background preloader

Palestine

Facebook Twitter

Israel's military power hasn't improved its strategic position and friends of the Jewish state must point out its mistakes--beginning with Gaza - By Stephen M. Walt. Many supporters of Israel will not criticize its behavior, even when it is engaged in brutal and misguided operations like the recent onslaught on Gaza. In addition to their understandable reluctance to say anything that might aid Israel's enemies, this tendency is based in part on the belief that Israel's political and military leaders are exceptionally smart and thoughtful strategists who understand their threat environment and have a history of success against their adversaries. If so, then it makes little sense for outsiders to second-guess them. This image of Israeli strategic genius has been nurtured by Israelis over the years and seems to be an article of faith among neoconservatives and other hardline supporters of Israel in the United States.

These tactical achievements are part of a larger picture, however, and that picture is not a pretty one. What does the record show? Israel's next major misstep was the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. AFP/Getty Images. Israel seizes $120m in Palestinian tax revenue over UN vote | World news. Israel has seized more than $120m (£75m)in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine.

The move came as the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah in the West Bank following Thursday's vote, in which 138 countries backed enhanced "non-member state" status for Palestine. Only nine countries opposed the move and 41 abstained. The financial sanction is Israel's second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme. An Israeli official said Israel was entitled to deduct the sum from a debt of more than $200m (£125m) owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation. But he conceded that the move was in response to the UN vote, and that it could be repeated next month.

"A lot depends on what the Palestinians do or don't do," he said. Palestine asks Turkey and Egypt to send troops to Gaza. Palestinian Ambassador to Turkey Nabil Maarouf. (Photo: AA) Turkey and Egypt, two heavyweights in the Middle East, should send troops to monitor a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip that is likely to happen in the near future, a top Palestinian envoy in Ankara has said. Palestinian Ambassador to Turkey Nabil Maarouf told Today's Zaman on Tuesday that in order to maintain a possible cease-fire in Gaza, which has been under Israeli attacks since Wednesday, Turkey and Egypt should send in troops immediately.

"The best solution for the future of Palestine would be the presence of Turkish and Egyptian forces in Gaza as they are two important and close countries in the region. Israel would never dare to attack Gaza in the presence of Turkish and Egyptian forces. This would help to ease the conditions. “We do not want any more statements coming from regional and global powers. However, diplomats believe that it would not be in Turkey's interest to take action in Gaza by sending in its troops.

Palestine Articles

Is Israel Inadvertently Legitimating Hamas Rule in Gaza? - Zachary K. Goldman. By holding the terrorist organization responsible for all attacks, Israel may be undermining the possibility for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. A Palestinian holds a Hamas flag as he climbs a street pole during clashes with Israeli security forces near Ramallah. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters) Israel's latest exchange of violence with Hamas in Gaza exhibits many of the features that characterized previous periods of conflict between the parties.

In the days preceding Israel's operation, Hamas and other terrorist groups fired over 100 rockets and mortars into Israel and laid explosives near the fence that separates Gaza and Israel, causing casualties among Israeli soldiers. After warnings from Israel's political leadership, it responded with a series of air attacks against Hamas. But this time, the nature of Israel's response indicates that it is treating Hamas more and more like the sovereign authority in Gaza, with a complicated series of implications. Israeli minister vows Palestinian 'holocaust' Colonial Experiments in Gaza. Once again Israel, still the occupying power of Gaza, has unleashed its war machinery on occupied Palestinians. Since the start of the second intifada in 2000, this ritual has become compulsive and repetitive.

Israel initiated its new round of bloody violence by targeting Palestinian resistance fighters who, Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz explained, Israel will “hunt like beasts.” In this new round of war, shelling and bombardment--or "hunting," to use Katz’s colonial vocabulary-- have been met with rockets that attempt to retaliate for the siege and violence imposed on Gaza, to assert Palestinian resilience, and to resist in some fashion decades of occupation.

