Category: Gaza

An Attack too Close to Home

More from Safa Joudeh who describes the targeting of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Headquarters and the evacuation of her home.

We WON’T be victimized: An attack too close to home

La Repubblica, January 17th 2009

I thought I was dreaming, or still hearing explosions. After all I’d only been asleep for an hour and a half, and it wasn’t far fetched that the tanks may be firing from outside our front door. Wednesday night into Thursday morning had seen the most intense bombardment of Gaza city so far, and last I’d heard before drifting off was that the Israeli forces had advanced as far as the end of our streets, into the Tel al Hawa neighborhood. They’d already seized buildings there, so what’s to prevent them from making their way a little further in.
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Palestinian Resistance

This was written a couple of days ago so while things have progressed since then the essence still holds true, Safa Joudeh in Gaza:

The truth will come out
La Repubblica, January 15th 2008

“Common knowledge” is a term with subjective reference to the general information widely known within a particular environment/location. This information is readily available to people through direct exposure to, and everyday encounters with the forms in which it presents itself. In reference to my situation as a resident of Gaza for example, it’s common knowledge among the Gaza community that Israel is an occupying power that aims at undermining Palestinian self determination and autonomy. It’s also common knowledge that during this attack Israeli forces strike blindly while assuming political justifications that bare no relevance to the situation on the ground. Another piece of common knowledge is that the Palestinian resistance is not a group of crazed Hamas gorillas brandishing their M16 and launching rockets into southern Israel for the sake of maintaining their presence and authority over the people of Gaza.

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Children suffer in Israel’s war on Gaza

More Al Jazeera: Gaza Babies Born into War

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Why the Gaza Calm Crashed

Israel gaza protest

Alistair Crooke, of the Conflicts Forum, has written three articles over the course of the ongoing massacre in Gaza, the best of which, Why the Gaza Calm Crashed, is included below. In it Crooke explains, more clearly than any other commentator, how the Israeli cease-fire was really designed to illegally collectively punish the Gazan people until they rejected, their democratically elected leadership, Hamas.

When Israel therefore offered a renewal of this “cease-fire” agreement, rejecting Hamas’ terms for lifting the blockade on the people of Gaza, Hamas had a difficult choice: continue a brutal siege collectively punishing 1.5 million Gazans, designed to oust Hamas themselves from power, or reject it. Cooke paints a nuanced and bleak picture of, US backed, Israeli aggression or what others call the “cease-fire.”

It’s worth noting that the world view, mentioned by Crooke, of “moderates” versus “extremists” is championed and promoted in the West by the Neocon Israel firsters and is designed to best serve Israel’s interests in the region.  You have to be pro-Israel, or exceptionally ignorant, or like Blair, possess both these qualities, to see the country as “moderate” in the first place.

Many have asked in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, how Hamas, if it saw the consequences of ending the ceasefire — and Hamas did foresee the likelihood of disproportionate Israeli military action — nonetheless could have acquiesced to the inevitable bloodshed — bloodshed that an Israeli army, fixated on restoring its deterrence after its failed 2006 war with Hesballah, would visit on the citizens of Gaza. Some may read into this decision the cynicism of a movement that prioritises resistance; but to do so would be to misread how Hamas analyses their situation and understands the nature of resistance.

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LRB contributors react to events in Gaza

Contributors to the London Review of Books — the best publication out there — react to events in Gaza.

Tariq Ali

A few weeks before the assault on Gaza, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army published alevelheaded document on ‘Hamas and Israel’, which argued that ‘Israel’s stance towards the democratically-elected Palestinian government headed by Hamas in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence – legal, territorial, political and economic – has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking.’ Whatever their reservations about the organisation, the authors of the paper detected signs that Hamas was considering a shift of position even before the blockade:

