Israeli Forces into Gaza City;
Hamas Fighters Brace for Guerrilla Actions
Israeli war planes bombed densely populated Gaza 12 times Sunday night through Monday morning, even as Israeli reservists were sent into the territory and troops engaged in firefights with local forces. Israel postponed the dispatching of its chief negotiator to Cairo, something originally planned for Monday.
Cont'd
Hamas fighters hope to use urban guerrilla tactics to up the Israeli army death and casualty toll, aware that the Israeli publicis averse to heavy losses. Analysts say that even if Israel kills 500 Hamas, the organization is confident that the Gaza public will be so angry about Israel's invasion that recruiting another 500 to replace them will be no problem.
The al-Mezan Center for Human Rights rounds up the statistics it can verify for deaths, injuries, and displaced persons among the Palestinians of Gaza as of late Sunday. They estimate nearly 3,000 wounded, of whom 600 are children and 385 women. While human rights organizations are saying 20,000 Gazans have been made homeless and sought refuge in shelters, al-Mezan thinks the number is actually as high as 200,000 displaced. (Gaza's population is 1.5 million).
Russia Today has video of the Israeli advance into Gaza City:
Israel's war on Gaza is actually increasing the popularity in the Muslim world of radical fundamentalist movements. To the extent that Israel's military might has cowed governments such as Jordan and Egypt into passively accepting the attack, Israel's actions are undermining their legitimacy further and increasing the distance between their people and states. So say the analysts quoted in this AFP article. Sounds about right to me. I the past, Israel contributed significantly to the rise of Hizbullah and Hamas, which it now says are its primary regional enemies.
The attack on Gaza has made Mahmoud Abbas extremely unpopular among Palestinians, even more than before. You wonder if he could win another election.
Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah of Lebanon called for a coordinated strategy among Egypt, Turkey and Iran to offset what he sees as overwhelming Israeli military supremacy in the Middle East. I need to look at the Arabic source here because this idea makes no sense as reported in the Lebanese press. Turkey is an active ally of Israel, Egypt has a peace treaty with it; both are predominantly Sunni countries, one with a strongly secular constitution and the other with a more or less secular outlook at the upper echelons; and neither like the government of Iran, which is Shiite and fundamentalist. I can't imagine the three of them cooperating at all, much less against Israel.
Switzerland is the only European country to support a UN resolution backed by 32 member states condemning Israel for human rights violations against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. The only one?
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is sending humanitarian aid to Gaza and denouncing Israel. Chavez in the past had cultivated fair relations with Israel, so this level of rhetoric against it seems to me new. Chavez has an Arab-Venezuelan minority and has been exploring deals with Syria and Iran as a way of evading Washington's economic and banking boycotts.
Aljazeera English explores how things went downhill in Gaza after the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from inside the Gaza Strip.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/12/2009 01:10:00 AM
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16 Comments:
I came across this just yesterday in Thomas Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Although written in the early sixties and referring to America it seems very appropriate today given the situation in Gaza.
In politics, as in everything else, pharisaism is not self-righteousness only, but the conviction that, in order to be right, it is sufficient to prove that somebody else is wrong. As long as there is one sinner left for you to condemn, then you are justified! Once you can point to a wrongdoer, you become justified in doing anything you like, however dishonest, however evil.[1]
It would seem that in Israel, even after two thousand years, pharisaism flourishes.
[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Sheldon Press, London, 1977, p. 74
What I read in the English-language Egyptian press makes me also quite worried about the sorts of instabilities (and not in any good way) that may arise from increased Islamic fundamentalist activities to challenge the Mubarak regime.
And it's not that there's anything good about the Mubarak regime, just that I see things heading toward increased nastiness in regime vs. Muslim Brotherhood context all around.
Does the concept of Gaza as Warsaw Ghetto come to anyone else's mind?
The ironies are many, bitter, and deep.
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. M. Twain
Hey Juan,
Don't forget part 2 of "Gaza: the road to war":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWOPB5w1g2E
The item about Switzerland appears to refer to a call for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, which has
subsequently taken place.
Now, it is true that some of the current members of this council need to improve their own human rights situations. But does that invalidate everything they say? I think not.
Just a suggestion... Thinking out of the box if you will.
The simple reason why Israel has been committing its atrocities is that it knows full well that Arab countries are not going to do much about it. It has cornered 1-2 million Palestinians with no means to defend themselves and using them to make the rest of the Arab world fearful of Israel.
Why not have American organization organize peaceful rallies in the Arab world, or organize non-violent and open means to break the Israeli blockades.
The key should be to make sure Israel and Palestinians know that the the Palestinians, no matter how out gunned they are, they are not helpless. We need solution that would make Israel think twice about it behavior AND make sure to limit the revenge response that would surely come from people that are completely hopeless about their future.
Although you haven't touched on this yet, I'm looking forward to your take. Josh Marshall is reporting that Israel has banned Arab political parties from the upcoming election. Josh is left speechless. Rightly so, because it is the next step down the road to apartheid. Israel can still call itself a Democracy, but who will believe it?
