Sunday, January 04, 2009
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Steel Against Naked Flesh – Israel Invades Gaza
Saturday January 3, 2009
Over 500 Killed in Gaza War – Thousands
Wounded
Toll Continues to Rise as Israeli Troops Surround Gaza City
Posted January 4, 2009
Moving
into the ninth day of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, the death toll has surpassed 500 according to medics.
Yesterday’s invasion sparked a new round a fighting, and claims of killed combatants on both
sides.
The first casualties in the invasion however came when an Israeli tank attacked a house full of Palestinian
children in eastern Gaza City, killing one and injuring 11 others. All told at least 31
additional civilians were killed yesterday.
The
thousands of advancing soldiers have cut the tiny strip virtually in half, and the forces are now massing along
the outskirts of Gaza City, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Heavy
fighting is still reported and Major General Amod Yadlin’s claims that Hamas is
using mosques to store ammunition suggests that the Israeli strategy of
attacking religious sites in the strip will continue as the operation moves
forward.
Still,
while Defense Minister Ehud Barak insists that the Israeli invasion won’t be short, the government continues to insist that it has no
intention of occupying the Gaza Strip. As officials also claim that regime change isn’t
their goal either, the purpose of the onslaught remains nebulous and it
seems increasingly likely that there is no real exit strategy for this
invasion.
Related
Stories
January
3, 2009 -- Israeli Troops Invade Gaza Strip
January
3, 2009 -- Israeli Invasion of Gaza ‘Won’t Be Short,’ Defense Minister
Assures
January
3, 2009 -- Israel
Invades the Gaza Strip
Ron Paul Condemns Gaza Invasion - VIDEO
By Uri
Avnery
January 4, 2009
As a matter of
fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to
start with. The main
requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the
border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of
supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and
again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a
half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or
launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most
sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of
starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of
electricity and water.
Those who decided to close the crossings under whatever pretext
knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.
That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations
which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched,
an army unit was sent into the Strip "in order to destroy a tunnel that
came close to the border fence". From a purely military point of view, it
would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the
aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that
made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after
several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas
retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and lo and behold the
cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
What was the aim?
Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza.
The Qassams served only as a pretext.
Liquidate Hamas rule? That sounds like a chapter out of "The
March of Folly". After
all, it is no secret that it was the Israeli government which set up Hamas to
start with. When I once asked a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it,
he answered enigmatically: "We did not create it, but we did not hinder
its creation."
For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic movement
in the occupied territories. All other political activities were rigorously
suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted. The calculation was simple and naive:
at the time, the PLO was considered the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the
current Satan. The Islamic movement was preaching against the PLO and Arafat,
and was therefore viewed as an ally. (Read More)
Massive Israeli Protest Against Zionist Slaughter
Gush Shalom – Tel Aviv,
Israel
January 4, 2009
The organizers themselves were surprised by the large number
of protesters. “A week after the start of Lebanon War II, we succeeded in
mobilizing only 1000 demonstrators against it. The fact that today there came
10,000 proves that the opposition to the war is much stronger this time. If
Barak goes on with his plans, public opinion may completely turn against the
war in a few days.”
The giant Gush Shalom banner said in Hebrew, Arabic and
English: “Stop Killing! Stop the Siege! Stop the occupation!” The slogan of the
demonstration called for the end of the blockade and an immediate cease-fire.
Washington Quashes Gaza UN
Cease-Fire Resolution
Haaretz – Tel
Aviv, Israel
January 4, 2009
The United States thwarted an effort by
Libya on Sunday to persuade the UN Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire
in Gaza after Israel launched a ground invasion, diplomats said.
Several council diplomats told reporters that the U.S. refusal
to back a Libyan-drafted demand for an immediate truce at a closed-door
emergency session had killed the initiative, since council statements must be
passed unanimously. (Read More)
EU and Britain call
for Gaza cease-fire
January 4, 2009
'Israel using US bombs in Gaza'
PressTV – Tehran, Iran
January 3, 2009
US-made weapons
have been used by the Israeli army in a military offensive on Gaza, which have
killed hundreds of Palestinians in the strip.
