Gaza conflict helps Israeli government distract from the acceleration of it’s West Bank land grab under Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak

The conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to distract from the Israeli land grab in the West Bank, which has accelerated under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister and now electoral list partner Avigdor Lieberman, who says Palestinians should settle for just 40% of  it, along with Gaza (which is almost water-less), while Israel keeps the entire former British Mandate of Palestine along with 60% of the West Bank (1).

Israel currently takes 80% of vital water supplies in the West Bank ; and 64% of the West Bank is already under Israeli military control under the one sided Oslo Accords ( not all has been annexed yet, although the Israeli military are telling more Palestinian farmers to get off their land within Zone C (the 64%) all the time) (2) – (5)

As soon as the Gaza crisis became the media focus Netanyahu’s Finance Minister Yuval Stenitz told Israeli journalists “we doubled the budgets [allocated] to Judea and Samaria. We did it with a low profile” so that “elements in Israel and abroad” wouldn’t block it (6).

(All Israeli governments call the West Bank by it’s ancient biblical period name of ‘Judea and Samaria’ in order to try to claim it is all similarly part of the modern state of Israel by right – a claim about as valid as if the Italian government claimed a right to rule over the entire former Roman Empire, or a modern Assyrian Iraqi to the ancient Assyrian empire.)

Netanyahu’s government has gone beyond even previous Israeli government’s annexation of West Bank land by formally authorising Israeli settlements even East of the vast Israeli “barrier wall”. These new settlements are not only illegal under international law (as all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are) but even under Israeli law according to Israeli Supreme Court rulings (7).

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak (who was also Defence minister in the previous government during the previous Gaza war in December 2008 to January 2009) personally approved the five-fold expansion of one West Bank settlement in September (8). A freedom of information request by an Israeli peace campaigner found that Barak’s Defense ministry has marked 10% of the West Bank for expansion of settlements over the years, including many settlements illegal under Israeli law which were later approved by the government (9).

The Israeli group Peace Now also say more West Bank settler houses were constructed in 2010 (9 months of which were part of a moratorium on settlement construction meant to allow negotiations) than in 2009, before the moratorium (10).

 All this will boost the vote for Barak’s new party and even more so the joint election list announced by Netanyahu for his Likud party along with Leiberman , whose Yisrael Beitenu party won more seats than Labor in the 2009 elections and whose support base comes from immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union – mostly Russian, secular, but hardline Israeli nationalists (11).

The collapse of the Soviet Union’s economy, especially under Yeltsin’s complete free market “reforms” created a few dozen billionaires while leaving millions with nothing. Israel by comparison provides cheap housing to settlers (land taken by force doesn’t have to be paid for after all) and some welfare payments including child benefit to it’s citizens

Israel’s ‘Law of return’ allows anyone with one Jewish grandparent or who has converted to Judaism as a religion the right to Israeli citizenship. In practice their partners are usually granted citizenship too, unless they are Palestinians or Arabs (12).

The Israeli government is also forcibly relocating Bedouin Israeli-Arab Israeli citizens from the Negev region within Israel itself in order to make way for Jewish settlements within that part of Israel, who, like 19^th century American Indians, have been forced to move twice already (once in the 1948 war and again in the 1950s) to make way for settlers (13) – (14).

This is all part of trying to solve “the demographic problem” which is a euphemism for the Arab birth rate being higher than the Jewish birth rate within Israel and the occupied territories. The Israeli government wants to settle most of the West Bank without ending up with an Arab majority (15).

The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza serves to distract the US, the UN and international media from the West Bank and settlements. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah ended negotiations with Netanyahu’s government in November 2010 because Netanyahu refused to continue a freeze on new settlement building in the West Bank, and returned to coalition with Hamas (the other half of the elected Palestinian government since the 2006 elections) from April 2011. (16).

The useful distraction from the West Bank may well be one of the reasons the Israeli government refuses to negotiate on anything with Hamas except for ceasefire agreements, despite Hamas being half the elected Palestinian government and despite some of it’s leaders and spokesmen having offered negotiations repeatedly on the basis of the 1967 borders (17) – (18)

Whether any of these offers are genuine or not is debateable, but as many Israelis including former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet say there should be negotiations with Hamas without preconditions, because if even some of Hamas are serious about negotiations it will swing influence within the organisation in their favour if Israel actually makes any serious concessions (i.e full sovereignty for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the majority of the West Bank, including most of the water and farmland).

If Hamas are not genuine Israel has it’s overwhelming military strength not to mention the world’s only remaining superpower the US as an ally, so it has nothing to lose by negotiating – except the majority of West Bank land and water which it wants to keep for itself.

Israeli governments claim Hamas’ offers of negotiations on the basis of a ‘Hudna’ (an Islamic term from the Quran) for the 1967 borders are similarly just for an extended ceasefire and so worthless, though opinion among experts and even Hamas leaders on what a Hudna involves is divided.

 

Sources 

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 14 Nov 2012 ‘Israel threatens to overthrow Abbas over Palestinian statehood bid’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/14/israeli-minister-threatens-abbas-un ; ‘Lieberman's draft paper proposed Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state on provisional borders encompassing around 40% of the West Bank in exchange for the Palestinian leadership dropping its approach to the United Nations.’ (3rd from last paragraph)

(2) = guardian.co.uk 27 May 2009 ‘Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/27/israel-palestinian-water-dispute

(3) = Amnesty International 27 Oct 2009 ‘Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027

(4) = KIVA blog 06 Apr 2012 ‘The ABCs of West Bank Agriculture’,
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/fellowsblog/2012/04/06/the-abcs-of-west-bank-agriculture

(5) = Al Jazeera 29 Aug 2012 ‘Palestinian farmers ordered to leave lands, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/08/2012829184442780471.html

(6) = Haaretz 12 Nov 2012 ‘Netanyahu's government has quietly doubled funding for settlements, says finance minister’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-s-government-has-quietly-doubled-funding-for-settlements-says-finance-minister-1.477204

(7) = UNoCHA IRIN news 14 May 2012 ‘Analysis: Israeli government challenges the law to embrace illegal settler outposts’, http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95445/Analysis-Israeli-government-challenges-the-law-to-embrace-illegal-settler-outposts

(8) = Haaretz 12 Nov 2012 ‘Barak approves plans to build 500 new homes in West Bank settlement’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-approves-plans-to-build-500-new-homes-in-west-bank-settlement.premium-1.476862

(9) = Haaretz 30 Mar 2012 ‘Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for settlement expansion’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-defense-ministry-plan-earmarks-10-percent-of-west-bank-for-settlement-expansion-1.421589

(10) = Peace Now 23 Dec 2010 ‘Intensive construction in every other settlement’, http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/intensive-construction-every-other-settlement

(11) = Ynet News (Israel) 25 Oct 2012 ‘Netanyahu, Lieberman join forces ahead of elections’,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4297100,00.html ; ‘Nearly six months after shocking the political system by forming a unity government with Kadima, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown another curve ball and joined forces with Avigdor Lieberman ahead of the upcoming elections. In a press conference held Thursday evening, the two men announced they were uniting the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu under one ticket. …The move is aimed at creating the largest list in the Knesset elections thus guaranteeing that Netanyahu will form the next government.’

