Arafat 'murder' investigation?

An old, sick bloke dies and they decide to launch a murder investigation?

WTF would anyone murder Arafat? Wouldn't have been the Israelis. He managed to achieve virtually nothing, weakened the Palestinian independence movement by promoting corrupt cronies, created division and resentment between Palestinian factions, and inspired hatred and fear in Israel, encouraging people to vote for extremist idiots. The Israelis had a vested interest in keeping him alive; I'm surprised they didn't stick him on eternal life support like they did with Sharon.

Tactical advice for Hosni

I'd have thought Mubarak would have rolled the tanks over the pesky demonstrators by now. Hopefully, his reluctance to resort to type means he might not be able to rely on the army to obey.

Still, he has one card (1) left to play ...



Play that at the revolting plebs, Hosni. It'll disperse any non-German crowd within minutes.

There are - presumably unironic - comments on youtube dedicating this tosh to the Egyptian demonstrators. The thought that some high pitched, poodle haired, Germanic, soft-rock guitar wankers might compose some ditty with sparklers and whistling would be enough to stock me in my revolutionary tracks. I'd sooner the Berlin Wall stayed up, than allow Scorpions to unleash that horror on the world. Freedom of speech can be taken too far.

More seriously, the persistance of the demonstrators is impressive, and my earlier forecast that it would all be over in a couple of days may well have been ... absolutely wrong (2). Mubarak may well be on the way out, and no bad thing if he is - though I think people are a bit too quick in writing the merciless old bastard off. He knows that he's got the backing of the USA - because they regard him as essential to the security of Israel.

The US probably can't see past his regime (with or without him) and dread the prospect of a genuinely democratic Egypt - because that would probably deliver a moderately Islamic government and that - to the myopic apparthiks of US foreign policy - can't be countenanced. Hell, they didn't engage in this whole War on Terror thing to encourage more Islamist regimes to establish themselves. hence Hillary Clinton's cowardly refusal to tell Mubarak to get his arse out of the presidential palace (3).

(The likelihood of Muhammed El Baradi taking over may also be a factor. He's hardly a face the USA like seeing; US petulance and spite knows no bounds.)

So, good luck to the demonstrators. Whatever happens, I hope not many of you are killed, though I think there is still a lot of blood to be shed. But, tragic though that will be, the greater tragedy will be if it comes to naught - if the west refuses to support any new government and tries to bring it down, or force it to 'open up' Egypt to foreigners. That's never succeeded, and if it fails again in Egypt, the consequences will likely be dire for the Egyptians, and possibly Israelis and Palestinians as well.

1 - "Wind of Change," by Scorpions. Video clip posted on youtube by ScorpionsVEVO, 1st of November, 2009. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ)
2 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2011/01/egypt.html
3 - "Hillary Clinton says U.S. not pushing for ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak," by Paul Ritcher. Published by the Los Angeles Times, 30th of January, 2011. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clinton-egypt-20110131,0,6713553.story)

Worst press conference ever?

It is hard to imagine just how you would go about justifying piracy on the high seas, but I don't think portraying hard-as-nails Israeli commandos as victims would cut much ice with anyone. Never-the-less, that's what the Israeli government have decided to do, to explain why their soldiers have just shot dead several people on the Gaza Aid Convoy:

According to a spokeswoman for Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Avital Leibovich, officers aboard its warships gave the activists several warnings before commandos were winched from helicopters on to the deck of the Mavi Marmara.

"We found ourselves in the middle of a lynching," she told reporters in the Israeli port of Ashdod. Around 10 activists attacked commandos, she said, relieving them of their pistols.

"We didn't look for confrontation but it was a massive attack," she said. "What happened was a last resort." (1)

It is surely the most unconvincing bit of PR since the heyday of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf in Baghdad.

Just to re-cap - the Israeli navy sets out to intercept the ships. Though they aren't looking for confrontation, they deploy armed commandos from helicopters to board them against the will of their crew in an attempt to seize control of them, nothing confrontational about that.

And these commandos are presented as the equivalent of the hapless victims of a lynch mob - putting those on the convoy in the position of murderous, racist vigilantes?