Many commentators have noted that the initial declared objectives of this bloody ritual were limited in nature. The Israeli attacks did not aim to eliminate Palestinian resistance entirely, but rather to minimize it, as Ehud Barak stated on the first day of the war (November 14). A decisive conclusion is necessary - JPost - Opinion - Op-Eds. Anyone who thinks Hamas is going to beg for a cease-fire, that Operation Pillar of Defense will draw to a close and quiet will reign in the South because we hit targets in the Gaza Strip, needs to think again. With the elimination of a murderous terrorist and the destruction of Hamas’s long-range missile stockpile, the operation was off to an auspicious start, but what now? This must not be allowed to end as did Operation Cast Lead: We bomb them, they fire missiles at us, and then a cease-fire, followed by “showers” – namely sporadic missile fire and isolated incidents along the fence.

Life under such a rain of death is no life at all, and we cannot allow ourselves to become resigned to it. A strong opening isn’t enough, you also have to know how to finish – and finish decisively. If it isn’t clear whether the ball crossed the goal-line or not, the goal isn’t decisive. The ball needs to hit the net, visible to all. What does a decisive victory sound like? Who Started the Israel-Gaza Conflict? - Robert Wright. On Monday my Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg began a post with this sentence: "Rockets are flying from Gaza into Israel at a fast clip, and Israelis, it is said, are divided on the question of how to respond.

" So in Israel the question was how to respond to aggression from Gaza, and in Gaza the question was how to respond to aggression from Israel. And each side considered its own use of force--what the other side called provocation--a response to provocation. On Thursday, after Israel had killed a senior Hamas military commander and his son, and a rocket from Gaza had killed three Israelis, I aired this question on twitter: "Does anybody know of a truly symmetrical timeline of Israel-Gaza escalation--including missiles from Gaza and Israeli strikes? " A number of people sent links, but none of the timelines seemed wholly objective; all seemed to have at least a wisp of Israeli or Palestinian perspective. So examine this timeline and draw your own conclusions. Analysis: Hamas history tied to Israel. Has Turkey Abandoned Gaza? - Michael Koplow. Ankara's muted response to today's attacks provides a window into its domestic dilemmas and growing rivalry with Egypt.

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip on November 14th, 2012. (Amir Cohen/Reuters) Since Israel's last major foray into Gaza with Operation Cast Lead in 2008, no country has been more vocal about the plight of the Palestinians than Turkey. Prime Minister Erdoğan has made it a priority to keep the world's attention on Gaza and has repeatedly called out Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians while attempting to bolster Hamas. The Palestinian issue has been so important to the Turkish government that it has made ending the Gaza blockade one of its three conditions, along with an apology and compensation, for restoring full ties with Israel following the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the Mavi Marmara. Egypt is likely to step into the void that Turkey has left. Instead, Egypt is likely to step into the void that Turkey has left. Turkey to take steps for measures against Israel. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said Turkey will take steps at international institutions for necessary measures against Israel’s what he said “aggressive position” as it continued to pound bombs on Gaza for a second day.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said Turkey will take steps at international institutions to see necessary measures taken against what he called Israel's “aggressive position” as it continued to pound Gaza with bombs for a second day. Davutoğlu told reporters in Djibouti, where he traveled to attend the foreign ministers meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), that Israel had once again displayed its aggressiveness by attacking Gaza Wednesday night. He added that Turkey will make efforts at both the OIC and other international institutions to condemn Israel's actions and to push for necessary measures against Tel Aviv's aggressive position on Gaza. TIMELINE: Israel's Latest Escalation in Gaza. On Wednesday, November 14th, it was reported that Israel assassinated the leader of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed Jabari, breaking a tentative truce with Palestinian fighters that had been in place since Monday.

The truce followed an escalation in violence that began last Thursday in which 6 Palestinian civilians were killed, including three children, and more than 50 others injured. The IMEU offers the following timeline of the recent violence and a link to an IMEU fact sheet on previous Israeli ceasefire violations. Following a two-week lull in violence, Israeli soldiers invade Gaza. In the resulting exchange of gunfire with Palestinian fighters, a 12-year-old boy is killed by an Israeli bullet while he plays soccer. Shortly afterwards, Palestinian fighters blow up a tunnel along the Gaza-Israel frontier, injuring one Israeli soldier. An anti-tank missile fired by Palestinian fighters wounds four Israeli soldiers driving in a jeep along the Israel-Gaza boundary.

