Israeli tanks 'advance into Gaza'
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- Written by BBC NEWS BBC NEWS
- Published: 26 March 2010 26 March 2010
- Hits: 3180 3180
Israeli tanks are reported to have advanced into the Gaza Strip following clashes with Palestinians in which two Israeli soldiers died.
Witnesses in Gaza said tanks and bulldozers were moving towards the southern town of Khan Younis.
They also said there had been firing from the Israeli navy along the Gaza coastline.
It is the first time Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since Israel's 22-day offensive there more than a year ago.
Reports say at least two Palestinians have also been killed.
Israel says the fighting started when its troops crossed into Gaza after spotting militants planting explosives along the border.
Reports from inside Gaza say the militants then tried to capture an Israeli soldier.
Retaliation
The BBC's Jon Donnison, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, says many inside Gaza will now expect retaliation from Israel to be stepped up following the deaths of the soldiers.
The army said an officer and a conscript died when gunmen fired on a military patrol inside the Gaza Stip. Two soldiers were injured and two Palestinian fighters killed in the clash, it said.
The two soldiers killed were named by Israel's Haaretz newspaper as Eliraz Peretz, 31, and 21-year-old Ilan Sebiatkovsky.
Army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich described their deaths as "tragic" and "painful".
"I think it's true to say that this is one of the fiercest days we have had since operation Cast Lead happened," she said, referring to the Israeli offensive.
A ceasefire between Israel and Islamist militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, has largely held since the Israeli offensive.
However, hundreds of rockets have been fired into southern Israel by militants in Gaza.
Hamas's armed wing - the al-Qassam Brigades - said in a statement sent to the BBC that it had killed the two soldiers.
Speaking to Reuters news agency, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida is quoted as saying: "This was our work, but was carried out for defence."
Militants have been holding another Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, for more than three years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8590362.stm
Published: 2010/03/26 23:43:06 GMT
© BBC MMX
The apartheid will end when Israelis have to face its cost
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- Written by Tony Karon Tony Karon
- Published: 25 March 2010 25 March 2010
- Hits: 3135 3135
The former US president Jimmy Carter set off a firestorm in 2006 when he said that Israel would have to choose between maintaining an apartheid occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. That Mr Carter brokered Israel’s most important peace treaty with an Arab country was immaterial; he was branded an enemy of Israel, an anti-Semite and even a Holocaust-denier.
Israel’s friends in the US reacted out of instinct, knowing that an association with apartheid – South Africa’s erstwhile system of racial oppression – would bring international condemnation and isolation. But there was no word of protest from that quarter last week when Israel’s defence minister said what Mr Carter had. “If, and as long as between the Jordan (River) and the (Mediterranean) Sea there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic,” warned Ehud Barak, speaking at Israel’s annual Herzliya security conference. “If the Palestinians vote in elections it is a binational state and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state.”
Which, of course, is exactly what Mr Carter was arguing. The former
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert warned in November 2007 that without a
two-state solution, Israel would “face a South African-style struggle
for equal voting rights”, which it would be unable to win because
American Jews would not support a state that denies voting rights to all
of its subjects.
Mr Olmert and Mr Barak, of course, raised the
spectre of “apartheid” to remind Israelis that they could face
international isolation if they remain indifferent to the fate of the
Palestinians. Sometimes, such warnings from Israelis come as if attached
to a demographic time-bomb – the idea that once Palestinians become a
majority of the population between the Jordan River and the sea, Israel
will be left in an apartheid situation. But apartheid is a qualitative,
not a quantitative notion: it’s the denial of basic democratic rights to
a whole category of people, regardless of their numerical strength,
that defines apartheid.
While it may have been couched as a warning about the future, Mr
Barak’s statement was actually a confession of the present state of
affairs: one state has controlled the territory between the Jordan and
the Mediterranean since 1967, and that state denies the Palestinians of
the West Bank and Gaza the right to vote for the government that rules
them. That is the essence of apartheid.
The rubric of
“occupation” actually serves as a convenient fiction for Israel because
it suggests a temporary condition. But at home, the Israelis have
stopped pretending that their presence in the West Bank is temporary.
They plan to keep major settlement blocs, illegal under the rules of
occupation as defined by the Geneva Convention, in the Jordan Valley,
East Jerusalem and so on. For Israelis, there is no distinction in
lifestyle or access between living in the West Bank and living inside
Israel’s 1967 borders – the settlements are now little more than an
extension of Israeli suburbia.
