Saturday, January 3, 2009

نصر الله واثق من قدرة حماس على هزيمة إسرائيل


"حث الأمين العام لحزب الله البناني حسن نصرالله في وقت متأخر من يوم السبت حركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس أن تكبد القوات الإسرائيلية خسائر فادحة وقتل أكبر عدد ممكن من الجنود الإسرائيليين بعد أن شنت هجوما بريا على غزة.

وقال حسن نصر الله لأنصاره في احتفال لحزب الله بالضاحية الجنوبية لبيروت بمناسبة ذكرى عاشوراء إن حماس ستلحق الهزيمة بإسرائيل.

وكان حسن نصر الله قد أكد سابقا أن العالم ينتظر أن ترفع المقاومة في غزة الراية البيضاء، لكن الرهان على انكسار المقاومة لم ينجح.

كما انتقد نصر الله الموقف العربي الرسمي مما يجري في غزة وقال إن الحكام العرب لا يستطيعون الاجتماع على طاولة واحدة "لأنهم سيكونون أمام تحدي اتخاذ قرار".

وأعرب عن أسفه لتأخر ذهاب الوفد العربي إلى مجلس الأمن حتى يوم الاثنين، وتساءل "هل هذا تحمل للمسؤولية أم تواطؤ؟"، معتبرا أن ذلك "من أجل إعطاء فرصة للصهيونية ولأولمرت". وشدد على أن الرهان على الانكسار في غزة لم ينجح.

وحذر نصر الله من أن "عاقبة التخلي عن المجاهدين هي الذل والهوان". وقال إن "في غزة الصمود وإطلاق الصواريخ، والمقاومة صامدة وثابتة في غزة رغم المجازر".

وأضاف أن إسرائيل تقتل الناس في غزة دون تحقيق أهدافها، "وما زال هناك مشهد ارتباك في إسرائيل ومشهد صمود في غزة، المقاومة المنتصرة
"."

Israeli forces bomb schools and mosque


Press release, Al Mezan, 3 January 2009

"Israeli attacks on Gaza have continued for an eighth day. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) targeted more civilian objects. This includes bombardment of more houses and the Civil Defense building in Bani Suhaila town and the American School in northern Gaza. Air raids have also targeted open areas within the neighborhood, but particularly along the eastern and northern borders and the border between Gaza and Egypt. IOF's naval vessels escalated their bombardment of Gaza's beaches....."

Photostory: World demonstrates for Gaza


Photostory, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2009

"Around the world people took to the streets outraged by the scenes of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip that began when Israel bombarded the coastal territory on 27 December. The below images were sent to The Electronic Intifada from around the world and document various actions, demonstrations and vigils in solidarity with Gazans under siege. If you have images to which you hold the rights documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos@electronicintifada.net."

(Many more photos)

Israel's righteous fury and its victims in Gaza

Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 2 January 2009

"My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice -- even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.......

It is based first and foremost on sheer lies transmitted with a newspeak reminiscent of darker days in 1930s Europe. Every half an hour a news bulletin on the radio and television describes the victims of Gaza as terrorists and Israel's massive killings of them as an act of self-defense. Israel presents itself to its own people as the righteous victim that defends itself against a great evil. The academic world is recruited to explain how demonic and monstrous is the Palestinian struggle, if it is led by Hamas. These are the same scholars who demonized the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an earlier era and delegitimized his Fatah movement during the second Palestinian intifada......"

Day 8 of the Israeli War On Gaza

By Sameh A. Habeeb, Gaza Date : 01-03-2009

"Breaking News: 15 Palestinians killed while praying in a mosque north of Gaza Strip. Ten other injured in the strike which turn the mosque to rubbles. One of the killed is a journalist......

Key targets, bombings and strikes of Israeli Army in day 8:

1- Israeli naval forces open heavy artilary fire on west of Al Nusairat refugee Camp. Several house were fired in the attack took place early in the morning.

2-Israeli naval vessels reach off Gaza shore firing the densely populated areas, houses, buildings leaving some Palestinians wounded......
.....
....
34-Hundreds of artillery shells fired with the start of evening through all Gaza Strip in the north, middle and south.

35-Ground to Ground rockets fired into the northern areas of Gaza."

The Politics of an Israeli Extermination Campaign


By James Petras
Palestine Chronicle

"Because of the unconditional support of the entire political class in the US, from the White House to Congress, including both Parties, incoming and outgoing elected officials and all the principle print and electronic mass media, the Israeli Government feels no compunction in publicly proclaiming a detailed and graphic account of its policy of mass extermination of the population of Gaza.

Israel’s sustained and comprehensive bombing campaign of every aspect of governance, civic institutions and society is directed toward destroying civilized life in Gaza. Israel’s totalitarian vision is driven by the practice of a permanent purge of Arab Palestine informed by Zionism, an ethno-racist ideology, promulgated by the Jewish state and justified, enforced and pursued by its organized backers in the United States.

The facts of Israeli extermination have become known: In the first six days of round the clock terror bombing of major and minor populations centers, the Jewish State has murdered and seriously maimed over 2,500 people, mostly dismembered and burned in the open ovens of missile fire. Scores of children and women have been slaughtered as well as defenseless civilians and officials.

They have sealed off all access to Gaza and declared it a military, free fire zone, while expanding their target to include the entire population of 1.5 millions semi-starved prisoners......

.....What is to Be Done

Israel’s crimes against humanity demand a public response: social action, which will force it to cease and desist from its campaign to exterminate the people of Gaza. Because the Jewish state has assaulted a vast array of Palestinian social institutions, which resonate with those in our own society, we can and should mobilize them to condemn and boycott their counterparts in Israel.....
Until we neutralize the pervasive power of the Zionist Power Configuration in all of its manifestations – in American public and civic life – and its deep penetration of American legislative and executive offices, we will fall short of preventing Israel from receiving the arms, funding and political backing to sustain its wars of ethnic extermination.

When told that the great majority of the world’s people are sickened and incensed by Israel’s mass murder of the citizens of Gaza, we can easily imagine the contemptuous dismissal by Israel’s top leaders, paraphrasing Joseph Stalin: How many bombers, missiles, fighter planes and powerful lobbies do they (the outraged people of the world) have?"

Al-Jazeera Video: A week of Israel's war on Gaza - 02 Jan 09




Living in fear in Gaza City 02 Jan 09



"The heavy Israeli aerial bombardment and threat of a ground offensive has forced Gazans to remain indoors for safety.
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros spent the evening with one family in Gaza City to see how they're coping."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Dave Brown, The Independent

What's in a name? Quite a lot, where the military is concerned

By Robert Fisk

".....Operation Grapes of Wrath was no tribute to John Steinbeck but took its name from the blood-and-vengeance Book of Deuteronomy wherein chapter 32, the song of Moses before he dies leading his Jewish people towards the promised land, speaks of those who will be destroyed by the wrath of God. "The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young men and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hairs," announced verse 25.

Not a bad description of the Qana massacre. And this week, not a bad account of Israel's Gaza shenanigans. Maybe the Israelis should take a leaf out of Iran's book and call it Operation Grapes of Wrath Two."

Government contortions, public anger


Egyptian complicity in Israel's Gaza bloodbath is giving fresh impetus to struggles against the Mubarak regime

Jack Shenker
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 January 2009

"Doublespeak absurdity is plentiful at the moment; I thought I'd had more than my fair share of it in the West Bank this week, watching Israel's brazen PR zealots deliver soundbite after soundbite into television cameras, each of them notable only for their heart-stopping audacity. But that was before I returned to Cairo to hear the Mubarak government's breathtaking contortions as it tried to justify its complicity in Israel's Gazan bloodbath.

