- The blame game - no one plays it better than the dominant
media, and they're at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in
their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.
-
- After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt
addressed Congress - with an appropriating updating for Gaza:
-
- December 27 "will live in infamy." The people
of Gaza were "suddenly and deliberately attacked by....air forces
of the" State of Israel. The "attack was deliberately planned
many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought
to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope
for" the peace process.
-
- "The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe
damage to" property throughout Gaza. In addition, "many (Palestinian)
lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves....this
"unprovoked and dastardly attack" must not go unanswered.
-
- Note the contrast. Japan in the 1940s sought accord,
not conflict. Not America. FDR goaded them to attack through numerous
harassments and provocations - selling arms to Tokyo's enemies, denying
Japan strategic resources and port access, as well as imposing a damaging
embargo.
-
- For its part, Hamas has been conciliatory and sought
peace. It's willing to recognize Israel in return for a sovereign Palestinian
state inside pre-1967 borders - just 22% of it original homeland. In
2008 and earlier, it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated
Israeli violations and Gaza in duress under siege. It responds only in
self-defense when attacked as international law allows, yet Washington,
Israel, and the West call it "terrorism."
-
- 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:
-
- "The chronology of this latest violence is important
to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers
from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr.
Abbas' Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005 Hamas has
fired some 6300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and
wounding 780."
-
- "Hamas did agree to a six-month ceasefire earlier
this year, during which the rocket attacks declined in number but never
stopped. But Hamas refused to extend the truce past December 19, and the
group has since resumed attacks...." Israelis in the south "live
under constant threat, often in bomb shelters, and the economy has suffered.
Yet the world's media (only pays) attention when Israel responds to that
Hamas barrage."
-
- The Journal's op-ed page standard fare twists facts into
a fabric of misinformation and agitprop, and when vilifying Hamas it's
vicious. A few corrections:
-
- -- Israel never disengaged from Gaza;
-
- -- it relocated its settlers to seized West Bank land
to strengthen its hold on the Territory;
-
- -- it redeployed to new positions; re-enters Gaza at
will; controls its airspace and coastline; movement within and between
Gaza and the West Bank; virtually all other aspects of Palestinians' lives;
and since Hamas' January 2006 electoral victory, falsely called it a
terrorist organization; cut off all outside aid; imposed a crippling economic
embargo; imprisoned 1.5 million Gazans in isolation; inflicted devastating
human suffering; and stepped up oppression in an all too familiar pattern:
repeated incursions, killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests,
incarcerations, torture, and all the rest;
-
- -- then, after mid-June 2007, collaboratively and at
the behest of Washington and Israel, president Mahmoud Abbas declared
a "state of emergency" (when there was none); he dismissed Hamas'
prime minister; appointed an "emergency" cabinet; split Palestinian
authority between Gaza and the West Bank; incited internal conflict to
divide and conquer; and acceded to Israel blockading Gaza - closing all
border crossings; cutting off most essential to life supplies; creating
critical shortages of everything; devastating local production and agriculture;
sending poverty and unemployment soaring; and grievously harming the health
and welfare of the population;
-
- -- no Journal op-eds condemn this; they call Israel the
region's "only democracy" and a model for others to emulate;
-
- -- no op-eds mention thousands of Palestinians killed,
many more wounded, even greater numbers imprisoned, many uncharged, torture
as official policy, and no chance for redress in Israeli courts;
-
- -- none mention previous Hamas unilateral ceasefires,
one lasting 18 months despite repeated Israeli violations and continued
other failures to observe international law;
-
- -- none explain that rocket fire from Gaza during Hamas'
ceasefire came from other elements in the Territory, not its own members;
-
- -- none say that Hamas uses crude, homemade rockets and
light arms against the world's fourth most powerful military, a nuclear
power, with the latest home-produced and US supplied technology and weapons;
-
- -- nothing gets reported about over 60 years of Israeli
state terror; the unimaginable harm it's done; the continued theft of
Palestinian lands; the destruction of their homes, crops and other property;
the ethnic cleansing of its people; and Israel's slow- motion genocide
against a population too isolated and weak to contest it;
-
- -- no op-eds about one-sided media reporting; suppressing
uncomfortable truths; defending the indefensible; ignoring Israeli crimes;
vilifying Hamas without cause; Palestinians for being Arabs; and Arab
Israeli citizens because they're not Jews;
-
- -- no mention that the ratio of Arabs to Jews killed
and harmed is disproportionately one-sided; or
-
- -- that Palestinians have endured a brutal, illegal 41-year
occupation in violation of international law; Journal editors find those
facts uncomfortable, unimportant so they ignore them.
