One year since Lebanon

Jonathan Cook lays down the truths that was denied in the media about last year's befuddled Israel-Hizbollah war that was potrayed oh so nicely for the Jewish State:

1. Why the war began.

"The war began on 12 July, when Israel launched waves of air strikes on Lebanon after Hizbullah killed three soldiers and captured two more on the northern border. (A further five troops were killed by a land mine when their tank crossed into Lebanon in hot pursuit.) Hizbullah had long been warning that it would seize soldiers if it had the chance, in an effort to push Israel into a prisoner exchange. Israel has been holding a handful of Lebanese prisoners since it withdrew from its two-decade occupation of south Lebanon in 2000."

2. Who started the war.

"Last weekend, an editorial in the liberal Haaretz newspaper went so far as to admit that this was "a war initiated by Israel against a relatively small guerrilla group". Israel's supporters, including high-profile defenders like Alan Dershowitz in the US who claimed that Israel had no choice but to bomb Lebanon, must have been squirming in their seats...

Recent reports have revealed that one of the main justifications for Hizbullah's continuing resistance -- that Israel failed to withdraw fully from Lebanese territory in 2000 -- is now supported by the UN. Last month its cartographers quietly admitted that Lebanon is right in claiming sovereignty over a small fertile area known as the Shebaa Farms, still occupied by Israel. Israel argues that the territory is Syrian and will be returned in future peace talks with Damascus, even though Syria backs Lebanon's position. The UN's admission has been mostly ignored by the international media."

3. Israel only targeted legitimate targets.

"At the time, it looked suspiciously as if Israel had taken the brief opportunity before the war's end to make south Lebanon -- the heartland of both the country's Shia population and its militia, Hizbullah -- uninhabitable, and to prevent the return of hundreds of thousands of Shia who had fled Israel's earlier bombing campaigns.

Israel's use of cluster bombs has been described as a war crime by human rights organisations. According to the rules set by Israel's then chief of staff, Dan Halutz, the bombs should have been used only in open and unpopulated areas -- although with such a high failure rate, this would have done little to prevent later civilian casualties.

After the war, the army ordered an investigation, mainly to placate Washington, which was concerned at the widely reported fact that it had supplied the munitions. The findings, which should have been published months ago, have yet to be made public.

The delay is not surprising. An initial report by the army, leaked to the Israeli media, discovered that the cluster bombs had been fired into Lebanese population centres in gross violation of international law. The order was apparently given by the head of the Northern Command at the time, Udi Adam. A US State Department investigation reached a similar conclusion."

4. Hizbollah deliberately stationed within civilian areas.

"Since the war's end Hizbullah has apparently relocated most of its rockets to conceal them from the UN peacekeepers, who have been carrying out extensive searches of south Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah under the terms of Resolution 1701. According to the UNIFIL, some 33 of these underground bunkers ­ or more than 90 per cent -- have been located and Hizbullah weapons discovered there, including rockets and launchers, destroyed.

The Israeli media has noted that the Israeli army calls these sites "nature reserves"; similarly, the UN has made no mention of finding urban-based Hizbullah bunkers. Relying on military sources, Haaretz reported last month: "Most of the rockets fired against Israel during the war last year were launched from the 'nature reserves'." In short, even Israel is no longer claiming that Hizbullah was firing its rockets from among civilians.

According to the UN report, Hizbullah has moved the rockets out of the underground bunkers and abandoned its rural launch pads. Most rockets, it is believed, have gone north of the Litani River, beyond the range of the UN monitors. But some, according to the Israeli army, may have been moved into nearby Shia villages to hide them from the UN.

As a result, Haaretz noted that Israeli commanders had issued a warning to Lebanon that in future hostilities the army "will not hesitate to bomb -- and even totally destroy -- urban areas after it gives Lebanese civilians the chance to flee". How this would diverge from Israel's policy during the war, when Hizbullah was based in its "nature reserves" but Lebanese civilians were still bombed in their towns and villages, was not made clear.

If the Israeli army's new claims are true (unlike the old ones), Hizbullah's movement of some of its rockets into villages should be condemned. But not by Israel, whose army is breaking international law by concealing its weapons in civilian areas on a far grander scale."

