a peace agreement. But the Arab League’s peace initiative of 2002 leaves no doubt that Arab countries will accept a nominal and symbolic return of refugees into Israel in numbers approved by Israel, with the overwhelming majority repatriated in the new Palestinian state, their countries of residence, or in other countries prepared to receive them....
...What is required for a breakthrough is the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution affirming the following: 1. Changes to the pre-1967 situation can be made only by agreement between the parties. Unilateral measures will not receive international recognition. 2. The default setting of Resolution 242, reiterated by Resolution 338, the 1973 ceasefire resolution, is a return by Israel’s occupying forces to the pre-1967 border. 3. If the parties do not reach agreement within 12 months (the implementation of agreements will obviously take longer), the default setting will be invoked by the Security Council. The Security Council will then adopt its own terms for an end to the conflict, and will arrange for an international force to enter the occupied territories to help establish the rule of law, assist Palestinians in building their institutions, assure Israel’s security by preventing cross-border violence, and monitor and oversee the implementation of terms for an end to the conflict.
If the US and its allies were to take a stand forceful enough to persuade Israel that it will not be allowed to make changes to the pre-1967 situation except by agreement with the Palestinians in permanent status negotiations, there would be no need for complicated peace formulas or celebrity mediators to get a peace process underway. The only thing that an envoy such as Blair can do to put the peace process back on track is to speak the truth about the real impediment to peace. This would also be a historic contribution to the Jewish state, since Israel’s only hope of real long-term security is to have a successful Palestinian state as its neighbour.'
Israel hits UN refugee agency in GazaRelief and Works Agency compound and hospital on fire after artillery attacks guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009 10.47 GMT
'The headquarters of the UN refugee agency and a hospital in Gaza were on fire today after being struck by Israeli artillery, injuring several people, a UN spokesman and witnesses said.
The compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency was hit by what appeared to be three white phosphorous shells, with three people known to have been hurt, a spokesman for the organisation, Chris Gunness, said. It was on fire, with large amounts of aid supplies, including fuel trucks, at risk, he added.
The compound has been serving as a shelter for hundreds of people fleeing the 20-day Israeli offensive. It was not clear if any people remained inside.
Another UN spokesman in Gaza told the AFP news agency that the organisation was suspending its relief operations following the attack.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who is in Israel today on the latest leg of a peace mission, expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the attack on the UN building and called for an investigation. Speaking in Jerusalem, Ban said he had been told by Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, that the shelling was a "grave mistake".
Separately, AFP quoted witnesses as saying that a wing of the Al-Quds hospital in south-west Gaza, where hundreds more people had taken shelter early today from advancing Israeli tanks, was on fire after being struck. It was not clear if there were any injuries.
Even as the first signs of progress towards a ceasefire emerged from Egyptian-led negotiations, Israel increased the intensity of its offensive, striking dozens of sites across Gaza overnight and today.
Reuters reported that a missile or shell had struck the Gaza tower block where the news agency and other media organisations have offices. The 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower, which houses Abu Dhabi television, appeared to have been hit, injuring one of its journalists.
Israeli forces were reported to be closing in on the outskirts of Gaza City, forcing thousands more Palestinians to flee their homes. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks fired shells at at least three high-rise buildings in downtown Gaza City.
It is not clear whether this morning's offensive marks another major escalation in the conflict or a brief foray – so far Israel has avoided sending grounds troops into the heart of Gaza City.
A senior Israeli defence ministry official, Amos Gilad, was due in Cairo to assess an Egyptian proposal for an initial 10-day ceasefire. Hamas reportedly agreed in principle to a ceasefire but last night the Islamist movement submitted its own conditions.
"There is no disagreement with the Egyptian leadership. The issue is differences over how to deal with the Zionist enemy through the clauses of this initiative," said Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas official.
With the Palestinian death toll now above 1,000, Israeli tanks again pressed deep into the Tel al-Hawa suburb in the southern area of Gaza City overnight. There was more heavy fighting to the east of the city, which is now effectively surrounded. One set of air strikes ignited a large fire in northern Gaza which burned for several hours, sending a thick cloud of acrid black smoke into the sky. An airstrike killed three people close to the apparently-empty home of the senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar.