Sorry, but really, do fuck off.

1 - "Israel accused of state terrorism after assault on flotilla carrying Gaza aid," by Harriet Sherwood. Published in The Guardian, 1st of June, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/31/israel-accused-state-terrorism-assault-flotilla-gaza)

Israel offerred to sell apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons

In 1978, Graham Greene published a book called The Human Factor, which - if my memory serves me correctly - included a sub-plot about the sale of nuclear arms to apartheid South Africa. I think the idea originated from unsubstantiated rumours about efforts by Israel to conduct such a transaction.

Well, now they are are substantiated:

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted. (1)

Now what is it they say about truth and fiction?

Beyond the hypocrisy of preaching about the dangers of Iran passing on nuclear arms and technology is the jaw dropping idea that Israel supplying the most blatantly racist and fascistic government since the fall of the Nazis with nuclear arms. I can't help but read this as showing that the Israeli government of the day - which means luminaries like Peres who are still in office - tacitly agreed with the sick ideas of the racist apartheid regime.

Any Israeli would surely agree that regime that offered support to the Nazis in World War Two and tried to supply them with secret weapons would have faced vilification and ostracism, especially if they continued to keep the people who brokered the deals in power. I can't see why a similar sanction shouldn't be applied to Israel, as long as it continues to honour the scum who masterminded this disgustingly cynical ploy.

A regime that defies the UN, attacks civilian populations within its borders, is suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction, and is willing to sell them to evil bastards. Bit of deja vu?

1 - "Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons," by Chris Mcgreal. Published in The Guardian, 23rd of May, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons)

Stop me if you've heard this one before ...

Israel's former deputy defence minister, rattling his sabre like crazy:

Ephraim Sneh, Israel's deputy defence minister until 2007, said a nuclear-armed Iran was an unacceptable threat to Israel. No Israeli government could put its faith in President Barack Obama's efforts to bring Tehran to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme, he said.

"The Israeli government is the only entity that is responsible for the existence of the Jewish people," he said. "Iran has been explicit in its hostility to Israel time and again. They would use these weapons.

"We believe that Iran has the capacity and the delivery capability for nuclear weapons. They can proceed to production. We have got two months to act - before the end of 2009." (1)

Never mind that there isn't a shred of evidence that Iran's nuclear programme is intended for anything other than peaceful purposes, or is in violation of any treaty or obligation.

And "We believe that Iran has the capacity and the delivery capability for nuclear weapons."

That sounds achingly familiar. Where have I heard it before ... ?

Would it take them 45 minutes to deploy these weapons, I wonder?

1 - "Israel 'will attack Iran this year' if West does not cripple Tehran with sanctions," by Damien McElroy, published by The Telegraph, 17th of September, 2009. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/6199002/Israel-will-attack-Iran-this-year-if-West-does-not-cripple-Tehran-with-sanctions.html)

David Cameron, "Friend of the Jewish people"

I was disappointed-yet-not-at-all-surprised when David Cameron, leader of the British Conservative party, declared he was an "enthusiastic friend of the Jewish people" (1).

Translated, this means, "I am a rabid supporter of the Israei government and will signally fail to condemn, or attempt to restrain, their psychotic actions in the region, no matter how detrimental to the long term survival of the state of Israel, or the reputation and safety of the Jewish people who are not citizens of that berserk state."

Which is actually the opposite of being a friend of the Jewish people.

1 - "David Cameron ‘could be a direct descendant of Moses’," by Russell Jenkns, published in the Times, 10th of July, 2009. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6677414.ece)

Respect is due: Amos Elon, 1926-2009

From his obituary in the Independent:

Amos Elon, a leading Israeli writer and historian who became increasingly disenchanted with the course taken by his country after the 1967 Six Day War, has died in Italy, his home since 2004, at the age of 82. He had leukaemia. Elon built up an unrivalled reputation in a 30-year career as a journalist on the liberal daily Haaretz, a public intellectual, and an early critic of the occupation and advocate of Palestinian self-determination. But he will probably best be remembered most for his books; an author who wrote with equal insight and scholarship about Zionism and its impact, and the assimilated pre-holocaust European jewry into which he himself had been born.

