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Israel's right or not to exist - The facts and truth

Alan Hart
Alan Hart Commentary
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:39 EST

Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the "Palestinian leadership", presumably the leadership of "President" Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.

Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.

"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying 'No' to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours - say 'Yes' to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace... Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth - that without this recognition there can be no peace... There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."

As Ha'aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him "a way on ensuring recognition of Israel's right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel" (my emphasis). This, as Ha'aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Aditya Ganapathiraju
Palestine Monitor
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:19 EST

More than 95% children in Gaza experienced artillery shelling in their area or sonic booms of low flying jets

It's the most terrifying place I've ever been in... it's a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa. - Professor Edward Said 1993 [1]

They may be living but they're not alive. - Journalist Philip Rizk [2]

Gaza is a place that needs a million psychologists. - Ayed, a psychotherapist from Northern Gaza [3]

Over 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating effect on Gaza; airstrikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and their sonic booms have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza's most vulnerable inhabitants.[4]

Natanya Ginsburg
International Middle East Media Center
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:09 EST

Qalandiya
Monday afternoon, 2.11.2009
Phyllis W. and Natanya G. (reporting)

15:30: We drove past Atarot CP on our way to Qalandiya. Twenty-five vehicles were wending their way slowly past the CP.

15:40 - Qalandiya: Already on our arrival a Palestinian ran to ask us to go into the checking area where an elderly couple from Gaza had had their permit to return home confiscated. We found them and discovered that the man had had an operation (we think he had a stent inserted). A taxi to take them to Erez CP was waiting on the Jerusalem side of Qalandiya, but when they tried to go through the CP, their permit was taken from them and they were told to return to Ramallah. They had no where to go and no money left -- the woman was in tears. Phyllis phoned operations headquarters and asked to be connected with the DCO representative. It turned out that the couple was expected and after a short interval they were allowed into the DCO area.

Myra Noveck
New York Times
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:52 EST

Israeli Navy commandos seized a cargo ship early Wednesday in the Mediterranean Sea that Israeli officials said was carrying rockets and ammunition bound for Hezbollah militants.

Israel intercepted the ship, which was sailing under an Antiguan flag, near Cyprus, 100 miles west of the Israeli coast, and took it to the Ashdod harbor in southern Israel.

"As of now, what we know is that this was a smuggling attempt to arm Hezbollah with terrorist means against civilians," Shaul Mofaz, a member of the Parliament and a former defense minister, told Israel Radio. "The intent was to send arms, mainly missiles and launchers, meant to strike civilian targets."

News reports quoted the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and other officials saying the ship had been carrying the arms from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, but officials released no evidence to support those claims.

Comment: As is typical in these one-sided reports, Israeli claims with zero evidence are taken as truth in "the paper of record." Not even an attempt at unbiased reporting - by at least mentioning the over 1400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by the Israeli war machine in their latest slaughterfest compared to the handful of Israeli soldiers - was made.

South Africa's legal war over Gaza

Imran Garda
Al Jazeera
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:09 EST

The Goldstone report on last winter's Gaza war has become something of a fixture in the media since its publication in September.

But for South Africans, it is another investigation carried out by the distinguished judge Richard Goldstone - a commission that exposed the brutality of Apartheid security forces in the early 1990s - that looms large in their minds.

That investigation, which came as South Africa moved towards democracy, gave Goldstone hero status in the country.

Comment: Israel was the only supporter of South Africa during its apartheid days. Harldy a character reference. For a more sobering look at the relationship between two psychopathic regimes, see: Ethnic Specific Weapons

It is to present-day South Africa's credit that they are moving ahead with prosecuting those who were party to war crimes in Gaza, a task the West is apparently too morally bankrupt to accomplish.

Rami Almeghari
The Electronic Intifada
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:17 EST

© Rami Almeghari
Workers in Gaza remove rubble from last winter's attacks. With no construction materials being allowed into the besieged territory, much of Gaza remains devasted

Azzam Salim used to be one of the leading construction contractors in the central Gaza Strip. Today, however, he spends most of his days idly chatting with other unemployed friends near a bank that he helped build several years ago.

"As a human first and foremost, I need to live normally like before. This situation is unprecedented -- before the siege was enforced here, I didn't have time to sit. But now things have changed, now we are professional talkers."

What prevents Salim from returning to work is the lack of raw building materials in the Gaza Strip, due to Israel's crippling Israeli blockade of the territory since June 2007. In March 2009, international donors including the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia met in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh pledging at least $4 billion to reconstruct Gaza following last winter's 22-day Israeli invasion of the territory. However, the promised funds have yet to reach Gaza as the international community continues to boycott the governing Hamas party.

Al Jazeera
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:09 EST

The United Nations General Assembly is debating a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

The Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, has already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, which sponsored the fact-finding commission.

The draft under debate at the UN calls on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate accusations of human-rights violations during the 22-day conflict in December and January. The resolution, if adopted, would call upon Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, to take the report to the UN Security Council.

Aron Heller
Associated Press
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:49 EST

Open crates from a cargo ship seized Wednesday by Israel revealed dark green missiles inside. Containers from the vessel bore writing in English that said "I.R. Iranian Shipping Lines Group."

Israel alleged that the shipment of hundreds of tons of rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades and anti-tank weapons - the largest it ever seized - was headed for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Israel stopped the ship, named the Francop, off the coast of Cyprus and towed it to the port of Ashdod. It carried orange, red, white and blue containers piled three deep on its deck. Rows of crates from the vessel were displayed on the dock, and inside were rockets, hand grenades, mortars and ammunition. At least 3,000 missiles were on board, the Israeli military said.

Report: Palestinians denied water

BBC News
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:23 EDT

Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water, Amnesty International says.

In a report, the human rights group says Israeli water restrictions discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

It says that in Gaza, Israel's blockade has pushed the already ailing water and sewage system to "crisis point".

Israel says the report is flawed and the Palestinians get more water than was agreed under the 1990s peace deal.

Jeffrey Heller
Reuters
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:04 EST

© Reuters/Thaer Ganaim/PPO/Handout
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) stands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Abu Dhabi October 31, 2009, in this picture released by the Palestinian Press Office (PPO)

Pointing an accusing finger at the United States, the Palestinians on Sunday said Washington's backing for Israeli refusal to halt Jewish settlement expansion had killed any hope of reviving peace negotiations soon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, buoyed by new-found support from the Obama administration, urged the Palestinians to "get a grip" and drop their settlement freeze precondition for restarting talks suspended since December.

On a one-day Middle East visit on Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed Israel's view that settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank should not be a bar to resuming negotiations -- contradicting the Palestinian position.

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