(12) = Haaretz 12 Jan 2012 ‘Supreme Court upholds ban on Palestinians living with Israeli spouses’, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/supreme-court-upholds-ban-on-palestinians-living-with-israeli-spouses-1.406812

(13) = Ynet news (Israel) 29 Sep 2012 ‘'Turning Bedouin village into Jewish settlement is racist'’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4287018,00.html

(14) = +972 magazine 02 Oct 2012 ‘Bedouin village in Negev to be destroyed, Jewish settlement to be built on site’, http://972mag.com/bedouin-village-in-negev-to-be-destroyed-jewish-settlement-to-be-built-on-site/56875/

(15) = See this web page and sources for it (please note – the claim on it that child benefit is not given to Israeli Arabs is out of date and inaccurate – I’ve since found out that there used to be a lower rate of child benefit for Israeli Arabs than Israeli Jews, but they have since been equalised – see Haaretz 16 Dec 2009 ‘BoI: Child benefits boost Arab, Haredi birthrates’,
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/boi-child-benefits-boost-arab-haredi-birthrates-1.2023 )

(16) = BBC News 21 Nov 2010 ‘Abbas rules out talks without full settlement freeze’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11806747

(17) = Haaretz 25 Dec 2011 ‘Netanyahu: Israel will not negotiate with Palestinians should Hamas join government’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-will-not-negotiate-with-palestinians-should-hamas-join-government-1.403547 ; ‘"If Hamas joins the Palestinian government we will not hold negotiations with the Palestinian Authority," said Netanyahu in a speech at a conference for Israeli ambassadors.’

(18) = Israel National News 06 Feb 2012 ‘Netanyahu to Abbas: 'You Can't Have it Both Ways',
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152462 ; ‘Israel's Prime Minister issued an ultimatum to officials in Ramallah that they must choose between Hamas and peace with Israel…. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday responded to an agreement signed by Fatah and Hamas in Doha saying the Palestinian Authority "can't have it both ways’

Why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' application for UN membership and forming a coalition with Hamas is the right move

Why the Palestinian bid for UN membership is the right move even though it will fail today

Today Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is applying to the UN for a Palestinian state. It’s a membership application which the UN is over 60 years late in granting due to repeated US vetoes (and almost certainly another today, though the General Assembly will vote in favour along with the majority of the Security Council). The same UN resolution that established a Jewish state in the former British Mandate (effectively colony) of Britain in Palestine also established a Palestinian state, but it has long since been entirely annexed by Israel (with the exception of Gaza, which is under blockade and constant attack). The West Bank, given to Palestinians by Jordan after Israel occupied it, has much of it (and the vast majority of it’s vital water supplies and farmland) taken by Israeli troops and settlers.

Abbas is well aware that the US will veto Palestinian membership at the UN. He knows that Israeli government funded lobbying, political donations and media propaganda from AIPAC (the American-Israeli Public Accounts Committee) and others means the US congress is bought up and US Presidents fear losing votes at home by opposing Israel. His move is still the right one though. It has got Israel-Palestine on the UN and the international media agenda. It's brought attention to the fact that Israeli governments, whether led by the Labor or Likud parties, are not willing to make any concessions in bilateral negotiations with Palestinians - and that no agreement that doesn't include Hamas can hold, any more than an international agreement negotiated with a US President but not approved by an elected Republican controlled congress could

That's why Obama and David Cameron's claims that this is the "wrong way" to try and get UN membership and a real Palestinian state is nonsense, largely motivated by fear of Israeli propaganda groups in their own country and funding for their parties from these groups. Palestinians have been trying to get concessions in bilateral negotiations for decades and haven't got anything because Israel is militarily far stronger and the most powerful foreign governments, instead of putting pressure on Israel to give the weaker side something, have made the scales even more imbalanced by wieghing in on the Israeli side

A majority of governments in the UN and the majority of world public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of giving Palestinians a full, sovereign state on roughly the 1967 borders. So the UN and bringing international pressure on Israel to make concessions is the way forward.

Israeli government propaganda on how Palestinians supposedly rejected generous peace offers

There’s a story that claims Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Palestinians 95% of the West Bank in the Taba negotiations in January 2001. In fact Barak offered 76% in three parts surrounded by Israeli troops and settlements (1). Barak’s negotiator , Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, said the offer was “bullshit… not aimed to reach an agreement” but to “convince Israeli Arabs to vote” for Barak in imminent elections (2).

Some people claim Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “said he will accept a Palestinian state”. In fact he’s said Israel would keep settlements and troops inside and on the borders of the Palestinian “state”, which would have no military (3) - (4). It’s Oslo and Taba again – an offer of poor inner city apartheid style ‘homelands’ surrounded by Israeli troops and settlements.

Violence – Far More Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces than Israelis killed by terrorism

This is not to mention the fact that Israeli military artillery attacks, raids, bombing, kidnappings of Palestinian MPs and "targeted assassinations" (often by air strike on family homes) in Gaza have never ended. Nor have Israeli military shootings of unarmed Palestinians and children and teenagers for throwing stones in the West Bank ended. Nor have settlements or bulldozing of Palestinian houses. This is part of a long pattern of Israeli military indiscriminate fire combined with some clearly deliberate targeting of civilians - including Palestinian children shot in the head by snipers in the street, in school or in their homes, which is as much terrorism as anything Hamas or Islamic Jihad's armed wings do.

In December 2008 to January 2009 after Palestinian rockets killed one Israeli, Israeli air strikes, artillery shelling and ground forces in Gaza killed 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians with no involvement in the rocket fire - 300 of them children in war crimes reported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B'T selem (5) - (6).

This, like Israeli military operations in Lebanon has been excused on the grounds that Hamas and Hezbollah supposedly caused all the civilian deaths by hiding among civilians. However Human Rights Watch reports based on research on the ground by former members of the US military found that in fact Israeli forces have repeatedly both deliberately targeted civilians in some cases and failed to make any attempt to avoid killing them in others (e.g by bombing houses with 1,000 pound bombs, shelling built up areas with heavy artillery). (See the blog post on this link (the section sub-titled 'Lie Three - Israeli Forces Don't Target Civilians' and sources 21 to 45 listed in it

B'Tselem also found that Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields forced to walk ahead of them at gunpoint, just as they had in Jenin and Nablus in 2002 (7).

