Showing posts with label #Gaaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Gaaza. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Israel the schnorrer




THE ABSURD TIMES



 

Above: Featured and honorable guest.

 

What you can do, above;
 
Illustrations: Some illustrations from Latuff.



We did our best to publish a title "Gaza and Social Media," but the load on the site is simply too great for that.  No matter, if you are on Twitter, all you need to do is type #Gazaunderattack and you will see the images too graphic for our media.  Also some information not designed for the American public.

We do, however, have a discussion of what will happen with this cease-fire and a clear statement of what motivated the slaughter in the first place.   The first person is Jewish, but hunted down by such b***** as Alan Derschowitz.  The second is a scientist with serious credentials who know what HE is talking about, even if our "leader" do not.

Incidentally, I heard that former President Jimmie Carter suggests that Hamas be recognized formally.  I have no real source.


TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2014

Gaza Ceasefire: After 1,800+ Dead, What Led Israel to Stop the Assault — and What Comes Next?

After a nearly month-long assault that left at least 1,865 Palestinians dead, Israel has pulled its ground forces from the Gaza Strip under the 72-hour ceasefire that went into effect earlier today. Israeli and Palestinian factions have agreed to attend talks in Cairo on a longer-term agreement. Gaza officials say the vast majority of Palestinian victims were civilians in the Israeli offensive that began on July 8. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed. Palestinians are returning to homes and neighborhoods that have seen a massive amount of destruction. Nearly a quarter of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents were displaced during the fighting which destroyed more than 3,000 homes. The ceasefire was reached after international outrage over Palestinian civilian deaths peaked, with even Israel’s chief backer, the United States, criticizing recent Israeli shelling of United Nations shelters that killed scores of displaced Palestinians. To discuss the lead-up to the ceasefire and what to expect from the talks in Cairo, we are joined by author and scholar Norman Finkelstein.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: Israel has pulled its ground forces from the Gaza Strip as a 72-hour ceasefire takes hold. In addition, Israeli and Palestinian factions have agreed to attend talks in Cairo on a longer-term agreement. Gaza officials say at least 1,865 Palestinians, most of them civilians, died during Israel’s offensive, which began on July 8th. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed. Nearly a quarter of Gaza’s 1.8 million resident were displaced during the assault, which destroyed more than 3,000 homes.
Earlier today, the Israeli military sent out a message reading, quote: "Mission accomplished: We have destroyed Hamas’ tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel. All of Israel is now safer." Palestinians coming home to their neighborhoods report massive amounts of destruction.
GAZA RESIDENT: [translated] I am destroyed. I’m shocked. I have heart problems, and then I saw our house. We were all shocked. We don’t know what to do. Look at our houses and our children. Everything is destroyed, four apartments. All my children are stranded in the schools. Where are we supposed to go?
AMY GOODMAN: In other developments, a prominent Foreign Office minister in Britain, Sayeeda Warsi, has resigned, saying Britain’s policy on the crisis in Gaza is, quote, "morally indefensible." In an interview with The Huffington Post, Warsi criticized Britain for pressuring Palestinian leadership not to seek justice at the International Criminal Court. On Monday, Human Rights Watch urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to seek ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on and from Palestinian territory. The group detailed multiple examples of Israeli soldiers shooting and killing fleeing civilians in Gaza.
To talk more about Gaza, we’re joined now by Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. His most recent books, Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit’s Promised Land and Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End.
So, Norm, the ceasefire has been announced. It’s holding, well, just hours into it. And there is, if it holds, going to be negotiations taking place. Talk about what has happened.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the first thing is to have clarity about why there is a ceasefire. The last time I was on the program, I mentioned that Prime Minister Netanyahu, he basically operates under two constraints: the international constraint—namely, there are limits to the kinds of death and destruction he can inflict on Gaza—and then there’s the domestic constraint, which is Israeli society doesn’t tolerate a large number of combatant deaths.
He launched the ground invasion for reasons which—no point in going into now—and inflicted massive death and destruction on Gaza, where the main enabler was, of course, President Obama. Each day he came out, he or one of his spokespersons, and said, "Israel has the right to defend itself." Each time he said that, it was the green light to Israel that it can continue with its terror bombing of Gaza. That went on for day after day after day, schools, mosques, hospitals targeted. But then you reached a limit. The limit was when Israel started to target the U.N. shelters—targeted one shelter, there was outrage; targeted a second shelter, there was outrage. And now the pressure began to build up in the United Nations. This is a United Nations—these are U.N. shelters. And the pressure began to build up. It reached a boiling point with the third shelter. And then Ban Ki-moon, the comatose secretary-general of the United Nations and a U.S. puppet, even he was finally forced to say something, saying these are criminal acts. Obama was now cornered. He was looking ridiculous in the world. It was a scandal. Even the U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, was now calling it a criminal act. So finally Obama, the State Department said "unacceptable," "deplorable." And frankly, it’s exactly what happened in 1999 in Timor: The limits had been reached, Clinton said to the Indonesian army, "Time to end the massacre." And exactly happened now: Obama signaled to Netanyahu the terror bombing has to stop. So, Obama—excuse me, Netanyahu had reached the limit of international tolerance, which basically means the United States.
And then there was the domestic issue. Israel had launched a ground invasion ostensibly to stop the so-called rocket attacks, but then it turned into something different: the tunnels. Now, the tunnels had nothing to do with Israel. That’s totally ridiculous. Israel claims there were 12 tunnels that had passed through its border. There were many more tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. The first thing Sisi did when he came into power in Egypt was seal the tunnels. Did he have to destroy all of Gaza to seal the tunnels? Israel couldn’t have done the same thing—seal the tunnels on its side of the border, exactly what Sisi did in Egypt? What did the Hamas have? It had spoons. It had shovels. You’re telling me that Israel didn’t have the earth-moving equipment to build a wall that went deeper than the tunnels? It had nothing to do with the tunnels entering Israel.
The problem was, the tunnels in Gaza, it turned out, they had created a fairly sophisticated network of tunnels, incidentally—I know we’re not allowed to make these comparisons—not unlike the bunkers that were built in the Warsaw Ghetto—primitive, but effective—and the Hamas fighters were able to come out of the tunnels, and they inflicted a significant number of casualties on Israel. During Operation Cast Lead in 2008, '09, 10 Israeli combatants were killed, of which four were from friendly fire. This time it was about 65. Now, during the Lebanon War in 2006, about 120 Israeli combatants were killed, but that was against the Hezbollah, which is a formidable guerrilla army. So, half and more were killed in Gaza this time. So, Israel's aim was not to destroy the tunnels going into Israel. That’s ridiculous. What they wanted to do was destroy the tunnel system inside Gaza, because now an effective—not very effective, but effective—guerrilla force had been created. And Israel, every few years, has to—or less than few years, has to mow the lawn in Gaza. And so, they wanted to make sure the next time they mow the lawn—
