Operation pillar of cloud. Israeli assault on Gaza

[TomUS]

Khaled Meshaal is visiting Gaza. His first visit in 45 years. Quite incredible really given the Israelis habit of shooting every Hamas leader they can over the past few years. An example of how much the resistance won during the recent conflict and ceasefire terms and how much the region has changed that he has the confidence to visit safe in the knowledge that Israel won't, or can't, kill him

Problem is he in effect reiterated the ideas of the charter in his speech...

"As long as Palestine is ours and Palestine is the land of Arabism and Islam, we can never recognise the legitimacy of Israel's occupation of it," he told supporters.
"There is no legitimacy for occupation. Hence, there is no legitimacy for Israel, however long time lasts."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20649583

Language like this is a gift to Likud. It rallies the people around Hamas but Israel uses it constantly an an excuse not to negotiate. Why give your enemy/oppressor a gift?

 

[Random]

Language like this is a gift to Likud. It rallies the people around Hamas but Israel uses it constantly an an excuse not to negotiate. Why give your enemy/oppressor a gift?

Because throwing away everything in a desperate attempt to negotiate has worked so well for Abbas and the PA... In any case, this visit is a triumphal occasion, all about highlighting Israel's loss of regional power. He's rubbing their nose in the fact that Hamas is unbroken. That's his aim right now.

 

[dylans]

Problem is he in effect reiterated the ideas of the charter in his speech...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20649583

Language like this is a gift to Likud. It rallies the people around Hamas but Israel uses it constantly an an excuse not to negotiate. Why give your enemy/oppressor a gift?

I am no fan of Hamas politics but what do you think he should have said? That he would accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank while Israel continue its relentless settlements? That he would negotiate for a rump bantustan with 500.000 settlers remaining? Because this is what Abbas has said and what has it got him?

I find it amusing that Hamas is always attacked for its uncompromising message of resistance when Abbas grovelling appeasement has achieved so little but also when Israeli leaders routinely make speeches claiming Judea/Samaria and even Sinai no one claims they are offering a gift to Hamas. Yet this is not only in Likud's charter but is being carried out in practice.

As random says above, this is triumphant rhetoric of a victory rally and a way of contrasting the resistance approach of Hamas to Abbas policy of negotiation. In reality Hamas have indicated their willingness to accept 67 borders on a number of occasions.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/haniyeh...-palestinian-state-with-1967-borders-1.256915

While we are on his speech. I notice that this part of his speech is not reported in the western press which routinely presents Hamas as anti Semites.

We do not fight the Jews because they are Jews. We fight the Zionist occupiers and aggressors. And we will fight anyone who tries to occupy our lands or attacks us. We fight those who fight us, who attack us, who besiege us, who attack our holy places and our land.

Resistance for us is a means and not an end. I am speaking to the whole world through the media. If the world finds a means, without resistance or bloodshed, to return Palestine and Jerusalem to us, and the right of return, and to end the Zionist occupation then we welcome it. We tried you [the world] for 64 years and you have done nothing. So if we resort to resistance do not blame us. If we found another way without war we would have seized it, but the history of nations shows that there is no victory or liberation without resistance, without battles, without sacrifice.

 

[weltweit]

Israel not talking to Hamas just proves that they do not want a negotiated settlement. In order to create peace you have to talk to your enemies not your friends.

 

[dylans]

Israel not talking to Hamas just proves that they do not want a negotiated settlement. In order to create peace you have to talk to your enemies not your friends.

Worse than that, they have used peace talks with Abbas as an excuse to deepen the occupation.

Those who claim that it is Hamas refusal to renounce resistance and recognise Israel is the principle reason for Israel's refusal to pursue a meaningful peace deal, have to explain the obvious fact that Abbas and the PA have done everything Israel has demanded of them to the point of humiliation for 18 years and what has it gained?

The PA has renounced violence, recognised Israel, rounded up resistance fighters and even peaceful activists, policed the occupation for Israel for 18 years, engaged in round after round of meaningless negotiations despite unceasing settlement expansion, offered Israel a peace deal that includes settlements remaining in the West Bank and Israel has cynically used every PA attempt at negotiation, appeasement and collaboration as an opportunity to continue its land grab of Palestinian territory.

There is no alternative to resistance because Israel is not interested in a meaningful peace.

