Israel Bombs Gaza - Hundreds Dead

[omairhr]

Avi Shlaim: How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe | World news | The Guardian


How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

* Avi Shlaim
* The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009
* Article history

A wounded Palestinian policeman gestures

A wounded Palestinian policeman gestures while lying on the ground outside Hamas police headquarters following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.

Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.

As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.

Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.

It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.

As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted - a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and shooting".

To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak - terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It di d so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.

This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

• Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.

 

[SherdiL!]

sham on all of US

 

[Al-zakir]

Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza

January 3, 2009

by Jeremy R. Hammond

Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime. Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime. Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime. Other of Israel’s bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings. Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.

Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks. Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a “special security zone” within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law. Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others. Israel’s violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response by militants to the Israeli attacks.
Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.



Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime. There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as “human shields” in its propaganda. There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.

Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israel’s actions because they understand Israel’s justification for its assault. The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel’s actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel’s assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel's crimes. Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel’s actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.

Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted. Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.

Jeremy R. Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal, a website dedicated to providing news, critical analysis, and opinion commentary on U.S. foreign policy from outside of the standard framework offered by government officials and the mainstream corporate media, particularly with regard to the "war on terrorism" and events in the Middle East. He has also written for numerous other online publications. You can contact him at jeremy@foreignpolicyjournal.com.

"Top 5 Lies About Israel?s Assault on Gaza" by Jeremy R. Hammond

 

[Al-zakir]

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Israel using phosphorus bombs in Gaza: HRW

Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Israel's military has fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza and a doctor there said the chemical was suspected in the case of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their faces and bodies.

Researchers in Israel from the rights group witnessed hours of artillery bombardments that sent trails of burning smoke indicating white phosphorus over the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. But they could not confirm injuries on the ground because they have been barred from entering the territory.

The chief doctor at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said he treated several victims there with serious burns that might have been caused by phosphorus. He said, however, that he did not have the resources or expertise to say with certainty what caused the injuries.

The substance can cause serious burns if it touches the skin and can spark fires on the ground, the rights group said in a written statement calling on Israel not to use it in crowded areas of Gaza.

Military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich refused to comment directly on whether Israel was using phosphorus, but said the army was "using its munitions in accordance with international law."

Israel used white phosphorus in its 34-day war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. The US military in Iraq used the incendiary during a November 2004 operation against insurgents in the city of Fallujah.

An AP photographer and a TV crew based in Gaza visited Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Sunday and recorded images of several burn patients.

One of them, Haitham Tahseen, recalled sitting outside his home with his family in the morning when something exploded above them.

"Suddenly, I saw bombs coming with white smoke," said the man, whose burned face was covered with medical cream. "It looked very red and it had white smoke. That's the first time I've seen such a thing."

His cousin, in another hospital bed, was more severely burned, with patches of skin peeling off his face and body, and had to be wrapped with thick white bandages.

The Daily Star - Details News

 

[leonblack08]

Israel, Hamas locked in fierce Gaza City clashes

Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen fought fierce night-time clashes around the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, as a war on Hamas that had killed more than 900 Palestinians entered its 18th day.


Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, told AFP its forces had destroyed two Israeli tanks in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitun, using rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).


They also said a number of soldiers were killed in Khuzaa village, east of Khan Yunis near the Israeli border.


An army spokesman denied any tanks had been knocked out and said there was no report of Israeli casualties.


Medics said one Palestinian was killed by tankfire in Zeitun. It was not clear whether the victim was a fighter or civilian.


As the world awaited a threatened intensification of the offensive by Israel, an AFP correspondent said "this has been the longest night since the beginning of the war. Time is not moving. It is heavy."


Israeli tanks, which followed the advance of special forces and were backed up by air strikes, were only 300-400 metres (yards) away from his home in southern Gaza City.


"The situation is very dangerous, tonight especially, because of more and more shelling and shooting in our neighbourhood."


Unbowed by Israel's military supremacy, the defiant leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip vowed that the Islamists would emerge victorious.


Ismail Haniya made a rare televised address on Monday only hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened to hit Hamas with an "iron fist" if it did not end the rocket attacks which the war aims to halt.


"We are approaching victory," said Haniya, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, which the Islamists seized from forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas 18 months ago.


