how will the Gaza situation end?

[Stichman]

Hamas began in 1987 as an alternative to the PLO. They strive for a Palestinian state including the entirety of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. Although they claim to be a political organisation, huge swathes of their aims, charters and statement reflect anti-Semitic ideologies. It is worth remembering that Hamas arent the only militant Islamist organisation operating in the area; what about Islamic Jihad? Or the Popular Resistance Committees?

And even with the settlers withdrawn, Israeli soldiers still functioned in areas, controlling all the access points, incomings and outgoings into and out of Gaza.

What? Of course Israel insists on controlling the access points. Here are just a few reasons...

July 22, 2008: Sixteen people were wounded when a man drove a bulldozer into a bus and four other vehicles in central Jerusalem. The attack was an attempted copycat of an earlier attack on Jerusalems Jaffa Road on July 2, 2008. The terrorist was shot dead by police.

July 2, 2008: An Arab resident of Jerusalem deliberately drove a bulldozer into pedestrians and vehicles in central Jerusalem, overturning and flattening a number of buses and cars. Three people were killed and 66 injured in the attack.

April 9, 2008: Two Israeli civilians were killed and two wounded when Palestinian terrorists attacked an Israeli-controlled border crossing where fuel is piped into Gaza. The attack at the Nahal Oz depot was carried out by members of various terrorist movements, including the Popular Resistance Committees.

March 6, 2008: Eight men, seven of them teenagers, were killed when a Palestinian gunman entered the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem and opened fire. The terrorist also wounded nine in the attack before he was killed at the scene.

February 4, 2008: A 73-year-old woman was killed and 40 people were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a shopping center in the southern city of Dimona. A second bomber was shot by a police officer who noticed him reaching for his explosive belt. Both Hamas armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, and Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.

January 24, 2008: Two terrorists entered the Mekor Hayim High School Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and stabbed two students. The terrorists were killed by two of the counselors in the room. The Izaddin al-Kassam's Martyrs Brigades, the Hamas military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.

January 24, 2008: Rami Zoari, 20, from Beersheba, a border police officer, was killed and another female officer was seriously wounded after terrorists approached the entrance to Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of Israelis. The Battalions of Struggle and Return, a previously anonymous offshoot of Fatah's Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israel will continue to fiddle with goings on in Palestinian politics, supporting/condemning certain factions which fit a certain criteria on a certain day

Yeah I agree, certain terrorist factions which fit the criteria of wanting to wipe them off the face of the earth. The international community as a whole fails to recognise the rule of Hamas; it is not just Israel who object.

Under international law Israel has the right to a proportionate response to Hamas attacks and this where your supposed "irrelevant" factor comes into play. 11 compared to 1,290 really isn't proportionate

What about 9/11 versus the Afghanistan/ Iraq wars? That did not involve a proportional level of casualties, but Tony Blair didnt feel the need to raise the subject of proportionality in that particular instance. This perfectly outlines the difference it makes when it is your country that is being targeted; its easy to judge from a distance, less so when faced with the situation yourself.

In reality, the argument of proportionality is not valid when dealing with terrorist attacks. There are not many parallels that can be drawn between random acts of violence against civilians and an organised military response to address these attacks. The number of 11 only includes recent rocket attacks, not the combined total of sustained terrorist attacks Israel has suffered. Rocket attacks on the Israeli border have increased 500% since the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and the reality is this cannot be allowed to continue.

[Neil]

That's the problem with fighhing terrorists. Hamas deliberately target civillians, it's them that don't give a shit. Equally, they evidently don't give a shit if Palestinian civillians are killed. Hamas were repeatedly warned by Israel and Egypt that the continuation of rocketing at the border would lead to an Isreali backlash. They chose to ignore those warnings, so it is them who are accountable.

People seem to forget the fact that terrorism ultimately works. This is all going to go exactly the same way 2006 Lebanon War went. Hezbollah are still there and Hamas will still be there when this latest incursion by Israel finishes. All Israel will be left with is even even fewer friends on the international stage and a lot of blood on their hands. If they aren't careful, maybe even a few of their politicians and generals might get pulled up for war crimes.

