Tag: Israel

Israel-Gaza: Blokade, hvilken blokade?

KABOBfest skriver i et indlæg om den amerikanske regerings nyfundne tendens til somme tider at kritisere Israel for manglende velvilje lidt om, hvor hårdt blokaden mod Gaza egentlig håndhæves:

Israel is letting in fewer than 200 trucks daily, which is double how many it was allowing a month ago. The U.S., the EU and the UN are demanding that at least 500 trucks carrying aid be allowed into the Strip daily, while some aid groups were calling for 900.

Israel’s absurd restrictions on what constitutes aid led to the bizarre banning of pasta from Gaza.

When Senator John Kerry visited, he learned that many trucks loaded with pasta were not permitted in. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee inquired as to the reason for the delay, he was told by United Nations aid officials that “Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid – only rice shipments.”

The embargo is being upheld even to the detriment of basic needs because of the predominance of rightists in Israel who see Palestinian survival as “concessions” to Hamas.

Civilbefolkningen i Gaza har ikke fortjent pasta, kun ris – så kan de lære det, kan de. Er der nogen, der kan forklare  den militære logik i det?

Link: Clinton Talks Dirty to Israel

Israel: Hamas’ bedste PR-medarbejder

Fatah-bevægelsen, som p.t. har magten på Vestbredden og som ledes af den palæstinensiske “præsident” Mahmoud Abbas, frygter at tabe terræn til Hamas efter Israels invasion i Gaza, skriver The Independent:

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.”

“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.

Abbas’ omdømme er skadet, som i “anses for forræder og Quisling”, i mange palæstinenseres øjne.

Via KABOBfest, hvis skribent påpeger, at noget lignende er ved at overgå Fatahs amerikanske afdeling, The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP):

After ATFP president Ziad Asali offered himself as an Israeli spokesperson to U.S. media during the Gaza assault, the little support ATFP did have took a hit.

Måske ikke helt underligt …

Link: Fatah fears Gaza conflict has put Hamas in the ascendancy

Brød til Gaza – hæv blokaden

Cecilie Surasky fra Jewish Voice for Peace skriver:

While waiting in line at the only open bakery he could find, Gaza resident Mohammed Salman said, “I’m going to buy something that my family can keep for only two days because there is no electricity and no refrigerator. We cannot keep anything longer than that.”

This was in January – of last year.

Today, many Gazan bakeries are closed because, like Mohammed’s family, they don’t have power either. Some don’t even have flour.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza had already made it impossible for Palestinians to live in dignity and have access to the barest of essentials: bread, clean water, medical supplies and electricity.

This is no coincidence. This is official policy. In a moment of candor, Dov Weissglas, a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying, “the Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but [they] won’t die.”

His prediction was true. Last April, UNICEF reported that more than 50% of children under five in Gaza are anemic, and that many children are stunted due to a lack of vitamins.

And now?

As Gaza is smoldering from the siege that killed 1,285 people – nearly 70% of them civilians, destroyed at least 4,000 homes, and sent more than 50,000 people to temporary shelters, the Israeli blockade has not been lifted.

A tenuous cease fire is in now place. Humanitarian aid is starting to pour in.

But the civilian infrastructure is crippled. The borders of Gaza remain controlled by Israel. And just as Gazans could not leave during the siege to escape the bombing and shelling, they cannot leave now to get food and fuel.

There is not enough electricity for the bakeries that are left standing to produce bread, or for families that still have homes to refrigerate food.

Palestinians cannot even feed their children with the fish from the nearby sea. Israeli gunboats offshore have been enforcing the blockade with rounds of cannon and bursts of heavy machine-gun fire, to warn keep Gaza fishermen out of the sea.

Unless we end the blockade, long after the world’s attention has shifted to some other crisis, some 1.5 million Gazans will still be under-nourished, without proper medical care, fuel and water – and trapped. Israelis too, who live in the south, will be even less safe from the threat of Hamas’ Qassam rockets falling on their heads.

Lasting peace and stability in the region is simply an impossible dream while Palestinians in Gaza are denied the right to protect their children, feed their families, and expand their worlds beyond the few feet in front of their homes, or for many, tents.

Tell Obama, now: “Lift the blockade.”

Almindelig høflighed ved reportage fra Mellemøsten

Hvis du er en kommentator eller journalist, der dækker Mellemøsten, er det vigtigt for dig at lægge dig disse regler på sinde:

Rule #1: In the Middle East, it is always the Palestinians that attack first, and it’s always Israel who defends itself. The name of this is “retaliation”.

Rule #2: The Palestinians are not allowed to kill Israelis. The name of this is “terrorism”.

Rule #3: Israel has the right to kill Palestinian civilians; the name of this is “self-defense” or “collateral damage”.

Rule #4: When Israel kills too many Palestinian civilians, the Western world calls for restraint. This is called the “reaction of the international community”.

Rule #5: Palestinians do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even 1 or 2.

Rule #6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (around 10,000 to date being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or a trial. All that is needed is the magic word: “terrorism”.

Rule #7: When you say “Hamas”, always be sure to add “supported by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran”.

Rule #8: When you say “Israel”, never say “supported by the USA, the UK, European countries and even some Arab regimes”, for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.

Rule #9: When it comes to Israel, don’t mention the words “occupied territories”, “UN resolutions”, “Geneva Conventions”. This could distress the audience of Fox, CNN, etc.

Rule # 10: The Palestinians are always “cowards” who hide behind a civilian population that “they don’t care about”. If they (militants) sleep in houses with their families, the name of this is: “cowardice”. Israel has the right to annihilate the towns where they sleep using bombs and missiles. The name of this is “high precision surgical action”.

