What next for Gaza?
By Robert Turner | Ma’an | July 16, 2014
As I sit here in my office cum bedroom in Gaza City, listening to the airstrikes and rocket fire, there is talk of how to bring the violence to an end. This is to be eminently desired, particularly for the civilian population in Gaza who have suffered the brunt of this escalation.
But when I think of the 17,000 displaced people sheltered in our schools, some of whom I spoke with yesterday, I wonder what they would think of this. Because they have seen it all before, for most this was their third displacement since 2009; many having returned to the exact same classroom.
If this prospective cease-fire ends the same way as those before it, would they think this is anything other than a brief respite from violence?
For Gaza, a return to ‘calm’ is a return to the eighth year of blockade. It is a return to over 50 percent of the population either unemployed or unpaid. It is a return to confinement to Gaza and no external access to markets, employment, or education – in short, no access to the outside world.
For example, if one of the grandmothers I spoke to yesterday should wish to go to Birzeit University in the West Bank to study, she cannot.
The Israeli government need not demonstrate this grandmother poses any specific threat to security as they have approved a blanket ban on Gazans studying in the West Bank based on an undefined security threat. The vast majority of the population are prevented from leaving this 365 square kilometer sliver of land.
If one of the tomato farmers I met yesterday can find a buyer for his product in Paris, Peoria or Prague under certain conditions he can box up his tomatoes, ship them through the one open commercial crossing and on to Ashdod port or Ben Gurion airport – two of the most sensitive security sites in Israel.
Unfortunately there is no market for Gazan tomatoes in Paris, Peoria or Prague. There is a market for Gazan tomatoes in Israel and the West Bank, but this farmer is not allowed to sell his tomatoes there because of that same undefined security threat.
The elderly I met yesterday wonder how they will access health care after this cease-fire. Other than the services provided by us at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and some private and NGO facilities, the government health care system is collapsing. Infrastructure has been damaged and the people wonder who will take responsibility to fix it.
If the Palestinian Authority is not permitted or is unable to do that is the international community expected to? Or will Israel, the occupying power, assume that responsibility?
The mothers I met yesterday wonder where their children will go to school in six short weeks if not in one of UNRWA’s 245 schools. Who will repair the government schools, deliver the textbooks, pay the teachers? If government schools do not open will UNRWA be expected to fill that void?
We lack the physical capacity, human and financial resources to accept tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of additional students in our schools.
UNRWA and the UN family, including WFP, UNICEF, OCHA and UNDP, remain engaged in meeting the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza. Amongst the areas in which UNRWA has scaled up its work in recent years is construction, where we have a very large portfolio.
This is predominantly schools for our education program, in which we taught over 230,000 children last year, and houses for those whose homes were destroyed in previous conflicts or demolished by Israel.
If we want to build something we have to submit a detailed project proposal to Israel with the design, location and a complete bill of quantities. The Israelis then review the proposal, a process that is supposed to take not more than two months but on average takes nearly 20 months.
We received no project approvals between March 2013 and May 2014, during the last ‘calm’, despite having nearly USD 100 million worth of projects awaiting approval. Will this ‘calm’ be any better?
More importantly, the people here wonder who will govern Gaza? No one has an answer to that question. I think the people of Gaza would say that if this is the form of ‘calm’ people have in mind, while preferable to the current violence, it cannot last. It will not last.
Robert Turner is Gaza Director of Operations for UNRWA.
Israel Failed to Provide Connection between Targets and Military Activity – Report
By Chris Carlson | International Middle East Media Center | July 16, 2014
Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has issued an information sheet stating that the interpretation presented by the Israeli forces spokesperson — that it is enough for a person to be involved in a military activity to render his home and his neighbors’ homes legitimate military targets without having to prove any connection between his activity and the house in which he and his family live — is unfounded and illegal.
The organization added, according to WAFA Palestinian News & Info Agency’s recent report:
“It is not a coincidence that the number of uninvolved civilians killed or injured by these bombings is growing. The law is meant to protect civilians and, unsurprisingly, violating it has lethal consequences. Euphemisms such as ‘surgical strikes’ or ‘operational infrastructure’ cannot hide the facts: illegal attacks of homes, which constitute punitive home demolition from the air, come at a dreadful cost in human life.”
The fact sheet details a discussion which would cast considerable doubt over the legality of Israel’s targeting of what it claims were houses belonging to Hamas operatives.