The pages of Egypt's state-owned newspapers are an inky testament to George Orwell's claim that "Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." A few brief examples......
As ever, developments across the border help to give fresh impetus to these anti-regime struggles and provide a wide range of opposition political interests – from socialists to liberals, secularists to Islamists – with an opportunity to unite around a potent and effective political symbol which advances their cause. And as ever, the regime reacts brutally, putting Cairo University under siege even as its figurehead publicly bemoans the fate of the besieged Palestinians of Gaza. The students struggling to make themselves heard on campus behind the batons and riot shields of Mubarak's law enforcers are not pawns in the geopolitical fissures that the media obsess over, nor are they blind footsoldiers of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
They are, for the most part, simply fired by the Gazan catastrophe into giving voice to the simmering anger felt by much of the population at the twisted and tragic policies of an Egyptian government which, as the author Alaa al-Aswani recently wrote, has created its own generation of martyrs killed by "corruption and abuse of power" – through accidents and negligence and the poisonous grip of poverty – a government also colluding in the subjugation and destruction of Palestinians on Egypt's border. Unable and unwilling to break free of its well-worn preconceptions, most of the media prefers to ignore this crucial fault-line in the Arab world's largest state when "explaining" the Gazan assault. By throwing attention elsewhere instead, they are carrying out a dangerous conjuring trick which insults and undermines Egyptians and Palestinians alike."

Land, sea, sky: all will kill you


Mohammed is burying his family. So is Jamal. Haider doesn't feel safe in his flat so is sheltering in his car. In a series of phone calls to friends besieged in Gaza, one writer reveals the reality of life under daily attack

A Great Piece

By Karma Nabulsi
(Karma Nabulsi is an Oxford academic)
The Guardian, Saturday 3 January 2009

".... had just come off the phone with Jamal, who at that moment was in another cemetery in Jabaliya camp, burying three members of his own family. They included two of his nieces, one married to a police cadet. All were at the graduating ceremony in the crowded police station when F16s targeted them that Saturday morning, massacring more than 45 citizens in an instant, mortally wounding dozens more. Police stations across Gaza were similarly struck. Under the laws of war (or international humanitarian law as it is more commonly known), policemen, traffic cops, security guards: all are non-combatants, and classified as civilians under the Geneva conventions....

I first met international law professor Richard Falk when he was a member of the Seán MacBride commission of inquiry into the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The UN rapporteur of human rights to the Palestinian territories, he has studied massive bombardment of this type many times before. Yet he too struggled to put words on to the singular horror unfolding: "It is macabre ... I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times." He says he cannot think of another occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances: "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law ... warrant the characterisation of a crime against humanity."....

....She feels utterly weighed down by the fact that the Israeli government have refused to allow international journalists into Gaza to see what she is seeing. Despite her bewilderment she, like all the other citizens of Gaza I speak with this week, seem to know exactly what to do: although filled with fear, they run to volunteer, help pull neighbours from under the rubble, offer to assist at the hospital (where more than half of the staff is now voluntary), write it all down, as best they can, for a newspaper....

The recently completed building of the ministry of education (paid for by European donors) is damaged; the ministry of justice, the foreign ministry utterly destroyed: all national institutions of the Palestinian Authority, none military....he works just across from the Palestinian Legislative Council, where the democratically elected parliament sat; now flattened by Israeli aircraft. Every neighbourhood in Gaza is a mixture of homes, shops, police stations, mosques, ministries, local associations, hospitals, and clinics. Everyone is connected and fastened down right where they are, and no citizen is safe in today's occupied Gaza from the Israeli military, whose reach is everywhere....

Before this week's war on the citizens of Gaza, the government of Israel and its war machine had been attempting to fragment the soul and break the spirit of one and a half million Palestinians through an all-encompassing military siege of epic proportions. The theory behind besieging a population is to annihilate temporal and spatial domains, and by so doing slowly strangulate a people's will. Siege puts extreme pressure on time, both external and internal, and on space: everything halts. Nothing comes in, nothing comes out. No batteries, no writing paper, no gauze for the hospitals, no medicines, no surgical gloves even - for these things, say the Israeli military, cannot be classified as humanitarian. Under siege no one can find space to think lucidly, for the aim is to take away the very horizon where thoughts form their reasoning, a plan, a direction to move in. Things become misshapen, ill-formed, turn in on themselves. Freedom, as we know, is the space inside the person that the siege wishes to obliterate, so that it becomes hard to breathe, to organise, above all to hope. Not achieving its aim, and even now with no international action to put a stop to it, the siege this week reached its natural zenith. Western governments, having overtly supported the blockade for two years, now fasten their shocked gaze upon the tormented and devastated Gaza they have created, as if they were mere spectators......

This week Palestinians have created an astonishing history with their stamina, their resilience, their unwillingness to surrender, their luminous humanity. Gaza was always a place representing cosmopolitan hybridity at its best. And the weight of its dense and beautiful history over thousands of years has, by its nature, revealed to those watching the uncivilised and cruel character of this high-tech bombardment against them. I tell each of my friends, in the hours of conversation, how the quality of their capacity as citizens inspires a response that honours this common humanity. From the start of the attack, Palestinians living in the cities and refugee camps across the West Bank and the Arab world took to the streets in their tens of thousands in a fierce demand for national unity. More than 100,000 people erupted on to the streets of Cairo; the same in Amman...."

أسباب العدوان على غزة

عبد الستار قاسم

توقيت العدوانالأسباب الداخليةالأسباب الخارجية
الانتخابات الإسرائيلية
الخلاصة

"....أولا: هذه حرب مكملة للحصار المضروب على الشعب الفلسطيني منذ أن فازت حماس في الانتخابات التشريعية، والمضروب بصورة شديدة على غزة منذ سيطرة حماس على القطاع.

كان الحصار يهدف إلى إسقاط حركة حماس، وإخراجها من الحكومة ومن السلطة الفلسطينية عموما وذلك من خلال إنهاك الحركة معنويا وأخلاقيا، ومن خلال تأليب الناس عليها عسى أن يقوموا بتحرك جماهيري يضحي بحماس من أجل لقمة الخبز.

وكان الظن أن حماس ستسقط خلال مدة تتراوح بين شهر وثلاثة أشهر من سيطرتها على غزة، لكن الأشهر مرت وحماس بقيت صامدة، واستطاعت أن تدبر أمورها جيدا في إدارة القطاع وتحقق مزيدا من التأييد على المستويات الفلسطينية والعربية والإسلامية.

الحرب الآن هي الخيار البديل للحصار. إنهم يحاولون بالحرب تحقيق ما عجزوا عن تحقيقه بالحصار. من هم هؤلاء؟ هم المحاصرون لغزة وهم إسرائيل والسلطة الفلسطينية وأنظمة عربية وبقية دول العالم. شركاء الحصار هم شركاء الحرب، وجميعهم معنيون بإنهاء سلطة حماس في غزة.

ثانيا: اهتمام شركاء الحصار على غزة بإسقاط سلطة حماس نابع أساسا من رؤيتهم للحل الخاص بالقضية الفلسطينية.

هناك مشروع يقوم على حل يسمى بحل الدولتين الذي ينتهي، وفق مادة الاتفاقيات المتوفرة لدينا مثل اتفاقيتي أوسلو وطابا، إلى كيان فلسطيني يعمل وكيلا أمنيا لإسرائيل يسميه الفلسطينيون المتساوقون مع الحل دولة فلسطينية.