Human Rights Watch investigators found Israeli forces shot and killed unarmed Palestinians including women and children who were waving white flags in multiple incidents during the Gaza war and found no evidence to substantiate Israeli military claims that Hamas fighters hid behind civilians (8).

The stated reason for the offensive (which began shortly before elections while the incumbent Labor government were behind the Likud opposition in the polls) was to prevent Palestinian terrorist groups' rocket fire out of Gaza. However the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website shows that in the six months before the Israel 'Operation Cast Lead' offensive (or 'Gaza war') only one Israeli civilian was killed by rocket fire from Gaza. Predictably the Israeli offensive led to a massive increase in rocket attacks in response, with three Israeli civilians killed by rocket fire from Gaza in the first three weeks of the offensive according to the same Israeli MFA website - an 2,400% increase in the rate Israeli civilians were being killed from 1 every 24 weeks to 1 every week - clearly a massive failure and counter-productive even before considering Palestinian civilian deaths.(9) Electorally it was a short-lived success though- Labor pulled ahead in the polls by looking supposedly 'tough on terrorism', but went on to lose to Likud in the elections anyway.

Israeli experts, including former Shin Bet and Mossad intelligence heads say accept Hamas offers of negotiations without preconditions

Israeli governments - whether led by the Labor, Kadima or Likud parties - have refused to recognise the result of the 2006 Palestinian democratic parliamentary elections which Hamas won, refusing repeated offers of negotiation from Hamas on the basis of the 1967 borders, imposing sanctions on the entire Palestinian Authority and collaborating with Mubarak and Bush to arm Fatah to produce a Palestinian civil war. Former heads of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet military intelligence are among those Israelis with the full facts who say negotiations with Hamas should begin without preconditions.

Even the former head of Israel's Shin Bet military intelligence, Shlomo Gazit, has called the pre-conditions the Israeli government has placed on negotiations "ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate" (quoted in the Jewish newspaper 'Forward') (10).

Efraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, says Israel should negotiate with Hamas who have shown they will keep peace agreements in the past (11).

Israeli historian and IDF veteran Avi Shlaim has written that "The only way for Israel to achieve security is…through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with [Israel] within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years." and that "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." (12)

Israeli professor Yossi Alpher has pointed out that Israel did not demand full recognition before negotiations even began when negotiating peace with Egypt or Jordan - and that if it ihad there would probably never been peace.(13)

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami is among many Israelis saying full recognition should be the end point of negotiations, it can't be a precondition for them.(14)

No agreement that excludes Hamas, who won the last Palestinian parliamentary elections, can hold. It’s like demanding a US Democrat President make an international agreement that excludes any input from a Republican controlled congress - unrealistic and undemocratic.

Israel elects war criminals, Palestinians elect terrorists – time for war criminals and terrorists to sit down and end the killing with a peace that provides Palestinians with a real state on roughly the 1967 borders

Meir Dagan, who was sacked as head of Mossad in June this year by Netanyahu, says Netanyau and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak are "irresponsible" in their refusal to make serious concessions for peace with the Palestinians and "reckless" in pushing for war with Iran (15).

Dagan was appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (and never sacked by him) so he's not exactly a liberal or dove. Sharon was a serial war criminal (which is as usual for Israeli Prime Ministers as for Palestinian leaders to be on the political wing of groups with armed terrorist wings). What was unusual was that he committed probably more war crimes (including personally targeting and killing civilians) than any other Israeli Prime Minister. These ranged from involvement in terrorism by Zionist militias against Arabs and the British before 1948, through to massacres during the 1948 war, massacres of villagers like that at Qibya in the West Bank in 1953 ( a massacre which Sharon personally took part in as an officer) and the killing of Egyptian prisoners of war and Sudanese migrant workers during the 1956 Suez war with Egypt (16) - (19). Most notoriously he was the architect of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon when he broke a ceasefire agreement under which PLO forces left by allowing Phalangist (fascist Christian Lebanese) militias to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to massacre civilians. Even an Israeli government inquiry found him personally responsible for the massacre (20). He continued ordering war crimes as Israeli Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006, including bulldozing Palestinian houses with people inside them and having Palestinian civilians, wounded fighters and ambulance crews shot in Jenin and Nablus in April 2002.

Yet Sharon was treated by US Presidents as an “ally against terrorism” and never seemed to see the hypocrisy when he condemned Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting civilians.

Nor did anyone place sanctions on Israel or refuse to negotiate with Israel until Sharon was no longer Prime Minister. Given this how can Israel and the US have a veto on who Palestinians elect. There is no side with clean hands in this conflict. All of them have blood on them. Negotiations without pre-conditions are the only way to end it.

There’s no excuse for targeting civilians, but Israel’s military has killed more civilians than all Palestinian terrorist groups combined.

Many Israeli politicians were terrorists to get their own state in the 1940s

In the late 1930s and 1940s when Zionist terrorists were killing British and Arab soldiers and civilians to get their own state, one Zionist newspaper (that of the 'Lehi' Jewish underground in Palestine) claimed “terrorism is …part of the political battle…against the occupier”. Future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzakh Shamir (he was Israeli Prime Minister twice), who ordered the assassination of UN envoy Bernadotte Folke in 1948, said that killing British soldiers by terrorism or killing civilians in “professional warfare” was “the same from a moral point of view”. So much for the differences between the Israeli government and Palestinian terrorist groups. When they had no state they did the same (21) - (23).

Sources

(1) = Professors Mearsheimer, John J. & Walt. Stephen (2007) ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’,Chapter 3, page 104 of hardback edition

(2) = Clayton E. Swisher (2004) ‘The Truth about Camp David’ Nation Books, New York, 2004,  Chapter 14 / Epilogue – The Politics of Blame,  page 403 (read this page online at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U5INKlOqNeAC&pg=PA403&lpg=PA403&dq=Amnon+Taba+bullshit&source=bl&ots=9j1oDMtnPY&sig=sKPEp-SX6QOjcyCJx-vj3Kdy5kM&hl=en&ei=Zd14Ts77Doiq8AO1_eyGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Amnon%20Taba%20bullshit&f=false )

(3) = Globe & Mail (Canada) 24 May 20011 ‘Transcript of Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to U.S. Congress’,http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/transcript-of-prime-minister-netanyahus-address-to-us-congress/article2032842/ , “In any real peace agreement, in any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel's borders. Now the precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated. We'll be generous about the size of the future Palestinian state. But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4th, 1967…. Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967....Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel….But Israel under 1967 lines would be only nine miles wide. So much for strategic depth. So it's therefore vital -- absolutely vital -- that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized, and it's vital -- absolutely vital -- that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.”