International humanitarian law defines a military target as follows:
“[…] military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” (Article 52 (2), Protocol I Additional to the Fourth Geneva Convention)
WAFA further reports that, according to the official interpretation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, objectives which, by their nature, make an effective contribution to hostile military action – such as weapon storage, military bases and communication centers used by the military – are considered military targets.
However, although civilian sites may serve as military bunkers or headquarters, and accordingly become legitimate military targets, the law states that if any doubt arises as to the use of a civilian site and its effective contribution to hostile military actions, it must be considered civilian.
Attacking any such structure must provide a definite military advantage.
Although the actuality of Gaza civilian houses contributing effectively to hostile military action was in fact doubted, Israeli forces targeted them anyway.
B’Tselem defines the aim of international humanitarian law as being:
“…to minimize harm to civilians under warfare and to restrict the warring parties… it is not open to any and all interpretations. The word of the law must be interpreted in its original spirit, in keeping with its overreaching aim: to provide maximum protection to civilians.”
According to the organization, the Israeli army spokesperson, over the course of the current operation, has changed the wording of statements concerning the bombings on Gaza, in an apparent attempt to retroactively match his reports of reality to the requirements of the law.
First statement (July 8): “Among the targets attacked were four homes of activists in the Hamas terror organization who are involved in terrorist activity and direct and carry out high-trajectory fire towards Israel…”.
The next day, another statement was issued which reported that the military had attacked additional homes of Hamas activists “which functioned as command and control infrastructure for the organization’ or as ‘a control center for advancing terrorism”.
The same evening, the spokesperson stopped reporting that homes were destroyed, stating instead that “the operational infrastructure of a senior Hamas functionary was attacked”.
Gaza faces water crisis amid Israeli strikes: Red Cross
Press TV – July 16, 2014
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are without water as a result of Israel’s repeated airstrikes on the enclave.
The ICRC said on Wednesday that Gaza’s already vulnerable water system is being destroyed after days of deadly airstrikes by Israel.
“Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are now without water. Within days, the entire population of the Strip may be desperately short of water,” Jacques de Maio, the head of the ICRC delegation in the Palestinian occupied territories said.
“If they do not stop, the question is not if, but when an already beleaguered population will face an acute water crisis,” he added.
ICRC water and sanitation expert Guillaume Pierrehumbert also warned that the coastal enclave’s water system had been deteriorating for years, saying “the latest attacks are the last straw.”
The water crisis comes as temperatures are on the rise in Gaza.
Since July 8, Israeli warplanes have struck more than 1,300 targets across Gaza, which is home to around 1.8 million Palestinians.
At least 205 Palestinians have been killed and 1,500 others wounded since last week. Reports show that more than 30 percent of people killed in Gaza were women and children.
Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2007, denying the Palestinian people there of their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs that pay proper wages, and adequate healthcare and education.
Gaza also often faces electricity and fuel shortages.
BRICS create new Development Bank as well as a $100 billion foreign currency reserves pool
By Helmo Preuss | The BRICS Post | July 15, 2014
Fortaleza, Brazil – After some tough rounds of negotiations, BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have created not only a new $100 billion Development Bank, but also a $100 billion foreign currency reserves pool.
The announcement was made after a plenary meet of the five BRICS heads of state in Fortaleza on Tuesday.
Shanghai finally won the bid to host the Bank while India will get the presidency of the Bank for the first six years. The Bank will have a rotating chair. The Bank will also have a regional office in Johannesburg, South Africa. All the five countries will have equal shareholding in the BRICS Bank.
The five Finance Ministers will constitute the Bank’s board which will be chaired by Brazil.
The Bank will initially be involved in infrastructure projects in the BRICS nations.
The authorized, dedicated and paid in capital will amount to $100 billion, $50 billion and $10 billion respectively.
The idea of the BRICS Bank was proposed by India during the 2012 Summit in New Delhi.
BRICS have long alleged that the IMF and World Bank impose belt-tightening policies in exchange for loans while giving them little say in deciding terms. Total trade between the countries is $6.14 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world’s total. The last decade saw the BRICS combined GDP grow more than 300 per cent, while that of the developed word grew 60 per cent.
Apart from the new development Bank, the group of five leading emerging economies also created a Contingency Reserve Arrangement on Tuesday.
BRICS central banks will keep their reserves in gold and foreign currencies.