بسيطرتها على القطاع أفسدت حماس على الأميركيين والإسرائيليين مشروعهم، الذي هو مرتبط أيضا بالرؤية الأميركية الإسرائيلية لما يجب أن تكون عليه المنطقة العربية الإسلامية المسماة بالشرق الأوسط. ولهذا كان لا بد من إسقاط حماس وإعادة قطاع غزة إلى بيت الطاعة ليكون مشمولا بالحل القائم على خريطة الطريق الذي يجند الفلسطينيين ضد الفلسطينيين.
.....
خامسا: تشكل سلطة حماس في غزة إحراجا متواصلا للسلطة الفلسطينية في رام الله وللأنظمة العربية بسبب الحصار المضروب على القطاع.
....
تسبب ضيق الأحوال في غزة إلى تركيز وسائل الإعلام العربية وغير العربية على المأساة، وامتلأت شاشات الفضائيات بالصور المحزنة والمؤلمة حول الأوضاع، ووجه المعلقون والمحللون أصابعهم ومناشداتهم واتهاماتهم نحو الأنظمة العربية معتبرين أن المسؤولية هي مسؤولية عربيا أولا، وأن على الأنظمة العربية ان تصنع شيئا. وبدأت الانتقادات الشديدة تنهال على النظام المصري بسبب إغلاق معبر رفح بصورة أساسية.
.....
المحافطة على الأنظمة العربية المعوجة، والتي يسميها الغرب بالمعتدلة، جزء لا يتجزأ من الاستراتيجية الإسرائيلية الأميركية الآن ذلك لأنها هي الأدوات التي تسهل امتطاء العرب والإبقاء عليهم بلهاء. كان لا بد من القيام بعمل يرفع هذا الإحراج المتزايد للأنظمة والذي من المحتمل أن يقود إلى حركات شعبية غير مرغوب فيها.
....
استغلت حماس والفصائل الأخرى فترة التهدئة للتنظيم والتدريب والتسليح. لم يضع الوقت سدى بالنسبة لهذه الفصائل، وشعرت إسرائيل أن القطاع يتحول إلى بؤر عسكرية مستعدة للقتال. وحسب النظرية الأمنية الإسرائيلية، الضربة الاستباقية هي القرار الصحيح
......
الأسباب الخارجية
تبرز خارجيا الأسباب التالية:
أولا: ضاقت بعض الأنظمة العربية والسلطة الفلسطينية ذرعا بحماس. كانت المسيرة التفاوضية تسير ببطء ولكن بسلاسة، وكانت الآمال كبيرة في الانتهاء من القضية الفلسطينية وإلى الأبد.

شكلت حماس عقبة كبيرة من حيث أنها ليست شريكا في المفاوضات، ومن حيث وقوع العرب في حرج كبير نتيجة الحصار ونتيجة الاعتقالات الكبيرة في صفوف أنصارها في الضفة الغربية.

وقد أوضحت أعلاه أن شركاء الحصار أرادوا وضعا جديدا تختفي فيه حماس وفصائل المقاومة. وواضح أن تهديد وزيرة خارجية إسرائيل لحماس من القاهرة يعطي مؤشرا قويا على هذا التوجه العربي.
....
لا أرى بأن الانتخابات الإسرائيلية تدخل بقوة في المعايير الأمنية الإسرائيلية. صحيح أن شخصية رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي تلعب دورا، والحكومة الإسرائيلية في النهاية هي التي تصدر قرار الحرب وقرار السلام، لكن الأجهزة الأمنية والجيش هي صاحبة اليد الطولى في اتخاذ القرار.

جيش إسرائيل ليس جيشا حزبيا، ولا هو أداة بيد المصالح السياسية الفردية أو الفئوية، إنما تلعب الانتخابات الآن دورا في حشد الأحزاب الإسرائيلية لصالح الحرب. قدمت الأحزاب دعمها للحكومة الإسرائيلية، وصفقت للحرب، ولا مجال لحزب لكي يزايد على الآخر في تأجيج المشاعر ودق الطبول.
.....
الخلاصة
كانت الحملة العسكرية الإسرائيلية متوقعة، وهي تهدف إلى تغيير الوضع القائم في غزة. المتوقع هو توسيع الحرب لتكون برية، ولتطال قيادات سياسية.

لكن مشكلة إسرائيل الأساسية هي في صمود حماس والفصائل الفلسطينية. الضغط على إسرائيل سيزداد من قبل حلفائها العرب، ومن قبل منظمات حقوق الإنسان ووسائل الإعلام إن طالت الحرب. الأنظمة العربية هي الحلقة الأضعف التي على إسرائيل أن تراعيها في تقصير أمد الحرب، وربما هي الحلقة التي ستقود إسرائيل إلى وقف الحرب دون تحقيق أهداف
."

Attacks on Gaza doomed, expert believes


The Financial Times

"Israel’s attempt to force the Palestinian group Hamas to comply with a ceasefire on its terms through its offensive against the Gaza Strip is doomed to fail, an international expert on the region predicts.

The attacks on Gaza would leave Hamas in place, said Alastair Crooke. “It is nothing tangible that you can knock down, it is not a building,” he explained.

Israel was also repeating some of the mistakes it made during the 2006 war against Hizbollah, Mr Crooke argued in an interview with the Financial Times. The country’s leadership was divided on the course of action and had no clear view of the endgame, he said. Just like Hizbollah in 2006, Hamas was hoping to force Israel into launching a risky ground operation by continuing to fire rockets into the Jewish state, he said. Israel was hesitant to commit ground forces because it was aware that Hamas had changed its fighting capacity and there could be some “surprises”.

Mr Crooke, a former British intelligence officer and EU adviser, expected the outcome of the fighting, irrespective of military developments on the ground, to be an agreement between the two sides that would see the end of Israel’s siege of Gaza and “a return to normalcy” in the tiny strip of land.

Israel’s attempt to stop the Hamas rockets had so far failed, as had its targeting of the military leadership of Hamas. And any idea to force Palestinians to abandon Hamas was misguided. “All the pressure that I hear, not from Hamas but from other Palestinians in Gaza, the real pressure is for revenge,” said Mr Crooke, a former MI6 agent and founder of a forum that explores engagement with groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah.

He saw the current round of fighting and the unwillingness of Hamas to extend the six-month ceasefire that expired last month as a reaction by the group to being squeezed by Israel, the international community and even the Arab League.

Mr Crooke regularly argues for exploring the possibility of talks with groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah rather than isolating them, and emphasises that they have a political agenda. "

صحيفة لبنانية تكشف تورط سلطة عباس ودحلان في التآمر على غزة


نقل عناصر أمنية للعريش وتقديم معلومات عن "حماس"

A Very Important Report From Assafir (Lebanese paper); I Will Post English Version as Soon as it is Available.

"بيروت- المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

كشفت صحيفة السفير اللبنانية أن سلطة رام الله، نقلت 400 عنصر أمني من العناصر التابعة لما كان يعرف بقائد التيار الخياني في حركة فتح الهارب محمد دحلان، إلى القاهرة، بعد 36 ساعة من العدوان الصهيوني تمهيداً لإدخالهم إلى غزة، بعد القضاء على حكم "حماس" كما يتمنون.

وأكدت صحيفة السفير اللبنانية في عددها الصادر اليوم السبت (3/1): "لم تكد تمضي ست وثلاثون ساعة على بدء الهجوم الجوي الإسرائيلي على غزة، حتى كانت القاهرة تعج بالمسؤولين الوافدين على عجل من رام الله وعمان وتل أبيب وواشنطن وإحدى الدول الخليجية".

وذكرت أن هذه الحركة عبّرت هذه الحركة من خلال بعض الفنادق الشهيرة، وكذلك بعض السفارات الأجنبية والعربية، بما في ذلك بعض مقرات السفراء.... لافتة إلى أن"الزنبرك" (في هذه التحركات) فهو القيادي الفلسطيني محمد دحلان، الذي انتقل من الضفة إلى القاهرة بواسطة طائرة تابعة لشركة "العال" (شركة الطيران الصهيونية) على حد قول الصحيفة.