(4) = Haaretz 14 Jun 2009 ‘Full text of Netanyahu's foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan’,http://www.haaretz.com/news/full-text-of-netanyahu-s-foreign-policy-speech-at-bar-ilan-1.277922 , ‘I spoke tonight about the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarization, with solid security measures.’

(5) = Amnesty International 02 July 2009 ‘Impunity for war crimes in Gaza and southern Israel a recipe for further civilian suffering’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702

(6) = Amnesty International 02 Jul 2009 ‘Israel/Gaza: Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/015/2009/en

(7) = B'T selem 2009 'B'Tselem's investigation of fatalities in Operation Cast Lead', http://www.btselem.org/download/20090909_cast_lead_fatalities_eng.pdf

(8) = HRW 13 Aug 2009 'Israel: Investigate ‘White Flag' Shootings of Gaza Civilians',http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/08/13/israel-investigate-white-flag-shootings-gaza-civilians

(9) = Israel Foreign Ministry ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

(10) = Forward 09 Feb 2007 ‘Experts Question Wisdom of Boycotting Hamas’, http://www.forward.com/articles/10055/

(11) = Interview with Efraim Halevy in Mother Jones Magazine 10 Feb 2008 ‘Israel's Mossad, Out of the Shadows’, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/02/israels-mossad-out-shadows

(12) = Guardian 07 Jan 2009 ‘How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine by Professor Avi Shlaim ‘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.’

(13) = Forward 20 Oct 2006 ‘Preconditions for a Problematic Partner’, http://www.forward.com/articles/5948/

(14) = Times 26 Feb 2009 ‘Peace will be achieved only by talking to Hamas’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5804266.ece

(15) = guardian.co.uk 03 Jan 2011 'Israel government 'reckless and irresponsible' says ex-Mossad chief', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/israel-government-reckless-mossad-chief

(16) = Ilan Pappe (2006)'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine', One World, Oxford, 2006 - on the massacres of Palestinians by Zionist militias (many of whom would become the Israeli military and politicians) during the 1948 war)

(17) = Finkelstein, Norman (2003) 'Image and Reality of the Palestinian Conflict' (2nd edition), Verso, London and New York, 2003, Chapter 3 (massacres by Zionist/Israeli forces during the 1948 war and the 'Plan D' behind them to drive out as many Arabs as possible)

(18) = LA Times 16 Aug 1995 'Israel to Probe Deaths of Egyptian POWs in '56 : Sinai: At Cairo's request, defense officials will investigate general's claim that scores were shot.'http://articles.latimes.com/1995-08-16/news/mn-35764_1_defense-officials

(19) = Shlaim, Avi (2000) 'The Iron Wall - Israel and the Arab World', Penguin paperback, London, 2001,Ch2, pages 90 -93 (on the 1953 Qibya massacre by an Israeli unit led by Sharon in the West Bank, then part of Jordan)

(20) = Shlaim, Avi (2000) 'The Iron Wall - Israel and the Arab World', Penguin paperback, London, 2001, Ch10, p416 - 417 (on Sharon and Sabra and Shatila massacres)

(21) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing (bombing of the King David Hotel by Zionist militias) ; also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29#British_police_station_in_Haifa (truck bombing of British police station in Palestine by the Lehi Zionist militia in 1947)

(22) = Heller, Joseph (1995) ‘The Stern Gang – Ideology, Politics and Terror 1940 – 1949’ Frank Cass paperback edition, p115 (on Lehi militia’s newspaper article - full quote can be read online on this link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29#Goals_and_methods )

(23) = Bethell, Nicholas (1979) , The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle between British, Jews, and the Arabs, 1935–48, Deutsch, 1979 page 278 (Shamir quote - full quote can be read online on this link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29#Goals_and_methods )

Time for the US and European governments to stop backing dictators and occupations in the Arab world and start supporting democracy

The media coverage of the leaked ‘Palestinian papers’ – messages sent between the Israeli government and the Fatah government in the West Bank under President Abbas – and of the demonstrations across dictatorships across the Arab world from Tunisia to Egypt and Yemen, is missing the context and the key facts. The context is that the US and European governments continue their shameful support for dictatorships and appointed governments and undermine democracy across the Arab world from the West Bank and Gaza to Egypt, Saudi, Tunisia, Jordan and Libya. The fear mongering about Islamists is just a cover story – Islamic political parties are not Al Qa’ida and are often, as in Turkey, more moderate than some extreme secular nationalists. It’s time to tell our governments to back the people of the Arab world, not the dictators.

One of the big myths on Israel and the Palestinians is that Abbas and his Fatah party (the largest in the PLO) are the legitimate, elected Palestinian government, while Hamas seized power by force in Gaza.

The reality is that after EU and other election observers found Hamas won free and fair parliamentary elections in 2006, the US, Israeli and Egyptian governments refused to recognise or negotiate with them and imposing sanctions on the whole of the Palestinian Authority - pushing Hamas and Fatah into civil war - and when Hamas ended this by offering to share power with Fatah despite Fatah having lost the elections, still refusing to lift sanctions on the whole of the PA.

above - Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, elected Palestinian President in 2005

This led to renewed civil war as the US, Egyptian and Israeli governments backed a military coup attempt by Fatah's armed wing, which failed in Gaza, but succeeded in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah (elected President in 2005) then went far beyond his constitutional powers to appoint his own (completely unconstitutional and unelected) Prime Minister (Salaam Fayyad) and Cabinet, ignoring the elected PM Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

While Gaza is under blockade new elections there would be irrelevant - especially while Israel and the US and EU continue to refuse to recognise the results of past elections, which means if new elections don't go the way they want they'll ignore those too.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas - elected Palestinian Prime Minister in 2006

There will be no peace until the results of democratic Palestinian elections are respected and Hamas are included in negotiations.

Israelis have elected a string of war criminals - the worst being Ariel Sharon - but no-one places sanctions on Israel and demands they reverse the results of elections as a result.

The constant claims that Hamas aims to destroy Israel are as untrue as they are ludicrous given the respective military strengths of the former and the latter (Hamas has no nuclear weapons, nor US supplied advanced artillery, tanks, jet fighter bombers or

The claims that Hamas has refused to negotiate with Israel or to consider recognising it’s existence are also lies – they have offered to do so repeatedly – and many Israelis, from former heads of Shin Bet military intelligence and Mossad to former foreign ministers have said for years that negotiations should begin without any preconditions.

