Gaza, Egypt, and Israel -- Idiotic coverage

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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.

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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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Egypt, Cognitive Dissonance, Keith, and Fisk

Illustration:  Rather nicely explains what is going on in Egypt.  From www.whatnowtoons.com.

Egypt and Cognitive Dissonance

For about three weeks now, media has been focused on Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gather to protest Hosni Mubarak's rule.  We can add those in Alexandria, Suez, and a dozen other cities and get a total of over a million average and up to three million on specific days.

Hosni has dealt with the situation by naming a Vice president, Mr. Suleiman, our contact in Egypt in charge of extraordinary rendition and other fine democratic services.  One might say he has serviced us, to use a term from animal husbandry. 

A great many disparate elements are at work here.  First, Hosni says he is "fed up" with being President which puts him in agreement with the people of the country.  Second, the VEEP has announced that the demonstrations are supported and inspired from outside Egypt, that the people themselves have little to do with it.  Why they couldn't think of it on their own, don't you see. 

Some of those accused include a troika of Israel, Hamas, and Anderson Cooper of CNN.  Anderson Cooper, as you know, has long been involved with such uprisings, even to the extent of being in New Orleans a few years ago.  Another possible co-conspirator is KFC, attempting to expand its market.  No, I'm not making any of this up.

Early on, Mubarak sent thugs into the square to try to break this up, something we are told would never happen here.  I believe some Egyptians pointed out that "you Americans don't know what it's like to be attacked by the police." 

Oh no?  You might look up accounts of the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago when mayor Daley gave the order to "shoot to kill or main" any demonstrators to his police.  He then pointed out that "the police are not there to create disorder.  The police are there to preserve disorder." 

There were also the Kent state killings.  Before this last series of war, millions of US citizens marched against it, but it went on anyway.  So, if the Egyptans are trying to emulate our system, wherein we vote, good luck to them.

I should mention that 300 were killed in the police riot in Cairo.

Some were detained, kept blindfolded for 12 days.  On the other hand, we keep Bradley Manning's eyes open.  At any rate, those in Liberation square make it clear that they do not need help from Americans.  Not even KFC?

A short time ago, I was stuck in a waiting room and Fox TV was on.  At first, I didn’t even notice it.  In fact, nobody paid the slightest attention to it.  I had the impression that no one would notice unless someone turned it off.  At any rate, some lunatic was explaining how George Bush, both of them, forbade the bombing of Ancient Babylon so as to facilitate the Twelfth Caliphate that would stretch from Japan to England.  The Muslim Brotherhood was part of this conspiracy.  Since this brotherhood is so benign, and the idea of the Bushes behind such a take over, I found this very laughable – until I realized that lots of people actually watch and listen to these guys and believe it!  Such people are running loose in our country!

Still, we are more interested in Julian Assange of Wikileaks.  He is “suspected” of rape, during consensual sexual intercourse, in Sweden.  Say what?  Anyway, we want him extradited to Sweden from England so he can be executed in the United States to make us safe from, uh, the Caliphate?  Hardly anyone noticed that Assange is nominated for a Nobel Prize which might help restore some of that prize’s distinction.  If you wonder how that could be possible, remember that Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Remember Keith Olbermann?  He will now become New Director at Current TV.  If he has the power to hire and fire, he might consider recruiting Rick Sanchez, fired by CNN,(who is doing a nice collection of new article on Twitter), Ottavia Nasr, also fired by CNN, and David Schuster, fired by MSNBC.  They would all be great additions.  I doubt if Helen Thomas would be available.

Below is a nice discussion of the situation in the MidEast by Robert Fisk:

Guest:

Robert Fisk, Legendary Middle East correspondent for The Independent of London.

Related stories

• “People Are Taking Care of Each Other”: Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat Camps with Protesters Overnight in Tahrir Square
• Human Rights Watch: 300 Deaths, Massive Detentions and Abuse under Mubarak Regime Crackdown
• “We Are Writing History by Our Blood”: Egyptian Physician on Why Protests Won’t End Until Mubarak Resigns
• After Record-Level Turnout in Tahrir, Egyptian Protests Spread to Parliament, Cabinet Buildings; Labor Unions Launch Strikes Nationwide
• Shooting the Messenger: Egyptian Journalist Shot Dead by Sniper While Covering Cairo Protests

Rush Transcript

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Related Links

• Democracy Now! Complete Coverage of the Egyptian Protests
• Read Robert Fisk in The Independent of London

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Related Democracy Now! Stories

• A Battle for Democracy: Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports on How Anti-Government Protesters Are Resisting the Mubarak’s Regime Crackdown (2/3/2011)
• Voices of the Egyptian Revolution: Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Speaks with Demonstrators in Tahrir Square at "March of Millions" (2/2/2011)
• "The Empire’s Bagman:" Obama Egypt Envoy Frank Wisner Says Mubarak Should Stay (2/7/2011)
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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Robert Fisk of The Independent newspaper. He, too, is in Cairo. I asked him about the U.S. role in Egypt and the Middle East.

