In a precedent-setting move, Israel signed the UN's anti-discrimination declaration that calls for decriminalization of homosexuality. The declaration was sponsored by France and Holland and signed by 66 countries. Syria sponsored an opposing declaration, which 60 countries signed. Conspicuously absent from either declaration was the U.S.
But no matter.
The interesting thing here is not Israel recognizing the human rights of homosexuals- Tel Aviv, in particular, has been an accepting city for gays and lesbians for quite some time. The newsworthy bit about this is that this is the first time any country has formally recognized the human rights of sexual minorities before recognizing the human rights of racial minorities.
Approximately one million Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens- many have reported housing discrimination, job discrimination, violent attacks, and property damage- and millions more are treated worse than animals in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ha'aretz writes:
The declaration strongly condemns “all forms of stereotyping, exclusion, stigmatization, prejudice, intolerance and discrimination and violence directed against peoples, communities and individuals on any ground whatsoever, wherever they occur, and especially use of the death penalty and the practice of torture and other forms of cruelty for reasons of sexual identity.”
Yet the Israeli government tacitly and explicitly supports this sort of treatment of Palestinians, both living inside Israel as Israeli citizens, and those living in the West Bank and Gaza. I do not post here every injustice I see, hear about, or read about, because they are too numerous. My blog would become a laundry list of human rights abuses if I were to cull from the Internet every single violation of international law by Israel. Government-sanctioned racial violence and humiliation happens every day, everywhere that Palestinians live, work, or shop.
For just a sampling of this week's abuses in Israel and the occupied territories go here, here, and here.
The internets are abuzz with the whole shoe throwing fiasco. In case you just got back from outer space or whatever, what happened was an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference, and also called him a dog, which is the second worst insult in Arabic, #1 being, "your sister's pussy."
W ducked just in time, with an amused smile on his face, then ducked again when the second shoe was thrown. You can see the BBC's fancy slow-mo video of that here. The best part was when a reporter later asked him a question about the incident and he said, "I don't know what his cause is.[...]But one thing's for sure: he caused you to ask me a question about him."
The journalist, Muntadar al-Zeidi, has become an overnight hero in the Arab world, with comics already commemorating the incident. He was arrested after the incident, of course, and today thousands of Iraqis protested his incarceration and demanded his release, many saying that he did what world leaders were too afraid to do: stand up to Bush and denounce, among other things, the killing of 98,000 Iraqi civilians since 2003.
His shoes are still being held as evidence. He may never see them again.
More than 150,000 Gazans filled an arena today to celebrate the 21st anniversary of militant group Hamas. The highlight of the event was when Hamas paraded a mock Gilad Shalit before the crowd. He was in fact a Hamas loyalist, but was dressed in an IDF uniform and begged to be released, in Hebrew.
This is not the first time I have been disappointed by Hamas- the abduction of Shalit two years ago is case in point- but never have I seen them so thoroughly disgrace their own name and harm their own cause. Palestinians, especially Gazans, are rightly angry and have a right to fight. I believe they even have a right to fight dirty, since the playing field is not even. But an event like the one yesterday only tells the world that Palestinians, especially those loyal to Hamas, are not worthy of the world's sympathy.
Men of honor do not parade someone else's pain to incite celebration. Men of honor do not find happiness in cowardly actions.
In a troubling update about Beit Hameriva, the House of Contention, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Ha'aretz writes:
Medics said 18 Israelis and seven Palestinians were hurt in the violence. The clashes took place near Hebron's "House of Contention," where settlers have been holed up in defiance of a Supreme Court eviction notice...IDF officials described the severity of the settlers' riots as 'unprecedented.' They said the violent clashes were initiated by the settlers and not by the Palestinians, who only responded by throwing rocks.
Israeli security officials are planning a large operation to evict the settlers from Beit Hameriva, but they decline to state when that operation will be, for fear of allowing the settlers enough preparation time to prepare a defense against the IDF.
It is also worthwhile to note that an Israeli parliament member (Member of Knesset) is currently living in the House of Contention, which illustrates the political support right wing settlers enjoy and explains why their activities are referred to as "protests" in some newspapers, and "riots" in others. Many of you have asked me why violent settlers are not punished for their continued violence, and I offer this as only one reason why. Violent settlers are a very small minority of the Israeli people, and yet they enjoy tremendous power.
For another post I wrote on this curious phenomenon, go here.
An update on the consequences of Israel's siege on Gaza:
The Gazan people are living without adequate supplies of food, clean water, medicine, and basic human rights and freedoms. What I have found most noteworthy, and most heartbreaking, is that the collective punishment Israel utilizes to prevent terrorist attacks only fosters a hatred of Israel that makes terrorist attacks more likely. An entire generation of children suffers right now because of Israel, and they are too young to understand the particulars. As adults, they will only remember that their childhoods were characterized by cold and hunger because of this mythical beast "Israel" and they will be all the more vulnerable to indoctrination by those who seek to use them as weapons.
From the video:
The people are generally frustrated here and they think that this policy of collective punishment is cold, it's wrongful, it's sad, and it's more harmful for the Israelis than beneficial, because it makes a kind of hatred growing with the new generation...we Palestinians, we need freedom. We fight only for freedom, we don't fight for any other thing.
He added: "We must not be afraid to call something what it is." Brockmann stressed that it was important for the United Nations to use the heavily-charged term since it was the institution itself that had passed the International Convention against the crime of apartheid.
Israel's ambassador to the UN earlier called Brockmann an "Israel hater" for hugging Iran's President Ahmadinejad. Further evidence that one cannot criticize Israel without being dubbed an anti-semitic.
The Tel Aviv District Court today sentenced eight gang members to various prison sentences for crimes like assault, conspiracy to commit a crime, and racial incitement.
The court stated that the phenomenon revealed during the investigation of the case is extremely severe, shocking and horrifying - particularly in light of the fact that the suspects were all youths and immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent states. According to the original indictment, filed last September, the eight defendants - mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union between the ages of 17 and 20 - perpetrated violent hate crimes against Asians, religious Jews, drug addicts and homosexuals.
So, ok. Let me see if I can just wrap my head around this. You are from countries that 60 years ago were under Nazi occupation. Countries where your grandparents were possibly killed because they were Jews. And then your parents got the good sense to get the heel out and move you to the only Jewish state in the world. Which is when you join a neo-Nazi gang.
My readers may remember me writing about the beleaguered city of Hebron in the West Bank. I visited it this summer and noted the forced segregation between Israeli and Palestinian residents, the curfews that only applied to the latter, and the ubiquitous anti-Muslim graffiti. 650 Israeli residents in this city of 180,000 Palestinians are guarded by Israeli troops in fortified enclaves in order to maintain their position.
In April of 2007, an Israeli family confiscated a house in Hebron which, at that time, was occupied by a Palestinian family. The Israeli family claimed they were the real owners of the house and, against the wishes of the original residents, began living in the house. Almost immediately, the house became known as Beit Hameriva, House of Contention. Last week, that's November of 2008, Israel's High Court found that the Israeli occupants of Beit Hameriva had forged ownership documents and ordered them to vacate the property by noon of the following Wednesday. Of course, they didn't leave, and nobody made them.
The Palestinian residents of Hebron were not happy and since, again, Israel has blocked Palestinians from pursing their rights through legal channels, tensions have been high this week. However, according to government spokesmen, it was not Palestinians who were responsible for this week's wave of violence.
The Defense Ministry said it would avoid the use of force in the evacuation and would try to urge the settlers to leave on their own accord. By late Wednesday, the house was still not evacuated and the settlers' protests grew hotter throughout the city.
During the protests, some settlers began to attack Palestinian locals while others wounded an IDF soldier by spraying turpentine at him as he tried to stop them from throwing stones at Palestinians.
Activists also punctured the tires of police and military jeeps stationed nearby.