"I tell you that after 17 days of this foolish war, Gaza has not been broken and Gaza will not fall," he added, speaking from an undisclosed location.


Haniya also said the "blood of children" who have been killed in the conflict would serve as a "curse which will come back to haunt" US President George W Bush.


Bush has consistently blamed Hamas for the conflict, saying that while he wanted to see a "sustainable ceasefire," it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire.


Israel and Hamas both ignored a UN Security Council resolution -- on which the United States abstained -- which called last week for a truce.


UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who is to head to the Middle East on Tuesday, called on Israel and Hamas to immediately stop the fighting, saying "too many people have died."


The Security Council was to hold closed-door consultations on the crisis later on Tuesday.


The focus of peace efforts has been on an Egyptian proposal for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into impoverished Gaza, talks on opening Gaza's border crossings and taking steps to prevent arms smuggling.


Olmert said Israel's key demands were non-negotiable.


"We want to end the operation when the two conditions we have demanded are met: ending the rocket fire and stopping Hamas's rearmament. If these two conditions are met, we will end our operation in Gaza," he said.


"Anything else will meet the iron fist of the Israeli people."


An army spokesman said nearly 30 missiles had been launched from Gaza on Monday, but no casualties were reported.


Residents said Israeli tanks already on Monday punched their way to the southern rim of Gaza City, advancing several hundred metres (yards) into the neighbourhoods of Ash Sheikh Ajlin, Tuffah and Zeitun.


"We are tightening the encirclement of the city," the offensive's commander, Brigadier Eyal Eisenberg, told reporters.


In the hours after midnight, witnesses said the tanks had moved further in to Ash Sheikh Ajlin, Zeitun and a third neighbourhood, Tal al-Hawa, and were coming under mortar and RPG fire.


A military spokesman said warplanes had hit more than 60 targets on Monday, including 20 weapons-smuggling tunnels in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and nine rocket launch sites.


Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, whose remit is limited to the West Bank, said the Egyptian initiative offered the best hope of peace, putting pressure on both Israel and Hamas to respond positively.


"He who refuses, voices reservations or moves slowly on this initiative bears the responsibility of explaining themselves, especially to the people of Gaza," he said.


Arab League chief Amr Mussa said the bloc's foreign ministers would meet on Friday in Kuwait to discuss the conflict.


Aid deliveries have been massively disrupted by the conflict, with agencies warning that residents are running out of food and even having to burn their furniture to stay warm in the bitterly cold nights.


By late Monday, Palestinian medics said at least another 26 people had been killed, bringing the overall Palestinian death toll to 918, including 277 children. Another 4,100 have been wounded.


Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since the operation began on December 27.

The Daily Star - Details News

 

[Solomon2]

Someone earlier said, "How will all this killing be justify by coward, low life, enemy of humanity???" I would like to know if any Muslims here can offer an answer.

 

[Tornado]

Israel is not the only player against Hamas

Although the Israeli army is fighting Hamas in Gaza, Sunni Moslem nations in the Middle East are closely watching its outcome, as it is very much their concern. Not only are they dismayed at the heavy loss of lives in the fighting, but their greatest fear is from a situation, in which a clear decision is not reached by Israel this time against what the so-called moderates regard, is the growing threat from Shiite domination over the "silent" Sunni majority.

Two an half years ago, when Israel fought against Tehran's proxy, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, the outcome after 33 days of fighting was undecided and Tehran's involvement in Lebanese internal affairs grew dangerously towards Hezbollah taking over the Western oriented nation.

Should a similar situation be created, when the present warfighting in Gaza ceases and Iranian backed Hamas remains in power as a major military player, then Tehran's next stop could well be a spill-over into Egypt -- with the Moslem Brotherhood, Hamas' spiritual creator, challenging President Hosni Mubarak's pro-western regime.

Even the most pessimistic analysts were surprised by the unprecedented quantities influx of modern arms, which Hamas massed in its Gaza Strip enclave over such a short time. Only unlimited Iranian funding could have provided and sustained the endless military lifeline through the Gaza Tunnels to create the largest terrorist arsenal, which kept the unprovoked rocket offensive against Israel's territory almost ceaselessly going for months.