5. Hizbollah intentionally targeted civilian areas.

"Nonetheless, new evidence suggests strongly that, whether or not Hizbullah had the right to use its rockets, it may often have been trying to hit military targets, even if it rarely succeeded. The Arab Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth, has been compiling a report on the Hizbullah rocket strikes against Arab communities in the north since last summer. It is not sure whether it will ever be able to publish its findings because of the military censorship laws.

But the information currently available makes for interesting reading. The Association has looked at northern Arab communities hit by Hizbullah rockets, often repeatedly, and found that in every case there was at least one military base or artillery battery placed next to, or in a few cases inside, the community. In some communities there were several such sites.
This does not prove that Hizbullah wanted only to hit military bases, of course. But it does indicate that in some cases it was clearly trying to, even if it lacked the technical resources to be sure of doing so. It also suggests that, in terms of international law, Hizbullah behaved no worse, and probably far better, than Israel during the war."

Conclusion:

"The evidence so far indicates that Israel:

* established legitimate grounds for Hizbullah's attack on the border post by refusing to withdraw from the Lebanese territory of the Shebaa Farms in 2000;

* initiated a war of aggression be refusing to engage in talks about a prisoner swap offered by Hizbullah;

* committed a grave war crime by intentionally using cluster bombs against south Lebanon's civilians;

* repeatedly hit Lebanese communities, killing many civilians, even though the evidence is that no Hizbullah fighters were to be found there;

* and put its own civilians, especially Arab civilians, in great danger by making their communities targets for Hizbullah attacks and failing to protect them.

It is clear that during the Second Lebanon war Israel committed the most serious war crimes."

The case for boycott

George Bisharat invokes South Africa (again) for a justified boycott of Israel:

"Israel's defenders have protested that Israel is not the worst human-rights offender in the world, and singling it out is hypocrisy, or even anti-Semitism. Rhetorically, this shifts focus from Israel's human rights record to the imagined motives of its critics.

But "the worst first" has never been the rule for whom to boycott. Had it been, the Pol Pot regime, not apartheid South Africa, would have been targeted in the past. It was not - Cambodia's ties to the West were insufficient to make any embargo effective. Boycotting North Korea today would be similarly futile. Should every other quest for justice be put on hold as a result?

In contrast, the boycott of South Africa had grip. The opprobrium suffered by white South Africans unquestionably helped persuade them to yield to the just demands of the black majority. Israel, too, assiduously guards its public image. A dense web of economic and cultural relations also ties it to the West. That - and its irrefutably documented human-rights violations - render it ripe for boycott."

And questions when enough is enough, or when the international community can finally light a fire in their proverbial asshole to mobilise into something meaningful.

"What state actions should trigger a boycott? Expelling or intimidating into flight a country's majority population, then denying them internationally recognized rights to return to their homes? Israel has done that.
Seizing, without compensation, the properties of hundreds of thousands of refugees? Israel has done that.

Systematically torturing detainees, many held without trial? Israel has done that.

Assassinating its opponents, including those living in territories it occupies? Israel has done that.

Demolishing thousands of homes belonging to one national group, and settling its own people in another nation's land? Israel has done that. No country with such a record, whether first or 50th worst in the world, can credibly protest a boycott."

The perfect case:

"If boycotting apartheid South Africa was appropriate, it is equally fair to boycott Israel on a similar record."

Precedence is a peculiar thing.

"Israel has been singled out, but not as its defenders complain. Instead, Israel has been enveloped in a cocoon of impunity."

The state continues to bulldoze every public condemnation of its actions. Who can stop it? We know who can. Assholes down south, get a move on.

What will be offered

As usual, no concessions to the Palestinians, not even to their boy Abbas. Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times:

"Even some members of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority argue that Mr Abbas is likely to be offered a deal that he can only refuse. One prominent Fatah member predicts gloomily: “We will be offered a state within the borders of the Israeli security wall, which will mean losing huge parts even of the West Bank. The Israeli settlements will stay. Our borders will be controlled by Israel. We won’t be allowed an army. There will be no right of return and the Israelis will effectively take over Jerusalem. This will be presented as a temporary arrangement. But the temporary would become permanent.” Mr Abbas’s allies say that it would be political suicide for him and for Fatah to accept a deal like that. Hamas would take over the Palestinian cause by default.