The settlers also scribbled graffiti around Hebron, including spraying 'Mohammed Pig' on the walls of a local mosque and on Palestinian homes nearby.
To see a Ha'aretz article from when the Beit Hameriva was born, including information about the legalities, go here.
Back in this post, I interviewed members of an organization called Zochrot, which seeks to bring the story of the Palestinian Nakba to the Israeli public. Zochrot member Ranin Geries told me that Israelis think "the blood of the Palestinian is very cheap" and this sentiment was echoed last week by the sentencing of Avraham Tomer in Tel Aviv.
In October of 2006, Tomer and a few other Border Police officers detained Iyad Abu Ra’iyeh and two other Palestinian men at the construction site where they worked, on suspicion of living in Israel illegally. The men were detained in a small room on the construction site and beaten while they were questioned.
Israeli Human Rights group B'Tselem reports on the case and Judge Oded Mudrik described the events in his verdict:
The three PSIs [Palestinians] were forced to sit with their backs to the wall, and the defendant was posted to guard them. The defendant cocked his rifle, which was lying on his shoulder in the “cross” position, while aiming it at one of the PSIs, Iyad Tawfiq Abu Ra’iyeh (hereafter: “the deceased”). In this situation, as he was cocking the rifle, the defendant absent-mindedly pressed the trigger. A bullet was fired from the weapon of the defendant and it struck the neck of the deceased, causing his death.
For "absent-mindedly" pressing the trigger of his gun, Tomer was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to one year in jail. You can go to the B'Tselem page if you have any interest in reading Judge Mudrik's justification for the sentence he handed down.
I'm breaking my self-imposed radio silence to share this story with you.
Teen shot after slashing cop in face with broken bottle
A policeman shot a teen in the leg during a clash in Ramat Gan early Saturday after the teen had slashed him in the face with a broken bottle.
The incident occurred when police apprehended a group of Russian-speaking teens, aged between 16 and 17, who had allegedly attacked a couple in the central town after returning from a night out.
The article goes on but all you need to know is there. First of all, When I saw the headline, I knew that the teen was not a native Israeli. That variety is usually given much more latitude from the police. A sabra would not be shot for assaulting a police officer, even if he had a gun. Israelis feel strongly about protecting their own.
Second, when I read the first sentence in the article, I knew the teen was not Palestinian. If he were, he would have been shot in the chest or the head, not the leg. He also was not likely a mizrahi, a dark skinned Jew, because he may have been mistaken for Palestinian in this case.
This left me with one guess: he was Russian. And the next sentence confirmed my hypothesis.
Israel can parrot all it wants about being the only free democracy in a sea of corruption, but if its policies toward racial interaction are so obvious to an outsider, none of it means much.
Those tunnels I've mentioned numerous times are now conservatively estimated to number in the hundreds. And they are going legit.
AP announces that tunnel operators are registering their tunnels with Hamas, installing electrical equipment, and paying their smugglers workers' comp.
Hamas says:
"We are watching what is coming through and we prevent the entry of weapons and drugs," said spokesman Ehab Ghussen, spokesman for Gaza's Interior Ministry, adding that the tunnel trade would be halted if borders reopen.
There's something, um, off about this article in Haaretz this morning. An Israeli Arab lawyer was arrested at an airport in Tel Aviv after he refused to take off his pants during a security check. He said he would rather leave the airport than take his pants off, at which time he was handcuffed and his pants were removed anyway. Haaretz writer Ruth Sinai writes, "The authorities found no irregularities and released Dukhi, three hours after his flight was scheduled."
Police said Dukhi was released as soon as the search was completed. "Police got a call from the security officials in the Sde Dov airport, saying there was a man there who was refusing to be checked and was becoming unruly," police said. "Patrol officers arrived at the scene and told the suspect that since he was refusing to be searched, he would have to be arrested. Since the suspect refused, the police officers arrested him, searched him, and when the search was completed, he was released on the spot."
How is it that he was released immediately after the search was completed but somehow three hours after his plane had departed? Either the search of his pants took three hours or the police spokesman is lying.
I'm getting a little bit excited about Tzipi Livni. So far she's doing well at creatively and compassionately pursuing peace while not upsetting certain right-wingers who have stalemated peace efforts in the past. She is still in the process of setting up her government so her attitude might not be permanent, but we can hope.
"I do not believe in far-reaching proposals and an attempt to expedite matters, especially in light of the political situation," Livni, the prime minister-designate, told [French Foreign Minister] Kouchner on Sunday.
She was referring to Olmert's peace plan that offers Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, small areas of territory, the latter of which belongs to Syria.
About Palestinian disapproval of the offer:
Livni's explanation was a criticism of Olmert. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] in his present political situation cannot accept such an agreement," she said. "The political situation in Israel also does not allow it to be signed."
Livni also argued that blaming the Palestinians for refusing to accept Olmert's offer does no good. "We can say this is their fault - but what will that do?" she said. "We had the same thing after Camp David in 2000 and look where that got us."
Once upon a time I asked for a politician that is more concerned with actually accomplishing things than with being right. Could she be the one? The bigger person. The one to stop pointing fingers.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Israeli settlers living in illegal West Bank outposts sometimes attack when soldiers come to evict them or take away their building supplies.
One such resident, Itai Zer, tells the New Zealand Herald that these are not uncoordinated attacks in response to isolated incidents. These attacks are all part of "Operation Price Tag," an effort designed to disorient both Palestinian villagers and IDF soldiers so that outpost evacuations must be postponed.
Recommended methods reportedly include arson and road-blocking to force troops to abandon the evacuation and deal with the protesters’ actions, as well as demonstratively entering Palestinian villages - a tactic used repeatedly in the village of Asira al Qibliya.
Due to these acts of what some would call protest and others would call terrorism, 50% of the olive trees in the village of Burin, adjacent to the Yitzhar settlement, have been burned recently, and with the olive harvest just around the corner, some residents wonder where their livelihood will come from.
Yitzhar settlers also poison and shoot livestock and cut telephone and power lines in their effort to keep the situation chaotic. Some of these protesters draw the line at attacking people, but say they wouldn't stop others if they chose to attack Palestinian villagers directly.
There are nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, from all different walks of life. Some are hardcore Jewish ideologues who seek to secure the entire West Bank for Israel in the fulfillment of a biblical promise. Others simply moved there in search of cheaper housing.
Palestinians acting in reprisal of the settler attacks have suffered doubly. Throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there have been four times as many casualties on the Palestinian side with eight times as many children killed or injured. Recent events prove no different.
Two weeks ago, Yitzhar settlers went on a rampage in Assira al-Kubliyeh, following an arson and stabbing attack that injured a 9-year-old boy from the settlement. Dozens of stone-throwing settlers, some firing in the air, smashed windows of several homes and overturned a car in the village. Six villagers were hurt, including a 17-year-old girl shot in the right arm. Yesh Din said Israeli soldiers did little to prevent the riot.
Later that week, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot to death while throwing a firebomb at Yitzhar.
Unfortunately, by not protecting the Palestinians, the IDF leaves them no choice but to retaliate for the settler violence, a natural act which nevertheless only hurts them once again and reinforces the settlers' mission to expel them.
When writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict, one must sometimes use words, indeed sometimes a whole language, specific to one side or the other. There are certain entities, ideas, and events that each side has a different word for. The UK Guardian's Seth Freedman wrote about this last month in his piece about al-Aqsa TV.
As the news began rolling once more, all I could concentrate on was the language employed, rather than the stories that were being reported. The abandoning of western media parlance – "Israel", "IDF", "settlers", and so on – in favour of an entirely different lexicon was a rude awakening for me, having been fed on a vastly different diet over the years.