The Israeli military said it struck 70 sites across Gaza overnight, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah, which it said was used to store rockets. At least 11 soldiers were injured. Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least 15 rockets into southern Israel early today, though there were no reports of injuries.
The Palestinian death toll rose to 1,028, with around 4,700 injured. On the Israeli side, 13 people have been killed, among them three civilians.
An Israeli decision on whether to accept the ceasefire or escalate the offensive will not come until Gilad has returned to Israel and briefed senior political leaders. Israel wants to ensure that Hamas halts its rocket fire and is unable to rearm itself in future.
The Egyptian proposal, which has been discussed for several days, appears to begin with a ceasefire of a week or 10 days, during which all fighting would stop but Israeli troops would remain on the ground in Gaza. Talks would then be held on the more difficult questions of stopping the smuggling of weapons to Hamas and lifting Israel's long economic blockade of the Gaza Strip.
However, it is thought Hamas's conditions for any deal would probably include an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces the moment a ceasefire begins. That may prove too much for Israel to accept. Hamas also wants an Israeli commitment to lift the blockade on crossings into Israel, and to open the Rafah crossing into Egypt, and it wants the ceasefire to be limited to six months or a year.'
'...John Ging, the director of operations for the UN relief agency, UNRWA, in Gaza described the Israeli claim about a Hamas presence as "nonsense". He added: "It's a total disaster for us." Mr Ging said the UN had warned the Israelis the compound was in danger from shelling that had begun overnight, and provided them with GPS co-ordinates to prevent an attack.
The Al-Quds hospital was also hit by shellfire when Israeli tanks moved further into the city. A tower housing the Reuters agency and other media outlets was also hit. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the Al Quds hospital is "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law".
The hospital is in the Tal Hawa district, a packed residential area. Streams of people fled from the fighting, carrying what belongings they could on foot, by car, and, in some cases wheelbarrows after homes were demolished and set ablaze. Mahmud Tejan Hussein drove away with seven members of his family. "Bullets started hitting our house and I decided that we must get away from here. There are Israeli tanks in the area now and we might get blocked off if we wait. But I do not know where we are going to go. We wanted to go to the UN office, but that has been attacked. Wherever we go, the fighting will follow us."...'
'The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel's ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel's war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides... against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Professor Gilbert Achcar, Development Studies, SOAS
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Politics and International Studies, SOAS
Dr. Nadje Al-Ali, Gender Studies, SOAS
Professor Eric Alliez, Philosophy, Middlesex University
Dr. Jens Andermann, Latin American Studies, Birkbeck
Dr. Jorella Andrews, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths
Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson, Philosophy, University of Warwick
John Appleby, writer
Dr. Claudia Aradau, Politics, Open University
Dr. Walter Armbrust, Politics, University of Oxford
Dr. Andrew Asibong, French, Birkbeck
Professor Derek Attridge, English, University of York
Burjor Avari, lecturer in Multicultural Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr. Zulkuf Aydin, International Development, University of Leeds
Dr. Claude Baesens, Mathematics, University of Warwick
Dr. Jennifer Bajorek, Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths
Professor Mona Baker, Centre for Translation Studies, University of Manchester
Jon Baldwin, lecturer in Communications, London Metropolitan University
Professor Etienne Balibar, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities
Dr. Trevor Bark, Criminology, WEA Newcastle
Dr. Susan Batchelor, Sociology, Glasgow University
Dr. David Bell, Tavistock Clinic and British Psychoanalytic Society
Dr. Anna Bernard, English, University of York
Professor Henry Bernstein, Development Studies, SOAS
Anindya Bhattacharyya, writer and journalist
Dr. Ian Biddle, Music, Newcastle University
Sana Bilgrami, filmmaker and lecturer, Napier University, Edinburgh
Professor Jon Bird, School of Arts & Education, Middlesex University
Nicholas Blincoe, writer
Dr. Jelke Boesten, Development Studies, University of Leeds
Dr. Julia Borossa, Psychoanalysis, Middlesex University
Dr. Mark Bould, Film Studies, UWE
Dr. Mehdi Boussebaa, Said Business School, University of Oxford
Professor Wissam Boustany, Trinity College of Music, London
Professor Bill Bowring, Law, Birkbeck
Dr. Alia Brahimi, Politics, University of Oxford
Professor Haim Bresheeth, Media Studies, University of East London
Professor John D Brewer, Sociology, Aberdeen
Victoria Brittain, writer and journalist
Professor Celia Britton, French, UCL
Professor Charles Brook, Paediatric Endocrinology, UCL
Dr. Muriel Brown, writer
Professor Ian Buchanan, Critical and Cultural Theory, University of Cardiff
Professor Ray Bush, African Studies and Development Politics, University of Leeds
Professor Alex Callinicos, European Studies, KCL
Dr. Conor Carville, Irish Studies, St. Mary's University College
Professor Noel Castree, Geography, University of Manchester
Matthew Caygill, lecturer in History and Politics, Leeds Metropolitan University
Dr. Rinella Cere, Arts, Design, Communication and Media, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. John Chalcraft, Government, LSE
Dr. Claire Chambers, English Literature, Leeds Metropolitan University....