China will fund $41 billion, Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each and South Africa with $5 billion. The funds will be provided according to a multiple. China’s multiple is 0.5, which means that if needed, the country will get half of $41 billion. The multiple is 2 for South Africa and 1 for the rest.
BRICS Finance ministers or central banks’ governors will form a governing body to manage the CRA while it will be presided over by the BRICS President.
The BRICS CRA will not be open to outsiders.
Meanwhile, at the Summit in Fortaleza, Russian President Vladimir Putin said BRICS must form an energy alliance.
“We propose the establishment of the Energy Association of BRICS. Under this ‘umbrella’, a Fuel Reserve Bank and BRICS Energy Policy Institute could be set up,” Putin said on Tuesday.
Important Gitmo Ruling Leaves Future of Military Commissions Uncertain, Say Attorneys
Court Conclusively Finds Material Support Not a War Crime
Center for Constitutional Rights | July 14, 2014
Washington, D.C. – In response to today’s en banc ruling by the D.C. Court of Appeals in Al-Bahlul v. United States, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:
Today’s Court of Appeals ruling defers resolving important questions — Can conspiracy charges be tried by military commission? Is domestic law relevant to that decision? — to a future case. But the five separate opinions, totaling 150 pages, are entirely clear on one point: all seven judges agreed that material support for terrorism is not a war crime triable by military commission, even for a defendant who forfeited his defenses at trial. That decision mandates that our client David Hicks’s conviction for material support, pending on appeal before the Court of Military Commission Review, be vacated. Today’s ruling is a reminder that a military commission prosecution or conviction can unravel at any time.
The court merely deferred the inevitable by failing to recognize that conspiracy is no more appropriately tried in a military commission than material support. We urge the Supreme Court to review today’s ruling regarding conspiracy and dispense with all fabricated war crimes charges once and for all.
The Center for Constitutional Rights represents Australian David Hicks, convicted of a sole count of material support by a military commission at Guantanamo, whose appeal seeking to have his conviction overturned has been stayed pending today’s D.C. Circuit decision.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for more than 12 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that nearly all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. Among other Guantánamo cases, the Center represents the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who have been released and are seeking justice in international courts.
press@ccrjustice.org
Qatar to buy $11bn worth of US arms
MEMO | July 15, 2014
Qatar will buy US patriot missile batteries and Apache helicopters in an arms deal worth $11 billion, senior officials at the US Pentagon said yesterday.
According to the US officials, Qatar will receive 10 radars, 34 launchers for Patriot systems designed to counter any missile attack, 24 Apache helicopters and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Qatar has decided to buy the missile defence systems to confront any threat from Iran to the Gulf region.
The Qatari Minister of Defence Maj. Gen. Hamad Bin Ali Al-Atiyyah signed the deal in Washington yesterday following talks with his US counterpart Chuck Hagel, AFP reported.
Officials said the US wants to preserve its role as “the favourite defence supplier” for Qatar and other Gulf countries.
The Qatari deal will enhance the US economy as it will reportedly create 54,000 jobs, the Pentagon said.
The deal came on the heels of Hagel’s visit to Qatar in December, as well as talks in May between Hagel and his Qatari counterpart.
9 EU countries ready to block economic sanctions against Russia
RT | July 15, 2014
France, Germany, and Italy are among EU members who don’t want to follow the US lead and impose trade sanctions on Russia. US sanctions are seen as a push to promote its own multibillion free-trade pact with Europe.
“France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, and EU President Italy see no reason in the current environment for the introduction of sectorial trade and economic sanctions against Russia and at the summit, will block the measure,” a diplomatic source told ITAR-TASS.
In order for a new wave of sanctions to pass, all 28 EU members must unanimously vote in favor. EU ministers plan to discuss new sanctions against Russia at their summit in Brussels on Wednesday, July 16. Even if only one country vetoed, sanctions would not be imposed. With heavyweights like France and Germany opposed to more sanctions the measure will likely again be stalled, the source said.
According to the source, the US sees slapping Russia with sanctions as a way to promote its own trade agenda with Europe, a side rarely explored in mainstream media. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and Europe would create the world’s largest free trade zone, but some worry it could balloon into an “economic NATO” or could end up putting corporate interests above national.
“Last year the EU and the US started difficult negotiations on a free trade agreement, which would force the EU into serious concessions, in particular, agricultural quality standards and regulation on genetically modified products. In this circumstance, restrictions against Russia will force EU countries to expand trade with the US,” the source said, citing shale gas as an example.