There is simply no military solution to this problem. Whether they like it or not, both sides are going to have start talking to one another if they ever want this to end. All they are doing just now is slowing destroying each other.

[Stichman]

I support the Palestinians. They had their land stolen from them. Of course they should bloody well refuse Israels right to exist. It's their land.

Hmm. What do you mean by 'their land'? The Palestinians occupied it at the time, but it wasn't always that way. Indeed, the Israelis have historically just as much claim to the land; the earliest reference to Israel is dated 13th Century BC. This part of the world is synomomous with violence; Israelies, Ottomans, Persians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Sassanians, Byzantines, Romans and even the French have all occupied the land prior to WWI and marginalised the the Jewish people.

The Ottomans were the last power to conquer the region, so it would be true to say the area was under Arab control for many hundreds of years, but not necessarily that it is 'their' land.

[Stichman]

People seem to forget the fact that terrorism ultimately works. This is all going to go exactly the same way 2006 Lebanon War went. Hezbollah are still there and Hamas will still be there when this latest incursion by Israel finishes. All Israel will be left with is even even fewer friends on the international stage and a lot of blood on their hands. If they aren't careful, maybe even a few of their politicians and generals might get pulled up for war crimes.

There is simply no military solution to this problem. Whether they like it or not, both sides are going to have start talking to one another if they ever want this to end. All they are doing just now is slowing destroying each other.

I wholehartedly agree; the world should know by now that you can't beat guerilla warfare and terrorism. I just think the Isreali action is understandable, and Hamas are accountable because they were repeatedly warned by Israel and Egypt.

Sadly, I don't think there ever will be peace in the region. Historically, there never has been, and however people try to dress it up in political clothes, the fundamental problem is religious.

[Panda Strong]

What? Of course Israel insists on controlling the access points. Here are just a few reasons......

I'm sorry, this wikipedia like spiel of information is great, but just exactly why does this mean it was ok for Israel to illegally continue to control and manipulate all Gaza access points?

--

I'll come back to your disregard for international law when i have more time. But just quickly, the war in Afghanistan was a 'legal' war. There was a UN security council resolution, no? Unlike the Iraq war of course. There was limited international support for that. Bush and Blair tried for a resolution, but failed. Under international law, use of force can only be used in three cases; in self defense, under humanitarian aid, through the security council. The Iraq war is continuously scrutinised within international law for being illegal. Some scholars are even calling for Blair and Bush to be tried! Of course it'll never happen, but it shows that international law does matter, even if it is vague at the best of times. You cannot simple disregard it.

You're right about terrorism though. Well, you're wrong that terrorism is "random acts of violence against civilians", terrorists almost always pick targets very carefully in order to influence a certain audience. BUT yes, international law is very much state based while terrorism is a concept. You can't fight a concept. Remember Gordon Brown said that 75% of all UK terrorist threats come from Pakistan? Why don't we just launch a pre-preemptive attack against them? It's because it's not the state, its certain cells inside. It's when the two begin to merge (like in Afghanistan), that things can be taken further.

Terrorism is such a difficult thing to deal with. In my studies efforts to deal with terrorism are considered within the idea of terrorism as warfare, as crime, and as a disease. Treating it as a war means that there is an end in sight through the use of brute force - pretty much what the US and allies have done in response to al-Qaeda, AND Israels approach to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It is only when terrorism is percieved as a disease, and therefore dealing with underlying causes, that any progress can be made.

But anyway. There was a article in yesterdays Guardian that would have been worth a read. UN representatives are now saying there is a strong case that the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, Geneva convention, international law and international humanitarian law. FULL HOUSE.

[Stichman]

International law is notoriously unclear with regards to the proportional use of force. Israel are acting in self defence, surely that much cannot be denied? My Afghanistan/Iraq comparison was to do with proportionality, not legality.

