Category: Israel

Rashid Khalidi on Gaza

I’m no big fan of Rashid Khalidi. He is a rather tame academic, not quite the fighter that Edward Said was. When in 2007 the London Review of Books organized a symposium in New York on the Israel Lobby, he, to the bemusement of his own debating partners, spent the better part of his time arguing against his own side. Like many veterans of the PLO, he remains too much of a Fatah man to be a spokesman for all Palestinians. He recently made comments during his trip to Egypt which could have come from Muhammad Dahlan’s script. However, now it appears even he is finding it hard to be a Fatah man. The following is a more nuanced analysis of the Gaza situation than his earlier words in Egypt but he takes a few disingenuous digs at Hamas all the same.

It is commonplace to talk about the ‘fog of war’, but war can also clarify things. The war in Gaza has pointed up the Israeli security establishment’s belief in force as a means of imposing ‘solutions’ which result in massive Arab civilian suffering and solve nothing. It has also laid bare the feebleness of the Arab states, and their inability to protect Palestinian civilians from the Israeli military, to the despair and fury of their citizens. Almost from the moment the war began, America’s Arab allies – above all Egypt – found themselves on the defensive, facing accusations of impotence and even treason in some of the largest demonstrations the region has seen in years. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hizbullah in Lebanon, reserved some of his harshest criticism for the Mubarak regime; at Hizbullah rallies, protesters chanted ‘Where are you, Nasser?’ – a question that is also being asked by Egyptians.

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New Middle East


Contrary to criminal US-Israeli plans, the new Middle East emerging is one of the triumphs of Arab resistance, writes Ramzy Baroud:

When Israel unleashed its military fury against Lebanon for several weeks in July-August 2006, it had one major objective: to permanently “extract” Hizbullah as a fighting force from South Lebanon and undermine it as a rising political movement capable of disrupting, if not overshadowing, the “friendly” and “moderate” political regime in Beirut.

As Israeli bombs fell, and with them hundreds of Lebanese civilians and much of the country’s infrastructure, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sprung into action. She too had one major objective: to delay a ceasefire, which the rest of the international community, save Britain, desperately demanded. Rice, merely but faithfully reiterating the Bush administration’s policy, hoped that the Israeli bombs would succeed in achieving what her government’s grand policies failed to achieve, namely a “New Middle East”.

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Rumbling from Gaza

The rumbling from Gaza, writes Hassan Nafaa, is the overture to something truly momentous.

The birth of the Arab system is usually associated with the creation of the Arab League (AL), in 1945. But two earlier developments paved the way for the AL’s creation. One was that Egypt, acting as the key country in the region, had a clear vision of what it wanted to do and was ready to act on that vision when regional and international circumstances were right — which is exactly what happened after the end of WWII. The other was that the conflict in Palestine had reached a point where most Arab countries recognised the danger posed by the creation of an independent Jewish state in their midst.

Reeling from the protracted fighting of World War II, Britain gave its endorsement for any scheme promoting unity among the Arabs. The endorsement, which was made public in 1943, was aimed to deter Arab countries from siding with Germany. Egypt, at the time ruled by a Wafd government led by Mustafa El-Nahhas, saw its chance. Soon it opened bilateral and multilateral consultations with Arab countries in an effort to lay down the framework of a regional political structure. The AL came into being as a result. It wasn’t a first step towards federalism as many hoped but a congregation of seven semi-independent countries willing to pass resolutions by consensus, more of a political club than a blueprint for unity.

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Galloway on Gaza

George Galloway, the finest speaker in the British Parliament, lambasts the Government for its complicity in the Gaza massacre, suggesting it takes a more active, just, role in resolving the conflict, given its responsibility dates as far back as 1917 when Arthur Balfour promised Zionist colonisers a home in Palestine.

It’s worth remembering Zionist influence is an important factor in Parliament: from Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann who lobbied for a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine to the modern day Friends of Israel groups that organise brainwashing trips for MPs to Sderot (the first stop on these trips is predictably the holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, designed to remind leaders the coloniser is really the eternal “victim”).

Al Jazeera: Robert Fisk on Gaza

Robert Fisk on Al Jazeera maintaining that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 is central to the issue of justice and therefore peace in the region.  Could you imagine such frankness on the BBC?  They’d probably call it the disputed dispossession if they ever mentioned it.

Just as an example lets look at the main article, by Jeremy Bowen, in a section on the BBC website titled Israel at 60.  Discussing 1948, Bowen states:

The reasons why the refugees left their homes are still bitterly contested, by historians as well as by leaders and activists.

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Israeli Ministers to be Dispatched on Propaganda Missions Abroad

The National Information Directorate is a new Israeli spin body set up less than a year ago following the recommendations of the  Winograd inquiry into Israel’s failures in Lebanon.  According to Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office website the directorate is coordinating a new campaign of lobbying and spin across Europe, directed at politicians and the media, focussing on Israeli “security” issues.

15/01/2009

The National Information Directorate and the Cabinet Secretariat, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, have decided to dispatch Government ministers on information missions abroad, starting in the coming days.  In the framework of the information efforts, it was decided to send ministers on diplomatic and media activity in various European countries.  Each minister will go on a short mission to one or two countries, including Belgium, Austria and Ireland.  The possibility of sending abroad residents of the south in order to give firsthand accounts of the security reality in which they have lived for years.  Israeli embassies will formulate agendas for the ministerial visits, including meetings with political officials and media interviews.

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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