Israel, with all its advanced technology is still at loss to defend against the rather primitive, but still highly lethal Qassam and Grad harassment. It will take at least 18 months until a viable system will be ready to deploy against this threat. Until then, the IDF must act decisively to convince Hamas, to stop or be destroyed.

The "new" IDF, which is currently fighting inside the Gaza Strip has changed. The 2006 Lebanon fiasco is long forgotten. The Israeli ground forces have recovered their professional "killer instinct" and are fighting an equally motivated Hamas Izzadin al Qassam face to face, causing them heavy casualties in close-in urban combat.

Israel's strategic target is not to eliminate Hamas rule in Gaza. That is an ideological objective which cannot be achieved. What the military wish is to weaken the Hamas military wing so much, that new rules of this ruthless game can be negotiated, which will assure Israel's security from this rocket threat.

While this particular goal can be achieved by decisive military action, in order to sustain a longtime non-aggressive attitude by the Islamists, will require a different strategy.

It should be Egypt's clear strategic interest, to hermetically seal off the Sinai smuggling corridor and eliminate once and for all, the subterranean tunnel city at the Rafah border. Once this is achieved and sustained, Hamas will lose it's weapons lifeline and it's huge arsenal will dwindle and having been severely depleted during the fighting, will soon become insignificant. This will allow a sane Gazean administration to rebuild from the ruins and start caring for the million and half hapless Palestinians, who have suffered through hell for decades of untold misery.

But not only Egypt will gain from a more peaceful Gaza, Iran will lose it's strategic hold on the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas base along the Mediterranean, which as an important by-product, might also weaken it's position in Lebanon.

Neither Egypt, nor Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf states can wield sufficient power to keep the Tehran Mullahs at bay. Only a strong and determined American president with enough muscle and willing to use it when necessary can save the turbulent Middle East from another disaster.

Will Barack Obama be that man?
source

 

[Pk_Thunder]

Israel should be barred from UN: Turkish PM​

ANKARA: Turkey's prime minister on Friday said Israel should be barred from the United Nations while it ignores the body's calls to stop fighting in Gaza.
'How is such a country, which totally ignores and does not implement resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the UN (headquarters)?' Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Erdogan spoke before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Ankara to discuss the conflict. Erdogan's comments reflected a growing anger in Turkey, Israel's best friend in the Muslim world, over Israel's Gaza operation. Ban is on a weeklong trip to the region to promote a truce after both sides ignored a UN resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
'The UN building in Gaza was hit while the UN secretary-general was in Israel,' Erdogan said. 'This is an open challenge to the world, teasing the world.'
Israel infuriated the UN Thursday when it shelled the world body's headquarters in Gaza City, where hundreds of Gazans were seeking cover from the fighting among food and supplies meant for refugees. The destruction added to what aid groups say is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and increased tensions between Israel and the international community even as diplomats engaged in cease-fire talks.
Erdogan said the Islamic militant group Hamas does not have specifically military installations or headquarters in Gaza, as alleged by Israel, and that civilians were becoming victims of attacks on hospitals and mosques.
In an anti-Israel demonstration in Istanbul after Friday prayers, around 1,500 pro-Islamic protesters chanted 'We're all soldiers of Hamas!'
'I want to call on the entire world; don't turn a blind eye to this savagery, don't be a spectator to this massacre because those who remain silent will become a party to this shame,' Erdogan said.
'Who can justify bombing young people, elderly, women and even children.' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor rebuffed Erdogan's harsh criticism.
'Maybe if Turkey had voted more with Israel at the UN and expressed its anger when Hamas was firing rockets indiscriminately on Israeli civilians, it could have contributed more to bringing peace to southern Israel and Gaza' than by making such statements, Palmor said.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul on Friday renewed calls for an immediate cease-fire and also urged US President-elect Barack Obama to focus on a comprehensive, long-lasting and fair solution once in office.

 

[pkpatriotic]

Gideon Levy / Someone must stop Israel's rampant madness in Gaza
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Correspondent
Last update - 08:57 16/01/2009

Someone has to stop this rampant madness. Right now. It may seem as though the cabinet hasn't decided on the "third stage" of the war yet, Amos Gilad is discussing a cease fire in Cairo, the end of the fighting seems close - but all this is misleading.

