Articles by Stephen Lendman, member of the BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee.   A Short History of the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict: Past Is Prologue (09 Feb 2009) | Ceasefires, Israeli-Style (01 Feb 2009) | Israel Killed Everything but the Will to Resist  (25 Jan 2009) | Today in Solidarity We're All Palestinians (19 Jan 2009) | The Blame Game in Gaza: Covering for Israel, Concealing War Crimes (14 Jan 2009) | Remember Gaza - One of History's Terror Bombing Victims (12 Jan 2009) | The Quartet's Hypocrisy and Failure in Occupied Palestine (07 Jan 2009) | Global Human Rights Groups Protest Slaughter in Gaza (05 Jan 2009) | Blaming the Victims - The Dominant Media Vilify Hamas (02 Jan 2009) | Israel's Wanton Aggression On Gaza (29 Dec 2008)

Amnesty International: Israel's use of white phosphorus against Gaza civilians "clear and undeniable"

A Short History of the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict: Past Is Prologue

Stephen Lendman (09 Feb 2009)

Its roots are from the late 19th century when Theodor Herzl founded modern Zionism at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in 1897.

In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel writes:

Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militaralized and aggressive state. (It) cut Jews off from (their) history and led to a fateful identity of interests with antisemitism (becoming) the only thing that united them. (It) fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy."

If you accept "the idea of a Jewish state," you mix its twin notions of "particularism (and) exceptionalism (that are) the actual bane of Judaism (and give) racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character." It turns Israel "into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses," and consider three of its former prime ministers. Menachem Begin (1977 - 83), Yitzhak Shamir (1983 - 84 and 1986 - 92), and Ariel Sharon (2001 - 06) were former terrorists who dispelled the illusion of Israeli democracy, morality, and respect for human rights. Kovel's conclusion: "the world would be a far better place without (the corrosive effects of) Zionism."

Inventing a Jewish People - Creating Myths to Justify a Jewish State

Credit Tel Aviv University scholar, Shlomo Zand, for his 2008 book: "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" Forget the myths most Jewish children are taught. Biblical nonsense comprising core Zionist beliefs about Jews:

-- expelled by the ancient Romans;

-- the exodus from Egypt;

-- wandering the earth rootless;

-- enslaved, oppressed, and tormented for centuries; and

-- the notion that God bestowed a "Greater Israel" for Jews alone - the idea of "A land without people for a people without land."

Zand's view (shared by others) is that the Romans didn't expel whole nations, just small numbers from their conquered territories. Most Jews remained, converted to Islam when Arabs took over, and became progenitors of today's Palestinians.

According to Israeli journalist Tom Segev:

"There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile never happened - hence there was no return." So, if ancient Judaeans weren't expelled en masse, how were Jews scattered globally - the so-called Jewish Diaspora?

Zand believes that some emigrated voluntarily. Many more converted to Judaism. "Contrary to popular belief, Judaism was an evangelical religion that actively sought new adherents during its formative period."

Thus, if Judaism is a "religion," not a "people," how can a "Jewish state" be justified? It's not an ancient idea, according to Zand, but a late 19th century Zionist invention, "an intellectual conspiracy of sorts. It's all fiction and myth....an excuse (to justify) the State of Israel" and vilify Palestinian self-determination as a plot to destroy it.

Segev explained that "Zand did not invent (this) thesis; 30 years before (Israel's) Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (Israel's second president), and others."

Zand wrote his book for a purpose - to debunk accepted myths, Zionists who advance them, and promote the idea that Israel should be a democratic state for all its people, not just for Jews alone. Why not if Jews and Palestinians share common roots!

Early Zionists had other ideas. Its Program was: "Establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Eretz Yisrael." It began a process of:

-- settling Jewish agriculturists, artisans, and tradesmen in Palestine;

-- organizing effective action groups in various countries;

-- building Jewish consciousness and a national identity; and

-- beginning a process of gaining worldwide acceptance for a Jewish homeland.

Herzl later wrote: "At Basle, I founded the Jewish state....If not in five years, then certainly in fifty, everyone will realize it." It took 51, but transforming Palestine wasn't simple when Arabs comprised over 90% of the population.

The solution was to transfer or dispossess them, shift them to other Arab countries, deny Palestinians the right to their own land, and create a new Jewish identity, not in the Diaspora but in Palestine - to legitimize Jews as its rightful owner and justify removing indigenous Arabs.

Important also was getting Britain to go along which it did with the November 1917 Balfour Declaration "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...." It also guaranteed one to Arabs as stipulated in the October 1915 McHahon - Hussein Agreement to return Ottoman Turk land to Arab nationals post-WW I in repayment for their help in the war. Britain instead betrayed them and so did America's Woodrow Wilson.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis convinced him and Secretary of State Robert Lansing to support Zionism and British-French interests under the 1916 Sykes - Picot Agreement that carved up the region after the war.

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) presented its plan for a Jewish state. It included:

-- all Palestine;

-- South Lebanon up to Sidon and the Litani River;

-- Syria's Golan Heights, Hauran Plain and Deraa; and

-- control of the Hijaz Railway from Deraa to Amman to Maan, Jordan as well as the Gulf of Aqaba.

Other Zionists wanted more - land from the Nile in the West to the Euphrates in the East comprising Palestine, Lebanon, Western Syria and Southern Turkey.

In 1920, WW I allies met in San Remo, Italy, decided to control Ottoman lands, and agreed to a "mandatory" system. The British Mandate over Palestine began in 1920 under a Jewish High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel. He began its transformation by assuring:

-- a liberal Jewish immigration policy;

-- immediate provisional citizenship for Jews;

-- easy Jewish land acquisition at the expense of indigenous Arabs;

-- contiguous settlements to solidify a Jewish presence;

-- employment for Jewish immigrants;

-- favorable customs policies to develop Jewish commerce; and

-- partiality toward Jews overall at the expense of indigenous Arabs.

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) was very much involved. It:

-- founded the Jewish Colonial Trust in 1899 to buy land in Palestine;

-- the Anglo-Palestine (commercial) Bank and investments institute followed in 1902 within the Jewish Colonial Trust;

-- in 1901, the Jewish National Fund was established to buy and develop land;

-- in 1909, the Israel Land Development Company for the same purpose;

-- the 1907-established Eretz Yisrael Bureau assisted the project; in 1921, the Zionist Executive in Eretz Yisrael replaced it;

-- in 1920, the United Israel Appeal was founded to raise funds to finance welfare, health, education, and continued settlement projects;

-- in 1929, the Jewish Agency for Eretz Yisrael was established to represent the WZO in dealings with the British government in administering Palestine; Chaim Weizmann was its first president;

-- in 1942, the WZO's official aim was for a "Jewish Community" in Palestine; the Biltmore Program stated that "Eretz Yisrael will be based as a Jewish (only) community, to be integrated into a new democratic world."

Zionist Divisions

Divisions characterized Zionists from the start. Herzl, Chaim Weizmann (Israel's first president) and Moshe Sharett (prime minister after Ben-Gurion) favored reconciliation with the Arab world. Revisionists, on the other hand, were hard line with Ze'ev Jabotinsky their leader. In 1923, he published an article called "On the Iron Wall" in which he argued that Arab nationalists opposed a Jewish state in Palestine and wouldn't accept one. Thus peaceful coexistence was unattainable, and Jews must build "an iron wall of (superior) Jewish military force."

The idea was to discourage Arab hopes of destroying Israel followed by a second stage - a negotiated settlement in which Israel had the upper hand and could dictate terms.

Ben-Gurion sided with Jabotinsky, chose a military option, and winning the War of Independence was his vindication. Ever since, Israel stayed hard line politically and militarily. It fights and negotiates from strength, not weakness. Confrontation, not diplomacy is its strategy. It believes Arabs only understand violence, so military threats and intimidation are its options. Generals become future leaders. The cycle is mostly repeated. Washington, the West, and most Arab states go along, and military aggression is called self-defense - hence the Israel Defense Forces much like America's Department of Defense.

In a recent article, Middle East expert Joseph Massad put it this way:

"The logic goes as follows: Israel has the right to occupy Palestinian land, lay siege to (its) populations in Bantustans surrounded by an apartheid wall, starve the population, cut them off from fuel and electricity (and all else), uproot their trees and crops, and launch periodic raids and targeted assassinations against them and their elected leadership, and if (resistance is encountered, Israel is entitled to slaughter) them en masse (because it's just) 'defending' itself as it must and should."

Naked aggression is called self-defense. Civilians are legitimate targets. Heroic freedom fighters are "terrorists," and if Arabs don't understand, the process is repeated until they do. Further, international humanitarian and other laws don't apply. Victims aren't entitled to the same rights as Jews because Arabs are inferior and don't warrant them. In addition:

"Israel has the right to oppress the Palestinians and does so to defend itself (its right to exist), but were the Palestinians to defend themselves against Israel's oppression, (to which it has no right, then) Israel will have the right to defend itself against their legitimate defense" without restraint or regard for the laws of war or humanitarian considerations.

Negotiating with Israel is futile because Tel Aviv demands and doesn't yield. It takes and doesn't give. Peace process hypocrisy offers nothing, and all Palestinians have to show for it is continued occupation, death, destruction, oppression, immiseration, and loss of their land and freedom.

Zionists did it in stages:

-- early arrivals saw themselves as "returning natives" and began a process of displacement;

-- from 1918 - 1947, it advanced as the Jewish population increased;

-- from 1936 - 1939, Arab resistance grew against increasing Jewish encroachment; it was clear that unlimited Jewish immigration, combined with Zionist political and military development, meant the eventual transformation of Palestine to a Jewish state; in 1936, Arabs resisted, called a strike, and reacted violently;

-- Zionists countered with a "compulsory transfer" policy; Jewish sovereignty over all Palestine became a priority; accommodating Arabs was rejected; the Biltmore Program affirmed it;

-- Ben-Gurion had a plan, but WW II intervened;

-- post-war, violence again erupted; Zionists wanted unrestricted immigration; Palestinians saw their country being lost; the war bankrupted Britain; it ended its Mandate over Palestine on May 14, 1948 when the State of Israel was established.

America became the first country to extend recognition when Harry Truman signed the following statement:

"This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof.

The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel."

It established an enduring alliance, more firmly in place now than ever - in a strategic part of the world for the mutual benefit of both nations.

Understanding Zionism is fundamental:

-- its reliance on oppression, violence, and dispossession;

-- its belief in exclusivity, privilege, and Jewish exceptionalism;

-- racism at the core of its politics;

-- democracy only for Jews;

-- an ethnically pure state in which half its inhabitants aren't Jewish, are afforded few rights, and none on what matters most.

Zionism justifies a Jewish ethnocracy with built-in structural inequalities. Israeli Arabs may vote, sit in the Knesset, but government rulings aren't "legitimate" without a "Jewish majority." The Law of Return is for Jews alone. All laws are for Jews. On issues of land, housing, education and most everything, Jewish favoritism discriminates against Arabs.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law prohibits Israeli Arab spouses from the West Bank, Gaza or any Arab country from entering Israel and getting residency rights or citizenship. It's to counter a "demographic problem" or the threat that a faster-growing Palestinian population will soon outnumber Jews and change the character of a "Jewish state."

Ideology becomes policy and Arabs suffer with convenient myths for justification:

-- poor Israel; it's a victim fighting to survive against hordes of hostile Arabs;

-- they reject peace, prefer violence, plan Israel's destruction, so conflict is inevitable;

-- the core problem is Palestinian "terrorism;" Israel acts only in self-defense;

-- Gaza and the West Bank are "disputed," not "occupied" Territories;

-- political solutions aren't possible so Israel must maintain total control under "Fortress Israel;"

-- Palestinians are to be relegated to isolated powerless cantons under Israel's control before a "final solution" dispossesses or annihilates them; Israel is for Jews alone; after the 1967 war, the Allon Plan affirmed it - named after deputy prime minister Yigal Allon; his goal:

(1) "maximum land with minimum Arabs;"

(2) annex around 40% of the West Bank and Gaza, taking the choicest parts; and

(3) dispossess Palestinians from land Israel wants for Jews.

In his 2001 book, "The Iron Wall," Avi Shlaim wrote:

After Israel's victory in 1967, Allon (on July 26) "submitted to the cabinet a plan that was to bear his name (The Allon Plan). It called for incorporating in Israel the following areas: a strip of land ten to fifteen kilometers wide along the Jordan River; most of the Judean desert along the Dead Sea; and a substantial area around Greater Jerusalem, including the Latrun salient. Designed to include as few Arabs as possible in the area claimed for Israel, the plan envisaged building permanent settlements and army bases in these areas. Finally, it called for opening negotiations with local leaders on turning the remaining parts of the West Bank into an autonomous region that would be economically linked to Israel. The cabinet discussed Allon's plan but neither adopted nor rejected it."

He also called for defensible borders, creating a Jordanian - Palestinian state, letting Israel maintain a West Bank military presence up to the Jordan River, and be fully in control of a united Jerusalem, perhaps with a Jordanian status in the Old City's Muslim quarter.

The Allon Plan was in Labor Party platforms in 1974, 1977, 1981, 1984, and 1987, and to large degree shaped Israel's settlement policies from 1967 - 1977. Prime minister Begin then offered Palestinian self-administration (the right to be Israel's enforcer) to Egypt's Sadat in 1977. It became part of the 1978 Camp David agreement and 1993 Oslo Accords.

From 1948 to the present:

-- peace, reconciliation, liberation, and a fair and equitable solution to the region's longest and most intractable problem is unconsidered and unwanted; conflict is the chosen option; seizing all of historic Palestine the goal; and eliminating the Palestinian problem and establishing Israeli regional dominance the final aim.

Post-WW II, Palestinians were nearly 70% of the population, Jews around 30% and owned 6% of the land. Yet the November 1947 General Assembly Partition Plan (Resolution 181) gave Jews 56%. Palestinians got 42% with 2% kept under internationalized trusteeship, including Jerusalem. Jews got the best parts, including choice agricultural areas. Palestinians had no air access or harbor and port facilities, except for isolated Jaffa. Nonetheless, David Ben-Gurion wanted 80%. Israel's 1948 War of Independence got 78%. The problem was keeping it for Jews alone.

Israel agreed to UN Resolution 194 (in December 1948) providing for free access to Jerusalem and other holy places as well as granting Palestinian refugees the right of return. In May 1949, UN Resolution 273 gave Israel UN membership conditional on it accepting Resolutions 181 and 194 and "unreservedly (agreeing to honor) the obligations of the United Nations Charter." However, earlier in June 1948, the Israeli cabinet (with no formal vote) barred Palestinian refugees from returning and directed the IDF to stop those trying with live fire. The same policy remains today to assure a Jewish majority and much more.

"Israelification" and "De-Arabization" are policies to preserve a "Jewish character." Pre-1948, Palestinians owned 93% of Palestine. It dropped to 25% after the war, 7.3% by 1962, and is now around 4%. Palestinians are gradually being dispossessed of their land, country, freedom, and futures. This is the Zionist goal, internal oppression and conflict the methodology.

Treat them like "dogs," said Moshe Dayan, so they'll leave. Use "terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation," and more was David Ben-Gurion's formula. Today it's unilateral separation, "de-Arabization," isolation, confinement, and destroying the will to resist with intermittent conflict and mass slaughter for reinforcement.

Israel's aim:

-- total control of Palestine;

-- Palestinians are "encouraged" to leave;

-- confining those who don't to isolated, powerless cantons;

-- advancing land seizures;

-- co-opting a quisling Palestinian leadership;

-- using it as enforcers;

-- terrorizing the population relentlessly;

-- denying Palestinians any rights; and

-- purifying Israel as a Jewish state (like the Nazis tried in Germany) by removing its Arab population. This is Israel today, the reason many Jews aren't staying, and why growing numbers won't move there. Nominally it's a democracy, but only for Jews. Arabs are disenfranchised, without rights, and unwanted.

Gaza and the West Bank remain occupied. Pre-Oslo, Middle East expert Sara Roy called Gaza a "Case of Economic De-Development," a condition as true of the West Bank and, in today's environment much harsher than she discovered. Her definition was a "process which undermines or weakens the ability of an economy to grow and expand by preventing it from accessing and utilizing critical inputs needed to promote internal growth beyond a specific structural level." Gaza was to be transformed "into an auxiliary of the state of Israel." So was the West Bank.

It's way beyond that now under Israel's policy of oppression, impoverishment, depopulation, destruction, displacement, and genocide to crush the Palestinian spirit, slaughter its people, and end any hope for a viable Palestinian state.

Gaza is under siege and was ravaged by war. The West Bank is checkmated by isolation, land seizures, walls, checkpoints, home demolitions, a nightmarish bureaucracy, closures, agricultural and free movement restrictions, crop destruction, curfews, permits, economic strangulation, random killings, arrests, imprisonment, torture, and overall security force terror against a civilian population.

Israel has total control, aided by the complicit Fatah under Abbas, but this pattern has persisted for decades. For over a half century, Tel Aviv ignored or abused hundreds of UN resolutions condemning or censuring it for its actions against Palestinians and other Arabs, deploring it for committing them, or demanding, calling on, or urging Israel to end them. UN Resolution 242 alone (November 1967) calls for: "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits:

"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory...." Neither shall "The Occupying Power...deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

Israeli settlements have "no legal validity" under Security Council Resolutions 446 (March 1979), 452 (July 1979), 465 (March 1980), 471 (June 1980), and 476 (June 1980). In addition, Resolutions 267 (July 1969) and 497 (December 1981) say the annexations of East Jerusalem (267) and Syria's Golan Heights (497) are illegal and call for them to be rescinded. Yet Israel continues settlement expansions and maintains a Kafkaesque "matrix of control" over Palestine in gross violation of international law.

In 1967, Theodor Meron, Israeli foreign ministry's legal council, told prime minister Levi Eshkol that: "My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

In April 1978, US State Department Legal Advisor, Herbert Hansell, told Congress that:

"while Israel may undertake, in the occupied territories, actions necessary to meet its military needs and to provide for orderly government during the occupation, (the) establishment of the civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law."

Palestinians are isolated and on their own. Few nations anywhere support them. None in the West or the Middle East, except Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Courage alone sustains them, now powerfully buoyed by a groundswell of world outrage; the global BDS Movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions; calls for criminal prosecutions for Israeli war criminals and expulsion of Israel from the UN System until it fully complies with international law.

In November 2004, law professor Michael Mandel wrote: "Israel's West Bank and Gaza settlements are war crimes in Canada. Under the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act 2000, c. 24, Israel's settlements in territories taken in the June 1967 war constitute war crimes punishable in Canada."

Mandel cites Section 8, paragraph 2 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopted by 120 states in July 1998. Item viii prohibits: "The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory."

After initially voting against the Rome Statute, the Clinton administration signed it in December 2000. Then in May 2001, the Bush administration revoked the signature and began a worldwide campaign against the Court.

Israel as well isn't a party to the Rome Statute, but that's irrelevant under Canadian law. Grave breaches of Geneva constitute war crimes. Israel (like America) is criminally liable. Mandel states that although "Israel denies it, there is no question that Israel is an Occupying Power for the purposes of the Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute, and the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act." Holding it accountable is essential. It's high time world jurists demanded it.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12195  

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Ceasefires, Israeli-Style

Stephen Lendman (01 Feb 2009)

Waging war while talking peace is customary Israeli practice. On January 19, Haaretz headlined: "Israel declares unilateral cease-fire. The security cabinet last night authorized a unilateral cease-fire (to take effect) at 2AM (Sunday morning), ending three weeks of intense fighting."

Declaration notwithstanding, nothing changed. Gaza remains occupied, under siege, and totally isolated. Borders are still closed. On January 28, The New York Times said "truckloads of humanitarian aid" are stuck in Egypt because of Israeli and Cairo restrictions. Little can get in, and attacks merely downshifted to a lower gear.

Shortly after Sunday's announcement, an Israeli aircraft killed a Gaza City resident. IDF troops opened fire in Wadi al-Salqa village, southeast of Deir al-Balah. Homes in al-Qarara village were attacked. Helicopter gunships struck areas west of Khan Yunis, and F-16s bombed near the Science and Technology College in the same area. Israeli naval vessels shelled coastal areas and turned back ships with humanitarian aid. Agricultural land was raised. Arrests were made. Gaza continues to be terrorized.

For the week ending January 28th, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported continued Gaza and West Bank incursions and attacks:

-- the IDF shot and killed a Gaza farmer on his land;

-- 17 Gaza and West Bank Palestinians, including four children and two journalists, were wounded;

-- 32 West Bank incursions were conducted;

-- 64 West Bank civilians, including 15 children, were arrested;

-- a private West Bank home near Bethlehem was seized as a military site;

-- Gaza remains under siege and total isolation; conditions overall keep deteriorating;

-- two Jerusalem homes were demolished; 53 civilians were left homeless; and Israel continues Judaizing Jerusalem through repeated land seizures.

The same pattern repeats daily, and reports indicate more American and EU complicity. The US Navy patrols the Red Sea to prevent weapons "smuggling," and Army Corps of Engineers are on the Egyptian - Gaza border to locate tunnels and destroy them. EU nations will monitor Rafah and perhaps other Gaza - Egypt border crossings, and France, Britain and other European countries offered naval vessel patrol help in the Red Sea.

On a January 26 Gaza visit, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, refused to meet with Hamas. He called it "a terrorist movement" responsible for three weeks of Gaza fighting, the enormous devastation, and for using civilians as "human shields." In response, Hamas official, Mushir al-Masr, expressed shock "to see a European official giving cover to massacres and terrorism committed by the Zionist enemy against the Palestinian people. Palestinian resistance is as legitimate as the resistance of European countries that fought against foreign occupiers." International law affirms this.

On January 27, Haaretz reported that the fragile ceasefire was near collapse after an IDF soldier was killed. An air strike followed, and Israeli tanks again were on the move. "Heavy gunfire was audible along the border in central Gaza and Israeli helicopters hovered in the air, firing bursts from their machine guns, Palestinian witnesses said."

On January 29, Maan News reported that nine Gazans, mostly children, were wounded by an F-16 missile in Khan Younis following overnight strikes at the As-Salam district of Rafah. In addition, IDF tanks "invaded Gaza near Deir Al-Balah, bulldozing agricultural land," then withdrew in early morning. On the same day, 14 West Bank arrests were made, civilians seized from their homes in Bethlehem, Hebron and Bet Suweif village. A day earlier, the IDF invaded Zboba village, near Jenin, conducted house-to-house searches, enforced a curfew, forced families from their homes, ransacked their belongings, and arrested eight more men.

Incursions like these occur daily. Palestinian Prisoner Society president Qaddura Fares said 300 Gazans were arrested during three weeks of fighting and more when it ended. Israel conceals their names and where they're held. Some are wounded and untreated. All are denied access to lawyers and ICRC representatives.

On January 30, Haaretz reported that "Israel plans more 'pinpoint' strikes against Hamas (and other resistance) in Gaza....to let Hamas know that strikes against Israel would not go unanswered, one source said."

In her first news conference as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton blamed Hamas, said Israel has a "right to self-defense, (and that) rocket attacks....cannot go unanswered." Hardly surprising from any US official, Republican or Democrat, although Clinton's belligerence is high on the Richter scale.

At a Cairo news conference, US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said America "is committed to vigorously pursuing lasting peace and stability in the region." He met with Egypt's Mubarak, then headed for Tel Aviv meetings with Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres, IDF's chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to say America is committed to:

-- Israel's security;

-- the "road map" assuring no possibility of peace;

-- no policy change to allow Palestinians their right of return;

-- Israel's illegal settlement expansions;

-- stopping Hamas weapons "smuggling" to deny their right of self-defense;

-- dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas so "the Palestinian Authority (PA) will get a foot in the door in Gaza;" and

-- in spite of being Palestine's legitimate government and proposing a one and a half year truce (conditional on ending Gaza's siege and reopening all border crossings), Mitchell won't meet with Hamas to "pursue lasting peace and stability in the region;" he rebuffed Hamas' overture; affirmed the Bush administration's one-sided diplomacy; said nothing about continued Israeli attacks, arrests, and settlement expansions, paid lip service only to Gaza's humanitarian crisis, insisted that the PA be in charge of Gaza's borders, reiterated that Hamas is a "terrorist group," then headed for Ramallah to meet with Mahmoud Abbas and his coup d'etat government.

Addressing a (New York-based) World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem on January 28, foreign minister Livni affirmed Israel's "right to act to defend ourselves against those activities in Gaza, including weapons 'smuggling' and build-up of military capabilities. Israel is going to act according to a new equation. We are not going to show restraint anymore. (Anymore?) We need to change the rules of the game until they (Hamas) learn that the rules have changed and the equation has changed."

Haaretz said Olmert told Mitchell that Gaza's borders won't reopen until Hamas releases IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Unmentioned are thousands of imprisoned Palestinians, many held without charge, hundreds with no access to family or outside contact, most tortured, and all denied due process.

On January 28, Hamas rejected Olmert's terms. The Israeli English language Ynetnews.com quoted a member of its Cairo delegation, Salah al-Bardawil, saying: the ball is in Israel's court. "The demands are known (and so is the price). It is no secret that there are 11,000 Palestinian prisoners sitting in Israeli prisons. No tie shall be made between the truce and Shalit. If Israel wants him released, it must pay the rightful and asked price."

Bardawil rejects a Gaza "security zone" giving Israelis "an excuse to kill anyone who comes close to it, even if they are farmers and innocent civilians, claiming that they are members of the resistance organizations." For Israel, all civilians are legitimate targets, even women, children, the elderly, and infirm. Daily, they suffer grievously throughout Occupied Palestine.

Nonetheless on February 1, Al-Arabiya TV reported that Hamas accepted Egypt's one-year truce proposal beginning February 6. The delay will give its delegation time to make it official in Cairo. Details so far are sketchy but apparently involve PA monitoring/controlling border crossings and Hamas and PA authorities coordinating their activities. Earlier Hamas accepted a one and a half year truce conditional on re-opening borders so humanitarian and other essential aid can enter freely.

Gaza Professor Said Abdelwahed's Email

Three weeks of fighting have taken a terrible toll, yet appalling suffering continues. Consider the children. "Bereaved and traumatized, (they) need psychotherapists and special care! Who will take care of them? Local psychotherapy organizations can't do it and for more than one reason." Yet the need is overwhelming.

"Children have bad memories (from) ugly nights, nightmares and bad dreams. (It's been) an ongoing show of miseries, untold stories, stress and depression! The day before yesterday," fear of renewed Israeli attacks surfaced. Buildings and Gaza City schools "were evacuated immediately! Pupils ran out of schools knowing not where to go. F-16s flew overhead. They broke the sound barrier and scared everyone."

"The world community talks about arms smuggling to Gaza! What kind of arms" are they talking about? The fighting proved that "Palestinians have no weapons that can annoy Israeli aircraft, helicopters or tanks. The whole geography and psychology of Gaza have changed. It's like an earthquake. Homes have been distroyed. Whole neighborhoods. Thousands are now displaced."

"The fact is that words fall short of describing how things look now. It's more horrible than the Holocaust." Referring to dead children, Abdelwahed said: "I did not know before that 450 children and infants were Hamas affiliates or supporters....take care."

World Affirmation of Continued Israeli Attacks

Palestinians remain isolated and abandoned. Disturbing truths are hidden from sight. The dominant media are complicit. BBC management won't air an emergency fundraiser claiming doing so would show bias. A spokesman said: "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of (a) news story."

On January 29, Maan News reported that "Palestinian academics and media personnel as well as international activists, demanded the BBC leave Gaza over its refusal to air an appeal for aid." Academics organized a sit-in near BBC's Gaza office and denounced it for its action. Gaza Professor As'ad Abu Sharkh said: "The BBC has become a partner to Israel in its war on Gaza." Others were equally vocal.

Throughout its history, BBC has been a reliable imperial tool. Its reputation remains unblemished. Veteran UK politician, Tony Benn, called its decision a "public betrayal....incomprehensible and it follows the bias in BBC reporting of this crisis." In America, it's much worse. Victims are vilified, aggressors praised, and no uncomfortable truths are aired or printed. Regardless of its crimes, Israel is untouchable.

EU Failure to Protect Human Rights in Occupied Palestine

On January 28, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) accused EU nations of failing to protect Palestinians' human rights and demanded that remedial steps be taken. PCHR expressed dismay "by recent statements made by, and actions taken by, EU states regarding human rights violations" in Gaza and the West Bank.

In spite of weeks of slaughter, destruction and trauma, "EU member states abstained from a (January 12) United Nations Human Rights Council resolution condemning the (IDF's) military offensive. A week later, Czech foreign minister and (EU Council) president-in-office, Karl Schwarzenberg, (said the EU) 'should not act as a judge' (against IDF humanitarian law violations)." In solidarity with Israel, he said: "I have never seen a war where humanitarian law was completely respected."

Louis Michel, quoted above, went even further by claiming Hamas bore "overwhelming responsibility" for Israel's offensive. These actions "highlight that the 27 EU member states are blatantly failing in their obligations as High Contracting Parties to the (1949) Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. The shameful silence of the entire international community....illustrates its utter failure to hold Israel accountable for its masse violations of human rights (throughout Occupied Palestine) and especially in Gaza." International law demands accountability. Gazans remain imprisoned, and the West Bank is under military occupation.

Letting Israel slaughter, destroy, imprison, terror bomb, use illegal weapons, and willfully target civilians grants it license to keep doing it with impunity. PCHR wants accountability and for the EU not to "upgrade its political and economic relationship (through) the EU-Israel Association Agreement (on trade, political, and regional cooperation). (It's) conditional on Israel's respect for human rights." Tel Aviv blatantly disdains them. This no longer can be tolerated. Palestinians deserve justice. "EU member states must finally make a stand for the respect of law and protection of civilian lives."

Obama's Middle East Policy "A Mirror Image of Bush"

It's from Palestine Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Ramzy Baroud in his article titled: "For Palestinians, Obama's Message is Crystal Clear." Despite promising change, "how different will Obama truly be when his administration is done carrying out a few symbolic gestures to appease the ever-eager public" at a time when great economic distress takes precedence? Despite promising "a new era," continuity remains US - Israeli policy, and note Obama's statements.

His first January 22 public one affirmed one-sided Israeli support in saying: "Let me be clear - America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats....Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements." It must also abandon its right to resist, to self-defense, to self-determination, to a sovereign Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders, to be free from military occupation, from repeated Israeli incursions, and to remain Occupied Palestine's legitimately elected government.

"Obama's unparalleled clarity" is unequivocal. Israeli rights matter. Palestinian ones don't. "For Gazans, and most Palestinians, things cannot be any clearer." Obama promises continuity, not change. Palestinians are on their own. Their struggle for liberation continues.

Hopeful Justice in Spain

On January 29, AP reported that Spanish judge Fernando Andreu "began an investigation into seven current or former Israeli officials over a 2002 bombing in Gaza that killed a Hamas militant and 14 other people, including nine children." Andreu sees a possible crime against humanity in targeting Salah Shehadeh in which an F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb in Gaza City. He's proceeding "under (the universal jurisdiction) doctrine that allows (Spanish) prosecution of (such crimes and ones alleged to be terrorism or genocide), even if they are....committed in another country."

In June 2008, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) sued Israeli officials in the National Court of Spain naming then Israeli Air Force commander Dan Halutz, defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, senior air force commander Doron Almog, national security chief Giora Eiland, defense ministry official Michael Herzog, IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, and General Security Service head Avi Dichter.

Andreu called the bombing "clearly disproportionate and excessive" and said he agreed to investigate the charges because Israel stonewalled his request for information. He added if he determines that innocent civilians were targeted, he might bring "even more serious" charges. The Spanish National Court said that genocide may be charged if intent to exterminate Palestinians can be proved.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comment was expected: "It's absurd; Israel is fighting against war criminals and they are charging us with crimes." The charges make "a mockery out of international law." One of the accused, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, called the charges "ludicrous and outrageous (and that) terrorist organizations are using the courts to prosecute a state that works against terror." Ehud Barak said they're "halluncinatory."

With Washington and western endorsement, blaming victims is customary Israeli practice. It expects a wave of criminal lawsuits and international pressure to investigate IDF war crimes in the aftermath of its terror bombing Gaza.

Amnesty International (AI) Ammunition

On January 17, AI got access to Gaza and "found first hand evidence of war crimes, serious violations of international law, and possible crimes against humanity." More investigation continues, but already "the stories are harrowing," including Israel's "use of white phosphorous." AI calls for "a full-fledged independent investigation" to uncover all crimes in the conflict.