The deadly raids launched on December 27 have so far claimed the lives of at
least 439 people and wounded some 2,280 others in the Gaza Strip.
CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said that a Hamas leader who was killed
on Thursday was targeted by an American-made 2,000 pound bomb.
"This is part of the billions of dollars that Israel has spent buying
weapons from the United States," she said.
US Congress approved a 77-million-dollar deal in September to sell a thousand
Boeing GBU-39 bunker-buster 'smart bombs' to Israel.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the GPS-guided missiles are
being used by the Israeli army in its onslaught on Gaza. (Read More)
Washington gives
Israel free rein on whether to invade Gaza
AFP
January
2, 2009
WASHINGTON
(AFP) — The United States gave Israel free rein Friday on whether to send
troops into the Gaza Strip, insisting that the key to a ceasefire is an Israeli
demand for Hamas to permanently halt rocket fire.But the White House said it
has asked Israel to try hard to avoid civilian casualties as reserves were
called up for an expected ground incursion on top of a week of air strikes that
has killed more than 400 Palestinians. (Read More)
Lame Duck Bush Administration Contines to
Inflame Islamist Terrorism for Its Successor
by Ivan Eland
Independent Institute
Although media coverage has focused on U.S. occupations and counterinsurgency/counterterrorist campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq—which had the perverse result of further inflaming Islamist radicalism—the Bush administration has been busy stirring that same hornet’s nest in other parts of the world, especially in Africa. Not only has the administration not been honest with the American people about the reasons for the 9/11 attacks, it has also been self-delusional. (Read More)
More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza
Even for those insisting that Israel's attack
on Gaza is both wise and just, what possible interest does the U.S. have in
involving itself so directly in this dispute?
Glenn Greenwald
Jan. 02, 2009 |
Ultimately, what is most notable about
the "debate" in the U.S. over Israel-Gaza is that virtually
all of it occurs from the perspective of Israeli interests but almost none of
it is conducted from the perspective of American interests. There is endless debate
over whether Israel's security is enhanced or undermined by the attack on Gaza
and whether the 40-year-old Israeli occupation, expanding West Bank settlements
and recent devastating blockade or Hamas militancy and attacks on Israeli
civilians bear more of the blame. American opinion-making elites march
forward to opine on the historical rights and wrongs of the endless
Israeli-Palestinian territorial conflict with such fervor and fixation that
it's often easy to forget that the U.S. is not actually a direct party to
this dispute.
Though
the ins-and-outs of Israeli grievances and strategic considerations are
endlessly examined, there is virtually no debate over whether the U.S.
should continue to play such an active, one-sided role in this dispute.
It's the American taxpayer, with their incredibly consequential yet never-debated
multi-billion-dollar aid packages to Israel, who are vital in funding this
costly Israeli assault on Gaza. Just as was true for Israel's bombing of
Lebanon, it's American bombs that -- with the whole world
watching -- are blowing up children and mosques, along with Hamas militants, in
Gaza. And it's the American veto power that, time and again, blocks
any U.N. action to stop these wars.
For those reasons, the pervasive opposition and anger around the world from the Israeli assault on Gaza is not only directed to Israel but -- quite rationally and understandably -- to America as well. Virtually the entire world, other than large segments of the American public, see Israeli actions as American actions. The attack on Gaza thus harms not only Israel's reputation and credibility, but America's reputation and credibility as well. (Read More)
Israel Has
No Intention of Granting a Palestinian State
By Jennifer Lowenstein
January 1, 2009
Counterpunch.org
Let us get
one thing perfectly straight. If the wholesale mutilation and degradation of
the Gaza Strip is going to continue; if Israel's will is at one with that of
the United States; if the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and all
the international legal agencies and organizations spread across the globe are
going to continue to sit by like hollow mannequins doing nothing but making
repeated "calls" for a "ceasefire" on "both
sides"; if the cowardly, obsequious and supine Arab States are going to
stand by watching their brethren get slaughtered by the hour while the world's
bullying Superpower eyes them threateningly from Washington lest they say
something a little to their disliking; then let us at least tell the truth why
this hell on earth is taking place.