 

[Random]

We can also add to that, that Hamas is not a simple expression of Palestinian resistance, they are a political party who want a specific kind of Islamic society to emerge. A friend of mine in Egypt said recently that Hamas' popular support in Gaza was at a low level. This latest round of attacks from Israel allows Hamas to gain support, from painting themselves as the face of resistance, despite the fact that their social policies and other government work may be unpopular.

They'd probably still win an election against the corrupt and oppressive Fateh, of course, but that's not saying much.

 

[TomUS]

I am no fan of Hamas politics but what do you think he should have said?

He could have given a triumphant & defiant speech without giving Israel yet another propaganda point they will surely use over & over. It smacks of political opportunism to advance him & his party but not necessarily the interests of Palestinians. And of course, Israel gives Hamas similar gifts through their statements & actions all the time. I think it was politically dumb & hurts his people's interests.

 

[Random]

He could have given a triumphant & defiant speech without giving Israel yet another propaganda point they will surely use over & over. It smacks of political opportunism to advance him & his party but not necessarily the interests of Palestinians.

It is political opportunism to stick to your party's charter now? the charter that they were elected on? Not that I agree with them.

 

[TomUS]

It is political opportunism to stick to your party's charter now? the charter that they were elected on? Not that I agree with them.

Think they were elected because of that charter? I think they won mostly because of their social services & lack of corruption compared to Fatah. I'd say they won in spite of the charter.

 

[Random]

Think they were elected because of that charter? I think they won mostly because of their social services & lack of corruption compared to Fatah. I'd say they won in spite of the charter.

Quite possibly, but the simple fact remains that sticking to what's in your charter is not opportunism, it's the opposite. It may be authoritarian, ideological and wrong, but if we start saying that people are opportunist when they don't do what we want them to, the word loses all meaning.

 

[DrRingDing]

An Israeli border guard has shot dead a Palestinian teenager, whom police said threatened a colleague with what turned out to be a fake gun, in the West Bank city of Hebron.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20706226

Sounds like a fabricated story to me. The border police are notoriously violent and full of shit.

 

[dylans]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20706226

Sounds like a fabricated story to me. The border police are notoriously violent and full of shit.

Hebron has erupted into 2 days of rioting because of this.

 

[agricola]

Anyone seen Oborne's latest piece in the Torygraph?

The formal position of the Government is excellent. Britain supports the two-state solution, which has been the basis of all serious peace discussions since the Oslo Accords 20 years ago. The trouble is that ministers refuse to take any concrete steps to bring it about. For example, they condemn the settlements, but only in a half-hearted way (the Prime Minister devoted 64 words to the issue on Tuesday, and almost 300 to the Iranian threat).

This is cowardice. There are times in personal as well as political life when friendship involves a great deal more than the kind of genial back-slapping with which the Prime Minister treated the Israel lobby on Tuesday. The brutal truth is that Benjamin Netanyahu is leading his country down the path to self-destruction. If he is allowed to go ahead with the latest plans for settlement construction, all hopes of Middle East peace will vanish and die.

... also this quote from Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles:

“I believe passionately that Israel on its present course is embarked on a pathway to assisted suicide. Suicide assisted by the Congress of the United States. The idea that the problem can be solved by walling up the Palestinians in the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Bantustans, which the South African government embarked on in the 1940s, is not only offensive morally, it is deeply out of keeping with everything we know of human history. It will not work, it cannot work, it should not work. And anyone who has a real affection for the Jewish people will want to help them to avoid this looming disaster.”

 

[dylans]

Anyone seen Oborne's latest piece in the Torygraph?



:

This is exactly what the likes of Haaretz have been arguing for years. Its interesting that even Israel's defenders have begun to see that Likud is leading Israel into apartheid.

Mark Simmonds, a junior Foreign Office minister, formally acknowledged this in a revealing but unreported Commons debate just a few hours after Tuesday CFI lunch, saying: “I think that the door is beginning to close on the realistic possibility of a two-state solution.” William Hague now believes that settlement construction will render it completely impossible within two years at most.

We will then be left with a greater Israel stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river. Of course, this is a tidier geographical unit than the complicated mess which an attempt to return Israel to its 1967 boundaries would produce. But the Palestinians would suddenly find themselves in a majority. Israel would then face a choice between retaining its democracy, but ceasing to be a Jewish state, or embracing a form of apartheid in which Palestinians were refused basic rights. Judging from the rhetoric emanating from Mr Netanyahu and his unpleasant coalition allies, this is probably the choice today’s Israeli leadership would make.