When I put this scenario to a senior Israeli official in Jerusalem last week, he replied: “The Palestinians are being over-optimistic. They are not going to be offered even that.” The Israeli military – backed, it seems, by public opinion – is unwilling to take the risk of handing control of security on the West Bank back to the Palestinians. The vast security barrier that the Israelis have constructed has helped to keep out suicide bombers. But rocket attacks have been launched against Israel from Lebanon and from Gaza. Similar attacks from the West Bank could hit Israel’s big cities. So the Israeli military is likely to argue for retaining the hundreds of checkpoints, all over the West Bank, which make daily life and commerce impossible for the Palestinians. Trips from one West Bank town to another – which should take a few minutes – can often take hours because of the checkpoints."

Defty put:

"They feel little need to take risks for peace."

Optimism should be put back on the shelf. Abbas is not the saviour, nor is the stance of subservience to an occupier. Life continues to be a misery.

Last week in Palestine

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights released its weekly report from the dates 2nd of August until the 8th. And I gotta tell ya, it is quite a hefty list.

" Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

5 Palestinians, including a child, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
2 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF.
One of the victims was shot dead by IOF near a military checkpoint in the West Bank.
21 Palestinians, including a child, and an international human rights defender were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
IOF conducted 29 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
IOF arrested 49 Palestinian civilians, including a child, in the West Bank.
IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.
An old woman died at an IOF military checkpoint in the West Bank as IOF troops obstructed her evacuation to the hospital.
IOF have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world and a humanitarian crisis has emerged.
Some Palestinians have been stuck at the Egyptian side of Rafah International Crossing Point, and the number of deaths among them has mounted to 19.
IOF arrested 2 Palestinian civilians at Erez checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip when they were on their way back to the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
IOF positioned at various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested a Palestinian woman and a wound man.
IOF have continued settlement activities and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property in the West Bank.
Israeli settlers launched a series of attacks on Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron."

The report has to be read in its entirety to fully grasp at the gravity of the situation. It obliterates the myth that Hamas has total autonomy of the Gaza Strip. So does

impugnity ring a bell to anyone?

"The Gaza Strip, IOF carried out an extra-judicial execution attempt in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. The attack killed 2 Palestinian civilians and wounded 12 others, including a child, and 3 members of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad). The attack essentially targeted the three members of the al-Quds Brigades. On Wednesday, 8 August 2007, IOF shot dead a member of the Executive Force of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and wounded a civilian, who were organizing the movement of Palestinian civilians coming back to the Gaza Strip from Egypt through Erez crossing."

Doesn't a sovereign nation aspire to control its own borders? Not this so-called state impending.

"IOF have continued to close all border crossings of the Gaza Strip for nearly one year. The total siege imposed by IOF on the Gaza Strip has left disastrous impacts on the humanitarian situation and has violated the economic and social rights of the Palestinian civilian population, particularly the rights to appropriate living conditions, health and education. It has also paralyzed most economic sectors. Furthermore, severe restrictions have been imposed on the movement of the Palestinian civilian population. As a consequence of the total siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, at least 73% of the families in the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line, and unemployment has been estimated at 55%. In addition, the living conditions in the Gaza Strip have further deteriorated with the non-payment of salaries for the public sector for nearly a year as international donors have frozen aids provided to Palestinians, and Israeli authorities have suspended the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian National Authority since March 2006. Moreover, the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip has severely impacted the flow of food, medical supplies and other necessities such as fuel, construction materials and raw materials for various economic sectors...

The closure of border crossings deprives the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip of their right to freedom of movement, education and health. IOF have continued to impose severe restrictions on fishing in the Gaza Strip. Following the attack on IOF on 25 June 2006, IOF prevented fishing. Approximately 35,000 people in and around Gaza’s coastal communities rely on the fishing industry, including 2,500 fishermen, 2,500 support staff and their families. Fishermen have been subjected to intensive monitoring by IOF, which use helicopter gunships and gunboats to monitor the fishermen. The Oslo Accords allow Palestinian fishermen to go fishing up to 20 nautical miles away from the Gaza seashore."