The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza
Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with
"Terror". It has nothing to do with the long-term
"security" of the Jewish State or with Hizbullah or
This crisis has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, justice or peace. It is
not about Mahmoud Zahhar or Khalid Mash'al or Ismail Haniyeh. It is not about
Hassan Nasrallah or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These are all circumstantial players
who have gained a role in the current tempest only now that the situation has
been allowed for 61 years to develop into the catastrophe that it is today. The
Islamist factor has colored and will continue to color the atmosphere of the
crisis; it has enlisted the current leaders and mobilized wide sectors of the
world's population. The primary symbols today are Islamic – the mosques, the
Qur'an, the references to the Prophet Muhammad and to Jihad. But these symbols
could disappear and the impasse would continue.
There was a time when Fatah and the PFLP held the day; when few Palestinians
wanted anything to do with Islamist policies and politics. Such politics have
nothing to do with primitive rockets being fired over the border, or smuggling
tunnels and black-market weapons; just as Arafat's Fatah had little to do with
stones and suicide bombings. The associations are coincidental; the creations
of a given political environment. They are the result of something entirely
different than what the lying politicians and their analysts are telling you.
They have become part of the landscape of human events in the modern
Strip away the clichés and the vacuous newspeak blaring out across the servile
media and its pathetic corps of voluntary state servants in the Western world
and what you will find is the naked desire for hegemony; for power over the
weak and dominion over the world's wealth. Worse yet you will find that the
selfishness, the hatred and indifference, the racism and bigotry, the egotism
and hedonism that we try so hard to cover up with our sophisticated jargon, our
refined academic theories and models actually help to guide our basest and ugliest
desires. The callousness with which we in indulge in them all are endemic to
our very culture; thriving here like flies on a corpse.
Strip away the current symbols and language of the victims of our selfish and
devastating whims and you will find the simple, impassioned and unaffected
cries of the downtrodden; of the 'wretched of the earth' begging you to cease
your cold aggression against their children and their homes; their families and
their villages; begging you to leave them alone to have their fish and their
bread, their oranges, their olives and their thyme; asking you first politely
and then with increasing disbelief why you cannot let them live undisturbed on
the land of their ancestors; unexploited, free of the fear of expulsion; of
ravishment and devastation; free of permits and roadblocks and checkpoints and
crossings; of monstrous concrete walls, guard towers, concrete bunkers, and
barbed wire; of tanks and prisons and torture and death. Why is life without
these policies and instruments of hell impossible?
The answer is because
It had no intention of acknowledging Palestinian national rights at the United
Nations in 1974, when –alone with the
Through the home demolitions, the assaults on civil society that attempted to
cast Palestinian history and culture into a chasm of oblivion; through the
unspeakable destruction of the refugee camp sieges and infrastructure
bombardments of the second Intifada, through assassinations and summary
executions, past the grandiose farce of disengagement and up to the
nullification of free, fair and democratic Palestinian elections Israel has
made its view known again and again in the strongest possible language, the
language of military might, of threats, intimidation, harassment, defamation
and degradation.
Israel, with the unconditional and approving support of the United States, has
made it dramatically clear to the entire world over and over and over again,
repeating in action after action that it will accept no viable Palestinian
state next to its borders. What will it take for the rest of us to hear? What
will it take to end the criminal silence of the 'international community'? What
will it take to see past the lies and indoctrination to what is taking place
before us day after day in full view of the eyes of the world? The more
horrific the actions on the ground, the more insistent are the words of peace.
To listen and watch without hearing or seeing allows the indifference, the
ignorance and complicity to continue and deepens with each grave our collective
shame.
The destruction of
The lifeblood of the Palestinian National Movement flows through the streets of
Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies
Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be reached at amadea311@earthlink.net