وأضافت أنه "وبالطريقة نفسها تحرك ٤٠٠ عنصر من عناصر الشرطة الفلسطين ية، باتجاه الأراضي المصرية وتم وضعهم في حالة تأهب في منطقة العريش في انتظار أمر الانتقال إلى القطاع بطريقة من اثنتين، اما بعد الانهيار السريع لسلطة "حماس "، في ضوء الضربات الأولى الخاطفة والمدمرة، وإما بعد التوصل إلى اتفاق يؤمن استسلام " حماس"، وانتقال مجموعات دحلان إلى القطاع في إطار قرار دولي وعربي وبرعاية أمنية مصرية إسرائيلية" وفق ما ذكرت الصحيفة.

وأكدت الصحيفة أن دحلان لم يكتف بهذا الدور، موضحة أن الاجتماعات الأمنية التي عقدت في القاهرة لم تقتصر على ما بعد إنهاء "حماس".

وكشفت أنه تم تقديم معلومات تفصيلية حول عدد من الأهداف، رغم أن ما يملكه الاحتلال وحده ليس بسيطاً لافتة إلى أنه في المشاورات بين الضباط الذين يمثلون هذه العواصم، كان الاستنتاج واحداً: المسألة مسألة أيام ليس أكثر ...

وأكدت أن الحسابات الأمنية والمعلوماتية لم تأت مطابقة لحسابات البيدر الميداني في غزة، موضحة انه بدا واضحاً منذ اللحظات الأولى، أن المقاومة استفادت من تجربة لبنان ولذلك، غابت قيادات الصف الأول عن السمع نهائياً، بينما طلب من الوزراء والنواب الذوبان بين الناس مع إجراءات وقائية محددة. الجزء العسكري من المعركة بدت ترتيباته سرية بالكامل
. "

خطبة السيد حسن نصر الله في الليلة السادسة من محرم 2-1-2009


خطبة السيد حسن نصر الله في الليلة السادسة من محرم 2-1-2009

Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah's Fourth Speech, on 1-2-2009. 1 hour-8 minutes video.

The last 19 minutes deal specifically with current events, including the attacks on Gaza and exact similarity to what took place in Lebanon in July, 2006.

I posted an English summary (from Al-Manar) yesterday; please scroll down for that.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Rally in New York City

Saturday January 3rd. - 1 pm
Times Square
42nd and 7th Ave.
Followed by a march to the Israeli consulate
Trains: N,Q,R.S,W,1, 2,3,7 to Times Square

By Emad Hajjaj

URGENT! Sign the Appeal to Stop the Attack on Gaza!

Urgent Appeal for Israel to Immediately Cease Its Murderous Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Palestinian Gaza

Initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark

"Let President George W. Bush, President-Elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton, Vice President Richard Cheney, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, the President, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Opposition leader of Israel, and Major media representatives know you support this urgent appeal initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award recipient Ramsey Clark for Israel to Immediately Cease Its Murderous Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Palestinian Gaza!......


As of Friday morning, more than 360,000 petitions have been sent!
Please add your voice to the thousands who are demanding: Stop the massacre in Gaza!
Please help get the word out - pass this message along, post it on local bulleting boards & Indymedia,

Click Here to Sign Online Petition

The Sinai is Still Israeli-Occupied and the Pharaoh has no Sovereignty over it. Want a Proof? Just Read This:

Mubarak: No goods to cross in Rafah without Israel's approval


(Cartoon by Khalil Bendib)

"....Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Friday that no humanitarian aid would be transferred to Gaza without Israel's approval, and that Israel should control the goods crossings as "the occupational authority ruling the Gaza Strip", Al-Jazeera reported......"

31 Dec. '08: Suspicion: bombed truck carried oxygen tanks and not grad rockets

Contributed by BlogReader

B'Tselem

"On 29 December '08 the Israeli army bombed a truck in Gaza City, claiming it carried Grad rockets, designated for attacks on Israel. Drone footage of the bombing was shown by the Israeli army.

B’Tselem received the testimony of Ahmad Sanur, the owner of the truck bombed. Sanur claims the truck was carrying oxygen canisters used for welding, not Grad rockets. B'Tselem field worker took photos of oxygen canisters left on the site of the bombing.

According to Sanur’s testimony, he and members of his family were trying to salvage material from a metal workshop he owns, which was next door to a bombed house, in order to prevent looting. He denies any connection to militants, or military activity, and is willing to talk to any journalist, or investigator.

8 people were killed in the bombing, including his son. Two were severely wounded (names may have different spelling):

Muhammad bassel Madi, 17
Wisam Akram ‘Eid, 14
‘Imad Ahmad Sanur, 32
Rami Sa’adi Ghabayan, 24
Mahmoud Nabil Ghabayan, 14
Ashraf a-Dabagh, 26
Muhammad Majed Ka’abar, 20
Ahmad Ibrahim Khila, 15

Two were severely injured:

Bilal Suheil Ghabayan, 19
Baha Suheil Ghabayan, 16"

Special spin body gets media on message, says Israel

Israel believes its has won broad international support in the media for its actions in Gaza thanks to its PR strategy, which through a new body has for months been concerned with formulating plans and role-playing to ensure that government officials deliver a clear, unified message to the world's press.

'Arab FMs Gave Israel Until Monday to Achieve Mission'


Al-Manar

"02/01/2009 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah reiterated on Friday his belief that the Palestinian faithful Resistance would achieve victory against the Zionist occupation in its deadliest offensive against Palestinians in the Gaza strip. His eminence criticized the Arab leaders for their stance over the aggression, calling on them, at least, to let their people express themselves freely and declare solidarity with their Palestinian brothers.

Sayyed Nasrallah was speaking through a large screen as he marked the sixth night of Ashoura at the Sayyed Shouhadaa complex in Beirut's southern suburb (Dahiyeh).

His eminence criticized some Arab leaders who are colluding with the Zionists and betting on wiping the Resistance movements out of the region. "Those who think that events similar to the 2006 July War and Gaza war could destroy the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine are definitely wrong," Sayyed Nasrallah asserted.

The Resistance leader pointed to the Arab official stance over the deadliest Israeli offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza strip. "The offensive was launched on Saturday, they met only at the level of foreign ministers on Wednesday, just five days following the aggression," Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out. "It is shameful that the Arab foreign ministers met five days after the attack on Gaza, and still we have seen no results," his eminence added.

"All what they were able to achieve was forming a delegation to go to the UN Security Council next Monday. This is really shameful," Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out, wondering about the reasons of delaying "action" until Monday. "Why wait until Monday for an Arab delegation to go to UN Security Council? Why didn't it go to the UNSC on the same day, on Wednesday or on Thursday or on Friday or on Saturday? Why wait until Monday?" his eminence asked, before answering. "They waited until Monday to give Israel more time to achieve the mission," his eminence declared.

Sayyed Nasrallah, meanwhile, emphasized that, if the Israelis failed to achieve the recommended mission by Monday, "then this doesn't mean that they won't be given another delay." His eminence recalled that the same thing happened in the July war "when they gave Israel delays for weeks and weeks; yet, Israel failed to achieve the mission and was defeated."

"Bargaining on Gaza's surrender will fail," Sayyed Nasrallah announced. His eminence went on to express disapproval of the Arab general behavior towards Gaza. "If the Arab official positions reflect their population’s views, then why are the police deployed in the streets to forbid demonstrations?" his eminence wondered, calling on Arab leaders to let people express themselves freely. "But those rulers cannot tolerate the call of crowds requesting their leaders to shoulder their responsibilities," Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out.......

Sayyed Nasrallah noted that the Israelis are reluctant in launching a ground offensive into Gaza because of their experience in Lebanon ."Everybody in Israel senses reluctance in the much-talked about ground offensive," Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out. "This is one of the repercussions of the 2006 July War," his eminence explained. "It is true that there is a bloody scene in Gaza, but there is on the other hand hesitance in Israel," he noted.