The streets of Gaza Thursday looked like killing fields in the midst of the "third stage" and worse. Israel is arrogantly ignoring the Security Council's resolution calling for a cease-fire and is shelling the UN compound in Gaza, as if to show its real feeling toward that institution. Emergency supplies intended for Gaza residents are going up in flames in the burning warehouses. Thick black smoke is rising from the burning flour sacks and the fuel reserves near them, covering the streets.

In the streets, people are running back and forth in panic, holding children and suitcases in their hands, helpless as the shells fall around them. Nobody in the diplomatic corridors is in any hurry to help those unfortunates who have nowhere to run.

The handful of journalists trying to cover the events, despite the outrageous media closure Israel has imposed, are also in danger. The Israel Defense Forces Thursday shelled the media building they were in and now they are all crowded in one office, as fearful and horrified as the rest of the scorched city's residents.

The BBC's Arabic correspondent, furious and alarmed, swears hoarsely that nobody fired from the building or around it. Meanwhile, in our television studios, there is rejoicing.

Is this war a "corrective experience," asks Rafi Reshef, who seems diabolically delighted by the fighting. Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer tells him that the IDF and Israel Air Force have made great achievements. Nobody of course asks what is so great about these achievements except the killing, destruction and thousands of casualties in Gaza and the rockets that continue falling on Be'er Sheva - undermining every "achievement."

In the lobby of a luxury hotel, against the background of the horror show from Gaza, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni explains, with intolerable arrogance, that the fire will stop "whenever Israel decides" on the basis of "daily situation evaluations."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, standing beside her, breaks protocol and denounces Israel with uncharacteristic vigor for its attack on the UN compound.

This is how Israel now looks to the outside world - its tanks in the burning streets of Gaza; more and more people being killed for nothing; tens of thousands of new refugees; an appallingly haughty foreign minister, and a growing clamor of condemnation and disgust from all over the globe.

Whether or not we have accomplished anything in the war, now only the thirst for blood and lust for revenge speak out, together with the desperate longing for the "victory shot" on the backs of hundreds and thousands of miserable civilians - a picture that will never be achieved, even with another 100 assassinations of Hamas leaders, like Thursday.

All those who supported this war and all those who objected to it should unite in the cry, Enough.

 

[pkpatriotic]

Rice cautions Israel over IDF shelling of UN facilities in Gaza
By Reuters
Last update - 08:56 16/01/2009

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday she had told
Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Ministers Tzipi Livni, that more care must be taken to avoid incidents such as the bombing of a United Nations aid warehouse and training center in Gaza.

"We had a discussion of the difficulties that this (the bombing of the warehouse) had caused and the need to try to avoid such incidents," said Rice when asked whether she had protested to Israel's government after the warehouse bombing.

The compound shelled on Thursday belongs to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA. A separate attack hit a vocational training center there. Three people were wounded in the two attacks.

Rice said she had spoken on Thursday to both Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as well as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni after the attack on the facility.

"There is great concern on their part. It was an error that happened," she added.

"It does demonstrate the very dangerous nature of the kind of fighting that is going on and the events that we are in. We are principally concerned about the humanitarian situation in that regard," said Rice.

Rice said the U.S. focus was on how to get food, water and medical supplies to civilians in Gaza, which has been under attack since December 27 when Israel launched a military offensive against the Hamas-ruled coastal strip with the aim of halting Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel.

Rice has been quietly trying to negotiate an accord with Israel designed to prevent Hamas from rearming and Livni is expected in Washington in the coming days, possibly as early as Friday.

Asked whether there would be an announcement on a deal on Friday, Rice said: "I am continuing to work on it. We are aggressively working towards that ceasefire. We are trying to help put the pieces in place so that it can be durable."

"We are discussing with the Israelis and with others what we can do to bolster the possibilities of getting to the durable ceasefire that we are all seeking," she added.

At least 1,105 Palestinians have been killed and some 5,100 wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. A Palestinian rights group said about 700 of the dead were civilians.

Thirteen Israelis have been killed, including 10 soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire.