-
- Instead the Journal supports the Gaza siege, and says
"If Hamas wants its people to have freer movement, it can stop sponsoring
terror killings." Even Arab leaders were "urged to demand that
Hamas maintain the truce....so we could have avoided what happened."
-
- In the aftermath, Journal editors hold Hamas responsible
as does Washington. Arab leaders "understand that (Hamas' leaders),
like Hezbollah, (are) increasingly allied with Iran and its goals for
fomenting regional instability."
-
- In fact, despite pro-forma criticism and anger on Arab
streets, leaders in the region's capitals offered little support for Gazans
for fear of antagonizing Washington and their powerful Israeli neighbor.
-
- The Arab League won't discuss a common response until
a January 2 Doha summit, and when it does expect little more than from
the UN. As for Arab foreign ministers, they postponed an "emergency"
meeting until December 31, so the killing continues while they attend
to more pressing business.
-
- Journal editors have a message for Obama. He's "about
to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East (won't) change their
radical ambitions merely because America has a new president." For
their part, Palestinians will learn that the new one is no friendlier
than the incumbent and may turn out even worse. White House occupants,
key congressional members, and the entire Senate pledge unswerving support
for Israel. At the same time, blaming their victims (and ours) is one
of Washington's favorite spectator sports.
-
- On December 28, the Journal gave two noted Israeli flacks
prominent space - Michael Oren of Jerusalem's Shalem Center and Yossi
Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies
for their op-ed headlined: "Palestinians Need Israel to Win."
-
- They claim that while Israeli foreign minister Tzipi
Livni "implore (d) Egyptian leaders (on December 19) to urge restraint
on Hamas....prime minister Ehud Olmert told viewers of Al-Arabiyah Television
that Israel had no interest in a military confrontation" at the very
time it was long-planned and about to be unleashed.
-
- "If Israel was guilty of acting disproportionately,
it was in its willingness to seek any means, even at the risk of its citizens'
lives, to resolve the (brewing) crisis diplomatically." The writers
blame the UN for not condemning Hamas and for "growing media criticism
of Israel."
-
- Israeli security comes first, and "Gaza is the test
case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome." It's
about Israel's "deterrence power and uphold(ing) the principle that
its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity." They're not unless
Palestinians are attacked first and even then have little to fear beyond
their government's own rhetoric.
-
- Syria is an issue as well...."triggering the Gaza
conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas,
which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed
the efforts of Hamas leaders to extend the ceasefire and insisted on
escalated rocket attacks."
-
- The Gaza conflict may "intensify with a possible
incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude
this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas....This is an opportunity
to redress Israel's failure to humble Hezbollah (in 2006), and to deal
a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran....without Hamas'
defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies
Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel's fears. At stake in Gaza is
nothing less than the future of the peace process."
-
- Their rhetoric defies comment. It's breathtaking, mirror
opposite of the truth, and credible only to the truest of true believers
of the most dubious analysis the two writers lay out.
-
- New York Times Press Handout-Style Journalism
-
- The Times' 1997 proxy statement calls itself "an
independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and
unselfishly devoted to the public welfare" in reporting "all
the news fit to print." No media source anywhere has more clout.
None more effectively influences world opinion, and none show more one-
sided support for Israel, disdain for Palestinian rights, and justifying
the unjustifiable when they're so grievously harmed.
-
- It's December 29 Ethan Bronner/Taghreed El-Khodary "No
Early End Seen to 'All-Out-War on Hamas in Gaza" article is typical.