Israelis call their military the IDF- Israel Defense Forces- their country Israel, and the wall separating it from the West Bank the security barrier. Palestinians call these same things, respectively, the Zionist Occupying Forces, Occupied Palestine, and the apartheid wall.
It is this last word that is most inflammatory, especially to Israelis. Most people worldwide recognize apartheid to have been an appalling period of South African history and its abolition a righting of decades worth of wrong. Which is why hearing this word used to describe Israel's policies toward Palestinians is a bitter pill to swallow.
Back in July, I made a visit to Hebron after which I quoted a humanitarian worker I interviewed as saying, "They cannot travel on this road. It’s an apartheid road." Out of all the writing I had done on the subject of the occupation, this one sentence drew the most fire from my Israeli friends. They argued that this word could not be used to describe their situation because it was born in South Africa and, therefore, could only be applied there. They said it was a cheap shot, an attempt to manipulate my readers by using a highly-charged word.
Yesterday I went to a talk called "Apartheid in Palestine: Black Perspective on the Israeli Occupation" hosted by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. The most striking portions of the talk, for me, were the parallel's drawn by South African pastor Reverend Kelvin Sauls between the Israeli occupation and apartheid.
Reverend Sauls had just returned from a visit to Israel and Palestine and said that what he found was that life for Palestinians is even worse than it was for him under apartheid. Sauls, who grew up in Soweto, near Johannesburg, said, "There was never a wall built around Soweto" and cited the sewage running downhill from Israeli settlements into Palestinian vegetable gardens.
In 1948, the same policy took root both in South Africa and in Israel, Sauls says. It began by establishing bantustans, small areas of minority control. Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, wrote in the UK Guardian back in 2004:
Similarly, when in South Africa a failed attempt was made to solve demographic problems by creating "homelands for the blacks", liberals originally supported the idea, and even a portion of the international community viewed the measure as a step toward "decolonisation". But, after a short time, it became clear that the ploy was designed to confer legitimacy on the expulsion of black people, and their uprooting. The bantustans collapsed, demands for civil equality intensified, and the world mobilised for the defeat of apartheid.
The bantustan model for Gaza, as depicted in the disengagement plan, is a model that Sharon plans to copy on the West Bank.
The US decided that separate was not in fact equal in 1954 with Brown vs Board of Education and segregation here collapsed as well. In relation to American race laws, Reverend Sauls said, "Jim Crow is alive and thriving in the Holy Land" and said that a two state solution would allow Palestine to become a bantustan, which he considers a non-viable entity.
Other similarities Sauls cited were the constant dispossession of land, the passbook system wherein anyone not carrying his or her papers at all times risks imprisonment, identifying people based on race and religion, the constant military presence, and the suggested appropriation of land by Israel.
In the currently discussed two-state solution, the map proposes that 85% of the land of historic Palestine goes to Israel and 15% goes to Palestine. This is the same way land was appropriated in South Africa.
Israelis often have a sense of pride in being what they consider the only democracy in the Middle East. Sauls reminds us that South Africa also thought similarly of itself, even though in both cases this democracy was racially based, a concept Sauls calls "ethnocracy."
Reverend Sauls, a pastor from the United Methodist Church, said about his trip, "My time in Palestine was very, very difficult. I never thought I would see such a manifestation. It was probably the most dehumanizing experience of my life."
However, he was also careful to point out that he supports Israel and believes that Israelis have a right to exist, but not by extinguishing another people. He says, "To do to Israelis what they have done to Palestinians will not make it ok," and says about Palestinians, "Their liberation will facilitate the liberation of all Israelis. You see, whites in South Africa were bamboozled, too."
Reverend Sauls and colleagues Gerald Lenoir and Phil Hutchins emphasized the difficulty in changing what they found in Palestine. Hutchins said, "This is the most difficult issue to talk about in US politics. Anyone criticizing Israel is called anti-Semitic," and added later, "We're going against the tide here." One of the reasons the Israeli occupation has survived much longer than apartheid is that terrorism and persecution have continually served to paint Israel as the victim, beginning with the holocaust and continuing on through Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Hutchins says, "Unlike South Africa, Israel has had the moral high ground since 1948."
For more information on the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) please go here.
An Iranian merchant ship was hijacked by pirates near Somalia and some interesting events have ensued.
The Times reveal that the pirates who took over this mysterious vessel, "suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died."
Weird, because that sounds just like radiation poisoning. Which is caused when people come into contact with radioactive material. Like uranium. Which is used to make nuclear weapons.
The ship's manifest says it's carrying "minerals." What's more interesting is that the shipping company is Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, a state-owned company run by Iran's military.
Out of about 100 pirates who boarded the ship, a number of them fell ill and died during the six days of negotiating with Somalian officials. This was confirmed first-hand by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, who was sent to investigate the reports of toxic cargo.
The Long War Journal adds, "Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents."
This, of course, is not terribly far fetched.
Iran's involvement in the conflict in Somalia on behalf of Islamist insurgents is well documented. In 2006, Iran flouted arms embargos and provided sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), intelligence sources told The Long War Journal, including SA-7 Strella and SA-18 Igla MANPADS - shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles - as well as AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles.
A report issued by the United Nations in 2006 states that weapons were transferred to Somalia through Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which also absorbed a contingent of 700 Islamist fighters from Somalia during Hezbollah's war with Israel. The report also states that Iran provided support for Islamist training camps inside Somalia and had sent two emissaries to negotiate with the ICU for access to Somalia's uranium mines.
A list of the passengers and crew has been released and it includes one Palestinian lawmaker and one Israeli lawmaker, an Italian opera singer, a writer from Al Jazeera, and several medical doctors, among others.
When the last boat full of humanitarians arrived in Gaza, they were criticized for not bringing in more material goods, but reminded the world that the first trip was largely symbolic and immediately announced that more trips would bring more goods. It looks like they are keeping their promise- this trip has brought six cubic meters of medical supplies and doctors to administer much needed treatment.
The arrival of humanitarian volunteers in Gaza has provided means of assistance other than material, the most important of which has been the aid workers' accompaniment of Gazan fishing boats. The Israeli military does not normally allow the boats far enough from shore to catch adequate numbers of fish, but with an international presence on the boats, the IDF is reluctant to fire. However, even with international volunteers present, force has been used to keep the boats closer to shore.
This AP article says five more people have been killed in "tunnel collapses" while smuggling "contraband" into Gaza.
First, those "tunnel collapses" were caused by explosions. Second, the "contraband" was, in this case, fuel.
AP writer Ibrahim Barzak writes:
The five were bringing contraband goods from Egypt into Gaza when an explosion collapsed the tunnel, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been cleared for publication.
Two bodies were located shortly after the explosion Tuesday and the rest were removed early Wednesday. Three smugglers survived and emerged on the Egyptian side, where police arrested them, an Egyptian security official said. The three told police they were smuggling fuel.
Gazans blame the Egyptians for blowing up the tunnels but the Egyptians deny it. Everybody is under a lot of pressure here. The Egyptians are being pressured by Israel to stop the flow of weapons to Hamas through these tunnels and by the Arab world to stop doing what Israel says. The Israeli people are pressuring their government to prevent the resumption of daily missile attacks by Hamas. And Gazans are being pressured by their pesky children for a daily supply of food.
Daily I tell you.
Since the start of the year, 45 people have died in tunnel collapses and, in one of life's cruel ironies, a similar number of people have died as a result of the shortage of goods the tunnel operators were trying to solve. This loss of human life in the prevention of the loss of human life is a bit like our consumption of oil or mass produced food. The energy output exceeds the gain.
Palestinian disunity, and political -- if not, geopolitical -- fragmentation is eroding the Palestinian cause more than all Israeli efforts, walls and military incursions combined. The painful-to-watch televised bickering between representatives of various Palestinian factions has led to confusion among traditionally pro-Palestinian groups worldwide. The political objectives -- once agreed upon as "constants" -- and symbols that once united Palestinians everywhere are now wide open for extreme interpretation.