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that what had been taking place in Gaza since Saturday was identical to what happened in Lebanon during the July 2006 war launched by the Zionist entity against the country....... "

We Lived to Tell the Story

How Lebanon Rescued Us

By CYNTHIA McKINNEY
CounterPunch

"......My personal, and I know the group's, thanks must go to Al Jazeera, that allowed three of their reporters to be onboard with us on our voyage. As a result, Al Jazeera carried the story of the Dignity live, from castoff in Cyprus when our spirits were high, right up through the manacing maneuvers of the huge, super fast Israeli ships before they rammed us, the Israeli calls on the ship phone after the ramming calling us terrorists and subversives and telling us to return to Cyprus.....

One of those Al Jazeera reporters with us was Sami El-Haj, who was detained in Guantanamo by the United States for six incredibly long years. What an honor to even exchange glances with such a humble man who had endured so much pain at the hands of the U.S. government. I apologized to him that my tax dollars were being used in such a despicable way. And Sami's crime according to the U.S.? Born in Sudan, and reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, Sami was the wrong color, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion, reporting for the wrong news outfit, telling us the truth about a wrong war......

Another incredibly committed journalist who was with us was CNN's Karl Penhaul. Karl reported the truth even when his own station was repeating Israeli disinformation. The fact that we were traveling with these alert journalists added to the flat-footedness and obvious crudeness of the Israeli response. Sadly, Israel has changed its story too many times to count, and that's because they are not telling the truth.

We lived to tell the story......."

Molten Lead in Gaza

How Israel is Multiplying Hamas by a Thousand

By URI AVNERY
CounterPunch

".......For the million and a half Arabs in Gaza, who are suffering so terribly, the only opening to the world that is not dominated by Israel is the border with Egypt. Only from there can food arrive to sustain life and medicaments to save the injured. This border remains closed at the height of the horror. The Egyptian army has blocked the only way for food and medicines to enter, while surgeons operate on the wounded without anesthetics.

Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.

This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.

This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand........"

'Eight Civilians Killed' in Israeli 'Surgical' Strike on Truck

Israelis display bombing of 'missiles' on YouTube • Rights group calls for inquiry into alleged error

by Peter Beaumont in London and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City


Photo from Army footage of the loading of the truck and photo of the oxygen canisters left next to the truck taken by B'Tselem fieldworker.

"An Israeli human rights group said yesterday it was investigating claims that an apparent surgical strike on a Hamas missile truck in Gaza, which is being publicized by Israel's armed forces on its website, is a case of mistaken targeting that has left eight civilians dead.

Monochrome images of the attack have been repeatedly shown by media around the world after being released by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to demonstrate both the accuracy of their attacks and that Hamas was trying to move and hide rockets.....

However, the Israeli-Palestinian B'Tselem group in Gaza has testimony from the owner of the truck, as well as photographs taken at the scene, which appear to suggest that the vehicle was being used to transport gas welding canisters from a metalworking shop......"

Inheriting Bush's blinkers

Obama and American liberals readily adopt positions on Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context

Ali Abunimah
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 January 2009

""I would like to ask President-elect Obama to say something please about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced right now by the people of Gaza." Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made her plea after disembarking from the badly damaged SS Dignity that had limped to the Lebanese port of Tyre while taking on water.

The small boat, carrying McKinney, the Green Party's recent presidential candidate, other volunteers, and several tons of donated medical supplies, had been trying to reach the coast of Gaza when it was rammed by an Israeli gunboat in international waters.......

Similarly, we can expect that the American university professors who have publicly opposed the academic boycott of Israel on grounds of protecting "academic freedom" will remain just as silent about Israel's bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza as they have about Israel's other attacks on Palestinian academic institutions.

There is no silver lining to Israel's slaughter in Gaza, but the reactions to it should at least serve as a wake-up call: when it comes to the struggle for peace and justice in Palestine, the American liberal elites who are about to assume power present as formidable an obstacle as the outgoing Bush administration and its neoconservative backers."

Israel's Dogs of War

A Defining Moment for the Human Rights Movement

By SONJA KARKAR
CounterPunch

"Israel’s dogs of war have been baying for blood for some time now. They have sniffed their prey with ravenous lust as if they have been the ones starved of food instead of the Palestinians whom they have primed for slaughter. Now the pack is encircling Gaza, teeth bared and snarling, while others do their dirty work from the skies. To them, the blood of women and children smells the same as that of the menfolk who fight to defend them......

.... Netanyahu is waiting in the wings and likely to emerge the victor whatever this military assault achieves. From past experience, that will be yet another cease-fire: senseless blood spilled that changes nothing for the Palestinians or the Israelis. It does, however, raise the spectre of the transfer of some 1.5 million exhausted Palestinians.

The West Bank would be next – subjugation in labour camps under a further weakened and acquiescent Palestinian Authority or another population transfer of the remaining 2.6 million Palestinians out of their homeland forever.

Transfer is just another euphemism for ethnic cleansing and is no mere conjecture. Tzipi Livni has recently suggested the transfer to the truncated West Bank of almost 1.5 million Palestinians living as second-class citizens in Israel, despite their roots in the land and residency long before Israel was created...."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll


The Latest poll Asks:

Do you believe that there is Arab collusion in the Israeli attack on Gaza?

With close to 3,000 responding so far, 93% said yes.

Demonstration in Support of Gaza in Los Angeles


(Many more photos)

Blaming the Victims - The Dominant Media Vilify Hamas

by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, January 2, 2009

"......The dominant media also in their customary role - guarding the powerful and suppressing uncomfortable truths in lieu of full and accurate reporting. They're in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel's call for "all-out war" and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants."The more damage to Hamas, the better the chances for peace" says the Wall Street Journal in a lead December 28 editorial headlined "Israel's Gaza Defense." The Journal rewrites history this way......

.....Israel is a serial aggressor. Its lawlessness can no longer be tolerated. Mass outrage and world pressure must build for a global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions until its human rights abuses stop, its war crimes are punished, its occupation and colonization end, Palestinian refugees have the right to return, and the people of Gaza and the West Bank achieve their long-denied self-determination rights in an internationally recognized sovereign state, free from Israeli oppression. For people of conscience, that's Resolution One for the new year. "

"Creative anarchy" in the Gaza Strip


Dr. Akram Habeeb writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 1 January 2009
(Dr. Akram Habeeb is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza)

".....Last night, the last of 2008, was the most horrible and horrendous for all Gazans. Almost every moment, a bomb fell on civilian homes, or other targets that had already been bombed to rubble. At least 10 people were killed and many other injured. Among the targets bombed by the Israeli Offense Forces were the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education and the Legislative Council.

Bombing these institutions has nothing to do with isolating Hamas or weakening the resistance. The Israeli intent seems to be to create what US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called "creative anarchy." Indeed Israel has always wanted to keep Palestinians living a life of disorder. They want chaos to prevail in the Gaza Strip. They want to eliminate any legislative or judicial system and replace it with the law of the jungle that existed before Hamas took power.

Such a state of anarchy would be further perpetuated by keeping Palestinians in Gaza ignorant and illiterate. It is to advance this sinister policy that Israel is systematically destroying the education system, targeting universities, schools, and above all the Ministry of Education. As a colonial power, Israel has adopted this old colonial strategy to dominate the Palestinians. It is precisely the same strategy used by slaveholders and colonizers: keep the people you want to control in ignorance so they cannot rebel.

Israel's claims that Palestinians have been using their institutions as military sites or for hiding and manufacturing weapons are preposterous and ridiculous. These allegations are just like the fake claims about Iraqi weapons former US Secretary of State Colin Powell used to justify the invasion of Iraq......"