Elon was born in Vienna on 4 July 1926. His father, a businessman with a taste for adventure, left Austria for British-run Palestine two years later, bringing the rest of his family, including his young son, to join him in 1933, against the darkening background of Nazism. Elon grew up in Tel Aviv and was for three years a member of Haganah, the pre-state military which fought for Israel's independence, and after the 1948 war studied law and history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at Cambridge. He joined Haaretz in 1951, and as a protégé of Gershom Shocken, the paper's publisher and editor-in-chief, was sent to Europe as a foreign correspondent and later for six years to Washington.

He was in his forties when he wrote the book which first made him famous. The Israelis: Founders and Sons was an early example of "revisionist" history, in which he examined critically, from an essentially left-wing Zionist perspective, the development of the Zionist project and its failure to take into account the plight of Arabs displaced by the founding of the Israeli state. "The Arabs bore no responsibility for the centuries-long suffering of Jews in Europe," he wrote. "Whatever their subsequent follies and outrages might be, the punishment of the Arabs for the sins of Europe must burden the conscience of Israelis for a long time to come." (1)

His position was not only just, it was patriotic and truly pro-Israeli. Israel will not survive if it refuses to address the massive injustice it has committed. Until it does, it will be hated, attacked and possibly destroyed. Unfortuantely, the people of Isreal seem to be listening more to the strident, intransigent ideologues, who might be viserally appealing but offer no future for Israelis or Palestinians.

1 - "Amos Elon: Writer who became disillusioned with Zionism and advocated Palestinian self-determination," obituary written by Donald MacIntyre, published in The Independent, 28th of May, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/amos-elon-writer-who-became-disillusioned-with-zionism-and-advocated-palestinian-selfdetermination-1691760.html)

Iranian ship sunk off Sudanese coast

An unconfirmed and sketchy account of ominous events in the Middle East:

An Egyptian weekly reported Sunday that an Iranian ship carrying weapons traveling en route to the Gaza Strip has been sunk in the Red Sea, off the coast of Sudan.

Al-Usbua's report quotes sources from Sudan's capitol Khartoum, who say missiles were fired towards the ship from "an unidentified boat, which may be Israeli or American."

The report says the Iranian ship was headed for Sudan in order to unload the weapons, which would then travel by land to the Gaza Strip. But the ship was sunk by the missiles, along with its crew. (1)

Oh. Shit.

This could be bad, as it could be interpreted, by Iran, as an act of war. One of their ships has bene sunk, lives, presumably, lost, in a hostile act by a foreign power. If Israel was less armed and funded by the USA formidable then the act would almost certainly lead to a direct military response.

As it stands, it would be suicidally stupid of Iran to attack Israel, even in the face of this obscene provokation. But that doesn't mean the Israel is free do do as it pleases. The response will be indirect, but just as bloody as a full invasion. There will be more Muslims who are willing to step forward to attack Israel by terrorism, and and Ahmadinejad is more likely to be re-elected - for the same reason that Bush was given a second term.

Which, a shadowy and suspicious part of my mind suggests, is exactly what Netanyahu wants. Keeping the fool of Tehran in power and in the public eye will keep tensions high in the region and justify his own strident rhetoric in response.

What will Obama do? Show some leadership, cuff the 51st (rogue) state into line, or let it go carry on doigng what it likes?

1 - "Iranian arms ship sunk of Sudan coast," unattributed news article published on Ynet, 26th of Arpil, 2009. (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3706989,00.html)

UPDATE [29/4/09]

Looks like a false alarm:

Iran rejects a report that an Iranian navy vessel has been targeted by "Israeli or American missiles" and was ultimately sunk in the Red Sea.

The report "about a missile attack by the US or Israel against an Iranian navy ship" is false, an informed source speaking on condition of anonymity told Press TV on Tuesday.

An Egyptian magazine had published a report, claiming that the Iranian vessel had been targeted by missiles near Sudan.