The exact point is that almost the international community dont really have a leg to stand on when it comes to condemning attacks that havent been sanctioned by the UN or international law. The UN is full of hypocrisy and falsehood, and notoriously biased with regards to the Arab- Israeli conflict. Im not disregarding international law, simply stating the very notion is weak and simply not adhered to; Guantanamo Bay, anyone? What about the USA and UK attacking Iraq on the basis of extremely questionable intelligence? The French influence in bloody dictatorships in Africa, and the more recent intervention in the Ivory Coast? The Chinese occupation of Tibet? Tony Blair is a complete idiot to question Israel when his reign as PM saw his country enter a much more questionable war. Compared to the mistakes and travesties carried out by other UN member nations, Israel's action is far more justified.

Terrorism often is random acts of violence against civilians. Whilst flying a plane into a major symbol of American capitalism is a carefully-chosen target, blowing yourself up in a market place of civilians has the aim of killing as many people as possible. Firing homemade rockets over a border constitutes a random attack. Its just the carefully chosen attacks that are the most notorious.

As Ive said before, I strongly believe that if Hamas disarmed there would be peace. If Israel disarmed, they would be quickly vaporised.

[Guest Jake Wifebeater]

Israel are acting in self defence, surely that much cannot be denied?

It can, and should be denied because that's utter bollocks.

[Stichman]

In this instance, Hamas refused to extend the six month ceasefire and launched sustained rocket attacks into Israeli teritory. Israel and Egypt warned this would provoke serious, military response from Israel which it has done.

The Israelis are responding to direct attacks on their civillian population, and so are acting in self-defence.

[Panda Strong]

Israel are acting in self defence, surely that much cannot be denied?

Yes it can, but obviously anything i say, and anything most of the international community is saying, won't be able to alter your opinion. The numbers, and the scale of brutality just don't add up.

Im not disregarding international law, simply stating the very notion is weak and simply not adhered to; Guantanamo Bay, anyone?

Guantanamo Bay is a tricky one. Along with the land being rented from Cuba and the prisoners being labeled as enemy combatants, the US have found loopholes in international law.

What about the USA and UK attacking Iraq on the basis of extremely questionable intelligence?

I've already mentioned the reaction in the international community to this. Bush and Blair failed to convince them, and the public of an immediate threat. In general, post 9/11 has seen the curbing civil liberties in the name of security with the growing expression of issues as existential threats. But any checks and balances on actions by states is always going to be hard. International organisation's control in such an anarchical system as ours is never going to be easy.

Terrorism often is random acts of violence against civilians. Whilst flying a plane into a major symbol of American capitalism is a carefully-chosen target, blowing yourself up in a market place of civilians has the aim of killing as many people as possible. Firing homemade rockets over a border constitutes a random attack. Its just the carefully chosen attacks that are the most notorious.

I could never consider the act of mindlessly blowing yourself up in a market as terrorism. That isn't the definition. There are seen to be 6 major elements to the idea of terrorism, and that isn't one of them.

As Ive said before, I strongly believe that if Hamas disarmed there would be peace.

...But Israel continuously reject offers of lasting peace with Hamas. I don't see how anyone could see it being as clear cut as that, especially based on Israels behavior towards Palestine in war and in suppose peaceful times.

But yeah.

[Neil]

[RF Scott]

YouTube - Pro-Israel Rally For Attacking Gaza, NYC, 1-11-09

[Guest Hobo]

If Hamas stopped launching rockets at Israeli civilians this might stop

If Israel gave back the land they stole this might stop

Both care about nobody other than themselves, obviously

It won't end, the arabs don't seem to care that other countries are in their land, only Israel.

The palestinians are a mixed background, philistines, those from Judah, Moab etc... when they existed so did the kingdom of israel which was much smaller than the israel of today.

Dont even know why we are discussing this, there will not be a good outcome in our lifetimes.

[Ollie]

"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

January 20, 2009 By Noam Chomsky

On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. ?The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. ?The planning had two components: military and propaganda. ?It was based on the lessons of Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. ?We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.

?

That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. ??It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.

?