Apparently Kucinich is working on a more helpful resolution re. Gaza:
http://endtheoccupation.org/downloads/KUCINI_001_xml.pdf
Juan, there is a truly extraordinary article about Bush being interrupted during a speech so he can take orders from PM of Israel Olmert (and the pay off is that of course Bush comes off t he podium, takes his orders and does what Olmert demands). Surely this deserves an article if you have the time.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gD-QcI_C-CrcqfSZBh6A5_e514Zw
Thank you for your guts and determination.
Switzerland is the only European country to support a UN resolution backed by 32 member states condemning Israel for human rights violations against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. The only one?
Switzerland is the only European country with any measure of direct democracy. Check out Title 4 Chapter 2 of the Swiss Constitution : Initiative and Referendum.
The numbers speak for themselves: Since the beginning of the attack on Gaza on December 27 the number of Palestinians killed has surpassed 900. Lebanon’s daily star reports that 275 of these are children. The Israelis maintain that only 50% of the fatalities are civilian and that Hamas is guilty of using civilian shields. The IDFs prohibition on journalists entering Gazard party documentation is scanty. However, U.N officials have accused Israel of: means that independent 3
• Using powerful shells in civilian areas that the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties.
• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs.
• Holding Palestinian families as human shields.
• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked ambulances
• Killing large numbers of policeman who had no military role.
Meanwhile the killing goes on and on. For some historical perspective keep the following “Palestine Index” in mind and use these figures when you write your newspapers and congressional representatives.
· Number of Israelis killed from the beginning of the second intifada in September of 2000 through November 2008. 1065
· Number of Palestinians killed by Israelis during that period. 5200
· Number of Israeli children killed. 123
· Number of Palestinian children killed 1050
· Number of Israeli children killed in the first 4 months (Sept-Dec 2000) of the intifada. 0
· Number of Palestinian children killed during that time. 74
· Number of Israelis killed by Hamas rocket fire since 2000. 15
· Total number of Israelis killed by Palestinians in the first 11 months of 2008. 29
· Number of Palestinians killed in the first 11 months of 2008. 432
· Number of these who were children. 70
· Number of Israeli traffic fatalities in the first 11 months of 2008. 437.
Somehow, I think it's Israel's nuclear arsenal (provided by the United States) that deters huff and puff from nearby arabic states.
Considering how bold and cornered the Israelis' are, they can't be trusted to not use their nuclear weapons.
The World's Greatest Secret: Israel has a nuclear arsenal.
@JeffGuy-
While I don't dispute that Israel has the US under its thumb Bush did not get down off the podium to take the call. Unfortunately, that would have made a great video. The speech was from 11:19AM to 11:46AM. The security council met from 9:15PM to 10:15PM that evening. There is also a video of the speech which I wasted 20 minutes watching before I realized the Security Council meeting was at night. Damn, I would have killing for that video clip.
Juan, I look forward to your thoughts on the Banned Arab parties.
Best.
What about a boycott and call for divestment in Israel?
It worked for South Africa which was similarly very antithetical to treating a certain group of people under their control well, too.
Also, the boycott and divestment will last much longer than their ability to smash a concentration camp that is the size of DC.
Israeli leaders expect to win an election over this horrendous war, but to have those who are outraged today calm down and continue with business as usual just as soon as the troops are finished with this wholesale slaughter.
The only way, it seems to me to keep Israel from starting another war when another election is coming is for people who hate seeing what is happening is to boycott products from Israel and to divest from companies financially involved with the nation.
In response to Jeff's comment of:
"... because it is the next step down the road to apartheid." and speaking as a south african who grew up under apartheid, I'd like to make clear that Israel is already an Apartheid state and has been for some time. There is no "next step", just because there are a few "pet gerbil" token israeli arab parties in the Knesset does not change that fact.
John Francis Lee wrote :
Switzerland is the only European country with any measure of direct democracy. Check out Title 4 Chapter 2 of the Swiss Constitution : Initiative and Referendum.
This is right, but probably not what is determinant here. Our direct democracy is a very slow motioning structure, not adapted to the management of day to day political action.
a) Switzerland is the seat of the ICRC and as such has always had more interest in the applications of the Geneva Conventions and the humanitarians laws in general.
b) Our foreign minister is a wonderfull woman of the Socialist Party, who was formerly living in Geneva and who has always had humanitarian laws at heart and who is also a staunch supporter of the reformed UN Humanright Council.
c) Concerning the other EU countries, the political configuration isn't the best one for the Palestinians actually : Sarkozy is probably one of the more americanophile French president ever and the EU is now headed by Tchekoslovakia whose president is also the member of a right wing populist party. Add to that the Brittish who blindly follow the US in the worst military adventures, Merkel whose country is still fighting the guilt of the between wars genocide of the Jews (and thusly tend to stay mute on the issue), the return of the right wing and proUS Berlusconi in Italy.. this doesn't leave many other EU countries who could be more sympathetic to the Palestinians.
d) Sarkozy has been the more active on the scene, meeting with Egypt first and then making a tour in other Arab capitals.. but he will work for a return of Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah and against the Hamas; I'm sure that he is working at a Lebanese like situation, where there will be an international force around Gaza, like in South Lebanon and where the Fatah will be called to replace the Hamas whose structures have been destroyed by Israel. I think that this is the goal of Israel and all the Westerners actors in this war.
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