Abbas and Fatah know they will lose any elections in any case, due to their corruption and their decision to collaborate with the Israeli government against their own people. Leaked documents show they had asked Israel to make military attacks on Hamas in Gaza, asked the Israeli and Egyptian governments to tighten the blockade on Gaza (punishing not just Hamas but the whole population of Gaza); helped stall a UN report on Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war at the request of the US government;  and asked Israel to assassinate members of Fatah’s own armed wing. This just adds to Fatah’s long history of torturing and jailing it’s own people in alliance with the Israelis.

Children search for food in a rubbish dump in Gaza

No wonder Fatah sent some hirelings to attack Al Jazeera’s offices in the West Bank for publishing the leaked documents.

Far from supporting democracy for Palestinians, President Obama’s administration threatened to end US aid to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank if anyone but Abbas is elected President - leading Abbas to cancel elections in the West Bank despite his term having ended in January 2009. New legislative elections should have been held in 2010, but are just as unlikely as long as the blockade of Gaza continues.

This is nothing unusual. The US and various EU governments are hostile to democratically elected governments across the Arab world, because, from the empires established by the French and British between World War One and World War Two on, dictators have always served the interests of the wealthiest and most powerful in the “developed” world. Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi’s book ‘Resurrecting Empire’ is very informative on the continuation of these policies from 19^th century European empires to the present US led ‘war on terror’. ( To read more about the truth about the war on terror from Iraq and Iran to Somalia go here).

 While democracies want annoying things, like a decent standard of living and enough food for all their people, dictatorships will happily sell their people out for a share of the spoils.

That’s why the Obama administration continues to give massive military aid, training for police and militaries and political support for the corrupt, torturing, murdering, dictatorships across the Arab world from Saudi and Egypt to Libya, the same way the Bush administration did before them. As long as that continues Obama’s much hyped Cairo speech is so much hypocritical hot air.

Protests against the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt

It’s why, as Egyptians are currently being shot dead by Egyptian police and soldiers for demonstrating and demanding Mubarak’s dictatorship is ended, the US government has funded the arming and training of the people killing them – and President Obama – who condemned this kind of “brutal repression” when the Iranian government was responsible, has vaguely pontificated about how both Mubarak and his people should avoid “violence” as “violence in not the answer”.

It's why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, rather than backing the protesters for democracy, has claimed the Mubarak regime is "stable" (stability being the usual codeword for a client dictatorship "doing what the US government tells it to do) and that it shooting several people dead and jailing a thousand counts, for her government, as “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”.

Egyptian and former head of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, responded “"I was stunned to hear secretary Clinton saying the Egyptian government is stable. And I ask myself at what price is stability? Is it on the basis of 29 years of martial law? Is it on the basis of 30 years of [an] ossified regime? Is it on the basis of rigged elections? That's not stability, that's living on borrowed time,” said ElBaradei.

"When you see today almost over 100,000 young people getting desperate, going to the streets, asking for their basic freedom, I expected to hear from secretary Clinton stuff like 'democracy, human rights, basic freedom' – all the stuff the US is standing for," he said.

Photo: Mohamed El Baradei

Clinton's claim that Mubarak's regime is “stable” will look very stupid soon - just like Carter's similar claim about the Shah's regime a few months before it was overthrown in the 1979 revolution – “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.”

It’s also why the initial response of the French government to demonstrations against Ben Ali’s dictatorship in Tunisia was to say it would send Ben Ali’s regime some French police to help keep the demonstrators from getting out of control – before pretending, like Obama and the rest, that it had always been for democracy once Ben Ali was overthrown (while the hypocrites continue their arms sales, financial aid and political support to other dictators across the region).

Many are trying to present the demonstrations in Egypt as a choice between Mubarak or Islamic extremists. That’s very far from the truth, as Amnesty International report

‘This was a protest that crossed class, ideology and religion, and that is what scares the government, so long used to successfully playing divide and conquer among the opposition groups. “The psychological barrier of fear has been broken,”  Shadi Hamid, director of research for the Brookings Doha Center told the Washington Post, a comment repeated by several others. “Eighty million Egyptians saw [Tuesday's protests]. They saw that it’s okay to come out and that there is safety in numbers.”’

An Egyptian woman protester and riot police

The idea that Muslim equals extremist or terrorist is also ludicrous scaremongering. The ruling party in Turkey is Islamic, but considerably more democratic than the extreme nationalist secular military governments that preceded it – and have plotted failed coups against it since. Turkey’s government is no more extreme than Italian or German Christian Democrats have been in government. So assuming any dictatorship is better than allowing Muslim parties to form a government is fear mongering.

Democratically elected governments like Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and the coalition including Hezbollah in Lebanon are out of favour and the US is happy to let Israel (which pretends to be “the only democracy in the Middle East”) bomb and invade the only other two.

Abbas and Fatah are as corrupt and oppressive as most of the unpopular collaborators the US and European governments prop up

This does not make Hamas paragons of virtue – they have murdered Fatah supporting Palestinian civilians and Israeli civilians (just as Fatah have murdered Hamas supporters and Israelis and Israeli forces routinely murder Palestinian civilians) and are trying to enforce ludicrous and oppressive Islamic fundamentalism on Gazans, but the fact remains that until the US and European governments stop funding  and arming the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade on Gaza; and stop funding, arming and supporting dictatorships across the Arab world, their claims to support democracy should be met with vocal contempt by everyone; the fact remains that our allies like Fatah and our own governments have no better record on human rights or democracy in the Arab world than Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt or Jordan do; and the fact remains that we should recognise the results of free and fair elections.

Supporting dictatorships is supposedly excused by the need to keep Islamic groups out of power. What right does anyone have to tell another country what government they should elect? How likely is supporting dictatorships that murder and torture people in other countries to make their populations less extreme and more friendly towards us? Read, for instance ‘The Far Enemy’, a book by Fawaz Gerges, an expert on Jihadist groups, and you’ll find that the entire existence of Al Qa’ida and it’s decision to target the US and it’s allies are the result of our governments’ support for these dictatorships. The “near enemy” is the Jihadists’ term for the dictatorships in their own countries – the “far enemy” being the governments abroad supporting those dictatorships.

The obvious way to reduce the threat from terrorism is to stop aiding torturers and dictators – and recognise democratically elected governments, including Hamas as part of the Palestinian Authority’s government. This will weaken the armed Jihadist groups as their main recruiting points will be gone.

Seven lies that kill – and the truth on Israel , Palestine, Gaza, Fatah , Hamas and the West Bank

The continuing killing in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel can only happen thanks to seven lies which prevent negotiations and allow the killing to go on as long as enough people believe them.