In his retrospective "Parsing ?Gains of Gaza War," New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. ?Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to "go crazy," causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. "The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day," Bronner wrote, "when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza." The tactic of "going crazy" appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are "limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas," the elected government. ?That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror. ?I don't, incidentally, recall the Times retrospective "Parsing Gains of Chechnya War," though the gains were great.

?

The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes.

taken from ZNet

[Hog]

Anyone see Dispatches last night? Made for some interesting viewing..

[Ollie]

An essay about what Chomsky thinks Obama's take on the Israel-Palestine conflict is. He makes a very important point about the British - IRA situation.

'Obama on Israel-Palestine'

By Noam Chomsky

Barack Obama is recognized to be a person of acute intelligence, a legal scholar, careful with his choice of words. He deserves to be taken seriously - both what he says, and what he omits. Particularly significant is his first substantive statement on foreign affairs, on January 22, at the State Department, when introducing George Mitchell to serve as his special envoy for Middle East peace.

Mitchell is to focus his attention on the Israel-Palestine problem, in the wake of the recent US-Israeli invasion of Gaza. During the murderous assault, Obama remained silent apart from a few platitudes, because, he said, there is only one president - a fact that did not silence him on many other issues. His campaign did, however, repeat his statement that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that." He was referring to Israeli children, not the hundreds of Palestinian children being butchered by US arms, about whom he could not speak, because there was only one president.

On January 22, however, the one president was Barack Obama, so he could speak freely about these matters - avoiding, however, the attack on Gaza, which had, conveniently, been called off just before the inauguration.

Obama's talk emphasized his commitment to a peaceful settlement. He left its contours vague, apart from one specific proposal: "the Arab peace initiative," Obama said, "contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all."

Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive.

The Arab League peace proposal does indeed call for normalization of relations with Israel - in the context - repeat, in the context of a two-state settlement in terms of the longstanding international consensus, which the US and Israel have blocked for over 30 years, in international isolation, and still do. The core of the Arab League proposal, as Obama and his Mideast advisers know very well, is its call for a peaceful political settlement in these terms, which are well-known, and recognized to be the only basis for the peaceful settlement to which Obama professes to be committed. The omission of that crucial fact can hardly be accidental, and signals clearly that Obama envisions no departure from US rejectionism. His call for the Arab states to act on a corollary to their proposal, while the US ignores even the existence of its central content, which is the precondition for the corollary, surpasses cynicism.

The most significant acts to undermine a peaceful settlement are the daily US-backed actions in the occupied territories, all recognized to be criminal: taking over valuable land and resources and constructing what the leading architect of the plan, Ariel Sharon, called "Bantustans" for Palestinians - an unfair comparison because the Bantustans were far more viable than the fragments left to Palestinians under Sharon's conception, now being realized. But the US and Israel even continue to oppose a political settlement in words, most recently in December 2008, when the US and Israel (and a few Pacific islands) voted against a UN resolution supporting "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" (passed 173 to 5, US-Israel opposed, with evasive pretexts).

Obama had not one word to say about the settlement and infrastructure developments in the West Bank, and the complex measures to control Palestinian existence, designed to undermine the prospects for a peaceful two-state settlement. His silence is a grim refutation of his oratorical flourishes about how "I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security."

Also unmentioned is Israel's use of US arms in Gaza, in violation not only of international but also US law. Or Washington's shipment of new arms to Israel right at the peak of the US-Israeli attack, surely not unknown to Obama's Middle East advisers.

Obama was firm, however, that smuggling of arms to Gaza must be stopped. He endorses the agreement of Condoleeza Rice and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni that the Egyptian-Gaza border must be closed - a remarkable exercise of imperial arrogance, as the Financial Times observed: "as they stood in Washington congratulating each other, both officials seemed oblivious to the fact that they were making a deal about an illegal trade on someone else's border - Egypt in this case. The next day, an Egyptian official described the memorandum as `fictional'." Egypt's objections were ignored.