It highlights Israel's aim "to cripple Hamas' ability to fire rockets
into Israel," never mentioning they're for legitimate self-defense
and never preemptively fired. It calls Hamas a "terrorist organization"
when, in fact, it's Palestine's legitimate government. It respects the
rule of law, and it fearlessly defends the rights of its people. It reports
nothing about its democratic election, its seeking peace and rapprochement,
its unilateral ceasefires, its support by the great majority of Gazans,
and the efforts it makes for them in spite of overwhelming challenges
under siege.
-
- Instead it states that "Hamas killed four Israelis
on (December 28) after firing more than 70 rockets, including a long-range
one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles from Gaza, where it
hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier
a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker
and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis....were a civilian
in the Negev desert and a soldier."
-
- "Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the
long-range rockets hit streets or open areas in....the most serious display
of Hamas' arsenal since the Israeli assault began." It referred to
"Hamas gunmen," reported that "Israel would widen and deepen
the attack if necessary....until Hamas no longer had the ability to fire
rockets into Israel." It said that Israel has "nothing against
the citizens of Gaza and that it had more than once offered its hand
in peace to the Palestinian nation."
-
- "Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief,
including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with
Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through."
No mention of the Gaza siege, the devastating pre-conflict humanitarian
crisis, or that Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak initially ordered his
soldiers to shoot Gazans breaching border barriers, then only reluctantly
allowed in some of the seriously wounded for medical treatment.
-
- "Meanwhile in Israel, sirens wailed over mostly
empty streets in the seaside city of Ashkelon. Storefronts were battered
shut. Families clustered inside the city's stretches of towering white
apartment blocks and single-family houses. Weary of venturing too far
outside, they scurried into protected rooms when sirens sounded, listening
for the sound of another rocket crashing somewhere in their city. 'It's
frightening, but what can we do?' asked a high school senior."
-
- Plenty The Times won't report. Ask your government to
stop attacking Gazans so they won't respond in self-defense. Demand that
Palestinian rights be respected, the illegal siege ended, the IDF aggression
stopped, and the occupation of the West Bank. Insist Israeli laws apply
equally to Arab citizens, that Palestinians no longer will be persecuted,
that peace will take precedence of war, that Israel will engage its neighbors,
not attack them, and that real democracy will replace the sham kind now
practiced.
-
- Make it impossible for The (outrageous December 29) New
York Times' "War Over Gaza" editorial to be written. It begins:
-
- "Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear
responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage
of rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Still we fear that Israel's
response....is unlikely to weaken the militant Palestinian group substantially
or move things any closer to what all Israelis and Palestinians need:
a durable peace agreement and a two-state solution."
-
- "Hamas' leaders, especially those safely ensconced
in Damascus, are unconcerned about their people's suffering - and (are)
masters at capitalizing on it." The writer urges other Arab leaders
"to cajole or more likely threaten Hamas (or its patrons in Syria
and Iran) to accept a new cease-fire (read "surrender")."
-
- The editorial claims most casualties were "Hamas
security forces" when, in fact, the great majority are civilian men,
women and children, including police with no military connection. It stresses
Ehud Barak's promised "war to the bitter end."
-
- It says there's "no justification for Hamas' attacks
or its virulent rejectionism," but turns a blind eye to Israel's
culpability. It refers to the failure of the never was and never will
be "peace process" but won't report that Washington and Tel
Aviv won't tolerate one. That they choose dominance over peace, violence
over reconciliation, and conquest above the rule of law.
-
- It claims Condoleezza Rice sought Middle East peace,
and it's up to Barack Obama to accomplish it himself - when, in fact,
Democrats and Republicans one-sidedly support Israel, seek dominance over
Middle East states, want a subservient Hamas like Fatah, back the Gaza
conflict to weaken its effective rule, and are for the illegal occupation
of Palestine to continue.