ROBERT FISK: What they’re calling out for are everything which ordinary Americans would agree with: multi-party democracy; a new constitution which gives equal rights to everyone; an end to fraudulent elections, which have allowed, of course, Mubarak to carry on year after year for three decades until the age of 83, based on elections that gave 97.8, 97.9 percent of the victory; and an end, in fact, to long presidential periods of six years in office, bringing it down to four years; and they want a maximum two terms for a president, rather than indefinite presidency or presidency for life, which is effectively what Mubarak got. These people are therefore asking for nothing less than Americans accept in their own lives.

And the great tragedy is that at this critical moment, Obama chose not to hold out his hand to the democrats and to say, "We support you, and Mubarak must go." He chose to support, effectively, Mubarak by saying orderly transition. You know, he wants another general—he’s already got one, Omar Suleiman, the Vice President—to take over. The army, which receives $1.3 billions of American taxpayers’ money every year, is going to be called upon to try and make this transition, even though Mubarak himself, of course, was the head of the air force. He was a general, too. Omar Suleiman, the Vice President, is a general, head of intelligence, a very ruthless man. His people carried out a lot of tortures in the past against Islamist uprisings in Egypt. And for many of the people on the street, there was deep disappointment that at this critical moment the President of the United States, who came here to Cairo just under 18 months ago to tell the Muslim world—he held up their hand, and he said, "Do not clench your fists in response." When the democrats came onto the streets of Cairo and wanted what Obama had advertised to them, it was Obama who clenched his fist and Hillary Clinton who said that it’s a stable regime.

Only now, when they realize that perhaps Mubarak is going to go, mainly because the army want to get rid of him, not the protesters—and another part of the tragedy—are they beginning to say, "Well, we’ve got to get rid of this old man," but not, of course, to replace him with real democrats but to replace him with an army-backed regime, which is effectively Mubarak part two.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about the U.S. relationship with the military? I was talking to someone in a government agency in Washington, and they were deeply concerned, saying, "How do we counter the image that we’ve actually been supporting this despot for 30 years?" And someone else replied, "We can’t, because we have been supporting him."

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, and I think, in a way, you see, what happens is it becomes a sort of osmotic relationship. First of all, the Egyptians are wooed from the Soviet side under Sadat, who basically left the Soviet Union to the American side. Then the Americans arm them, feed them, clothe them, uniform them, after which, however independent they want to be, in order to feed, they’ve got to go to Washington.

It was interesting that when Tantawi, the commander-in-chief of the army, was coping with this crisis here, the Pentagon snapped its fingers, and he flew straight away to Washington for the serious consultations at the Pentagon—in other words, to get his instructions. I mean, he wouldn’t say that. It’ll be "advise," "Where are things going, General? You know, fill this out here. Give us a briefing," etc. But at the end of the day, he’d be left in no doubt that if he wanted to get more Abrams tanks and extra missiles, he’s got to do what America wants, which primarily now is get rid of Mubarak, but don’t make it look as if it’s our fault.

You see, American—the problem with the Americans is that when you—the moral values of the United States become disentangled from the national interest at critical moments like this. You know, we all want democracy, but not if we lose Mubarak, who is Israel’s man, etc., etc. And this, of course, doesn’t come as a great surprise to the Arabs, although, as I wrote in the paper, had Obama decided to say, "Look, I’m with the democrats; they’re doing what I talked about in Cairo 18 months ago, 17 months ago," there would have been American flags all over Cairo, all over Egypt. And indeed, it would have solved, in many Arab minds, all the wounds that the Arab and Muslim world has sustained from the United States, and particularly Britain as well, over the last 10 years.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, there’s the current U.S. ambassador to Egypt, right? Margaret Scobey.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah. Well, I mean, there is, although she doesn’t seem to move around very much. One of the interesting things is that the one group of people you do not see on the streets of Cairo are American diplomats. Presumably they get their information from Egyptians who come and tell them what’s going on.