Returning to Obama's reference to the "constructive" Arab League proposal, as the wording indicates, Obama persists in restricting support to the defeated party in the January 2006 election, the only free election in the Arab world, to which the US and Israel reacted, instantly and overtly, by severely punishing Palestinians for opposing the will of the masters. A minor technicality is that Abbas's term ran out on January 9, and that Fayyad was appointed without confirmation by the Palestinian parliament (many of them kidnapped and in Israeli prisons). Ha'aretz describes Fayyad as "a strange bird in Palestinian politics. On the one hand, he is the Palestinian politician most esteemed by Israel and the West. However, on the other hand, he has no electoral power whatsoever in Gaza or the West Bank." The report also notes Fayyad's "close relationship with the Israeli establishment," notably his friendship with Sharon's extremist adviser Dov Weiglass. Though lacking popular support, he is regarded as competent and honest, not the norm in the US-backed political sectors.

Obama's insistence that only Abbas and Fayyad exist conforms to the consistent Western contempt for democracy unless it is under control.

Obama provided the usual reasons for ignoring the elected government led by Hamas. "To be a genuine party to peace," Obama declared, "the quartet [uS, EU, Russia, UN] has made it clear that Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements." Unmentioned, also as usual, is the inconvenient fact that the US and Israel firmly reject all three conditions. In international isolation, they bar a two-state settlement including a Palestinian state; they of course do not renounce violence; and they reject the quartet's central proposal, the "road map." Israel formally accepted it, but with 14 reservations that effectively eliminate its contents (tacitly backed by the US). It is the great merit of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, to have brought these facts to public attention for the first time - and in the mainstream, the only time.

It follows, by elementary reasoning, that neither the US nor Israel is a "genuine party to peace." But that cannot be. It is not even a phrase in the English language.

It is perhaps unfair to criticize Obama for this further exercise of cynicism, because it is close to universal, unlike his scrupulous evisceration of the core component of the Arab League proposal, which is his own novel contribution.

Also near universal are the standard references to Hamas: a terrorist organization, dedicated to the destruction of Israel (or maybe all Jews). Omitted are the inconvenient facts that the US-Israel are not only dedicated to the destruction of any viable Palestinian state, but are steadily implementing those policies. Or that unlike the two rejectionist states, Hamas has called for a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus: publicly, repeatedly, explicitly.

?Obama began his remarks by saying: "Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats."

There was nothing about the right of Palestinians to defend themselves against far more extreme threats, such as those occurring daily, with US support, in the occupied territories. But that again is the norm.

Also normal is the enunciation of the principle that Israel has the right to defend itself. That is correct, but vacuous: so does everyone. But in the context the cliche is worse than vacuous: it is more cynical deceit.

The issue is not whether Israel has the right to defend itself, like everyone else, but whether it has the right to do so by force. No one, including Obama, believes that states enjoy a general right to defend themselves by force: it is first necessary to demonstrate that there are no peaceful alternatives that can be tried. In this case, there surely are.

A narrow alternative would be for Israel to abide by a cease-fire, for example, the cease-fire proposed by Hamas political leader Khaled Mishal a few days before Israel launched its attack on December 27. Mishal called for restoring the 2005 agreement. That agreement called for an end to violence and uninterrupted opening of the borders, along with an Israeli guarantee that goods and people could move freely between the two parts of occupied Palestine, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The agreement was rejected by the US and Israel a few months later, after the free election of January 2006 turned out "the wrong way." There are many other highly relevant cases.

The broader and more significant alternative would be for the US and Israel to abandon their extreme rejectionism, and join the rest of the world - including the Arab states and Hamas - in supporting a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. It should be noted that in the past 30 years there has been one departure from US-Israeli rejectionism: the negotiations at Taba in January 2001, which appeared to be close to a peaceful resolution when Israel prematurely called them off. It would not, then, be outlandish for Obama to agree to join the world, even within the framework of US policy, if he were interested in doing so.

In short, Obama's forceful reiteration of Israel's right to defend itself is another exercise of cynical deceit - though, it must be admitted, not unique to him, but virtually universal.