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
---
Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.
War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields
by Michel Chossudovsky
The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon's Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).
The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).
The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.
The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine's gas reserves could be much larger.
Who Owns the Gas Fields
The issue of sovereignty over Gaza's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.
The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza's offshore gas reserves.
British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.
The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine's sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.
In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza's offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)
The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.
In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.
The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.
Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:
"Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)
The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.
Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza's offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.
The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:
"Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror". (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on "The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas," March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza's Coastal Waters Threaten Israel's National Security? Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)
Israel's intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).
Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board
The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under "Operation Cast Lead" was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:
"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)
That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza's natural gas:
"Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel's wish to renew the talks.
The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel's request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials." (Globes online- Israel's Business Arena, June 23, 2008)
The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.
Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new "post war" political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.
In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.
In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG's offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)
"Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government's decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.
The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender." (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)
Gaza and Energy Geopolitics
The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.
What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?
What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine's Natural Gas reserves?
A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or "peacekeeping" troops?
The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?
The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza's maritime areas?
If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel's offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above).
These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel's energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport - pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. "What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006)
Here in Toronto the Jewish lovlies want to stop people from protesting because they don't like it. When will they realize that they may be the "chosen" ones in their own eyes but there are a lot more eyes on the planet then them. They should ask their god why it bothered creating more then just them if that god thought that they would have this much trouble living in peace.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
'...we cannot escape the consequences of our system of beliefs. One who supports an ideology of racism and militarist expansionism cannot ignore the suffering that results. Despite the protestations of the Zionist left that Zionism should be taken back to its pure, just roots, Zionism is a captive of its own tragic flaws. There is no such thing as a "just Zionism," just as there is no such thing as a "just white supremacism" or "just colonialism." A system that enshrines bigotry, that establishes one people as the chosen people of a state, whatever the putative justifications, cannot but discriminate and oppress...'
Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza'a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had "no information that this alleged incident took place", witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B'Tselem.
I deleted my posts to clean out my head of stresses, I have enough of that already...Anyone interested in this thread has already seen them, so obviously I'm deleting them for myself, and myself alone.
Besides, most were quoted in other posts anyways, and those show I did blame Isreal not only for the bombing the school, but also how they should be punished for war crimes, including that of taking out aid trucks, and even called them bullies trying to control other arab countries.
so no, it wasn't just once. That is the only thing I wanted to clarify.
Comments
Regarding all the peace agreements in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, they have all been biased towards Israel. The reason for this is because America does not supply the neutrality required. This has caused Palestinians to constantly reject the solutions (Oslo is a sham). The 1948 UN partition should have been accepted by the Arabs in those days but the massive displacement of Palestinians caused much anger which led to lack of good judgement. The Arabs should have realised they were only going to lose more from then on because the whole world has an interest in their resources.
Finally, the middle east is in the state its in because of all the Western meddling. As long as it continues there wont be any solutions. You say the middle east is controlled by muftis or terrorists, that is not correct. The Middle East is controlled by dictators placed their by the West to keep the populace under control. The populace is slowly but surely rebelling and adhering to religion for one to overcome the tyranny. This gives the clerics power to influence. The cycle has already been completed in Iran. In Saudi Arabia, the clerics and dictators (Royals) get along so no need for rebellion. In Eygpt and Syria, the dictators are still prospering and constantly crushing the "Muslim brotherhood".