In fact, "respecting the sanctity of Palestinian blood", which for long served as the lowest possible denominator agreed on by every Palestinian grouping, has been violated many times in recent months and years; too many times to count. Repeating the slogan is, at this point, an empty mantra, joining the numerous other mantras that have for long served as a sedative for the hapless masses, whether Arabs, Palestinians or both.
I read Al Jazeera and Israel's Haaretz news everyday, and it's not often that they both say the same thing, but when they do, I find it bears repeating. Further underscoring my commentation of Abbas' temper tantrum the PA again uses the media to issue veiled threats to Hamas.
RAMALLAH - The Palestinian Authority must be ready to use force against Hamas in Gaza "to reunify the homeland," said the head of PA forces in the West Bank, Gen. Dhiab al-Ali (Abu al-Fatah), considered the Palestinian chief of staff.
"If Gaza remains mutinous, the Palestinian Authority will have no choice but to use force against it," Ali said in a recent interview with Haaretz at his Ramallah offices.
Ali said the PA has not ruled out using force if the territory remains in Hamas' hands.
"There haven't yet been consultations with the Israelis on the issue," Ali said. "We hope we won't need that option - for us it's the last choice for unifying the homeland - but we must be prepared to implement it."
No senior PA official close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ever expressed such views to the media, and especially not shortly before a Fatah delegation is set to attend talks in Cairo on a possible detente with Hamas.
The mention of Israel backing up Fatah forces in a Gaza takeover is both heartbreakingly optimistic and a confirmation of a recent quip by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Firstly, Fatah doesn't have forces, per se. As I wrote back on August 9th, the U.S. is funding the creation of Palestinian security forces, but the first battalion of 500 soldiers has just finished training. This is hardly a force one goes off conquering non-contiguous pieces of land with.
"Now the Zionists are protecting you," Hamas said in a statement addressed to security forces in the West Bank. "You know that once the protection of the Zionists is over, people will enter your headquarters and kick you out," it said.
"You must know we are not acting against you now in the West Bank because ... we know the Zionists will immediately back you."
Abbas and his cabinet do not seem concerned with countering this statement. In fact, it seems they rather enjoy the world knowing they are under Israel's protection, as the faction most cooperative with Israel's agenda. The problem is, they have secured Israel's cooperation at the expense of their peoples' needs and wants, which is perhaps what causes the infighting Baroud mentioned above.
Under a six-month trial programme launched this week, the city of Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv, is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA.
The city will use the DNA database it is building to match faeces to a registered dog and identify its owner.
I normally do not report on the type of story I am about to report on. The potential for sensationalism and exaggeration is much too great. But I have seen so many similar reports over the last few months that to continue to ignore the trend would be to purposefully hide it. And so I must try to create something midway between sensationalism and deception.
At the customary hour for such dealings, 2:30 in the morning, On September 11, 12-year-old Mohammad Saleh Khawaje was awakened at home and arrested by Israeli soldiers for the charge of "stone-throwing and disturbance of public order." He is still in jail awaiting bail with his codefendant, 13-year-old Abdul Ahman.
In the Israeli justice system, Palestinian youth can be tried as adults at the age of 12. In contrast, Israeli youth are considered children until they turn 18.
This situation is further complicated by Mohammad's father's belief that his son was arrested in an act of revenge. Abed Saleh, Mohammed's father, says he had complained to Israeli police and military about a daylong beating he suffered at the behest of the now-infamous Lt. Col. Omri Bruberg.
Abed Saleh wasn’t home when Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Ni’lin on Thursday night and raided his house. “The soldiers came to the house to take me again,” he explained. “They asked where I was. When they found out I wasn’t there they took my son instead.”
Saleh is not the first to accuse Bruberg of violence or of revenge for the complaints about such violence.
This is the second time in recent history that such allegations have been laid against Israeli soldiers under Lt. Col. Omri’s command. One month ago Jamal Amira, father of Salam Amira, the teenager who shot the infamous video in which Omri ordered the aforementioned shooting of Ashraf Abu Rama, was arrested as “Salam’s father” by self-proclaimed “friends of Omri”, and subjected to abuse strikingly similar to that Abd Saleh describes in his testimony.
A similar case was noted by the UK Guardian's Seth Freedman back in July. In that case, another Muhammad, this time 14 years old, described his ordeal in prison for the same charge as I previously mentioned: throwing stones. Freeman notes that, "Since September 2000 Israel has arrested and detained almost 6000 children, with 700 under-18s arrested in 2007 alone."
These are the facts on the ground, not rumor. What is debated is whether or not the children were actually throwing stones, and if they were, if this is a crime a 12-year-old should be arrested for.
In covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've heard a lot of complaints from both sides. Why can't they just... is a common prefix for such complaints, framed as questions. And they're logical questions, ones I've had myself.
Well, there's an article on Haaretz today that might answer one of those questions. And this article is by no means out of the ordinary.
The jist is this:
Some 90 right-wing activists on Thursday besieged an Israel Defense Forces post north of Ramallah, in protest against the civil administration's decision to remove construction supplies from an illegal outpost in the West Bank.
The settlers rallied around the civil administration officials, pierced the tires of a supervisor's car, and sicked a dog on one of the soldiers.
Israeli settlers were about to start building a house, or houses, in an unapproved area, so the IDF showed up and carted their construction materials away. This may partly answer the question, Why can't they just stop letting in more settlers?
Illegal settlements have been dealt with in a multitude of ways. Sometimes the government ignores them. Sometimes the government gives passive support. Sometimes the government gives active support, like providing IDF guards to protect the settlers. Sometimes the government evicts them. No doubt the Israeli government's reaction to each settler has more to do with the strategic placement of that particular settlement, and whether it supports the land grab, but illegal settlers are not always supported wholeheartedly.
However, when the IDF does take any action against Israeli settlers, the backlash is fierce, both immediately and long term. In the short term, you have attacks like in the Haaretz article above. You have settlers spitting, yelling curses, and the like, at their IDF brethren. Calling them traitors. In the long term, well.
In 1947, David Ben-Gurion struck a deal with the orthodox Agudath party. In exchange for implementing Jewish law as national law in the new state of Israel, Agudath supported Ben-Gurion politically and he became the well-loved first Prime Minister of Israel.
Ever since then, the orthodox Jews in Israel have had extraordinary power over the government. One cannot win office without their support. And once in office, one would be swimming against the tide to try to accomplish anything without their support.
And they support Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
So any Israeli politician who dares to remove settlers from Palestinian areas will first have the soldiers they send spit on, cursed, and possibly beaten, and then they will be booed out of office.
So like, I don't know anyone who has ever voted Republican. At least not that I know of. I've never thought about voting Republican. I'm still not thinking of voting republican.
But.
Ever since I realized Obama is behind 20 points I've found it useful to at least look at the bright side:
Yes, both McCain and Palin identify as anti-abortion, but neither has led a political life with that belief, or their other religious principles, as their signature issue. Politicians act on their passions - the passion of McCain and Palin is reform. In her time in office, Palin’s focus has not been to kick the gays and make abortion illegal; it has been to kick the corrupt and make wasteful spending illegal.
Yesterday I read a NYT's piece, which I subsequently cannot find again, which basically spent a thousand words talking about how Palin brings her kids to work and how she nurses Trig during conference calls and says things like, "Mommy has to go do this press conference."
So I find that she's just too likable. I can't seem...to stop myself...from liking her.
ALTHOUGH! It has been ten days since she was announced and she still has not spoken to the press. So I am still waiting for the other shoe.
Notice that most campaigns actually believe that it is good for them to get press interest in their vice-presidential pick. Normally, they can't wait to get him or her in front of the cameras. It's important to realize that, whatever the intimidation from the GOP, what is happening with Palin is without historical precedent.