-
- Times' articles reveal more about what they don't report
than what they do. They:
-
- -- leave Israeli brutality unexplained; its vicious 41
year
- occupation;
-
- -- let Gaza images inciting world outrage go unpublished;
-
- -- suppress Israel's continued waging of the bloodiest,
most unjustifiable war on Palestine since 1967;
-
- -- won't report how its current air strikes hit civilian
targets (including residential neighborhoods, homes, workshops, medical
warehouses, a sewage lagoon, a plastics factory, a TV broadcasting center,
universities and mosques) while claiming only military ones are attacked;
-
- -- don't explain the terror on ordinary Gazans; the traumatizing
effects on children and how psychologically damaged they are;
-
- -- the night phone calls Israeli intelligence personnel
make to families, ordering them out of homes to be bombed;
-
- -- Gaza's humanitarian crisis compounded by Israel's
"war to the bitter end;"
-
- -- the immensity of Israel's crimes of war and against
humanity; its mockery of the rule of law; its worse than apartheid South
African practices according to observers who know.
-
- -- the near-silence and inaction of the international
community; the compliance of regional Arab states;
-
- -- the Palestinians' total isolation; Gaza's tighter
than ever siege; the media mostly barred from entering and when allowed
are few in number, carefully screened, and greatly circumscribed; reports
are from Gazans on the ground; they include much higher death and injury
totals; hundreds still alive but clinically dead and will perish; surgeries
performed without anesthesia because little to none is available; and
the impossibility of proper medical care because of Israel's imposed blockade.
-
- The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
reports that "its field workers have faced extreme difficulties in
documenting crimes due to the dangers of getting close to" bombed
areas and the chaos throughout the Territory as war rages round the clock.
Yet they do what they can throughout Gaza and in horrific pictures they
take and publish - images suppressed in America.
-
- It urgently asked the UN Human Rights Council to act
under its ("Uniting for Peace") UN Resolution 377 authority.
It permits the General Assembly to address peace and security matters
when the Security Council doesn't do it. General Assembly President Miguel
D'Escoto said: "the time has come to take firm action if the UN
does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission."
-
- As of New Year's day, Ma'an News reported 428 known killed
(other reports are higher) and over 2000 injured, many too seriously to
survive.
-
- On December 28, the US vetoed a Security Council draft
resolution to end Israel's "disproportionate use of force" on
Gazans. The vote was 11 ayes, three abstentions (Britain, Germany and
Bulgaria), and one nay - America. John Negroponte did the dishonor following
a long-standing practice of blocking any UN condemnation of Israel, regardless
of how justified.
-
- The Security Council held an emergency meeting on New
Year's eve at which Negroponte again rejected a legally binding resolution
condemning Israel and demanding its attacks stop. At the same time, Israel
rejected pressures for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid.
According to The New York Times, "The government said it would push
ahead with its air, sea, and ultimately ground operation, which one senior
military official described as 'making Hamas lose their will or lose their
weapons.' "
-
- Earlier on December 30 at 5:00AM, Israeli gunboats (without
warning) attacked the humanitarian boat Dignity (in international waters
90 miles from Gaza) bringing three tons of medical supplies. It was rammed
three times, heavily damaged, and took on water. Israelis also threatened
to shoot its occupants and fired machine guns overhead and around it attempting
to head it off. It managed to get to the Lebanese port of Tyre in the
afternoon. Luckily no one was injured. The Free Gaza Movement founder,
Paul Laurdee, said 11 Israeli vessels surrounded Dignity, ordered it to
stop, but it refused.
-
- The New York Times was silent on the incident. However,
on December 29, it gave pro-genocide historian Benny Morris space for
his "Why Israel Feels Threatened" op-ed - a disturbing justification
of Israel's attacks and warning of much more to come. This by an advocate
of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons and a believer in ethnic cleansing
who once described Palestinians as "wild animal(s who have) to be
locked up in one way or another....When the choice is between destroying
or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."
-
- He paints a totally disingenuous picture of isolated
Israel surrounded by hostile neighbors and losing support from the West.
"To the east, Iran....to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist
Hezbollah....to the south...the Islamist Hamas movement (controlling)
the Gaza Strip."