The deceit is particularly striking in this case because the occasion was the appointment of Mitchell as special envoy. Mitchell's primary achievement was his leading role in the peaceful settlement in northern Ireland. It called for an end to IRA terror and British violence. Implicit is the recognition that while Britain had the right to defend itself from terror, it had no right to do so by force, because there was a peaceful alternative: recognition of the legitimate grievances of the Irish Catholic community that were the roots of IRA terror. When Britain adopted that sensible course, the terror ended. The implications for Mitchell's mission with regard to Israel-Palestine are so obvious that they need not be spelled out. And omission of them is, again, a striking indication of the commitment of the Obama administration to traditional US rejectionism and opposition to peace, except on its extremist terms.

Obama also praised Jordan for its "constructive role in training Palestinian security forces and nurturing its relations with Israel" - which contrasts strikingly with US-Israeli refusal to deal with the freely elected government of Palestine, while savagely punishing Palestinians for electing it with pretexts which, as noted, do not withstand a moment's scrutiny. It is true that Jordan joined the US in arming and training Palestinian security forces, so that they could violently suppress any manifestation of support for the miserable victims of US-Israeli assault in Gaza, also arresting supporters of Hamas and the prominent journalist Khaled Amayreh, while organizing their own demonstrations in support of Abbas and Fatah, in which most participants "were civil servants and school children who were instructed by the PA to attend the rally," according to the Jerusalem Post. Our kind of democracy.

Obama made one further substantive comment: "As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza's border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime..." He did not, of course, mention that the US-Israel had rejected much the same agreement after the January 2006 election, and that Israel had never observed similar subsequent agreements on borders.

Also missing is any reaction to Israel's announcement that it rejected the cease-fire agreement, so that the prospects for it to be "lasting" are not auspicious. As reported at once in the press, "Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who takes part in security deliberations, told Army Radio on Thursday that Israel wouldn't let border crossings with Gaza reopen without a deal to free [Gilad] Schalit" (AP, Jan 22); Israel to keep Gaza crossings closed...An official said the government planned to use the issue to bargain for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by the Islamist group since 2006 (Financial Times, Jan. 23); "Earlier this week, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that progress on Corporal Shalit's release would be a precondition to opening up the border crossings that have been mostly closed since Hamas wrested control of Gaza from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in 2007" (Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 23); "an Israeli official said there would be tough conditions for any lifting of the blockade, which he linked with the release of Gilad Shalit" (FT, Jan. 23); among many others.

Shalit's capture is a prominent issue in the West, another indication of Hamas's criminality. Whatever one thinks about it, it is uncontroversial that capture of a soldier of an attacking army is far less of a crime than kidnapping of civilians, exactly what Israeli forces did the day before the capture of Shalit, invading Gaza city and kidnapping two brothers, then spiriting them across the border where they disappeared into Israel's prison complex. Unlike the much lesser case of Shalit, that crime was virtually unreported and has been forgotten, along with Israel's regular practice for decades of kidnapping civilians in Lebanon and on the high seas and dispatching them to Israeli prisons, often held for many years as hostages. But the capture of Shalit bars a cease-fire.

Obama's State Department talk about the Middle East continued with "the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan... the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism." A few hours later, US planes attacked a remote village in Afghanistan, intending to kill a Taliban commander. "Village elders, though, told provincial officials there were no Taliban in the area, which they described as a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds. Women and children were among the 22 dead, they said, according to Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council" (LA Times, Jan. 24).

Afghan president Karzai's first message to Obama after he was elected in November was a plea to end the bombing of Afghan civilians, reiterated a few hours before Obama was sworn in. This was considered as significant as Karzai's call for a timetable for departure of US and other foreign forces. The rich and powerful have their "responsibilities." Among them, the New York Times reported, is to "provide security" in southern Afghanistan, where "the insurgency is homegrown and self-sustaining." All familiar. From Pravda in the 1980s, for example.

[Ollie]

here is an excellent news report to go along with the above essay. It features the said Obama speech and a response by Chomsky.

Democracy Now! | Noam Chomsky: Obama's Stance on Gaza Crisis "Approximately the Bush Position"