Is Gaza a testing ground for experimental weapons?
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20244
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/D ... y/4222.htm
Key Sharon advisor: "disengagement" aims to stop Palestinian state
By Israel Insider staff and partners October 6, 2004
'In a stunning admission, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser said that the purpose of the Israeli government's policy was to supend diplomatic moves to establish a Palestinian state. "The significance of the 'disengagement' plan is the freezing of the peace process," Dov Weissglas told Haaretz.
Weissglas, an initiator of the plan, explained that the deep freeze would prevent implementation of the "Road Map" backed by the Quartet of the United States, Russia, EU and UN: "when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."
"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," he said. "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
Asked by Haaretz's Ari Shavit why the disengagement plan had been hatched, Weisglass replied: "Because in the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support. And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest young people."
Weisglass trumpets that the main achievement of the Gaza plan was the freezing of the peace process in a "legitimate manner."
"That is exactly what happened," he said. "You know, the term 'peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... [W]hat I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."
Sharon, he said, could also argue "honestly" that the disengagement plan was "a serious move because of which, out of 240,000 settlers, 190,000 will not be moved from their place."
The full interview will appear in Haaretz on Friday.
Sure, Israel is just targeting key Hamas locations like a U.N safe house full of women and children, and the Israeli authorities have admitted there were no Hamas fighters in the vicinity. A war crime, pure and simple. Also shelling residential areas. That is also a war crime.
And the separattion barrier is illegal under international and constitutes a crime against humanity.
For anyone interested in some more info on the legality of the wall, the following are useful:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/fence_btselem.pdf
Behind the Barrier
Human Rights Violations As a Result of Israel's Separation Barrier
Position Paper
April 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2890.shtml
International Court Rules Against Israel's Wall
Report, ICJ, 9 July 2004
dime-that shit causes cancer if it doesn't kill. or it melts your arm. and Israel is using that shit on civilians? fuck.
The Zionist movement in Europe was pressuring Britain to act hence they are also responsible; and whatever the circumstances it does not mean the initial Zionist Jews are excused from the carnage that followed (once again research "Irgun"). Its funny how you blame the British, a Palestinian cleric, an American president and so on but I am yet to see any blame on one Israeli. The occupation is what fucked things up and the continuous occupation although initiated by the British is now solely a problem Israelis should be blamed for because they are expanding it to a stage where it can't be fixed.
And yes I mentioned the Arabs rejecting the 1948 Partition plan but that does not mean they are to be blamed for it. There is reasonable objection to just giving someone else your land. What I did say is that they should of realised they will only lose more because the whole world will be against them.
As for the ceasefires, most of the times they were actually broken by Israel, including this last one which caused the Gaza carnage (see the previous Fisk article I posted). The Israelis press for ceasefires yet continually suffocate the Palestinians until they react and once they do they play the sympathy vote around the world.
and excuse me, where do you get your facts? Wahhabism is not the fastest growing, its the Shi'ites; and no they don't get along that well either. Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia are not treated as well as Sunni muslims. Not to mention the problems which resulted from Saudi Arabia funding Iraq against Iran in the 1980-1988 war.
Finally, you should stop saying "as I said before" when you actually haven't said it before.
You criticized Israel once and it was for bombing the school, for the occupation on the other hand you criticized Britian and Al-Hussieni. Shi'ites are out-growing Sunni muslims altogether including one of its divisions (Wahhabism). Not to mention that there are two forms of Wahhabism: Saudi Arabian and another form which is less strict.
Enjoy.
The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm
Article 16
The wounded and sick, as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object of particular protection and respect.
As far as military considerations allow, each Party to the conflict shall facilitate the steps taken to search for the killed and wounded, to assist the shipwrecked and other persons exposed to grave danger, and to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment.
Article 17
The Parties to the conflict shall endeavour to conclude local agreements for the removal from besieged or encircled areas, of wounded, sick, infirm, and aged persons, children and maternity cases, and for the passage of ministers of all religions, medical personnel and medical equipment on their way to such areas.
Article 21
Convoys of vehicles or hospital trains on land or specially provided vessels on sea, conveying wounded and sick civilians, the infirm and maternity cases, shall be respected and protected in the same manner as the hospitals provided for in Article 18, and shall be marked, with the consent of the State, by the display of the distinctive emblem provided for in Article 38 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949.