They don't even have control of the airspace and the sea. What's a Gazan to do?

The Abbastan West Bank didn't fare much better.

"In the west Bank, On Thursday morning, 2 August 2007, IOF troops positioned at ‘Attara Bridge checkpoint, north of Ramallah, fired at Palestinian child, wounding him. The child died from his wound on the following day morning. On the same day evening, IOF shot dead a Palestinian when he attempted to escape from a house in Nablus as they came to arrest him. The victim was a member of the al-Quds Brigades. On 2 August 2007, IOF wounded a Palestinian civilian when they attempted to arrest him at Beit Eiba checkpoint, west of Nablus. On 3 August 2007, 3 Palestinian civilians and a Danish human rights defender were wounded when IOF used force against a peaceful demonstration organized by Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders against the construction of the Annexation Wall in Bal’ein village, west of Ramallah. On 6 August 2007, a Palestinian civilian was wounded when IOF fired at a number of Palestinian children who threw stones at military vehicles in ‘Ein Beit al-Maa’ refugee camp, west of Nablus...

During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 29 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During those incursions, IOF arrested 49 Palestinian civilians, including a child. Thus, the number of Palestinians arrested by IOF in the West Bank since the beginning of this year has mounted to 1,702."

29 military incursions? Let's remind ourselves that this was during the period of seven days. That's an average of just over four incursions a day: we can tell what incursions look like. Palestinians can expect more effective draconian measures and the world community can just sit on the couch not even knowing about the atrocities being inflicted daily.

The irony is this is meant to be a quiet time for the West Bank thanks to Fatah being a compliant little Arab. Israel reneging on their word? Nah. That never happens.

Business as usual in the occupied territories.

Get out of jail card

Just an example of IDF behaviour we are accustomed to as they rule with impugnity.

"IDF Soldiers Never Go to Jail for Killing Palestinian. Never."

The Murder of Abir Aramin, Nine Years Old
By Nurit Peled-Elhanan

How sad it is to come to the realization that the number of those who evade service in the army of occupation is so low that there is virtually no effect on the motivation of Israel’s children to put on the uniform of brutality.

Professor Stewart Cohen of Bar Ilan University consoles us by declaring that the “blame” lies in the increase in the number of Haredis who do not serve and he informs us that the army of the United States would have been happy with such a low percentage of evaders during the Vietnam war. Maybe we would do well to learn something from the Americans of the 1960s, or even from the Haredi Jews who fear for the safety of their children.

When the extent of evasion became known, I was invited onto the program of Oded Shahar, “Politika”, as a mother who will not permit her son (now 15 years old) to join the army. Apart from me, I was informed over the course of a protracted campaign of persuasion, only men were invited, most of them warmongering generals like Effie Eitam and Yossi Peled.

After I was convinced that my participation in the program would be important, I agreed. The researcher asked me why I would not allow my son to enlist. I explained to her that an army that has been involved for forty years now in systematic and growing abuse of a civilian population, (abuse that even a courageous journalist like Gideon Levy calls by the gentle name of “policing”), an army that teaches its soldiers that killing Palestinian children and those who protect them, like Rachel Corrie and James Miller, is not a crime, an army whose commanders are immune to punishment though they commit daily crimes against humanity, is not a suitable place for my son, who was brought up to love people, who has Palestinian friends, whose brothers and parents have Palestinian friends who are subjected to that same reign of terror and daily torment. After half an hour I was told that despite my contribution there were not enough seats on the stage.

A few days later we were told in an isolated solitary news broadcast that the file on the murder of Abir Aramin, the daughter of Salwa and Bassam Aramin, has been closed. Bassam is one of the founders of the Palestinian-Israeli movement Combatants for Peace, where my sons Elik and Guy are members. Bassam Aramin spent 9 years in an Israeli jail for being a member of the Fatah in the Hebron area and for trying to throw a grenade on an Israeli army Jeep which was patrolling in Occupied Hebron.