The question we have every right to ask is: why?
UPDATE: Found the Time's piece, and I give you quotes:
She assured them she would not take much time off: she had returned to work the day after giving birth to Piper. “To any critics who say a woman can’t think and work and carry a baby at the same time,” she said, “I’d just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave.”
Ms. Palin installed a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one. For much of the summer, she carried Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls.
Haaretz announced today that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is finally being indicted for corruption charges. Olmert has been under investigation for suspicion of bribery since early May of this year.
Last month, when the bribery investigation reached critical mass, Olmert agreed to step down as soon as an election for leadership of the Kadima party was held. The two front runners for the party are Tzipi Livni, a politician on par with Obama in that she has great potential but has not been tested, and Shaul Mofaz, a man Palestinian leaders said would "derail the peace process."
He wasn't saying they should actually evacuate. He's just saying they should be prepared. An ounce of prevention or what have you.
But Mofaz made his opposition to the proposal known right away:
"The bill weakens the position of Israel in all future negotiations and I will not lend my hand to it," said Mofaz, a frontrunner in this month's Kadima leadership battle.
Note that Olmert suggested that the government should prepare for the evacuation of settlers living east of the security fence, not settlers living east of the green line, otherwise known as the pre-1967 border.
Nevertheless, suggesting that Israelis be evacuated from anywhere in the West Bank is not an advisable action for any Israeli politician whose retirement isn't already imminent. The last Israeli politician who made formal land concessions to the Palestinians was assasinated.
LobeLog has yet another interesting take on Sarah Palin's candidacy, this time prompted by her meeting with AIPAC.
Jim Lobe, the Washington Bureau Chief of IPS, writes:
MSNBC and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) are reporting that Gov. Palin met this afternoon with the board of directors of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Sen. Joe Lieberman to, in the words of one McCain campaign official cited by MSNBC, put “the American Jewish community at ease over her understanding of US-Middle East relations.” It’s worth noting that Palin, who has obviously been completely off-limits to reporters since she was rolled out as McCain’s running-mate in Dayton Friday, stiffed a reception in her honor sponsored by none other than Phyllis Schlafly a couple hours later. (One wonders what other lobbies have tried to arrange a meeting with Palin in the last 96 hours and with what success.)
Obviously the first lobby Palin meets with after the announcement of her candidacy would be AIPAC, which is usually referred to more casually as "The Jewish Lobby."
One of Lobe's commenters summed up my own reaction quite succinctly:
The Israeli-U.S. relationship has evolved into a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
I've decided it's time for an update of my continuing coverage of Gilad Shalit. This update was inspired by a July 29 message sent by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and subsequently leaked to the press. The message was sent through Hussein al-Sheikh, head of PA civil affairs, to Israeli General Gadi Shamni.
It was a warning to Israel that if they released certain prisoners in their custody loyal to Hamas, that Abbas would dismantle the Palestinian Authority. Not simply resign, but dismantle the actual government.
Let's put aside the audacity and childishness of that warning for a minute and move on to the particulars involved here.
Hamas has held IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza for over two years now. After he was captured, Israel captured 64 members of the democratically elected Hamas-majority government, including eight cabinet members, twenty legislative council members, and the mayor of Qalqilyah and his deputy.
Just try for a minute to imagine what that would look like in any other country. What the international response would be. How fast it would get resolved. Just visualize.
40 of those elected officials are still in Israeli prisons.
Israel continues to hold them as a bargaining chip to exchange for Shalit. Hamas has since demanded their release, along with about a thousand other Israeli prisoners, some of which have been accused or convicted of murder.
Meanwhile, in June of 2007, Hamas took over Gaza, which was basically a declaration of war against the Fatah-majority government that remained in the West Bank. Since then Abbas and Israel have teamed up to destroy Hamas' infrastructure and avenues of funding. However, as I have mentioned, neither the PA nor Israel has managed to replace the community services they destroyed in the process. Numerous charities, medical centers, summer camps for kids, after school programs, and the like have been shut down in this process.
But back to that whole Shalit issue. Haaretz says:
According to an Israeli source well-versed in what is happening in the PA, publication of Abbas' threat to dismantle the PA if Israel releases the Hamas parliamentarians is liable to discredit him massively in the eyes of many Palestinians.
In addition, the source noted, this threat creates another obstacle to Israel's efforts to reach an agreement for Shalit's release.
This suggests first that this "statement" could be a Hamas-engineered ploy and second, that the journalist who wrote those very words has no qualms with causing Abbas to lose face.
But most interesting about this passage is the last sentence. This seems the most logical direction to take this development, but I don't think it's true. While the public is led this way and that and Shalit's family is dragged along, I don't think Hamas has ever had any intention of releasing Shalit. You may ask why they abducted him if not to trade for their own people, but instead of looking at what has happened since his abduction, look at what hasn't happened.
Hamas has fired missiles into Israel's cities and towns almost every day in the last two years. Gilad Shalit may be the only factor compelling enough to prevent a sweeping IDF operation in Gaza.
He's not a bargaining chip, he's an insurance policy.
And his worldwide fame at this point makes him more valuable than any nameless Israeli who dies as a result of those missiles, and certainly more valuable than any Palestinian politician.
Including Mahmoud Abbas. Israel and Uncle Sam are perfectly capable of installing a more agreeable PA president just as they installed this one.
And in response to the possibility that Abbas' temper tantrum could have been engineered by Hamas, the Haaretz writer adds:
Since his election as PA president in January 2005, Abbas has repeatedly threatened to resign - sometimes due to lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, or due to internal power struggles within his Fatah movement. However, he has never yet carried out his threat.
In related news, Hamas and Fatah continue to antagonize each other like children, leading Hamas to retort most recently to Fatah that they are only safe and still in power in the West Bank because they enjoy Israel's protection.
Abbas' security forces have detained at least 150 Hamas supporters in the West Bank in response to a sweep in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas seized nearly 200 Fatah sympathizers after a bomb blast killed five Hamas militants and a girl on Friday. Hamas blamed the bombing on Fatah, which denies involvement.
These sorts of mysterious bombings are common here. Both sides accuse the other. It reminds me again and again of an ancient and well-proven warfare tactic: when you have two enemies, you don't fight them both, you get them to fight each other.
The US did it in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan twenty years ago. When we wanted to destabilize Iraq, we gave weapons to the Kurds. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, we gave weapons to the Afghanis. When Iran and Iraq went to war, we sold weapons to both of them and then sent the profits to the Contras in Nicaragua.
I created this slide show as a condensed overview of my time spent in Israel and Palestine this summer. They are pictures from events that happened in several cities and villages throughout Israel and the West Bank. They are pictures of people I know and people I don't know. They record pain and joy, triumph and heartbreak. They show people living their daily lives in the shadow of uncertainty.
When you look at a situation from more than one point of view, your convictions may weaken. Your feelings of indignation, fear, or even hatred toward others may seem less founded. And the more points of view you visit, it will become more and more difficult to pass judgment on anyone. Until eventually you realize that you are the same as everyone else. That when you hurt another person, you are hurting yourself.
The things you don't like about the world, you can think of as cancer. You may want to kill that cancer so that you can live. But it came from you. It is you. And you can only hurt it so much before you kill yourself.
For the full posts of each photo included above, visit these links:
The event was very poorly publicized when the ships first set sail from their original location in Greece, but with each stop on each island closer to Gaza, they received more publicity. During the last leg of their trip, Israel sent word that they would be allowed to pass through to Gaza because Israeli intelligence had determined that they were not a security threat.
Today, two days after they docked in Gaza, the human rights organizers in charge of the event plan to join a Gazan fishing expedition to provide cover for the fisherman, who are not allowed far enough off the coast to catch adequate numbers of fish to support their families and their economy.