And there was, by the way, slightly to tangent, a very odd episode on the 28th of January, when a vehicle identified by the crowds as a U.S. armored limousine crashed through anti-Mubarak demonstrators, running many of them down, and went out the end of the street. They identified it as an American embassy vehicle. And the embassy then came out, unattributably, as saying, "Our diplomats don’t go out in the streets in such circumstances," which is clearly true. And then they suddenly said, "Several of our vehicles were stolen that day." They didn’t tell us that on the 28th of January; they waited until February to tell us. Well, how did they get those vehicles stolen? Did they lend them to the Mubarak government, perhaps? Or did they know the police had taken them and therefore chose to keep silent about it? There are many things like that.

I mean, another example is when the first M1 Abrams tanks came into the square on the Friday. I’m talking about when they were ordered to attack the crowds. I noticed that the coding on the front of the vehicle—it had Egyptian codings for the brigades and parachute units on the side, in Arabic and Arabic numerals. But on the front of the vehicle was a coding, which began MFR and then a series of numbers of each vehicle. And I actually took it down, and a parachute officer started shouting at me and told two soldiers to arrest me. And I actually ran away into the crowd to get away from them. And they chased me and then stopped, and obviously, confronted by about 10,000 demonstrators, decided better of it. And it seems that MFR stands for Mobile Force Reserve. And these are American-owned vehicles. These are American tactical deployment matériel, which is stored in Egypt, as it is also stored of course in Kuwait and now in Iraq for use in emergencies in the Gulf. Now, these vehicles, these tanks, which were threatening at that point the demonstrators, appear to have been vehicles that actually belong to the American military, not to the Egyptian military, but which were obviously used by the Egyptians in this instance. The Egyptians do make the Abrams tank and also have some of their own, but these vehicles appear to be vehicles that effectively belong to you or the Pentagon or whatever. The question is, did the Americans know they were being taken? Did they give permission for this? But none of the soldiers minded pictures being taken of their vehicles or the coding on the side in Arabic, but the moment I took down letters in the Roman letters and the Roman numeral, or rather, modern numerals, they didn’t like it at all. So I have a feeling these were actually reserve vehicles belonging to your country which were being used by Mubarak’s government.

So there’s a whole series of unanswered questions that we don’t really know the answer to, and I don’t suppose we’ll find out yet. But like the tortures in police stations, which are now coming to light, I think that if this regime does crumble—and I think it is steadily crumbling; I mean, the whole National Democratic Party is now just a cardboard facade, especially since the burning of its headquarters—we’re going to learn a lot more of what went on behind the scenes. And it won’t be nice, and it won’t be something that U.S. governments will want to associate themselves with.

AMY GOODMAN: The implications of this for other countries, for a kind of pan-Arab rebellion? Of course, Tunisia, then Egypt. What do you see happening in Israel, Palestine, in Jordan?

ROBERT FISK: Clearly, we have maintained—first the British and the French, and then after the Second World War, with the Americans—we have maintained a system of patronage for ruthless, anti-democratic dictators across the region. We’ve called them kings, we’ve called them emirs, we’ve called them princes, we’ve called them generals, we’ve called them all kinds of presidents, and in Bahrain, for example, you’ve got His Supreme Majesty the King, who rules over an island about half the size of, I suppose, Detroit, if that. But because of this, you know, inevitably, when you have one country suddenly breaking through to freedom, through watching Al Jazeera, for example, the other people in the region, in Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, Mauritania, then begin—Algeria, especially—then begin to say, "Well, you know, we demand the same rights. We have a right to live. We have a right to oxygen."

But, you know, I think that in some ways the uprising here has more in common with the revolt of Iranians against the results of the Iranian elections in 2009, which, remember, the opposition was crushed after, than it does with sort of the Iranian Revolution or something on a bigger scale. And I’m not entirely certain—you know, these may be tribes with flags, as a Crusader historian or historian of the Crusades once described the Arab world, but these are not all the same people. For example, the opposition to King Abdullah in Jordan actually really comes from elements of the army who feel the Palestinians have become too strong in Jordan. The opposition in Syria would be Sunnis who object to the Alawite minority leadership of the country, where it becomes a more sectarian issue rather than an issue of democracy, which is the case in Egypt, because [inaudible] virtually everybody here is a Sunni Muslim, including of course our dear President Mubarak—or their dear President Mubarak. So I think that, you know, I’m a bit suspicious of the idea that just because the Tunisians have a revolution and it spreads to Egypt, therefore, you know—true, there are food demonstrations or high-price demonstrations and protests against the economy in Jordan and certainly protests against Saleh, the president of Yemen, but I’m not sure it’s all the same.