On a Tuesday afternoon, the 16th of January, an Israeli soldier shot his nine year old daughter, Abir, in the head as she was leaving school to go home. The soldier will not spend an hour in jail. In Israel, soldiers are not imprisoned for killing Arabs. Never. It does not matter whether the Arabs are young or old, real or potential terrorists, peaceful demonstrators or stone throwers. The army has not conducted an inquiry in Abir Aramin's death. The police and the courts have questioned no one except for Abir's sister, who was holding her hand while she was falling. The young sister was asked time and again how many meters were they from the school gate, from the kiosk, from the jeep.

There was hardly any investigation except for a private one by Bassam and his friends who know exactly who the killer is. But as far as the Israeli Defense Forces are concerned, the shooting did not happen. The army's official account of her death is that she might have been hit by a stone that one of her classmates was throwing "at our forces." That in the face of the finding of a senior pathologist, who worked for many years in an institute of forensic medicine.

One of the allegations against the evaders is that they have stopped believing in “values” such as sacrifice. Whose sacrifice, exactly? On what altar? To what god?

The soldiers of Israel are called upon to sacrifice children, parents, volunteers, and sometimes themselves on the altar of the megalomania of the insolent and corrupt leaders of the state of Israel, who have succeeded in converting this whole country into an altar on which they sacrifice other people’s children to the god of death. And no one is guilty of their deaths; no one is ever punished for the murder of a Palestinian child. The state takes care of those who serve it, sometimes. Other times it sacrifices even them, with the same cold-bloodedness and for the same reasons.

And the murderers? What about them? Do they know that they committed crimes? Do they toss and turn in their beds at night? Are they tormented by images of the small bodies that convulse and fall under their rifles, bombs and shells? Probably not. We know of no case in which any soldier turned himself in and expressed remorse for his actions. That is the biggest success of Israeli education: the distinction between blood and blood, between dead child and dead child, and the inculcation of the firm belief that the murder of Palestinians and their friends is not a crime.

Everyone who enlists in the army knows this and is prepared for it. Half the nation! How many millions are there in half the nation? How many millions of young men and women who are simply unmoved by the crying of a child, the agonies of a woman in labor, the pleas of an old man and the deaths of innocent people? How many millions of people who never learned to refuse orders that are manifestly inhumane even if they are legal according to the racist laws of their state, and to say no to corrupt leaders and bloodthirsty generals?
Well done, IDF! Well done, Israeli Jewish education, that has succeeded nearly perfectly in bestowing the values of racism, nearly without opposition.

And if my son Yigal really does want to participate in the military programs that they impose on high school students starting in grade 10, or God forbid, to enlist in the army of occupation and torment, I will see it as a dreadful educational failure. A terrible maternal failure. And if I do not do everything I can to prevent him from becoming a murderer or a corpse at the age of 18 I will know that I betrayed him and my vocation as a mother.

Like fish in a barrel

IDF troops are now exempted from any responsibility in the Gaza Strip.

"According to the bill approved by the ministerial committee on Sunday, "In light of the High Court ruling… a situation has been created in which many residents of the Gaza area and the surrounding villages will file damage lawsuits for damages allegedly caused to them, following the IDF's legitimate and legal defensive activities."

The bill added that 'following the disengagement from Gaza… it is unthinkable that (Israel) will continue to bear any responsibility for the residents of the Gaza area, which are, in this case, residents of the villages beyond Israel's northern border.

Today, when Israeli communities cease to exist in the Gaza area, any Israeli activity in this area is a defensive activity in every sense of the word. In that case, there is no room for damage lawsuits from people who are residents of an entity which is not the State of Israel, all the more so from residents of an entity which sponsors actions against the State of Israel'."

Gazans are now at the mercy of the soldier's whim. Who is being placated by all of this? Perhaps more adventures of this nature can be labeled "defensive activity". Or shooting unarmed humans. Or just firing bombs at the airport. Or maybe just to test out those new weapons on those pesky Arabs.