Calls for an Academic and Cultural Boycott

On January 29, Haaretz reported that "In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, a group of American university professors has for the first time launched a national campaign calling for academic and cultural boycott of Israel." Its mission statement says:

"In light of Israel's persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel's colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and Given that all forms of international intervention and peacemaking have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice," and joined together in boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns....

"We representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience (everywhere) to impose broad boycotts and implement initiatives against Israel similar to those (against) South Africa." We ask for support "for the sake of justice and genuine peace." Demands listed are:

-- ending Israel's illegal occupation, colonization, and Separation Wall;

-- recognizing full equality for Arab Israelis; and

-- "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties" as UN Resolution 194 mandates.

A Rare Davos Economic Forum Confrontation

Annually in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, the world's corporate Mafia dons meet to discuss prospects for greater global exploitation.

On January 29 to a packed audience and on television, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced off with Israeli president Shimon Peres in debate, then stormed off the stage in disgust when the moderator cut him short and ended discussion. After Peres defended attacking Gaza in a lengthy monologue, Erdogan accused him of "killing people. I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. There have been many people killed. And I think that it is very wrong and it is not humanitarian."

Washington Post moderator David Ignatius cut him off. Erdogan said "Please let me finish." Ignatius responded: "We just don't have time. We really do need to get people to dinner." Erdogan again: "Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I don't think I will come back to Davos after this." The audience appeared stunned. Erdogan brushed past reporters but not before his wife said: "All Peres said was a lie. It was unacceptable."

Erdogan, of course, played to a home audience, and it paid off. Back in Istanbul, he got a rapturous welcome. He later spoke with Peres by phone and agreed not to let the incident affect Turkish-Israeli relations.

Israeli - Turkey confrontation began when Gaza was attacked. It continued in Cairo when Israeli defense ministry political security bureau head, Amos Gilad, refused to meet with Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan's senior foreign policy advisor. Davutoglu was Turkey's conduit between Hamas and the West. Israel and Egypt stonewalled him. Israel and Turkey have strategic ties. It remains for high-level fence-mending to repair them.

Israeli Professor Avi Shlaim in the London Guardian

On January 7, he headlined: "How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe." Shlaim once served in the IDF, never questioned Israel's legitimacy inside the Green Line, and now teaches international relations at Oxford. He examined the conflict in context and said "Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians." At the time, British Middle East Cairo office head, John Troutbeck, wrote foreign secretary Ernest Bevin that Americans were responsible for creating a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders."

Given Israel's history of violence and latest Gaza aggression, Troutbeck's comment was prescient, but he omitted his own country's complicity that's still solid to this day.

Shlaim condemns what he calls "Greater Israel('s) permanent political, economic and military control (over Palestine)....the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations in modern times." In Biblical language, "Israel turned the people of Gaza (and the West Bank) into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a (reserve) source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods." Palestine "is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements....are immoral, illegal, and an insurmountable obstacle to peace."

"Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy (for its Arab citizens and population in the Territories)."

Palestine under Hamas is "the only genuine democracy in the Arab world," except for perhaps Lebanon. Yet "America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising (its) government...." The situation is "surreal....with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed."

Palestinians are vilified for their own misfortunes. Israel, America, and the West call them "terrorists," Hamas "just a bunch of religious fanatics (besides), and Islam incompatible with democracy" when, in fact, they're normal people with ordinary dreams and have as much right to them as anyone.

Israel claims self-righteous victimhood while unleashing overpowering brute force. In Hebrew it's called "bokhim ve-yorim, crying and shooting....The brutality of (its) soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen....(its) propaganda is a pack of lies." A chasm separates rhetoric from reality. Indiscriminate terror bombing is how it tries to spare civilians. Its philosophy is "an eye for an eyelash."

Militarism can't bring security. Only reconciliation and diplomacy works, but Israel stays hard line. Shlaim concludes that his country is "a rogue state with an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders." They disdain international law, use terror weapons, slaughter civilians, and hold Islam in contempt.

"Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence....but military domination." It compounds past mistakes "with new and more disastrous ones." It pursues a classic definition of insanity: repeating the same mistakes, expecting different results, and using newspeak propaganda for justification. Poor Israel. Its credibility is gradually eroding. Growing millions hold it in contempt. Its choice ahead is simple. Reform or perish, yet Israel persists in staying hard line.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12096 

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Israel Killed Everything but the Will to Resist  

Stephen Lendman (25 Jan 2009) 

 

" 'Freedom or death', is the popular Palestinian mantra," wrote Palestine Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Ramzy Baroud in his January 22 article titled "Breaking Gaza's Will: Israel's Enduring Fantasy." 

Three weeks of Israeli terror caused about 1400 deaths, over 5500 injured (many seriously), vast destruction throughout Gaza, and Physicians for Human Rights warning that large numbers of wounded may die because hospitals are overloaded and lack basic supplies. Yet Palestinians endure. Their spirit is unbowed and unbroken. Hamas is more popular than ever, and world outrage sustains them. 

Middle East analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies believes Israel blundered badly. On January 9, he asked: 

"The War in Gaza - Tactical Gains, Strategic Defeat?" In spite of all the IDF's might "The fact remains that the growing human tragedy in Gaza is steadily raising more serious questions as to whether the kind of tactical gains that Israel now reports are worth the suffering involved." 

Cordesman reviewed the death, injury and destruction toll after 14 days of fighting, then added: "These direct costs are only part of the story." He cited the siege's crippling economic and humanitarian effects and wrote: "The current war has consequences more far-reaching than casualties. It involves a legacy of greatly increased suffering for the 1.5 million people who will survive this current conflict." 

"It is also far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel. At least to date, (the war) increased popular support for Hamas and anger against Israel in Gaza. The same is true in the West Bank and the Islamic world....The US is seen as having done virtually nothing....and the President elect is getting as much blame as" George Bush. 

He quotes former Saudi ambassador to Washington and London, Prince Turki al-Faisal saying: "The Bush administration has left you (with) a disgusting legacy and a reckless position towards the massacres and bloodshed of innocents in Gaza. Enough is enough, today we are all Palestinians...." 

According to Cordesman, Israel appears to be repeating "the same massive failures" as in the 2006 Lebanon war. "Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? Will Israel end in empowering (Hamas) in political terms....? Will Israel's actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope for peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process? To be blunt, the answer (appears) to be yes....If this is all that Olmert, Livni, and Barak have (to show for their efforts) then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends." 

Three Weeks of Israeli Terror Took Its Toll 

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights compiles it daily and presents it in weekly reports. Its latest January 15 - 22 one includes whole families killed. More than 43% of deaths and injuries were women and children. The vast majority of casualties were civilians. "Entire features of many areas have disappeared, and civilian infrastructure services have completely collapsed." Other destruction included: 

-- hospitals, ambulances, civil defence and private vehicles, and relief services damaged or destroyed; 

-- thousands of homes and whole neighbourhoods damaged or destroyed as well as - 

-- roads, bridges, power installations, sewage facilities, water wells, and other infrastructure; 

-- 28 public civilian facilities; 

-- ministry, municipality and other government buildings; the parliament building; 

-- UN sanctuaries;  

-- commercial buildings; 

-- 121 industrial and commercial workshops destroyed; at least 200 others damaged; 

-- fishing boats and harbors; 

-- 21 private projects, including cafeterias, wedding halls, tourist resorts and hotels; 

-- 30 mosques completely destroyed; 15 others damaged; 

-- five concrete factories; 

-- 60 police stations; 

-- five media buildings and two health ones completely destroyed; 

-- 29 educational institutions completely or partly destroyed; and 

-- thousands of dunams of agricultural land razed. 

 

After Israel declared a January 17 "ceasefire," homes were bulldozed, agricultural land razed, civilians attacked and killed, homes invaded and searched, and arrests made. The war cost the al-Sammouni clan 36 of its men, women and children.  

 

The West Bank wasn't spared. The pattern repeats weekly, but from January 15 - 22 alone: 

-- Hebron and Beit 'Awa village (southwest of the city) homes were raided and searched; four civilians were arrested; 

-- Jenin town and refugee camp homes were invaded, searched, and one civilian arrested; 

-- Bourqin village homes, west of Jenin, were raided, searched, and one civilian arrested; 

-- Qabtatya village homes, southwest of Jenin, were invaded and searched; no arrests were reported; 

-- Roujib village homes, east of Nablus, were raided, searched, and one arrest made; 

-- Dura village, southwest of Hebron, homes were invaded, searched, and four arrests made; 

-- Beit Sahour homes were raided and searched; one resident was arrested earlier; 

-- al-Lubban village, near Nablus, homes were invaded, searched, and three arrests made, including a child; 

-- at a January 16 Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, anti-war demonstration, the IDF fired live rounds at civilians wounding at least three; 

-- at another January 16 southern Hebron demonstration, the IDF shot and killed one man and wounded four others, including a child; 

-- at a same day East Jerusalem demonstration, the IDF fired sound bombs, tear gas, and violently beat protesters; journalists were also attacked and forced to leave; 

-- at another demonstration near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the IDF attacked and violently beat at least 10 women; 

-- at an al-'Eissawiya village, east of Jerusalem, demonstration, the IDF fired on and wounded four children, and arrested two others; 

-- homes were also raided and searched in Beita village, south of Nablus; Zabbouba village, west of Jenin; 'Anza village, southeast of Jenin; Hawara village, south of Nablus; Taqqou' village, southeast of Bethlehem; Bani Na'im, east of Hebron; 'Arraba village, southwest of Jenin; Fahma village, southeast of Jenin; Sa'ir village, northeast of Hebron; Western Toura village, southwest of Jenin; 'Assira village, north of Nablus; Beit Emrin village, northwest of Nablus; al-Zahiriya village, south of Hebron; Ya'bad village, southwest of Jenin; Bethlehem city; al-Duhaisha refugee camp, southwest of Bethlehem; 'Aaida refugee camp, north of Bethlehem; and Qaryout village, southeast of Nablus -- homes in all areas were raided and searched; numerous arrests were made;

-- at a Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, demonstration, the IDF fired live rounds on protesters wounding at least one child and arresting another;

 -- two undercover IDF operations made arrests in Qabatya village, southeast of Jenin, and Qiffin village, north of Tulkarm. 

 

PCHR reports that the Gaza siege continues. Border crossings remain closed. Collective punishment is enforced. Basic food, medicine and other essentials are unavailable or in scarce supply to the great majority of Gazans. Impoverishment now exceeds 80%. Mass human suffering affects everyone. The world community is complicit by its silence. 

The IDF has also "imposed a tightened siege on the West Bank" adding new movement restrictions. Access to Jerusalem is denied, to the al-Aqsa mosque as well. Civilians are beaten, often violently. Vehicles are stopped and searched. Curfews are imposed. Arrests are made. Protests against the Separation Wall construction were attacked violently. Civilians were beaten and shot. Home demolitions continued. Two others were burned down. More land was seized. Settler attacks on Palestinians were reported. It happens all the time. Nothing is done to stop them. They're free to harass, intimidate, beat, and kill Palestinians. 

This is Occupied Palestine. Like Gaza, Israel terrorizes the West Bank daily. Fatah under Abbas is complicit. Human rights violations persist. An international conspiracy of silence permits it. No end of this is in sight. World outrage has taken notice. Israel now worries but not enough to matter. 

"Dahiya Doctrine" Devastation 

Named after the Beirut suburb IDF destroyed in the 2006 Lebanon war, it's how future ones will be fought. IDF Northern Command chief Gabi Eisenkot explained: 

"What happened in the Dayiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force at the heart of the enemy's weak spot (civilians) and cause great damage and destruction. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages (towns or cities), they are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved." 

According to Col. Gabriel Siboni (in October 2008), the idea is to use enough "disproportionate force (to inflict) damage and met(e) out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes....With the outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy's actions and threat it poses....The strike must be carried out as quickly as possible, and must prioritize damaging assets....be aimed at decision makers and the power elite....in Lebanon....at Hezbollah....(at) economic interests and the centers of civilian power." 

Disproportionality will "make it abundantly clear that the State of Israel will accept no attempt to disrupt (a state of) calm. Israel must be prepared for deterioration and escalation, as well as for a full scale confrontation....This approach" applies to Gaza as well....(It) will increase Israel's long term deterrence (and) leave the enemy floundering in expensive, long term processes of reconstruction." 

For General Yoav Galant, it was to "send Gaza decades into the past." Disturbing reports indicate that Lebanon may be next to complete the unfinished business of the 2006 war. 

On October 6, 2008, prominent award-winning Israeli media figure Yaron London wrote about "The Dahiya strategy" for the Israeli English language Ynetnews.com. His tone was belligerent and provocative in saying: 

"Israel finally realizes that Arabs should be accountable for their leaders' acts." In the next Lebanon war, "we won't bother to hunt for rocket launchers....Rather, we shall destroy (all of) Lebanon and won't be deterred by the protests of the world." 

We'll "pulverize the 160 Shiite villages that have turned into Shiite army bases, and we shall not show mercy when it comes to hitting the national infrastructure of a" Hezbollah-controlled state. "This strategy is not a threat. (It's) an approved plan (because) the whole of Lebanon is an Iranian outpost. (It's) entirely malicious. (It's) an enemy....Everyone is Nasrallah....nations are responsible for their leaders' acts....(Gazans) are all Khaled Mashal....Lebanese are all Nasrallah....Iranians are all Ahmadinejad....We need to make the fear we sow among them greater."  

Most Israelis share these views. So do Kadima, Likud, Labor, and IDF officials. Past leaders as well, including David Ben-Gurion in saying: 

"It's not important what the world says about Israel....if we don't show the Arabs that they have to pay a high price for killing Jews, we won't continue living.... (we must) adopt....an aggressive defense; with every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of the residents along with the seizure of the place.... 

The wisdom of Israel is the wisdom of war, nothing else....We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services....we (must go on) the offensive....smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria."  

Ben-Gurion and later Israeli leaders invoked scripture and self-defense to justify disproportionate force, war crimes, genocide, and occupation. "Dahiya" has a long history. Its current form is the latest version. 

US - Israeli Complicity in Committing Genocide Against Palestinians 

Francis Boyle is a law professor, human rights expert, and former legal advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations leading to the 1993 Oslo Accords. He elaborates on "different degrees of heinousness for war crimes." More serious are "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the First Intifada (1987), "the world has seen those heinous war crimes inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian people living in occupied Palestine" - by Israeli forces and illegal settlers. Fourth Geneva mandates their prosecution, "including and especially Israel's political leaders." 

"Crimes against humanity" are also committed "as determined by the UN Human Rights Commission....The concept" is from the 1945 Nuremberg Charter, drafted by America to try Nazi war criminals. These crimes include: 

"murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against a civilian population, before or during the war, or prosecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated." Israel is criminally liable for committing them. So is America as a co-conspirator. 

Nuremberg is the "historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention." It's very specific and includes killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; and destroying a group "in whole or in part." 

Since late 1947, Israel's "final solution" has been the total annihilation and/or displacement of the Palestinian people: 

"For at least the past six decades, the Israeli government and its predecessors-in-law - the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs - have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious (mix of Muslims and Christians) constituting the Palestinian people....(This US - Israeli) campaign (is designed to destroy them) in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention." 

Its Article I "requires all contracting parties....'to prevent and to punish' genocide. Yet to the contrary," Israel's genocidal wars on Palestine have "been financed, armed, equipped, supplied and politically supported by the (Judeo - Christian) United States" - even though America is a contracting party to Nuremberg, Geneva, and the UN Charter that prohibit such practices. 

Nor did Washington and the international community demand "humanitarian intervention" to stop Israeli aggression and protect a defenseless people. America funds the Israeli killing machine. It can as easily de-fund it and halt the violence. Boyle calls failure to do it "dishumanitarian intervention (or) humanitarian extermination" by the US and Israel "against the Palestinians and Palestine." 

Through his efforts, on January 13, the Malaysia Star reported a "special (Malaysian) Parliament session" voted for Israel to be brought before a UN-sanctioned international war crimes tribunal "for its atrocities and violence on the Palestinian people." 

It also expressed "disappointment" that the international community and Security Council failed to halt the attacks. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said "resolutions would be presented to the relevant parliaments, the United States Congress and the European Parliament."  

Abdullah called for Malaysians to unite "against the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime. The attacks by Israel have contravened international laws and such actions are deemed war crimes...." 

Abdullah said his call for a special UN session to condemn Israel was boosted when the General Assembly agreed to hold one to urge the Security Council to act. It did not because "Israel didn't want it," and America supports Israel. It also rejects the legitimately elected Hamas government, and it lets Israel "kill children, the elderly, women, and other innocent ordinary people..." 

President Obama's first diplomatic call was to Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas. He rules by coup d'etat. He has no legitimacy. His presidential term expired on January 9. He claims the right to retain it until 2010 legislative elections are held and does so with Western support. Like this writer and others, Boyle expects "no fundamental change (under Obama) in America's support for" Israel and its policy of Palestinian extermination and displacement.  

On January 22, the new president was firm in introducing Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell at the State Department: 

"Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats." He denounced Hamas and said "No democracy can tolerate (its) acts of terror." In lying to a national audience, he vilified the victims in support of Israeli aggression against a defenseless population. It's why James Petras calls him "America's first Jewish president." Palestinians and all Muslims have no friend in Washington. They're on their own. The "war on terror" targets them in George Bush's third term.

It gets worse. No Israeli policy change is planned. The "peace process" is a dead letter. Gaza's borders will stay closed, except for some (way inadequate) allowed in humanitarian aid under "an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international (read Israel, Egypt and NATO) and Palestinian Authority participating," according to Obama. Hamas will stay isolated until it unconditionally surrenders, relinquishes its right to self-defense, hands over authority to Fatah, Israel and/or an international occupying force, and resigns as the legitimate Palestinian government. 

Under these conditions, Obama promises "to actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians...." Longtime insider George Mitchell will spearhead it as the new Middle East envoy. He's a former Senate majority leader and member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations and Bilderberg Group. He's no friend of Palestine.  

Tel Aviv welcomed the appointment. Its US ambassador, Sallai Meridor, said Israel holds him "in high regard and looks forward to working with him on taking the next steps towards realizing a future of peace and security for Israel and her neighbours." 

Human Rights Groups Accuse Israel of War Crimes 

B'Tselem, Amnesty International (AI), and other human rights groups want Israel investigated for war crimes. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for "credible, independent and transparent" investigations" in telling the BBC that Israel "appears to have (committed) war crimes."  

Special Rapporteur Richard Falk said there's little doubt about the "inhuman character of (Israel's) large scale military operation against an essentially defenseless population. (This) raises the specter of systematic war crimes. (The evidence is compelling that Israel broke) fundamental rules of international humanitarian law (in attacking) unlawful targets."

UNRWA's Gaza chief, John Ging, cited attacks on five UN schools killing dozens of civilians. AI and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white phosphorous shells and attacking civilian neighborhoods.  

On January 12, the 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted 33 aye (including Russia, China, India and Brazil), 1 nay (Canada) with 13 abstentions (including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, S. Korea, Switzerland and Ukraine) to investigate "grave" human rights violations by Israel in Gaza. America isn't a member of the body. 

On January 13, the (Geneva-based) International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) "condemned Israel's military attacks on Gaza that have been indiscriminate or disproportionate (and called for) an immediate end" to the operation. ICJ also wants a "Commission of Inquiry to conduct a fact-finding investigation on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties." 

The web site wanted.org.il lists high Israeli officials "WANTED for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity." Among the accused - Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni along with 12 others the site includes. Besides the 2006 Lebanon war, Gaza siege, and other offenses, the site wants arrest warrants issued for their involvement in terror attacks on Gaza.  

It also mentions that on December 10, 2008, Lebanese lawyers submitted a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague against Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, former General Matan Vilnai, General Security Services director Avi Dichter, and IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi "on suspicion that they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by ordering and maintaining" the Gaza siege. Israel isn't a signatory to the Court so prosecution there isn't likely.  

However, other ways are possible. If courageous judges are willing, it could happen in countries like Spain, Germany, the UK or even America (see below). Law Professor Francis Boyle's proposal is also laudable, namely for the General Assembly to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) under the UN Charter's Article 22. It would be "to investigate and Prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offenses against the Palestinian people." 

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), agrees in stating: "There certainly should be a tribunal" on this matter. "The continued impunity of Israel for crimes it has committed encourages it in perpetrating gross violations of humanitarian law. A tribunal is essential" but impossible through the Security Council given the certainty of a US veto. 

CCR "advanc(es) and protect(s) the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Universal Declaration of Human Rights." It's been pursuing a case in US courts against Israeli General Security Services director Avi Dichter. On January 16, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case against him.  

CCR charged him "with planning and directing the bombing of a residential apartment building in Gaza City" in July 2002, "knowing it would result in a significant number of civilian deaths and injuries." Senior CCR Attorney Maria LaHood said: "Avi Dichter's decision to bomb our clients and their families as they lay sleeping at home was a war crime." The international community can't tolerate these "indiscriminate attacks." 

In May 2007, a lower court dismissed the charges ruling that Dichter acted in the course of his official duties and has immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. It may be months before the Appeals Court decision. There's little doubt where it stands, yet these lawsuits (in America and around the world) may have impact enough one day to send Israeli war criminals to prison. Perhaps American ones as well. It's why CCR, Francis Boyle, and others pursue them. 

For its part, Israel expects a wave of war crimes lawsuits and is reacting. Haaretz reported that the cabinet approved legal aid for IDF officers likely to face charges. Olmert announced: "Israel will give full support to everyone who operated for it and on behalf of it. The commanders and soldiers who were sent to Gaza need to know that they are safe from various tribunals." 

Israel claims "unsurpassed high moral values and traditions," adherence to international law, and efforts made to avoid harming civilians in fighting. Ehud Barak calls the IDF "the most moral army in the world. (It tries) to prevent tragedies from happening" despite clear evidence it's done willfully, maliciously, and strategically. 

On January 22, Ehud Olmert appointed justice minister Daniel Friedman "to head a team that will examine methods to avoid war crimes charges for those involved in IDF operations in Gaza." At the same time, IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and an army censor forbade the names and photos of officers involved in "Operation Cast Lead" from being published as well as information on their role in ordering or carrying out attacks. 

Gaza War A Failure for Israel - Morally and Strategically 

On January 22, Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy said so in all its objectives. It failed: 

-- to stop Hamas rockets for self-defense; 

-- to prevent Hamas from rearming; and 

-- to assert Israel's deterrence capacity and "restore its capability" as a formidable military foe, given that it attacks civilians and not a powerful adversary.

 

In Israel's Ynetnews.com, writer B. Michael asked "Was the army's morality proven again? Oy vey. A moral army is not one that kills civilians and then rushes to boast how moral it is." He also asked "Was our deterrence restored? No....Israel has been pulverizing the Palestinians for dozens of years now, yet....they continue not to be deterred." This time is no different.

Hamas emerged strengthened, not defeated, and more popular than ever. In contrast, Israel is discredited, vilified, and shamed. For its part, Fatah is weakened and the Abbas - Fayyad PA disgraced for blaming the violence on Hamas, saying little to denounce IDF war crimes, and for cracking down on West Bank anti-war protests and against Hamas supporters. 

Reports are that hundreds of them (including journalists, students and Muslim leaders) have been harassed, beaten, arrested, and tortured across the West Bank in service to Israel and Washington. Palestine Information Center journalist, Khalid Amayreh, said he spent nearly two and a half days in a rancid, dark, windowless cell in Hebron's Preventive Security Force headquarters after a local security chief invited him there for coffee. 

Though not abused, he heard screams from another cell and saw 10 men led away with hoods over their heads. Amayreh estimates from 500 - 600 arrests were made. Hamas said Islambodi Badir needed medical treatment from electric shock torture by Palestinian General Intelligence. 

As for Israel, world outrage demands international tribunal prosecutions of its political and military leaders. "Israel is a violent and dangerous country," concludes Levy. It's "devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignor(es) the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way" maybe this time with teeth enough to bite. If not now, eventually. Nations that live by the sword, die by it. Israel and America are no exceptions. 

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at . 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening. 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12006

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Today in Solidarity We're All Palestinians

Stephen Lendman (19 January 2009)

World outrage continues over Israeli war crimes and Washington's complicity. Gazans are now immortalized. Hamas is more popular than ever and remains resolute despite everything the IDF threw against it.

Democrats and Republicans share equal guilt. They fund Israeli state terror, are partnered in its aggression, and have collaboratively planned, supported, and/or agreed to it for the past 41 years. Continuity under Obama is assured. The current Gaza carnage is the worst since 1967. In spite of its "unilateral" ceasefire, sporadic Israeli attacks continue. The IDF merely redeployed. Gaza remains under siege, and human suffering is overwhelming and unrelieved.

Since December 27, Israel conducted terror bombings, tank and naval vessel shellings, and assault troop slaughter on the ground. Illegal weapons were used. Neighborhoods are burning and in ruins. Horrific wounds are reported. Civilians were willfully massacred. They comprise 80 - 90% of the casualties according to human rights organizations and medical authority reports. All 1.5 million Gazans were targeted. They still are. There's no place anywhere to hide.

Sporadic fighting continues after Israel's January 17 announcement. Earlier, Israeli Radio reported that more reservists were activated and that IDF operations were in "phase three." Forces on the ground pushed deeper into Gaza where they remained up to now. Attacks on neighborhoods and refugee camps intensified. Death and injury tolls mount. They approach 7000 but exclude potentially hundreds of unidentified bodies under rubble.

A Brief History of Israeli Terror Killings Since 1946

Gaza is full-scale war but just the latest bloodstained episode in Israel's six-decade reign of terror against Palestinians. This section reviews others since 1946, two years before the establishment of a Jewish state. The list is long, way-incomplete, very disturbing, and shows what Palestinians have endured for over 60 years. Their ordeal continues in the West Bank and Gaza under siege, still attacked, and, as always, betrayed by the dominant media.

The King David Hotel July 22, 1946 Bombing

The Menachem Begin-led Irgun planned and conducted the massacre of 92 Brits, Arabs and Jews, wounding 58 others. As head of the Jewish Agency, David Ben-Gurion approved the operation. It was to destroy British-gathered evidence that its leaders colluded with the Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and Stern gangs in a wave of terrorist crimes and killings. Bombing the King David Hotel was the most notorious and followed a pattern before and since of brutal Israeli state terrorism.

The British Secretariat of the Palestine Government and British Army HQ kept offices in the hotel. Attackers disguised as milkmen, planted explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement and left. At the time, the action shocked the civilized world and outraged the British leadership and House of Commons.

Other Israeli Terrorist Incidents against Palestinians

-- Tira, December 11, 1947 - five Palestinians were killed and six injured;
-- a village outside Haifa, December 12, 1947 - 12 Palestinians killed;
-- a village outside Tel Aviv, December 14, 1947 - 18 Palestinians killed and 100 injured;
-- al-Khias, December 18, 1947 - the paramilitary Haganah killed 10 Palestinians, most inside their homes;
-- Haifa, December 30, 1947 - six Palestinians killed and 42 wounded;
-- Jerusalem, December 30, 1947 - Irgun terrorists threw a bomb from a speeding car killing 11 Palestinians and two Brits;
-- Balad Esh-Sheikh, December 31, 1947 - the Haganah killed 60 Palestinians, most inside their homes;
-- Jaffa, January 4, 1948 - the Stern Gang killed up to 30 and wounded 100 in a truck bombing;
-- the Semiramis Hotel, Jerusalem, January 4, 1948 - the Haganah bombed the hotel killing 25 civilians;
-- Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, January 7, 1948 - 17 Palestinians killed;
-- Tireh, February 10, 1948 - seven Palestinians killed and five injured;
-- on a bus from Safad, February 12, 1948 - five Palestinians killed and five injured;
-- Sa'sa', February 14, 1948 - 60 Palestinians killed, mostly in their homes;
-- Qisarya, February 15 - 20, 1948 - 25 Palestinians killed;
-- Haifa, February 20, 1948 - six Palestinians killed and 36 wounded;
-- Haifa, March 3, 1948 - the Stern Gang blew up the Salameh Building killing 11 Palestinians and wounding 27;
-- al-Husayniyya, March 12 and 16 - 17 - the Palmach twice raided the village killing 15 and wounding 20 in the first attack; killing 30 in the second one;
-- Jews blew up a train near Benjamina on March 31, 1948 killing 25 Palestinians and wounding 61;
-- al-Sarafand, April 5, 1948 - 16 Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded, most when a house was mortared;
-- Dier Yassin, April 9, 1948 - the Menachem Begin-led Irgun slaughtered well over 120 Palestinian men, women and children in a bloody rampage; The New York Times reported 254 killed on April 13; 53 orphaned children were dumped like trash along the wall of the Old City; homes were dynamited with inhabitants inside; people were shot at close range, including children; the massacre marked the beginning of what followed during Israel's "War of Independence:" depopulating 531 towns and villages; 11 urban neighborhoods; massacring or displacing 800,000 Palestinians; and committing countless rapes and other atrocities;" remember Dier Yassin; it, too, is immortalized;
-- Tel Litvinsky, April 19, 1948 - Jews killed 90 Palestinians;
-- Tiberias, April 19, 1948 - Jews blew up a home killing Palestinians inside;
-- Ayn al-Zaytun and nearby villages, May 1 - 4, 1948 - 27 Palestinians killed;
-- Acre, May 18, 1948 - Israeli troops killed over 100 Palestinians;
-- al-Kabri, May 20, 1948 - Israeli forces killed villagers and machine-gunned children who survived;
-- al-Tantura, May 22 - 23, 1948 - Israeli troops killed over 200 villagers, mostly unarmed young men shot in cold blood;
-- on May 26, 1948, David Ben-Gurion formed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from the Haganah;
-- Lydda, July 11 - 12, 1948 - the IDF killed several hundred civilians, including 80 machine-gunned inside the Dahmash mosque;
-- Elot, late July, 1948 - the IDF arrested 46 young men; on August 3, several were found dead, and 14 of those arrested were shot in cold blood in an olive grove - in full view of the villagers;
-- Suqrir, August 29, 1948 - the IDF killed 10 villagers;
-- Hula, Lebanon, October 24 - 29, 1948 - the IDF machine-gunned 50 villagers;
-- al-Dawayima, October 29, 1948 - the IDF killed up to 200 villagers;
-- Majd al-Kurum, October 30, 1948 - the IDF slaughtered 20 or more villagers in cold blood;
-- Saliha, October 30, 1948 - IDF forces blew up a house killing 94 Palestinians;
-- Sa'sa', October 30, 1948 - hundreds of Palestinians were slaughtered in cold blood; the entire village was expelled;
-- Nahf, October 31, 1948 - a brutal massacre was carried out of unknown numbers;
-- Khirbat al-Wa'ra al-Sawda, November 2, 1948 - the IDF killed 14 villagers;
-- Beit Jala, January 6, 1952 - seven Palestinians were slaughtered in cold blood;
-- Jerusalem, April 22, 1953 - the IDF killed 10 Palestinians;
-- Bureji Refugee Camp, August 28, 1953 - the IDF killed 20 Palestinians and wounded 62 others;
-- Qibya, Jordan, October 14, 1953 - Ariel Sharon's infamous Unit 101 killed 70 villagers;
-- Nahalin, Jordan, March 28, 1954 - the IDF killed nine Arabs and wounded 19;
-- Gaza City, April 5, 1956 - IDF shelling killed 56 and wounded 193;
-- Kafr Kassem, October 29, 1956 - the IDF killed about 50 men, women and children;
-- the Suez War, October 29 - November 7, 1956 - the IDF executed about 273 Egyptian soldiers and civilians in cold blood;
-- Khan Yunis, November 3, 1956 - the IDF killed dozens of civilians in cold blood;
-- Rafah Refugee Camp, November 12, 1956 - the IDF slaughtered over 100 Palestinians;
-- Nuqeibi, Syria, March 16 - 17, 1962 - IDF artillery and aircraft killed at least 30 unarmed villagers;
-- Samu, Jordan, November 13, 1966 - the IDF destroyed 125 houses, a school, clinic and 15 houses in a nearby village killing 18 and wounded 54 in cold blood;
-- the Six-Day War, June 5 - 11, 1967 - IDF forces preemptively and without cause attacked Egypt, Syria and Jordan; they massacred as many as 2000 helpless or captured Egyptian soldiers; killed about 340 Syrian villagers in the Golan Heights and displaced more than 300,000 Palestinians who fled to the Jordan River's east bank along with others to Lebanon, Egypt and Syria;
-- the USS Liberty incident, June 8, 1967 - Israeli forces attacked and killed 34 Americans and wounded 171 in international waters; a Department of Defense inquiry whitewashed it as a case of "mistaken identity" despite clear knowledge it was a willful attack on a US naval intelligence vessel;
-- Rafah Refugee Camp, June 1967 - the IDF killed 23 Palestinians and buried them in a mass grave;
-- following the Six Day War, June 1967, 56 Palestinians were shot in cold blood trying to cross the Jordan River to the West Bank;
-- February 21, 1973, the IDF shot down Libya Airlines Flight 114 killing 106 passengers, including one American;
-- Hebron, February 25, 1994 - Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 praying Palestinians;
-- the First (1987 - 1992) and Second (2000 - 2005) Intifadas - thousands of Palestinians were killed and injured during IDF rampages against them;
-- the 1982 Lebanon invasion and occupation; 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed, including 3000 massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps;
-- Jenin, 2002 - the most infamous of numerous massacres during the Second Intifada; the IDF invaded the city and refugee camp; cut them off from outside help; destroyed hundreds of buildings; buried many alive in them under rubble; cut off power and water as well as food and other essential to life supplies; refused to allow in help, including medical aid; and killed and wounded dozens of Palestinian civilians; some accounts cite hundreds as Israeli forces swept up bodies and buried them to avoid an accurate count;
-- the summer 2006 33-day (Second) Lebanon War - the IDF inflicted mass terror attacks and destruction throughout the country; around 1300 were killed; many more were wounded; one million (or one-fourth of the population) were displaced; and most vital infrastructure was destroyed to bring the country to a halt;
-- the June 2006 Operation Summer Rain against Gaza; all border crossings were closed isolating the Territory and preventing essential to life supplies from getting in; air strikes and shellings were used; three main bridges were destroyed; the main water pipe for the Nusairat and al-Boreji refugee camps as well as the Strip's only power plant supplying 80% of the Territory's electricity; the IDF moved into Gaza and took control;
-- the assault followed a series of bloody Israeli attacks: a weekend beach shelling killing eight Palestinians, including seven members of one family; 32 others were injured, including 13 children; a highway missile attack killing 11 and injuring 30; another missile attack killing three children and wounding 15;
-- during the same period, the IDF conducted around 50 incursions into Palestinian West Bank communities; farmland was razed; homes were raided; dozens taken into custody, including children; on June 29, nearly the entire Hamas leadership was arrested, including eight cabinet ministers, 25 PLC members from the Change and Reform Party, and other Hamas officials.