- These "dire threats" make Israel "feel
that the walls - and history - are closing in on their 60-year-old state."
-
- Israel threatened? Syria, Lebanon and Iran should worry
based on past and current provocations. No country attacked Israel since
the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and none today would dare - given its military
strength, nuclear arsenal, and close ties to America and the West.
-
- Morris cites another threat - demography. The 1.3 million
Israeli Arabs "offer the recipe (for the) dissolution of the Jewish
state." They've become "radicalized, embrac(e) Palestinian national
aims," Jews see them as a "potential fifth column," and,
with their higher birthrate, will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2040. Within
five years, Arabs may become the majority in pre-1948 Palestine.
-
- According to Morris, Israel is endangered because of
its commitment to "Western democratic and liberal norms." Violence
in Gaza resulted, and "it would not be surprising if more powerful
explosions were to follow" - a clear assessment that slaughter is
OK in the name of "self-defense" and an indication that The
Times agrees.
-
- The Los Angeles Times' Misinformation "primer on
Gaza, Israel, and some key factors behind the current violence."
-
- On December 30, Michael Muskal wrote it asking:
-
- -- "Why is Israel attacking Hamas? To curb rocket
attacks he maintains, when, in fact, neutralizing the government is the
real aim, destroying its ability to rule effectively, weakening its support
on the ground, and, in the end, co-opt it like Fatah and the PLO under
Arafat; rocket attacks are just pretext.
-
- -- "What is Hamas?" An Islamist group founded
to destroy Israel and refuses to accept its right to exist, he claims.
In fact, after its establishment during the First Intifada (in 1987),
Israel supported it against the PLO (as it now backs Fatah against Hamas).
Ever since, it's been an effective resistance movement. Its goal - ending
Israel's illegal occupation through negotiation and international consensus,
not terrorism, war, or denying Israel's right to exist. However, its charter
states that it wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians; supports
the weak; defends the oppressed; and will fight for its rights if Israel
won't grant them peacefully. Hamas is clear on its willingness to recognize
Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - a
nonstarter for Israel.
-
- -- "Does Hamas speak for all Palestinians? No. Hamas
gunmen took full control of Gaza in the summer of 2007. The West would
prefer to deal with (Fatah's) Abbas, who has shown a willingness to negotiate
with Israel, and it tried to topple Hamas with economic and political
sanctions." No is right as well as the West going along with Washington
and Israel trying to topple Hamas, but unmentioned is the crippling siege.
Hamas is a legitimate political group with a military wing for defense,
not offense. They're not "gunmen" or militants. Abbas' subservience
endears him to America and Tel Aviv. Hamas is independent. It champions
Palestinians' rights, and therein lies the conflict.
-
- -- "If Hamas is so opposed to Israel, why did it
agree to a truce? Hamas had hoped to end the blockade, but the cease-fire
collapsed in November and expired Dec. 19. Abbas blamed Hamas for prompting
the Israeli attack by refusing to extend the cease-fire." True on
the first point. False or misleading on the rest. Hamas declared a ceasefire
unilaterally. Israel never respected it and killed over two dozen Gazans
while it was in force. Abbas blamed the victims and absolved the aggressor
in deference to Tel Aviv and Washington - in betrayal of his people for
his own political aims.
-
- -- "What has been the response to the Israeli attacks
in the Arab world?" Saying that anti-Israeli demonstrations have
been held in several countries greatly understates how many, their size
and where. They're large and growing and are being held across America,
throughout the Middle East, and in many other countries worldwide.
-
- "What about Egypt? (It) opposes Islamic radical
groups, including its own Muslim Brotherhood, which helped give birth
to Hamas. Egypt has a difficult relationship because they share a border
(and) clashes have been reported between Palestinians and Egyptian security
forces at border crossings?" Half truths and misleading. Egypt is
allied to Washington and Israel. It opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and
all independent opposition to president Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship.
Egyptian forces initiated border clashes by firing on Gazans trying to
escape the violence.