Let's dress up a phony disengagement and we can forget about who really controls Gaza eh? Just like staging a flimsy election and calling it a democracy (while being occupied). That pertains to Mahmoud Abbas too, not just Iraq/Afghanistan/etc...

It's good to be a settler

No one can hold you accountable.

Besieged On All Sides: Israeli Settlers & Troops Violate Palestinians with Impunity

Whilst the mainstream Western press feeds its obsession with Hamas versus Fatah politics, Jewish settlers and the Israeli military are continuing business as usual in occupied Palestine.

Today marks another tragedy for another Palestinian family now grieving a sudden and avoidable death. If 75 year old Kamila Ibrahin Aqbaha had been allowed through the checkpoint at Barta’a ash Sharqiya village this morning, she may well still be alive. But Israeli troops refused to allow her to cross the checkpoint on foot and climb into the ambulance waiting for her on the other side. They also prevented the ambulance from crossing over to her side of the checkpoint and taking her to a local hospital. Mrs. Ibrahin Aqbaha died at the checkpoint this morning.

Her son, Tawfiq, says he holds the Israeli military personally responsible for her death.

The official Israeli response to her death - that there was no prior coordination with the military to allow the ambulance through the checkpoint - is preposterous. There was never any suggestion that Kamila Abrahin Aqbaha was a criminal, a political liability, or any kind of ‘security threat.’ There was no rationale or benefit in preventing her from reaching a local hospital. But Kamila Ibrahin Aqbaha is, or rather was, a Palestinian. To the Israeli soldiers who stood in front of her, deciding whether she could go to hospital, she was a subject who could be detainable at will. Her life was not important enough for them to allow her immediate access to hospital.

This official Israeli response to the death of yet another Palestinian also illustrates how systematic military callousness is directly supported by the Government of Israel. Palestinians die across the Occupied Territories almost daily because Israeli troops act with state sponsored impunity.

This military impunity also goes some way to explain the many acts of violence committed by Jewish settlers against Palestinians. Lately, a string of ‘hit and run’ attacks on Palestinians have taken place across the West Bank suggesting a new trend of violence, one that is met with the usual impunity.

Settlers travel freely across the West Bank, driving on their completely separate road system or straight through the hundreds of permanent and ‘flying’ checkpoints that confine Palestinians. They fleetingly witness Palestinians being detained, humiliated and searched. Their violence towards Palestinians reflects the same state supported disregard for Palestinian life.

On Sunday evening an Israeli settler in Hebron drove a car into Noman Fawwaz Nazzir, a twenty-two-year-old Palestinian. Fawwaz Nazzir was hospitalized. The attack on him happened whilst a gang of settlers were setting two Palestinian homes ablaze in Hebron’s old city. It is the latest in a whole violent spate of hit and runs by settlers, who rarely face penalties.

Sixteen year old Mu’tasim Al-Jamal was selling sweets at the side of the road in Hebron on July 24th when a car driven by a settler drove straight into him. The car drove off, and Mu’tasim was also hospitalized. And so it goes on. Settler hatred of Palestinians is driven by ideology and fuelled by impunity. The State of Israel already has blood on its hands – and now the world stands silent as Palestinians are fatally detained at checkpoints and targeted by Zionist hit and run vigilantes.

The Israeli military are also guilty of hit and run crimes. Thirteen- year-old Alu Abu Bakr was hit by a military jeep in the village of Yabud, near Jenin on July 27th. He was standing in front of his own home when the jeep struck him and then continued driving. He survived after hospital treatment.

If the media averted its gaze from inter-Palestinian politics for a moment and looked instead at how Palestinians are surviving under siege, they would realize the Israeli occupation of Palestine is as brutal as ever.

Whilst Olmert talks smugly about resuming peace, Palestinians are enduring arson attacks, hit and run attacks, deaths at checkpoints, and the impunity of troops and settlers.

Like the Israeli military, settlers have been given a free reign to vent their hatred, racism and the power of their illegal occupation. How many more Palestinians have to be killed or injured before Israel is held to account for its crimes?

It makes it difficult to lay down the case for one state for all its citizens.