On June 20, Czech President Milos Zeman came out against sanctioning Russia, saying there is “no reason” to further “isolate” the country.
America was successful in getting Europe to toe its sanctions agenda at the height of the Ukraine crisis, but now Russia has removed its troops from the Ukraine border and promised peace in the region, Europe isn’t interested in further sanctions.
The EU initially followed the US cue when it imposed sanctions on Russia after the reunification of Crimea in March, but these measures were limited to politicians and businessmen. The EU unleashed a second round which expanded the list to over 72 individuals, who cannot enter the EU or access any assets there.
Boomerang effect
Russian officials maintain that sanctions are counterproductive, and will end up hurting the West more than they will Russia.
Another reason EU countries are wary of slapping Russia with economic sanctions is the possible spillover effect. Unlike the US, European countries rely heavily on Russia as a trading partner, especially for natural gas. The World Bank estimates that if sanctions escalate European gas prices could jump 50 percent.
Europe clearly has much more to lose by punishing its neighbor, with annual trade in goods and services worth $330 billion. American trade with Russia, by contrast is just a tenth of that at $38.1 billion.
Deals with UK-based BP, US-based Weatherford International, and ExxonMobil, continue to show that most countries continue to do business with Russia, politics aside.
Italy was the first country to speak out against Russian sanctions. Rosneft, the world’s largest listed oil company, recently acquired a 26.2 percent stake in Italian tire company Pirelli. Igor Sechin, boss of Rosneft and on the US sanctions list, joined the board of the Milan-based company. Three other Rosneft representatives, as well as the CEO of Russia’s second largest bank, VTB, sit on the board.
Egypt claims to have brokered ceasefire agreement; Palestinian factions say they were not consulted
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | July 15, 2014
The Israeli security cabinet reportedly agreed to a ceasefire agreement on Tuesday proposed by the Egyptian government, but leaders with the Palestinian resistance said that no one had contacted them to negotiate any ceasefire.
According to Israeli military reports, the alleged ceasefire proposal would require the Israeli military to end its aerial and naval bombardment of the Gaza Strip that has been constant for the past week, while Palestinian armed factions would be required to stop firing homemade shells into Israel.
Despite claims of having agreed to a ceasefire, Israeli bombardment continued to pound Gaza on Tuesday morning.
The armed wing of the Hamas party, the Izz-al Deen al-Qassam Brigades, claimed that the ceasefire agreement amounted to a ‘surrender’, and that no representative of Hamas or any other armed resistance group had been involved in the negotiations. Therefore, the group said, they would continue their resistance to Israeli aggression in Gaza.
The supposed agreement does not meet the four key elements reiterated by Hamas leaders in recent days. These requirements include the lifting of the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, which has led to the unemployment rate of 80%, the sealing of all borders and the prevention of aid, construction materials and fuel, as well as staple goods, from entering Gaza.
Ismail Haniyeh, the elected Prime Minister of the Palestinians people who has not been recognized by Israel because of his association with the Hamas party, said on Monday, “The Gaza blockade must be lifted so that our people live in freedom like all other peoples around the world.”
Egyptian officials negotiated with Israel, apparently without involving Palestinians in the negotiation of the proposed ceasefire. Despite the lack of involvement, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with the Fateh party urged rival parties to accept the agreement.
Hamas officials stated over the weekend that Egypt was an unacceptable negotiator for any ceasefire negotiations, and only Turkey or Qatar could be considered as potential negotiators of a ceasefire.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has kept the Egyptian border with Gaza closed over the last week, apart from one opening to allow critically wounded patients through. This has led to widespread disapproval of Egypt as a negotiator among the Palestinian populace of Gaza, who have not had any way to escape the near-constant bombardment that began on July 8th.
In the two weeks prior to July 8th, 13 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
In the week since, 195 Palestinians have been killed, including three babies under age two, and several families that were totally wiped out.
2 Israeli girls were wounded on Monday night by a Palestinian shell, the first such injuries in the week of escalation. One of them, age 10, was wounded critically, according to Israeli sources.
Over the past week of escalation, at least 1,385 Palestinians have been wounded, many with head injuries, amputated limbs, permanent disabilities and embedded shrapnel. They include a four-day old infant, who was critically wounded by Israeli forces on Tuesday morning.
More than 180 Palestinians have been killed and 1,385 injured since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge against Gaza exactly a week ago.