Article 49
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
Article 53
Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.
The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam
Henry Siegman
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html
'...UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.
In the course of a war launched by Arab countries that sought to prevent the implementation of the UN partition resolution, Israel enlarged its territory by 50 per cent. If it is illegal to acquire territory as a result of war, then the question now cannot conceivably be how much additional Palestinian territory Israel may confiscate, but rather how much of the territory it acquired in the course of the war of 1948 it is allowed to retain. At the very least, if ‘adjustments’ are to be made to the 1949 armistice line, these should be made on Israel’s side of that line, not the Palestinians’...
....the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians agreed at the Camp David summit to adjustments to the pre-1967 border that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers – about 70 per cent – to remain within the Jewish state, provided they received comparable territory on Israel’s side of the border. Barak rejected this. To be sure, in the past the Palestinian demand of a right of return was a serious obstacle to a peace agreement. But the Arab League’s peace initiative of 2002 leaves no doubt that Arab countries will accept a nominal and symbolic return of refugees into Israel in numbers approved by Israel, with the overwhelming majority repatriated in the new Palestinian state, their countries of residence, or in other countries prepared to receive them....
...What is required for a breakthrough is the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution affirming the following: 1. Changes to the pre-1967 situation can be made only by agreement between the parties. Unilateral measures will not receive international recognition. 2. The default setting of Resolution 242, reiterated by Resolution 338, the 1973 ceasefire resolution, is a return by Israel’s occupying forces to the pre-1967 border. 3. If the parties do not reach agreement within 12 months (the implementation of agreements will obviously take longer), the default setting will be invoked by the Security Council. The Security Council will then adopt its own terms for an end to the conflict, and will arrange for an international force to enter the occupied territories to help establish the rule of law, assist Palestinians in building their institutions, assure Israel’s security by preventing cross-border violence, and monitor and oversee the implementation of terms for an end to the conflict.
If the US and its allies were to take a stand forceful enough to persuade Israel that it will not be allowed to make changes to the pre-1967 situation except by agreement with the Palestinians in permanent status negotiations, there would be no need for complicated peace formulas or celebrity mediators to get a peace process underway. The only thing that an envoy such as Blair can do to put the peace process back on track is to speak the truth about the real impediment to peace. This would also be a historic contribution to the Jewish state, since Israel’s only hope of real long-term security is to have a successful Palestinian state as its neighbour.'
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009 10.47 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... ruce-talks
'The headquarters of the UN refugee agency and a hospital in Gaza were on fire today after being struck by Israeli artillery, injuring several people, a UN spokesman and witnesses said.
The compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency was hit by what appeared to be three white phosphorous shells, with three people known to have been hurt, a spokesman for the organisation, Chris Gunness, said. It was on fire, with large amounts of aid supplies, including fuel trucks, at risk, he added.
The compound has been serving as a shelter for hundreds of people fleeing the 20-day Israeli offensive. It was not clear if any people remained inside.
Another UN spokesman in Gaza told the AFP news agency that the organisation was suspending its relief operations following the attack.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who is in Israel today on the latest leg of a peace mission, expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the attack on the UN building and called for an investigation. Speaking in Jerusalem, Ban said he had been told by Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, that the shelling was a "grave mistake".
Separately, AFP quoted witnesses as saying that a wing of the Al-Quds hospital in south-west Gaza, where hundreds more people had taken shelter early today from advancing Israeli tanks, was on fire after being struck. It was not clear if there were any injuries.
Even as the first signs of progress towards a ceasefire emerged from Egyptian-led negotiations, Israel increased the intensity of its offensive, striking dozens of sites across Gaza overnight and today.
Reuters reported that a missile or shell had struck the Gaza tower block where the news agency and other media organisations have offices. The 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower, which houses Abu Dhabi television, appeared to have been hit, injuring one of its journalists.
Israeli forces were reported to be closing in on the outskirts of Gaza City, forcing thousands more Palestinians to flee their homes. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks fired shells at at least three high-rise buildings in downtown Gaza City.
It is not clear whether this morning's offensive marks another major escalation in the conflict or a brief foray – so far Israel has avoided sending grounds troops into the heart of Gaza City.