There's an easier to read version of this post with contents links and links to footnoted sources on my website on this link

Lie One : Hamas are merely a terrorist group that took power by force

Condoleezza Rice told the UN Security Council, Hamas is “a terrorist organization” which came to power in Gaza by force. In fact Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and they, not President Abbas of Fatah, have the power under the Palestinian constitution to form a government. The Israeli campaign aims at overthrowing the elected government, like the US campaign against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 80s (1)– (8).

Fatah forces backed by the US, Israel and Egypt, attempted a coup in late 2007, after Israel refused to lift sanctions on a Fatah-Hamas coalition government. It failed in Gaza but succeeded in the West Bank (9) (10), (11), (12).

Another part of this lie is that Hamas members are all armed terrorists who aim to kill all non-Muslims. In fact apart from their armed or terrorist wing Hamas are also a political party and run hospitals and schools for Palestinians of all religions and none (13).

Lie Two : Hamas refuse to negotiate with Israel and aims to destroy it

In fact Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshal, two of the most senior Hamas leaders, have repeatedly said they could co-exist with Israel if Israel’s government ratified a peace agreement on a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank and a majority of Palestinians voted to approve the agreement in a referendum (polls show they would).Haniyeh has also repeatedly offered negotiations with Israel throught 2006, 2007 and 2008 . Hamas leaders are well aware that their machine guns and rockets will never defeat thousands of Israeli tanks, jets, helicopters and artillery units (14) – (20) .

Prime Minister Olmert of Israel has repeatedly refused any negotiations unless Hamas first recognises Israel in its current borders (i.e including the occupied West Bank without any Israeli commitment to recognise a viable Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank in accordance with UN resolution 242 and others) , gives up violence (which Israel won’t do, even during ceasefires) and abides by the Oslo Accords (which Israel has failed to, continuing to take Palestinian land and destroy Palestinian houses at gunpoint in the West Bank). (14) – (20) .

Lie Three : Israeli forces don’t target civilians

The driver of the U.N. truck died immediately; another worker in the truck died later of his wounds. The truck…in northern Gaza, was marked with the U.N. flag and insignia….We've been coordinating with them (Israeli forces) and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed," said a U.N. spokesman, Chris Gunness...

AP 08 Jan 2009 (24).

In fact Human Rights Watch, the UN, Oxfam, Amnesty international, the ICRC and Israeli human rights group B’T Selem have reported Israeli forces killing civilians including aid workers and ambulance crews in clearly marked ambulances and UN trucks and buildings; bombing the houses of Hamas leaders, killing their families and children with them – and using Palestinian civilians as human shields, as in past wars. So deliberate targeting of civilians has been at least as big a factor as much as “collateral damage” in killing over 250 women and children in Gaza and certainly many more adult male civilians along with Hamas rocket teams and gunmen (21) – (44) .

Comparisons with Hezbollah’s use of human shields supposedly causing civilian deaths in Lebanon in2006 have been rife. The trouble with that is that Human Rights Watch investigations found that wasn’t the cause of most of the civilian deaths in Lebanon.

“Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said …The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.”(45).

Most civilian deaths in Gaza now and in past Israeli wars are similarly caused by Israeli forces targeting civilians along with combatants as sources (21) to (45) show.

Lie Four : Military action reduces deaths from terrorist attacks and can weaken or destroy extremist groups

As with every previous military strike attacks on Israeli civilians have increased since the offensive began. The Israeli foreign ministry’s website shows one Israeli was been killed by rocket attacks by Palestinian groups firing from Gaza in the six months before the offensive (partly the result of the Israeli blockade and its violation of a ceasefire agreement by bombings killing Hamas members and civilians on November 5th). It three Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian rocket fire in the 18 days since the offensive began (46) , (47), (48).

As for “destroying” or “weakening” Hamas are there really people with decades of experience in the Israeli military and government who could have failed so completely to learn from experience as to believe bombing and shelling can do this?

Hezbollah didn’t even exist before Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon in 1982. Over the subsequent two decades of occupation it grew stronger thanks to Israeli military torture, killings of civilians and backing of nationalist militias against Hezbollah (much like its current backing of Fatah’s armed wing against Hamas in a similar strategy of divide and conquer ) (49), (50), (51), (52), (53) .

Hamas itself won the 2006 elections partly thanks to Ariel Sharon’s campaign of sanctions, bombing and invasion which attempted to overthrow Arafat’s Fatah government by force, declaring that Fatah were terrorists who couldn’t be negotiated with. That, financial corruption among Fatah’s leaders and their willingness to give information on Hamas to the Israeli military all contributed to their election defeat.

Why do Israeli planners and policy makers believe that Palestinians will give in if their fighters and civilians are killed any more than Israelis would after a suicide bombing?
Did 9-11 make Americans surrender to Al Qaeda? Of course not – it made them rally behind the extreme policies of the Bush administration.

Inflicting extreme suffering on Palestinian civilians in Gaza similarly makes them more likely to join and support extremist groups like Hamas’ armed wing – and if the bombing and sanctions continue maybe Islamic Jihad and Hizb Ut Tahrir, who, unlike Hamas’ political leaders, will make no compromises on talks with or co-existence with Israel.

Lies Five and Six : Israel has abided by the Oslo Accords and There’s Peace in the West Bank

In fact negotiations with President Abbas of Fatah in the West Bank have made no progress, partly because they can’t without Hamas, who got 45% of the vote to Fatah’s 42% in the 2006 elections – and partly because there is no peace in the West Bank because Israeli settlers and the Israeli military are killing Palestinians, destroying their homes and taking their land and water. Fatah have called the continued settlement building “a slap in the face to the Peace Process”. One hundred and thirty-one Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank in 2008, many as the Israeli army watched and did nothing. Palestinian homes have been bulldozed and Israeli settlements keep expanding and new ones are built. All of the settlers removed from Gaza with such televised wailing and theatrics were given $250,000 compensation each and re-settled on Palestinian land in the West Bank. The barrier wall keeps being built, annexing Palestinian farmland and leaving farmers with nothing (54) – (61).

Israeli forces have also killed unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank who were protesting against the bombing of Gaza (62) – (64).

The Gaza fighting provides a convenient distraction from Israel’s total failure to abide by the terms of the Oslo peace agreements, which called for an end to new settlements or the expansion of existing ones in the West Bank. Failure to sign up to the Oslo agreements is one of the charges levelled at Hamas by Israel and “the international community” (the EU, US, Chinese and Russian governments).