Early on Tuesday evening, as Operation Protective Edge entered its second week, Israeli air strikes and rocket continued to strike Gaza even while reports of the ceasefire began to emerge.
Hamas rockets also continued to fly toward Israel where they have largely caused minor injuries and damage. Monday evening saw the most serious incident of the week-long conflict so far with two sisters – aged 10 and 13 – being hospitalised following a rocket attack. The younger sister, 10-year-old Maram Wakili remains in critical condition.
The fatal Palestinian trinity
By Haneen Zoabi | MEMO | July 15, 2014
There are no concrete military outcomes for what is happening in Gaza. Israel has not eliminated Hamas nor has it obliterated any other resistance forces or liberation movements that seek to break the hold of the occupation. Israel has achieved nothing through its use of excessive military force; through its killing; through its destruction of Gaza.
Yet, at the same time, Hamas alone has not been able to prevent Israel from deepening the roots of the occupation, nor has it been able to prevent it from continuing its violence and killings.
What will result from this aggression is that Israel will soon realise that the limits of its power are defined clearly, and that while basic rockets do not kill human beings they do kill the strategic vision on which Israel has based its understanding of security and politics. To this effect, the fatal trinity that is imposed on the Palestinians ‑ the siege of Gaza, the apartheid wall and Israel’s security coordination with the Palestinian Authority ‑ is what afforded the Zionist entity the opportunity to impose a relatively “soft occupation”, and this is precisely what Hamas’s rockets have threatened.
Indeed, what Hamas has killed is Israel’s conviction that it is able to impose a state of occupation without a physical occupier via this trinity. It [the trinity] has facilitated the stability of Israel’s grip on occupied Palestinian territory for the past ten years.
Recent resistance efforts have revived the concept of the Palestinians as an occupied people within the Israeli conscience. This notion has been largely absent from both Israeli reality and mentality. The resistance in Palestine reminds Israel that there is an occupation in place, which is something that it wants to forget so that it can live in security and stability without acknowledging that it is an occupier.
The aggression will eventually be stopped by a state that does nothing more than enforce the status quo through a series of crimes against the Palestinian people. Moreover, the rockets will also stop and both sides will have to sit and re-evaluate their position and the rules of the game that have been shaken in the recent aggression and resistance operations.
In the light of the Arab region’s and international community’s complicit silence, and the lack of any official and concrete action on the part of the Palestinian leadership, Israel will argue that it has been given the green light to prepare for the next round of aggression, repressive policies and practices, and death and destruction.
In order to bring a complete and final end to the possibility that Israel will maintain and deepen its occupation, and to dismantle the fatal trinity of the siege, the wall and security coordination, we, the Palestinians, must also end our own fatal trinity: coordination, negotiations and separation. We have to abandon this other trinity and declare our intention to continue popular resistance in lieu of security coordination; isolate Israel as opposed to negotiating with it; and insist on our unity instead of fragmentation.
Translated from Arabs48, 13 July, 2014
CNN’s Jake Tapper was taught to recognize the “essential importance” of Israel
By Alison Weir | July 14, 2014
There are some videos posted on Youtube with titles such as “CNN’s Jake Tapper Demolishes PLO Spokeswoman.” Tapper’s questioning is extremely aggressive and reflects a pro-Israel approach to the current violence. (Israel is again massacring Gazans like shooting fish in a goldfish bowl. Instead of discussing this, Tapper focuses on the rockets from Gaza, but seems to know/care little about the real facts about these and about the conflict in general.)
I wondered where Tapper’s bias came from, and learned some information about his upbringing that I suspect influences his journalism:
Tapper attended Akiba Hebrew Academy, since re-named Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, which is proud of inculcating its students with loyalty to Israel.
The school website states that it “offers a unique study abroad program in Israel during the fall trimester of a student’s junior year. In this program, learning comes to life as students supplement their formal academic studies with trips to historical sites that parallel their study of the history of the Jewish people and Israel…”
The site notes that many of their students report that their experiences in Israel “are life-changing; they return to Barrack with greater maturity as well as a stronger personal connection to Israel and their Jewish roots.”
Tapper’s alma mater emphasizes: “…we are committed to the centrality of Israel and the State of Israel.”
Jake Tapper’s alma mater
There is, of course, always the hope that Tapper will transcend this early conditioning, shared by so many US journalists. However, so far there is little indication that he has done so. Especially, of course, when pro-Israel elements are so strong in today’s media, it’s not a good career move to report too fully and honestly on the conditions of Palestinians.