Finkelstein: Israel seeking Arab obeisance


Press TV

"The following is a full-length exclusive text interview with lecturer, author and renowned Palestine-Israel scholar Gary Norman Finkelstein in New York.

Press TV: Nearly a week of violence in Gaza. What do you make of the situation there?

Finkelstein: It is hard to make any definite judgments about the military situation. The goals of the Israeli government it seems to me are pretty clear. Number one Israel wants to reestablish what it calls its deterrence capacity. That is a technical term that the Israelis use. It basically means to restore the fear of Israel among the Arab states in the region.

After the defeat inflicted by Hezbollah and the inability of Israel to launch an attack on Iran it was almost inevitable that they would attack Hamas, because Hamas is defying the Israeli will. According to the Israeli papers, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was planning the attack before the last ceasefire and they were just waiting for a provocation from the Palestinians.

On November 4, the Israelis broke the ceasefire with Hamas knowing full well--and if you review the Israeli papers, they say so knowing full well that when they killed six militants in Gaza the Palestinians would retaliate and then Israel would have the pretext to invade. Therefore, the first goal was to restore the fear of Israel among Arabs by inflicting a bloodbath in Gaza.....

Press TV: Observers say that a ceasefire is the best Israel can achieve from this. How is the war affecting Israel?

Finkelstein: It is hard to say that whether Israel is in a position for a ceasefire. If Israel accepts the ceasefire I don't think Hamas would accept it if the Gaza blockage continues. It was due to the continuation of the Gaza blockade that Hamas rejected renewal of the truce with Israel. If the blockade is not lifted it is just a slow death for the Palestinians. If Israel agrees to lift this blockade along with a ceasefire then it will in effect have given in to the conditions that it refused last week. So it's really unclear that Israel would propose a ceasefire that Hamas would accept and vice versa......"

The Huffington Post: Israeli-Occupied Territory

Why is the Huffington Post carrying water for the IDF? Follow the money …

By Justin Raimondo

"Pat Buchanan was widely vilified by the neocons and the politically correct left when he famously described the Congress of the United States as "Israeli-occupied territory." Oh, what a conniption the liberals and the Commentary crowd had! That was during the countdown to the first Gulf War, when almost no one rose to object – and those who did, like Pat, were smeared for their trouble. Today, such an observation is hardly considered controversial: it is simply a known fact.

There is more discussion in the Knesset over the pros and cons of US intervention in the Middle East on Israel's behalf than there is in on Capitol Hill. There's a sense in which this sort of uniformity must be a little embarrassing for the Lobby, in that it underscores their fear that a real debate will suddenly break out. The regularity with which the American Congress endorses every fresh Israeli atrocity has a certain deadening metronomic quality about it – and, while we're on the subject of monotony, the American media, too, plays an identical role as advocate and staunch defender of the Israeli case, as a matter of course. The "mainstream" televised and dead-tree-media has historically been a reliable "reporter" of the merits of the Israeli case. Now, the wannabe "alternative" online media is following suit, with an alacrity that is none too surprising.

It is especially unsurprising in the case of the Huffington Post....."

Al-Jazeera Video: Palestinians brave Israeli assault to return home - 2 Jan 08



"Since Hamas took over Gaza 18 months ago, Israel and Egypt have frequently closed the border and forbidden anyone to cross for weeks at a time.

It's been more than a month since the Rafah border crossing into Egypt was open - leaving many Gazans stranded outside. But this week, Egypt opened the crossing once again, and as Amr El Kahky reports, many Gazan's are keen to get home, despite the Israeli bombardment. "

Real News Video: Gaza: A humanitarian implosion

A report from eight UK human rights organizations says situation in Gaza worst since 1967

A Good Video From Real News: Rafah - report from the ground

Fida Qishta of Rafah, Gaza describes the past few days as Israeli bombing kills hundreds



"As the fifth day of Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip begins, Rafah and Gaza City, the two main targets, have witnessed hundreds of deaths. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blames Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, for inciting Israel’s attack. Hamas, vows to keep shelling Southern Israel with rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. Lia Tarachansky spoke to Fida Qishta in Rafah, located in Southern Gaza. Qishta reports one of the first targets of the Israeli bombardment were the tunnels dug by Palestinians under the wall, which separates Rafah in two, half in Palestine and half in Egypt. These tunnels, says Qishta, have been used since the beginning of the siege to smuggle food, and according to Israel, weapons. Qishta also reports of the wall being breached by Palestinians desperate to escape to Egypt. Though unsuccessful, this is the fifth attempt since the beginning of the second Intifadah to breach it. "

An alliance of values


While governments stand mute, Muslims must unite with the majority to resist the violence done to Gaza

Tariq Ramadan
The Guardian, Friday 2 January 2009

"Listening to the feelings expressed by Muslims around the world one gets a sentiment of anger and revolt mixed with a deep sense of helplessness. The current massacres are but a confirmation of the well-known: the "international community" does not really care about the Palestinians, and it is as if the state of Israel, with the support of the US and some European countries, has imposed a state of intellectual terror. Among the presidents and kings, nobody dares to speak out; nobody is ready to say the truth. All are paralysed by fear.....

Muslims around the world are facing three distinctive phenomena. First, in the Muslim-majority countries or in the west, they see they can expect no reaction from governments, especially from the Arab states. Theirs is the guilty silence of the accomplice, the hypocrisy, the contempt for Palestinian lives. Second, western media coverage is alarming, with the majority buying the Israeli story: two equally powerful belligerents, with the victim of aggression (Israel) acting in self-defence. What a distortion! Yet the third phenomenon is interesting: while 73% of Europeans were backing Israel in 1967, more than 67% are supporting the Palestinians today. With time, understanding and sensitivity have moved: populations are not blindly following the games and hypocritical stands of their political elites....."

Besieged Palestinians battle to find burial spaces


Hazem Balousha in Gaza and Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Friday 2 January 2009

"Salim Abu Sadaq and six of his relatives scrabbled around in the soil of Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan cemetery for two hours yesterday, searching for a space in which to lay his cousin to rest. In the end, he opened his grandfather's grave and moved the older man's remains aside to make space for the body of his grandson.

After "The Beginning", the first chapter in the Qur'an, was read aloud to mark the end of a life, Abu Sadaq expressed misgivings about the shared grave. "I feel very bad about it. It hasn't happened before, but there's no space."......."

ليفني بباريس: نعمل على استهداف حماس لمساعدة السلطة


ليفني بباريس: نعمل على استهداف حماس لمساعدة السلطة

Al-Jazeera

"......وقالت وزيرة الخارجية الإسرائيلية تسيبي ليفني من باريس "لا توجد أزمة إنسانية في القطاع ولذلك لا توجد حاجة لهدنة إنسانية"، وأضافت أن "إسرائيل تقدم مساعدة إنسانية كبيرة للقطاع بل وتزيد ذلك يوميا".
.....
من أهداف العدوان
وقالت إن "إسرائيل تعمل على مسارين الأول مساعدة السلطة الفلسطينية والثاني العمل على استهداف (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية) حماس والحرب عليها"، مضيفة أن حماس تمثل مشكلة للجانب الإسرائيلي والسلطة الفلسطينية وعدد من الدول العربية.

وأضافت ليفني أن الهجوم الإسرائيلي على قطاع غزة ألحق أضرارا بحماس وأنه سيستمر حتى تتأكد إسرائيل أن الحركة لم تعد تمثل تهديدا.
....."

No Happy New Year for Gaza, by Carlos Latuff


(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

On the 7th Day…Resistance in Gaza Increasingly Active


Al-Manar

"02/01/2009 As the Israeli aggression against Gaza enters its seventh day, Palestinian resistance rockets continued to pound occupied territories. More than 10 rockets have been fired early Friday on the eastern occupied territories. In the meantime, the city of Tel Aviv started to take precautionary measures against possible rocket attacks.....