 

[pkpatriotic]

Inquiries show Olmert version of UN Gaza vote spat closer to truth than Rice's
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent
Last update - 08:19 16/01/2009

Inquiries with people uninvolved in the spat between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reveal that his version of the lead-up to America's vote on last week's Security Council resolution is closer to the truth than hers.

Last Wednesday, the only proposal on the council's table was a completely one-sided Libyan resolution. Since it was clear to everyone that the United States would veto it, Israel had no reason to worry. But then, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a former senior World Bank official, decided that this was the moment to make use of his Washington connections.

Fayyad persuaded the Americans to support a softened version of the resolution, which called for a prompt cease-fire, hoping that such a resolution would speed up the ongoing truce talks. He asked the British and French for help, and they agreed. Rice signaled her French and British counterparts, Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband, that she was on board.

European diplomats, UN officials and a senior PA official all said Thursday that as of last Friday night it was clear to almost everyone that the U.S., like the other 14 Security Council members, would vote for the softened resolution. They said Rice had promised as much to her European colleagues.

In Jerusalem, however, officials went to sleep thinking the Americans had only agreed to support a 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire. At 1 A.M., final confirmation came from New York: The U.S. had promised that no cease-fire resolution would be brought to a vote any time soon. An hour and a half later, however, it became clear that not only was the Security Council due to vote on a cease-fire resolution at any minute, but Rice had ordered America's UN ambassador to support it. Olmert promptly telephoned U.S. President George Bush to complain about Rice's behavior and demand that he restrain her. What Bush said to Rice remains unknown. What is known, however, is that the U.S. suddenly changed its vote from "yes" to "abstain."

The whole story would have ended well had Olmert behaved like a responsible adult and restrained his own impulses. Even his close associates admit that he would have done better to skip the public boasting about how he persuaded Bush to overrule Rice. Quite aside from the fact that this embarrassed the U.S. administration, Olmert's associates understand all too well that this story merely provides fresh ammunition to those who claim the Jews are the ones who really control America.

 

[Pk_Thunder]

Israeli aggression to help militants: Musharraf​

By Anwar Iqbal
Friday, 16 Jan, 2009 | 04:03 AM PST |
WASHINGTON: Former President Pervez Musharraf has warned that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s latest message in which he calls for jihad against Israel will find its mark in certain quarters of the Muslim world.
‘These are words which are welcomed by the masses in the Muslim world,’ said the retired general while referring to the latest Israeli aggression in Gaza in which more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed so far.
In a speech at the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan on Wednesday night, Musharraf maintained the long-term fight against bin Laden or other terrorists will not be won by military means.
‘I draw a similarity with a tree. When you are dealing with the terrorists and killing any number of them, you are plucking the leaves, shedding the leaves off the tree.
‘And more leaves will grow. When you destroy an organization, you chop off one branch of the tree. But the roots remain.’
He advocated a ‘multi-pronged approach’ to dealing with the roots of terrorism in Pakistan, including political, social and economic development.
The former president said that a lack of understanding prevents people in the United States from appreciating the key role Pakistan is playing in the war against terror.
‘Pakistan is doing all that it can,’ he said. ‘Pakistan is a victim of terrorism and that is what needs to be understood. We are a victim.’
In a brief news conference and later in his speech, Musharraf reminded his American audience that Pakistan had a key role in the fight against terrorism because it’s located in a region deemed central to the outcome of that battle.
‘Pakistan has confronted terrorism and extremism for more than two decades now,’ he said. ‘We are together in the fight against terrorism.’
His speech at the council marked his first US appearance since he left office last year, as he embarks on a speaking tour across the United States.
The former president said that those who say that Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders were hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas were only speculating.
He also rejected the suggestion that Fata has become a base for al-Qaeda operations.
Although he acknowledged that some al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are hiding in Fata, there is no safe haven for the militants in Pakistan. He said the militants are not safe anywhere in Pakistan because the Pakistani military is after them.
‘I am not sure,’ he said of Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. ‘It is just conjecture. He is in the mountains somewhere on either side of the border. A lot of people keep asking me where he is. I don't know.’
He rejected the criticism that Pakistan had wasted billions of dollars in US aid, or that its military was not up to the task, reminding the audience that all major arrests of al-Qaida leaders were arrested in Pakistani by Pakistani security forces.
‘We killed about 700 of them,’ he said.
The Pakistani army, he said, was ‘fighting terrorism to the best of its ability.’
But he said progress in Fata does not hinge on military might alone.
Over the long term, he said, social and economic progress will have to win the day.
‘It is essential, because the people are poor and jobless.’
The former president said despite the current tensions between India and Pakistan; he believed both nations could move toward peace. ‘We've come a long way, I think. We've fought three wars and a number skirmishes.’