While breaking the siege has a lot of symbolic importance, the practical benefit for the people of Gaza is minimal. The two ships, the SS Liberty and the SS Free Gaza, while carrying 45 human rights activists, did not bring much in the way of necessary material items to a people who are short on almost everything, from food to soap.
A Gaza activist told Ynet Saturday that local residents were disappointed by the small quantities of food brought in by two boats carrying international leftist activists.
"Many people thought these boats will make a significant contribution to break the siege, not only politically but also in terms of brining in goods, equipment, food, and medicine," he said. "However, once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed."
Perhaps it would be more efficient to support the smuggler network already operating roughly 100 tunnels under Gaza. It is this network that has been responsible for such feats as providing Gazan mothers with baby formula and sexy underwear and delivering drugged lions in sacks for Gaza's zoo.
But of course, these are not the only items being smuggled through the tunnels. And the confirmation of their existence puts to bed previous questions I had about how al-Qaida is providing weapons to Hamas.
Well folks, Blogger is back in English and the internet is fast, which can only mean one thing: I have returned to the US. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop covering the Middle East. Now, I will be doing it from afar. The first event that has caught my interest since my return is when Israel's Counter Terrorism Bureau issued a warning to Israelis traveling abroad. They claim that Hezbollah is planning to abduct Israelis in foreign countries.
Which is pure fear mongering.
The statement does not mention any countries specifically or reveal sources or any specific method of abduction:
The travel advisory issued Wednesday was a general warning, applicable to the entire world, not any specific travel destinations. Israel does not have specific intelligence regarding the location where Hezbollah plans to attack, but the Counter-Terrorism Bureau said that the militant group was constantly preparing to kidnap Israelis.
Although the statement looks like a bunch of useless baloney, it does serve a purpose. Israelis are notorious globetrotters who often travel for long periods of time and, partly because of this, emigration from Israel has always been a problem. This could be one way for the government to try to stop the leak.
Which still means Israel is taking lessons from the US in using fear to manipulate the populace.
Last week, I wrote about Israel's hotly debated leadership. Warhawk Shaul Mofaz and moderate Tzipi Livni are still the two frontrunners for leadership of the Kadima party, and most likely Israel.
But waaa-aaay-yay down at the bottom of that article I wrote about the proverbial dangled carrot in this scenario. The PA had released a statement saying that if Mofaz were elected, the peace process would halt. They even stated that for the current peace plans to proceed, Tzipi has to win.
Oh and then they asked Tzipi to release a few hundred Palestinian prisoners as a show of good faith. I personally was in favor of this move because, just as the article states, such a move would garner the PA some favor among the people, which would give them more power to actually accomplish stuff. But I really did not except Tzipi, and Israel, to come through on it.
And then they did.
According to Haaretz, Israel has approved the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom "have blood on their hands," whatever that means.
And Tzipi says:
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the leading Kadima candidate to succeed Olmert, said the release showed Palestinians that dialogue, not violence, achieved the best results.
This AP article talks about a cult that killed a 1 year old baby because it wouldn't say "Amen" before meals. The deets are pretty standard for this kind of situation: a down-and-out young mother winds up hanging out with the wrong crew and gets brainwashed.
But then the article went on to have way WAY more detail than journalists normally find out these days. Usually everybody is pretty tight lipped about these sorts of situations. But not this time. Oh no.
For more than a week, police say in charging documents describing the scene, the child's lifeless body lay in the back room of an apartment. Queen Antoinette, the 40-year-old leader of a group that called itself 1 Mind Ministries, brought in her followers and told them to pray. God, she said, would raise Javon from the dead.
Instead, Javon's body began to decompose.
NO. It began to decompose. That's yer real shocker there, folks. You'd think that would be the end of the story. The body began to decompose and they called the police or some neighbor smelled it or whatever. Oh no.
Meanwhile, after cult members abandoned hope of Javon's resurrection, they switched to Plan B, police say. Antoinette burned Javon's clothing and mattress and put his body in a green suitcase. She stuffed the suitcase with mothballs and fabric softener sheets, and opened it occasionally to spray disinfectant inside.
In early 2007, cult members stored the suitcase behind a home in Philadelphia and relocated to New York City, according to police, who found the suitcase more than a year later, the body still inside.
A green suitcase, don't forget. How did AP get all this information?? These are things only "Queen Antoinette" (note to self: hahahHAHAHAHhahahaha) would know. Did she throw herself at the mercy of the court and spill all? Is her lawyer setting up a crazy defense? You know, trial by media.
Personally I think it was the kid's mom that spilled all. The word "brainwashed" is mentioned three times in the article and the word "cult" is mentioned thirteen times. The article is mostly from the perspective of the 1 year old's grandmother, who supposedly (but somehow no records exist, weird) told the cops about this crazy cult long before her grandson was killed. She lamented about how her daughter is now "an empty shell."
Tisha B’av is the Jewish holiday of lamentation, an opportunity to mourn the destruction of the Temple, the Holocaust, and other Jewish tragedies. This year Tisha B’av fell on Saturday, August 9, 2008. Many people, Israelis and tourists, chose to commemorate this event by visiting the Western Wall and attending one of the services held there.
The enclosed, gender-separated areas close to the wall were filled to capacity and many people sat on the smooth stones of the courtyard, too far away to hear the services, but close enough to see the wall. Sitting on the ground is one way to show mourning on this holiday.
Security was tight around the Old City. As usual, everyone entering the Western Wall courtyard went through metal detectors and had their bags checked. But in addition, police and soldiers were stationed at every entrance to the Old City and in continuous groups around the wall.
This was not due to the holiday or its observation, but because of a separate event happening on the same night. Women in Green, an organization which supports and encourages Jews living in the occupied territories, planned a march on Tisha B’av around the Old City, the purpose of which was to reassert sole Jewish rights to all of what is now Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.
In addition to the green caps of Women in Green, the march was populated with bright orange flags that said in Hebrew, “The land of Israel for the people of Israel.” These flags were adopted after the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005. That event is known simply as The Disengagement by most Israelis but is considered by Women in Green to be an event on par with the Judenrat’s activities during the Holocaust.
In 2004, when the government’s plans for a pullout from Gaza were made public, the chairwoman of Women in Green, Nadia Matar, sent a letter to Yonatan Bassi, the man overseeing the operation. In it, she said:
Yonatan Bassi is a much worse version of the 'Judenrat' in the Holocaust, for then in the Holocaust, this was forced upon those Jewish leaders by the Nazis, and it is very difficult for us to judge them today. But today no one stands with a pistol to Bassi's head and forces him to cooperate with the deportation of the Jews of Gush Katif and northern Samaria.
She included a 1942 letter from the Judenrat which mirrored the words and tone of the letter Bassi sent to the settlers of Gaza who would be evicted.
She makes a good point. One could take out the names in the letter and it would be difficult to tell who was doing what to whom. For example, can you tell who is doing what to whom in this piece:
Or this one:
Both of these are from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. They refer to Nazi policies against Jews, but with the names removed, they are accurate descriptions of current Israeli policies toward Arabs.
So, who is doing what to whom?
There are some differences between Israeli settlers who were removed from their houses in Gaza and Arabs who are removed from their houses in the West Bank: the Jewish settlers were offered compensation and were given more than a year’s notice before their evacuation. Arabs whose houses are demolished are often given no warning at all, let alone financial compensation.
But the reasons for the evictions of both groups are very similar. The Jews in Gaza were evicted basically because they were living there illegally. Arab houses are often demolished not because they are in illegal locations, but because they have been built without permits.
I joined the march with a friend, a British journalist, and we began talking to people we encountered to find out what they thought about the it. Some of the Jews on the march wanted to walk to commemorate Tisha B’av but were unaware of, or didn’t support, the political element of the event.