Palestinians have endured all of the above and far more for over 60 years, 41 under occupation:

-- many thousands of Palestinians were killed, injured, imprisoned, and tortured; since 1967, over 700,000 have been incarcerated; the great majority are tortured; many are held uncharged in administrative detention; anywhere from 10 - 12,000 Palestinians or more remain in prison at all times;
-- rampaging military incursions occur repeatedly throughout Occupied Palestine; in November 2007 alone, 786 West Bank raids were conducted; several Palestinians were killed; dozens wounded; and around 400 arrested; in addition, public and private properties were damaged; crops destroyed; land seized; curfews imposed; and free movement was and remains severely restricted;
-- in addition, settlement expansions seize West Bank land; the Separation Wall is taking another 10%; Palestinians have few rights, and since Hamas won a January 2006 PLC majority none at all in Gaza; desperation now plagues them with the Territory under siege, and approaches disaster since Israel launched late December terror bombings and ground and offshore attacks.

Professor Joseph Massad on Gaza Under Attack

Columbia University Professor and Middle East expert Joseph Massad, a Palestinian American, wrote this about Israel's Gaza attack and invasion:

-- "Since 2006, Arab regimes, neoliberal Arab intellectuals (in America and elsewhere), as well as (Fatah under president Mahmoud Abbas and appointed prime minister Salam Fayyad) reached an understanding that only Israel will be able to save them from Hizbollah and Hamas, both organizations constituting a threat to the open alliance Arab regimes have with the US and Israel against Iran and all progressive forces in the region;"

-- "A veritable open alliance now exists between (Fatah), Arab regimes, and Israel (with neoliberal intellectual Arab support), wherein Israel is subcontracted to decimate the Hamas government - the only democratically elected government in the entire Arab world," and therein lies its problem; Washington and Israel won't tolerate democracies; they want repressive regimes they can control; Fatah is a collaborationist ally; Abbas and Fayyad its quisling leadership; Massad calls this "treachery;" it and other Arab regimes "rule by terror and fear;"

-- Israel's carnage is its latest attempt "to ensure that all Arabs and all Palestinians are ruled by dictators and never by democratically elected officials;" Fatah and world powers approve; nonetheless, Palestinians "understand very well that Abbas, his clique, the Arab regimes, the US and Europe are all culpable in their slaughter" as is Israel; they're all "co-conspirators and active partners in crime."

The IDF performs admirably against defenseless civilians. The aftermath, however, is another matter. "Palestinian determination" is strong enough to make Fatah and Abbas "losers" provided popular resistance won't let Israel conquer populations, steal their land, destroy their livelihoods, imprison them in ghettos, and starve them into submission.

For the last century, Zionists haven't learned that "the Palestinian yearning for freedom (can't) be extinguished no matter how barbaric Israel's crimes become," how collaborationist are other Arab regimes, or how traitorous are some of their own people like Fatah. "The Gaza Ghetto Uprising will" continue their proud resistance never to "accept the legitimacy of a racist European colonial settlement in their midst."

Collaborationist Fatah West Bank Crackdowns

On January 8, AP reported that with Gaza fighting raging, West Bank police violently suppressed pro-Gaza demonstrations. "It's as if Gaza has become another country," said university student Mohammed Akram standing next to pictures showing injured Gazans. "You watch TV and see an entire family killed by a missile," said Hossam Salim. "They're not militants or Hamas or anything."

Other reports said PA police assaulted street demonstrators, focusing mainly on anyone carrying Hamas green flags. Violence and arrests followed as Abbas won't let street protests become large, persistent, or openly hostile to Israel. Demonstrators were shocked that police attacked them for supporting their own people in Gaza. Abbas has orders to crack down, and some say he's "on the side of the Jews."

The Jerusalem Post highlights a Fatah - IDF "Iron Fist" policy, a massive crackdown, against all opposition. Reporters and photographers are threatened and assaulted. It's too early to tell, but Massad believes this may backfire and defeat Abbas.

The New York Times may agree. In a January 14 article, correspondent Isabel Kershner headlined: "War on Hamas Saps Palestinian Leaders." She says Fatah and Abbas "seem increasingly beleaguered and marginalized, even in the Palestinian cities....they control....The more bombs in Gaza, the more Hamas' support (grows) at the expense of the (PA)." It wants control over Gaza, but according to Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib: "How can it make gains in a war in which it is one of the casualties?"

As a result, Hamas (like Hezbollah in Lebanon) is more popular than ever - among their own people and the Arab street. They represent popular resistance against colonial rule and complicit Arab regimes. If history is a guide, oppression in the end won't work. It provokes anger, dissent and revolt, then liberation. Palestinian unity must denounce Fatah and Abbas, back Hamas, support its popular resistance, and continue struggling for peace, social justice, self-determination, and freedom.

Israeli Human Rights Violations in a Typical Week

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) compiles them daily for its weekly report. It's disturbing reading even without conflict and affects the West Bank as well as Gaza. Palestine is under military occupation. It's oppressive, illegal and continuous for the past 41 years.

PCHR gives detailed daily accounts of the Gaza slaughter. It also reports on Israel's West Bank oppression with collaborationist Fatah PA (Palestinian Authority) help. Abbas blamed Hamas for the violence, and prime minister Salam Fayyad said nothing to condemn it for the first 13 days of fighting. Afterwards, he made tepid comments, more indicative of complicity than condemnation. Why so? He's a former IMF and World Bank official with no standing among his people. In the 2006 PLC elections, he got 2.4% of the vote as a measure of his illegitimacy. He and Abbas are Israeli tools, enforcers, with considerable Western aid and weapons.

PCHR's West Bank report states:

"IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) have continued to impose severe restrictions on (free movement), including (in) occupied East Jerusalem." It cites hundreds of checkpoints, roadblocks, closed and controlled roads, and the illegal "Annexation Wall" that will stretch 724 kilometers when finished. It mentions continued assaults, killings, harassments, searches, neighborhood incursions, arrests, and numerous other indignities against a traumatized people like Gazans:

-- two-thirds of West Bank roads between Palestinian communities are closed and/or fully militarized; 500 kilometers of roads are restricted;
-- one-third of the West Bank, including Occupied East Jerusalem, is off-limits to Palestinians without a military permit; very few are available;
-- from January 8 - 14, six Palestinians, including two women were arrested at checkpoints;
-- on January 8 in Hebron, Israeli forces raided homes; arrested two brothers; and shot and killed Ibrahim Shamlawi in cold blood;
-- the IDF fired on al-Fawar refugee camp demonstrators wounding two, including a child;
-- on January 9 in Madama village southwest of Nablus, the IDF raided homes and arrested three men plus another in Nablus;
-- another man was arrested in Qabatya village, southeast of Jenin; homes were raided and searched;
-- in two East Jerusalem areas, Israeli police, border guards and undercover units fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas and sound bombs on young men and children demonstrating; dozens of children were treated for tear gas inhalation;
- in Hawara village, south of Nablus, Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, and southern Hebron, the IDF fired on demonstrators, wounded five men and one child, and arrested two others;
-- on January 10 in Azmout village, northeast of Nablus, homes were raided and searched;
-- in Sa'ir village, northeast of Hebron, the IDF fired on demonstrators, wounding three;
-- on January 11 in Beit al-Roush village, southwest of Hebron, homes were raided and searched;
-- in Askar refugee camp, northeast of Nablus, more homes were raided, searched and one man was arrested;
-- on January in Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, homes were raided, searched, and two men were arrested;
-- in Sa'ir village, northeast of Hebron, homes were raided, searched, and one young teenager was arrested, age 14;
-- on January 13 near Kiryat Arba settlement and Jouhar Mount in east Hebron, dozens of homes were raided and searched;
-- in Dura village, southwest of Hebron, homes were raided, searched and two men arrested;
-- in Beit Oula village, northwest of Hebron, homes were raided, searched and one man arrested;
-- in Ethna village, northwest of Hebron, the IDF shot and killed one man while he was farming his land; according to witnesses, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and violently beaten for hours, then fired on and killed at point blank range;
-- on January 14 in Awa village, southwest of Hebron, homes were raided, searched and six men arrested;
-- in Sa'ir village, northeast of Hebron, homes were raided, searched and one teenager arrested; and
-- in Kufor Qallil village, east of Nablus, homes were raided, searched and another teenager arrested.

On January 19 (for next week's PCHR's report), sources indicate that the IDF "kidnapped seven Palestinian civilians" during morning pre-dawn West Bank city and town invasions.

Under military occupation, this is daily West Bank life today made harsher by oppressive Fatah security enforcement for Israel. New checkpoints, restrictions, curfews, and other measures are imposed at any time - against peaceful, non-combatant civilians. Palestinians live in daily fear of being harassed, arrested, tortured, or killed. Under siege and terror attacks, conditions in Gaza are worse, but no place in Occupied Palestine is safe, "ceasefire," or no "ceasefire."

Gaza Aggression Timeline

On December 27 without cause, Israeli aircraft launched terror bombings on Gaza - not coincidentally timed for when children were leaving and arriving at school. Relentless round-the-clock attacks have continued for over three weeks. Ceasefire negotiations continue. Under immense pressure and with US collaboration, IDF assaults may pause. This section reviews the timeline.

December 27 - Day One:

At 11:25AM, an initial "shock and awe" attack was launched with 60 aircraft hitting 50 targets simultaneously. By early afternoon, over 100 tons of bombs had fallen. Around 230 deaths were reported and 400 injured, many seriously. Most victims were civilians, many women and children. The same pattern continues daily. From 80 - 90% of casualties are non-combatants according to medical authorities and three human rights organizations on the ground. News reports and independent observers called December 27 the bloodiest day in Occupied Palestine since the 1967 Six Day War.

Day Two

Deaths rose to about 300, injuries to around 900. Dozens of round-the-clock sorties were flown plus helicopter and naval vessel attacks and tanks shellings from inside Israel. Targets from the start included government buildings, the parliament building, police stations, roads, a main water pipe, fuel tanks, schools, the Islamic University of Gaza, mosques, power facilities, sewage systems, TV stations, fishing boats, animal farms, charities, a mental health center, pharmacies, the main prison, ambulances, medical storage warehouses, private dwellings, commercial buildings, workshops, the control room of a telecommunications company - Gaza's entire infrastructure network and civilian neighborhoods. The Territory is being reduced to dysfunction and ruin. The idea is to render Hamas impotent and let Fatah control all Occupied Palestine.

Day Three

Around 335 deaths and 1400 injured have been counted. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights(PCHR) reported that dozens of missiles hit "civilian facilities and mosques in densely populated areas (including refugee camps). In (one) very horrible crime (over night to early early morning), 22 Palestinian children were killed or wounded" while asleep at home.

Day Four

Deaths are up to 360. Injuries exceed 1400. PCHR reported that 23 private homes so far were bombed and 37 other civilian facilities.

Day Five

Deaths are now 390 and 1600 injured. PCHR reported that Israel "used fighter jets, helicopter gunships, drones and gunboats to launch hundreds of barbarian indiscriminate raids....with disregard for the (welfare), security and safety of the (entire) civilian population (and) vital services" they need. The humanitarian situation is "desperate."

Day Six

By New Year's day, deaths were up to 400 with 1700 injured.

Day Seven

Death and injury tolls mount - up to 420 killed and 1850 wounded, many so seriously they won't survive. Senior Hamas resistance leader Dr. Nizar Rayan was killed at home along with his wife and 11 of his children. PCHR reported that in the last 24 hours aircraft bombed and completely destroyed eight homes and a family meeting hall in Gaza City, 11 others in northern Gaza plus dozens of badly damaged neighboring homes in both locations. Six more were destroyed in central Gaza and three in Rafah. In the first seven days, 66 private homes were destroyed and their inhabitants killed or wounded.

Day Eight

Around 100 children and women so far were killed. More private homes and refugee camps are targeted. The New York Times reported that "Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night opening a ground war....after a week of intense airstrikes."

Day Nine

Around 455 deaths are reported and 2300 injured. In one horrific incident, aircraft bombed a Jabalya mosque in northern Gaza killing 15 civilians, four children, and injuring 27 others. Ambulances trying to reach the wounded are attacked. AP reported that "Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swarths through the Gaza Strip on early Sunday, cutting the (Territory) into two and surrounding its biggest city (as the offensive) gained momentum."

Day Ten

Deaths reached 510. Injuries exceeded 2300. Daily counts are the best estimates. PCHR reported that Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza and fighting was intense in "densely populated residential areas;" whole families have been killed in attacks, many inside their homes.

Day Eleven

Deaths total 600 and injuries around 2400, including 130 children, 33 women and six medical personnel according to PCHR. Its investigations show "at least 90%" of Palestinian killed in the past few days are civilians. Everything is coming under fire. Israeli tanks shelled an UNWRA school used as a shelter killing at least 40 civilians inside. No place is safe. There's nowhere to hide. Gaza is totally isolated, surrounded, and cut off.

Day Twelve

Deaths jumped to 660 and injuries to 2800. The entire Strip is bombarded. Everything is targeted, including medical personnel and journalists. The enormity of the crimes is appalling. International community silence is shameful. Mass killing and destruction continue. No relief so far is in sight.

Day Thirteen

Deaths exceeded 700, including 169 children and 46 women. Injuries hit 3000. PCHR reported that even hospitals are attacked.

Day Fourteen

Deaths reached 760 and injuries around 3100. Thus far, 189 children, 50 women and six medical personnel have been killed.

Day Fifteen

The death toll hit 800. Injuries topped 3100. PCHR reported that the IDF "continued to attack and obstruct the work of medical, civil defense crews and humanitarian relief crews....(Israel) intends to cause maximum deaths and casualties among Palestinian civilians, and maximum destruction to their property."

Day Sixteen

Deaths numbered 852 with injuries up to 3200. PCHR reported that bombings against residential neighborhoods have been relentless, and ground operations expanded into more Palestinian towns, villages and residential areas. The IDF is using incendiary white phosphorous bombs "against civilians." They're shelling them with "flaming objects that explode into potentially lethal shrapnel while releasing suffocating white smoke." Severe burns to the bone, spasms, serious breathing difficulties, severed limbs, and other injuries are reported, many life-threatening.

Targeting civilians with white phosphorous (called Willy Pete) is illegal. It works by interacting with oxygen to produce fire and smoke for use as smokescreens or as a terror weapon. It's an incendiary like napalm and thermites. As a weapon, it can destroy an enemy's equipment, limit vision, or burn flesh to the bone. Exposure to the smoke can also cause liver, kidney, heart, lung, other organ damage and death. Ingesting it causes throat and lung blistering until victims suffocate while phosphorous burns their insides. Israeli forces are using this against civilians along with other terror weapons.

They're also forcing people from their homes, holding them in detention, treating them inhumanely, denying them food and water, and using them as human shields during clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters. Amnesty International's Israeli investigator Donatella Rovera told the London Guardian that:

"It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor, and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields." Other instances involved forcing Gazans at gunpoint to precede them into buildings to shield them from possible attack. The 1907 Hague Regulations and Fourth Geneva Convention prohibit these practices. Its Article 27 states:

"Protected (non-combatant) persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons....They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence...."

Its Article 28 states:

"The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points immune from military operations." Civilians may not be placed alongside soldiers or military facilities to deter attacks on them.

Articles 31 and 51 also prohibit use of physical or moral coercion to force civilians to perform military tasks. Nonetheless, Israel uses these tactics repeatedly in defiance of its own High Court ruling against them.

Day Seventeen

Deaths reached 885 and injuries 3900. Indiscriminate attacks continued. The great majority of casualties are civilians. At least 211 are children.

On January 12, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC - the successor body to its Commission on Human Rights) passed a Cuba-sponsored resolution condemning Israel's aggression and recommending international observers investigate atrocities on the ground. The vote was 33 ayes, one nay (Canada), and 13 abstentions by Germany, represented EU nations, South Korea, Switzerland, and others. Countries in support included Russia, China, Brazil and Argentina. America isn't a member.

Day Eighteen

Deaths hit 910 and injuries 4250.

Day Nineteen

Terror bombings and savage ground attacks continued round-the-clock. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that confirmed deaths passed 1000 and over 4580 have been injured, many seriously with hundreds "clinically" dead. A Gaza City municipal facility was struck by a blast described as enormous. A central Gaza City cemetery was also hit spreading body parts and rotting flesh over a wide area and simultaneously destroying homes in Sheikh Radwan. Jabaliya Refugee camp was targeted with deaths reported, and Israeli tanks continue to shell houses in densely populated areas.

Entire neighborhoods have been leveled. Agricultural land has been razed. Attacks continue night and day. PCHR cites the "massive forced internal displacement of the civilian population of Gaza City" and other targeted areas.

Reuters, Haaretz, and the Egyptian news agency MENA reported that with changes Hamas may be ready to accept an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardawil praised Egypt's initiative as "the only one calling for an immediate stop to Israeli aggression."

Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan told Al-Jazeera that changes still must be made. "There are still points of difference" so far unresolved. "The initiative in its present form does not realize the (Palestinian national) interest. Specific points have to be changed....We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed."

Key sticking points remain, including Israel wanting Fatah (the PA) in charge of administering Gaza's reconstruction and controlling its borders - essentially empowering the Abbas - Fayyad government in Gaza as well as the West Bank and neutralizing Hamas.

Other problems also exist, according to Deputy chairman of Hamas' Political Bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk. He told Al-Arabiya television that:

"Israel did not abide by any of the previous truce conditions, and therefore there must be a short and pre-defined period between each stage that would allow us to evaluate the situation and agree to move on to the next stage."

In addition, Abbas' presidential term expired on January 9. He claims the right to retain it for another year until January 2010 parliamentary elections are held. Hamas disagrees and no longer recognizes him as president. Its spokesman, Mushir al-Masri said: "He's in power only because the Israelis and Americans want him to stay."

Either way, Hamas PLC representative Salah al-Bardawil said ceasefire negotiations seek the following goals: ending Israel's aggression; withdrawing all Israeli troops from Gaza; lifting the siege; reopening border crossings, rehabilitating the Strip, and compensating Gaza residents for the damage. From Damascus, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal offered the same terms and said: "We will not accept any political movement that doesn't satisfy these demands."

White House spokesperson Dana Perino said: "We have every right to be skeptical of things that you see in the newspaper reported about Hamas. And so I think we need to wait and see what actually happens. And as things develop, we'll comment from there." A State Department official added that Hamas hasn't met ceasefire terms. "It's not a done deal. There are a number of Hamas conditions that (have) to be dealt with." It's clear that means empowering Fatah and neutralizing Hamas.

Day Twenty

Haaretz: "Gaza City hospital (Al-Quds) in flames after hit in Hamas-IDF fighting." Thousands of Palestinians fled in fear as Israeli tanks stormed the city and shelled it, including randomly on residential areas. At the same time, terror bombings continued round the clock. Before midday, confirmed deaths reached 1097 (including 335 children) plus around 5000 injured (including 400 children). Over 400 of the injured are in critical condition.

Israeli aircraft bombed UNWRA headquarters, injuring three employees and attacked two other hospitals from the air and ground. The IDF surrounded Al-Aqsa Hospital, according to volunteers inside. No one can get in or out. Reuters also reported that a media compound was attacked. Several injuries were reported. An IDF spokesperson said attacks will continue despite reports that Hamas may be near accepting an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.

Hamas confirmed that its Interior Minister, Sa'ed Sayam and six others (including his son, brother and internal security department chief, Saleh Abu Sharekh) were killed when Israeli aircraft bombed his home.

Gaza Professor Said Abdelwahed emailed that his "neighborhood is under total control of Israeli army tanks, infantry and others after 13 hours of bombing and raiding. Snipers are outside (his) door." His later emailed included photos of his building that was damaged by shelling.

At the same time, Israeli gunboats intercepted another mercy ship (the Spirit of Humanity) in international waters. On board were doctors, journalists, European parliament members, and desperately needed medical supplies.

Bolivian President Evo Morales joined Hugo Chavez in severing diplomatic ties with Israel and said he'll ask the International Criminal Court to bring "genocide" charges against its government. He also denounced UN inaction and called for Shimon Peres to be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize for supporting the slaughter.

Reports say the IDF "kidnapped" five West Bank Palestinians in pre-dawn raids, 60 more in Hebron since January 1, and others in Jenin and elsewhere. At the same time, foreign minister Livni "urge(d) the Red Cross (ICRC) to press Hamas for access to (the captured Israeli soldier) Gilad Shalit," according to "News Agencies" reports. She rises to new heights of hypocrisy.

While Gaza attacks continue, the Lebanese daily Al Safir reported a build-up of Israeli tanks, military vessels and Apache helicopters on its border:

"The Israeli army has mobilized its troops along the (southern) border from the western Lebanese village of Naqurah to the southern border village of Al Wazzani." As a result, the Lebanese army and Hezbollah are on high alert, and why not. Lebanon may be next according to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya's January 18 "Israel's Next War" article on Global Research.ca. He cites reports that:

"This war is already in the advanced planning stage. In November 2008....the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro'ot III (Crossing Arms III). The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon. (Earlier), Tel Aviv also warned Beirut that it would declare war on the whole of Lebanon and not just Hezbollah."

Given Israel's past aggression on the country, this threat must be taken seriously. It may also be Obama's baptism of fire proof that permanent "wars on terror" will continue on his watch - against Lebanon, perhaps Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and so forth to solidify US hegemony while diverting attention from the collapsing the domestic economy.

Day Twenty-One

Casualties keep mounting. The latest confirmed death toll is 1133. Over 5150 have been injured. Israel is using Egypt to pressure Hamas to surrender. Abbas is on board in support. Khaled Meshal said never. "Israel will not be able to destroy our resistance, and the United States will not be able to dictate us their rules." They don't negotiate, they demand.

Hamas' spokesman in Lebanon, Usama Hamdan, said it will ignore an Israeli unilateral ceasefire agreement. "Either we hear what we have demanded or the result will be the continuation of the confrontation on the ground."

Meanwhile, reports claim Israeli forces are shooting Gazans waving white flags. On January 13, B'Tselem stated:

"Munir Shafik a-Najar (said) the army has been demolishing houses in his area." They use gunfire and loudspeakers ordering people out of their homes. "Rawhiya a-Najar stepped out of her house waving a white flag" and was shot in the head. Others were ordered to a school in a village center and were shot in cold blood. Casualties included three dead and many wounded.

General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann called Israel's assault "genocide" and told Al-Jazeera that he never believed the Security Council would do a thing. How can it with Washington vetoing all resolutions against Israel.

Day Twenty-Two

Confirmed deaths reached 1205. Injuries top 5300 with hundreds in critical condition. Six people were killed, including a woman and two of her children, when aircraft fired missiles at an UNWRA Beit Lahyia school used as a shelter. White phosphorous incendiaries and DIME weapons (that shred flesh to pieces) were used in the fourth attack on a UN school. In each case, Israel had the coordinates, knew the facilities were shelters, and shelled them anyway. Haaretz reported that a UN official wants "an investigation into possible war crimes...and that anyone who is guilty should be brought to justice."

In similar instances, Israel accuses Hamas of firing from schools, mosques, and civilian neighborhoods - the blame game, always against the victims to absolve the aggressor.

Meanwhile, Israel's cabinet will consider a "unilateral" ceasefire, according to Haaretz (and then declared it), in the wake of Washington and Tel Aviv signing a Friday agreement to:

-- "work cooperatively with neighbors....to prevent the supply of arms and related material to terrorist organizations....with a particular focus on" Gaza and Hamas;
-- NATO partners will be involved;
-- enhanced "US security and intelligence cooperation with regional governments" will as well;
-- enhanced "existing international sanctions and enforcement mechanisms" also;
-- "the United States and Israel will assist each other in these efforts" through intelligence sharing;
-- "the United States will accelerate its efforts to provide logistical and technical assistance and to train and equip regional security forces....;" and more.

In other words, Washington will reward Israeli aggression and war crimes with more aid and support. After a Tizpi Livni - Condoleezza Rice Washington meeting, the deal was done, but according to Livni, "If Hamas shoots, we'll have to continue. And if it shoots later on, we'll have to embark on another campaign."

For now, however, it appears that Israel and the Bush administration will quiet things down for the January 20 transition of power. Call it a "no-ceasefire" ceasefire, a pause, a conditional one, not a meaningful cessation of hostilities. Gaza is still occupied, under siege, isolated and alone. The Palestinian liberation struggle continues.

Day Twenty-Three

Overnight, Israel, as expected, announced a "no-ceasefire" ceasefire (beginning 2AM January 18), but vowed to assess the situation "minute-by-minute (and) respond with force" freely at any time. No Hamas demands were met. The occupation and siege continue. Borders will stay closed. Gaza remains isolated. The IDF keeps killing civilians. New deaths and injuries are reported. Corpses are being unearthed under rubble. The official known death toll exceeds 1300 but will rise considerably as new bodies are discovered.

Among the dead - 417 children, 108 women, 120 elderly, 14 medical personnel, and at least four journalists. Injuries exceed 5450. Dr. Muawiya Hassanen of the Palestinian Ministry of Health said dozens are still missing and believed dead.

Israel's Channel 10 reported that the IDF used half its air force over the past three weeks. It flew over 2500 sorties, dropped over 1000 tons of explosives plus tanks, artillery and navel vessels fired hundreds of shells from land and sea. Nonetheless, Hamas held firm and vows to resist until Gaza is free. Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said:

"A unilateral ceasefire does not mean ending the aggression and ending the siege. These constitute acts of war so this won't mean an end to resistance." Nonetheless, on January 18, Hamas official in Cairo, Ayman Taha, announced a temporary ceasefire to "give Israel a week to withdraw," open all border crossings, and allow in "all materials, food, goods, and basic needs." Other Gaza resistance groups, except the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), agreed to honor the truce. It rejects a ceasefire, insists that "Israeli attack(s are) continuing," and said "armed resistance (will) continue as long as there is one Israeli soldier in Gaza."

For now, explosions are still heard in parts of the Strip. Reports also say shells hit a group of Rafah residents, and white phosphorous bombs struck the At-Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. Also an attack helicopter shot at civilians in Jabaliya. So much for the "ceasefire" that can start and stop as Israel chooses in spite of Israeli Channel 10 reporting Israeli tanks and soldiers redeploying from deep inside Gaza positions. Israeli aircraft are still active overhead and naval vessels control coastal areas

Medical crews report "horrifying scenes" of dead bodies "found in pieces." Many are women and children. Images reveal mass destruction, death and despair.

New York Times Apologetics for Israeli War Crimes

On January 16, Jerusalem-based Steven Erlanger headlined: "Weighing Crimes and Ethics in the Fog of Urban Warfare" in typical New York Times fashion. Poor Israel. Despite three weeks of round the clock war crimes against isolated, beleaguered, and defenseless civilians, he quotes Israeli spokesman, Mark Regev saying that the IDF makes every effort "Not to target civilians, not to target UN people, not to target medical staff. All this is very clear in Israeli military doctrine" in spite of clear contradictory evidence.

Tel Aviv University's Asa Kashar helped write Israel's military ethical code. Erlanger cites him calling the IDF's ethical and legal standards high and conscientiously taught to its military. Another unnamed Israeli chief army legal officer as well saying war crimes charges are "deeply unfair and unjust."

He dismisses attacks on civilian neighborhoods, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, schools, UN shelters, Gaza's entire infrastructure, and civilians with no weapons waving white cloths. He cites Israeli claims of being attacked and responding, with no evidence to prove it. He quotes Israeli officials denying collective punishment and claiming no humanitarian crisis exists. He mentions Major Dallal saying: the fundamental question is "How does an army fight a terrorist group?"

Most fundamental is how The New York Times fronts for Israel, conceals its state terrorism, war crimes, and Washington's complicity in their commission.

A Final Comment

So far, it hardly matters whether or not a ceasefire holds. What does matter is growing world outrage, millions globally condemning Israeli terrorism, and potentially gathering enough momentum to matter. It's crucial to maintain pressure, demand Israeli war criminals be punished, and build a world movement for sanctions, divestment, boycott, isolation and UN General Assembly expulsion until Israel complies with international law, ends the Gaza siege, the occupation of Palestine, makes just restitution, grants Palestinians self-determination, and is held accountable before the International Criminal Court or a special tribunal for Israel.

On July 9, 2005, the Global BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) called for action until Israel "complies with international law and universal principles of human rights." It's long past time to stop inaction, timidity, and weak-kneed indecisiveness.

Since its illegitimate May 14, 1948 birth, Israel defiled the rule of law, abused its neighbors, committed genocide against the Palestinians, stole their land and future, and affronted all humanity with its arrogance. It's high time these practices end and Israel be held to account. If not now, when? If not by us, who? If that's not incentive enough, what is?

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11822   

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The Blame Game in Gaza: Covering for Israel, Concealing War Crimes

Stephen Lendman (14 Jan 2009)

In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:

-- all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington;
-- American aid makes it possible - billions of dollars annually, the latest weapons and technology, and Security Council vetoes to assure no anti-Israeli resolutions with teeth are passed;
-- six months of preparation preceded Israel's terror bombings followed by invasion, occupation, and repeated war crimes on the ground;
-- Hamas "rockets" were pretext (not cause) to abet Israel's overall strategy - with initial measures planned years ago and implemented in steps; Gaza 2008 - 09 is the latest with much more to come unless stopped;
-- grievous international law violations are being willfully committed;
-- innocent men, women and children are slaughtered;
-- civilians and legitimate resistance are called "terrorists;"
-- basic infrastructure unrelated to defense is destroyed - government buildings, police stations, schools, mosques, private dwellings, TV stations, commercial structures, water mains, power facilities, fishing boats, vehicles, ambulances, medical facilities, UN relief ones, and visible civilian targets, even young children coming from and going to school;
-- refugee camps, women, doctors and journalists are attacked;
-- terror bombing and shelling continues round-the-clock; from 50 to 100 or more sorties a day but fire from naval vessels, tanks, and troops on the ground;
-- illegal terror weapons are used;
-- as of January 14, around 5500 have been killed or wounded; hundreds still alive are "clinically dead," according to medical officials; a handful of Israelis have died; small numbers have been injured as well unknown true numbers of military casualties since Israel controls the reporting; Hamas claims over 30;
-- Gaza remains under siege; beyond token amounts, no outside aid gets in; electricity, fuel, medical supplies and clean water are nearly exhausted; medical workers can't reach the wounded; foreign journalists can't report on the scene; volunteer doctors can't enter through Rafah; no remnants of normal life exist; Gaza is totally dysfunctional; and
-- world leaders, the White House, and both Houses of Congress sanction Israel's genocide; its "final solution" destruction as a legitimate society; its right to a sovereign state; a government of its choosing; normality for the people; and defense of their rights by a world community that cares - it doesn't.