It is frequently stated that Israel or the United States cannot ‘meet’ with Hamas (although meeting is not illegal; materially aiding terrorism is, if proven) because the latter will not ‘recognise Israel’. In contrast, the PLO has ‘recognised’ Israel’s right to exist and agreed in principle to bargain for significantly less land than the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it is not clear that Israel has ever agreed to accept a Palestinian state. The recognition of Israel did not bring an end to violence, as wings of various factions of the PLO did fight Israelis, especially at the height of the Second (al- Aqsa) Intifada. Recognition of Israel by Hamas, in the way that it is described in the Western media, cannot serve as a formula for peace. Hamas moderates have, however, signaled that it implicitly recognises Israel, and that even a tahdiya (calming, minor truce) or a hudna, a longer-term truce, obviously implies recognition. Khalid Mish’al states: ‘We are realists,’ and there is ‘an entity called Israel,’ but ‘realism does not mean that you have to recognise the legitimacy of the occupation.’ Continue reading “LRB contributors react to events in Gaza”

Chomsky on Gaza

An article on the lecture can be read here, the following audio is from Open Media Boston:

Cambridge, MA – Prof. Noam Chomsky spoke to a capacity crowd of over 200 people yesterday at the Chomsky on Gaza Public Forum at the Wong Auditorium at MIT. The event was sponsored by the MIT Center for International Studies and its Program on Human Rights and Justice.

Chomsky on Gaza (1:10:57):  OGG | MP3 | Video

Some Israeli military officials back an immediate Gaza cease-fire

According to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni the IDF offensive has been “serving the interest of the Palestinian people” but, as the Haaretz makes clear, it no longer serves Israel’s interests as defence officials back an immediate Gaza cease-fire. The military establishment has concluded that escalating the conflict by launching phase three would be unwise. They feel that Israel “achieved several days ago all that it possibly could in Gaza” and are even prepared to withdraw before they have a UN force on the Egyptian border (to block the smuggling of basic food and medicines among other things – infuriating when your trying to starve a defenceless population into submission).

One might ask, what have they achieved? They have committed, according to the UN President of the General Assembly, acts of genocide against the Palestinian people and have yet failed in their goals of eliminating Hamas, stopping the rockets, or even blocking the Palestinain supply route through Egypt.

In short, Israel’s attempt to militarily dominate the Palestinian people has been a complete failure. Will the massacre of Palestinians have helped Kadima and Labour defeat Likud in the election?  I have a sick feeling it will.  I’ve heard of blood for oil, now Israel has brought us blood for votes.

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Chronology: Which Side Violated the Ceasefire?

A much needed historical corrective by Howard Friel to the amnesia that seems to have engulfed much of mainstream media coverage of the war on Gaza:

Introduction

June 18, 2008

Israel has approved a ceasefire to end months of bitter clashes with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed. Under the terms of the truce, which is set to begin Thursday (June 19), Israel will ease its blockade on the Gaza Strip. At the same time, talks to release an Israeli soldier [Gilad Shalit] held by Hamas would intensify, an Israeli official said. Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it is confident that all militants will abide by the truce [by not firing rockets into southern Israel]. The agreement is supposed to last six months. (Emphasis added) (“Israel Agrees to Gaza Ceasefire,” BBC, June 18, 2008)
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Hamas and the Arab world

Part 2 of an inteview with Eric Margolis.  View part 1: who or what is Hamas or watch the The Real News report on Israeli troops attacking Gaza city.

The following is a comment on the Real News website:

“Hamas asked for it? I found, the normally rational and intelligent Jay Walker falling short of my expectations. Even CNN reported that Israel broke the truce on several occasions, not to speak of the many month long blockade. So how exactly did Hamas ask for it? Numerous peaceful attempts to block the blockade by international peace activists were attempted, but like everything else it was hardly covered in the mainstream press. Yes, non-violent resistance is wonderful, but it requires a media whose reach is far and wide, something that the Palestinains have never had at their disposal. I’m also been surprised by how little the real news has covered the crisis in Gaza. I would have expected them to have had several of these types of interviews already. It is Day 19 of this genocide. And its remarkable how we can sit around and say, yeah Hamas asked for genocide. How exactly does one do that?” Husaini

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