Rockets continued exploding over the course of Thursday afternoon in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba, cities previously considered out of the range of Gaza rockets.

Despite air raids, drones and bad weather conditions, the Palestinian resistance has been able to launch an average of 70 rockets at Israeli settlements on daily basis. The retaliatory attacks have so far killed four Israelis including one soldier and injuring three dozen Israelis more, some seriously. The Israeli media is adopting a blackout policy, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon, to hide the real impact of Palestinian rockets on settlements.....

HAMAS CALL FOR MARKING ‘DAY OF WRATH’
Hamas movement called on Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem to mark a "Day of Wrath" on Friday and demonstrate against the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. The movement called for massive marches following Friday prayers. "

Break-Their-Legs-Abul Gheit:Arabs Shouldn't Blame Only Israel for Gaza


Al-Manar

"02/01/2009 Egypt's foreign minister Ahmad Abul Gheit said on Thursday that Hamas must ensure rocket fire stops in any truce deal to halt Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, criticizing the Palestinian resistance movement for “giving Israel an excuse to launch the offensive.” .......

"Arabs should avoid unbalanced language that just blames Israel for the attacks on Gaza if they want the U.N. Security Council to act to end the violence," he said. [COMMENT: Livni could not have said it better; way to go you cheap puppet!]

Abul Gheit, in an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television [COMMENT: Should be called Al-'Ibriya, as Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah recently said!] , did not forget to attack Iran and accuse it of “seeking to control vital Arab interests and use this influence as leverage in any talks with the new U.S. administration.”

Abul Gheit said any eventual truce agreement should include a mechanism to oversee "that everything proceeds without one side causing problems with the other." He told journalists that the mechanism could involve "international forces or Arab forces or just observers."

The top diplomat insisted Hamas must commit to enforcing a halt to rockets. "We expect the Palestinian side to say that if a cease-fire is announced, we'll stop firing rockets," he said, warning that "some loose groups can decide to continue firing rockets and make it difficult to have a cease-fire."

Abul Gheit continued to blame Hamas for the Gaza offensive saying Egypt had seen "the signals that Israel was determined to strike Hamas in Gaza for the past three months. They practically wrote it in the sky." "Unfortunately, they (Hamas) served Israel the opportunity on a golden platter to hit Gaza," he said. However, Hamas lashed out at Egypt last Saturday, when the Israeli attack started, stressing Cairo told the Palestinians that Israel will not attack Gaza.

Abul Gheit renewed Egypt’s refusal to fully open the Rafah crossing unless Abbas' Palestinian Authority - which runs the West Bank - controls the crossing and international monitors are present.
He said Hamas wants Rafah opened because it would represent implicit Egyptian recognition of the resistance movement's control of Gaza. "Of course this is something we cannot do," Abul Gheit said, because it would undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and consecrate the split between Gaza and the West Bank. "

Hamas calls on West Bank Palestinian people to revolt against occupation


"RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Hamas Movement in the West Bank has affirmed Thursday that the battle in Gaza was the battle of Palestine and the battle of the Arab and Muslim Ummah and the free people of the world against the occupation.

In a statement it issued, and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the Movement called on the Palestinian people in the West Bank to hold massive demonstrations in solidarity with "our brothers in Gaza".

"Let all the days in the West Bank be devoted to the steadfast Gaza, let it be days for the souls of the pure martyrs in Gaza, and days for solidarity with our people in the steadfast Strip", the statement added.

The Movement also urged the "mujahideen" and the rest of the Palestinian people to confront the Israeli occupation army and the Israeli settles in every Palestinian city, village, and refugee camp.

In this regard, the Movement called on the PA security forces to desist from aborting Palestinian enthusiasm and activities against the occupation, underlining that the demonstrations weren’t directed against them. "

Abbas orders PA forces to abort possible intifada in W. Bank


"RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his security forces to prevent any attempt by Palestinian citizens in the West Bank to spark a third intifada against the Israeli occupation despite the increasing death toll in Gaza Strip, well-informed PA security sources in Ramallah confirmed.

According to the sources, that did not want to be identified, directives and orders from Abbas's office were conveyed to all PA security departments across the West Bank calling on them not to allow enraged Palestinian citizens confront Israeli occupation soldiers positioned at the outskirts of the Palestinian cities.

In press conference he held last Tuesday, Reyadh Al-Maliki, the foreign minister in the unconstitutional PA government in Ramallah city, explained that the PA security forces would allow Palestinians in the West Bank to hold "peaceful" rallies to "express their sympathy with Gaza", but it will stop them if they confront the Israeli occupation soldiers.

The sources also added that Abbas fears possible eruption of a third Palestinian intifada in the West Bank that could lead to the collapse of Abbas's authority and finish his political ambitions in occupied Palestine in the event of confrontation.

In this regard, the sources added, Abbas ordered the PA security forces to chase and arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in the West Bank to prevent them from carrying out retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank or in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands.
The directives were immediately carried out as more than 80 Hamas cadres were arrested at the hands of Abbas's forces since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started Saturday.

Moreover, the sources revealed that Abbas and the PA leadership in the West Bank were worried that Hamas could restore its popular and military strength in the West Bank that was weakened in the aftermath of the frenzied PA arrest campaigns against its cadres and political leaders over the pat 18 months.

Hundreds of Hamas's cadres and political leaders in the West Bank were arrested, and tens of local charities affiliated with it were sealed off at the hands of Abbas's security forces since the unconstitutional government of Salam Fayyadh was installed by Abbas.

Tension had run high in the West Bank with the start of the massive IOF troops' aggression against the densely populated Gaza Strip bordering the biggest Arab country, Egypt."