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you say "mow the lawn"?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, that’s the Israeli expression. You go in, and you kill a thousand people, destroy everything in sight, and Israel calls that "mowing the lawn." So every few years they have to go into Gaza and mow the lawn. They want to make sure next time they mow the lawn—because if you read the Israeli commentators, who are really a sick bunch of people, all of them are talking now about the next war. Every single commentator is talking about the next war. This one isn’t even over yet. But they want to make sure the next time they go in, there won’t be tunnels. So that was the real aim of the mission.
The problem was, they had reached a certain point in Gaza, and now, if they went further, they would have to enter what are called the built-up areas. And those are very densely populated. Remember, Gaza is six times as densely populated as Manhattan. So if they went into the densely populated areas, we would be talking about thousands and thousands of casualties. And Netanyahu knew the international community wouldn’t accept it, because when Israel goes into a place, it doesn’t want combatant casualties, so it blasts everything in sight. You go into densely populated areas and you blast everything in sight, well, then you’re talking about thousands and thousands of casualties.
The other problem was, these tunnels were actually not vulnerable to aerial bombing and artillery shells. So even if they destroyed everything in sight, the tunnels are still there, Hamas comes out, and significant Israeli casualties. So Netanyahu realized ground invasion is over. There’s no further they can go, because of the domestic Israeli constraint: They don’t tolerate combatant casualties. The international constraint kicked in when Obama said, "It’s over, folks. Have to stop. Killed too many U.N. people this time." And then the ceasefire was signed.
AARON MATÉ: So now we have these talks. The call for Israel is for Hamas to disarm. Hamas’s goal has been for a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. And, of course, they’re being held in Egypt. What do you expect to play out in these talks?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it’s pretty clear what’s going to happen. And as a matter of fact, already in mid-July I posted something on my website predicting what would happen, exactly what did happen. What’s going to happen now is, for domestic reasons, Netanyahu has to end the projectile attacks on Israel. Hamas says it won’t stop firing its projectiles, quote-unquote, "rockets," until and unless Israel lifts the blockade of Gaza. So what’s going to happen—and it’s exactly what I said, as I said, three weeks ago—what’s going to happen is they’re going to bring in the Palestinian Authority to control the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, lift the blockade partially because of that crossing; then, on the Israeli side, they’re already talking about huge amounts of international donor aid to rebuild Gaza. It’s really a kind of weird conflict. I mean, there are so many weirdnesses about this conflict. Israel blows everything up. Nobody even talks about Israel paying reparations. It’s just taken as a matter of fact that the international community rebuilds after Israel destroys. It’s just a schnorrer state, "schnorrer" being the Yiddish for a sponger. We destroy, they pay. Nobody even discusses the possibility maybe Israel should pay reparations for its death and destruction in Gaza. In any case—
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Israel would say it was the thousands of Hamas rockets that were shot into Israel that they now feel that they have succeeded in preventing.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Look, there were no Hamas rockets fired into Israel. There were Hamas primitive projectiles fired into Israel. Anybody with a moment’s common sense knows it was impossible—and it’s already been documented by people like Mark Perry. Everyone with a moment’s common sense knows they couldn’t have been firing, quote-unquote, "rockets" into Israel, for an obvious reason. After July 2013 there was a coup in Egypt. The tunnels were sealed after 2013. On the Israeli side, there was a blockade. What could get into Gaza? No military equipment can get into Gaza. No ammunition can get into Gaza. They were firing—as somebody put it in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, they had a guidance system, what they were firing, said it was the equivalent of upgraded fireworks. Now, OK, you could say upgraded—it had no guidance system, but you could say, well, they had a payload, an explosive payload on the fireworks. Where is the evidence for it? Now, I—
AMY GOODMAN: In a moment we’re going to talk with physicist Ted Postol about the Iron Dome system and the rockets.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yeah, look, I have a high regard for Theodore Postol. However, I don’t accept part of his analysis, because he says that what protected Israel from the Hamas projectiles was not Iron Dome, but, he says, a sophisticated bunker—a sophisticated shelter system and a warning system. But that doesn’t explain another fact: Then why hasn’t there been significant damage to civilian infrastructure? How many schools were destroyed by these rockets? How many hospitals were destroyed? How many government buildings? That can’t be explained by the civilian shelter system.
AMY GOODMAN: Norm Finkelstein, do you think the ceasefire will hold? Do you think talks will take place?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yeah, because at this point, basically what’s going to happen is it’s over. Obama said it’s over. The ground invasion had reached its limit. And now Netanyahu has the problem that he has to end the rocket—the projectile attacks on Israel. And the only way he can do that is he’s going to have to agree to some lifting of the blockade. So, at this point there’s nothing left that Netanyahu can do. He inflicted the death, the destruction—he mowed the lawn. And now what’s probably going to happen is they’re going to bring in the Palestinian Authority, there will be rebuilding of Gaza, they’ll attempt to disarm Hamas. And I think the finale, the last stage, the coup de grâce, is going to be that Kerry is going to dust off his peace initiative—namely, imposing on the Palestinians a surrender. With Hamas now neutered, Hamas disarmed, they’ll try to impose the Kerry peace initiative on the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority will happily agree. And then there will be, again, a September 1993, a big peace agreement signed, and all the people will celebrate peace.
AARON MATÉ: But someone could say, "Well, that’s great. The blockade’s lifted, so people in Gaza stop suffering. We have peace, and the rocket attacks from Gaza are over."
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, except for one thing: You didn’t have to kill 1,800 people. You didn’t have to level Gaza and reduce it to rubble to lift the blockade. The blockade is illegal. It’s immoral. Why did you have to wait ’til after to do what was demanded under international law before?
AMY GOODMAN: On that note, Norm Finkelstein, I want to thank you for being with us, author and scholar. His most books, Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit’s Promised Land and Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, physicist Ted Postol on the Iron Dome. President Obama has just signed off on a bill giving an additional $225 million in emergency funding for Israel to expand its arsenal of interceptor missiles. Stay with us.