Instead, Israel plans to remove a legitimate leadership; eliminate or neutralize the Hamas government; displace Palestinians from their land; confine them to isolated cantons, make them a hellish, ghoulish dystopia, and according to Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni on January 13 to an American Jewish Committee delegation:

"Israel's campaign against Hamas (is in the) interest of the 'moderate' Palestinian people." And, of course, "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength," and Israel kills to save lives.

Media reports echo this, suppress truths, and maintain the lie of silence. None show pictures of vast destruction; dismembered bodies; children with lost arms and legs; head wounds so severe they'll die; blood, bones, and limbs everywhere; entire families wantonly massacred; human desperation and need so great it rivals anything in memory.

No brave reporters condemn these crimes and support the victims. None say Palestinians deserve the same rights as Jews; that laws of war and occupation protect everyone; that illegal acts must cease and perpetrators be punished.

None report the American Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace (Brit Tzedek v'Shalom) condemning Israel's attack and demanding that Barack Obama "call for an immediate ceasefire (and assure the prompt) delivery of (urgently needed) humanitarian aid to Gaza."

None cite the rule of law. None report accurately, and on matters of truth, distortion and "silence" are their chosen options.

Samples of their work are below - daily in major broadsheets, publications, and on radio and TV. It's why America is the most ill-informed society anywhere in spite of every opportunity to know vital truths and react. Bread and circus distractions take precedence so wanton killing continues below the radar - and not just in Gaza.

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Page Pro-Israeli Zealots

They appear daily in editorials and guest op-eds but never as easy reading. A January 5 editorial says "Israel can't afford to lose its second war in two years." It echoes poor Israel, surrounded "by enemies on all sides (so it) needs to maintain an aura of invincibility if it is to have any chance for peaceful co-existence."

Task one - "eliminat(ing) Hamas rule in Gaza (and) its military threat." Then on to "the broader Middle East issue....expansion of Iranian influence and terror. Hamas has become part of Tehran's bid for regional hegemony (like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Sadrist 'special groups' in Iraq)."

Bush is on board for their elimination. It's now up to Obama. He must show Israel and Iran "that the new president understands the US stake in the success of Israel's Gaza" offensive and assure no efforts are made to halt it.

On January 5 hawkish Max Boot was back with an "Israel's Tragic Gaza Dilemma" op-ed. Again, poor Israel:

"There is little doubt that Israel is morally justified in its offensive against Hamas. No nation can sit by and allow its territory to be rocketed with impunity." As for "accusations of (IDF) brutality, (Israel's) conduct has been exemplary by historical standards. They have shown far less propensity for indiscriminate killing or torture (than other nations) confronting insurgencies. The only comparable example of restraint is the conduct of the US armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States, too, earns worldwide opprobrium for alleged brutality rather than approbation for its humanity."

Millions of dead Iraqis and Afghans might disagree. Thousands of others incarcerated, tortured, and brutalized. Palestinians also after six brutal decades of occupation and repeated war crimes committed with impunity. "Restraint (and) humanity" indeed.

Never mind, Boot voices concern, not over mass slaughter but "on how the offensive turns out." It's not likely "they will be able to defeat the terrorist organization on their southern border." That requires a much greater and prolonged effort. A better choice is to depose the Hamas government and for Israel to administer the Territory itself. If Israel's troops leave, "Hamas will rebuild its infrastructure, forcing Israelis to go back to the future."

Boot calls it a "quagmire," but "Israel has no choice. It cannot simply pack its bags and go home....Israel is one battle away from destruction....If (it's) to continue to exist, it will have to continue to wage low-intensity war for a long time to come - definitely years, probably decades, possibly centuries." In other words, permanent war instead of the alternative - "annihilation." Off the table is the obvious solution. Never mind the simplest and most righteous: A just peace, Palestinian self-determination, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and stop attacking them so they'll have no need to respond in self-defense.

A Bret Stephens January 6 "Endgame for Israel" op-ed says: "If Israel is going to achieve a strategic victory in this war, it will have to stand firm against (the) global wave of hypocrisy and cant. (It) will have to practice a more consistent policy of deterrence than it has so far done. One option: For every rocket that falls randomly on Israeli soil, an Israeli missile will hit a carefully selected target in Gaza." Stephens calls this "proportionality (and) the endgame that Israel needs."

Not explained is that Hamas responds only in self-defense to Israeli preemptive attacks and killings. No Journal contributors say this or provide fair and accurate commentary.

On January 7, former CIA officer Reuel Gerecht shared op-ed space with Benjamin Netanyahu's "Militant Islam Threatens Us All" in which he equated Hamas rockets to "the same terror goal as Hitler's blitz." The old Hitler analogy again.

Gerecht addressed "Iran's Hamas Strategy" and accused "Tehran (of) aiding Hamas for years with the aim of radicalizing politics across the entire Arab Middle East." Hamas gives Iran "an important ally. Through Hamas, Tehran can possibly reach the ultimate prize, the Egyptian faithful....With Gaza and Egypt conceivably within Tehran's grasp, the clerical regime will be patient and try to keep Gaza boiling....In 30 years, they have not seen a better constellation of forces (with Gaza in conflict and the prospect of their being) "nuclear-armed....just around the corner."

That said despite the unanimous conclusion of 16 US intelligence agencies that Iran stopped pursuing a nuclear weapons program in 2003 even though no proof shows it ever had one.

On January 9, military strategist Edward Luttwak's op-ed headlined: "Yes, Israel Can Win in Gaza." He downplays Hezbollah's impressive 2006 performance saying it was "thoroughly shocked by the Israeli bombing campaign (in spite of Israel's) inconclusive ground actions."

In fact, Lebanon was shocked, not Hezbollah. According to researcher Andrew Exum of Kings College, London: "Hezbollah, far from being weakened in the 2006 war or subsequent (Beirut) political battles, is stronger than ever."

Israel can do to Hamas what it did to Hezbollah, says Luttwak - weaken it with further ground operations "that cannot be attacked by the air - typically because they are in the basements of crowded apartment buildings - and by engaging Hamas gunmen in direct combat. Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens, but then so did Hezbollah in 2006....yet (it remains) immobile. If Israel can achieve the same with Hamas in Gaza, it would be a significant victory."

Luttwak forgets how Hezbollah outfoxed and embarrassed the "vaunted" IDF that hasn't fought a comparable adversary in 35 years, forgot how, and only outperforms against civilian men, women and children, much like America in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, Luttwak wouldn't get op-ed space if he admitted that.

On January 8, Rabbi Marvin Hier's Journal op-ed appeared titled: "The Jews Face a Double Standard" and asked - "Why doesn't Israel have the same right to self-defense as other nations?" Hier may know scripture, but clearly not international law or fundamental morality.

He condemns worldwide protests as "so full of hatred that they leave me with the terrible feeling that (they're unrelated to) so-called disproportionality....a great many people....can't bear the Jewish state having the same rights they so readily grant to other nations....because they don't believe Israel should exist in the first place."

Hier cites isolated incidents indicative of world sentiment in his judgment. He ignores growing public opinion before and after his article:

-- many hundreds of thousands protesting in cities globally;
-- many thousands of outraged Jews as well, including in Israel;
-- Haaretz reporting "tens of thousands (in) the streets in European capitals;"
-- 100,000 in London alone (on January 10), including 20,000 outside the Israeli Embassy;
-- at least 30,000 in Paris; 90,000 or more in over 120 other French cities and towns;
-- tens of thousands more in Berlin and across Germany;
-- Rome as well and across Italy;
-- the same in Athens, Oslo, Stockholm, Budapest, Sarajevo, Madrid, Istanbul, Belfast, Edinburgh, Bern, Moscow, and dozens more European cities;
-- globally across America, Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Arab street expressing outrage over mass slaughter.

Poor Israel, according to Hier; an "insidious bias against the Jewish state" he claims; a "double-standard;" a humanitarian crisis? "There have been hundreds of articles and reports....falsely accusing Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza."

Blame Hamas for the conflict - "the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place....the real lessons of World War II have yet to be learned."

This from a man of God getting prominent Journal space for his hateful, disturbing, and grossly inaccurate commentary.

Pro-Israeli Washington Post Columnists

Many appear, these two as regulars. On January 9, Charles Krauthammer contributed an "Endgame in Gaza" op-ed. In August 2006, Steve Benen said this about him in the Washington Monthly:

"About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur (the most solemn of Jewish high-holidays). The rabbi offered some timid endorsement of peace (on Israel's terms) but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to 'shush' him. (He) kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace? Those neocon hawks are such a charming bunch, aren't they?

Krauthammer contributes weekly to the Washington Post and is syndicated in 200 newspapers. He's also a Fox News regular where he's welcome among like-minded friends.

In his latest column, he's on the warpath against "an increasingly wobbly US State Department" and Ehud Olmert for "hinting that (he's) receptive to a French-Egyptian cease-fire plan....That would be a terrible mistake....It would have the same elements as the phony peace in Lebanon (abjuring the) use of force, a (weak) arms embargo (letting lots of them) flood in, and a cessation of hostilities until the terrorist side is rearmed and ready to initiate the next round of hostilities."

"The 'international community' (now wants) a replay of (the Lebanon) charade....Weapons will continue to be smuggled. Deeper and more secure fortifications will be built....Mosques, schools and hospitals will again be used for weapons storage and terrorist safe havens. Such a deal would buy Israel maybe a couple of years - with Hamas rockets then killing civilians in Tel Aviv (and maybe hitting) Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona."

"Which is why the only acceptable outcome (is the total) disintegration of Hamas rule....The fall of Hamas is within reach (as long as) Israel does not cave in to pressure to stop now. (It's) disintegration....would be a devastating blow to Palestinian rejectionists....to Iran as patron of radical Islamic movements (and Sadrists) in Iraq." A Bush State Department "premature (ceasefire) imposition....would not just be self-defeating but shameful."

Why would any rabbi accept this man in his congregation even if he kept quiet and didn't shout.

Post columnist Richard Cohen is hardly better, and it shows in his January 6 op-ed: "A Conflict Hamas Caused....It takes real stupidity to blame it on Israel. As the leaders of Hamas understand, the war in Gaza is about Israel's incessant fight to be a normal country...so (Jewish) kids can swim in a lake."

How can they when "Hamas has vowed to destroy Israel....Anyone could have seen this war coming. As always, though, it's a lot harder to see how it ends." Cohen hints that destroying Hamas is the way. Some call Cohen liberal because he's pro-choice and pro-gay. He's also pro-war and zealously pro-Israel, even though occasionally critical. He has a "strong emotional attachment" to the country...."whose survival is not only important for the Jewish people but for the rest of mankind as well." So if mass slaughter assures it, so be it.

The New York Times "Incursion Into Gaza" Editorial

On January 5, The Times called Israel's "ground incursion (a gamble) that it can finally silence the Hamas rockets that have terrorized its people for years." No mention of:

-- unilateral Hamas ceasefires;
-- that Israel never observed them;
-- that the IDF killed over two dozen Gazans during the one ending November 4;
-- that no Israelis were killed or injured during the period;
-- that Israel, not Hamas, ended it; and
-- that Hamas responds only in self-defense as international law allows.

Instead The Times cites "no justification for Hamas' attacks or its virulent rejectionism." Of what? It repeatedly offers peace, is willing to recognize a Jewish state provided Israel reciprocates, stops killing Arabs, and grants Palestinians their own state inside pre-1967 borders - a mere 22% of their original homeland.

The Times also worries that the longer the conflict continues, the more casualties mount, the more likely "moderate" Arab states will become alienated, that "more regional instability (will be) fueled, and the harder it will be for Obama to be a peacemaker after January 20.

"Israel, aided by the United States, Europe and 'moderate' Arab states, must try to end this conflict as soon as possible (and) ensur(e) at a minimum that Hamas - a proxy of Iran - is not seen as gaining from the war, that rocket fire is halted permanently, and that the 'terrorist' group can no longer restock its arsenal with more deadly weapons" from across Egypt's border.

"There is little chance of restraining Hamas without dealing with its patrons in Syria and Iran....Palestinians (want a) way out of their misery (but) Hamas and its rockets are not the answer."

As always, The Times' distortion and silence speak louder than its comments. Peace? Hamas rockets? Its patrons? Neither Israel or Washington wants peace. Conflict serves their interests. Hamas rockets are for defense, not offense. They're weak and ineffective compared to Israel's awesome power. Its weapons are for offense and come from its Washington patron. Peace depends on not using them so Hamas will have no reason to respond. These facts aren't in The Times' editorial or other material in its pages.

Nor in columnist Tom Friedman's commentaries. His January 6 op-ed is titled: "The Mideast's Ground Zero." He addresses the ongoing struggle. Who'll end up the "regional superpower - Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Should there be a Jewish state....and, if so, on what Palestinian terms? And (who'll) dominate Arab society - Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future, with an Arab-Muslim face?"

Friedman is a neoliberal hawk, a supporter of the Afghan and Iraq wars, zealously pro-Israel, very hardline against Muslims, unsupportive of Palestinian issues, and he earlier called the Second Intifada "idiotic, braindead, insane (and) a reckless, pointless, foolish adventure."

He espouses Camp David mythology - that Ehud Barak made a generous offer but Arafat preferred "to play the victim rather than stateman. (He sought to) provoke the Israelis into brutalizing the Palestinians again." Friedman to Arafat: "Please don't tell me you can't control your own people. You've sold us that carpet one too many times." He accuses Palestinians of "adopt(ing) suicide bombing as a strategic choice, not out of desperation." These provocations and others "triggered (justifiable) Israeli retaliation...."

Friedman's analysis is one-sided, extremist, and immoral. He distorts facts, makes assertions with no evidence, lets emotion and intellectual dishonesty trump good commentary, and on everything Israel, Jewish interests matter. Arab ones don't. Now there's a winning formula for regional peace and stability.

From Jerusalem on January 10, Times columnist Steven Erlanger headlined: "A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery" - a one-sided article full of bias and misinformation. With Iranian and Hezbollah help, Erlanger states:

Hamas "used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership's war room is a bunker beneath Gaza's largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say."

If they said it, Erlanger reports it, and it once got journalist Robert Fisk to say that The New York Times should be renamed "US Officials Say," Government spokesmen say, unnamed sources say, or in this case "Israeli officials say."

Erlanger: "Israeli officials say that they are obeying the rules of war and trying hard not to hurt noncombatants but that Hamas is using civilians as human shields....Israeli press officers call the tactics of Hamas cynical, illegal and inhumane; even Israel's critics agree that Hamas' regular use of rockets to fire at civilians in Israel, and its use of civilians as shields in Gaza, are also violations of the rules of war."

Erlanger cites "Israeli military men and analysts" claiming these tactics "come from the Iranian Army's tactical training and the lesson of the 2006 war between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon."

Erlanger is in Jerusalem, not Gaza, nor will "Israeli officials" let him go there. His sources are them alone. His point of view is theirs. He ignores conditions in Occupied Gaza and is Israel's man at The New York Times. His article is "full of traps and trickery," instead of accurate, unbiased reporting. So is "All the News That's Fit to Print" that reveals the true record of the "Paper of Record."

The Hawkish Right-Wing Jerusalem Post

On January 9, its editor-in-chief David Horovitz's article headlined: "Time running out for an escalation Israel's leaders don't really want." Neither Israeli air power or its ground operation has broken Hamas' will to resist, and that concerns Horovitz. "Its main fighting force is largely intact (and) as of (January 8), it was plainly not crying out for a cease-fire, confident that the international diplomatic clock" is on its side.

"Israel's dilemma....is whether or not to proceed to an intensified ground operation - involving thousands (more) troops, penetrating far more deeply into Gaza's most dense urban areas." Doing so would greatly increase casualties on both sides, and there's "every indication that Hamas is braced (and thinking) it can inflict heavy damage on incoming forces, and thus bolster its standing and capacity to impose its terms on any cease-fire arrangements."

Operation Cast Lead "appear(s) in some kind of pause." Perhaps on the ground when he wrote this but not now nor in dozens of round-the-clock sorties inflicting wanton slaughter fast approaching 1000 confirmed deaths and well over four times that number of injuries, many serious.

Horovitz: "This pause cannot last long. The IDF is most vulnerable when....static. (It must decide) whether it is moving forward or pulling back." The key leadership agrees that "Hamas is hurt but not beaten....No mechanism is in place to ensure it cannot quickly rearm."

Hamas remains "cocky, (is) playing down its losses, and (is) anything but troubled by the deaths of Palestinians." If it "remains intransigent (and won't agree to Israel's terms), a reluctant political echelon (will order in) many thousands to confront (it) as never before....a full-scale invasion to overthrow Hamas and reoccupy" Gaza.

As usual, Horovitz, twists facts and invents myths. Hamas worries greatly for its people and continues struggling for them. Why else would it resist a three-year embargo, the arrest of its officials, killing others, a crippling 18 month siege, and three weeks of Israeli savagery to wage guerrilla battles against an overpowering foe.

Israel offers its terms alone - deposing Hamas' leadership, surrender of its weapons, continuation of Palestine's colonization, and ending any hope for a just and lasting peace or Palestinian self-determination in a sovereign independent state inside pre-1967 borders. Hamas spent the last 21 years fighting for them. They won't likely stop now, nor will Palestinians. As a result, continued bloodshed may continue if Israeli extremists prevail.

Horovitz seems unconcerned that most casualties will be civilian men, women and children, or that UN and human rights organizations accuse Israel of willfully targeting them. No concern either that UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, says Gaza's crisis is "worsening day by day," refuting Israel's claim that none exists. The situation is so extreme that he and others no longer can be silent.

Even the Vatican's Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, compared Gaza to a "concentration camp," reminiscent of Nazi-era atrocities. That kind of criticism has impact, yet Israel's mass slaughter continues.

The independent Al Haq human rights organization estimates 80% of Palestinian deaths are civilians, including many women and children. The IDF follows so-called "Dahiyah Doctrine" tactics reflecting official change in Israel's National Security Concept. It calls for:

"wield(ing) disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. This is not a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized."

Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Colonel Gabriel Siboni believes responses should "disproportion(ately) strike at the heart of the enemy's weak spot, in which efforts to hurt (rocket) launch capability are secondary."

It's why Israel calls civilian areas "legitimate military targets" in gross violation of international laws. Mosques, medical facilities, private dwellings, fishing boats, and food markets pose no strategic threats. Attacking them is terrorism. Those involved are war criminals. No Dahiyah doctrines change that. Nor do high-level wrongdoing denials. Israel is a serial offender.

For international law expert Francis Boyle, justice awaits an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as "the Only (possible) Deterrent" to all out war, to put an end to these crimes of war and against humanity, and to let other Israeli leaders and generals know that committing these crimes will be punished. He urges the General Assembly to act before Arab anger erupts into something far greater than conflict in Gaza.

He advocates other needed actions as well:

-- "immediately move for the de facto suspension of Israel throughout the entirety of the United Nations System, including the General Assembly and all UN subsidiary organs and bodies;"

-- carry out all further talks with Israel "under principles of public international law (Geneva Convention 1949 and Hague Regulations 1907);"

-- "abandon the fiction and fraud that the US government is an 'honest broker;"

-- "move to have the UN General Assembly impose economic, diplomatic, and travel sanctions upon Israel pursuant to the terms of the (General Assembly) Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950);" and

-- "the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine must sue Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague for inflicting acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention."

Boyle accuses "the United States (of) Promot(ing) Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians. Although the United States is a founding sponsor of, and a contracting party to, both the Nuremberg Charter and the Genocide Convention, as well as the United Nations Charter, these legal facts have never made any difference to (US officials from either party) when it comes to (their) blank-check support for Israel and their joint and severable criminal mistreatment of the Palestinians - truly the wretched of the earth!"

"The world has not yet heard even one word uttered by the United States and its NATO allies in favor of 'humanitarian intervention' against Israel in order to protect the Palestinian people, let alone a 'responsibility to protect' (them) from Zionist/Israeli(American) genocide."

"Rather than rein in the Israelis, the United States government (and) Congress" feed its war machine." Boyle calls this "humanitarian extermination" through a joint US - Israeli partnership. He expects no policy change under the new Obama administration.

Alternative Voices for Sanity and Peace

On January 8, Jimmy Carter in a Washington Post op-ed headlined: "An Unnecessary War." A few quotes:

-- "Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza;"

-- "We knew that 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved....acute malnutrition (is evident) on the same scale as in the poorest nations in southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day" - and a very inadequate one for proper nutrition;

-- "The top Hamas leaders in Damascus....agreed to a cease-fire, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens;" they also agreed "to accept any peace agreement....provided....a majority vote of Palestinians" approved it; yet

-- Israel remains unwilling to negotiate with Hamas for peace or on other issues.

Comments like these from a former US president are important despite falling woefully short. The war isn't "unnecessary," it's illegal. Those responsible are war criminals. Justice demands they be punished. Israel should be isolated, embargoed, and boycotted until they are and hostilities and the Gaza siege end. Carter nonetheless deserves praise for going this far and refusing to be silent.

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, like his colleague Amira Hass, as well. In his January 9 "time of the righteous" commentary he refers to:

-- Israel's "unbridled aggression and brutality,"
-- about 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli;
-- is Palestinian blood "worth one hundred times less than ours...;"
-- "all the disasters now occurring in Gaza are manmade - by us;"
-- "Anyone who preaches for this war and believes in the justness of mass killing....has no right....to speak about morality and humaneness;"
-- "Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror."

Davids Cromwell and Edwards edit the Media Lens UK-based media watch project to provide "authoritative criticism of mainstream media bias, censorship" and much more. Their January 12 alert is titled: "An Eye for an Eyelash: The Gaza Massacre - Part I.

They quote Tony Blair making an emotional March 24, 1999 appeal to the House of Commons and British people saying:

"We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe."

He referred to the Balkans ahead of the 78 day 1999 blitzkrieg - what Harold Pinter called "another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile (to cut) children to pieces from 15,000 feet."

Blair is now the Quartet's Middle East envoy representing the UN, EU, Russia but mostly America and, of course, Israel. He blames the victims and supports the aggressor unlike his sister-in-law Lauren Booth saying his notion of a ceasefire would condemn Palestinians "to a slow agonising death."

Try finding those comments in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, or any other major US newspaper or publication. Try hearing them from guests, pundits or reporters on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News, NPR, PBS, or BBC.

Try expecting world leaders (except Hugo Chavez, Ecuador's Raphael Correa, the Cuban government, and Iran's President Ahmadinejad) to express these views and much more.

Imagine Israel ending hostilities if they did. It's defiant with Ehud Olmert saying he won't bow to "outside influence....(Israel) has a right to protect its citizens....(the IDF will) continue to change the security situation in the south (meaning attacks will continue, and no outside body can challenge our) right to defend (our) security."

A Final Comment

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) states:

"Israeli Occupation Forces have continued to wage the bloodiest and most brutal war against the Gaza Strip since its (1967) occupation, under an international and Arab conspiracy of silence. It cites:

-- the deplorable humanitarian conditions; Gaza is totally dysfunctional; its society is in total breakdown;

-- continued air raids have created confusion, fear and horror;

-- "according to (PCHR) investigations, at least 90% of the Palestinians killed....are civilians, many of whom are children; the Mezan Center for Human Rights estimates 85%; UN officials continue to cite 25% to suppress the full horror; its relief agencies say 100% of Gazans need humanitarian aid.

Deaths are now around 1000. Injuries exceed 4500. No resolution is in sight. Laila Al-Haddad reports there's "nowhere to hide from (the) bombing. You don't know who is alive....who is a target....where to? Where can I go seek refuge to?"

Your house shakes. The windows break. There's fear everywhere. Children are traumatized. The Saminu clan lost 70 members of their extended family. Professor Said Abdelwahed (in the Strip) emails about a typical Gaza night - "bloody;" air and ground attacks lasting all night to 6:45AM; "hellish; I do not believe that there was someone in Gaza who could sleep last night!;" no casualty reports yet; "situation is horrible."

Half the population has no water. On January 11, Gaza's Water Authority said it's near totally disabled and no longer can provide any. Israel attacked a major water pipe in central Gaza. Salty water from wells is all that's available. Raw sewage is running through streets. Officials warn of a "massive sewage flood throughout the Strip. One million Gazans have no electricity. Hospitals can't function. Their supplies are near-exhausted. Hundreds more will die as a result.

A modern-day Holocaust is unfolding. The hypocrisy of "Never again" repeated in full world view. Bil'in, West Bank residents marched in protest, joined by Israeli and international activists. Protesters carried Palestinian and Venezuelan flags. They wore clothes like those given Jews in Nazi concentration camps featuring yellow Stars of David.

Meanwhile, reports from Gaza are of entire neighborhood forced evacuations, but where to go! Schools are bombed, shelters and mosques attacked, everything and everyone in Gaza is a "legitimate" target. Images coming out are horrifying. It's why the US media suppress them.

In a January 10 Newsweek interview, Tzipi Livni talked tough and called the term "ceasefire" unacceptable because "it looks like an agreement between two legitimate sides....this is not a conflict between two states but a fight against terror. We will continue to fight," and blame Iran for being behind it all.

On January 8, the Senate (by voice vote) agreed to a non-binding resolution affirming support for Israel's aggression. On January 9, the House followed suit overwhelmingly in approving a similar non-binding resolution (390 - 5) calling for a Gaza ceasefire - on Israel's terms.

On January 9, Reuters reported that the Pentagon plans "to deliver hundreds of tons of (new) arms (and munitions) to Israel from Greece later this month." Indications are that "hazardous material" is involved, including explosive substances and detonators.

Weapons and munitions shipments generally signal future, not ongoing conflicts. This one, and perhaps others, may be for a larger-scale regional war, but it's too early to conclude it. Yet threats continue to be made against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah so planning for more confrontation is very possible.

On January 13, Haaretz reported:

"A US military plan to ship munitions from a Greek port to a US stockpile in Israel has been cancelled due to the conflict in the Gaza Strip," Pentagon officials said. Take it with a grain of salt, and follow-up comments indicated a delay, not cancellation, and "EUCOM (the US European Command) is developing an appropriate course of action to deliver the items to the US stockpile in Israel. (No information will be provided) on timelines or possible routes for obvious reasons of operations security."

Life in Occupied Gaza. No end of conflict is in sight. Mass slaughter continues unabated. World leaders are silent on halting it. Blame the victims. Back aggression, but people globally say otherwise: In solidarity, we're all Gazans. We're all Palestinians.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11726 

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Remember Gaza - One of History's Terror Bombing Victims

Stephen Lendman (12 Jan 2009)

History's terror bombings. This article reviews some of the most infamous:

-- Guernica - 1937;
-- the London Blitz - 1940 - 41;
-- Dresden - 1945;
-- Tokyo - 1945;
-- Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945;
-- North Korea - 1950 - 53;
-- Southeast Asia - 1964 - 73;
-- Iraq - 1991 to the present;
-- Serbia/Kosovo - 1999;
-- Afghanistan - 2001 to the present;
-- Lebanon - 1982 and 2006; and
-- Gaza - 2008 - 09.

Strategic bombing involves destroying an adversary's economic and military ability to wage war. It targets its war making capacity and related infrastructure. Terror bombing is another matter. It's against civilians to break their morale, cause panic, weaken an enemy's will to fight, and inflict mass casualties and punishment.

Geneva and other international laws forbid the targeting of civilians. The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention) states:

-- Article 25: "The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited."

-- Article 26: "The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities."

Article 27: "In sieges and bombardments, all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes." The besieged should visibly indicate these buildings or places and notify an adversary beforehand.

The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians in time of war. It prohibits violence of any type against them and requires treatment for the sick and wounded. In September 1938, a League of Nations unanimous resolution prohibited the:

"bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces....In cases where (legitimate targets) are so situated, (aircraft) must abstain from bombardment" if this action indiscriminately affects civilians.

The 1945 Nuremberg Principles prohibit "crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity." These include "inhumane acts committed against any civilian populations, before or during the war," including indiscriminate killing and "wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity."

The 1968 General Assembly Resolution on Human Rights prohibits launching attacks against civilian populations. Israel and America do it repeatedly - by land, sea and terror bombings.

Below is some relevant history.

Guernica, Spain - 1937

On April 26, 1937, German and Italian aircraft fire-bombed the small Basque town at the request of their fascist ally General Francisco Franco. It destroyed the town, killed an estimated 1650 people, and injured hundreds more. An eyewitness account said:

"The only things left standing were a church, a sacred tree, the symbol of the Basque people....There hadn't been a single anti-aircraft gun in the town. It (was) mainly a fire raid....A sight that haunted me for weeks was the charred bodies of several women and children huddled together in what had been the cellar of a house." It was a drill for larger-scale bombings to come, and civilian sites were as fair game as military ones.

The scene was repeated throughout the town. Guernica was in flames. It wasn't the first instance of bombarding civilians. Germans did it in WW I. Britain did it against Iraq in the 1920s with poison gas. Secretary for Air and War Winston Churchill's secret poison gas memo recommended it. In a May 12, 1919 departmental minute he wrote: "I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas....I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."

In 1937, Hitler used explosives, fragmentation bombs and incendiaries in the two and a half hour raid "with a brutality that had never been seen before," according to Basque Autonomous Republic president Jose Antonio de Aguirre. "They scorched the city and fired machine guns at the women and children who fled in panic, resulting in numerous deaths."

The London Blitz - 1940 - 41

Following a German-staged August 31, 1939 attack, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1. Honoring their obligations to Poland, Britain and France demanded a withdrawal. None came, and on September 3, Prime Minister Chamberlain announced on-air that a state of war existed against Germany. WW II began.

On September 7, 1940, Hitler changed tactics. After initially targeting RAF airfields and radar stations in preparation for an invasion, he attacked London for 57 consecutive nights to demoralize the population and force Britain to come to terms. It began the "Blitz" against numerous UK cities. It lasted intensively until May 11. Hitler then focused on Russia, continued smaller-scale UK bombings, and by 1944 used pilotless V-1 flying ("Buzz) bombs and V-2 rockets.

Ernie Pyle was a noted war correspondent witness to the Battle of Britain and invasion of France. He described a 1940 London night raid as follows:

"It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire. They came just after dark, and somehow you could sense from the quick, bitter firing of the guns that there was to be no monkey business this night."

"Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans grinding overhead. In my room....you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear (explosions) tearing buildings apart....You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires - scores of them, perhaps hundreds....Every two minutes, a new wave of planes would be over...."

"Later on, I went out among the fires....London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions....all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. (It was) the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."

London wasn't the only city attacked. In addition to military sites, so were Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Birmingham, Sheffield, Plymouth, Nottingham, Southhampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Clydebank, Coventry, Greencock, Swansea, and Hull.

Before it ended, around 43,000 died in London, thousands more in other cities, hundreds of thousands were injured, and more than a million London houses were destroyed - yet the British public was more than ever committed to defeating Nazism.

Dresden - 1945

As a German POW, author Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the effects of its fire-bombing and described the horror that Arthur ("Bomber) Harris inflicted:

"You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagazaki combined."

Well, not quite as explained below. Nonetheless, on the evening of February 13 and early 14th morning, 1945, the raid was horrific by any measure. It was an orgy of barbarism against a defenseless German city and one of Europe's great cultural centers.

In less than 14 hours, it was ruined and as many as 100,000 Germans died, although later accounts suggested lower totals. Dresdan was also a hospital city for wounded soldiers. It was of no military importance, and, by February, Germany was soundly defeated. Attacking was morally indefensible, and unleashing a firestorm and slaughter of tens of thousands was one of WW II's great war crimes.

More than 700,000 phosphorous bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. The temperature in city center reached 1600 degrees centigrade. Bodies became molten flesh. The slaughter was horrific, so why was it ordered? The February 4 - 11 Yalta Conference was approaching at which the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin) would divide the spoils of war. Churchill and Roosevelt wanted an edge as well as a way to "impress" Stalin. It wasn't gotten as bad weather delayed the original raid, yet Churchill ordered it anyway and declared it successful when over.

Morality wasn't an issue for the man who felt no "squeamishness" over using poison gas against Iraqis in the 1920s and recommended it in his secret memo. Nor in firebombing Hamburg in July 1943 - causing widespread destruction, killing an estimated 50,000, injuring many more, mostly civilians, and leaving around one million Germans homeless.

Tokyo - 1945

US air forces bombed Tokyo several times before using incendiaries. On April 18, 1942, four months after Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led the raid MGM made famous in its 1944 film, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." It did little damage. All 16 US aircraft were lost, 11 crewmen were either killed or captured, but it achieved its aim. It sent a propaganda message and proved Tokyo was vulnerable to more attacks.