The unnamed source dismissed the report as the product of a propaganda machine against the Tehran government.

Thankfully.

1 - "Iran denies 'US-Israeli' assault on navy ship," unattributed MD/HGH story, published on presstv.ir, 29th of April, 2009. (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=92820&sectionid=351020101)

Piracy is not Jihad, explaining it is not excusing it

Johan Hari puts his finger on the real story behind the hijackings and subsequent spectacular rescue of American sailors off the Horn of Africa (1).

And like all truth tellers, he gets excoriated for it. After all, we can’t allow that there might be reasons why people act in ways that we don’t like, because that suggests our behaviour might be, in someways, unreasonable. That there might be a link between what we do, and what happens to us.

Let’s be clear about one thing first of all – explanation is not exculpation. Somali pirates are criminals trying to extort ransom through theft and violence. The hijackers who destroyed the twin towers on the 11th of Spetember, 2001, were evil, murderous terrorists.

But the point is that these people didn’t do it just for the Hell of it. The Somali pirates, at least initially, didn’t even do it for the money. And they certainly didn’t do it because they are part of some global jihad. They did it for the same reason that anyone in their position would have done it – to stay alive.

They live in a failed state, where career options are limited to being a victim or a victimizer. By, on the one hand, stealing their fish stocks, and on the other, poisoning what was left by dumping toxic waste into the water off the Horn, the first world robbed the dirt poor coastal Somalis of the former choice- they couldn’t subsist on what they could catch, because we stole it, or poisoned it. So they had to become victimizers. Which, in Somalia, means either joining a warlord’s retinue, or preying on the spectacularly rich pickings of the world’s key shipping routes.

Just like their 17th century European forebears, the current crop of Somali pirates are responding to economic necessity. They resorted to piracy because they weren't able to make their living - even by Somali standards - by traditional fishing, because all the fish were being taken by foreign fleets, or poisoned by dumping, again by foreigners. Then they dscovered there was a Hell of a lot of money to be made through piracy - a lot of attendant risk, of course, but given the choice was between starvation, joining some warlord's army or turning pirate, no worse than that involved in any of the alternatives. Given the profitability of preying on first world shipping, it might be rather difficult to persuade them that it isn't a good idea, now that the practice is established.

Again, this is not excusing their action.

It is an attempt to explain why it happened, because a gaggle of Somali fishermen wake up one morning and decide they’d had enough harvesting the ocean’s bounty, and would rather risk their lives storming ships and invoking the wrath of the world’s navies. Fundamentally, it's about economics. The pirate kings get to live like monarchs, the actual foot soldiers get a living, and the security of being part of an armed force in a Hellish sort of place where there aren't many alternatives.

This pattern is repeated all across the Muslim world from Somalia, to Palestine, Kasmir, Afghanistan, the Uighir territories contained within the PRC. In all these places, people are responding to circumstances. Because, generally, they are desperate, or facing violence, their responses shock us in the west. We refuse to admit our own culpability, or the indifference that has lead to these situations. We don’t care. We’ve let the chickens flap about, and now they are coming home to roost.

And we can’t accept that, so we accept the suggestion that this is all part of some fantastical global Jihad – the Uighir separatists in China, the Cechyens, the Palestinains, the Somalis, the Jangaweed in Darfur. Because admitting that these disparate struggles might not be part of some global war against anything non-Islamic forces us to face up to something pretty intolerable – that the worlds a hideous mess, and our greed and indifference and venality and cruelty are what has allowed it to become this way. We could have created a world which was, if not perfect, at least a lot more tolerable for a much greater number of people, and where people weren’t reduced to piracy and terrorism because no one really give a fuck about them until they do.

While we ignore these conflicts, Al Queada do not. They colonise them and exploit them. Hence the murderers who blew themselves to pieces on the London underground mouthed some banalities about doing it for Palestine, Kasmir and the like. Future terrorists who target the west will be Chechyen, Uighir - because we're blithely ignoring their sufferring and oppression, and Al Queada are far more capable and willing to exploit it than we are at dealing with it.