Rule #11: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. The name of this is “neutral journalism”.

Rule #12: If you don’t agree with these rules or if you favor the Palestinian side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite.

I modsat fald risikerer du nemlig at skabe problemer for din TV-station eller avis eller ikke komme så hurtigt frem i verden, som du havde tænkt dig.

Link: Political Correctness – Rules of Democracy (via UrShalim)

Dagens citat: Citizen Dane

Spot on:

Europa skylder ikke Israel for 5 øres tak, fordi Israel tager kampen “i frontlinjen mod islamismen”. Israels lille festlige indtog i Gazastriben har formentlig gjort mere for at udbrede Hamas’ islamistiske budskab, end nogen Hamas-leder nogensinde kunne have drømt om at opnå ved simpel propaganda.

Se også her.

Link: Kære Ulrik Høy

Åbent brev til Obama fra en kvinde i Israel

Obama, take away the pain in my stomach.

“Come, Obama. Come and save us from ourselves.And if that is what they mean when they say you are not a friend of Israel, then don’t be a friend. We already have friends who arm us and justify every horror we carry out and save us from the international courts. Be a truly true friend.”

Link: Obama, take away the pain in my stomach

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Jødisk parlamentsmedlem sammenligner Israel med Nazityskland: “They are not simply war criminals, they are fools”

Sir Gerald Kaufman er medlem af det britiske parlament. Han er også ortodoks jøde og zionist, og dertil ikke den mindste smule tilfreds med Israels fremfærd i de besatte områder. Man svigter de idealer, staten blev grundlagt på, mener han:

“My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”

He said the claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants “was the reply of the Nazi” and added: “I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.”

He accused the Israeli government of seeking “conquest” and added: ”

They are not simply war criminals, they are fools.”

Via Khobbeizeh.

Forstå situationen i Gaza – en amerikansk analogi

Professor og aktivist Randall Kuhn tager sig tid til at forklare, hvad Israels besættelse og invasion af Gaza egentlig betyder, sådan oversat til amerikansk. Om man efter endt læsning vil forsvare den heroiske israelske indsats med de resulterende drab af mere end 1000 mænd, kvinder og børn, må enhver jo selv dømme.
Fra Washington Times:

In the wake of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: “Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico.”

[…]

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I’m Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego’s discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.

And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn’t allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn’t even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been “freed” from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.

Via Akram’s Razor.

Gaza: Hvem har ansvaret?

Et gennemgående argument fra folk, der forsvarer Israels ret til at invadere Gaza og gøre stort set bare, hvad der passer dem i den forbindelse (og med 1200 døde, heraf mere end 400 børn, har de ikke lagt mange bånd på sig selv), er, at det er nødvendigt for at knuse Hamas og i øvrigt er det Hamas, der har tvunget dem til at agere på den måde ved deres raketangreb, som kun viser, at Israel lige så godt kunne have ladet være med at ophæve besættelsen af Gaza for et par år siden.

Alle disse argumenter er falske – besættelsen af Gaza er aldrig ophørt, og de seneste ugers omfattende invasion har tydeligvis ikke været i stand til at standse hverken det ene eller det andet raketangreb. Få siger det bedre end den israelske journalist og kommentator Gideon Levy, her i et svar til forfatteren A. B. Yehoshua:

It is as if the mighty, including you, have succumbed to a great and terrible conflagration that has consumed any remnant of a moral backbone.

You, too, esteemed author, have fallen prey to the wretched wave that has inundated, stupefied, blinded and brainwashed us. You’re actually justifying the most brutal war Israel has ever fought and in so doing are complacent in the fraud that the “occupation of Gaza is over” and justifying mass killings by evoking the alibi that Hamas “deliberately mingles between its fighters and the civilian population.” You are judging a helpless people denied a government and army – which includes a fundamentalist movement using improper means to fight for a just cause, namely the end of the occupation – in the same way you judge a regional power, which considers itself humanitarian and democratic but which has shown itself to be a brutal and cruel conqueror. As an Israeli, I cannot admonish their leaders while our hands are covered in blood, nor do I want to judge Israel and the Palestinians the same way you have.

The residents of Gaza have never had ownership of “their own piece of land,” as you have claimed. We left Gaza because of our own interests and needs, and then we imprisoned them. We cut the territory off from the rest of the world and the occupied West Bank, and did not permit them to construct an air or sea port. We control their population registrar and their currency – and having their own military is out of the question – and then you argue that the occupation is over? We have crushed their livelihood, besieged them for two years, and you claim they “have expelled the Israeli occupation”? The occupation of Gaza has simply taken on a new form: a fence instead of settlements. The jailers stand guard on the outside instead of the inside.

And no, I do not know “very well,” as you wrote, that we don’t mean to kill children. When one employs tanks, artillery and planes in such a densely populated place one cannot avoid killing children. I understand that Israeli propaganda has cleared your conscience, but it has not cleared mine or that of most of the world. Outcomes, not intentions, are what count – and those have been horrendous.

Gideon Levy er en af de meget få israelske kommentatorer, der tør gå mod strømmen og vise sit eget lands politik frem for, hvad den er – et nådesløst, langsomt og brutalt folkemord.  Måske klarsynet skyldes, at han som journalist ligesom kollegaen Amira Hass netop har specialiseret sig i forholdene i de besatte områder. I hvert fald er han altid et oplysende bekendtskab – således også her.