The B-29 Superfortress made the difference. Introduced in May 1944, it was a long-range heavy bomber used first in a single plane high altitude reconnaissance mission over Tokyo in November. The first firebombing raid came on February 24, 1945 when 174 planes destroyed one square mile of the city. The major attack came days later on March 9 when 279 Superforts demolished 16 square city miles, killed an estimated 100,000 in the firestorm, injured many more, and left over one million homeless. Around five dozen other Japanese cities were also firebombed at a time most structures in the country were wooden and easily consumed. And for what?

Early in 1945, Japan sent America peace feelers, and, two days before the February Yalta Conference, Douglas MacArthur sent Roosevelt a 40-page summary of its terms. They were near-unconditional. The Japanese would accept an occupation, would cease hostilities, surrender its arms, remove all troops from occupied territories, submit to criminal war trials, and allow its industries to be regulated. In return, they asked only that their Emperor be retained in an honorable capacity.

Roosevelt spurned the offer. So did Truman. In March, Tokyo was firebombed, then in August atomic bombs were used for the first (and so far only) time against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945

The week of August 6, 1945 was the worst in Japanese history. On August 8, Soviet Russia declared war, invaded Manchuria, and occupied it and the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands.

On August 6 and 9, president Truman authorized Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be attacked with atomic weapons. Records at the time estimated that by December the (mostly civilian) Hiroshima death toll was about 140,000. In Nagasaki, it was somewhat lower at 74,000, but those numbers rose in succeeding months and years. Radiation poisoning is permanent and enough of it kills or causes grievous illnesses, disfiguration, and birth defects to offspring. Decades later, they're still being felt.

The joint US, UK, Canada (1939 - 1946) Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons with the first bomb test-detonated three weeks before August 6. Hiroshima was the initial target, a medium-sized city of industrial and military importance although that late in the war Japan was largely destroyed and in a state of collapse.

Nagasaki was a large southern Japanese sea port. Kokura was the primary target, but poor visibility on August 9 diverted the mission to the alternate choice. Howard Zinn recounted what happened in his August 2000 "Bombs of August" article.

Their principle justification was to save "lives because otherwise a planned US invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point (said) 'a half million lives,' and Churchill 'a million lives,' but these figures" had no basis in fact. "Even official projections" were at most around 46,000.

"In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan because (none) was necessary" or even likely. Japan was "on the verge of surrender" and top US military and government officials knew it so "dropping the bomb(s were) completely unnecessary."

Afterward, Joint Chiefs Chairman, William Leahy, called the atomic bomb "a barbarous weapon" and admitted that using them against Japan was unnecessary. After the US May 1945 Okinawa victory, Japan had enough of war. By June, six of its Supreme War Council members authorized Foreign Minister Togo to ask the Soviets to mediate its end. Hitler and Mussolini were dead. Germany surrendered in early May, and Japan offered near-unconditionally provided its Emperor was retained.

Truman spurned the offer to ensure the atomic bombings. "It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs," according to Zinn. Why so?

He cites Gar Alperovitz "whose research on that question is unmatched." Based on Truman's papers, "the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union" - to let us dictate war-ending terms and as the "first major operation of the cold diplomatic" one that followed.

Horrifying as it was, incinerating hundreds of thousands late in the war was judged good politics plus a message to Soviet Russia and other potential adversaries that we were the toughest adversary around - and for doubters, visit the remains of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Other aims as well lay behind the attacks then and later on - "There was tin, rubber, oil, corporate profit (and) imperial arrogance." Human rights and lives relate to none of these.

North Korea - 1950-53

East Asia and Korean expert Bruce Cumings wrote this about the Korean War:

"What was indelible about it was the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of war."

Post-WW II, neither North Korea, China or any other country threatened America. Creating adversaries was entirely bogus to advance our imperial agenda, and slaughtering millions of North Koreans was perfectly acceptable. Later millions of Southeast Asians. More on that below.

On June 25, 1950, after months of US-influenced Republic of Korean (ROK) provocations, North Korean forces invaded the South. James Petras wrote about "Provocation and Pretext for the US War Against Korea" and referred to America's "incomplete conquest of Asia" following WW II.

Revolutionary upheavals followed in China, Southeast Asia and Korea. "President Truman faced a profound dilemma - how to consolidate US imperial supremacy in the Pacific" when the public and "war wearied soldiers....demand(ed) demobilization and a return" to normalcy. Like Roosevelt in 1941, he chose the usual course, provoked a confrontation, and intervened in Korea's civil war.

In the run-up to the US invasion, "Truman, the US Congress, and mass media engaged in a massive propaganda campaign (like today to sell foreign wars) and purge of peace and anti-militarist organizations throughout US civil society. Tens of thousands" were affected but not like what we did to Koreans.

Until the 1953 armistice, North Korea was literally bombed to rubble with principle targets hit around Pyongyang (the capital), Chongyin, Wonsan, Hungnam and Rashin. Three to four million deaths resulted and unimaginable additional casualties, mostly innocent civilians.

Again Cumings:

"Korea (was) assumed to have been a limited war," but it bore strong resemblance to the air war against Japan in WW II, and it was directed by some of the same military leaders. The use of napalm against populated areas was horrific as one survivor described:

"It fell right on people. Men all around me burned. They lay rolling in the snow. Men I knew....begged me to shoot them...It was terrible. When the napalm had burned the skin to a crisp, it would be peeled back from the face, arms, legs....like fried potato chips."

Orders were given to burn towns and villages and create oceans of fires. General Matthew Ridgway ordered the air force to burn the capital, Pyongyang, to the ground. Other areas also in a scorched earth campaign few in America knew about, then or now.

MacArthur asked for commander's discretion to use nuclear weapons, lots of them, and if Truman hadn't intervened he would have. In posthumously published interviews, he said he had a plan to win the war in 10 days: "I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria," spread a radioactive cobalt belt from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea, and deterred any invasion from the North. "My plan was a cinch," he claimed, and the Russians would have done nothing about it.

Cumings continues:

Even without nuclear weapons, "the air war leveled North Korea and killed millions of civilians. North Koreans tell you that for three years they faced a daily threat of being burned (alive) with napalm." There was no escape, and by "1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea had been completely leveled. What was left of the population survived in caves."

Bomb damage assessment showed that 18 of 22 major cities were half or more obliterated. The big industrial ones were from 75 - 100% destroyed. Villages were described as "low, wide mounds of violent ashes." This was Korea, "the limited war." Southeast Asia was next.

Southeast Asia - Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - 1964 - 1973

Gabriel Kolko wrote the definitive history of the Vietnam war in his 1985 book: "Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience." He saw America's invention as a predictable consequence of its ambition, strengths, weaknesses, and quest for world dominance.

Nonetheless, it miscalculated. Vietnamese tired of colonial rule so the communists in the North gained control. They won peasant loyalty by promising more equal land distribution. In addition, their top leaders were intellectuals. They planned well and were patient. The contrast in the South was stark. America installed the authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem regime to build a strong army, crush opposition, and serve as a reliable ally.

From the 1950s, the US supplied military advisors, slowly escalated under Kennedy, and much more when Lyndon Johnson became president. After the bogus August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, war began to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements.

Operation Rolling Thunder began in February 1965 and lasted through October 1968. For 44 months, over one millions tons of ordnance were used in targeted and indiscriminate bombings. It aimed to destroy North Vietnam's economy and curtail help reaching National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) resistance in the South. Over the course of the war, eight million tons of bombs were dropped from 1965 - 73, threefold the tonnage in WW II and amounting to 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman, and child.

As in Korea, napalm was also used along with other incendiary devices. In addition, terror weapons like anti-personnel cluster bombs spewing thousands of metal pellets hitting everything in their path plus the indiscriminate planting of land mines that to this day take lives.

From 1961 to 1971, the dioxin-containing defoliant Agent Orange was used as well, mainly in the South, Cambodia and Laos. Millions of gallons were sprayed with devastating human consequences. It's one of the most toxic of known substances, a potent carcinogenic human immune system suppressant. It accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver, can alter living cell genetic structures, cause congenital disorders and birth defects, and contribute to diseases like cancer and type two diabetes.

These consequences were never considered nor the effects of expanded spraying to destroy vital food crops like rice. Also in 1970, US forces conducted Operation Tailwind using sarin nerve gas in Laos causing many deaths, including civilians. Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, confirmed the use on CNN in 1998. Then under Pentagon pressure, CNN retracted the report, fired its award-winning journalist Peter Arnett and co-producers April Oliver and Jack Smith because they refused to disavow it.

The Indochinese war engulfed Cambodia and Laos as well. From March 1969 through May 1970, Nixon ordered Cambodia secretly bombed (without consulting Congress) to destroy North Vietnam and Viet Cong sanctuaries. Around 3500 sorties caused 600,000 deaths, mostly civilians, and helped the marginal Khmer Rouge rise to power in 1975. Neutral Cambodia was bombed with over 500,000 tons of ordnance until August 1973. Over 25,000 US ground forces also invaded. They destroyed dozens of towns, villages and hamlets, and killed many thousands more, mostly peasants guilty of living in the wrong country at the wrong time.

A second 1962 Geneva Accord recognized Laos as a neutral country and banned the presence of foreign military personnel. The reality on the ground was quite different. From 1964 - 1973, America dropped over two million tons of ordnance during 580,000 bombing sorties - the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, round-the-clock for nine years. The aim was to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and target the Pathet Lao government and North Vietnamese Army in control of the country's eastern provinces.

Secret bombings were again the strategy. Terror weapons were used, including napalm, white phosphorous and cluster bombs - leaving millions of unexploded bomblets buried in fields, roads, forests, villages, and rivers. Laos had a population of about 6.5 million. About one-third of it was either killed, injured, or displaced. Overall, Southeast Asia's wars killed about three to four million, inflicted vast amounts of destruction, and caused incalculable human suffering felt to this day.

Iraq - Since 1991

Four days after Saddam entered Kuwait (on August 2, 1990), Operation Desert Shield was launched. US-demanded UN sanctions were imposed. A large American troop deployment began along with a Kuwait-funded PR campaign to win public support for Operation Desert Storm. It began on January 17, 1991.

By any standard, it was horrendous and criminal. Before it ended six weeks later (on February 28), US forces committed grievous war crime violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, UN Charter, Nuremberg Principles, and US Army Field Manual 27-10. Among them were gratuitous mass slaughter and destruction of essential to life facilities, including:

-- power plants;
-- dams;
-- water purification facilities;
-- sewage treatment and disposal systems;
-- telephone and other communications;
-- hospitals;
-- mosques;
-- up to 20,000 homes, apartments and other dwellings;
-- irrigation sites;
-- food processing, storage and distribution facilities;
-- hotels and retail establishments;
-- transportation infrastructure;
-- oil wells, pipelines, refineries and storage tanks;
-- chemical plants;
-- factories and other commercial operations;
-- government buildings;
-- schools;
-- historical sites; and
-- civilian shelters in a willful targeting of innocent men, women and children.

Virtually everything needed for normal functioning was destroyed or heavily damaged - and more. Tens of thousands were gratuitously killed, as many as 200,000 or more by independent estimates.

Twelve years of genocidal sanctions followed that killed as many as 1.7 million, two-thirds of them children under age five. From the 2003 "shock and awe" blitzkrieg through 2007, as many as 1.5 - 2.0 million more lives were lost, most of them young children. By any standard since 1991, Washington conducted a 17-year campaign of genocide to slaughter innocent Iraqis, erase the "cradle of civilization," turn the country into a free market paradise, and make serfs of its people - as part of a greater aim for regional and global dominance and control of world resources and markets.

Human rights and lives are non-starters. So is the rule of law. War continues to rage. Permanent occupation is planned. The human tragedy continues with no foreseeable end.

Serbia-Kosovo - 1999

In June 1999, playwright Harold Pinter told a UK anti-war demonstration that NATO's Yugoslavia bombing made him ashamed to be British:

"Little did we think two years ago that we had elected a government which would take a leading role in what is essentially a criminal act, showing total contempt for the United Nations and international law." He called cutting children to pieces from 15,000 feet "barbaric" and despicably hypocritical.

"Let us face the truth - neither Clinton nor Blair gives a damn about the Kosovar Albanians. This action has been yet another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile. It set out to consolidate one thing - American domination of Europe. This must be recognised and it must be resisted." This barbarism mustn't be allowed to stand.

Diana Johnstone explained the conflict in her superb 2002 book, "Fools' Crusade." Edward Herman reviewed it and wrote this:

"Military interventions on supposedly humanitarian grounds have become an established feature of the post-Cold War global order. Since September 11, this form of militarism has taken on new and unpredictable proportions." Diana Johnstone did an admirable job analyzing NATO's intervention. Muslims were portrayed as "defenseless victims," Serbs as "genocidal monsters" to prepare the ground for America and NATO to dominate the Balkans.

Herman: Johnstone explained "that the 'Kosovo war' was in reality the model for future destruction of countries seen as potential threats to the hegemony of an 'international community' currently being redefined to exclude or marginalize all but those who conform to the interests of the United States."

Throughout the 1990s, conflict and civil wars divided Yugoslavia into separate states culminating with the US-NATO 1999 bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Serbia-Kosovo. From March 24 - June 10, around 600 aircraft flew about 3000 sorties dropping thousands of tons of ordnance plus hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles. To that time, the ferocity of the attack was unprecedented given the destructiveness of modern weapons and technology.

Nearly everything was struck causing massive destruction and disruption: known or suspected military sites and targets; power plants; factories; transportation; telecommunications facilities; vital infrastructure including roads, bridges and rail lines; fuel depots; schools; a TV station; the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; hospitals; government offices; churches; historical landmarks; and more in cities and villages throughout the country.

An estimated $100 billion in damage was inflicted. A humanitarian disaster resulted. Environmental contamination was extensive. Large numbers were killed, injured or displaced. Two million people lost their livelihoods. Many their homes and communities and for most their futures from what America planned and implemented jointly with NATO.

Michel Chossudovsky explained earlier in a February 2008 article that:

"The Balkans constitute the gateway to Eurasia. The 1999 invasion establishes a permanent US Military presence (at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo) in Southern Europe, which serves the broader US led war. Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq: these three war theaters were waged on humanitarian grounds. (In each case, utterly bogus.) Without exception, in all three countries, US military bases were established" as part of America's global imperial agenda.

The US, NATO and international community support the organized crime-connected KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) government and its leader Hashim Thaci. Kosovo as it was no longer exists. Afghanistan and Iraq were next.

Afghanistan - 2001

The 9/11 attack was the pretext for bombing, invading and occupying Afghanistan, an operation planned months in advance the way Michel Chossudovsky explained in his superb book, "America's War on Terrorism." Most people don't "realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks."

The Taliban and bin Laden became fictitious "outside enem(ies)" without which no "war on terrorism" could exist or imperial wars fought. Afghanistan was the first target. It began on October 7, 2001, four weeks after 9/11, and ended five weeks later on November 12. Once again, conflict ravaged Afghanistan, a country more abused, long-suffering, and less helped than most any in living memory, according to John Pilger. Today it's occupied under a US-installed puppet. Its suffering continues unabated and may intensify under Obama if he follows through on his promise to add more troops for a larger combat role.

Chossudovsky again:

US imperialism aims to "recoloniz(e)...a vast region extending from the Balkans into Central Asia" - the "center of world power," according to Zbigniew Brzezinski extending from German, Poland and the Balkans in the East through Russia and China in the Pacific, including the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. It's an area with 75% of the world's population, most of its resources and physical wealth, three-fourths of its oil and gas, and the grandest of grand prizes for whoever controls it.

Chossudovsky:

...."America's war machine purports to enlarge America's economic sphere of influence" - through its newly established military bases "in Iraq, Afghanistan (and) in several of the former Soviet republics on China's Western frontier." The South China Sea as well.
"War and Globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports the conquest of new economic frontiers and the worldwide imposition of free-market" capitalism. Afghanistan became its victim. Thousands were killed and as many as six million displaced. Most now have returned but to what - deplorable conditions of no future, despair, no shelter, work, schools, medical care, clean water, security, and for many hunger, disease and early deaths.

Like Serbia-Kosovo and Iraq, Afghanistan is another country terror-bombed to oblivion to impose free-market capitalism everywhere. Conflicts will continue. World peace is an illusion, nowhere more than in the Middle East.

Lebanon - 1982 and 2006

Israel and Lebanon have had a troubled history through no fault of the Lebanese. In 1968, the IDF conducted cross-border terror raids, including attacking the Beirut airport and destroying 13 commercial planes, claiming it was in retaliation for an attack by Lebanese-trained Palestinians targeting an Israeli airliner in Athens.

Further IDF incursions continued in the 1970s against the PLO, including the "Litani River Operation." It was launched in March 1978 to establish a southern occupation zone with Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA) soldiers in place to secure it once Israeli forces withdrew weeks later.

In June 1982, "Operation Peace of the Galilee" (called the First Lebanon War) was launched against the Palestinian leadership. The IDF invaded after claiming PLO involvement in an assassination attempt on its UK ambassador. The charge was bogus, yet Israel exploited it to attack and remain in the country until it withdrew in May 2000.

In the interim, Israeli forces occupied southern Lebanon, attacked the PLO, drove out the leadership to Tunis, slaughtered around 18,000 mostly non-combatant Lebanese and Palestinians, and authorized a Phalange militia force to massacre about 3000 men, women and children in southern Beirut Sabra and Shitila camps.

In June 2006, Palestinians responded to continued Israeli provocations by striking an IDF military post, killing two soldiers, injuring several others and capturing a third. Events escalated when Hezbollah resistance fighters captured two IDF soldiers who illegally crossed the UN-monitored "blue line" - a near-daily Israeli routine since it withdrew from South Lebanon in May 2000.

Israel responded with overwhelming force by launching "Operation Summer Rain" against Gaza and invading South Lebanon in what became known as the Second Lebanon War. It lasted 33 days against Hezbollah, the Lebanese people, and the entire country, including northern Christian areas.

It was long-planned terror against civilian, commercial, and infrastructure targets - bridges; roads; power plants; the three largest cities of Beirut, Tyre and Sidon; Beirut airport; factories; warehouses; civil defense centers; schools; radio and TV stations; mosques; churches; hospitals; ambulances; and anything else in the path of a scorched-earth blitzkrieg killing over 1300, injuring many more, displacing one million people (or one-forth of the population), and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Both assaults were planned months in advance and closely coordinated with Washington like always. Terror weapons were also used, including blanketing entire towns with cluster bombs. Others reported were:

-- depleted uranium (DU) munitions spreading toxic radiation;
-- banned white phosphorous bombs and shells (known as Willy Pete) that burn flesh to the bone and can't be extinguished by water; and
-- reportedly a thermobaric bomb able to penetrate buildings, underground shelters and tunnels, and able to create blast pressure enough to suck all oxygen from spaces and human lungs in the vicinity.

Hezbollah prevailed, nonetheless. A post-conflict analysis showed its commanders were well prepared, and successfully penetrated Israel's strategic and tactical decision-making cycle, including its intelligence, military and political operations. As a result, their fighters held their own, killed over 100 IDF soldiers, retained their military capability, and effectively embarrassed the Israeli government - at a very stiff cost to Lebanon and a million or more of its people.

Gaza - 2008 - 09

For Israel, attacking Palestinians is a long-standing practice, beginning with its 1948 "War of Independence." It involved:

-- the wholesale massacre and displacement of 800,000 Palestinians;
-- destroying their homes, 531 villages and crops, and their futures;
-- 11 urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and elsewhere;
-- mass incidents of rape and other atrocities; and
-- the myth that Palestinians left voluntarily to avoid being harmed by invading Arab armies.

The State of Israel was created on 78% of historic Palestine. Palestinians retained the remainder in Gaza and the West Bank. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched its so-called "Six Day War" against Egypt, Jordan and Syria - a long-planned preemptive act masquerading as self-defense. When it ended, Israel controlled the remainder of Palestine.

It's now occupied the Territories militarily for over 41 years - the longest continuous illegal occupation anywhere under which Palestinians lost all freedom; are collectively punished; are losing their land; are being cantonized in the West Bank; and since December, assaulted by Israel's most savage aggression since the "Six Day War."

"Operation Cast Lead" terror bombings began on December 27 and have continued daily round the clock. The death and injury toll exceeds 5000 as of January 12, the great majority of whom are civilian men, women and children. Portions of Gaza have been reoccupied. Israel is pursuing genocide. Gaza is completely sealed off. It's now a free-fire zone on the ground and from repeated air attacks. Tanks, missiles, bombs, terror weapons, and the latest technology is matched against crude rockets, home-made mortars, hand-held automatic weapons, and the redoubtable spirit of brave Gazan freedom fighters unjustly called "terrorists." Civilians, including women and children, are being willfully slaughtered and comprise the vast majority of killed and wounded.

On January 6, IDF tank shelling killed 42 Palestinians and wounded dozens more taking shelter in an UNRWA school. False reports claimed "militants" were inside and fired first. UN officials denied it and provided Israeli authorities with GPS coordinates (in advance) and left no doubt this was a school used as temporary shelter for civilians fleeing the fighting. There were no fighters inside.

On January 9, a disturbing UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report read as follows:

"From 3 to 7 January, the IDF prevented medical teams from entering the area to evacuate the wounded. In one of the gravest incidents....on 4 January Israeli foot-soldiers (herded about) 110 Palestinian (civilians) into a single-residence house in Zaytoun (half of whom were children), warning them to stay indoors."

"Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately thirty. Those who survived and were able, walked two kilometers to Salah Din road before being transported to the hospital in civilian vehicles."

On January 9, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) suspended its relief operations after Israel attacked its convoys and installations. Its statement read:

"On numerous occasions in recent days, humanitarian convoys have come under Israeli fire even though their safe passage through clearly designated routes at specifically agreed times, had been confirmed by the Israeli liaison office....the nature, severity and frequency of these incidents" necessitated the suspension of operations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross faces similar problems. ICRC's Geneva-based operations director, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, said: "There is no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with a full-blown and major crisis in humanitarian terms."

UNWRA's Gaza head, John Ging, expressed similar sentiments and added: "There is nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized." Israel and the world community are dismissive, unresponsive, and arrogant. Mass slaughter and destruction are green-lighted to continue - international human rights laws be damned.

These and other incidents are grievous war crimes. Everything and everyone is attacked as the IDF connects the entire population to Hamas - long targeted since democratically winning a decisive January 2006 PLC majority. It's been severely punished ever since. Gaza was politically separated from the West Bank, and since June 2007 isolated under a medieval siege. It's now intensified as the Territory is engulfed in war, in a state of collapse, and a grave humanitarian crisis approaches a calamity of biblical proportions.

On January 8, the Security Council passed a toothless resolution. SC Res. 1860:

-- "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza;"

-- other provisions call for humanitarian assistance; "initiatives aimed at creating and opening humanitarian corridors;" international efforts to alleviate the situation and "prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition; intra-Palestinian reconciliation;" support for Egypt's mediation efforts; the Quartet's "consideration;" and

-- the SC condemns "all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism."

No Israeli condemnation was included; its wanton targeted slaughter; its international law violations; its blitzkrieg against men, women and children; its military juggernaut against vulnerable civilians; the thousands of killed and wounded; Gazans for 18 months under siege; the calamitous humanitarian crisis; no firm timelines for attacks to halt; the siege to end; action threats if they don't; no ordering of immediate border openings and emergency airdrops until they do; no teeth in a worthless resolution to let mass slaughter continue with impunity.

No respect either for the UN Charter's mandate "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which (dozens of times) in our lifetime (have) brought untold sorrow to mankind; to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights;" respect for justice and international law; "to promote social progress; practice tolerance; maintain international peace and security;" and advance the rights of all peoples everywhere.

Fourteen nations voted aye. One abstained, America.
Israel ignored it and maintained round-the-clock terror raids. Prime Minister Olmert called it "unworkable" and his office said that Israel "has never agreed to let an external body decide its right to protect the security of its citizens."

Israel disdains the rule of law, has a long history of ignoring UN resolutions, and believes it can do anything it pleases, law or no law.

World and Arab leaders don't object and remain largely dismissive as casualties keep mounting. Israel is strangling Gaza. Foreign journalists can't enter in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling.

On January 6, editor Ramzy Baroud reported that his PalestineChronicle.com site was "hacked today by an Israeli group (called) "Blue Dolphin." It's because of his important work providing vital information about the conflict and Occupied Palestine. Israel and Washington ruthlessly suppress truths. After a heroic effort, Baroud was again operating in less than 24 hours.

Gazan Sameh Habeeb is a heroic blogger despite threats on his life. On January 8 he wrote:

"I got three calls from anonymous persons (saying) stop blogging or I would be killed. Yet I would keep on this track. Some of you do wonder how I send news in such conditions. I really suffer a lot to send you this update due to a lack of power (with) shells rain(ing) down and drones hover(ing) over me. I will keep this up."

Not if Washington can help it. By supplying Israel with weapons, munitions and defense technology, it violates the 1976 Arms Export Control Act. It requires recipient governments to restrict their use to legitimate defense. Israel uses them for aggressive wars and its illegal occupation. Exports are prohibited to countries that "contribute to an arms race, aid in the development of weapons of mass destruction, support international terrorism, increase the possibility of outbreak or escalation of conflict, or prejudice the development of bilateral or multilateral arms control or nonproliferation agreements or other arrangements."

The 1994 Human Rights and Security Assistance Act affirms "human rights as principal goal of foreign policy." It also states that "no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Israel has been a serial violator for six decades, yet receives more aid than all other countries combined and uses it for aggressive wars, military oppression, colonial expansion, and grievous human rights violations.

On January 6 (in complicity with Israel and Washington), Haaretz reported that Egypt is barring doctors (except for two Norweigians) from entering through Sinai to provide help. Mubarack's "closure (is) seen by some as abetting Israel's siege" and partnering in its war crimes. Obstetrician Jemilah Mahmood expressed her frustration: "Can you imagine how many women are hurt and how few doctors there are? All of us are sitting at the border" and can't get in to help.

Reports are that Gaza hospitals are in chaos - with little power, few supplies, a patient overload, and air and ground assaults all around. Nonetheless, doctors work day and night to save lives, yet often they fail. Hundreds of patients are clinically dead with no hope of saving them. The toll keeps mounting. The frustration is unbearable, and at Shifa Hospital 90% of the patients are civilians, many with the ghastliest of wounds.

Disturbing reports claim Israeli use of terror weapons. Tehran Press TV said medics found DU traces in wounded Gazans following the ground invasion. The TimesOnline.UK headlined: "Israel rains fire on Gaza with phosphorous shells" - a weapon that causes horrific burns on human skin and is illegal except for smokescreens. "Tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops' advance. (They) blind the enemy (but) anyone caught beneath them" gets severely burned. Using this type weapon in tightly concentrated Gaza assures some or perhaps many are vulnerable.

Former British major and military expert calls white phosphorous a terror weapon and if "deliberately fired at a crowd of people (should) end (someone) up in the Hague."

Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert is a member of its Gaza triage medical team. He told Press TV about "clear evidence that the Israelis are using new type very high explosive weapons called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) that are made out of a tungsten alloy."
They have enormous explosive power, and "humans who are hit by (them are) cut to pieces. (They were) first used in Lebanon (and Gaza) in 2006....On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive....So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer."

Gilbert accused Israel of violating international law. His account was horrifying;

-- a "ten-year old boy (with) his whole chest filled with (bomb) fragments;
-- on his lap was another person's leg that had been cut off;
-- we resuscitated him and did everything we could do to save his life but he died between our hands." The "common people" of Palestine "are paying the price for the Israeli bombardments...."

The humanitarian crisis is horrific; 80% or more of Gazans are impoverished; half of them are under 15; "now they don't have food....electricity; it's cold, they don't have warmth and in addition...they are killed; this must be stopped."

"Almost all of the patients we have received have these severe amputations." Terror weapons caused them - burns, fragment injuries and most with their limbs cut off.

These are horrific crimes of war and against humanity against 1.5 million Gazans. Global mass outrage keeps protesting. World leaders are dismissive and unconcerned. Washington spurns efforts to stop the carnage. Israel is free to continue terror bombing from the air and use ground assaults against innocent civilians called "terrorists."

Israeli Radio reported Monday morning (January 12) that the IDF intensified its operation to a "third stage" and pushed deeper into more Gaza areas. More reserve units have been activated. Heavy bombing and shelling continues. White phosphorous incendiaries are being used on civilian neighborhoods and the Jebaliya refugee camp. White smoke and fires are seen. Severe burns are being reported.

One leader expressed outrage against Israel's "holocaust. Genocidal" he called it. On January 7, the BBC reported that "Venezuela ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador (Shlomo Cohen) to Caracas (and a number of diplomatic staff with him) in protest at Israel's offensive in" Gaza.

Chavez strongly condemned Israel and called the IDF "cowardly" (for) attacking worn-out, innocent people, while they claim that they are defending their people....I call on the world to stop this madness....The president of Israel....should be taken to the International Criminal Court together with the president of the United States." Venezuela's foreign ministry said Israel's campaign constituted "flagrant violations of international law (and amounted to) state terrorism." Ecuador's Raphael Correa and Cuba's government sent similar messages. Other world leaders stay silent. World outrage keeps raging in spite of them.

Remember Gaza - immortalized as one of history's terror-bombing victims. World outrage demands an end to this and the prosecution of its perpetrators. We stand together in solidarity. Today we're all Gazans. We're all Palestinians.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11726   

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The Quartet's Hypocrisy and Failure in Occupied Palestine

Stephen Lendman (07 Jan 2009)

The Middle East Quartet includes the US, EU, Russia and the UN. It was formed in 2002 to seek "comprehensive security reform," mediate the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process," address Occupied Palestine's deepening humanitarian crisis, among other stated objectives.

On September 25, 21 aid and human rights organizations (called The Group below) issued a damning report on the Quartet's performance. Well before the current Gaza slaughter but with the Territory under siege, it cited:

-- a continuing humanitarian crisis among people struggling to meet their basic needs;

-- increasingly dependent on aid as their livelihoods are destroyed; and stressed that

-- the "only sustainable solution to the crisis is a comprehensive peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians based on international law."

It urged immediate steps be taken to relieve suffering; resolve intractable issues; achieve an equitable peace agreement; improve Palestinians' lives; and ensure they're treated equitably and justly.

It cited "the lack of progress on key (Quartet) goals," and the hypocrisy of its June 24, 2008 Berlin statement on the "urgent need for more visible progress on the ground in order to build confidence and support progress in the negotiations launched in Annapolis." It said no "visible progress" materialized and, in fact, things have deteriorated: the Gaza siege; settlement expansions; free movement and access restrictions; an an absence of meaningful peace efforts - and now genocidal slaughter in Gaza.

The Quartet identified 2008 as a crucial year to meet specific goals and obligations. So far they're unfulfilled with no prospect they will be in the new year. It prompted The Group's critical report with recommendations going forward for "swift" and "dramatic" action so far not undertaken. Otherwise "it will be necessary to question what the future is for the Middle East Quartet."

Middle East Online contributor Rami Khouri said "Let the Quartet Die (for) provid(ing) cover for Israeli colonialism and its American guardians." Instead of being an "impartial and decisive instrument of peace-making," it served as a "fig leaf designed to hide American dominance of a diplomatic process" primarily to serve Israeli interests. It's been a talking shop with no teeth and acted against, not for, Palestinian rights. It was highlighted by its failure:

-- to recognize Hamas' democratic election;
-- not demand that Israel respect international law;
-- halt its illegal settlement expansions;
-- refrain from using excessive force;
-- allow free movement and access; and
-- end its illegal occupation.

Khouri called the Quartet "a dishonest institution" and its special envoy Tony Blair "the Diplomatic Olympics Gold Medal Winner for Political Fraudulence." It should announce that it "failed (and must) withdraw immediately," end its charade, and prevent any more damage than it's already done.

Other Quartet critics voice similar sentiments. Among them John Dugard, the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Palestine. He accused the Quartet of being "heavily influenced" by the US. It "does itself little good by remaining" one of its members. America has done nothing to protect Palestinian civilians. It fails to address Israel's violations of international human rights law, and it "should be playing the role of the mediator," not siding with Fatah over Hamas.

Former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Quartet envoy Alvaro de Soto was even harsher in his End of Mission Report, shortly before he stepped down. At first it was confidential, but it's now available online, and it's damning.

He said he was "encouraged to be candid" and he was. That Quartet (and UN) policy failed because it one-sidedly supports US and Israeli interests. It undermines a legitimate peace process and any hope for an independent Palestinian state. He urged the Secretary-General to leave it and said history will hold him accountable.