1 - 'You Are Being Lied to About Pirates,' by Johann Hari, posted on The Huffington Post, 13th of Apri, 2009. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html)

Telegraphism

In an article describing Hamas's tentative moves towards a truce, the Telegraph demonstrates the peculiar logic only it is capable of:

Hamas has been in the ascendant in Palestinian politics since it won assembly elections three years ago and then drove supporters of the Western-backed Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, out of Gaza in 2007. Throughout, the exiled leadership headed by Khaled Meshaal and Mr Marzouk has maintained a hardline defence of the organisation's founding dream of wiping out Israel. "History has shown that you have to take by force your rights from Israel," said Mr Marzouk. "You can't make peace unless you make Israel pay the price of occupation. It's the only strategy." (1)

Spot it? In one sentence, we're told that the organisations founding dream is "wiping out Israel." In the next two sentences, Mr Marzouk is quoted making a bellicose statement - but one that contradicts the Telegraph's claim - you can not make peace with something you've destroyed. You can't make peace with something you're Hellbent on wiping out.

Hamas are a bunch of ruthless terrorist thugs, and their talk of peace might well be phoney. But the Telegraph needs to raise its standard. At best, that is an example of sloppy journalism. More sinisterly, it might be clumsy attempt to reinfoce the idea that Hamas are intransigent fanatics inent on - to borrow from the misquoted comment of Mr Amadinejad - wiping Israel off the map. One can't help but wonder if the choice of verb was deliberate, to remind the reader of that fiasco (2).

1 - "Hamas leader ready for truce with Israel," by Damien McElroy, published in The Telegraph, 9th of February, 2009. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4570633/Hamas-leader-ready-for-truce-with-Israel.html)
2 - "Wipe Israel 'off the map' Iranian says," by Nazili Fathi, published in the International Herald-Tribune, 27th of October, 2005. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/26/news/iran.php)

An excellent article by Johann Hari

From The nightmare of Netanyahu returns:

Over the past few months, I keep returning to an extraordinary essay written by the great Israel novelist Amos Oz in 1982. The Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin had compared the Palestinian leadership to Adolf Hitler, so Oz wrote: "You display an urge to resurrect Hitler from the dead so you may kill him over and over again each day... Like many Jews, I feel sorry I didn't kill Hitler with my bare hands. But there is not, and there never will be, any healing for the open wound. Tens of thousands of dead Arabs will not heal that wound. Because, Mr Begin, Adolf Hitler is dead. He is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut. He is dead and burned to ashes."

Israeli society consists, Oz says, of "a bunch of half-hysterical refugees and survivors". The 2,000-year trauma of the blood libel, the Inquisition, the pogroms, Auschwitz and Chelmno and the Gulag Archipelago, have produced a distorted vision, where every shriek of pain directed at Israel can sound like the rumble beginning in the massed crowds at Nuremberg.

This means that Israel is missing opportunities for peace. Even much of Hamas – an Islamist party I passionately oppose – is amenable to a long ceasefire along the 1967 borders. That isn't my opinion; it is the view of Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet. He told the Israeli Cabinet before the bombing of Gaza that Hamas would restore the ceasefire if Israel would only end the blockade of the Strip and declare a ceasefire on the West Bank. Instead, they bombed, and the offer died.

1 - "The Nightmare of Netanyahu Returns," by Johann Hari, published in The Independent, 6th of February, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-nightmare-of-netanyahu-returns-1547608.html)

Hamas: stronger and more savage than before

Hamas has survived the IDF's assault is continuing its terrorist activities. Its target, of course, is not the Israelis, but rival Palestinain factions and their supporters:

There are also fears that Hamas will tighten repressive measures against dissidents, after a wave of shootings and arrests. A Fatah activist, Eyad Obeid, says he was in a shop near his home last week when a 4x4 vehicle pulled up. Four masked men carrying AK-47s seized him, took him away and subjected him to an ordeal which ended with him being shot in his left leg below the knee. Fatah says there were dozens of similar incidents during and after the war. And this is beside the killings – admitted by Hamas – of those suspected of informing Israel of Hamas targets.