As the march entered East Jerusalem, we talked to the Arab shopkeepers who were watching the procession pass. We asked them what it was about. One said it was a Jewish holiday but didn’t know which one. One brave soul told us, “They say they don’t want Arabs.”
At the end of the march, Knesset Member Arieh Eldad gave a speech in which he declared that Israel and all its occupied territories should be for Jews only, that Arabs should be excluded from having the rights of citizenship, if not deported outright.
On the way home from the march, there was an American family on the bus. They were nervous about finding their hotel, and about riding the bus in Israel, and especially about a large bag on an adjacent seat that didn’t look like it had an owner.
There were two police officers riding the bus, which gave them some comfort, and when they revealed their fears about the bag and about riding the bus, one of the officers smiled at them indulgently. He smiled as a father smiles to his son who believes there are monsters under his bed.
My friend, the British journalist, noted that this is the result of having a Jewish state. The National Homeland for Jews has created a state of fear in which even tourists are afraid. He questioned whether this homeland makes Jews any safer than the diaspora does.
Left wingers blame terror on the poor treatment of Arabs, right wingers blame terror on the moral turpitude of the Arabs themselves.
On a narrow road in the Old City, leading to the Western Wall, I found a street sign with two bumper stickers on it. One said, “No Arabs, No Terror” and one said simply “Remove the Arabs.”
And so it is that the world fails to learn a lasting lesson from the Holocaust.
Have we Jews internalized, and comprehended, all that we have learned and heard about the Holocaust, so that this cannot happen again? Anyone who looks at what has been happening in the State of Israel in recent years, and especially in the past few months, will reach the sad and unfortunate, conclusion that it is the political leadership in Israel, which specifically has not learned that lesson.
If Israel is repeating the mistakes made by Chamberlain, who handed over the Sudetenland to Hitler in the Munich agreement, in the hope that this would satisfy his appetite - and Israel is currently planning to hand over additional parts of the homeland of the Jewish people to Hitler's successors, hoping that this step will satisfy them and stop their jihad campaign against the Jewish people - then Israel has not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
There have been developments on The Saga of the Rubber Bullet. Lieutenant Colonel Omri Bruberg has resigned from his post and it is likely that criminal charges will be filed against both the commander and the soldier who shot their bound Palestinian detainee.
Ashraf Abu-Rahma was shot in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet at close range while he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and in IDF custody. The unnamed soldier who shot him claims his commander ordered him to fire.
The IDF's Judge Advocate General, Avi Mandelblit, also decided that the commander and the firing soldier will face criminal charges of improper conduct. Such offences are considered relatively minor and do not result in a criminal record. The trial is expected to end in a plea bargain.
Humanitarian organization B'Tselem, who publicized the now-famous footage of the incident call the minor charges "shameful."
In response to the decision, Bruberg said: "I’m the commander, I'm responsible, and I'm paying the price. I believe this decision is good for the soldier (involved in the incident,) for the regiment, and for the army as a whole." In a talk he held with his subordinates, Bruberg said he is "proud of the army."
In an interview with Haaretz today, U.S. three star general Keith Dayton revealed his progress in creating a U.S. trained Palestinian security force.
This week Dayton left on a home visit to the United States, after completing three missions: The first battalion of the rebuilt Palestinian National Security Forces, numbering 500 soldiers from the West Bank, completed four months of training in Jordan; a Presidential Guard training college is being constructed outside Jericho; and a strategic-planning department has been created in the Palestinian Authority's Interior Ministry in Ramallah, to establish decision-making and work processes. On the eve of his departure, Dayton finalized plans for a second Palestinian battalion to leave for training in Jordan, and after lengthy delays, obtained the approval of the Israeli Defense Ministry to equip the Palestinian forces with protective vests and new jeeps.
Dayton says the first step in creating a Palestinian state is creating a Palestinian security force. In explaining his mission and his purpose, he said that if Palestinians can secure their own territory, then it cannot be used to launch attacks against Israel.
Whatever the reasons behind creating the forces, everyone seems to be pretty excited about it.
"The Jordanians said, after the first couple of weeks, who are these people? They're quick learners, they're disciplined, they follow orders, and they're motivated," recalled Dayton, who visited them with PA Interior Minister Abdel-Razak Yahya, a familiar figure for Israelis from the early days of the Oslo process.
"He may look like an old man," said Dayton, "but he's a young man. He gave a speech to them, which was just amazing. He told these guys, 'You're not learning how to fight the Israelis, you're not here to fight the occupation, you're here to fight the forces of disorder, the forces of crime and lawlessness inside Palestine.' He said 'armed groups,' which was his way of saying 'terrorists.' He said: If you do your job properly, we will have a state. The national project will succeed.'
"I went to the graduations," continued Dayton, "and I'm not naive. I watched them, kinda looked them in the eyes, and I'm telling you, these are new people. Now it can all go bad if political progress doesn't happen, I guess, but these are new people. They think they're building a state, and I'm pretty pleased about that."
Dayton has a congressionally-approved budget of $75 million with which to train these security forces, and he expects to spend at least three years on this project.
With Israeli Prime Minister Olmert stepping down amid numerous accusations of bribery, Kadima party leadership is now being debated. Olmert vowed that he would resign as soon as a new leader of his party was chosen. The winner of that primary will then be named Prime Minister.
One of the frontrunners for party leadership is Shaul Mofaz, a native of Iran, who recently denounced his home country as "the root of all evil" and hinted at the ever-present option of attacking Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment.
He then pledged to oversee peace talks with the Palestinians personally and vowed he would produce actual results.
"I have more years of experience than others. I will give the negotiations with the Palestinians utmost priority. I will do my best to advance them and to achieve results, and that's a promise. I will put all of my weight behind it and will deal with it personally," he said.
"They know me, after all," Mofaz continued, "Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas], [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad and [PA chief negotiator] Saeb Erekat. They'll say that everything I promised, I delivered. True, I don't go easy in negotiations, I'm not a man of words - I'm a man of actions and I promise to bring results. It won't happen in two days and maybe not in a year, but there will be results."
Then he continued to blather on in a very convincing fashion about why the peace talks are important.
"For years I experienced the hardship of war, the suffering of battles and the loss of friends, subordinates and commanders .... Kadima under my leadership will continue the path of previous prime ministers who worked to bring peace and security for Israel," Mofaz said.
But then the Palestinian Authority issued a statement about Mofaz's candidacy that makes me think he doesn't know what he's talking about. Just maybe.
A victory by Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz in next month's Kadima Party leadership race would be a disaster for the peace process, senior Palestinian Authority officials say.
The officials said that an American-Palestinian plan for the continuation of the process is contingent on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni winning the primary. A Mofaz victory, in contrast, would send the talks into a deep freeze, given his hawkish views.
But in a dangled carrot, the newspaper does reveal an opportunity for Israel and the PA to help each other:
The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported Tuesday that a list of the Palestinians Abbas wants released, which also includes many others of the longest-serving prisoners, was given to Livni during her meetings in Washington with the head of the PA negotiating team, Ahmed Qureia. Qureia told Livni that the release of these prisoners would play an important role in bolstering the PA's status among the general Palestinian public.
I think it was Sun Tzu or some other Chinese genius who said that you cannot win without helping your opponent save face. And here Israel has an opportunity to do just that. The question is whether the cries of the right wing warhawks will drown out the logic speaking quietly from inside this option.
A note on stone throwing. My sentiments might be as unpopular to Israelis as they are to Palestinians. But the potential to offend someone when discussing this conflict is limitless.
The latest news about the ill-fated village of Nil'in in the West Bank is about Ahmed Mousa, a 10 year old who was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. When I originally read about this event, it was from the left-wing Israeli media, which basically expresses sorrow about the boy but also reminds us that he was throwing stones. Then they add a mention of an IDF soldier who was hit in the eye with a rock.
Non-Israeli media makes no mention of stone throwing, or any reason at all for the soldiers' actions.