Lie Seven : The Israeli blockade of Gaza lets plenty of supplies in and causes no civilian suffering or deaths

Fifth, that the Israeli blockade of Gaza lets enough supplies in. In fact the UN reports severe shortages and many Palestinians searching rubbish dumps for food (65), (66). In 2007 five Palestinians in Gaza drowned in sewage because Israel wont allow spare parts for sewage treatment plants. The World Bank say a similar crisis now risks killing 10,000 people (67), (68).

What we can do

We simply need to challenge these lies and keep responding to them with the truth every time someone makes one of these claims. Repeating these lies or refusing to challenge them results in more civilian deaths in another war that doesn’t need fought.

(1) = US Department of State 08 Jan 2009, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ‘Remarks at the UN Security Council Session on the Situation in the Middle East’,
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009/01/113698.htm ; back

(3rd sentence of 5th paragraph reads ‘Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup’)

(2) = Associated Press 26 Jan 2006 , ‘Hamas Wins Landslide 76 Seats’, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/26/international/i094327S41.DTL&feed=rss.news

(3) = House of Commons Library Research Paper 06/17 ; 15 Mar 2006 , ‘The Palestinian Parliamentary Election and the rise of Hamas’, http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-017.pdf (see Section C, page 12 ‘Conduct of the Elections’ – also note the paper mistakenly gives the date of the elections as January 2005 – this must be a typo – the parliamentary elections were a year later)

(4) = Political Risk Monitor – Special Coverage - The January 2006 Palestinian Elections , ‘Palestinian elections: MEPs hail success of democratic process but urge Hamas to take the path of peace’, http://www.politicalriskmonitor.com/hamas/electobserv.shtml

(5) = Europa (EU) News Service 27 Jan 2006 ‘Palestinian elections: MEPs hail success of democratic process but urge Hamas to take the path of peace’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/030-4661-026-01-04-903-20060124IPR04643-26-01-2006-2006-false/default_en.htm

(6) = BBC News 9 Feb 2007 , ‘Palestinian rivals in unity deal’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6344297.stm

(7) = NPR 18 Mar 2007, ‘Israel Rejects Palestinians' Unity Deal’, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8983689

(8) = FMEP/Reuters 9 July 2007, ‘Abbas Exceeded Powers in Sacking Government’,
http://www.fmep.org/analysis/analysis/abbas-exceeded-powers-in-sacking-government

(9) = Haaretz (Israel) 28 Dec 2006 , ‘Israeli defense official: Fatah arms transfer bolsters forces of peace’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/806603.html ; back

(10) = Christian Science Monitor 25 May 2007, ‘Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah's fight against Hamas’, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0525/p07s02-wome.html

(11) = Guardian 26 Jun 2007, ‘A thankless task with four bosses and no office’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2111447,00.html

(12) = Israel Today 18 Jun 2007, ‘Bush to replace arms Fatah surrendered to Hamas’, http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=13150

(13) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A beginner’s guide’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006; >(13)

(14) = Telegraph 09 Feb 2006 ‘Hamas offers deal if Israel pulls out’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1510074/Hamas-offers-deal-if-Israel-pulls-out.html
; back

(15) = Guardian 4 Mar 2006 , ‘Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1723217,00.html

(16) = Guardian 22 Jun 2006 ‘Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1803184,00.html

(17) = Ynet news (Israel) 22 Dec 2007 ‘Report: Hamas weighing unconditional truce with Israel’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3485394,00.html

(18) = IHT 23 Dec 2007 ‘Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks’,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/africa/hamas.php

(19) Guardian.co.uk 21 April 2008 ‘We can accept Israel as neighbour, says Hamas’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/israel

(20) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A beginner’s guide’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006

(21) = Amnesty International 08 Jan 2009 ‘Gaza civilians endangered by the military tactics of both sides’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/gaza-civilians-endangered-military-tactics-both-sides-20090108 (2nd paragraph reads ‘“Our sources in Gaza report that Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. “This clearly increases the risk to the Palestinian families concerned and means they are effectively being used as human shields.”’) ; Back

(22) = UNoCHA 012 Jan 2009 ‘FIELD UPDATE ON GAZA FROM THE HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR 12 January 2009, 1700 hours’,
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_gaza_humanitarian_situation_report_2009_01_12_english.pdf

Under ‘Protection of Civilians’ on first page reads “The Palestinian Red Crescent Society suspended activities in the Al Zeitoun and Al Atatra regions as of 11 January after their ambulances were exposed to gunfire in those regions (on 9 and 10 January, respectively), injuring two ambulance personnel and damaging one ambulance. The Palestinian

Medical Relief Society reported on 11 January that their two mobile clinics, normally serving more than 42 Gaza communities, have not been operating since 28 December due to insecurity. Twelve medical personnel have been killed since 27 December.

The Palestinian civilian casualty rate continues to increase. Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) figures as of 1600 hours 12 January are 910 Palestinians dead, of whom 292 are children and 75 are women (correction: 71 as of 11 January). The number of injured stands at 4,250, of whom 1,497 are children and 626 are women.”

(23) = The Herald January 6 2009 ‘‘The killings came as a complete shock’’, http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.2478359.0.The_killings_came_as_a_complete_shock.php

(24) = AP 08 Jan 2009 ‘UN curbs Gaza aid after trucks hit by Israeli fire’,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD95J82Q00 ,
9th paragraph reads “"We've been coordinating with them (Israeli forces) and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed," said a U.N. spokesman, Chris Gunness, announcing the suspension. The U.N. is the largest aid provider in Gaza.” ; Back

(25) = Guardian 02 Jan 2009 ‘Israeli bomb kills Hamas leader and six of his family’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/hamas-leader-death-israel-bombing

(26) = IRIN 29 Dec 2008 ‘ISRAEL-OPT: Dire humanitarian situation looms in Gaza’,
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82131,
(see under sub-heading ‘Air Strikes’ – ‘"Eight students from Gaza Vocational Training Centre in Gaza City were killed and 20 injured? by an air strike," said UNRWA [UN Palestinian agency for refugees] spokesperson Sami Mshasha. "Two UNRWA teachers were also killed.")