Mr Obeid, who was not accused of informing, says he was repeatedly questioned about his Fatah connections and his previous job in Ramallah-run Preventative Security before being pulled out of the car and shot.

And if the Israeli bombing all around them was not enough to worry about, the most horrifying moment of the war for the Najar family started at around 7.30pm on 4 January, when 10 masked, armed Palestinians in black tunics descended on the alley where the menfolk were gathered outside their house in northern Gaza City round a pot of tea over a wood fire, necessitated by the lack of electricity or cooking gas.

The men all obeyed the gunmen's orders to lie on the ground except Hisham, 51, who asked the men what they wanted. Women and children came out from the house to see what was happening. One of the men slapped Hisham, others rose to intervene, and the gunmen opened fire. Hisham was killed, and 11 others were wounded, including his 70-year-old mother and her 12-year-old granddaughter. "For me a rocket from the Israelis would be better than this," said Mohammed Najar, 41, the dead man's brother. "The children are still terrified at what happened. They wet themselves at night."

The family admits to supporting Fatah but says there was no reason to attack them; they are careful not to accuse Hamas but Mohammed complains that the faction, as the ruling authority in Gaza, has done nothing to investigate the crime. (1)

At the risk of violating Fisk's injunction not to draw spurious comparisons with Nazi Germany (2), Hamas is behaving in a very similar manner to the Nazi party in the twenties and, particularly, the thirties - having attained power, Hitler and his bandits - who never enjoyed a majority of support in Germany before they were "jobbed into office by a backstairs intrigue" (3) set about terrorising, proscribing and destroying all opposition. This included internal foci of dissent, as Rohm and Gregor Strasser found out, to their cost.

The same thing is happening in Gaza. Just as the Nazis used the - justifiable - resentment over the treaty of Versailles and the misery of the Great Depression to build support, Hamas are profiting from the sufferring Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians. Now the second face, consolidating the gains, has started in earnest. As long as Hamas can survive, it can look forward to a future as the strongest - possibly even sole - voice of the Palestinians. This even though it will probably not enjoy majority support. Opposition will be eradicated or cowed into silence. Hamas will ensure it propsers, and Israel will reap the consequences of the seeds being sown now, for years to come.

1 - "Gaza counts the cost – and assigns blame," by Donald MacIntyre, published in The Independent, 1st of February, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-counts-the-cost-ndash-and-assigns-blame-1522547.html)
2 - "When it comes to Gaza, leave the Second World War out of it," by Robert Fisk, published in The Independent, 17th of January, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-when-it-comes-to-gaza-leave-the-second-world-war-out-of-it-1418270.html)
3 - Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock, revised edition, published by Pelican, 1962, page 253.

I was, of course, right - Fatah fading while Hamas gains

One of the predicted consequences (1) of Israel's incursion into Gaza would be a long term strengthening of Hamas, at the expense of Fatah. Even if Hamas lost a few militants and some of the terrorist leaders of the organisation were killed, and the suffered material setbacks, overall the conflict with Israel would strengthen them.

A violent raid by Israel would lead to a lot of civilian casualties, and create a lot of bitterness and anger. Hamas would seem to be the outlet for this rage, so the organisation quickly recoups whatever it has lost. Also, the inability and unwillingness of Fatah to do anything, while Hamas at least wages the appearance of a fightback, would further strengthen the terrorists in Gaza.

It seems this is coming true more quickly than expected:

The Islamic movement Hamas is taking over from Fatah, the party created by Yasser Arafat, as the main Palestinian national organisation as a result of the war in Gaza, says a leading Fatah militant. "We have moved into the era of Hamas which is now much stronger than it was," said Husam Kadr, a veteran Fatah leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, recently released after five-and-a-half years in Israeli prisons.

"Its era started when Israel attacked Gaza on 27 December."

The sharp decline in support for Fatah and the discrediting of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, because of his inertia during the 22-day Gaza war, will make it very difficult for the US and the EU to pretend that Fatah are the true representatives of the Palestinian community. The international community is likely to find it impossible to marginalise Hamas in reconstructing Gaza.