Equally fictitious is the notion that there is a “peace” in the works that will change the situation. Israel’s leaders are not prepared to offer a credible Palestinian state, and they are under no pressure, domestically or internationally, to do so. Israeli public opinion has soured on the need for peace with the Palestinians, bottled up in Gaza and behind a security wall in the West Bank. Why risk provoking a civil war with militant settlers who are the backbone of the Israeli army and threaten violence to hang onto the West Bank? In the old days, Yitzhak Rabin would say that Israel would “pursue peace as if terror did not exist and fight terror as if peace did not exist”. For today’s Israelis, why pursue peace if terror has been contained?
By opening the peace process (but never concluding it) Israel found itself increasingly integrated in a global society with Europe and the US. It’s football teams play in European leagues; its supermodels grace the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition; its hi-tech entrepreneurs are key players in the digital marketplace. Most Israelis never see Palestinians, except during stints in the military. The “demographic” threat is an abstraction.
It should come as little surprise that Israelis are cool towards Mr
Obama’s peace effort: Israel’s cost-benefit analysis weighs against
pursuing a peace agreement that carries risk. There are no consequences
for maintaining the status quo. Unless Mr Obama and others can change
that cost-benefit analysis, they’re wasting their time.
It wasn’t
a moral epiphany that prompted Rabin to embrace the Oslo peace process;
it was his reading of the geopolitical situation at the end of the Gulf
War, and the assumption that Israel could not rely on unconditional US
support. But Mr Sharon and Mr Netanyahu subsequently proved that Israel
can, in fact, count on US support without concluding a two-state peace –
it simply must go through the motions of a “peace process”.
The apartheid fear for Israeli leaders is not of the moral turpitude
of maintaining such a system – which they already do – it’s a fear of
this being recognised for what it is.
Mr Barak’s recent
confession came in the same week that South Africa celebrated the 20th
anniversary of its former president FW de Klerk’s announcement that he
would free Nelson Mandela and negotiate a political settlement. Like
Rabin, de Klerk was motivated by a strategic calculus. Sanctions were
beginning to bite, and with the Cold War all but over the US government
made clear that they would not come to de Klerk’s aid. Maintaining
apartheid would leave the regime isolated and increasingly impoverished.
The cost of maintaining the status quo offset the risks of heading down
the uncertain road of peace.
The Israelis are not going to dismantle what Mr Barak has essentially
admitted is an apartheid system unless the consequences of maintaining
it become prohibitive. As long as they can count on unconditional
support in the West, the Israelis will go through the motions but
maintain the status quo.
The optimist might even read Mr Barak’s
“apartheid” admission as a cry for help: certainly, those Israeli
leaders serious about a two-state solution are unlikely to make any
headway unless they can demonstrate to their own people that the cost of
maintaining the status quo have become too high. But they can only do
this if Mr Obama shows Israelis the consequences.
Tony Karon is a New York based analyst who blogs at
rootlesscosmopolitan.com He is also a senior editor at Time.com
Obama, heal us from the occupation!
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- Written by GUSH SHALOM GUSH SHALOM
- Published: 25 March 2010 25 March 2010
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Mazal Tov!
Against intense opposition
You have paved the way
For Americans
To receive
Medical treatment.
Now
Heal us please
From the
Malignant occupation.
Many in Israel
Will be grateful
"Dialogue," celebrating the life and work of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darweesh.
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- Written by Kanaan Kanaan Kanaan Kanaan
- Published: 24 March 2010 24 March 2010
- Hits: 3221 3221
Greetings!
Additionally, all you who are are invited to my art exhibit, "Dialogue," celebrating the life and work of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darweesh. The exhibit will be held at Vancouver's North Bank Artists Gallery, April 2-May 1. An opening reception will take place Friday, April 2 at 5-9 p.m.; both are free and open to the public.
1005 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
Free and open to the public. Street parking available.
For more information about the exhibit visit my web site www.kanaakanaan.com and hope to see you on April 2!
Kanaan
The more Things Change, the more they Stay the Same
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- Written by Joharah Baker for MIFTAH Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
- Published: 24 March 2010 24 March 2010
- Hits: 3046 3046
In those fleeting moments of complete desperation, most Palestinians have probably thought it would have been better to maintain our status as a revolutionary people under Israel's military occupation. That way, the road to liberation would have been clear cut and our means of achieving it would have been through methods utilized by a people oppressed, with no government, no state and a leadership in exile. Yes, when all else fails, we Palestinians revert back to what could have been if only we didn't decide to believe in the promises of the western world who told us negotiations and peace deals were the best way to go.