I was not there and therefore cannot comment on the exact causes of this event, but I can comment on the phenomenon of stone throwing. Every day, and especially after protests, teenage boys throw stones at Israeli soldiers. They are filled with adolescent rage and frustration and their browbeaten parents can neither control them nor offer them a feasible alternative.
So they throw rocks.
Sometimes these rocks fall far from their intended targets and the effort goes ignored. Sometimes the rocks hit the soldiers, and there is retaliation. We must not forget that both the stone throwers and the soldiers are acting in response to the same emotions. They are limited by the same level of brain development.
My sentiment is: those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
But this sentiment is directed not at those who literally throw the stones but the puppeteers behind them: the international media.
It is no accident that every time a Palestinian suffers unduly, an outsider with big opinions is there to publicize it. Each protest in the West Bank villages of Nil'in and Bil'in ends with Palestinian teenagers throwing stones. And this often leads to injuries, sometimes fatal ones. But the international activists who organize these protests make no effort to stop the stone throwing. They stand by with their cameras, waiting for someone to get hurt so they can reinforce the image of the Palestinian as Victim.
The internationals who, with the best intentions, insert themselves into this conflict are as integral to the problem as the stone throwers and the IDF. They form a triangle that continuously feed the roles of victim, conquerer, and hungry audience. It's a gladiator show.
Without the violence, would anyone be watching?
With nobody watching, would there still be violence?
Many argue that these kids throw stones because it is the only option left to them. But what if it is just the only option anybody told them about? If it is considered fair by anti-Israelis to abduct IDF soldiers to leverage for ransom, why not to shoot teenage stone throwers? The abducted soldiers were combatants, legal targets, but they did not volunteer for service. The stone throwers, then, are also combatants, who by virtue of their perceived lack of options, didn't volunteer either.
The differences between them are weak. Take an IDF soldier, subtract four years and a uniform, and you get a kid with a rock.
Everyone who profits from this conflict, from the Canadian construction firms building settlements to the mainstream media, are doing so at the expense of the region's children.
In my last post, I wrote about some humanitarians that are planning to break the siege on Gaza by sailing from Cyprus. News reports at that time were unclear on the details of the plan, but new information has come to light.
Press TV journalist Yvonne Ridley is set to be on the mysterious nameless ship that leaves from Cyprus on August 4th.
However, there is still a huge shroud of secrecy over our whole operation which reminds me of the old World War II saying my mother used to tell me if I talked too much. "Loose lips sink ships," she would say.
In truth, even if I wanted to, I could not give you the exact location of our sailing vessel so, dear reader, you will have to be patient like me. When the time is ready, you will be among the first to know where she is anchored.
Ridley reports that the voyage will be live-broadcast on the Free Gaza website, here.
Al Jazeera writes about a new attempt by humanitarians to break the Gaza siege by boat.
During a news conference in Athens, the group said that they would leave Athens on August 1 to draw attention to the plight of 1.5 million Palestinians suffering from acute shortage of basic necessities from fuel to food.
The project is said to be organized by over 100 humanitarian organizations. 40 people from 17 countries are planning to sail from Cyprus to Gaza in two ships. The names of the ships, the names of the organizers, and the companies transporting the passengers have not been publicized.
This could be because if Israel doesn't want these guys to break the Gaza siege, they won't make a big diplomatic stink, they will just sink the ships while they sit in the harbor.
Al Jazeera also says:
Paul Larudee, one of the event's organizers, said, "Israel says it's pulled out its soldiers from Gaza so they should have no objection to us going there,"
"We have been in contact with the authorities in Greece, in Cyprus and with the Palestinians ... There is no reason to contact the Israeli authorities because we will not be using their territory," the Canadian Press quoted Larudee as saying.
This endeavor is reminiscent of several such attempts made throughout Israel's history.
One of the most famous examples is the story of the Al-Awda (Ship of Return). In 1988, a group of exiled Palestinians and about 130 of their international supporters contracted with a private shipping company to sail in a highly publicized trip to Haifa. Israel first put commercial pressure on the company to cancel the trip. Likewise with other companies that were hired. Later, when the group purchased an old ferry for the trip, "unidentified persons" caused an explosion which sunk the Al-Awda in the harbor.
This event was itself reminiscent of an even earlier attempt by another group. In 1947 the ship Exodus, full of Holocaust survivors, attempt to sail to Haifa and was refused by a British blockade. One passenger on Exodus was even set to sail on Al-Awda.
Another organization, the Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS), plans to sail from Cyprus to Gaza with 45 people between August 5th and August 10th. (Source)
The siege has lasted two years so far, and was instituted to prevent Gaza from acquiring more arms with which to attack Israel. The siege was tightened in June due to increasing pressure from Israeli citizens to stop the daily missile attacks.
It is difficult to predict the outcome of this endeavor based on the story of Al-Awda, which planned to sail to Haifa, a city clearly under Israeli jurisdiction. As Larudee mentions, Gaza is not part of Israel. However, Israel has reportedly fired upon Gazan fishing vessels during the siege.
In a previous post I wrote about the case of Lieutenant Colonel Omri Fruberg, who was accused of ordering an IDF soldier under his command to open fire on a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner.
In more recent news reports Fruberg is referred to as Bruberg, perhaps in a correction of an earlier mistake.
The IDF's first response to the accusation was:
Lieutenant Colonel Omri was unaware of the incident and that the door of his patrol vehicle blocked his line of vision.
But then they reviewed the video footage of the event and figured out nobody would fall for that crap.
Then they launched an investigation, during which Bruberg took a polygraph at a private institute. The test confirmed he did not give the order to fire. But then he took another polygraph under military supervision, and this time he failed.
Bruberg said he told the soldier only to shake his rifle to frighten the Palestinian, according to a military investigation.
This guy is dumber than a box of rocks. He, and whoever is letting him talk, keeps forgetting that there is a video of this. Why would shaking the rifle scare the prisoner? He was blindfolded.
And furthermore...really??? You thought it would scare him because...people normally shake their rifle before firing it?
Bruberg must have also assumed that the prisoner had his ears plugged as well because that's the only way he wouldn't have heard "Shake your rifle to scare him."
UPDATE: I have now uncovered all sorts of things the Israeli media is not reporting.
First of all, the prisoner who was shot, Ashraf Abu-Rahma, is well-known by the IDF and is considered to be the "Palestinian Che Guevarra" because of his frequent but non-violent resistance to Israeli activity in the West Bank.
Ashraf has been shot multiple times and arrested three times before this incident, which could, in part, explain his obvious lack of surprise at being shot this time. In an interview with IPS, he explained that he doesn't understand Hebrew very well and therefore could not confirm or deny that Bruberg gave the order to fire. However, he did recognize the word for rubber bullet, gumi. It was a rubber coated steel bullet that he was shot with.
Ashraf has gained his reputation for nonviolent resistance by doing things like camping out in homes that were set to be demolished or halting settlement construction by climbing onto the cranes themselves.
Another aspect of this story that nobody is reporting on is the actual situation of the IDF soldiers. For example, even though the media is not reporting his age, it is likely that Lieutenant Colonel Bruberg is between 22 and 25 years old. This is an advanced age for a soldier in his position but incredibly young for a soldier of this rank in any other army. Most active-duty IDF soldiers, especially those in direct contact with Palestinians, are between 18 and 22 years old.
They are dealing with complicated situations where they must often choose between their own life and the life of a stranger. A common example of this concept is the image of a dark figure approaching a guard tower at night. The figure holds what could be a stick or could be a gun. The soldier yells "stop!" but the figure continues to advance. This dark presence could be an adult militant, intent to kill. Or it could be a child.
These soldiers make the choice whether or not to fire before Americans of the same age are even allowed to drink alcohol. They do not have the life experience to act with wisdom and there is nobody supervising them.