"Hamas has been highly successful in portraying itself as the party of the resistance, and Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas as the opponents of resistance at a time [when] the public wants to resist," said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister of planning. He adds that Mr Abbas was badly damaged in the eyes of Palestinians when he blamed Hamas for Israel's assault on Gaza in the conflict's first two days. (2)

Which is, of course, why Hamas provoked the conflict in the first place.

The bottom line is that those who cheer on Israel's violevnce in Gaza haven't really got Israel's best interests at heart. Ultimately, only facing up to the issue of the refugees, reparations and dismantling settlements will make Israel safe. As Bruce Anderson pointed out (3) in the Independent a few days ago, the likelihood of Israel being confronted, in the course of the next hundred years, with an enemy armed with something more than a few feeble rockets and suicide bombers is very real. The current Israeli governments are setting their country on the road towards that disaster.

The resort to violence must be viscerally satisfying for a nation under attack - a mentality develops where a vioelnt response is required. Unfortunately, as is being shown in real time in Gaza, this doesn't really work. Both sides are locked up in it, their hatred and anger feeding off each other. Israel, as an organised, unitary nation, has the best opportunity to do somthing to break the cycle. Does she have the leaders? It seems unlikely. Most of the major parties vary only in a few degrees in their intransigance. They know that taking any real action against the West Bank settlements will hand power over to their opponents.

Could a united front be developed, where all parties agree to a set policy on the Palestinian issue and the West Bank settlements? I mean, a sensible one, involving the dismantling of the settlements. This would be worlkable, but it would require all the major parties to admit their policy until now has been wrong. Again, it is hard to see this happening. Israeli politicians aren't any different to any other politicians - some are bound to see the advantages in breaking ranks.

It worked for Ariel Sharon, after all.

1 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/01/fisk-on-israeli-invasion.html
2 - "Fatah fears Gaza conflict has put Hamas in the ascendancy," by Patrick Cockburn, published in The Independent, 23rd of January, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/fatah-fears-gaza-conflict-has-put-hamas-in-the-ascendancy-1513430.html)
3 - "Israel is in danger of fighting the last war, not the next one," by Bruce ANderson, published in The Independent, 5th of January, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-israel-is-in-danger-of-fighting-the-last-war-not-the-next-one-1225816.html)

Fisk vs just about everyone, but absolutely right

Try to work out who Robert Fisk doesn't take a pop at in his latest column (1). But he is - as he usually is - right. Comparing the current actions in Gaza to the atrocities commited by Nazi Germany is wrong and stupid. Worse, it isn't going to help the situation at all.

Nor, of course, does turfing customers out of cafes in Invercargill, for the being Israelis (2).

If you want to make a stand, make sure it is an effective on. A donation to the ICRC would have accomplished far more (though not much) than victimizing a couple of hapless tourists. And if you want to say something about the disaster being visited on the Palestinians, try to make sure it is accurate, reasonable and constructive.

1 - "When it comes to Gaza, leave the Second World War out of it," by Robert Fisk, published in The Independent, 17th of January, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-when-it-comes-to-gaza-leave-the-second-world-war-out-of-it-1418270.html)
2 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/01/collective-punishment-is-wrong-got-it.html

Collective punishment is wrong, got it?

It is always wrong to punish people for the actions of others. So the Turkish cafe owner who booted out two Israeli women for being Israeli was in the wrong (1). In doing so, he gave in to prejudice and imitated - in a tiny, tiny way -the hopeless, reactionary bitterness that has warped the recent history of the Middle East.

Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organisations are wrong to collectively punish Israelis by murdering them with missiles and suicide bombs, the Israeli government is wrong to collectively punish the Palestinians for the crimes of the terrorists, and Mustafa Tekinkaya is wrong for inflicting his own microscopic version of collective punishment on Natalie Bennie and Tamara Shefa Mevlana for being Israeli.