The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2014

Iron Dome Boondoggle: Has Obama Just Signed a $225M Check for a Defective Israeli Missile Shield?

President Obama signed a bill on Monday granting an additional $225 million in emergency funding for Israel to replenish its arsenal of interceptor missiles for its Iron Dome air defense system. The emergency spending was approved unanimously by the Senate and by a 395-to-8 vote in the House. Amidst universal support of Iron Dome from politicians and the corporate media, one of the country’s leading missile experts, Theodore Postol, says there is no evidence that Iron Dome is actually working. Postol is well known within defense circles for exposing the failures of the Patriot missile system during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. "I have been privy to discussions with members of Congress who have oversight responsibilities, who have acknowledged in those discussions that they have no idea whether Iron Dome is working or not," says Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at MIT. "And I can also tell you that the U.S. government has not been given any information on the performance of Iron Dome."
Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview.
Image Credit: NatanFlayer

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: On Monday, President Obama signed a bill granting an additional $225 million in emergency funding for Israel to replenish its arsenal of interceptor missiles for its Iron Dome defense system. The emergency spending was approved unanimously by the Senate and by a 395-to-8 vote in the House.
Well, amidst universal support from politicians and the corporate media, one of the nation’s leading missile experts says there is no evidence Iron Dome is actually working. Theodore Postol is well known within defense circles for exposing the failures of the Patriot missile system during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to part two of our conversation with the MITprofessor. Theodore Postol joined us on the show last week from Boston. He’s a professor of science, technology and national security at MIT. He recently wrote anarticle in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists headlined "The Evidence that Shows Iron Dome Is Not Working." I began by asking Professor Postol if he could compare the previous Israeli assault on Gaza, when there wasn’t any Iron Dome, to what’s happening now.
THEODORE POSTOL: These comparisons are a little tricky, because the defense system that’s saving so many—well, saving lives in Israel is the early warning and sheltering system. And the early warning system has been improved through the use of telephones. So, for example, if you’re in a city somewhere where the Israeli radars determine that an artillery rocket is heading in your direction, you will get an audible signal that says you need to take shelter. And then there’s a shelter system that’s been built in advance all over these areas of Israel, plus you would have a shelter in your home, if you are actually in your home. So all you would need is 10 seconds of warning or less to get in a shelter in your home, and you could actually get to shelters very quickly on the outside, because these shelters are all over the place where the population is dense and the Israeli government has predicted there will be a likely attack.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me quote from Reuters, July 10th: "Israel’s Iron Dome interceptor has shot down some 90 percent of Palestinian rockets it engaged during this week’s surge of Gaza fighting, up from the 85 percent rate in the previous mini-war of 2012." Professor Postol, your response?
THEODORE POSTOL: Well, first of all, I am sorry to say that the press needs to engage in more due diligence on these matters. Where does this number come from? The number comes from an Israeli spokesperson. Now, if I give a number—and, incidentally, I have a long record of being correct on these matters—you don’t hear the press coming to me and asking me, do I believe that number is correct? And if I don’t believe the number is correct, why would I not believe the number is correct? This is really—you can really put this back on the due diligence of the press with regard to this matter. They’re just not—they’re just accepting information from an interested party.
AMY GOODMAN: So can you explain further how this works, how the Iron Dome—how Raytheon built this?
THEODORE POSTOL: Well, the Iron Dome is mostly an Israeli development, although Raytheon is involved. The Iron Dome interceptor has to approach an incoming artillery rocket head-on. So if you saw an Iron Dome interceptor flying a near-vertical trajectory, that would indicate the Iron Dome interceptor is in a near-head-on engagement geometry coming at the artillery rocket. In that geometry, the interceptor has some chance of destroying the artillery rocket warhead. If you see the Iron Dome interceptor engaging the artillery rocket from the side or from the back by chasing it, then it has essentially a zero chance of destroying the artillery rocket warhead. So, if you look up in the sky and you look at the hundreds of videos we now have of the contrails of the—the smoke trails of the Iron Dome interceptors, you can see that almost all the time—there are exceptions, but almost all the time—the Iron Dome interceptors are traveling parallel to the ground, which means that the falling artillery rocket is engaged from the side, or the Iron Domes are—the Iron Dome interceptors are diving to the ground, which means that they are trying to chase artillery rockets from behind. All those engagements are zero probability of intercept. And we’re guessing—we’re guessing, based on what we have, that maybe 10 percent or 15 or 20 percent of the engagements are head-on. Actually, it’s not 20 percent; it’s closer to 10 percent. And when you see so few engagements head on, your conclusion is that the system is not working the vast majority of the time.
AMY GOODMAN: This goes to the issue of the proportionality of the attack on Gaza. You know, more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed. And so often when this issue is raised—and I think it’s three Israeli civilians, and of course every death is horrific on either side. But when this issue is raised, Israel just says, "Well, we have an extremely effective Iron Dome system." If it’s not Iron Dome, is it simply saying that these rockets that Hamas and other groups are firing off, they’re not working? I mean, if their intention is to kill, that they are not lethal weapons, if so few people have died and Iron Dome isn’t working?
THEODORE POSTOL: Well, one has to realize—you know, one has to know some simple technical facts. First of all, most artillery rockets are carrying warheads in the 10-to-20-pound range. So if you’re sitting in a room and the rocket comes through the roof and explodes in the room, it will kill you, and it will kill everybody else in the room. If you have 10 seconds or 20 seconds of warning and you go into the shelter that’s, by law, built in your home, and the rocket happens to hit your home, you won’t be killed. It can even hit the shelter, and you won’t be killed. So, sheltering and early warning are extremely critical to keeping the death toll down. Now, the odds of an artillery rocket going through the roof and into your room are very low. They’re high enough that if I were in Israel, I would advise you, and I would do so myself: I would take shelter, because there’s—you know, the inconvenience is small relative to being killed or injured. But most of these rockets are landing in open areas, landing between buildings, landing outside buildings. And the real danger is that this relatively low-lethality warhead lands within 10 or 20 feet of you.