 

[akpower]

A few rockets here and there does not justify an all-out assault killing 1000+ people, injuring more than 5000, destroying house and infrastructure, blocking critical aid, etc.

Accept it people, this was and is a holocaust. The entire world believes so and is expressing its solidarity with the Palestinian people. The might is right rule still seems to be the rule of thumb. Sometimes, I feel we live in a jungle.

Really, shame on Israel, the US for its unequivocal support and everyone who supports the murder of innocent women and children.

 

[ya'seenhamza]

Jan 15, 2009
GAZA CITY — "Dad, I'm dying."
The words keep echoing in Kamal Awaga's ears, sending jolts of pain into his feeble, wounded body.These were the last words uttered by his 9-year-old son, Ibrahim, before he ended up as a practicing target for Israeli soldiers."They killed my son in cold blood," says the grief-stricken father, still in a state of shock.Ibrahim joined more than 350 children killed by Israel in its three-week onslaught on the coastal enclave.But while others fell victim to killer bullets or deadly bombs, Ibrahim's fate was even more tragic.He became a shooting practice for a squad of Israeli soldiers."The Israelis did not show mercy for his innocence," said his tearful father from his bed at the Al-Shefa hospital in Gaza City."They had no pity for his tiny body," added the heart-broken father.
Nothing in the day prepared the Awaga family for the tragic twist of events that unfolded.They woke up to a sunny morning after days of being locked in one small room to escape the massive Israeli bombardment."Mom, let's have our breakfast out in the garden. I'm tired of staying in this room," the grieved mother recalls Ibrahim's plea.An hour later, the table was set in the garden and the family was hoping to enjoy rare moments of peace, unaware of the eyes watching them from a distance.A first missile stole the family's job before another destroyed their house.
"Dad, I am dying," cried Ibrahim to his father who rushed frantically to his side."Hurry, let's go," Awaga told his wife and two other children while carrying bleeding Ibrahim.But even before they could reach the gate, a flood of bullets showered them.One bullet hit the mother's leg and another hit the father's waist.Ibrahim's two frightened brothers ran for cover behind the rubbles of their bombed-out house.
As the firing died down, the family thought their misery was over. But the Israeli soldiers were not finished yet."When the soldiers came closer, I thought they will kill me," said Awaga who faked being dead."But they were aiming at my young child," he said choking at the bitter memory.One soldier came close to Ibrahim's body, turning him by his leg and laughing while another fired his gun to the dead boy's head.Laughs got louder as they carried the body to a higher place to start their party.For a whole hour, the father hushed his cries of pain as he watched the Israeli soldiers compete in sniping on his dead son's body.
"They were using his bullet-ridden, bleeding body as a shooting practice."With each bullet, they were humming with words I could not figure out, but it sounded full of rapture. It was as if they were celebrating."When they finally had enough "practicing," the Israelis took their guns and left the house.Four complete days passed before emergency doctors were able to find their way to the family and rush them to hospital."What did my son do to deserve that?" Awaga asks, shaking his head in disbelief."The Israelis killed my kid, not once or twice but a thousand times."


Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent

Link: "Dad, I'm Dying" - IslamOnline.net - News

 

[Skywalker]

A MUST READ ARTICLE

This article appeared in The Guardian supplement G2 on Wednesday 07 January 2009

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions.

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.
Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.
Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than £2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.
The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel. The withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent political existence on their land.
Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.
Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.
America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.
As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than anti-Semitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.
Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it begn to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.
It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.
The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.
The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.
As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been inverted – a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and shooting".
To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak – terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005–7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.
Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.
The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

A wide gape separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.
No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30 or even 50 years. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves concessions and compromises.
This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace.

Published in The Guardian's G2 supplement on Wednesday 07 January 2009.