He condemned the Quartet for not recognizing the Hamas government and said it was "transformed from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document (the Road Map) into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue."

He called the consequences of the Quartet position "devastating:"

-- creating intolerable conditions on the ground;

-- achieving "precisely the opposite effect" of its mandate by allowing Israel's oppressive occupation;

-- letting hundreds of civilians (to be killed) in sustained heavy incursions and (destroyed) infrastructure, some of it wanton such as the surgical strikes on (Gaza's) only power plant."

America dominates the Quartet. It, in turn, "take(s) all pressure off Israel (and) focus(es only) on the failings of Hamas." After two years as Quartet envoy, De Soto concluded that it failed as a diplomatic instrument. "As a practical matter, the Quartet is pretty much a group of friends of the US - and the US doesn't feel the need to consult closely with (it) except when it suits it."

The Group's Assessment of Quartet Progress

The Group includes organizations like Save the Children, Care, Oxfam International, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, United Civilians for Peace, Christian Aid, World Vision and Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFAD). It structured its report by issues.

Settlements

The Quartet failed to halt settlement expansions. Instead, Israel accelerated construction, including on supportive infrastructure. They're illegal under international law and devastate the Palestinian economy and daily life of the people. Quartet efforts showed "a marked failure to hold the Israeli authorities to their obligations....This highlights the urgent need (to) adopt concrete measures" and hold Israel accountable. So far no efforts have been made to do it.

Immediately after it's Berlin statement, Israel announced new settlement building or tendering in Neve Yaacov, Beitar Illit, Har Homa, Pisgat Ze'ev, Ariel and Maskiot. It's for 2550 homes on the eve of Secretary Rice's regional visit at the time. The Quartet reacted tepidly despite Israel's multiple and repeated international law violations:

-- of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stating: "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
-- of Fourth Geneva's Article 27, paragraph 1, part 3 stating: "protected persons (under occupation) are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs."
-- of Article 27, paragraph 3, part 3 stating: "without prejudice to the provisions relating to their state of health, age and sex, all protected persons shall be treated with the same consideration by the Party to the conflict in whose power they are, without any adverse distinctions based in particular, on race, religion or political opinion."
-- of the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion stating: "all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the (separation) wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction." All state parties to Fourth Geneva and the UN Charter are so obligated as well as "required....to end the illegal (settlement) situation resulting from the (wall's) construction...."

They also must enforce UN Security Council Resolution 446 (March 22, 1979) stating: "Israel(i)....settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

UN Security Council Resolution 242 as well (November 22, 1967) called for "the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East (by the) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent (Six Day War) conflict, termination of all claims or states of belligerency," and respect for the rights of all regional states to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.

Since its inception, the Quartet issued "at least 18 statements expressing its collective opposition to settlements, and has warned repeatedly of the dangers posed to the peace process by continued expansion." But it failed to act and rendered its "statements" toothless and disingenuous. It also hasn't addressed how adversely settlements affect Palestinians' daily lives - in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza siege, and now under a genocidal assault.

As a consequence, Israel feels no need to respect international law or seek an equitable and lasting peace. It can continue to deny Palestinians access to 40% of the West Bank as well as maintain road blocks, barriers, fences, ditches, restricted roads, and the Separation Wall in violation of international law.

It can also:

-- continue land seizures;
-- deny farmers access to their fields and wells;
-- children to schools;
-- people to clinics, hospitals, shops, jobs, worship, social and family interaction, recreation, and all elements of normal life.

It can:

-- impoverish them with impunity;
-- render them dependent on outside aid;
--expose them to violence and destruction of their property, crops, water sources, and infrastructure;
-- deny them equity and justice; and
-- highlight where the Quartet stands: one-sidedly for Israel with no concern whatever for Palestinian interests and welfare.

The Group recommended "urgent" measures be adopted to reverse this deplorable situation. In addition, demand that Israel observe its obligations and assure that "grave violations of international humanitarian law are brought to an end;" adopt a Security Council resolution with these provisions and enforce it; and if America vetoes it then the General Assembly should do it instead.

West Bank Access and Movement

The Quartet failed to alleviate movement and access restrictions or secure "tangible improvements" in Palestinians' daily lives. This lack of progress "may constitute a fatal threat to the broader peace process."

Last November's Annapolis conference was a travesty. It excluded the legitimate government of one side and doomed discussions from the start. Here's what followed. Through July 2008, Israel added 48 more obstacles, increasing their numbers from 561 to 609. Moreover, in the three years since the November 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), 233 new obstructions were added or a 62% increase. In addition to laying siege to Gaza and now slaughtering its population.

The Quartet failed "to engender any significant progress in easing (Israel's) policy of closure." This and other measures deny Palestinians their human rights, devastate their lives, create soaring poverty and high unemployment:

-- for Gaza, poverty at 79.4% according to a September World Bank report; unemployment the highest in the world at 45% according to a July 2008 UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRWA) report; 80% of Gazans need food aid from donor agencies straining to provide it; now under attack nearly everyone needs everything;
-- for the West Bank, the World Bank reported poverty at 45.7%; the UNWRA report put unemployment at 25% or double the average for the Middle East and North Africa; the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has it at 29%;
-- the World Bank placed real per capita GDP for both Territories 30% lower than its 1999 peak as the population grows and economy sinks;
-- in Gaza, only 23 of 3900 industries still operated prior to December 27; a decline of 98%; in addition, its municipal sector collapsed and "fac(es) a deep financial crisis." Currently everything is in a state of collapse.

Foreign aid goes almost entirely to the West Bank - to the Abbas Palestinian Authority (PA) with demands that it "crack down on the 'terrorist' infrastructure," meaning the legitimate Hamas government in Gaza.

The Group wants the Quartet to take concrete measures (diplomatic and legal) "to address the overall closure policy, including the removal of all physical barriers (and their link to the) illegal settlements and the Wall."

Gaza

The Group, of course, reported on the Strip prior to December 27.

For the past 16 months, Gaza has been under siege and experienced a growing humanitarian crisis: isolated; squeezed by sanctions; and denied essentials short of what little donor agencies provide. The Group called the situation "dire." It's now catastrophic.

Despite its August 2005 disengagement, Israel maintains effective control and now again is an occupier:

-- it reenters the Territory at will as it's done;
-- controls all entry and exit;
-- its coast and airspace;
-- its population registry and collection of taxes;
-- its water, fuel, electricity, sanitation, public health, all other essential goods and services, and what little outside aid gets in.

Israel violates Fourth Geneva's Article 33 that states: "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

So is aggression and state-sponsored violence. Yet Israel willfully and repeatedly attacks Palestinian civilians from the air and on the ground, continues its oppressive occupation, and now (despite mass world outrage) is willfully slaughtering Gazans.

Prior to December, The Group did cite improvements if only marginal ones. Since June 2008, no Israeli deaths or injuries were reported (through late December) and Palestinian ones declined to single figures according to a recent UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report. Yet normality remains elusive. Conditions on the ground are dire. Israeli security forces conduct incursions into Palestinian communities repeatedly. Thirty alone from September 18 - 24 according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). Forty-seven others the previous week. Violence is committed willfully. Deaths and injuries result. Dozens are arrested including children. Property is destroyed. International laws and norms are disdained, now more egregiously than ever.

Before December 27, Gaza remained under siege. "Neither the quantity nor the flow of humanitarian and commercial goods, into and out of (the Territory), (was) achieved....goods entering remain limited in quantity and diversity, and are failing to meet" basic needs. Exports are totally banned, without which no economic regeneration or reduction in poverty is possible. Now everything is in a state of shutdown and collapse.

Overall, Gazans get no relief. Conditions are intolerable. Much more needs to be done. Humanitarian and commercial flows must increase and should include more than commodities. Many sick and injured needing medical treatment are denied exit permits. Between October 2007 - July 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 51 deaths as a result, including 11 children.

Students are also affected. Dozens allowed to study abroad and others wishing to cannot. Fuel and electricity earlier increased but insufficiently. In August, 25% of required petrol was imported, 55% of cooking gas, 75% of diesel, and 78% of industrial diesel. Overall, Israel continued to limit fuel supplies. As a result, Gaza's only power plant operated at about two-thirds of capacity, and currently it's near inoperative.

The consequences are considerable and serious. Once again, prior to December 27:

-- hundreds of tons of rubbish went uncollected because trucks hadn't enough fuel to operate;

-- daily, 77,000 cubic meters of raw and partially treated sewage have been dumped into the sea;

-- farmers earlier couldn't operate 70% of their agricultural wells for irrigation so fewer crops were grown.

With insufficient fuel, power cuts continued, and they affect hospitals, water pumps, sewage treatment plants, bakeries, homes, buildings, and other facilities dependent on back-up diesel generators, but fuel for them is limited and now near-unavailable.

The Quartet failed to address this as well as a prompt and immediate resumption of stalled UN and other donor projects. Essential needs went unfulfilled, and vital infrastructure projects stalled, including emergency ones for shelters, water and sewage construction, and more.

Nor were there development measures to regenerate the economy, create jobs, reduce poverty and improve the lives of desperately needy people. The starting point is ending the Gaza siege, holding Israel accountable, stopping the current slaughter, and undertaking a sustainable effort to rebuild, regenerate, and improve Palestinians' daily lives.

Comprehensive Palestinian Security Strategy

This effort is fraudulent on its face. According to the Quartet: it's "to fight terrorism" or, in other words, to use Palestinian police for Israeli security - not for Palestinians or their human rights concerns. Abuses are thus commonplace, including politically motivated arrests, torture, various other forms of ill-treatment, and dozens of deaths, injuries and incarcerations - some by Palestinian security forces; most by the Israeli army, compounded by settler violence.

The Palestinian human rights organization, Al Haq, reported widespread human rights abuses and their "horrific physical and psychological effect on hundreds of Palestinian citizens and the society at large." It shows Palestinian security is a non-starter. Only securing Israelis matter. It's another Quartet failure for not addressing Palestinian suffering and human needs.

Donor Pledges

More hypocrisy relating to Quartet-secured pledges at Paris, Bethlehem, Berlin and other conferences. It failed, however, to convert them into "a consistent disbursal of funds," and it hasn't succeeded "in driving the prompt delivery of projects (or) improv(ing) the lives of Palestinian women, children, and men."

In December 2007, international donors pledged $7.7 billion to fund the PA's proposed Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP) for 2008 - 2010. It was to build the Palestinian economy and infrastructure through private investment and security but it fell short. It paid lip service to human needs in education, health care, women's and youth programs and more, yet ignored crucial issues of free movement and access, settlement expansions, and (US - Israeli-driven) divisions between Hamas and Fatah.

A small portion of pledges has been donated, not all of which is being spent, and most so far is for public sector salaries. Little goes for productive investments. And (before December 27) the Gaza - West Bank divide complicated matters. It forced many international donors to focus on humanitarian aid and not to growing the economy. The Quartet failed to help beyond emergency measures, and even those were grossly inadequate.

Private Sector Progress

Beyond small and isolated successes, the Quartet did little to "boost the private sector," invigorate the Palestinian economy, or improve Palestinians' daily lives. They continue deteriorating in the West Bank and are in crisis in Gaza.

In May 2008, measures were proposed, mostly for the West Bank in areas of security and economic development:

-- to revive the Palestinian economy and make it attractive for investment;
-- it paid lip service only to people needs; so
-- little or no progress has been made in implementing proposed projects.

Lack of free movement and access as well as harsh conditions on the ground are major contributing factors. Also expanding settlements, the Gaza - West Bank divide, and focusing on short-term measures, not permanent solutions to intractable problems like equitably resolving the ongoing conflict and establishing a meaningful lasting peace.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The Group's report addressed 10 Quartet objectives - all key to a viable peace process:

-- ending settlement expansion;
-- providing free access and movement;
-- five objectives related to a new Gaza;
-- Palestinian security;
-- fulfilling donor pledges; and
-- reviving private sector activity as well as resolving the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Today, global human rights groups demand action to end the slaughter in Gaza and hold Israel responsible for its crimes of war and against humanity. Nothing less is acceptable.

Earlier, the Group concluded, based on facts on the ground that:

-- the Quartet "is failing to successfully execute its role;"
-- in five of the 10 areas, there's either been no significant progress or deterioration; relieving the humanitarian crisis most notably; also in aiding access and free movement, halting settlement expansion, and ending the Gaza siege;
-- in the other five - reducing Gaza violence, reinvigorating the private sector, fulfilling donor pledges, Palestinian security, and more fuel for Gaza - achievements at best were meager; currently there are none.

The Quartet's Berlin statement was disingenuous on its face. It "reaffirmed its commitment to a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on UNSCRs 242, 338, 1397 and 1515." It failed to follow through with actions. Today it's complicit with Israeli crimes by failing to decisively act to stop them and hold Israel accountable.

Earlier The Group concluded that "without real improvement on the ground, it will become necessary to consider what the future is for the Middle East Quartet."

Rami Khouri's solution makes most sense: "Let the Quartet Die for provid(ing) cover for Israeli colonialism and its American guardians." Condemn it as well for partnering in mass slaughter.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10604   

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Global Human Rights Groups Protest Slaughter in Gaza

Stephen Lendman (05 Jan 2009)

On June 16, 2008, noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappe explained "The Israeli Recipe for 2008: Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleaning in the West Bank." He wrote:

"Not long ago, I claimed that Israel is employing genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip." After re-thinking this highly-charged term, he "concluded with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza" because of its repeated atrocities now greater than ever.

In his January 3 "Israel's Righteous Fury and Its Victims in Gaza" article, Pappe updates his outrage:

Once again, "Israel is engulfed....with righteous fury that translates into destructive policy in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity....is based first and foremost on sheer lies transmitted with a newspeak reminiscent of (Nazi Germany). Every half an hour," radio and TV bulletins call Gaza victims "terrorists and Israel's massive (slaughter) self-defense."

Israel is the righteous victim. Gazan men, women, and children "a great evil....There are no boundaries to the hypocrisy....It seems that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as discrete events, unconnected to anything (from the past) and not associated with any ideology or system."

Today, as Israel slaughters Gazans, "world outrage continues to resonate - on city streets, by solidarity activists, and by human rights groups globally....By connecting Zionist ideology and the policies of the past with the present atrocities, we will be able to provide a clear and logical explanation (to galvanize) public opinion not only against the present genocidal policies in Gaza, but hopefully (to) prevent future atrocities."

Most important is to "puncture the balloon of self-righteous fury that suffocates the Palestinians every time it inflates (and) end Western immunity to Israel's impunity." Without it, "more people in Israel (America and everywhere) will see the real nature of (these) crimes" so their fury will be directed where it belongs.

The Global BDS Movement

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions for Palestine) Movement demands: "Stop the Massacre in Gaza - Boycott Israel Now." From Occupied Ramallah, it reported on the bloodbath, "far more ruthless than all its predecessors," the slaughter of innocent civilians, young children going to and from school, "an act of genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied coastal strip. Israel seems intent to mark the end of its 60th (anniversary year) the same way it established itself - perpetuating massacres against the Palestinian people."

More than ever, the BDS Movement calls on international civil society to condemn the massacre, join its efforts to end Israel's impunity, and hold it accountable for its persistent crimes of war and against humanity.

UN General Assembly President, Miguel D'Escoto Brockman agrees, and in a recent address before the Assembly said:

"More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we....should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Israeli writer/activist Uri Avnery founded Gush Shalom ("The Peace Bloc") in 1993 "to influence Israeli public opinion and lead it towards peace and conciliation with the Palestinian people." He calls the killing and destruction in Gaza "a vicious folly of a bankrupt government (that) let itself be dragged by adventurous officers and cheap nationalist demagoguery (into a futile conflict that) will bring no solution to any problem" - either to Israel or "besieged Gaza."

He says Israel, not Hamas, broke the truce, and the IDF followed up with "calculated raids and killings....The war in Gaza is (Ehud) Barak's elections campaign, a cynical attempt to buy votes with the blood and suffering" of Gazans.

Israeli Student Protests

The Israeli news web site Ynetnews.com highlighted student and lecturer protests over Gaza on Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem campuses. They want an end to "Operation Cast Lead," called Ehud Barak a "child killer, a murderer, (and) Barak, Barak, how many children have you murdered today?" under the slogan of "Diplomatic Terror." At times heated, they waved PLO and red flags denouncing the operation, and some shouted "In spirit and in blood we will save Palestine....Fascism lives on." Others held signs saying: "The war belongs to Olmert, the victims belong to us."

In Jerusalem, at Hebrew University's Mount Scopus, around 200 Arab Israelis and Jews shouted: "Gaza, Gaza, don't despair, we will put an end to the occupation." At Tel Aviv University, 200 students gathered outside the campus in Ramat Aviv. Police arrested three demonstrators.

Haaretz reported that they forcefully arrested six protesters in Tel Aviv at an "unauthorized demonstration" outside the Egyptian embassy. They waved PLO flags and condemned Israel. One said police attacked them with clubs, kicked them, and dragged one young woman by her head and shoulders into a patrol car.

Israeli police launched operation "Daylight" using 12,000 officers and 2400 volunteers "aimed at keeping all roads clear." They're to stifle protests and let Israel's slaughter continue unimpeded.

Gaza Professor Said Abdelwahed explains "What Gaza is like in the middle of the night:"

"It's totally dark. More than 80% of Gaza City is covered by utter darkness. One cannot see his finger in the dark! Meantime, outside, there are drones buzzing overhead, choppers roaming in the sky (looking for movement, targets, people or vehicles on streets, civilians to fire at).

Inside, children won't go to bed. They fear nightmares, bad dreams, bombing, explosions, and what not! The routine sounds of aircraft have been going on for more than seven days and nights....Bang, continuous bangs, explosions, other horrible explosions, blasts, flames in the distance. Kids jump up from beds scared, anxious....they don't know what to do!

They want to hide anywhere, but there's nowhere to go. It sounds like the bang was under their mattresses. What to do again? Nothing but wait! How can you convince your child to wait? For what? Next, one hears ambulance sirens and fire brigades. Thus, one realizes he is in Gaza and operating a small generator to send messages to the world in the new year 2009.

I'm okay so far. There were nine air raids in my area in the last 10 minutes, and we expect the worst to come. In the morning between 3:00 - 4:00AM they raided 10 times on targets in Gaza City. Plus the shelling from Israeli navy vessels. They also burnt more than 10 local fishing boats on the spot! They attacked a bridge connecting north and south and the airport in Rafah. It's getting worse and worse. It seems that a ground offensive is imminent. I have no electricity or water. I'm nearly out of diesel. There is no way to go out. We've been inside eight straight days.

I have minutes to write. Nine F-16s raided Gaza. Artillery shelled a 30 kilometer strip of cultivated land. More air raids against mosques, homes, al-Resala newspaper offices. Minutes ago, 11 men praying were killed in a mosque. No electricity; no water; no life in the city. Officially (as of Saturday) about 460 killed and over 2300 injured. Mobil phone is out of order; landlines hardly work. Gaza is a city of ghosts. Ground offensive is on the move (with pre-announcment reports) of tanks and bulldozers."

Israeli Human Rights Groups Protest

On January 1, B'Tselem announced that Israeli human rights groups launched a blog to provide updates on the Gaza fighting, especially the targeting of civilians. A statement read:

"B'Tselem reiterates its demand that all parties to the hostilities prevent harm to civilians. The rules of war (under international law) obligate all parties to a conflict to do their utmost to defend the civilian population. Deliberate targeting of civilians is expressly prohibited."

Since attacks began on December 27, Israeli forces unleashed terror bombings deliberately targeting civilians, including young children going to and from school. Support from Washington was one-sided with House Speaker Pelosi saying: "When Israel is attacked, the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally." Not said is when Palestinians are attacked, America "stands strongly" with the aggressor.

B'Tselem protested in web site comments to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. It denounced the bombing of dozens of houses, public buildings unrelated to military forces, and other civilian structures. International law requires that combatants distinguish between military and civilian targets, and attacking latter ones is a war crime.

The First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions defines a legitimate military target:

-- it must effectively contribute to military action, and
-- destroying or neutralizing it must achieve a military advantage.

Attacking police stations, universities, mosques, factories, power sources, residential neighborhoods, homes, medical storage sites, a TV station, fishing boats, civilian vehicles and more complies neither with the above two conditions. They're war crimes under international law. Washington knows it. So does Israel and does it anyway - willfully to achieve maximum intimidation and weaken support for Hamas.

B'Tselem replies: "....statements by Israeli officials raise the suspicion that the army" isn't distinguishing between civilian and military targets. Olmert said: "Israel is not at war with the Palestinian people but with Hamas....the objects (Israel attacks are) selected with the emphasis on the imperative to prevent harm to innocent persons."

In a December 30 Washington Post article, IDF spokesperson Major Avital Liebowitz said: "There are many aspects to Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel." She added that the IDF widened its target list because Hamas civilian and military activities are linked. "Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," she said.

In other words, 1.5 million Gazans - every man, woman and child even if they're not militarily engaged. A police graduation ceremony was attacked when 42 recruits were in formation and vulnerable. Course participants were instructed in first-aid, handling public disturbances, human rights, public safety, and other procedures for maintaining public order. Israel calls them "terrorists."

Civilian government offices also were bombed, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing. In response, the IDF announced that "Hamas governmental infrastructure and members active in the organization" are considered legitimate targets and were struck.

These are clear civilian targets unrelated to military ones, and bombing them violates international law. Israel claims striking them is permissible and consistent with international humanitarian law. That's untrue. Israel knows it, intentionally does it anyway, and by so doing commits war crimes.

International law obligates combatants to protect civilian populations. Targeting them is expressly prohibited. Israel does it anyway. It conducts terror bombings to weaken popular will and the ability of Hamas to resist, so far without success. Indications are that Hamas' popularity has grown since December 27, and many hundreds of Gazans have volunteered to become fighters. Kill one. Five others join up.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) on Attacking Medical Infrastructure and Personnel

PHR-Israel received six reports of the Israeli Air Force bombing these sites and personnel working to evacuate the wounded, including:

-- the Ambulance Management and Red Crescent offices in Gaza City;
-- the Surani Clinic in Shaja'iah;
-- a Palestinian Ministry of Health storage facility containing medications and medical supplies in the Mal'ab Filasteen district;
-- the Gaza Center for Mental Health's main building in Gaza City; all psychiatric and psychological services have ceased as a result;
-- attacks on medical personnel and ambulances; deaths resulted; Israel falsely claims that Hamas uses Shifaa Hospital medical equipment for attacks; and
-- residential areas are continually attacked by air and artillery barrages killing civilians.

PHR-Israel also reports that hospitals aren't able to cope. They're overwhelmed with the injured, have run out of beds, are way short of supplies, only get 6 - 8 hours of electricity a day at most, and overusing generators breaks them down at a time no spare parts are available because of the siege.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHR)

Its weekly report ending December 31 called the scale of Israel's Gaza attack "unprecedented" and proceeded to list the known toll in lives and property destruction. It also referred to IDF phone calls and leaflet drops ordering people from homes prior to bombings, claiming they're legitimate military targets. Given the population density, this caused great panic and uncertainty because where can these people go. They're in the street, on rooftops, and in UNRWA schools set up as temporary shelters, but even they're not safe.

As a result, OCHR said their humanitarian operations were severely disrupted. One incident involved an IAF missile killing eight UNRWA students and wounding 19 others in front of its Gaza City Training Centre. Other strikes damaged 13 UNRWA schools and UNSCO, OCHA and FAO offices plus a WFP flour storage warehouse.

OCHR reported a lack of cash and shortages of everything it needs to function - food, fuel, electricity, medical supplies, water disinfectant materials, as well as working under fear of being targeted.

Ten Israeli Human Rights Groups on the Dire Conditions in Gaza

On January 1, they issued an urgent appeal and reported that:
-- Gaza's electrical system is on the verge of collapse;
-- hospitals, water wells and homes are experiencing long power outages; for up to 20 hours a day or longer because Gaza's power plant can't get industrial diesel to operate; and
-- the availability of essential-to-life supplies is denied in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court order.

"This shortage was well known to Israeli security officials because (they) caused (it) deliberately, beginning October 28, 2007, and we (the human rights organizations) repeatedly warned them of it." The current conflict exacerbates conditions that continue to deteriorate by design. Nonetheless, the group sent an urgent appeal to Israel's Defense Minister "demanding that (the military) stop draining Gaza of fuel and electricity - and restore fuel supplies to hospitals, water wells, and other vital humanitarian institutions fully and immediately." No response was received.

The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel on Human Rights Violations and War Crimes in Gaza

It urged the UN Human Rights Council to press the General Assembly to act under its Resolution 377 ("Uniting for Peace") authority "with a view towards the imposition of collective measures against the Israeli government," halt the escalation of deaths, and take effective steps to restore peace.

Along with other Israeli human rights organizations, it also demanded the emergency evacuation of wounded Palestinians so they can receive vital lifesaving treatment in Israel. Advanced medical care there "is the only way to save lives" that otherwise will be lost. With rare exceptions, Israel is unresponsive. As a result, large numbers of "clinically" wounded have little chance to survive.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) Demands An Immediate End to Civilian Attacks

"In light of reports on the heavy toll taken on (Gazan) civilians who were not involved in the conflict, including children and women, the IDF's statement that 'the civilian population is not the target' is not sufficient." It's also untrue. "The ongoing, unlawful attacks on the civilian population" have no legal or moral justification and must stop.

Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) On A "Not So Happy Hanukah"

Instead of joy at this time of year, RHR reflects on a "dark world. Today, the world feels dark with hundreds of people dying and many more being injured in Gaza." RHR calls for an end to the fighting and for both sides to stop harming civilians at a time of "The madness of dreaming for a better world" and so few prospects of it in sight. RHR's statement is welcome, but it's far too weak to be effective.

The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) Condemnation of Israel's Lawless Bombardment of Civilians

"The large number of dead and wounded and the timing of the bombardment clearly indicate that civilians (including police sites) were targeted with the aim of inflicting the largest number of casualties; this is a grave breach of (Article 147) of the Fourth Geneva and therefore a War Crime."

The ongoing siege, collective punishment, and destruction of civilian facilities (including mosques, educational and medical sites) "constitutes another crime against" 1.5 million Gazans "who are living in an atmosphere of continued terror and intimidation."

HRA also condemns world silence in spite of repeated calls for help. "This silence was tantamount to a green light for Israel to escalate its siege, topped with the barbaric bombardment of the Gaza Strip and its people," including willfully against civilians.

Amnesty International USA (AI)

Often reluctant to confront the powerful, AI this time is outspoken, if imperfect, in these comments:

"The US government cannot continue this lop-sided blame on Hamas for the crisis. Ask Secretary Rice to urgently express deep concern about Israel's disproportional response and its policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster.

Civilians in Gaza, already trapped in disgraceful humanitarian conditions, are victims of Israeli air strikes and attacks. Israeli blockades of humanitarian supplies continue to deny Palestinians the food and medical supplies they desperately need."

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

Their January 2 email announced weekend protests across Canada - in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Windsor, Winnepeg and Vancouver, and very likely other cities will have their own. Israel ignited the world with virtually every corner resonating fury.

James Petras on Gaza

In his latest article, "The Politics of An Israeli Extermination Campaign," Petras explains that Israel "sealed off all access to Gaza and declared it a military, free fire zone, (targeting) the entire population" in gross violation of international laws it disdains and repeatedly violates.

Petras quotes Israeli military officials saying "...we are trying to hit the whole spectrum (Hamas' 'vast support network'), because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel." A top secret police official said: "Hamas civilian infrastructure is a very sensitive target," and as Petras explains: What Israeli officials and IDF call Hamas "is the entire social service network, the entire government and the vast majority of economic activity, embracing almost the entire 1.5 million imprisoned residents of Gaza,(everyone)" now more than ever united under Hamas against Israel, the West, America, and complicit Arab leaders who abandoned them for their own political self interest.

All the more reason for Petras to quote an IDF spokesman saying: "Hamas has used ostensibly civilian operations as a cover for military activities. Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," including women, men in mosques praying, and young children going and coming from school.

Michel Chossudovsky on "Operation Cast Lead"

Chossudovsky calls it "part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001." It aims to produce a "planned humanitarian disaster." Military targets are secondary. The main goal is inflicting mass civilian casualties and terror - to weaken resistance, increase control, and encourage emigration.

"Key events" preceded the Gaza attack:

-- assassinating Yasser Arafat in November 2004 (see January 3, 2007 article - http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4309
-- "disengaging" from Gaza; resettling Jews in the West Bank under the pretense of Washington's "Road Map" and turning Gaza into a "concentration camp;"
-- building the Separation Wall that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled illegal in July 2004 and called for its dismantling; it's now nearly completed on seized Palestinian land; and
-- the preordained 2006 Hamas election made possible by Arafat's death; in January 1995, the State Department declared it a Foreign Terrorist Organization; with that for cover, Israel planned West Bank "cantonization."

The January 3 ground attack aims to implement the 2001 "Operation Justified Vengeance" known as the(Meir) "Dagan Plan" after retired general and current Mossad head; its goal is "destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian leadership and collecting weaponry (of) various Palestinian forces and expelling or killing its military leadership" - in other words, rendering all Gaza opposition impotent, maintaining a docile Fatah in the West Bank, and possibly in collaboration with Washington "triggering a wider war."

Protests by US Human Rights Groups and Activists

Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights lists upcoming protests and events about Gaza on its web site - in America and globally along with reports on and opinions about the ongoing conflict. Currently it features "Obama's deadly silence, The real goal of the slaughter in Gaza, Is the UN complicit in Israel's massacre in Gaza?" (by its false civilian casualty reports and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's failure to denounce Israel's war crimes), and much more.

United for Peace and Justice demands "Action to Protest Israeli Attack on Gaza." It urges people to get engaged, join with others, protest to the White House, the State Department, members of Congress, the local media, and organize or join local protests. The greater the national groundswell the stronger the message to Tel Aviv and Washington that world opinion condemns them. But it's not enough to stop them.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is on this as well. It's unequivocal in saying: "Make no mistake about it - Israel's war and siege on the Gaza Strip would not be possible without the jets, helicopters, ships, missiles, and fuel provided by the United States" plus billions of dollars in annual aid and whatever else Israel requests for war, occupation and expanding its illegal settlements.

The Campaign maintains a list of US protests nationwide (under "Emergency Gaza Protest/Vigil/March). So far over 100 have been held in about 65 cities in at least 30 states and more are being planned. It urges everyone "to continue to organize protests in your community" and spread the word to others.

American Zionist Collaborators with Israeli Aggression and War Crimes

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) is "the central coordinating body for American Jewry, representing 50 national Jewish (organizations, including AIPAC) across" the country.

Its purpose is to:

-- "strengthen and foster the special US - Israeli relationship;
-- ensure that Israel's interests (come first for) policy makers" and US public opinion;" and
-- "address critical foreign policy issues that impact (Israel and) the American Jewish community."

On December 27, it voiced strong support for Israel "and its decision to defend its people against terrorism through the" terror bombing of Gaza. "The government and people of Israel have shown unprecedented restraint in the face of unyielding attacks with missiles and mortars fired on civilian targets by Hamas and other terrorist organizations" whose clear goal "is the destruction of Israel....We hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence." PMAJO urges Israel and America to take all measures against Hamas - regardless of the human toll, the rule of law, world public opinion, and other quaint and old-fashioned ways of thinking.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA - founded in 1897) "is the only organization that documents and exposes Palestinian Arab violations of the Road Map plan (and) leads efforts on behalf of American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism." It says it's "Always on the front lines of pro-Israeli activism" even at the expense of human rights and equal justice for Arabs as well as peace and conciliation in the Middle East.

On December 31, it, too, voiced strong support for Israel's military attack and for the Bush administration's support. As expected, it cited "Hamas' culpability as an aggressor and terrorist organization" and for ending the ceasefire in November. It falsely accused it of firing rockets throughout the truce period and now "has shown its true colors" by stepping up violence and "refus(ing) to recognize Israel's right to exist."

It supports Israel's right "to make a sustained assault on the Hamas infrastructure and reoccupy at least certain parts of Gaza, at least in the short to medium term." It "trust(s) the Administration will" continue to support Israel in its effort, regardless of the cost in human lives that, of course, means Arab ones. Before the January 3 invasion, only four Jewish ones were lost. Fighting on the ground will likely produce many more on both sides, mostly affecting Gazans.

"Israel's Policy Is Perfectly Proportionate" - Alan Dershowitz

Harvard Law professor Dershowitz defends the indefensible as a notorious pro-Israeli flack. He contends that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) applies to the rest of the world, not Israel. He calls their justices bigots and shameless mouthpieces for their governments. He opposes the death penalty but supports targeted assassinations, mass slaughter of civilians and torture. He twists legal meanings to defend Israel and America's imperial agenda. He teaches this ideology to his students.