A senior Israeli defence ministry official, Amos Gilad, was due in Cairo to assess an Egyptian proposal for an initial 10-day ceasefire. Hamas reportedly agreed in principle to a ceasefire but last night the Islamist movement submitted its own conditions.
"There is no disagreement with the Egyptian leadership. The issue is differences over how to deal with the Zionist enemy through the clauses of this initiative," said Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas official.
With the Palestinian death toll now above 1,000, Israeli tanks again pressed deep into the Tel al-Hawa suburb in the southern area of Gaza City overnight. There was more heavy fighting to the east of the city, which is now effectively surrounded. One set of air strikes ignited a large fire in northern Gaza which burned for several hours, sending a thick cloud of acrid black smoke into the sky. An airstrike killed three people close to the apparently-empty home of the senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar.
The Israeli military said it struck 70 sites across Gaza overnight, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah, which it said was used to store rockets. At least 11 soldiers were injured. Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least 15 rockets into southern Israel early today, though there were no reports of injuries.
The Palestinian death toll rose to 1,028, with around 4,700 injured. On the Israeli side, 13 people have been killed, among them three civilians.
An Israeli decision on whether to accept the ceasefire or escalate the offensive will not come until Gilad has returned to Israel and briefed senior political leaders. Israel wants to ensure that Hamas halts its rocket fire and is unable to rearm itself in future.
The Egyptian proposal, which has been discussed for several days, appears to begin with a ceasefire of a week or 10 days, during which all fighting would stop but Israeli troops would remain on the ground in Gaza. Talks would then be held on the more difficult questions of stopping the smuggling of weapons to Hamas and lifting Israel's long economic blockade of the Gaza Strip.
However, it is thought Hamas's conditions for any deal would probably include an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces the moment a ceasefire begins. That may prove too much for Israel to accept. Hamas also wants an Israeli commitment to lift the blockade on crossings into Israel, and to open the Rafah crossing into Egypt, and it wants the ceasefire to be limited to six months or a year.'
Pro-Israel Rally For Attacking Gaza, NYC, 1-11-09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo
Yep, of course it is. Have you read 'Alice in Wonderland'? Great little book. Turns logic on it's head, so it does. An amazing feat.
Anyway.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 80407.html
Outrage as Israel bombs UN
'...John Ging, the director of operations for the UN relief agency, UNRWA, in Gaza described the Israeli claim about a Hamas presence as "nonsense". He added: "It's a total disaster for us." Mr Ging said the UN had warned the Israelis the compound was in danger from shelling that had begun overnight, and provided them with GPS co-ordinates to prevent an attack.
The Al-Quds hospital was also hit by shellfire when Israeli tanks moved further into the city. A tower housing the Reuters agency and other media outlets was also hit. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the Al Quds hospital is "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law".
The hospital is in the Tal Hawa district, a packed residential area. Streams of people fled from the fighting, carrying what belongings they could on foot, by car, and, in some cases wheelbarrows after homes were demolished and set ablaze. Mahmud Tejan Hussein drove away with seven members of his family. "Bullets started hitting our house and I decided that we must get away from here. There are Israeli tanks in the area now and we might get blocked off if we wait. But I do not know where we are going to go. We wanted to go to the UN office, but that has been attacked. Wherever we go, the fighting will follow us."...'