-
- -- "What about the US?" A "power vacuum"
suggests Muskal until Obama takes office. Unexplained is a continuity
of policy that unswervingly supports Israel, its right to wage aggressive
war, violate international law, slaughter Gazan civilians, maintain its
illegal occupation, and deny Palestinians their right to self- determination.
-
- -- "What has the Bush administration done?"
Saying it blamed Hamas and asked Israel publicly to avoid civilian casualties
is right but misleading. For eight years, George Bush disdained Palestinian
rights, supplies Israel with billions of dollars in aid, the latest weapons
and technology, and full support for its occupation, oppression and aggressive
wars.
-
- -- "What about the Obama administration?" Repeating
his saying the US has only one president at a time is right. So is affirming
his strong support for Israel. Unmentioned is his indifference to Palestinian
issues and that chances for regional peace will be no greater than under
George Bush so expect little hopeful change.
- -- "How do Israeli politics figure in the equation?
Muskal is right in relating the current conflict to Israel's February
10 elections. A new prime minister and Knesset will be chosen and polls
show a large majority of Israelis back its government's attacks. Acting
tough could prove a winning strategy even at the expense of human lives
and less security than without conflict.
-
- Misinformation like the above is de rigueur throughout
the dominant media, especially when it comes to Israel. Tel Aviv can do
no wrong even when it inflicts vast amounts of destruction, massacres
hundreds of civilians, and injures tens of hundreds more, defenseless
against its onslaught.
-
- Profiting from Human Slaughter
-
- On December 27, the London Guardian reported that the
"Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension."
Jerusalem-based Toni O'Loughlin wrote that pre-conflict polls showed "the
Israeli public calling for harsher military strikes in Gaza." It's
been a boon for former Likud member Avigdor Lieberman's extremist Yisrael
Beiteinu. It advocates ethnic cleansing by revoking Israeli Arabs' citizenship
and transferring Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control.
-
- Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu also stands to gain
because he states: "In the long run, we have no choice but to topple
Hamas rule....we have to go from passive response to active assault."
That got Kadima's foreign minister Tzipi Livni saying: "Israel must
topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will
do just that." Campaigning is in high gear for the upcoming February
elections with all sides vying to look toughest.
-
- War rages as a result, and according to Alternative Information
Center in Jerusalem founder Michael Warschawski: "all Israeli leaders
are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more."
Mass slaughter makes good campaign politics, and whoever looks the meanest
may become Israel's next prime minister. Follow the body count for clues.
Watch TV clips of Tzipi Livni disheveled with no makeup to show machismo,
and as Tariq Ali puts it: "dead Palestinians are little more than
election fodder" and may help Kadima retain power.
-
- Justifying the Unjustifiable
-
- On December 28, O'Loughlin in the Guardian headlined:
"Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction"
as Kadima put positive spin on mass murder and destruction.
-
- Israeli media suggested the following preceded the attack:
-
- -- six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint bases,
weapons silos, supplies, training camps, senior officials' homes, and
other strategic targets, including civilian ones; the attack also began
exactly at 11:30AM Saturday when children just finished morning classes,
were in the streets, and others were en route to school;
-
- -- disinformation and deception were used to keep the
media and public uninformed and off guard;
-
- -- Hamas was lulled momentarily into a false sense of
security to give the initial onslaught maximum tactical effectiveness;
-
- -- on December 26, food, fuel and other humanitarian
supplies were let into Gaza as part of the deception; and
-
- -- when the assault came, officials justified it saying
"patience ran out" to hide their real motives.
-
- Ahead of the attack, Britain, the EU, Egypt and Saudi
Arabia were
- briefed, and Israel coordinated everything with Washington
the way it's always done at least since the 1967 war. According to the
Jerusalem Post, the Bush administration also supplied the Israeli Air
Force with "a new bunker-buster missile" called GBU-39 - a small-diameter
bomb for low-cost, high-precision, minimal collateral damage strikes.
-
- Congress authorized 1000 of them in September, and defense
officials said the first shipment arrived in early December for use in
penetrating underground Gaza Kassam launcher sites and bombing Egyptian
border tunnels in Rafah through which emergency supplies were funneled.