Thursday, January 1, 2009

غطاء عربي لمجزرة غزة


غطاء عربي لمجزرة غزة

عبد الباري عطوان

"فشل وزراء الخارجية العرب في اجتماعهم الأخير في القاهرة باتخاذ اي موقف للتصدي للعدوان الاسرائيلي المستمر على قطاع غزة يؤكد النظرية التي تقول بأن هذا العدوان جاء نتيجة تنسيق ومباركة مع دول عربية نافذة، وخاصة مصر والمملكة العربية السعودية. وهما الدولتان اللتان عارضتا بقوة عقد مؤتمر قمة طارئ لبحث الأوضاع في قطاع غزة، متعذرتين بالانقسام الفلسطيني.
هذا الاجتماع كان بمثابة فرصة نادرة لممثلي النظام الرسمي العربي لابراء ذمتهم من تهمة التواطؤ مع العدوان، ولكنهم أكدوا التهمة، بل وتفاخروا بها، وأعلنوا الاستمرار فيها، لاعطاء الطائرات والدبابات الاسرائيلية ما تحتاجه من وقت، وغطاء عربي، لاكمال مهمتها في إبادة أكبر عدد ممكن من أبناء قطاع غزة.
العدوان الاسرائيلي دخل يومه السادس، والطائرات الاسرائيلية من كل الأنواع والأحجام تواصل القاء حممها على المدنيين ومنازلهم، ولكن هذه الآلة العسكرية الجبارة فشلت في وقف اطلاق الصواريخ، بل زادت من أعدادها، وباتت تصل إلى العمق الاسرائيلي.
هذه الصواريخ 'العبثية'، كما يدعي 'عرب الاعتدال' اصبحت تشل الحياة في سبع مدن اسرائيلية كبرى مثل أسدود وعسقلان وبئر السبع، وتدفع بحوالى مليون اسرائيلي إلى الملاجئ،
.....
مشكلة النظام العربي الرسمي انه يصدّر ازماته الى الآخرين لحلها، فقد اراد من امريكا ان تخلصه من نظام حكم صدام حسين، ويريد الآن من اسرائيل ان تخلصه من المقاومة الاسلامية في غزة، وهو جاهز لدفع التكاليف كافة، مع قيمة الخدمة المضافة، مع الفوائد المصرفية ايضاً. فكم هم كرماء مع امريكا واوروبا وربما مع اسرائيل ايضا.
.....
اسرائيل انتصرت على جيوش ثلاث دول عربية في ستة أيام، عبر سلاحها الجوي، واستخدام الحد الأدنى من الدروع في هزيمة عام 1967. وها هي تعترف الآن بأن القصف الجوي لن يحسم حربها مع حركات المقاومة في غزة، رغم غارات الترويع التي تشنها على الأبرياء والتي لم تقتل مجاهداً واحداً من قوات القسام او سرايا القدس او اللجان الشعبية او كتائب الأقصى. فقد تعلمت هذه الكتائب جميعاً من تجربة 'حزب الله'، ولجأت الى الارض تحتمي بأنفاقها انتظاراً للحرب الحقيقية.
وهذا ما يفسر عدم مشاهدتنا مجاهداً واحداً في الشوارع ملوحاً ببندقيته، مثلما كان عليه الحال في الماضي، فهم ينتظرون الهجوم البري على أحرّ من الجمر، او هكذا نعتقد.
لا نستطيع ان نتنبأ بنتائج اي مواجهة برية، ولكن ما يمكن قوله هو ان الدبابات الاسرائيلية لم تستطع ان تتقدم بضعة امتار عندما وصلت الى ابواب المنطقة الغربية في بيروت اثناء اجتياح صيف عام 1982.
....
رجال المقاومة المدافعون عن اهلهم وعرضهم في غزة قد يكونون امام معجزة صمود جديدة، مرشحة لكي تشعل الشارع العربي بالمظاهرات والمواجهات مع قوات الحكومات العربية المتواطئة، و'المضبوعة' من اسرائيل وامريكا.
فالأمتان العربية والاسلامية تنتظران الشرارة التي قد تُحدث التغيير الذي يعيد اليها كرامتها وعزّتها، ويمحو عار الهزائم من تاريخها الحديث.
....
ما اجمع عليه جميع من اتصلت بهم، هو انتصارهم للمقاومة، واستعدادهم للتضحية دفاعاً عن قطاعهم المستهدف. وما لفت نظري اكثر، انهم لم يسألوا هذه المرة عن الجيوش العربية، ولم يوجهوا اي لوم لأحد. ربما لأنهم يئسوا، وربما لأن عزة نفسهم ابت عليهم العتاب، ربما لأنهم يترفعون بكبر عن الصغائر.
عبارة واحدة ظلت تتردد في أذني، قالها احد اطفال ابن اخي، 'يا عم نموت واقفين دفاعاً عن عرضنا وكرامتنا برصاص الاسرائيليين او شظايا صواريخهم اشرف من ان نموت جوعاً او مرضاً'. انها عبارة أبلغ من كل بيانات وزراء الخارجية العرب ومؤتمرات قممهم.. آسف لا مجال للمقارنة... لله درهم انهم لمنتصرون حتماً، واسود غزة سيقاومون حتما حتى وهم داخل قفصهم، فهاهم يصمدون ستة ايام تحت جحيم النيران والقنابل.. مئة طن من المتفجرات القيت عليهم في اكواخهم المتهالكة، ومع ذلك لم يرفعوا رايات الاستسلام، وواصلوا اطلاق الصواريخ دون توقف، وواصلوا في الوقت نفسه دفن شهدائهم بإباء وشمم، انهم من اشرف شعوب الارض قاطبة"

The Gaza Crisis


by Phyllis Bennis
Global Research, January 1, 2009

"The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. The carnage is everywhere – city streets, a mosque, hospitals, police stations, a jail, a university bus stop, a plastics factory, a television station. It seems impossible, unacceptable, to step back to analyze the situation while bodies remain buried under the rubble, while parents continue to search for their missing children, while doctors continue to labor to stitch burned and broken bodies back together without sufficient medicine or equipment. The hospitals are running short even of electricity—the Israeli blockade has denied them fuel to run the generators. It is an ironic twist on the legacy of Israel’s involvement in an earlier massacre – in the Sabra and Shatila camps, in Lebanon back in 1982, it was the Israeli soldiers who lit the flairs, lighting the night sky so their Lebanese allies could continue to kill.

But if we are serious about ending this carnage, this time, we have no choice but to try to analyze, try to figure out what caused this most recent massacre, how to stop it, and then how to continue our work to end the occupation, end Israel’s apartheid policies, and change U.S. policy to one of justice and equality for all......"

Is the UN complicit in Israel's massacre in Gaza?

Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada, 1 January 2009

"The UN's complicity in Israel's propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization's utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN Secretary-General betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel's massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods...."

"The radio reported that my friend was under the rubble"


Dr. Haider Eid writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 31 December 2008

"Dr. Haidar Eid is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine. He gave the following testimony to Eva Bartlett at 5pm Gaza Time on 30 December...."

Video: Israeli Patrol Boat Rams Gaza Relief Vessel Cynthia McKinney & CNN Penhaul Reports

Egypt Seen as Complicit in Gaza Assault


By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

"CAIRO, Dec 31 (IPS) - As the Palestinian death toll approaches 400, much of popular anger throughout the Arab world has been directed at Egypt -- seen by many as complicit in the Israeli campaign.

"Israel would not have hit Gaza like this without a green light from Egypt," Hamdi Hassan, MP for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition movement, told IPS. "The Egyptian government allowed this assault on Gaza in hopes of finishing off Hamas."....

Misgivings about possible Egyptian connivance with Israel against Hamas have not been limited to opposition figures and political commentators. On the campaign's third day, thousands of demonstrators in Cairo chanted: "Oh, Mubarak, what do you say? Why was Livni here anyway?" "

The Real Goal of the Slaughter in Gaza

By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth
Palestine Chronicle

".....Even if Israeli tanks do lumber into the enclave, will they dare to move into the real battlegrounds of central Gaza? Or will they simply be used, as they have been in the past, to terrorise the civilian population on the peripheries?

Israelis are aware of the official reason for Mr Barak’s reticence to follow the air strikes with a large-scale ground war. They have been endlessly reminded that the worst losses sustained by the army in the second Intifada took place in 2002 during the invasion of Jenin refugee camp.

Gaza, as Israelis know only too well, is one mammoth refugee camp. Its narrow alleys, incapable of being negotiated by Merkava tanks, will force Israeli soldiers out into the open. Gaza, in the Israeli imagination, is a death trap.....

Despite the popular rhetoric in Israel, no senior official really believes Hamas can be destroyed, either from the air or with brigades of troops. It is simply too entrenched in Gaza.....
Israel apparently hopes to persuade the Hamas leadership, as it did Arafat for a while, that its best interests are served by co-operating with Israel. The message is: forget about your popular mandate to resist the occupation and concentrate instead on remaining in power with our help.

In the fog of war, events may yet escalate in such a way that a serious ground invasion cannot be avoided, especially if Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. But whatever happens, Israel and Hamas are almost certain in the end to agree to another ceasefire.

The issue will be whether in doing so, Hamas, like Arafat before it, loses sight of its primary task: to force Israel to end its occupation."

US Embassy: We Will Not Avoid Gaza Protests

By Franklin Lamb – Beirut
Palestine Chronicle

"With daily demonstrations being held in Beirut and across Lebanon, this item just in from the morning papers (January 1) here in Beirut: 'United States Advises its Citizens in Lebanon to Avoid Demonstrations in Support of Gaza.'.....

Could someone please inform Ms. US Ambassador that many Americans here in Beirut are honored to attend demonstrations in support of Gaza and Palestine? And given that the US weapons the Embassy helps funnel to Israel are used against civilians, feel it's their duty to help organize them?....."