Growing outrage at the killings in Gaza
The Guardian, Friday 16 January 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... -petitions
'The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel's ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel's war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides... against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Professor Gilbert Achcar, Development Studies, SOAS
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Politics and International Studies, SOAS
Dr. Nadje Al-Ali, Gender Studies, SOAS
Professor Eric Alliez, Philosophy, Middlesex University
Dr. Jens Andermann, Latin American Studies, Birkbeck
Dr. Jorella Andrews, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths
Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson, Philosophy, University of Warwick
John Appleby, writer
Dr. Claudia Aradau, Politics, Open University
Dr. Walter Armbrust, Politics, University of Oxford
Dr. Andrew Asibong, French, Birkbeck
Professor Derek Attridge, English, University of York
Burjor Avari, lecturer in Multicultural Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr. Zulkuf Aydin, International Development, University of Leeds
Dr. Claude Baesens, Mathematics, University of Warwick
Dr. Jennifer Bajorek, Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths
Professor Mona Baker, Centre for Translation Studies, University of Manchester
Jon Baldwin, lecturer in Communications, London Metropolitan University
Professor Etienne Balibar, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities
Dr. Trevor Bark, Criminology, WEA Newcastle
Dr. Susan Batchelor, Sociology, Glasgow University
Dr. David Bell, Tavistock Clinic and British Psychoanalytic Society
Dr. Anna Bernard, English, University of York
Professor Henry Bernstein, Development Studies, SOAS
Anindya Bhattacharyya, writer and journalist
Dr. Ian Biddle, Music, Newcastle University
Sana Bilgrami, filmmaker and lecturer, Napier University, Edinburgh
Professor Jon Bird, School of Arts & Education, Middlesex University
Nicholas Blincoe, writer
Dr. Jelke Boesten, Development Studies, University of Leeds
Dr. Julia Borossa, Psychoanalysis, Middlesex University
Dr. Mark Bould, Film Studies, UWE
Dr. Mehdi Boussebaa, Said Business School, University of Oxford
Professor Wissam Boustany, Trinity College of Music, London
Professor Bill Bowring, Law, Birkbeck
Dr. Alia Brahimi, Politics, University of Oxford
Professor Haim Bresheeth, Media Studies, University of East London
Professor John D Brewer, Sociology, Aberdeen
Victoria Brittain, writer and journalist
Professor Celia Britton, French, UCL
Professor Charles Brook, Paediatric Endocrinology, UCL
Dr. Muriel Brown, writer
Professor Ian Buchanan, Critical and Cultural Theory, University of Cardiff
Professor Ray Bush, African Studies and Development Politics, University of Leeds
Professor Alex Callinicos, European Studies, KCL
Dr. Conor Carville, Irish Studies, St. Mary's University College
Professor Noel Castree, Geography, University of Manchester
Matthew Caygill, lecturer in History and Politics, Leeds Metropolitan University
Dr. Rinella Cere, Arts, Design, Communication and Media, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. John Chalcraft, Government, LSE
Dr. Claire Chambers, English Literature, Leeds Metropolitan University....
By Randall Kuhn, The Washington Times
January 14, 2009
"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
---
Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=11680
War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields
by Michel Chossudovsky
The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon's Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).
The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).
The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.
The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine's gas reserves could be much larger.
Who Owns the Gas Fields
The issue of sovereignty over Gaza's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.
The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza's offshore gas reserves.
British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.
The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine's sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.
In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza's offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)
The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.
In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.
The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.
Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:
"Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)
The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.
Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza's offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.
The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:
"Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror". (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on "The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas," March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza's Coastal Waters Threaten Israel's National Security? Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)
Israel's intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).
Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board
The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under "Operation Cast Lead" was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:
"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)
That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza's natural gas:
"Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel's wish to renew the talks.
The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel's request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials." (Globes online- Israel's Business Arena, June 23, 2008)
The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.
Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new "post war" political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.
In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.
In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG's offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)
"Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government's decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.
The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender." (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)
Gaza and Energy Geopolitics
The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.
What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?
What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine's Natural Gas reserves?
A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or "peacekeeping" troops?
The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?
The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza's maritime areas?
If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel's offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above).
These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel's energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport - pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. "What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006)
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
Disengaging from Zionism - 13 September 2005
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4176.shtml
'...we cannot escape the consequences of our system of beliefs. One who supports an ideology of racism and militarist expansionism cannot ignore the suffering that results. Despite the protestations of the Zionist left that Zionism should be taken back to its pure, just roots, Zionism is a captive of its own tragic flaws. There is no such thing as a "just Zionism," just as there is no such thing as a "just white supremacism" or "just colonialism." A system that enshrines bigotry, that establishes one people as the chosen people of a state, whatever the putative justifications, cannot but discriminate and oppress...'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... a-conflict
Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza'a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had "no information that this alleged incident took place", witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B'Tselem.
Besides, most were quoted in other posts anyways, and those show I did blame Isreal not only for the bombing the school, but also how they should be punished for war crimes, including that of taking out aid trucks, and even called them bullies trying to control other arab countries.
so no, it wasn't just once. That is the only thing I wanted to clarify.