In a January 2 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Dershowitz is vintage Dershowitz saying "Hamas are the real criminals in this conflict, Israel's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism."

In reinterpreting international law, he cites Article 51 of the UN Charter and justifies it on the grounds of "proportionality." It authorizes self-defense, never preemptive aggression of the kind Israel repeatedly unleashed since its "War of Independence" slaughtered and displaced 800,000 Palestinians from their homes and land and established the Jewish State.

Dershowitz accuses Hamas of the usual charges of terrorism, rocket firings, deliberately targeting civilians, using human shields for protection, and seeking Israel's destruction. "Despicable tactics" he says plus "the claim that Israel violated the principle of proportionality - by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians by Hamas rockets - is absurd."

Then a Dershowitz-style international law lesson - the kind he teaches in class:

"First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killing of Hamas combatants (never mind that most so-called "combatants" are civilian men, woman and children unconnected to Hamas resistance fighters). Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian" - but no civilians called combatants. International laws protect them, and violations are war crimes that Dershowitz calls permissible.

"Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its childrens' lives."
As Dershowitz knows, Hamas never preemptively attacks anyone and only responds in self-defense when attacked as international law allows. It's conciliatory, seeks peace, and clearly states its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - a mere 22% of its original homeland.

Dershowitz won't mention this or admit to 41 years of an oppressive occupation, Israel's disdain for international law, its Basic Law protections for Jews only, its Arab citizens treated like criminals, a fifth column, and that torture is official policy. Instead he says "Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity - the conflict will continue." So will the slaughter of civilian men, woman, and children Dershowitz calls "terrorists."

Finkelstein on Dershowitz

Norman Finkelstein nailed him in the title of his 2005 book, "Beyond Chutzpah," in which he deconstructs his mendacity and plagiarism in his 2003 book, "The Case for Israel." He's also an apologist for its most outrageous crimes, and "in recent years has used the 'war on terrorism' as a springboard for a full frontal assault on" international law.

According to Dershowitz, "international law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules" no longer apply against a ruthless and fanatical foe, and that "the laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these (new) realities." That includes preemptive war, torture, targeted killings, and all else in the name of national security.

For Finkelstein, Dershowitz invokes the notion that "no one law governs all things. (Thus) preventive war might be illegitimate for all other States (but) it remains a legitimate option for Israel" - because the UN is biased against it. "Accordingly, unlike all other States, Israel cannot be held accountable to international law or, put otherwise, international law might apply to everyone else but (not) to Israel." Presumably not to America either as Dershowitz supported the Iraq and Afghan wars, a preemptive one on Iran if planned, the use of torture, targeted assassinations, and Washington's "war on terror."

Finkelstein sums him up this way:

"After all the hard-won gains of civilization, who would want to live in a world that once again legally sanctioned torture, collective punishment, assassinations and mass murder? As Dershowitz descends into barbarism, (it's to be hoped) that few seem inclined to join him."

Francis Boyle on Dershowitz and Like-Minded Law Professors at "Harvard's Gitmo Kangaroo Law School - The School for Torturers"

University of Illinois law professor and international law expert Francis Boyle holds five Harvard Law professors culpable. He names them, and Dershowitz makes the list. He calls him "infamous (and) a self-incriminating war criminal."

Dershowitz "publicly acknowledged being a member of a Mossad Committee for approving the murder and assassination of Palestinians, which violates the Geneva Conventions and is thus a grave war crime." It's also in violation of the US War Crimes Act that defines these crimes as "grave breach(es) of the Geneva Conventions" subject to life imprisonment or death in cases of multiple killings.

In addition, Dershowitz supports Guantanamo's "Kangaroo (Military Commission) Court System despite it having been denounced by every human rights organization, official and leader "in the entire world as well as by the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)."

He and others of the "Harvard Five" demean the rule of law, and as Boyle puts it:

"The Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans are no longer fit to educate lawyers, Members of the Bar, and Officers of the Court. They are a sick joke and a demented fraud....Harvard is to Law School as Torture is to Law." Its Faculty and Deans "torture the law. Do not send your children or students to Harvard Law School (or allow them in Dershowitz's classes) where they will grow up to become racist war criminals. Harvard Law School is a Neo-Con cesspool....for the most part its Faculty and Deans have always been viscerally bigoted and racist against Muslims/Arabs/Asians and other People of Color since at least" 1971 when Boyle was there.

Boyle on the Gaza Attack

He once represented Palestinians as their legal advisor. On January 4, he called for "A World Court lawsuit against Israel for genocide; reconvening the Emergency Special Session for Palestine by the UN General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace Resolution (377); comprehensive economic and other sanctions against Israel; and the suspension of Israel from all UN General Assembly activities" as it's empowered to do.

The Emergency Special Session for Palestine was first convened in 1997 and officially remains 'adjourned.' "

Haaretz, January 3: Israel's Ground Operation Begins

IDF Major Avital Leibovitch announced it. Israeli television showed columns of tanks on the move. Heavy artillery shelling preceded them, and reports are that the cabinet authorized an emergency call-up of thousands of reservists - mostly combat units but also the Home Front Command.

Defense officials said 10,000 troops were massed on Gaza's border, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, bulldozers, and special operations units, but left unclear how many entered the Territory. Meanwhile, terror-bombings continue, including on the main road connecting one side of Gaza to the other, and Palestinian eyewitnesses said large force contingents have invaded. News reports confirm it and fighting on the ground.

US Again Blocks Security Council Action for An Immediate Halt to Israel's Aggression

For decades, America used its Security Council veto to block resolutions against Israel from passing. On December 28, it vetoed one to end IDF attacks, and on January 3, the pattern repeated. Closed-door consultations failed to draft a statement (not a resolution) calling for an immediate ceasefire. US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff called it "inappropriate" at this time so Israeli terror bombing and ground operations can continue.

Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum accused Washington and the Security Council of complicity with Israel's aggression. It continues unabated.

Israel Bars the ICRC and Foreign Journalists from Gaza

The ICRC medical team notified Israel in advance of its arrival and issued a statement saying: "It is absolutely essential that this team get into Gaza now, as this is when they are most needed." So far, Israel bars it from entering.

It also defies its own Supreme Court ruling to let a limited number of reporters into the Territory. The ban has been in place since November 5 but was tightened ahead of the December 27 attack. The Foreign Press Association called on Israel "to immediately honor the will of the court and allow foreign journalists access to Gaza." The IDF refuses to comply.

A Final Comment

Terror bombings persist - over 700 sorties plus artillery and tank fire as well as naval vessels shelling the coastline. Confirmed deaths exceed 500 with well over 2500 injured. A ground invasion is underway. Casualties continue to mount. Partial occupation as well. Gazan society has collapsed. The Health Ministry has "zero medical supplies," according to Dr. Mo'oawiah Hassunin, Head of the Palestinian Ambulance and Emergency Services. What arrived earlier was used in a matter of hours.

Streets are empty. Most shops and businesses are closed. Only a few food stores are open. Fear grips everyone. Most government buildings have been destroyed. Few essential-to-life supplies are available, and only the bravest venture out to find them.

In his weekly radio address, George Bush blamed the victims, not the aggressor. Obama was conspicuously silent on vacation in Hawaii. UN reports are that Gaza is in significant deterioration with 80% or more of the population unable to cope. The Al Astal family buried its three children, killed on January 2. Other families grieve for their own.

On January 3, the American International School, north of Gaza City, was shelled. Docked fishing boats as well and neighborhoods throughout the Strip. Israeli soldiers attacked Nil'in village West Bank protesters, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds. Other clashes continue between youths and the IDF.

No end of fighting is in sight as Washington blocked diplomatic efforts to end it much as it did during Israel's 33-day summer 2006 Lebanon assault that killed around 1300, injured many more, and caused vast destruction in Beirut, the country's south, and other chosen sites.

Palestinians bury their dead. Parents mourn for their children, husbands for their wives, wives for their husbands, and even AP admitted that with a million and a half tightly packed Gazans in 140 square miles "most shelling is occurring in residential areas" meaning most deaths are civilians.

For Amir Oren, in a January 3 Haaretz op-ed, "Israel must prepare to turn its military might from Gaza to Iran." The IDF "must move quickly (after Gaza to direct) its attention for the paramount task of preparing a military blow to Iran, if diplomacy and deterrence fail." Hamas in strength or weakness "is still easier to digest than enriched uranium."

Perhaps Oren is of the Benny Morris school advocating nuclear genocide as he did in a July New York Times op-ed. Lebanon 2006, the West Bank under military occupation, Gaza under terror bombings, Iran maybe next, and what further to prove Israel the toughest bully in the neighborhood. In partnership with Washington under Democrats and Republicans, who can dispute it?

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11604 

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 Blaming the Victims - The Dominant Media Vilify Hamas

Stephen Lendman (02 Jan 2009)

The blame game - no one plays it better than the dominant media, and they're at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress - with an appropriating updating for Gaza:

December 27 "will live in infamy." The people of Gaza were "suddenly and deliberately attacked by....air forces of the" State of Israel. The "attack was deliberately planned many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope for" the peace process.

"The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe damage to" property throughout Gaza. In addition, "many (Palestinian) lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves....this "unprovoked and dastardly attack" must not go unanswered.

Note the contrast. Japan in the 1940s sought accord, not conflict. Not America. FDR goaded them to attack through numerous harassments and provocations - selling arms to Tokyo's enemies, denying Japan strategic resources and port access, as well as imposing a damaging embargo.

For its part, Hamas has been conciliatory and sought peace. It's willing to recognize Israel in return for a sovereign Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - just 22% of it original homeland. In 2008 and earlier, it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated Israeli violations and Gaza in duress under siege. It responds only in self-defense when attacked as international law allows, yet Washington, Israel, and the West call it "terrorism."

The dominant media also in their customary role - guarding the powerful and suppressing uncomfortable truths in lieu of full and accurate reporting. They're in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel's call for "all-out war" and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.

"The more damage to Hamas, the better the chances for peace" says the Wall Street Journal in a lead December 28 editorial headlined "Israel's Gaza Defense." The Journal rewrites history this way:

"The chronology of this latest violence is important to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr. Abbas' Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005 Hamas has fired some 6300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and wounding 780."

"Hamas did agree to a six-month ceasefire earlier this year, during which the rocket attacks declined in number but never stopped. But Hamas refused to extend the truce past December 19, and the group has since resumed attacks...." Israelis in the south "live under constant threat, often in bomb shelters, and the economy has suffered. Yet the world's media (only pays) attention when Israel responds to that Hamas barrage."

The Journal's op-ed page standard fare twists facts into a fabric of misinformation and agitprop, and when vilifying Hamas it's vicious. A few corrections:

-- Israel never disengaged from Gaza;
-- it relocated its settlers to seized West Bank land to strengthen its hold on the Territory;
-- it redeployed to new positions; re-enters Gaza at will; controls its airspace and coastline; movement within and between Gaza and the West Bank; virtually all other aspects of Palestinians' lives; and since Hamas' January 2006 electoral victory, falsely called it a terrorist organization; cut off all outside aid; imposed a crippling economic embargo; imprisoned 1.5 million Gazans in isolation; inflicted devastating human suffering; and stepped up oppression in an all too familiar pattern: repeated incursions, killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarcerations, torture, and all the rest;
-- then, after mid-June 2007, collaboratively and at the behest of Washington and Israel, president Mahmoud Abbas declared a "state of emergency" (when there was none); he dismissed Hamas' prime minister; appointed an "emergency" cabinet; split Palestinian authority between Gaza and the West Bank; incited internal conflict to divide and conquer; and acceded to Israel blockading Gaza - closing all border crossings; cutting off most essential to life supplies; creating critical shortages of everything; devastating local production and agriculture; sending poverty and unemployment soaring; and grievously harming the health and welfare of the population;
-- no Journal op-eds condemn this; they call Israel the region's "only democracy" and a model for others to emulate;
-- no op-eds mention thousands of Palestinians killed, many more wounded, even greater numbers imprisoned, many uncharged, torture as official policy, and no chance for redress in Israeli courts;
-- none mention previous Hamas unilateral ceasefires, one lasting 18 months despite repeated Israeli violations and continued other failures to observe international law;
-- none explain that rocket fire from Gaza during Hamas' ceasefire came from other elements in the Territory, not its own members;
-- none say that Hamas uses crude, homemade rockets and light arms against the world's fourth most powerful military, a nuclear power, with the latest home-produced and US supplied technology and weapons;
-- nothing gets reported about over 60 years of Israeli state terror; the unimaginable harm it's done; the continued theft of Palestinian lands; the destruction of their homes, crops and other property; the ethnic cleansing of its people; and Israel's slow-motion genocide against a population too isolated and weak to contest it;
-- no op-eds about one-sided media reporting; suppressing uncomfortable truths; defending the indefensible; ignoring Israeli crimes; vilifying Hamas without cause; Palestinians for being Arabs; and Arab Israeli citizens because they're not Jews;
-- no mention that the ratio of Arabs to Jews killed and harmed is disproportionately one-sided; or
-- that Palestinians have endured a brutal, illegal 41-year occupation in violation of international law; Journal editors find those facts uncomfortable, unimportant so they ignore them.

Instead the Journal supports the Gaza siege, and says "If Hamas wants its people to have freer movement, it can stop sponsoring terror killings." Even Arab leaders were "urged to demand that Hamas maintain the truce....so we could have avoided what happened."

In the aftermath, Journal editors hold Hamas responsible as does Washington. Arab leaders "understand that (Hamas' leaders), like Hezbollah, (are) increasingly allied with Iran and its goals for fomenting regional instability."

In fact, despite pro-forma criticism and anger on Arab streets, leaders in the region's capitals offered little support for Gazans for fear of antagonizing Washington and their powerful Israeli neighbor.

The Arab League won't discuss a common response until a January 2 Doha summit, and when it does expect little more than from the UN. As for Arab foreign ministers, they postponed an "emergency" meeting until December 31, so the killing continues while they attend to more pressing business.

Journal editors have a message for Obama. He's "about to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East (won't) change their radical ambitions merely because America has a new president." For their part, Palestinians will learn that the new one is no friendlier than the incumbent and may turn out even worse. White House occupants, key congressional members, and the entire Senate pledge unswerving support for Israel. At the same time, blaming their victims (and ours) is one of Washington's favorite spectator sports.

On December 28, the Journal gave two noted Israeli flacks prominent space - Michael Oren of Jerusalem's Shalem Center and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies for their op-ed headlined: "Palestinians Need Israel to Win."

They claim that while Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni "implore(d) Egyptian leaders (on December 19) to urge restraint on Hamas....prime minister Ehud Olmert told viewers of Al-Arabiyah Television that Israel had no interest in a military confrontation" at the very time it was long-planned and about to be unleashed.

"If Israel was guilty of acting disproportionately, it was in its willingness to seek any means, even at the risk of its citizens' lives, to resolve the (brewing) crisis diplomatically." The writers blame the UN for not condemning Hamas and for "growing media criticism of Israel."

Israeli security comes first, and "Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome." It's about Israel's "deterrence power and uphold(ing) the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity." They're not unless Palestinians are attacked first and even then have little to fear beyond their government's own rhetoric.

Syria is an issue as well...."triggering the Gaza conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas, which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed the efforts of Hamas leaders to extend the ceasefire and insisted on escalated rocket attacks."

The Gaza conflict may "intensify with a possible incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas....This is an opportunity to redress Israel's failure to humble Hezbollah (in 2006), and to deal a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran....without Hamas' defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel's fears. At stake in Gaza is nothing less than the future of the peace process."

Their rhetoric defies comment. It's breathtaking, mirror opposite of the truth, and credible only to the truest of true believers of the most dubious analysis the two writers lay out.

New York Times Press Handout-Style Journalism

The Times' 1997 proxy statement calls itself "an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare" in reporting "all the news fit to print." No media source anywhere has more clout. None more effectively influences world opinion, and none show more one-sided support for Israel, disdain for Palestinian rights, and justifying the unjustifiable when they're so grievously harmed.

It's December 29 Ethan Bronner/Taghreed El-Khodary "No Early End Seen to 'All-Out-War on Hamas in Gaza" article is typical. It highlights Israel's aim "to cripple Hamas' ability to fire rockets into Israel," never mentioning they're for legitimate self-defense and never preemptively fired. It calls Hamas a "terrorist organization" when, in fact, it's Palestine's legitimate government. It respects the rule of law, and it fearlessly defends the rights of its people. It reports nothing about its democratic election, its seeking peace and rapprochement, its unilateral ceasefires, its support by the great majority of Gazans, and the efforts it makes for them in spite of overwhelming challenges under siege.

Instead it states that "Hamas killed four Israelis on (December 28) after firing more than 70 rockets, including a long-range one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles from Gaza, where it hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis....were a civilian in the Negev desert and a soldier."

"Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the long-range rockets hit streets or open areas in....the most serious display of Hamas' arsenal since the Israeli assault began." It referred to "Hamas gunmen," reported that "Israel would widen and deepen the attack if necessary....until Hamas no longer had the ability to fire rockets into Israel." It said that Israel has "nothing against the citizens of Gaza and that it had more than once offered its hand in peace to the Palestinian nation."

"Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief, including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through." No mention of the Gaza siege, the devastating pre-conflict humanitarian crisis, or that Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak initially ordered his soldiers to shoot Gazans breaching border barriers, then only reluctantly allowed in some of the seriously wounded for medical treatment.

"Meanwhile in Israel, sirens wailed over mostly empty streets in the seaside city of Ashkelon. Storefronts were battered shut. Families clustered inside the city's stretches of towering white apartment blocks and single-family houses. Weary of venturing too far outside, they scurried into protected rooms when sirens sounded, listening for the sound of another rocket crashing somewhere in their city. 'It's frightening, but what can we do?' asked a high school senior."

Plenty The Times won't report. Ask your government to stop attacking Gazans so they won't respond in self-defense. Demand that Palestinian rights be respected, the illegal siege ended, the IDF aggression stopped, and the occupation of the West Bank. Insist Israeli laws apply equally to Arab citizens, that Palestinians no longer will be persecuted, that peace will take precedence of war, that Israel will engage its neighbors, not attack them, and that real democracy will replace the sham kind now practiced.

Make it impossible for The (outrageous December 29) New York Times' "War Over Gaza" editorial to be written. It begins:

"Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Still we fear that Israel's response....is unlikely to weaken the militant Palestinian group substantially or move things any closer to what all Israelis and Palestinians need: a durable peace agreement and a two-state solution."

"Hamas' leaders, especially those safely ensconced in Damascus, are unconcerned about their people's suffering - and (are) masters at capitalizing on it." The writer urges other Arab leaders "to cajole or more likely threaten Hamas (or its patrons in Syria and Iran) to accept a new cease-fire (read "surrender")."

The editorial claims most casualties were "Hamas security forces" when, in fact, the great majority are civilian men, women and children, including police with no military connection. It stresses Ehud Barak's promised "war to the bitter end."

It says there's "no justification for Hamas' attacks or its virulent rejectionism," but turns a blind eye to Israel's culpability. It refers to the failure of the never was and never will be "peace process" but won't report that Washington and Tel Aviv won't tolerate one. That they choose dominance over peace, violence over reconciliation, and conquest above the rule of law.

It claims Condoleezza Rice sought Middle East peace, and it's up to Barack Obama to accomplish it himself - when, in fact, Democrats and Republicans one-sidedly support Israel, seek dominance over Middle East states, want a subservient Hamas like Fatah, back the Gaza conflict to weaken its effective rule, and are for the illegal occupation of Palestine to continue.

Times' articles reveal more about what they don't report than what they do. They:

-- leave Israeli brutality unexplained; its vicious 41 year occupation;
-- let Gaza images inciting world outrage go unpublished;
-- suppress Israel's continued waging of the bloodiest, most unjustifiable war on Palestine since 1967;
-- won't report how its current air strikes hit civilian targets (including residential neighborhoods, homes, workshops, medical warehouses, a sewage lagoon, a plastics factory, a TV broadcasting center, universities and mosques) while claiming only military ones are attacked;
-- don't explain the terror on ordinary Gazans; the traumatizing effects on children and how psychologically damaged they are;
-- the night phone calls Israeli intelligence personnel make to families, ordering them out of homes to be bombed;
-- Gaza's humanitarian crisis compounded by Israel's "war to the bitter end;"
-- the immensity of Israel's crimes of war and against humanity; its mockery of the rule of law; its worse than apartheid South African practices according to observers who know.
-- the near-silence and inaction of the international community; the compliance of regional Arab states;
-- the Palestinians' total isolation; Gaza's tighter than ever siege; the media mostly barred from entering and when allowed are few in number, carefully screened, and greatly circumscribed; reports are from Gazans on the ground; they include much higher death and injury totals; hundreds still alive but clinically dead and will perish; surgeries performed without anesthesia because little to none is available; and the impossibility of proper medical care because of Israel's imposed blockade.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that "its field workers have faced extreme difficulties in documenting crimes due to the dangers of getting close to" bombed areas and the chaos throughout the Territory as war rages round the clock. Yet they do what they can throughout Gaza and in horrific pictures they take and publish - images suppressed in America.

It urgently asked the UN Human Rights Council to act under its ("Uniting for Peace") UN Resolution 377 authority. It permits the General Assembly to address peace and security matters when the Security Council doesn't do it. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto said: "the time has come to take firm action if the UN does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission."

As of New Year's day, Ma'an News reported 428 known killed (other reports are higher) and over 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive.

On December 28, the US vetoed a Security Council draft resolution to end Israel's "disproportionate use of force" on Gazans. The vote was 11 ayes, three abstentions (Britain, Germany and Bulgaria), and one nay - America. John Negroponte did the dishonor following a long-standing practice of blocking any UN condemnation of Israel, regardless of how justified.

The Security Council held an emergency meeting on New Year's eve at which Negroponte again rejected a legally binding resolution condemning Israel and demanding its attacks stop. At the same time, Israel rejected pressures for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid. According to The New York Times, "The government said it would push ahead with its air, sea, and ultimately ground operation, which one senior military official described as 'making Hamas lose their will or lose their weapons.' "

Earlier on December 30 at 5:00AM, Israeli gunboats (without warning) attacked the humanitarian boat Dignity (in international waters 90 miles from Gaza) bringing three tons of medical supplies. It was rammed three times, heavily damaged, and took on water. Israelis also threatened to shoot its occupants and fired machine guns overhead and around it attempting to head it off. It managed to get to the Lebanese port of Tyre in the afternoon. Luckily no one was injured. The Free Gaza Movement founder, Paul Laurdee, said 11 Israeli vessels surrounded Dignity, ordered it to stop, but it refused.

The New York Times was silent on the incident. However, on December 29, it gave pro-genocide historian Benny Morris space for his "Why Israel Feels Threatened" op-ed - a disturbing justification of Israel's attacks and warning of much more to come. This by an advocate of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons and a believer in ethnic cleansing who once described Palestinians as "wild animal(s who have) to be locked up in one way or another....When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."

He paints a totally disingenuous picture of isolated Israel surrounded by hostile neighbors and losing support from the West. "To the east, Iran....to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist Hezbollah....to the south...the Islamist Hamas movement (controlling) the Gaza Strip."
These "dire threats" make Israel "feel that the walls - and history - are closing in on their 60-year-old state."

Israel threatened? Syria, Lebanon and Iran should worry based on past and current provocations. No country attacked Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and none today would dare - given its military strength, nuclear arsenal, and close ties to America and the West.

Morris cites another threat - demography. The 1.3 million Israeli Arabs "offer the recipe (for the) dissolution of the Jewish state." They've become "radicalized, embrac(e) Palestinian national aims," Jews see them as a "potential fifth column," and, with their higher birthrate, will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2040. Within five years, Arabs may become the majority in pre-1948 Palestine.

According to Morris, Israel is endangered because of its commitment to "Western democratic and liberal norms." Violence in Gaza resulted, and "it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow" - a clear assessment that slaughter is OK in the name of "self-defense" and an indication that The Times agrees.

The Los Angeles Times' Misinformation "primer on Gaza, Israel, and some key factors behind the current violence."

On December 30, Michael Muskal wrote it asking:

-- "Why is Israel attacking Hamas? To curb rocket attacks he maintains, when, in fact, neutralizing the government is the real aim, destroying its ability to rule effectively, weakening its support on the ground, and, in the end, co-opt it like Fatah and the PLO under Arafat; rocket attacks are just pretext.

-- "What is Hamas?" An Islamist group founded to destroy Israel and refuses to accept its right to exist, he claims. In fact, after its establishment during the First Intifada (in 1987), Israel supported it against the PLO (as it now backs Fatah against Hamas). Ever since, it's been an effective resistance movement. Its goal - ending Israel's illegal occupation through negotiation and international consensus, not terrorism, war, or denying Israel's right to exist. However, its charter states that it wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians; supports the weak; defends the oppressed; and will fight for its rights if Israel won't grant them peacefully. Hamas is clear on its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - a nonstarter for Israel.

-- "Does Hamas speak for all Palestinians? No. Hamas gunmen took full control of Gaza in the summer of 2007. The West would prefer to deal with (Fatah's) Abbas, who has shown a willingness to negotiate with Israel, and it tried to topple Hamas with economic and political sanctions." No is right as well as the West going along with Washington and Israel trying to topple Hamas, but unmentioned is the crippling siege. Hamas is a legitimate political group with a military wing for defense, not offense. They're not "gunmen" or militants. Abbas' subservience endears him to America and Tel Aviv. Hamas is independent. It champions Palestinians' rights, and therein lies the conflict.

-- "If Hamas is so opposed to Israel, why did it agree to a truce? Hamas had hoped to end the blockade, but the cease-fire collapsed in November and expired Dec. 19. Abbas blamed Hamas for prompting the Israeli attack by refusing to extend the cease-fire." True on the first point. False or misleading on the rest. Hamas declared a ceasefire unilaterally. Israel never respected it and killed over two dozen Gazans while it was in force. Abbas blamed the victims and absolved the aggressor in deference to Tel Aviv and Washington - in betrayal of his people for his own political aims.

-- "What has been the response to the Israeli attacks in the Arab world?" Saying that anti-Israeli demonstrations have been held in several countries greatly understates how many, their size and where. They're large and growing and are being held across America, throughout the Middle East, and in many other countries worldwide.

"What about Egypt? (It) opposes Islamic radical groups, including its own Muslim Brotherhood, which helped give birth to Hamas. Egypt has a difficult relationship because they share a border (and) clashes have been reported between Palestinians and Egyptian security forces at border crossings?" Half truths and misleading. Egypt is allied to Washington and Israel. It opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and all independent opposition to president Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship. Egyptian forces initiated border clashes by firing on Gazans trying to escape the violence.

-- "What about the US?" A "power vacuum" suggests Muskal until Obama takes office. Unexplained is a continuity of policy that unswervingly supports Israel, its right to wage aggressive war, violate international law, slaughter Gazan civilians, maintain its illegal occupation, and deny Palestinians their right to self-determination.

-- "What has the Bush administration done?" Saying it blamed Hamas and asked Israel publicly to avoid civilian casualties is right but misleading. For eight years, George Bush disdained Palestinian rights, supplies Israel with billions of dollars in aid, the latest weapons and technology, and full support for its occupation, oppression and aggressive wars.

-- "What about the Obama administration?" Repeating his saying the US has only one president at a time is right. So is affirming his strong support for Israel. Unmentioned is his indifference to Palestinian issues and that chances for regional peace will be no greater than under George Bush so expect little hopeful change.

-- "How do Israeli politics figure in the equation? Muskal is right in relating the current conflict to Israel's February 10 elections. A new prime minister and Knesset will be chosen and polls show a large majority of Israelis back its government's attacks. Acting tough could prove a winning strategy even at the expense of human lives and less security than without conflict.

Misinformation like the above is de rigueur throughout the dominant media, especially when it comes to Israel. Tel Aviv can do no wrong even when it inflicts vast amounts of destruction, massacres hundreds of civilians, and injures tens of hundreds more, defenseless against its onslaught.

Profiting from Human Slaughter

On December 27, the London Guardian reported that the "Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension." Jerusalem-based Toni O'Loughlin wrote that pre-conflict polls showed "the Israeli public calling for harsher military strikes in Gaza." It's been a boon for former Likud member Avigdor Lieberman's extremist Yisrael Beiteinu. It advocates ethnic cleansing by revoking Israeli Arabs' citizenship and transferring Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control.

Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu also stands to gain because he states: "In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule....we have to go from passive response to active assault." That got Kadima's foreign minister Tzipi Livni saying: "Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that." Campaigning is in high gear for the upcoming February elections with all sides vying to look toughest.

War rages as a result, and according to Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem founder Michael Warschawski: "all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more." Mass slaughter makes good campaign politics, and whoever looks the meanest may become Israel's next prime minister. Follow the body count for clues. Watch TV clips of Tzipi Livni disheveled with no makeup to show machismo, and as Tariq Ali puts it: "dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder" and may help Kadima retain power.

Justifying the Unjustifiable

On December 28, O'Loughlin in the Guardian headlined: "Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction" as Kadima put positive spin on mass murder and destruction.

Israeli media suggested the following preceded the attack:

-- six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint bases, weapons silos, supplies, training camps, senior officials' homes, and other strategic targets, including civilian ones; the attack also began exactly at 11:30AM Saturday when children just finished morning classes, were in the streets, and others were en route to school;
-- disinformation and deception were used to keep the media and public uninformed and off guard;
-- Hamas was lulled momentarily into a false sense of security to give the initial onslaught maximum tactical effectiveness;
-- on December 26, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies were let into Gaza as part of the deception; and
-- when the assault came, officials justified it saying "patience ran out" to hide their real motives.

Ahead of the attack, Britain, the EU, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were briefed, and Israel coordinated everything with Washington the way it's always done at least since the 1967 war. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Bush administration also supplied the Israeli Air Force with "a new bunker-buster missile" called GBU-39 - a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision, minimal collateral damage strikes.

Congress authorized 1000 of them in September, and defense officials said the first shipment arrived in early December for use in penetrating underground Gaza Kassam launcher sites and bombing Egyptian border tunnels in Rafah through which emergency supplies were funneled.

Israel's PR spin began before the assault. According to the Guardian, "the foreign ministry honed its message and amassed its staff....Israeli diplomats were recalled from holidays and ordered back to work, and in" Sderot, a multilingual media center was opened to brief foreign journalists.

Everything was orchestrated. At the right moment, Tzipi Livni called foreign ministers in Washington, London, Russia, China, France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She also briefed around 80 international representatives and dignitaries in the Sderot media center. World leaders spread her message, blamed Hamas for "breaking" the ceasefire, and claimed Israel had to respond.

Israeli envoys around the world did the same, and Livni vowed to end Hamas rule if elected. She told Kadima party members and the media that "The State of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime. The means....should be military, economic and diplomatic."

As war rages, Israel is in full spin mode. According to Haaretz, even Fatah loyalists say Gaza is "Allah's revenge" - referring to the 2007 clashes that secured Gaza for Hamas and left Fatah, under Abbas, in control of the West Bank. For his part, prime minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment is "the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet" - a clear signal of more to follow and Israel's intent to destroy Hamas' effectiveness and render it as weak as possible.

Livni also released a document to the Israeli and world press spreading deceit, disinformation, exaggeration, and agitprop. Examples included:

-- "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from Gaza for years;
-- Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortar shells were fired at Israeli civilian communities;
-- Until now we have shown restraint; but today there is no other option than a military operation;
-- We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza;
-- Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace;
-- In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace;
-- We have tried everything to reach calm without using force; we agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel, hold Gilat Shalit, and build up its arms;
-- Israel continues to act to prevent a humanitarian crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."

These and other statements blame Hamas for the violence; accuse it of being a terrorist organization backed by Iran; has a radical Islamic agenda; is the enemy of all Palestinians seeking peace; is criminal under international law, and seeks Israel's destruction.

These comments are from Israel's foreign minister and a leading candidate for prime minister; someone representing a state founded on terrorism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land; that disdains international law; illegally occupies Palestine; collectively punishes its people; denies them self-determination; their right of return; seizes their land; demolishes their homes; imprisons and tortures their people, impoverishes them; denies them free movement, essential services, employment and enough food and clean water; destroys their crops and factories; and grants them no judicial redress because they're Arabs in a Jewish state or under occupation.