-
- Israel's PR spin began before the assault. According
to the Guardian, "the foreign ministry honed its message and amassed
its staff....Israeli diplomats were recalled from holidays and ordered
back to work, and in" Sderot, a multilingual media center was opened
to brief foreign journalists.
-
- Everything was orchestrated. At the right moment, Tzipi
Livni called foreign ministers in Washington, London, Russia, China,
France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She also briefed around 80 international
representatives and dignitaries in the Sderot media center. World leaders
spread her message, blamed Hamas for "breaking" the ceasefire,
and claimed Israel had to respond.
-
- Israeli envoys around the world did the same, and Livni
vowed to end Hamas rule if elected. She told Kadima party members and
the media that "The State of Israel, and a government under me, will
make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime. The means....should
be military, economic and diplomatic."
-
- As war rages, Israel is in full spin mode. According
to Haaretz, even Fatah loyalists say Gaza is "Allah's revenge"
- referring to the 2007 clashes that secured Gaza for Hamas and left Fatah,
under Abbas, in control of the West Bank. For his part, prime minister
Ehud Olmert said the bombardment is "the first of several stages
approved by the security cabinet" - a clear signal of more to follow
and Israel's intent to destroy Hamas' effectiveness and render it as weak
as possible.
-
- Livni also released a document to the Israeli and world
press spreading deceit, disinformation, exaggeration, and agitprop. Examples
included:
-
- -- "Israeli citizens have been under the threat
of daily attack from Gaza for years;
-
- -- Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortar shells
were fired at Israeli civilian communities;
-
- -- Until now we have shown restraint; but today there
is no other option than a military operation;
-
- -- We need to protect our citizens from attack through
a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza;
-
- -- Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity
for peace;
-
- -- In return, the Hamas terror organization took control
of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets
Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace;
-
- -- We have tried everything to reach calm without using
force; we agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas,
which continued to target Israel, hold Gilat Shalit, and build up its
arms;
-
- -- Israel continues to act to prevent a humanitarian
crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."
-
- These and other statements blame Hamas for the violence;
accuse it of being a terrorist organization backed by Iran; has a radical
Islamic agenda; is the enemy of all Palestinians seeking peace; is criminal
under international law, and seeks Israel's destruction.
-
- These comments are from Israel's foreign minister and
a leading candidate for prime minister; someone representing a state founded
on terrorism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from
their land; that disdains international law; illegally occupies Palestine;
collectively punishes its people; denies them self-determination; their
right of return; seizes their land; demolishes their homes; imprisons
and tortures their people, impoverishes them; denies them free movement,
essential services, employment and enough food and clean water; destroys
their crops and factories; and grants them no judicial redress because
they're Arabs in a Jewish state or under occupation.
-
- On December 31, Livni was in Paris meeting with president
Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and other officials.
In response to a French two-day truce proposal, she rejected the idea
saying: "there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore
there is no need for a humanitarian truce."
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- Protests Worldwide Over Gaza
-
- Carnage and destruction trump spin, and it shows worldwide
on city streets - across the Arab world, in America, the EU, London, and
even parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
-
- The New York Times reported that "After four days
of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, an outpouring of popular anger is putting
pressure on American allies in the Arab world and appears to be worsening
divisions in the region." Egypt has been especially pressured because
it's a close US and Israeli ally. But "demonstrations continued....from
North Africa to Yemen."
-
- Al Jazeera reports that protests spread across the Middle
East, and in the West Bank Israeli troops opened fire, killed one Palestinian,
and critically injured two others. One was declared brain damaged from
a bullet to his head. In Yemen, "tens of thousands of people gathered
in and around a stadium in the capital, Sanaa, chanting anti-Israeli slogans
and criticizing Arab leaders for failing to act."
-
- It's been much the same in Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, and
dozens of other world capitals. In Tehran, students broke into the British
Embassy's residential compound, vandalized buildings, and replaced the
British flag with a Palestinian one.
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