Now, if you just lie on the ground—let’s say you’re caught in the open, and you can’t go to a shelter—the Israeli government itself will tell you that your chances of being a casualty from a falling artillery rocket are reduced by 80 percent—80 percent—if you simply lie on the ground. And the reason for that is the lethal range of these low-weight warheads is not very large, and they are blowing fragments out sort of like a shotgun, and if you get close to the ground, unless you’re very unlucky and the thing lands on you or lands very close to you, you’re not going to be injured by the explosion. So, although these artillery rockets are fantastically disruptive, with regard to the functioning of Israeli society—and I think that that is true, and because of that, there’s a psychological and political leverage associated with these artillery rocket attacks—they are not killing people, as long as people are taking shelter and sheltering is available.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Postol, I’m looking at a Boston Globepiece on the Iron Dome and Raytheon being a key in the Israeli defense plan. And it says, "For Raytheon, the Israeli contracts—part of a 'coproduction' deal with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems—present a potential financial windfall. Much of the work would be done at Raytheon’s Tucson, Ariz., missile systems plant, as well by subcontractors across the country." Can you talk more about exactly what Raytheon does and if this Iron Dome system is now being sold to other countries?
THEODORE POSTOL: Well, I’m not aware of sales to other countries at this point. I haven’t been following that part of the issue. On the question of foreign aid, in this case to Israel, it’s very common—it’s almost always the United States government requires that foreign aid largely be spent with—using American companies. And in the case of Raytheon, they are the premier company for basically building missiles and interceptors of all kinds. So, it’s a natural business arrangement for Raytheon to be a big beneficiary of an agreement like that, because the money goes to Israel in a virtual way, but it basically is spent in the United States.
Now, this brings—this raises the question of the cost of these interceptors. The Israelis are saying—some Israelis are saying that the interceptors cost $20,000 each. Now, the reason for lowballing this number—I’ll give you a sense of what it could cost—is because the interceptors, the Iron Dome interceptors, are intercepting rockets that might cost $500 or $1,000 each. So there’s an issue of how much you should pay, assuming the system is working, for stopping an artillery rocket, especially if the passive defense, if the taking shelter, saves lives. And, you know, for example, how many artillery shells cause $20,000 or $100,000 worth of damage. And the actual cost of an Iron Dome interceptor is almost certainly well over $100,000, not the $20,000 that some Israeli sources seem to be saying. Now, just to give you a sense of how off the cost could be—again, we don’t know at this point—another interesting fact, there’s so much we don’t know, yet people are throwing money at this. There’s a comparable missile in its cost called the Sidewinder. It’s an air-to-air missile that Raytheon manufactures and sells. The Iron Dome interceptor is very close to an air-to-air missile. It’s a very small missile, weights about 200 pounds, and so does this air-to-air missile—different design, though. That costs $400,000 each. So how is it possible to build an interceptor that has the same advanced technology—it’s not exactly the same, but similar—and roughly the same size, and it only costs $20,000 each? There’s a significant question there about whether the Congress and the American people have accurate information about what this system is really costing.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re raising very serious questions about the effectiveness of Iron Dome. Hundreds of millions of dollars—in fact, more than the Obama administration has asked for—is being discussed in Congress to pour into this.
THEODORE POSTOL: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Mainly to Raytheon and other U.S. companies. Have you been called by anyone in Congress to testify, to raise your concerns?
THEODORE POSTOL: Of course not. Congress is not interested in information. What I can tell you, I have not been directly involved, but I have been privy to discussions with members of Congress who have oversight responsibilities, who have acknowledged in those discussions that they have no idea whether Iron Dome is working or not. And I can also tell you that the U.S. government has not been given any information on the performance of Iron Dome. So, when Susan Rice, the national security adviser, makes a statement about how well Iron Dome is working, somebody should ask Susan Rice what’s her source, because I can tell you that there—and she should have a source. She should be able to tell you, you know, "We had the following national laboratory take the data from the Israelis. They looked at it. And let me tell you, this thing is working well." Instead, she gets on television and talks about this working well. Somebody should ask her, somebody in the press corps should do their due diligence and ask her, "Where did you get this information?"
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, it’s not just Susan Rice, the national security adviser. It’s President Obama himself. This is what President Obama said.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There’s no country on Earth that can be expected to live under a daily barrage of rockets. And I’m proud that the Iron Dome system that Americans helped Israel develop and fund has saved many Israeli lives.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama.
THEODORE POSTOL: Again, Mr. Obama should be able to answer the question of which American technical institution has obtained the data from the Israelis and verified the accuracy of the data and verified that the performance levels are what they are. I know that the Israelis have the data. They have radar data. They have video data in the visible. They have video data in the infrared. They have substantial amounts of data that they could and should make available to the United States, to our technical institutions, and have this data reviewed and certified. And any politician, whether it’s the president or his national security adviser, who makes a claim that this system is performing that well, should be able to point a finger at the specific agency that has the technical resources to review this data and has obtained this data from the Israelis. This is just an outrage.
AMY GOODMAN: Physicist Theodore Postol. He’s a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He recently wrote an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistscalled "The Evidence that Shows Iron Dome Is Not Working." This is Democracy Now! To see the first part of that interview, you can go to democracynow.org.


The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
 
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Gaza, Egypt, and Israel -- Idiotic coverage


THE ABSURD TIMES



 

 

 

Above: A collection of the recent work of Carlos Latuff.





Contrary to U.S. corporate media, there was no genuine ceasefire proposal by Egypt.  A document presented to only one side of the conflict could hardly be taken seriously, and it was not presented to Hamas.

It made no provision for all that Israel is inflicting on Gaza.  The recent bombings, such as the attack on a Center for the Disabled, are called "targeted precision attacks" against "militant" leaders.