 

[dylans]

More on Hebron. It seems even the collaborator PA are losing control

Three Palestinians were reportedly injured after clashes broke out in Hebron Thursday, a day after Israeli Border Police forces shot and killed 17-year-old Muhamad Ziad Awad Salima. Large contingents of both Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police were dispatched to Hebron after Palestinian police were unable to contain the disorder, and amid assumptions that violent protests would continue,

Following Salima's funeral procession, hundreds of youths began clashing with IDF soldiers in Hebron. Soldiers dispersed the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets. Throughout the day, IDF soldiers were targeted by rocks and firebombs.

During the incident, a senior Palestinian police official arrived on the scene, and asked the IDF soldiers to cease firing, and retreat. The soldiers agreed, as roughly 50 officers from the Palestinian Authority's protest-dispersal unit arrived.

It appeared, however, that Palestinian Authority forces were unable to deal with the increasing intensity of the protests in the West Bank. The youths did not hesitate, and threw stones at the Palestinian police as well, while continuing to clash with the soldiers. A short time later, the Palestinian police left the scene, and the clashes continued.

In the past, the arrival of Palestinian police on the scene, especially in urban areas, would cause the demonstrations to disperse. Today, however, it appears that the perception of the Palestinian Authority as relatively week, has been applied to police as well.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...ent-demonstrations-in-hebron.premium-1.484703

 

[elbows]

Hamas rallies in the West Bank have been allowed by the PA, Nablus yesterday and Hebron today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20728499

Also I am seeing on twitter that Lieberman has resigned after corruption charges were filed against him.

 

[dylans]

Clashes in Hebron yesterday

 

[elbows]

Another example of Israels special brand of propaganda.

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs...hate-bethlehem-palestinians-would-lynch-jesus

“A thought for Christmas…If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought … “
That was the Christmas message posted today, along with a depiction of Jesus and Mary, on the official Facebook page of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin.

 

[teqniq]

Yes, I saw this earlier glad someone did a screenie of it 'cos they pulled it from their page

 

[frogwoman]

Another example of Israels special brand of propaganda.

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs...hate-bethlehem-palestinians-would-lynch-jesus

“A thought for Christmas…If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought … “
That was the Christmas message posted today, along with a depiction of Jesus and Mary, on the official Facebook page of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin.

i'm speechless

 

[Nylock]

that is... really quite stunning

 

[elbows]

Since this thread evolved ito a broader discussion of things shifting and the politics, I hope its ok for me to put this story here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/what-obama-thinks-israelis-don-t-understand-.html

When informed about the Israeli decision, Obama, who has a famously contentious relationship with the prime minister, didn’t even bother getting angry. He told several people that this sort of behavior on Netanyahu’s part is what he has come to expect, and he suggested that he has become inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli counterpart.
In the weeks after the UN vote, Obama said privately and repeatedly, “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.” With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...-a-wake-up-call-for-israelis.premium-1.494181

Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni said Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama's reported remarks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading Israel down a path of isolation should be a wake-up call for Israelis.
“Anyone who hadn’t woken up yet, got up this morning to a very sharp and clear statement by the president of the United States, who has said some serious things about Israel's prime minister,” Livni told a press conference at her party's campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv.
“It saddens me that we've reached this situation, but they're laying the truth out for us …. If there isn’t a dramatic change and people sitting on the fence don’t go out and vote, Israel will keep heading into isolation that will lead to violence.”
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported on the Bloomberg news website that "in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation."
Livni, a former opposition leader, said relations with the United States are of paramount importance in maintaining Israel’s security. “One can like or not like the president of the United States, but we're talking about Israel’s greatest friend and Israel’s security, so these remarks should wake up every Israeli."

 

[DrRingDing]

Good we want Israel is total isolation.

Livini is a sly one. Far more sophisticated that Bibi. Let him and Lieberman fuck it up.