And remember that Tunisia, the famous Jasmine Revolution—this, I gather, is going to be called the Papyrus Revolution, heaven help us, in Egypt—in Tunisia, the revolution has actually only replaced so far Ben Ali with his mates. I mean, Ghannouchi is a friend of Ben Ali. He was one of his schoolmates, I believe. And here, you’ve got to remember that Omar Suleiman, the new savior of Egypt, with whom all these people are supposed to negotiate, he is a very close, personal, lifelong friend of Mubarak, and he was a general. So, while at the same time on the surface you’ve got this democratic uprising, and suddenly we’re going to have all these new countries, and they’re all going to be lovely and believe in our secular values, at the end of the day, the fear is not the Muslim Brotherhood Islamicism; it’s the fear that more generals will be appointed to work for the West. And that is basically what is happening. And, you know, if, say, King Abdullah were in some way persuaded to leave his country, the Jordanian army will be persuaded to find another member of the royal family to take over the job, but perhaps more constitutionally. So the idea that there’s going to be this massive sort of overthrow of dictators, yes, there might be, but there will be more dictators ready to take the role, but playing a sort of softer role and then gently introducing more emergency laws and restrictions on crowds gathering, and so on and so forth, and you’re back to square one.

Corruption has become so much part of the economy, the oil that makes the economy work—and corruption, of course, is the way in which dictators control their people—that the whole system, the whole functioning of society in the Middle East, has been almost irreparably damaged over the decades by the way in which we in the West have encouraged it to function and which the dictators are very happy to function, either on our behalf and of course financially on their own.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think President Obama should do?

ROBERT FISK: Well, it’s always the same case when you or anyone else asks me about U.S. policy. The question is what he should have done.

You know, I never really believed quite in Obama. I was very struck by his reference in the Cairo speech, the famous reach-out-my-hand-to-the-Muslims speech, when he referred to the relocation of the Palestinians in 1948, as if the Palestinians suddenly got up and said, "Oh, let’s all go skiing in Lebanon today and never quite go home again," rather than being driven from their homes or fleeing in terror from the new Israeli army at the time. And I think that, you know, because of his weakness vis-à-vis the Republicans and of course the recent midterm elections and because of his vanity—I mean, Obama should never have taken the Nobel Prize; Nobel Prize of Public Speaking, maybe, but, I mean, he should have said, "Look, I’m not worthy of it, but thank you"—he’s missed so many steps he could have taken to show that the moral values which he claimed to espouse in that famous Cairo speech, which I attended at Cairo University a few—just about a mile from where I’m talking to you now, and only two miles from Tahrir Square, actually. You know, if only he had stuck to those moral values in the Arab world, the warmth of the Arab world towards America, which was there in the '50s and ’60s even after the establishment of Israel and was certainly there in the ’20s and ’30s, might have been reestablished. But it was a critical moment. And because of Israel's wishes—you know, the Israelis have made it fairly clear they don’t think, you know, these Arabs really should have these elections; I mean, keep Mubarak, you know? or keep some version of Mubarak—and because of his domestic critics—you know, "Are you going to lose Egypt now, Mr. President?"—I know that’s already coming up in editorials—he did blew it. He blinked. He was weak. He was vain. He chose not to support the good guys.

People say, well, you know—someone said to me on a radio show in Ireland yesterday, "Oh, come on, Robert, you’re always saying America should keep its nose out of other countries. Now you want it to interfere." But the fact is, it does interfere. It’s paying $1.3 billion to the regime every year. Therefore, it is time for it to take the right side in Egypt, and it failed to do so. And that failure will cost America yet again. It’s a tragedy in many ways. You know, here was an opportunity suddenly to get it right, and he flunked it. And he’s seen as being a very weak man in the Arab world. You know, Bush was seen as—in a sense, people preferred Bush, because they saw him as an intemperate bully, which is pretty much what he was out here, whereas Obama came forward with—you know, as a man who seemed to have something to offer of moral value. And at the end of the day, the moral values have gone out of the window, and we’re back with "Oh, the Egyptian people must decide, but it must be an orderly transition," where "orderly" can mean another six or seven months of Mubarak.

And, of course, the nightmare here is that if the demonstrators go home—whether they get arrested or not, and beaten and tortured afterwards is not the point—then there will be more stability, tourists will come back, the army will be happy, and then Mubarak will suddenly discover that, for the good of Egypt, he would like another six-year term starting in September this year. That, I think, is probably the nightmare scenario and not one that’s entirely, you know, without credibility.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, speaking to us from Cairo, the longtime Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper of London, author of a number of books, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.

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