ABC's Dianne Sawyer recent aired a devastated Palestinian home with people scraping through the rubble as "Israelis", so misinformed and biased is coverage here.

Below are a couple interviews that make all this clear, but first a word on the pernicious effect this coverage is having here:


We, fortunately, have been immune from such idiocy for a few years.  Perhaps such ill-begotten and ill-raised ignorant idiots have long since abandoned all hope of spreading their delisions here, or perhaps out of sheer luck.  However, the following nonsense was posted on a social site as a response to someone else who posted a note.  All the same, I pointed out that all religions have been made ridiculous by their fanatics (defined somewhere as "Someone who would do what God would if He had all the facts").  This included the Christian fanatics who spread their anti-gay mission to those in Africa who now torture and the execute anyone suspected of such deviancy.  I quote it verbatim and as it appeared so as not to distort:

You are not
going to persuade me to support the Palestinian Arab cause. I abhor the
brutality of the Arab world. Beheadings, amputations, misogyny,
ignorance. I shudder to think of Islamic jurisprudence ever being
recognized in any country. Palestinians who live under the Israeli
jurisdiction are better off financially, socially, psychologically and
emotionally than Palestinians who live under Hamas. Che Guevara is long
dead and so too is the mythology of the freedom warrior. The Arab world
can not develop beyond its current pitiful state unless it recognizes the
democratic rights of all people and that includes women and non-Arabs.
Inside Israel Aabs are treated a whole lot better than they might be in
Arab dominated counties. The may suffer the odd incidence of humiliation
or some such slight, but they will be given due process of a humane and
civilized law. The biggest favour Israel could do for Gaza is to rid
Palestine of Hamas.

So, this is what is out there, boldly and proudly stated. 

Now for some sense on the issues:

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014

After Palestinian Unity Deal, Did Israel Spark Violence to Prevent a New "Peace Offensive"?

It is widely thought that the flare-up in Israel and the Occupied Territories began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teens in the West Bank just more than a month ago. But our guests — author Norman Finkelstein and Palestinian political analyst Mouin Rabbani — argue that such a narrative ignores the broader context of decades of occupation and recent events highlighting the expansionist goals of the Israeli government in the Palestinian land under its control. "Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a settlement of the conflict — which the [Fatah-Hamas] unity government was — at that point Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction, in this case from Hamas, break up the unity government, and then Israel has its pretext," Finkelstein says. Rabbani and Finkelstein are co-authors of the forthcoming book, "How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict."