What if powerful Palestinians were bombing weak Israelis. I've been off the grid while in the air back from Dubai, so I'm only beginning to catch up on the depressingly familiar events in Gaza. I'll post additional thoughts tomorrow. But for now, two initial observations. First, the similarities to Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2008-09) are of course obvious. In both cases, the attacks occurred shortly after a U.S. presidential election. In both cases, a period of rough truce was initially broken by Israel, triggering a Palestinian response, and then leading to an overwhelming Israeli counterattack justified by the need to "restore deterrence.

" In both cases there doesn't appear to be a clear Israeli strategy, in the sense of any justifiable political objectives. Given these similarities, a good place to start weighing the moral dimensions here is Jerome Slater's recent article "Just War Philosophy and the 2008-09 War in Gaza," published in the Fall 2012 issue of International Security. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images. Turkey denounces Israel's Gaza assault as ‘bloody investment in election'

President Abdullah Gül has decried an ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza that has left more than 20 Palestinians dead so far, most of them civilians, describing the move as a “bloody investment in election.” “There will be an election in Israel in January. There must not be such a bloody investment in the election,” the Turkish president said as part of a series of public condemnations of Israel by Turkish officials for the offensive Israel launched on Gaza on Wednesday.

This latest surge in the long-running conflict between Israel and Gaza began when the former killed Hamas military mastermind Ahmed Al-Jaabari in a precision airstrike on his car on Wednesday. Israel then began shelling the coastal enclave from land, air and sea. A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malakhi on Thursday morning.

Gül described the Gaza violence as a “dangerous escalation” and said it is impossible for the world to ignore the crisis. Nous accusons: Mainstream media fails to report on atrocities against Gaza. While countries across Europe and North America commemorated military casualties of past and present wars on November 11, Israel was targeting civilians. On November 12, waking up to a new week, readers at breakfast were flooded with heart rending accounts of past and current military casualties. There was, however, no or little mention of the fact that the majority of casualties of modern day wars are civilians. There was also hardly any mention on the morning of November 12 of military attacks on Gaza that continued throughout the weekend. A cursory scan confirms this for Canada's CBC, Globe and Mail, Montreal's Gazette, and the Toronto Star.

Equally, for the New York Times and for the BBC. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) report on Sunday November 11, five Palestinian civilians including three children had been killed in the Gaza strip in the previous 72 hours, in addition to two Palestinian security personnel. Hagit Borer, U.K. Antoine Bustros, Canada. Dissecting IDF propaganda: The numbers behind the rocket attacks. In this brief study, I examine the many numbers cited by the Israeli military relating to Gaza rocket attacks into Israel.

To begin, Israeli spokespeople frequently remind the world that a million Israeli citizens are within range of Gaza rockets, twelve thousand of which have been fired into Israel in the last twelve years, inflicting thousands of injuries and several dead. However, we are rarely told exactly how many people have been killed by these rocket attacks. Counting the dead Below is a list of all the fatalities of rocket and mortar attacks fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel in the entire history of these attacks. Throughout the years of rocket attacks into Israel, a total of 26 people have been killed altogether. Fatalities from rocket and mortar attacks in Israel from the Gaza Strip (Refer to the bottom of the page for notes and sources.) And for an entire year before Operation Pillar of Cloud, not a single Israeli was killed by rocket or mortar.

A verrry slow genocide. In Tel Aviv, missiles matter, but so does a tan Israel News.

Live Updates

Turkish PM, Egypt's Morsi discuss Gaza offensive. The Turkish prime minister, who is scheduled to visit Egypt on Saturday, discussed the escalating exchange of fire between Israel and the Palestinians late on Thursday with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Sources said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Morsi exchanged views on tensions in the region, particularly Israel's assault on Gaza. In their conversation, Morsi also stressed that Cairo is “impatiently” awaiting Erdoğan's visit on Saturday. A total of 21 Palestinians have died including eight militants and 13 civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israeli civilians a town north of Gaza, all men and women in their 30s.

Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians. The United States asked Turkey and Egypt, which have contact with Hamas, to urge the movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza. War by all means – How the IDF fights in 2012Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News source.

The West Bank Archipelago | AxisMundi Jerusalem.