Nearly two decades after our transformation from a revolutionary people fighting for their freedom to a quasi-government, semi-autonomous, severely dissected people, most of us have come to realize that nothing really changes where Israel is concerned. Maybe, on the contrary, things have actually gotten worse.
All of this negativity was not created in a vacuum. The past two weeks have been a circus of diplomatic statements and slogans, which in the end, mean absolutely nothing. Take for example, the US's supposed anger at Israel's treatment of Vice President Joe Biden on this recent trip to the country when the construction of 1,600 housing units were announced in the illegal Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo. At first, the Palestinians detected a distant waft of dissent in the Obama administration. Yes, maybe this time, the US would turn their usually inane statements when it comes to upbraiding Israel into real actions. Words such as "unhelpful" and "unproductive" in regards to Israel's blatant violations of international law this time transformed into chides such as "insulting" and "condemning" in regards to Israel's settlement policies in Palestine. This, hoped the Palestinians, was a golden opportunity for real change, the kind of change President Barack Obama has been promising since he took office last January, the kind of change he has proven he could make happen like this week's pass of the new health care reform bill. If settlement construction is so damaging, why not cut it off at the knees?
Alas, such hopes are as naïve as they come. It was not long after this "insult" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while he was sorry for the "unfortunate timing" he would not compromise Israel's position on Jerusalem. "There is no difference between building in Jerusalem and building in Tel Aviv," he opined. During the annual AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Netanyahu reiterated that "Jerusalem is no settlement" and that building in Israel's "eternal capital" would continue unhindered as it has for the past 42 years.
What is even more audacious from the cheeky Bibi is his offer to withhold from publicly announcing settlement construction, especially when US officials are visiting so that nobody would be embarrassed. Talk about an insult. Is this the kind of loyal ally the US is so proud of? Apparently so. Clinton, who last week spurted out some of the strongest-toned language ever towards Israel, heaped loads of praise on the country and reassured it once again of the US commitment to Israel. "Guaranteeing Israel's security is more than a policy position for me. It is a personal commitment that will never waiver." If this were not clear enough, Clinton spelled it out for the pro-Israel Americans listening to her, just to set their minds at ease.
"Under President Obama's leadership, we have reinvigorated defense consultations, redoubled our efforts to ensure Israel's qualitative military edge, and provided nearly $3 billion in annual military assistance. In fact, that assistance increased in 2010 and we have requested another increase for 2011."
That doesn't sound like someone who is opposed to Israel's actions, as illegal and as oppressive as they may be. This sounds like typical America and whoever deludes themselves into thinking America, even under a president like Mr. Obama, is really going to turn things around for the Palestinians is just that: delusional.
That is why the Palestinians are becoming so cynical in terms of the so-called peace process. It has brought us very little if nothing at all. Actually, it has given us one thing, and that is a ball and chain that has shackled us even more to the iron gates of Israel's occupation, which by the way, is just as strong and just as permanent as it was 42 years ago. What's worse, we can no longer play the revolution card without being shot down by the international community for breaking our side the agreement, even as Israel is allowed to breach these same agreements time and again, settlement construction being the most glaring example. Following the debacle over the east Jerusalem settlement expansion, the Quartet also "condemned" the construction. However, even this foursome could not help but throw us into the mix. "The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth…and to refrain from demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem. The Quartet also calls on both sides to observe calm and restraint and to refrain from provocative actions…"
Now that the Palestinians have a government, a president, prime minister and a cabinet, apparently the term "both sides" is applicable even when the sides are far from equal. We are bound hand a foot by the mistakes of our past, the Oslo Accords being the biggest mistake of them all. Now we must face a world that pressures us into entering negotiations with an enemy that does not compromise its intentions even with its biggest ally and financer, and oppress our own revolutionary inclinations against a very alive occupation because we pledged years ago to renounce violence. The worst part of it all is the overall feeling among the Palestinians that we have been duped. The compromises, the suppression of our legitimate rights at times would have all been worth it if the sacrifices had reaped real results. However, as settlements continue to grow and Israel remains as impertinent as ever, it is a cruel wake up call for us Palestinians that even though so much has changed over the years, even more has stayed the same.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
http://www.miftah.org