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli musician and peace activist David Broza, ("What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," recorded in an East Jerusalem recording studio with Israeli, Palestinian and American musicians. The Jerusalem Youth Choir, comprised of both Palestinian and Israeli members, lends their voice to the recording. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Aaron Maté.
AARON MATÉ: Well, with the potential for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, we turn now to the roots of the latest crisis and what can be done to avoid another in the future. It is widely thought the flare-up began with the kidnappings of three Israeli teens in the West Bank just over a month ago. Their dead bodies were found later on. But our next guests argue the narrative ignores the broader context of decades of occupation and recent events highlighting the expansionist goals of the Israeli government in the Palestinian land under its control.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. His most recent books are Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit’s Promised Land and Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End. And we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian political analyst, formerly with the International Crisis Group. Today, both Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani have co-authored a forthcoming book, How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mouin Rabbani, we’re speaking to you over at The Hague. Can you respond to this latest news of the Egyptian ceasefire, Israel accepting and Hamas weighing this?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think Amira explained it quite well. So far as we can tell, Hamas has been neither directly nor indirectly consulted on a proposal that basically the Egyptians have concocted together with Tony Blair and the Israelis and some other parties, the purpose of which appears to be something that Hamas cannot accept and that can then be used to legitimize an intensification of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
The problem for Hamas is twofold. On the one hand, as Amira explained, it basically restores an acceptable status quo, while, on the other hand, it has been endorsed by the Arab League, by the PA in Ramallah, by most of the Western powers and so on. So it will be difficult for them to either accept or reject it, so to speak, while at the same time I think the parties that are proposing this ceasefire are making it clear that they’re not really interested in any further negotiation of its terms.
AARON MATÉ: Norman Finkelstein, give us a sketch of the broader context for how this latest flare-up began.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, before I do, I’m going to just briefly comment on the ceasefire. The ceasefire, first of all, says nothing about the rampages by Israel against Hamas in the West Bank. And it was those rampages which caused the current conflict to escalate. It gives Israel a green light to continue arresting Hamas members, blowing up homes in the West Bank, ransacking homes and killing Palestinians, which was the prelude to the current fighting.
Secondly, if you look at the ceasefire, it’s exactly what was agreed on in June—excuse me, June 2008 and the same ceasefire that was agreed to in November 2012. Namely, in both cases, it was said that there would be a relaxing of the illegal blockade of Gaza. In both cases, after the ceasefire was signed, the blockade was maintained, and in fact the blockade was escalated. So now, in the current version of the ceasefire, it said the blockade will be lifted after there has been calm restored and the security situation has been established. But if Israel says Hamas is a terrorist organization, then the security situation can never be calm in the Gaza, and therefore there will be never a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. So we’re right back to where we were in June 2008, November 2012. Of course Hamas is going to reject that kind of agreement. It means it legalizes, it legitimizes the brutal, merciless, heartless, illegal blockade of Gaza.
As to how we got to where we are, the general context is perfectly obvious for anyone who wants to see it. A unity government was formed between the PA and Hamas. Netanyahu was enraged at this unity government. It called on the U.S., it called on the EU, to break relations with the Palestinian Authority. Surprisingly, the United States said, "No, we’re going to give this unity government time. We’ll see whether it works or not." Then the EU came in and said it will also give the unity government time. "Let’s see. Let’s see what happens."
At this point, Netanyahu virtually went berserk, and he was determined to break up the unity government. When there was the abduction of the three Israeli teenagers, he found his pretext. There isn’t a scratch of evidence, not a jot of evidence, that Hamas had anything to do with the kidnappings and the killings. Nobody even knows what the motive was, to this point. Even if you look at the July 3rd report of Human Rights Watch, they said nobody knows who was behind the abductions. Even the U.S. State Department, on July 7th, there was a news conference, and the U.S. State Department said, "We don’t have hard evidence about who was responsible." But that had nothing to do with it. It was just a pretext. The pretext was to go into the West Bank, attack Hamas, arrest 700 members of Hamas, blow up two homes, carry on these rampages, these ransackings, and to try to evoke a reaction from Hamas.
This is what Israel always does. Anybody who knows the history, it’s what the Israeli political scientist, the mainstream political scientist—name was Avner Yaniv—he said it’s these Palestinian "peace offensives." Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a settlement of the conflict, which the unity government was, at that point Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction—in this case, from Hamas—break up the unity government, and Israel has its pretext. "We can’t negotiate with the Palestinian Authority because they only represent some of the Palestinian people; they don’t represent all of the Palestinian people." And so Netanyahu does what he always does—excuse me, what Israeli governments always do: You keep pounding the Palestinians, in this case pounding Hamas, pounding Hamas, trying to evoke a reaction, and when the reaction comes—well, when the reaction comes, he said, "We can’t deal with these people. They’re terrorists."
AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, on this issue of the Israeli teens who were kidnapped and then killed, when did the Israeli government understand that they had been murdered, as they carried out the siege to try to find them?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, what we know is that one of these youths called the police emergency line immediately after they were abducted and that gunshots can be clearly heard on the recording of that telephone conversation. On that basis, the Israeli security establishment concluded that the three youths had been killed almost as soon as they were abducted. And this information was, of course, known to the Israeli government. Nevertheless, Netanyahu deliberately suppressed this information, using the broad censorship powers that the Israeli government has, and during this period launched into this organized rampage—
AMY GOODMAN: Put a gag order on reporters from reporting this?
MOUIN RABBANI: Basically, yes, that, you know, this was treated as sensitive security information subject to military censorship. And there were only allusions to it, and only days after, by some Israeli journalists, and then only referring to some elliptical statements that were being made by Israeli military commanders suggesting that, you know, this is not a hostage rescue situation, as Netanyahu was presenting it, but is more likely to be a search for bodies, which is of course how it turned out. And the reason that Netanyahu suppressed this information is because it gave him the opportunity to launch this organized rampage throughout the West Bank, to start re-arresting prisoners who had been released in 2011 in the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, to intensify the bombing of the Gaza Strip, and generally to whip up mass hysteria within Israel, which of course resulted in the burning death of the 16-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem several days later.