 

[elbows]

Exit polls dont seem to match the stories that were parped out before election day:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/w...election-likely-to-retain-netanyahu.html?_r=0

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu performed far worse than expected in Israel’s national elections on Tuesday, according to exit polls, and while he remained likely to serve a third term, a surprise surge by a new centrist party indicated he would be under pressure to form a more moderate governing coalition.​

 

[elbows]

So the fucker nearly lost, and indeed may yet have a challenge forming a new government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21155063

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to form "as broad a government as possible" after his alliance won a narrow election victory.
His right-wing Likud-Beitenu bloc will have 31 seats in parliament - a sharp drop from 42, exit polls suggest.
In a major surprise, the centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party came second with a predicted 18-19 seats, with Labour next on 17.
Analysts now predict weeks of political horse-trading to form a new cabinet.
They say that there is even a possibility that Mr Netanyahu's alliance would end up being in opposition.
Although the Likud-Beitenu alliance is the largest seat-winner, the split of right and left political blocs is a dead heat at 60-60 in the 120-member Knesset, the Israeli Central Elections Committee website showed, with 99.5% of votes counted.

Anybody know much about the new kids on the block?

Analysts say the 18 or 19 seats predicted for Yesh Atid, headed by journalist-turned-politician Yair Lapid, is a stunning result for a newcomer.
Mr Lapid has said he will not join Mr Netanyahu's team unless the prime minister promises to push for peace with Palestinians.
"We have red lines. We won't cross those red lines, even if it will force us to sit in the opposition," Yaakov Peri, one of Yesh Atid's leaders, told Israeli TV.

 

[Random]

This adds to my impression that Pillar of Cloud was Israel's Suez moment. Netanyahu banked on an assault delivering a military boost, instead he got international criticism strong enough to boost a pro "peace" party. The UK Suez moment was due to rising US power; this one is due to falling US power.

 

[DexterTCN]

Well...the news reports I heard seemed to be saying that bibi's main challenger was from a more right-wing contender meaning he had to go even more (how?) right-wing himself.

None of those reports mentioned centrists.

 

[weltweit]

Interested me, [sorry if it has already been mentioned] that Netanyahu's top priority in his own words is the prevention of Iran getting nuclear weapons. It certainly seems as if he is prepared to take action, I wonder what actions he will undertake in that aim.

 

[agricola]

Interested me, [sorry if it has already been mentioned] that Netanyahu's top priority in his own words is the prevention of Iran getting nuclear weapons. It certainly seems as if he is prepared to take action, I wonder what actions he will undertake in that aim.

Given that he also said - after this valiant failure - that one of his top five aims was an "aspiration to achieve real peace" with the Palestinians, one would hope that he will boldly continue in his policy of jumping up and down, making little pictures of bombs, and not doing much else whilst the saner minds in Israeli government circles stop him from doing anything too mindless.

Its certainly an interesting turn of events, though you would think that he will most likely end up in coalition with the rest of the right wing - its difficult to see what those parties to the left of his would gain by propping him up.

 

[dylans]

This adds to my impression that Pillar of Cloud was Israel's Suez moment. Netanyahu banked on an assault delivering a military boost, instead he got international criticism strong enough to boost a pro "peace" party. The UK Suez moment was due to rising US power; this one is due to falling US power.

I wouldn't go so far as to label Yesh Atid as the pro peace party. They are the "ignore the Palestinian conflict and hope it goes away" party. They represent the maturing of the middle class protests of last year and represent the same deliberate strategy of completely ignoring the occupation and focusing on domestic economic and social justice issues. Their leader Yair Lipid has consciously avoided any substantial mention of the conflict.

That said, yes its good that the predictions of further moves towards the far right have proven incorrect and its good that Netanyahu has been weakened a little. The result will probably be a short lived and unstable coalition.

Now, if Obama, had any balls, it would be the time for him and the West in general to put their foot down and take a harder line on settlement expansion etc. I won't hold my breath.

Meanwhile this is Lubna Hanash a 22 year old student who was murdered by the IOF in front of her college near Arrub refugee camp in the West Bank yesterday

Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers traveling in a civilian car opened fire at a group of people at the entrance to al-Arrub refugee camp south of Bethlehem.
Lubna Munir Hanash, 22, was shot in the head and died from her injuries, medics said.
Suad Yusuf Jaara was shot in the hand and transported to Ahli hospital in Hebron.
Witnesses told Ma’an that after the shooting Israeli soldiers prevented an ambulance from arriving at the scene for around 10 minutes.
Locals said there were no clashes in the area at the time.