On December 31, Livni was in Paris meeting with president Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and other officials. In response to a French two-day truce proposal, she rejected the idea saying: "there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

Protests Worldwide Over Gaza

Carnage and destruction trump spin, and it shows worldwide on city streets - across the Arab world, in America, the EU, London, and even parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The New York Times reported that "After four days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, an outpouring of popular anger is putting pressure on American allies in the Arab world and appears to be worsening divisions in the region." Egypt has been especially pressured because it's a close US and Israeli ally. But "demonstrations continued....from North Africa to Yemen."

Al Jazeera reports that protests spread across the Middle East, and in the West Bank Israeli troops opened fire, killed one Palestinian, and critically injured two others. One was declared brain damaged from a bullet to his head. In Yemen, "tens of thousands of people gathered in and around a stadium in the capital, Sanaa, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and criticizing Arab leaders for failing to act."

It's been much the same in Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, and dozens of other world capitals. In Tehran, students broke into the British Embassy's residential compound, vandalized buildings, and replaced the British flag with a Palestinian one.

Al Jazeera added that several members of Jordan's parliament burned the Israeli flag in protest and called for the expulsion of Kadima's ambassador. In Lebanon, hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian refugees staged a sit-in near the Beirut UN office. Hezbollah condemned the attacks as a "war crime and a genocide that requires immediate action from the international community and its institutions."

Its statement called on Arab countries to "take a firm stand and exert its utmost efforts against the Israeli barbarism - which is (endorsed) by the US - and the international community (must) stop this ongoing massacre."

In Damascus, thousands were in Yusif al-Azmeh square shouting slogans and displaying flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. From loudspeakers, calls were for "jihad" against Israel and for continuing the "struggle in the name of God."

Protests across Iraq took place - in Baghdad with messages supporting Gaza, anti-Israeli slogans, and the Palestinian ambassador, Dalil al-Qasoos, saying: "Gaza will remain steadfast in the face of Americans and Zionists whatever the plots and conspiracies hatched by tyrants and arrogant enemies."

Across Britain as well in Belfast and London where hundreds demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy and outside the BBC.

In Washington, 5000 gathered at the State Department and marched to the White House. In San Francisco, over 10,000 protested in front of the Israeli consulate. In Los Angeles, around 5000 did the same, and in New York thousands more were at the Israeli consulate waving Palestinian flags and chanting "Free Palestine." Similar demonstrations were held in dozens more US cities, including Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Portland, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and in Hawaii in front of Obama's vacation compound where he remains indifferent.

On January 2, the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, and National Council of Arab Americans plan a major protest at the Israeli embassy in Washington and at the Egyptian embassy as well.

Expressions of World Outrage

On December 29, a National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) press release condemned the Israeli massacre, called for a ceasefire and urged participation in New York protests. NLG president and Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Marjorie Cohn stated:

"The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." America, like Israel, disdains international law and has supplied Tel Aviv governments with tens of billions of aid, weapons and technology for decades, and as explained above, with special bunker-buster bombs to attack Gaza. It also partners in Israeli aggression, assists all aspects of it, and provides cover through vocal support and UN resolution vetoes for it to continue.

On December 29, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) condemned Israel's Gaza attack, its slaughter of civilians and "violation of all international laws and treaties," and its crippling siege as "another crime and collective punishment against (over 1.5 million Gazans) living in an atmosphere of continued terror and intimidation."

HRA also denounced world leaders for failing to speak out or act and thus effectively give "a green light for Israel to escalate its siege, topped with the barbaric bombardment" of Gaza and its people. "The Security Council's non-binding statement (calling for "an immediate halt to all violence" and for both sides "to stop immediately all military activities") is evidence of (the UN's) incompetence (and impotence) in implementing its primary duty in maintaining world peace and security."

In his "Dachau to Gaza" article, law professor, international law expert, and former PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle compared Washington and Israel's aims to Hitler's Munich Pact for Germany to occupy and annex the Sudetenland. Today it's to seize Palestinians' land and deny them "self-determination and a real independent state of their own." As a result, he fears a "high probability that history will repeat itself" in more conflict.

In 1986, he visited the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, complained about "criminal Israeli occupation practices," its violations of international law, and that America "has an absolute obligation to use its enormous political, military and economic leverage over Israel to terminate (these) practices immediately."

Yet since Israel's establishment in 1948 and its post-1967 occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Washington has one-sidedly supported Israel and denied Palestinians their "freedom, justice, dignity, respect and independence." One day, America must end this policy and "order Israel out of Palestine." Until then, no Middle East peace is possible and the possibility of greater conflict exists.

Like others wanting war crimes to be punished, Boyle also advocates "An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as "the Only (possible) Deterrent to a Global War." He urges the General Assembly to establish one as a "subsidiary organ" under Article 22 of the UN Charter. It would be similar to those for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) to:

"investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the People of Lebanon and Palestine." It would "provide some small degree of justice to the victims" of decades of Israeli crimes, thus far committed with impunity. "It would also have a deterrent effect" on current Israeli leaders and generals and force future ones to obey international laws or face similar prosecution.

Without legal restraints, Boyle, like others, fears possible new Middle East conflict that could "degenerate into World War III," not by intent but by accident, much like WW I developed. He urges General Assembly action to prevent it at a time attacks on Gaza persist, the Arab street is enraged, and the longer fighting continues, the greater the risk of something far greater.

Israel is a serial aggressor. Its lawlessness can no longer be tolerated. Mass outrage and world pressure must build for a global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions until its human rights abuses stop, its war crimes are punished, its occupation and colonization end, Palestinian refugees have the right to return, and the people of Gaza and the West Bank achieve their long-denied self-determination rights in an internationally recognized sovereign state, free from Israeli oppression. For people of conscience, that's Resolution One for the new year.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11501 

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Israel's Wanton Aggression On Gaza

Stephen Lendman (29 Dec 2008)

It's not the first time and won't be the last. On December 27, AP reported that:

"Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous attacks, and Hamas and medics reported dozens of people were killed."

Haaretz headlined:

"Israel launched (Operation Case Lead) Saturday morning (at around 11:30AM with no warning) the start of a massive offensive against Qassam rocket and mortar fire on its southern communities, targeting dozens of buildings belonging to the ruling Hamas militant group."

AlJazeera.net reported that "Israeli missiles target Gaza," and continued:

"Israel has launched air strikes on Hamas installations across the Gaza Strip, killing at least 155 people and causing heavy damage, according to officials and witnesses."

"At least 30 missiles (later over 100 reported) were fired at targets on Saturday (morning), with the head of emergency services in Gaza saying at least 200 people were also wounded." By Sunday afternoon, Ma'an News reported much higher numbers - at least 285 known dead, more expected, and over 900 injured, many seriously.

Among the dead was Gaza's police chief, Tawfiq Jabber, after a missile struck a police graduation ceremony in Gaza City. Other "casualties" (presumed killed) were governor of the Al-Wusta (central) Districts, Ahmad Abu Aashur, and commander of Security and Protection Services (in the government police), Ismail Al-Ja'bari.

The Strip's interior ministry reported that all Gaza security compounds were destroyed. According to Hamas' deputy leader, Mousa Abu Marzook: So far "the aggression (hasn't) stop(ped)....they are targeting all the police headquarters and offices. We will defend our people, we will retaliate against this aggression....our military will retaliate."

Marzook asked the international community to condemn Israel's wanton state terrorism. "Nobody in this world can accept what happened....the international community (must) stand against this and say that it is not acceptable." Former Palestinian information minister, Mustafa Barghauthi, said: Israel didn't attack Hamas, it attacked "the whole population and the free will of the people of Gaza. (Israel is guilty of) war crimes." Hamas' leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said "Palestine has never witnessed an uglier massacre."

In Damascus, Khled Meshal, Hamas' political leader in exile, said Hamas pursued "all peaceful options without results" in calling for new Intifada resistance. The Arab League was tepid in its response. It called an "emergency" Sunday meeting in Cairo, then postponed it until Wednesday, December 31.

Meanwhile, the raids continue; the death and injury toll mounts; vast amounts of despair, anger, and destruction as well; and Fatah leader and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas (from Cairo) blamed Hamas for the violence. That provoked outrage from Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. He accused Abbas of "downplay(ing) the sufferings of our people in Gaza, belittl(ing) their pains, (and) providing justification of the holocaust and war waged by Israel."

As always, most of the dead and wounded are civilian men, women and children. No matter, according to Israeli military spokesman Avi Benayahu saying: Saturday's attack is "only the beginning. The operation was launched following the violation of the terms of the lull by Hamas and the unceasing attacks by Hamas authorities on Israeli civilians in the south of the country."

In fact, "attacks" were the pretext, not the cause of Israel's aggression. Since Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in January 2006, Israel, Washington and the West withheld recognition and more. All outside aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate government was isolated and vilified.

The leading candidate to become Israel's next prime minister, Tzipi Livni, vows as a "strategic objective" to overthrow Hamas by military, economic and diplomatic means. Her main opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu, pledges to "topple the Hamas regime" and end its effective resistance against an oppressive occupation.

All along, Hamas has been conciliatory to no avail. Earlier in the year, its leaders agreed to a ceasefire and observed months of it unilaterally, despite repeated Israeli violations and Gaza being under siege. On November 4, it ended after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered the Strip (without cause) and killed six Hamas officers supposedly to close off tunnels close to the Kisufim roadblock. Thereafter, in spite of both sides calling for peace, IDF hostilities continued.

Israel is a serial aggressor. Hamas responds in self-defense as international law allows. Article 51 of the UN Charter permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense (against an armed attack) until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."

On December 21, 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted Res. 2131 titled: "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty." It called armed intervention, subversion, and all forms of indirect intervention synonymous with aggression and, for the first time, recognized "the legitimacy of struggle by the people under colonial rules (including occupation) to exercise their rights to self-determination and independence."

On November 22, 1974, the General Assembly passed Res. 3236 recognizing that Palestinians have the same right to self-determination as other sovereign states.

On June 8, 1977, Protocol 1 to the August 1949 Geneva Conventions was passed - "relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts." It declared the legitimacy of armed struggle (or resistance) to achieve self-determination as long as no proscribed methods are used. Further, "all states (are urged) to provide material and moral assistance to the national liberation movements in colonial territories (including occupied people seeking freedom)."

Rarely do Palestinians get any, and, since 1967, have been some of the most isolated people in the world. For Gazans, no outside aid gets in, except for what Israel occasionally lets UN and humanitarian agencies supply and the little coming through tunnels on Egypt's border. It's never enough and falls woefully short of minimum amounts needed to survive. The result is a growing humanitarian crisis, an entire people on the verge of breakdown, compounded by mass slaughter, destruction, and it's "only beginning" according to the IDF spokesman.

The world community is silent and lets Israel do as it pleases - despite repeated international law violations, willful acts of aggression, grievous harm to four million people under occupation, including 1.5 million under a medieval Gaza siege, now under attack.

Reports were that EU nations and Russia called for (but didn't demand) an end to hostilities. According to Reuters, Washington urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties but stopped short of calling for an end to the attacks. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe blamed Palestinians in saying "Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop." Unsaid was that they respond to IDF violence or that until December 27 no Israeli was killed or injured.

Blame the Victim, Not the Aggressor

On Saturday, Condoleeza Rice accused Hamas for the violence. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon could only express "deep alarm," and where was Barack Obama? An AP photo showed him on vacation "working out" at the Semper Fit Center at the Marine Corp Base Hawaii in Kailua, Hawaii on Saturday, and CBS News reported that he's "closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time," according to Brooke Anderson, his chief national security spokesperson.

In a July 2008 interview, The New York Times asked Obama if Israel should negotiate with Hamas in Gaza. He replied that "I don't think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens....I expect Israelis to do (all they can to stop them)....In terms of negotiating with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, (and) has consistently used terror as a weapon. Hamas is a terrorist organization....it's hard for Israel to negotiate with a country like that."

Hamas was democratically elected. It's the legitimate Palestinian government. It's falsely called a terrorist organization, and it has every right to resist an illegal occupation under international law. It observed a unilateral ceasefire for months and extended peace overtures numerous times in the past. Israel spurned them by dividing Gaza and the West Bank, co-opting Mamoud Abbas, inciting Fatah against Hamas, isolating Gaza, and pursuing a policy of aggression, killings, targeted assassinations, mass incarcerations, and torture with full support from Washington, the West, and (from his comments above) the incoming Obama administration.

The UN Refugee Works Relief Agency's (UNWRA) operations head for Palestinian refugees, John Ging, expressed outraged on what's happening. Earlier he said: Gazans got nothing from the months of ceasefire. There was no "restoration of a dignified existence. We had our supplies restricted (during the period) to the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position" with very little food left until it ran out.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) campaigns for Palestinian justice in areas of civil, human and political rights according to international law. Along with the Palestine Return Centre (PRC), the Palestinian Forum of Britain (PFB), the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), Stop the War, Friends of al Aqsa, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), and Respect, Islamic Human Rights Commission it organized emergency protests opposite Israel's London Embassy on December 28 and 29 to demand an end of the Gaza siege and ongoing aggression. The urgency was highlighted by saying: Israel's Cynicism (Is) Supported by the West's Complicity" as it called for public solidarity to end it.

For her part, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni ordered the Ministry to "take emergency measures (to) open an aggressive and diplomatic international public relations campaign," according to Haaretz. In other words, Israel will spin its wanton aggression into justifiable self-defense and get dominant media help to sell it.

On December 27, The New York Times took the lead. It reported that "Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group's rocket fire....Israeli military officials (called the attack) an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel. Thousands of Israelis hurried into bomb shelters amid the hail of rockets," making it seem like Israel resembled London during the blitz when, in fact, Hamas attacks are mere pin pricks and only respond to first-strike Israeli attacks.

The Times and dominant media are silent on this. They continue spreading spurious lies about Hamas being "officially committed to Israel's destruction, and when it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and then 'forcibly' took over Gaza in 2007, it said it would not recognize Israel, honor previous Palestinian Authority commitments to it, or end its violence against Israelis."

All of the above is untrue. The Times continues to report falsely. Hamas wants peace, has repeatedly been conciliatory, and its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said earlier that armed struggle would end "if the Zionists ended (their) occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians."

Israel rejects all overtures. More recently, Hamas offered peace and Israeli recognition in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - its Occupied Territories that it's entitled to under international law.

As early as 1988, the PLO under Yasser Arafat accepted a two-state solution with Palestinians willing to settle for only 22% of their pre-1948 homeland - a generous offer that, if accepted, would have had two sovereign states living peacefully alongside each other as neighbors.

Israel rejects this out of hand. It chooses dominance over peace, violence over reconciliation, and imperial conquest above the rule of law. It's colonizing the West Bank, ethnically cleansing the population, and continues to terrorize Gaza. "The newspaper of record" is selective about "fit news to print," so uncomfortable truths are suppressed. It reported that one Israeli was killed Saturday and another four wounded, one seriously, but didn't explain that previous rocket attacks caused no deaths or injuries.

After many months of siege compounded by ongoing attacks, Gaza is gravely affected, but so is the West Bank. Under the Fatah government, no rockets are launched, yet Israel maintains a violent occupation, continues to seize Palestinian land, expand its illegal settlements, and lets its residents terrorize Palestinians with impunity, even in cases of wanton killings and destruction of property.

Early Reports on the Ground and from Israel

On Saturday, Haaretz reported that 60 warplanes hit 50 targets simultaneously, then 20 more "struck 50 Palestinian rocket launchers in an effort to minimize Hamas' retaliatory strikes." The attack hit civilians with the IDF stating that those near targeted sites were "liable to get hurt." Some were children leaving school when the strikes were launched.

Haaretz writer Amos Harel called them "the harshest IDF assault on Gaza since the territory was captured during the Six-Day War in 1967." Palestinian sources described a massive attack, like "shock and awe," destroying about 40 targets in three to five minutes. The IDF spent months picking sites, and dozens more may "come under attack in the coming days. Little to no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians. From Israel's standpoint, Hamas" brought this on itself. In Pentagon-speak, civilians are "collateral damage," but pictures of the slaughter show otherwise - stark evidence of crimes of war and against humanity that no authority will punish.

Also at issue is whether IDF ground forces will follow the air attacks, and if so, it won't be the first time. The right-wing Jerusalem Post quoted president Shimon Peres saying: "Israel will take all steps demanded of it to stop the rocket fire (but) we will not go into Gaza. There are other ways - we didn't leave Gaza in order to go back."

The Ma'an News Agency reported (through Monday AM) at least 310 killed and over 1000 wounded with medical sources saying arrivals at Gaza City hospitals are in "pieces." In addition, the Head of Emergency and ambulance department, Muawiya Hassanain, confirmed that medical crews continued pulling dozens from under rubble.

Things are desperate as he asked all Arab states for aid in the form of medications and operating supplies for those too badly injured to be moved. Hospital corridors are filled with bodies and gurneys, and local morgues are out of space.

Israeli defense minister and former prime minister, Ehud Barak, declared Gaza's 20 square kilometers a "special military zone" - a classification just short of a declaration of war. It already is for its people, and here's how Al-Azhar University professor Said Abdelwahed described conditions late Saturday:

"It is horrible outside! Minutes ago I heard the hissing of a Palestinian Qassam rocket, then another one accompanied by an explosion. It seems that the second one was hit by an Israeli aircraft that may have been targeting the Palestinian group. The news now is saying that an Israeli Apache helicopter has targeted a recreation ground with fish ponds."

"Al-Shifa hospital said that there are more than 195 dead and over 570 injured there. Every minute the number of casualties goes up. These are the figures in Gaza, but there are still no official statements from other towns and villages and refugee camps. Near our apartment, my youngest son was waiting for his school bus when the preventive security department was hit 50 meters from where he was standing. Two men and two young girls died immediately."

"It is utterly dark now. I am operating a small generator to contact the world via internet. Tonight everyone in Gaza is scared. It's totally dark (there's no power); children cry from fear; (at least) 206 people are dead. They (and the injured) line the floor at Al-Shifa hospital, but (it's) poorly equipped. (Its) administration called on people to donate blood. The teachers' syndicate declared a three days strike in protest...."

"Just in, Israeli aircraft (Saturday night) hit places east of Gaza City where a number of people were killed and injured. Casualties are rising. People remain under rubble. One mother lost two young daughters and a son as they were heading to school."

"Tonight is cold mainly for those whose windows (were) shattered by explosions." With Gaza under siege, "there is no glass available" to replace them. "In the apartment building where I live, 7 apartments witness freezing cold nights. They use blankets to cover in the place of the broken windows. Hundreds of homes" are in the same condition. Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh "gave a televised speech....to raise morale and to reconfirm that Hamas will not surrender. The death toll reached 210" and number of seriously injured is now up to 200. Another air raid" is now in progress north of Gaza City.

UNRWA Expresses "Horror"

The UN Relief and Works Agency commissioner Karen AbuZayd was outraged over Israel's attack, the mass killings and destruction, and expressed her "deep sadness at the terrible loss in human life." She reminded Israel that it's a signatory to "international conventions that protect non-combatants in times of conflict (and added that) these conventions are worthless if they are not upheld." A statement said that UNRWA will "exert all efforts to respond as quickly as possible to relieve suffering and pain (and added that today's attacks follow) weeks of a tight blockade that prevented UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies from assisting the population (that's) unable to (meet) their basic needs, and now" they're under attack.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) Expresses Outrage in Calling for An Immediate End of the Attacks.

It blamed the suffering in Israel and Gaza "squarely with successive Israeli governments" in citing 41 years of "increasingly oppressive Israeli Occupation without a hint that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state will ever emerge."

Why so? Because Israel and Washington won't tolerate one beyond the fiction of isolated, surrounded, impoverished, and impotent bantustan outposts that IDF forces can enter at will and wreak havoc on a helpless population.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad Response

After the air strikes, Hamas ordered its Al-Qassam Brigades to respond "by any means necessary." Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called for a "massive response" and for renewal of others inside Israel. Islamic Jihad leader Khaled Al-Batsh called Israel's attack "open war." He also condemned the world community and Arab states for their "silence on such massacres" and vowed that Israel "would never make the resistance factions surrender."

West Bank Protests

Demonstrations erupted across the West Bank, including in Bethlehem, Ramallah city center, the Ad-Duheisha refugee camp, Hebron, Tulkarem, and East Jerusalem. Violent clashes broke out between Palestinian youths and IDF forces in Shufat refugee camp on the northern outskirts of East Jerusalem. Also in Qalandia, Ar-Ram and Al-Isawiya. Dozens of injuries and arrests were reported. Black flags were hung around the city and a commercial strike was declared.

Tulkarem governor Talal Duweikat and Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Hasan Khriesah joined hundreds of others in the streets. The city declared a day of mourning in response.

In Hebron, hundreds of university students protested for an end to violence. They chanted anti-occupation slogans and called for Fatah and Hamas to unify for a common purpose. The group marched to the Bab Az-Zawiyah neighborhood where confrontations erupted with IDF forces, and they, in turn fired suffocating amounts of tear gas.

In Ramallah, Fatah organized a rally for hundreds and called for a general strike to close all city shops for the day. Demonstrators and international community institutions raised banners with slogans saying "one blood, one nation, Gaza and we are with you." Ministry of Prisoners Affairs, Ziyad Abu Ein, called on all Palestinians to unite in dark days. PLC member Mustafa Barghouthi called Israeli violence "their harshest crimes against Palestinians" and condemned world and Arab leaders for their silence.

In Bethlehem, protests erupted in the Ad-Duheisha refugee camp (south of the city) and a larger crowd assembled in the city.

A December 27 Palestinian press release read:

"A demonstration to condemn the massacres being committed in Gaza."

"Palestinian Civil Society organizations in the Bethlehem area, people of various political affiliations, Christians, and Muslims, and all people of conscience in the Bethlehem area are gathering at 5PM (Saturday) in front of the Church of Nativity and Omar's mosque in Bethlehem."

Through Sunday afternoon, around 300 people were massacred by bombing besieged Gaza. Over 1000 were reported injured as well. The victims include men, women, and children, and the numbers keeps rising. "Join us today as we call for ending the massacres, ending the siege on Gaza, for reconciliation between all Palestinians, and for freedom."

Signed:

Khalid AlAzza
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour

The Union of Health Work Committees - Gaza - Late Saturday Press Release - from Executive Director Yousef Momeusa

After two waves of Israeli air attacks, "television footage showed dead bodies scattered on a road and wounded and dead being carried away by distraught rescuers. There was widespread damage to buildings." The number of dead exceed 200 and is rising. At "least 750 were wounded, 125 with critical injuries." Updated numbers are much higher and continue climbing.

"The military operation makes the Palestinian blood fall like rain. As a consequence, the civilian population in the cities of Rafah, Khan-Younis, middle camps, Gaza City, Beit-Hanoun and Beit-Lahiya and in the refugee camp of Jabalia are suffering from the most horrible onslaught of Israeli military power....The number of dead and injured are increasing by the minute."

"The infrastructure is being destroyed leaving many areas without power and water. Medical supplies in the hospital are largely exhausted (and) food supplies are dwindling." A real health crisis looms. UHWC is working "around the clock at the risk to themselves to deal with the crisis....The entire world is witnessing these scandalous and outrageous acts, and yet no concrete steps have been taken!!"

"UHWC asks you to issue a strong Last Appeal Statement condemning Israel's human rights violations against the Palestinian people and to demand a cessation of this military offensive....There are no political considerations which can justify the silence of the international community any longer."

Signed,

Dr. Yousef Momeusa
Executive Director

Professor Said Abdelwahed of Al-Azhar University, Gaza
on the End of the Six-Month Ceasefire

Prior to Israel's December 27 attack, he feared the worst and said it "means escalation; bombardment, air raids. It means military activities on the border. The last six months brought big pressures on our social life, on resources, all due to the Israeli siege." With it were high prices on goods able to enter from Egypt through tunnels that for the most part Israel allows given the dire situation on the ground.

"I can't see any progress being made towards a united Palestinian government. I think both sides" lose out as a result, "but Israel takes (full) advantage....The students (at my university) are deprived of many things. They are disappointed young people with no hope or future in front of them, so they are in bad shape."

Abdelwahed mentions a Gaza City health worker "expect(ing) the situation to deteriorate (further): more incursions and more military operations in border areas. While the world is busy with Christmas, Israel can take action. (Already) we have 16 hours of power cuts a day. Hospitals have to run generators for hours at a stretch, which they weren't designed for. So they break down - and because of the closure we have no spare parts....I cannot see the internal situation improving soon. We're short of everything. Eighty per cent of people in Gaza (rely) on food assistance. It's a big problem." It's now much bigger.

At 11PM on Saturday, Abdelwahed reported new air raids were in progress concentrating on the "eastern parts of the city of Gaza. One woman lost 10 of her family. Only she and a daughter remain alive. The daughter couldn't speak to the media because she didn't (understand) what happened. Panic is everywhere in the city and we anticipate (worse still) to come. Demonstrations erupted in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon." The death toll keeps climbing. "An Israeli caller just rang us up. My youngest son answered. The caller threatened that if I have any weapons they will hit my place!!!"

There have been "five air raids in 10 minutes. Targets are societies and groups of social works in thickly populated areas. One mosque was hit as well. I am without electricity for 30 hours so far. I am still operating a small generator to contact the world via internet."

Abdelwahed sent this email on Sunday. "My family and I are okay but stressed....the building adjacent to (ours) was hit by a small rocket from a helicopter. (The) situation is horrible and people are really panicked."

"Last night, F16s targeted Al-Aqsa satellite channel and leveled it to the ground." Surrounding buildings are impossible to live in. "One small mosque across the street from Al-Shifa Hospital was (demolished)." Homes were badly damaged as well, one "belong(ing) to a friend of mine; he told me that what he witnessed was hard to describe in words....Also his sister was severely injured."

A medical doctor friend "told me that the death toll climbed to about 500 (though the media reports around 300) and more than 1000 injured." Israelis are targeting Rafah tunnels. "Hundreds of Palestinians stormed the Egyptian border with a bulldozer and on foot but failed to (get across) as the Egyptians shot live at them."

A "new air raid on different targets (reported) minutes ago. Many died and injured. My window glass (is) shattered. (The) Customs house and passport department have been demolished minutes ago. Aircraft are still in the sky operating."

"F16s (just) destroyed the largest security building in Gaza....Four missiles leveled the building to the ground; also police stations were hit and totally destroyed today. (We're hearing that many areas) were targeted by Israeli warplanes. Large numbers of civilians, including children died and were injured in today's attacks. At Rafah border, one Palestinian was shot dead (by the Egyptians). The situation on the border is terribly bad. An Israeli ground attack seems possible."

Ma'an News Agency Updated Timeline Late Saturday Through Mid-Day Sunday, December 28 and 29

-- 10:15PM - 2 more air strikes; at least 3 killed and 4 injured in Zaitoun neighborhood, Gaza City, and Jabalia in the north;
-- 11:30PM - Israeli air strikes hit the Al-Mansura neighborhood east of Gaza City; 3 Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades deaths are reported;
-- 11:50PM - air strikes hit Khan Younis in southern Gaza and several northern areas;
-- 1:01AM Sunday - Israeli jets strike the security room in front of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City; a close by mosque is hit killing at least 2 and injuring 7;
-- 6:30AM - a medical storehouse in the Al-Junayna neighborhood and a fuel storage facility with diesel and benzene in the Tal As-Sultan area are hit - both near Rafah in the south; buildings and vital civilian supplies were destroyed; at least 3 deaths were reported;
-- 6:45AM - Gaza City's Shuja'iyya neighborhood is bombed; several were injured and a police center destroyed;
-- 8:00AM - Hamas police headquarters was attacked in the evacuated Israeli kfar Darum and Al-Matahin settlements;
-- 10AM - a police station in the Shuja'iyya Gaza City neighborhood was bombed; also three homes in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood west of the city were destroyed;
-- 10:30AM - a jeep in Gaza City's Zaitoun neighborhood was attacked killing one child; a second strike targeted the Jabalia area; no casualties were reported so far;
-- 11:00AM - the temporary headquarters of the Rafah governorate was bombed injuring several people; the original building was destroyed on Saturday;
-- 11:45AM - the government municipal council offices were bombed in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza; several injuries were reported;
-- Noon - the As-Saraya government compound was attacked, killing one child and injuring several others;
-- Monday, December 28 - Israel's assaults continue with no letup; Haaretz reported that the Islamic University and another government compound in Gaza City were destroyed; other targets hit included a guest palace and at least some residential homes; "at first light Monday, strong winds blew black smoke from the bombed sites in Gaza City over deserted streets," punctuated by new explosions; Ehud Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said military action would continue until Israel "no longer (fears) terror (from) rocket barrages."

Throughout the attacks, images and reports on the ground are horrific and disturbing. All around is death and destruction. Amputated bodies fill Al-Shifa Hospital hallways. In one corner, a dead seven-year old boy is in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover him.

One man is dazed after watching his son killed during the police graduation ceremony. Another father stood next to his son as he was decapitated. He's still screaming. In a hospital waiting room, a mother is silent after her son was pronounced dead.

Carnage is everywhere, inside and on the streets - body parts, blood, strewn clothing and other items. Twelve-year old Ayaman is screaming as his father tries not to let him see the bodies of his brother and uncle torn to pieces under sheets.

Yaha Muheisen stops searching for his son's body and Nawal Al-Lad'a can't find her two sons bodies in the hospital so she searches through rubble.

Gaza medical personnel confirm that the majority of the dead are civilians, including men, women and children. Most were torn to shreds. Bodies continue to be pulled from rubble. Some Palestinians say images resemble the 1982 (Beirut) Sabra and Shitila massacres of about 3000 men, women, children and infants during a 62-hour (proxy) Phalange militia force rampage while the IDF stood by and let it happen.

Ariel Sharon was defense minister at the time. After Israel invaded Lebanon in 1981, he authorized the operation, and in his autobiography confirmed that he negotiated it with Lebanon's president-elect Bashir Gemayel. Afterward, journalist Robert Fisk called it "one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century." Another in Gaza remains ongoing.

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote that "The neighborhood bully strikes again....Once again, Israel's violent responses....exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom. What began yesterday in Gaza is a war crime....Once again the commentators sat in television studios and hailed the combat jets" that killed the innocent. "Once again, they urged (not) letting up....Once again, they described" disturbing images as a "difficult scene....When the bully is on a rampage, nobody can stop him."

Journalist Amira Hass called Gaza "Little Baghdad, bombs everywhere, smoke, fire, people not knowing where to hide, fear everywhere, rage and hatred." She wrote painfully of carnage and death, of the living searching for loved ones, of no electricity, no gas, no flour, no bread for the past week, just despair and destruction as Israeli attacks continue.

Harold Pinter on Israel

On December 24 at age 78, Harold Pinter lost his long battle with cancer. He was the most influential playwright of his generation, the 2005 Nobel laureate for literature, a voice of political protest, and a passionate campaigner against human rights abuses. The Nobel academy citation called him an author "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed room." For some, he was a "permanent public nuisance, a questioner of accepted truths, both in life and art."

Too ill with cancer, he recorded his award ceremony speech on videotape, voiced strong opposition to the Iraq war, Britain's role in it, and called the invasion a "bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law." Would he say less about Israel's current assault?

Pinter was Jewish, a critic of Israel's illegal occupation, and its brutality inflicted on Gazans. He was one of 105 prominent Jewish signers of an April 2008 "We're not celebrating Israel's Anniversary" petition. Its last paragraph read:

"We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on (Gaza) civilians and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations." Pinter called George Bush a "mass murderer." He felt no different about merciless Israeli leaders.

A Possible Ground Invasion?

On Sunday, Haaretz reported that the IDF "will call 6500 reservists to duty, as part of the largest Israeli offensive on (Gaza) since it" seized the Territory in 1967. Defense officials said that the call-up is part of military preparations for a possible escalation of fighting. Meanwhile, IDF infantry and armored troops (including tanks) man Gaza's border for a possible ground invasion, and Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak warned that "The operation will be deeper and expanded as much as necessary."

"The Bloodiest Day in the History of Occupation"

That's from a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights PCHR) December 27 press release that "condemn(ed) in the strongest terms the war waged by" the IDF on Gaza. As it's done many times before, PCHR calls on the international community and High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War to intervene immediately, to stop the killings, and to end the unprecedented devastation and deteriorated humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

The Gaza-based One Democratic State Group called for "all civil society organizations and freedom loving people to act immediately (to pressure their governments) to end diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel and institute sanctions against it." It's press release headlined: "Stop the Massacre in Gaza - Boycott Israel Now!"

The "Stench of Death Hangs Over Gaza," wrote Ola Attallah, IslamOnline correspondent from Gaza City. Can we sense it, smell it, feel it, anguish over it, and decide once and for all this won't stand! If not now, when? If not us, who? If wanton butchery isn't incentive enough, what is?

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11501

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