AARON MATÉ: Mouin, you’ve interviewed Hamas leaders. The response from the Israeli government is always that Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction, so therefore how can we possibly negotiate with a unity government that includes them? What’s your sense of Hamas’s willingness over a long term to reach some sort of agreement or a long-term truce with Israel?
MOUIN RABBANI: I think Hamas, or at least the organization and not necessarily all of its members, but its key leaders, have long since reconciled themselves with a two-state settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think what’s been surprising in the past several months has been that the Hamas leadership has gone well beyond that, in the context of the reconciliation agreement signed on 23 April between Fatah and Hamas. In that agreement, they agreed to the formation of a new government, which neither Hamas nor Fatah would enter the Cabinet, but that the political program of that government would be the political program of the PA president—at the moment, Mahmoud Abbas. And what you basically had was Abbas stating publicly that he not only accepts the so-called Quartet conditions, but that in addition he would continue security coordination with Israel and, you know, was making these statements almost on a daily basis. And Hamas, more or less, looked the other way and didn’t withdraw from the government.
And this, I think, reflects, in some respects, the increasing difficulty Hamas was experiencing in governing the Gaza Strip and funding its government there, because of its—because of the increasing hostility or the exceptional [inaudible] the regime in Egypt, the deterioration in its relations with Iran, the inability to replace those with funding from Qatar or other sources. So you effectively had a government that was not only amenable to a two-state settlement with the support of Hamas, but it went significantly further and effectively accepted the Quartet conditions, which most [inaudible] view as illegitimate, and additionally was continuing security coordination with Israel that was largely directed at Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. I think—you know, and this is—as Norman was explaining, this is a key reason why Netanyahu sought to undermine this agreement and the resulting government.
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, why do you think Israel has hesitated to launch the invasion? Their, you know, thousands of soldiers are lined up along the Gaza border.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it’s interesting, because all the—there are a large number of theories that are being spun, in particular in the Israeli press. The answer, I think, to that question is pretty obvious. The Israeli domestic population won’t tolerate a large number of Israeli combatant casualties. That’s out. Israel likes to fight—not unlike President Obama, Israel likes to fight high-tech—likes to commit high-tech massacres, and it doesn’t want to fight a real war. And in 2008, Israel carried out, executed the big high-tech massacre in Gaza, killed about 1,400 Palestinians, up to 1,200 of whom were civilians, left behind 600,000 tons of rubble, dropped the white phosphorus and so forth. And for the first time, the international community reacted very harshly to it. The climax, of course, was the Goldstone Report.
And at that point, Israel was placed in a very difficult position, because on the one hand, it can’t stop the rocket attacks unless it conducts a ground invasion, which is exactly the situation it faced in Lebanon in 2006 also. The air force can’t knock out these rockets. They’re short-range rockets, mostly. They’re not even rockets, but we’ll call them that. The air force can’t knock them out. The only way to get rid of them—exactly as in Lebanon in 2006, the only way to get rid of them is by launching a ground invasion. However, the domestic population won’t accept a large number of casualties. And the only way you don’t have a large number of casualties is if you blast everything in sight within a mile’s radius, which is what Israel did in 2008, '09. There were only 10 Israeli military casualties; of those 10, half of them were friendly fire, Israelis accidentally killing Israelis. But after the Goldstone Report and after 2008, ’09, they can't do that again. They can’t carry out that kind of massive destruction, the 22 days of death and destruction, as Amnesty International called it. They can’t do that again. A new constraint has been placed on Israel’s political and military echelon.
So, that’s the dilemma for them. Domestically, they can’t tolerate large numbers of combatant casualties, but the only way to prevent that is blasting everything in sight. The international community says you can’t do that. You kill 150, even kill 200, Human Rights Watch said killing 200 Palestinians in Gaza, that’s not a war crime, they said. That’s just collective punishment. Only Hamas commits war crimes, because one woman apparently died of a heart attack while—Israeli woman apparently died of a heart attack while trying to enter a shelter, so that’s horrible, awful: That’s a war crime. But when you kill 200 Palestinians, 80 percent of whom are civilians, about 20 percent of whom are children, according to Human Rights Watch, that’s not a war crime. But the international community will accept that much, 200. But even Human Rights Watch won’t accept if you go in and you do 2008, '09, again. And so, the Israeli government is faced with a real dilemma. And that's the problem for Netanyahu. Domestically, he loses if there are large number of casualties, combatant casualties; internationally, he loses if he tries to do 2008, ’09, all over again.
AMY GOODMAN: Which resulted in how many deaths?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: 2008, '09, as I said, was about 1,400, of whom about up to 1,200 were civilians, I say 600,000 tons of rubble. They just left nothing there. And by the way, that was demanded by Tzipi Livni. On June 8th—excuse me, on January 18th, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister then, the justice minister now, the person who's called a moderate by J Street, Tzipi Livni boasted—she went on TV and boasted, "We demanded hooliganism in Gaza. That’s what I demanded," she said, "and we got it." According to J Street, she’s the moderate.
AARON MATÉ: Norman, as we wrap, what needs to be done?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: What needs to be done is perfectly obvious. Amnesty International, which is a real human rights organization, unlike Human Rights Watch—Amnesty International issued a statement. It said, number one, there has to be a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and Palestine—perfectly reasonable because, under international law, it’s illegal to transfer weapons to countries which are major violators of human rights. So, comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and Palestine. Number two, international investigation of war crimes on both sides.
And I’m saying number three. Number three has to be—there has to be the imposition of sanctions on Israel, until and unless it negotiates an end to the occupation according to international law. Now, that’s not my suggestion. I’m basing it on the International Court of Justice. South Africa occupied Namibia. The International Court of Justice said in 1971, if South Africa does not engage in good-faith negotiations to end its occupation of Namibia, that occupation is illegal under international law. Israel has refused to engage in good-faith negotiations to end the occupation of Palestine, just like in the case of Namibia. It is now an illegal occupier of Palestine, and there should be a comprehensive sanctions imposed on Israel, until and unless it ends the occupation of Palestine under the terms of international law.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ll leave it there. Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. Mouin Rabbani, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies. That does it for this discussion today. Of course we will continue the discussion of what’s happening in Gaza. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.