1 - "Gaza Strip comes to Invercargill," unattributed NZPA article, reproduced on the TVNZ website, 15th of January, 2008. (http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/gaza-strip-comes-invercargill-2442391)

Trotter employing rightwing tricks

New blog, old crap from Chris Trotter (1). In the latest piece on Bowalley road, he borrows a trick often used by rightwing apologists for violence and militarism. Criticising Keith Locke's call for condemnation of Israel's current incursion (2), Trotter writes:

Hamas is anything but secular and quasi-socialist, and its dedication to the elimination not only of Israel, but of the entire Jewish people, is unequivocal. In the words of its own charter:

The Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree.

The last time people talked about the Jews in this way, they were wearing brown shirts and jackboots. And the fate they had planned for the Jewish people gave new meaning to the word disproportionate".

Which is why I find it so hard to respond with any degree of positivity to Keith Locke’s call for New Zealand to stand up and be counted among the outspoken opponents of what is happening in Gaza.

Were Hamas a secular and socialist organisation dedicated to the creation of a secular and socialist state of Palestine: a state where all those with an historical and/or religious attachment to the Holy Land; Jews and Arabs, the followers of Judaism, Islam and Christianity – all the people of the Book – could live together in peace and harmony; well, then I might feel differently.

But it isn’t. (3)

What he is doing here is deliberately conflating the murderous terrorists of Hamas and the hapless Palestinians of Gaza. The latter are sufferring for the crimes of the former, and Trotter says this is okay because he doesn't like Hamas. Nerither do I. But I don't see why innocent people should suffer - massively and en masse - because Hamas are a bunch of murderous terrorist jackals.

This conflation of the criminal and the innocent is what apologists for pre-emptive violence usually do. The Israelis are doing it now, as they bomb the Gaza strip. The West did it when we bombed Afghanistan and Iraq, we'll probably do it again if we bomb Iran.

(And the fact that Hamas are not 'secular and quasi-socialist' does not make them fair game, as Trotter seems to imply. What sort of world does Mr Trotter live in, where its okay to attack - literally - people whose politics don't match yours. Probably, a world inhabited by the men in brown shirts and jackboots he mentioned.)

The anger being directed at Israel isn't about the violence being inflicted on Hamas, but on the Plaestinians in Gaza as a whole - colelctive punishment for the crimes of a select few. usually, this is justified by claiming that the terrorists are give support by the population, so all are complicit - yes, even the little children - and have lost whatever right they had to expect to be distingushed from the terrorists.

It's a rubbish excuse, a pathetic attempt to justify disproportionate, indiscrinate and criminal violence. It is disgustsing when the aplogists on the right use it. It is even more disgusting to find Trotter doing their job for them.

Because it isn't about Hamas, it is about the rest of the Palestinains. They aren't guilty or complicit, any more than the people murdered on the 11th of September were responsible for the actions of the USA government. When apologists for the Israeli government's terrorism in Gaza use this line of defence, they are using the same argument that Bin Laden and his ilk used to justify that mass murder. So the people currently trying to defend Israel's actions are using terrorists' logic.

This would, of course, be the same logic that Hamas would use whern they pack off a teenager with a Semtex vest to blow up a restaurant - all Israeli's are culpable for the crimes of the few. It's wrong when Hamas says it, it is wrong when Al Queada says it, it is wrong when the rightwing apologists for Israel say it and it is still wrong even when Chris Trotter says it is okay.

And it makes me mad because Trotter should know better. he isn't an troglodytic rightwinger dragging his knuckles along the ground, nor is he a ideologically closed off drone spouting whatever he's told to spout. He's capable off working it out himself, even if it wasn't for the legion of people pointing out the truth to him. So why isn't he?

My hunch is he's has taken this line in his continuing effort appear iconoclastic fearless in his challenging of leftwing shibboleths. But he's putting his preening and ego in front of the obligation to be honest and tell the truth - trying to use the suffering of the miserable refugees in Gaza TO MAKE HIMSELF LOOK GOOD. And that is low.

1 - "Disporportionate Response," posted by Chris Trotter on Bowalley Road, 10th of January, 2008. (http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2009/01/disproportionate-response.html)
2 - "NZ Govt fiddles while Gaza burns," by Keith Locke, 2nd of January, 2008.(http://www.greens.org.nz/node/20472)
3 - Trotter, op. cit.