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Which came first? Palestinian rockets or Israeli violence?
By Alison Weir | July 13, 2014
Since US media are reporting the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza as though it is a defensive action, I thought I would set the record straight. Israeli forces shelled and invaded Gaza BEFORE the rockets began. Rockets were fired only after numerous Palestinians, including many children, had been killed.
According to a pro-Israel website, the Jewish Virtual Library, Gaza rocket fire against Israel began in 2001. Four rockets were launched in the entire year.
The Israeli military website agrees with this chronology, saying that the first rocket was launched from Gaza on April 16, 2001.
By happenstance, I was traveling throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territories just before that – during February-March 2001 – as a freelance reporter.
While I was there, Israeli forces were regularly shelling both the West Bank and Gaza, and had been doing so for several months. Gaza was particularly hard hit. (An article I wrote at the time can be read here.)
Below are some of my photos from Gaza from February 2001 (i.e. BEFORE any rockets had been fired, and long before Hamas was elected in 2006.)
Tofah area, Khan Yunis, Gaza, February 2001. Photo by Alison Weir
Tofah, Khan Yunis, Gaza, February 2001. Photo by Alison Weir
Gaza boy shot by Israeli forces, Feb 2001. Photo by Alison Weir
Palestinian 12-year-old boy shot by Israeli forces in Feb 2001; brain dead. Photo by Alison Weir
A few months before, in fall 2000, massive unarmed demonstrations against Israeli occupation began, eventually growing into what is known as the “Second Intifada” (uprising).* Israeli forces immediately used lethal means to try to put this down. An Israeli newspaper reported that the Israeli military fired over a million bullets in the first few days alone.
In the following three months Israeli forces killed over 90 Palestinian children – before a single Israeli child was then killed, and long before any rockets were fired. (The largest single cause of these Palestinian children’s deaths was gunfire to the head.)
In fact, in every year since, far more Palestinian children have been killed than Israeli children:
For additional charts with statistics on both populations go to http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Israeli shelling, military ground invasions, and abductions of Palestinians have continued throughout the following years, occurring, except for few ceasefires (which Israeli violence consistently ends), virtually every day.
Some groups (usually not Hamas), have also periodically fired rockets at Israel through these years.
During that time Israeli forces killed 4,000 Gazans, while Gazan resistance fighters using rockets killed 27 Israelis. On average, Israelis have killed a Palestinian child every three days.
By the way, the Iron Dome sysem has played a somewhat minimal role in the small number of Israeli deaths from rockets. Iron Dome wasn’t begun to be put in place until March 27, 2011. In the ten years before, there were only 17 deaths. For a full analysis go here.
Who originally began this violence?
Of course, the conflict between the two groups began before fall 2000, so let us go back and see how this all started, and which party initiated the violence.
That’s actually quite easy to do.
You don’t need to go back “thousands of years,” as some people believe. In reality, in the late 1800s this region – known as Palestine – was peaceful and had been so for centuries. Its population was about 80 percent Mulim, 15 percent Christian, and a little under 5 percent Jewish; all practicing their faiths side by side largely without conflict on land considered sacred to all three groups.
The problem began when a political movement called “Political Zionism” began in the late 1800s in Europe (and also in the United States) with the goal of pushing out the inhabitants and creating a Jewish state on this land.
The culmination of their efforts came in 1948-49, when Israel was created through warfare. At least 750,000 of Palestine’s non-Jewish inhabitants, approximately half of the total population, were ethnically cleansed, their lands, businesses, orchards, and other property (worth many millions of dollars) confiscated by the newly created Jewish state, Israel.
The Palestinians’ crime was being there.
#
By the way, the belief – also pushed by US media – that the current wave of violence began with the abduction and murder of three young Israelis is also incorrect.
The fact is that Israeli forces had killed at least 4 Palestinian children and approximately 35 Palestinian adults in 2014 BEFORE the abuction/murder of the 3 Israelis.
Also, one of the largest group hunger strikes in history was going on among Palestinians who were being held illegally in Israeli prisons — these “administrative detainees,” Israel’s Orwellian term, are prisoners who have never even been charged with a crime, yet are held for months or years. Many are tortured.
Even JJ Goldberg, a fervently pro-Israel journalist, says that Israeli “politics and lies” are behind Israel’s current aggression.