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TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014

With 192 Dead in Gaza, Is Lasting Ceasefire Possible Under Israeli Occupation?

The next phase of the violence that has killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza is in flux after a ceasefire proposal from Egypt. The Egyptian government proposed a temporary halt to violence and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings, followed by talks in Cairo on a long-term truce. Israel’s Security Cabinet has endorsed the proposal, but Hamas has yet to officially respond. The Hamas military wing has rejected the pact as a "surrender," saying the ceasefire fails to meet any of its core demands. These include a lifting of the siege of Gaza, the release of prisoners recently detained in Israeli raids, an end to Israeli attacks on the Occupied Territories, and respect for the Palestinian unity government. But it is Hamas’ political wing that will have the final say. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to widen the attack on Gaza if Hamas rejects the ceasefire and if rocket fire continues. The potential for a ceasefire follows a week that saw Israel kill at least 192 Palestinians in a massive bombing campaign on one of the world’s most densely populated areas. The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza’s dead are civilians, including 36 children. More than 1,000 rockets from Gaza have hit Israel over the same period, with just a fraction landing in urban areas. Around a dozen Israelis have been wounded. No casualties have been reported. We are joined from Ramallah by Amira Hass, Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli journalist to have spent several years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: The next phase of the violence that’s killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza is in flux today with a ceasefire still on the table. On Tuesday, the Egyptian government proposed a temporary halt to violence and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings, followed by talks in Cairo on a long-term truce. Israel’s Security Cabinet has endorsed the proposal, but Hamas has yet to officially respond. The Hamas military wing has rejected the pact as a, quote, "surrender," saying the ceasefire fails to meet any of its core demands. These include a lifting of the seige of Gaza, the release of prisoners recently detained in Israeli raids, an end to Israeli attacks on the Occupied Territories, and respect for the Palestinian unity government. But it’s Hamas’s political wing that will have the final say. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to widen the attack on Gaza if Hamas rejects the ceasefire and if rocket fire continues.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] We agreed to the Egyptian proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels, through diplomatic means. But if Hamas does not accept the ceasefire proposal, as would now seem to be the case, Israel would have all international legitimacy to broaden the military operation to achieve the required quiet.
AMY GOODMAN: The threat of more violence follows a week that saw Israel kill at least 192 Palestinians in a massive bombing campaign on one of the world’s most densely populated areas. The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza’s dead are civilians, including 36 children. More than a thousand rockets from Gaza have hit Israel over the same period, with just a fraction landing in urban areas. Around a dozen Israelis have been wounded. There have been no Israelis reported killed.
For more, we’re joined by Amira Hass. She’s the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli journalist to have spent years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is joining us from Ramallah.
Amira Hass, can you talk about this latest development, the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, Israel accepting it, Hamas is weighing it?
AMIRA HASS: Yeah, it’s exactly because Hamas feels that this was a proposal boiled up with Israel without any consultation with Hamas. And this is something that’s forced on them and also reported through the media and not through negotiations or prior negotiations. Everybody knows that the leadership of Egypt right now is an enemy of Hamas, an enemy of the Muslim Brothers. And they feel humiliated, and they feel that it is not meant to bring progress and change for the Palestinians in Gaza, but to further marginalize them as a movement, as a political movement.
AARON MATÉ: Amira, you’ve spoken to members of Hamas. You’ve interview them for Ha’aretz. What demands do they have for a ceasefire that they would respect?
AMIRA HASS: Their demands are, of course, to return first to the 2012 agreement or understanding, that Israel should open the crossings at least for goods and raw material, and then allow people to leave through Rafah. They more or less neglected the idea, I mean, the hope that Israel would allow Palestinians leaving from Erez from the northern west—northern Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This is something they have neglected, but—or don’t have much hope about this. But at least for goods and raw materials and movement, people’s movement through Egypt. This is one.
Another thing that they say: "We see that Israel always does not abide by its commitments, and we need guarantees, international guarantees, that it does, for next ceasefire, because it’s time we find—have some understanding." Israel comes and has breaches—for example, the fishermen. It was agreed in 2012 the fishermen would be able to fish and not be shot at all, whenever they move—I don’t know—one kilometer away, one maritime mile from the shore, as Israel does shoot at them. Things like that, this is one.
Another one, of course, is the release of all the prisoners that had been released in the last two, three years within the Shalit exchange of prisoners, that Israel in the past two months arrested most of them, or many, the great majority of them who are associated with Hamas. And there is a demand to release them again. There is a demand to—yeah, these are the basic demands. There are other prisoners that Israel—Hamas prisoners, Hamas activists in the West Bank, political activists, who have been arrested, and they should also be released.
So these are very, very—as I was told by somebody who is a great Israel—an old opponent of Hamas, he said these demands are very, very reasonable and even minimal. We should even demand more. We should demand more that Israel does not fight, for example, the reconciliation government, that it allows it to function. We should demand that people move, leave the West Bank—leave Gaza Strip and be able to reconnect with the West Bank. So, the demands, the Hamas demands, are quite basic.
AMY GOODMAN: So far, Amira Hass, here in the United States, the coverage of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal is that here is a ceasefire that Israel says it will embrace, it will stop the attack, and Hamas is probably going to reject it. That is the story here in the United States that is being told.
AMIRA HASS: Yeah, unfortunately, just as the story has been told that Israel was attacked and the Palestinians are the aggressor. And, I mean, we know—I don’t remember which channel, but there was this absurd report showing destruction of a Palestinian home that was bombed by Israel, and it was said that this was an Israeli home, Israeli house.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Diane Sawyer’s report on ABC, showing a weeping Palestinian mother in front of her destroyed home—
AMIRA HASS: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —and it said Palestinians destroyed this Israeli home.
AMIRA HASS: [inaudible] But so far it seems that the international, or at least the Western, community is not appalled by Israel’s attack, onslaught. And as somebody told me, if this is OK according to international law, then there is something—something stinks with international law. A senior diplomat told me that, who does not succeed in convincing his government to have a clear stand against it.
Now, it’s true that according to international law, Palestinians also—the Palestinian rockets are against international law and also targeting civilians. And they succeeded. They have succeeded, Hamas, in inflicting fear among many, many Israelis, and also in somehow ridiculing the Israeli security establishment, who boasted in the first two days that Hamas has suffered a big blow, a great blow, which it hasn’t, I mean, militarily speaking.
The great gain of Hamas is that it has united—or Israel, actually, has united also the opponents of Hamas who are behind Hamas. The people see the ability of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to launch missiles at Israel, toward Israel, while they are being attacked, and so severely, by such a strong military power, it’s already an achievement. And somebody told me it’s not about killing, it’s about a message, a message that we are not going—that if you expect Palestinians to give up the struggle against the end of occupation, you are mistaken. This is how Palestinians understand the missiles, the launching of missiles. It’s true that there are—also the international media gives a lot of—and also, of course, the Israeli—gives a lot of prominence to demands of Palestinians for revenge. But this is not so much about the revenge as the feeling that one is standing up against Israel. And this is something that the Palestinian Authority has not done. Israel has been really humiliating the Palestinian Authority for so many years, even though the Palestinian Authority has given so many—has had so many concessions and agreed with so many demands of the Israeli government. So people are weighing this, one against the other. And they, even secular, who really detest Hamas’ ideology, feel that right now Hamas represented them in saying, "No, we are not going to give up the struggle against occupation."
AARON MATÉ: Amira, and can you give us a rundown of what you see as Israel’s goals here in this Gaza conflict?
AMIRA HASS: That’s even more difficult. Every fight, Israel did everything possible to foil the very, very weak reconciliation government, which is not a unity government, because Hamas has left it. So, it does over and over what people say mistake, but we think it’s not a mistake. But it has had a policy for the past 20 years to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank. It succeeded in it enormously, and especially when Hamas and Fatah had split and created the two governments of the two territories, Gaza and the West Bank. But now when Palestinians show signs that they understand that this is so much against their struggle, this split between Gaza and the West Bank, a split within the Palestinian movement, and they tried to change it, Israel comes and has to defend its main achievement of the past 20 years, which was this separation between Gaza and the West Bank, because the two-state solution is based on the, not only assumption, but on this principle that Gaza and the West Bank are the Palestinian state alongside Israel. And Israel has done everything possible to foil it, from ’93, ’94—actually, since ’91. So, in essence, this war, again, is in order to protect or to maintain this main achievement of Israeli policy of the past 20 years.
In the past five, six years, both Fatah and Hamas played into the hands of the Israel in that the Hamas government did not think really about reconnecting with the West Bank, and the PA in Ramallah really didn’t care about Gaza and made all kind of mistakes to let it go and create a vacuum there that Hamas, with full right, filled in, especially vacuum in the administration of Gaza. And now they tried to fix it. Because the results were public-demanded, popular demand, mostly in Gaza—I think in the West Bank people do not—it has always been so people in the West Bank feel very far away, detached from Gaza. And we see these days, during the attacks on Gaza, there isn’t mobilization in the West Bank to show the shock that people feel. I’m sure they are, but there isn’t much movement, except of some villages where villagers, young people, young men of also refugee camps, go and clash with the army as a symbol of protest.
But this is the main—this is the main goal. And, of course, the main goal is to maintain the occupation, I mean, to repress any opposition, any resistance. So, the means change. Sometimes it is a mass arrest in the West Bank and then a mass—I mean, intensive colonization of what is left in the West Bank or more construction. And sometimes it is a negotiation process that leads nowhere. And sometimes these are bloody attacks, as we are experiencing now.
AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, we want to thank you for being with us, Ha’aretzcorrespondent for the occupied Palestinian territories. She’s the only journalist to have spent—well, she lived for 20 years in Gaza and the West Bank, reporting from there. She was awarded the Courage in Journalism Award by the International Women’s Media Foundation. The award was presented by Christiane Amanpour. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we continue our coverage. Stay with us.


The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

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