(27) = UNISPAL 06 Jan 2009 ‘DIRECT HIT ON UNRWA SCHOOL KILLS THREE IN GAZA’,
http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/766674819c81f04a852575360053c075!OpenDocument

(28) = UNISPAL 06 Jan 2009 ‘Dozens killed in strikes on UN schools in Gaza’,
http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/92efe566c5e0db4c852575360065480d!OpenDocument

(29) = Haaretz 07 Jan 2009 ‘UN rejects IDF claim Gaza militants operated from bombed-out school’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053455.html(30) = Oxfam 4 Jan 2009 ‘Gaza: Oxfam supported health worker killed, ambulance destroyed’,
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/?p=2906

(31) = BBC News Online 23 Feb 2007 , ‘UN envoy hits Israel 'apartheid'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6390755.stm (UN special rapporteur John Dugard on Palestinian terrorist war crimes and Israeli war crimes)

(32) = UN Human Rights Council 8 Jun 2007 ; Fourth session Item 2 of the provisional agenda ; IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF 15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL” ; ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard’, http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=91 (ditto, Dugard reporting Israeli war crimes against civilians “on a much greater scale” than Palestinian ones)

(33) = UNRWA 10 Dec 2002 ‘Ten killed in Gaza including two UNRWA staff’,
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/AllDocsByUNID/3c74b0acd9085fc385256c8700539476

(34) = BBC News 06 Dec 2005 ‘British UN worker unlawfully shot’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/4534620.stm

(35) = Jessica Montell, Executive Director of B’Tselem (2004) ‘‘The search for truth: human rights documentation in the war of representation’ In
Humanitarian Exchange Magazine Issue 28 Nov 2004,
http://www.odihpn.org/report.asp?id=2667

(36) = Haaretz (Israel) 12 Oct 2004 ‘IDF admits Qassam was not transported in UN ambulance’,
http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0410b&L=fofognet&P=2138

(37) = UNISPAL/Human Rights Watch 13 Sep 2006 ‘Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Don't Fire on Gaza Medics ; Six Attacks on Palestinian Ambulances, Paramedics’,
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.nsf/0145a8233e14d2b585256cbf005af141/088e7c424b63cc19852571ea00536864!OpenDocument

(38) = Observer 3 Feb 2002, ‘Hatred sown in a carer's heart' http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4348774-102275,00.html

(39) = Guardian 28 Jun 2005, ‘Snipers with children in their sights’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1516362,00.html

(40) = BT’Selem eyewitness testimonies – IDF soldier shoots and kills a 14 year-old boy playing with his friends, in Tubas, north of Nablus, January 2005 - witness Abu Muhsen -
http://www.btselem.org/english/Testimonies/20050120_Salah_Abu_Muhsen_Shot_to_Death_in_Tubas_witness_Abu_Muhsen.asp

(41) = BT'Selem eyewitness testimonies - IDF soldier shoots and kills a 14 year-old boy playing with his friends, in Tubas, north of Nablus, January 2005 - witness Daragmeh - http://www.btselem.org/english/Testimonies/20050120_Salah_Abu_Muhsen_Shot_to_Death_in_Tubas_witness_Daraghmeh.asp

(42) = Summerfield, Derek ‘Palestine – The Assault on Health and Other War Crimes’,
British Medical Journal 16 October 2004 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7471/924?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Derek+Summerfield+Palestine&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

(43) = Guardian 6 Sep 2005, ‘Israeli troops say they were given shoot-to-kill order’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1563476,00.html

(44) = Guardian 6 Sep 2005, ‘Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings by army and a culture of impunity’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1563255,00.html

(45) = Human Rights Watch Aug 2006 ‘Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/08/02/israellebanon-end-indiscriminate-strikes-civilians
; Back

(46) = Israel Foreign Ministry ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm ; Back

(47) = NYT 19 Dec 2006 ‘Gaza Truce May Be Revived by Necessity’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Ethan%20Bronner%20December%202008%20gaza&st=cse

(48) = Guardian 05 Nov 2008 ‘Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians

(49) = BBC News 23 May 2000 ‘Q & A: Leaving Lebanon’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/636594.stm ; Back

(50) = Morris, Benny(1999) ‘Righteous Victims – A History of the Arab Israeli Conflict’ , John Murray, London , 2000 (hardback)edition, Chapter 12 especially pages 552-560

(51) = Time magazine 28 Jun 2006, 'Will Hizballah Go To War for Iran?', http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1208916,00.html

(52) = BBC News 25 Jan 2007, 'Who are Hamas?', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1654510.stm

(53) = Robert Fisk (1990) ‘Pity the Nation : Lebanon at War’ 3rd edition, OUP, Oxford & NY, 2001

(54) = UNOCHA Dec 2008 ‘Unprotected: Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians and their property’, http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settler_vilonce_special_focus_2008_12_18.pdf ; (54)

(55) = Amnesty International 11 Mar 2008 ‘Palestinian homes demolished without warning’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/palestinian-homes-demolished-without-warning-20080311

(56) = UN radio 11 Mar 2008 ‘UN envoy alarmed at Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes’, http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/35534.html

(57) = Independent 10 Mar 2008 ‘Israel defies freeze on illegal settlements’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-defies-freeze-on-illegal-settlements-793685.html

(58) = BBC News 02 Mar 2004 ‘Israeli settlement building grows’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3526791.stm

(59) = BBC News 27 Dec 2006 ‘Israel approves W Bank settlement’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6210721.stm

(60) = Guardian 06 Dec 2008 ‘Footage shows settlers shooting two Palestinians’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/06/settlers-shoot-palestinians-west-bank

(61) = Also see sources at the bottom of this page

(62) = Reuters 4 Jan 2009 ‘Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian WBank protester’,
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL4619326 ; Back

(63) = AP 03 Jan 2009 ‘Worldwide protests staged against Israel's offensive in Gaza’
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEng.jhtml?itemNo=1052263&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&title='Protests%20against%20Gaza%20assault%20sweep%20the%20Mideast'&dyn_server=172.20.5.5 – “Protests erupted as well in the Palestinian territories. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, thousands demonstrated in solidarity with Gazans, calling for Palestinian unity and accusing Arab leaders of silence over Israel's bombardment”

(64) = The Herald January 6 2009 ‘‘The killings came as a complete shock’’,
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.2478359.0.The_killings_came_as_a_complete_shock.php

(65) = UN 29 Dec 2008 ‘PRESS CONFERENCE on situation in gaza’,
http://un.org/News/briefings/docs/2008/081229_Gaza.doc.htm
(4th paragraph includes ‘Because of the blockade that had been in place for months and the recent tightening of that blockade, the stocks of some vital items were very low or non-existent. Today, however, around 60 truckloads of goods had been allowed in, including 4 trucks of medical supplies for UNRWA and 18 trucks of food supplies for UNRWA and the World Food Programme (WFP). UNRWA needed about 100 trucks of wheat flour a day’) ; Back

(66) = Observer 21 Dec 2008 ‘Israeli blockade 'forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food'’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/israel-gaza-strip-middle-east

(67) = Times 27 Mar 2007 ‘Five dead in Gaza 'sewage tsunami'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1576633.ece
; Back

(68) = AFP 07 Jan 2008 ‘Threats to Gaza sewage put 10,000 lives at risk: World Bank’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090107/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazahumanitariansewage_newsmlmmd

copyright©Duncan McFarlane2008