The pro-Israel spin, despite being repeated over and over, just doesn’t survive the facts.
#
For a synopsis of the history go here, for a more thorough discussion go here, for the US history go here.)
An account by another person who visited Khan Yunis (this is also spelled Khan Younis) a year later can be read here. Below is one of his photos:
Tofah area of Khan Younis, March 2012. Photo by John Caruso
And below are some photos I took when I was last in Gaza, July 2009:
Gaza, July 2009. Photo by Alison Weir
Gaza, July 2009. American International School in Gaza destroyed by Israeli forces. Photo by Alison Weir
Gaza, July 2001. Photo by Alison Weir
___________
* This is also sometimes called the “Al Aqsa Intifada,” after the location where some of the first demonstrations began.
“Intifada” literally means “shaking off” of oppression. The American Revolutionary War, for example, could be similarly called the American Intifada against the British.
Guantanámo Judge to Prosecution: Turn Over the Torture Evidence
By Marcellene Hearn | ACLU | July 14, 2014
Last month, a military judge dealt a significant blow to U.S. prosecutors’ efforts to suppress torture evidence in the Guantanámo military commissions.
In a ruling in the U.S.S. Cole case, unsealed last week, Judge James Pohl told prosecutors they must hand over CIA black site information to the defense attorneys of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn al-Nashiri. Back in April, Judge Pohl similarly ordered the prosecution to give extensive information to Mr. al-Nashiri’s lawyers about his “4-year odyssey” through the CIA’s rendition and torture program. In the new ruling, Judge Pohl confirmed the core of the earlier order and issued important findings that will reverberate not only in Mr. al-Nashiri’s case but also in the 9/11 case, where one of the five defendants has already asked for similar information.
Judge Pohl found that Mr. al-Nashiri was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” – the government’s euphemism for torture and cruel treatment, such as waterboarding and stress positions. More importantly, he ruled that information about that abuse is relevant and helpful to the defense. In particular, it will be relevant at sentencing because Mr. al-Nashiri faces the death penalty. His lawyers have said they will argue that he cannot be executed because he was tortured by the CIA – an argument that 9/11 defense lawyers will also likely make for their own clients.
Judge Pohl also said that the use of torture techniques will impact whether any statements Mr. al-Nashiri made afterwards are too tainted to be used at trial. Under the military commissions rules, the prosecution must convince the judge that the statements were “voluntarily given” in order to use them. The prosecution has already indicated that it will seek to use statements Mr. al-Nashiri made to the FBI after he arrived at Guantánamo. But with the new ruling, the prosecution will be required to turn over the information the defense says it needs to argue that these statements were tainted by the CIA’s earlier torture and abuse.
Judge Pohl’s order requires the prosecution to give the defense lawyers 10 categories of information, including where Mr. al-Nashiri was held, the conditions in each site, whom he interacted with, and how he was rendered from site to site. What’s not clear is the extent to which the prosecution will seek to provide summaries or other substitutes for some documents or to redact the names of personnel. According to Mr. al-Nashiri’s lawyers, this will be litigated in the coming months. Still, the ruling has definitively established that the information is relevant and helpful to the defense, and any new requests by the prosecution to narrow what it has to turn over will be limited by the ruling.
That’s a sea change, although a long-delayed one on a fundamental fair trial right: access to evidence. Judge Pohl has decided to step down from this case to concentrate on the commission trial of the 9/11 defendants. It’s now up to his successor to ensure this important decision is properly implemented.
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Provoking a Path to Persia
The Saban Center’s prescient paper on war with Iran
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | October 20, 2011
In June 2009, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Which Path to Persia?—Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.” Writing in a tone strikingly reminiscent of the Project for a New American Century’s infamous pre-9/11 paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the six co-authors noted that, “It seems highly unlikely that the United States would mount an invasion without any provocation or other buildup.” For a think tank specifically established by media mogul Haim Saban to protect Israel, this could prove to be a formidable obstacle impeding their desired march—of U.S. troops—to Tehran.
“In fact, if the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely,” Saban’s think-tankers ruefully observed.
“With only one real exception, since the 1978 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never willingly provoked an American military response, although it certainly has taken actions that could have done so if Washington had been looking for a fight. Thus it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.”
Seemingly undeterred by Iran’s frustrating unwillingness to provide the requisite provocation, the analysts continued to examine this option… continue
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