A response to Melanie Phillips's "Tunnel Vision"

Melanie Phillips had a typically extreme piece in last week's Jewish Chronicle denouncing aid to Gaza as the funding of "mass murder".  To its rare credit, the JC has published a response by Deborah Maccoby.  The JC doesn't publish letters on line so here's the letter which Deborah copied to me:

Tunnel Vision

Melanie Phillips (JC, August 19) writes: "Israeli officials have claimed that every month, Hamas builds another six miles of tunnels whose sole purpose is to deliver killers and weapons to wipe out as many Israelis as possible."

Does it ever occur to her that Hamas builds tunnels as self-defence, in preparation for yet another murderous onslaught on Gaza by the Israeli Army?

Phillips goes on: "A Hamas operative captured by the Israelis last June revealed that terrorists can travel underground throughout the whole of Gaza".

In July 2014, when Israeli launched Operation Protective Edge, which killed 1,400 Gazan civilians, including 500 children, only 12 of the tunnels passed under the border into Israel and these could easily have been sealed off on the Israeli side. The tunnels are built so that Hamas militants can emerge within Gaza and engage with invading Israeli soldiers.


Deborah Maccoby
Leeds

We're not sure who the JC is suggesting is tunnel visioned but Mel does seem to spend more time on hasbara than Deborah does on debunking the same.

Missing from the IMEU FAQ

Here's the content of a mailout from the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  As far as I can see there are some crucial points missing but I just want to let it hang here while I think of what they are

Q – Who is represented in the new Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet?

A – Based on the agreement announced on April 23, the new government is composed of a consensus cabinet consisting of individuals agreed upon by all of the major Palestinian political parties. The cabinet does not include members of the two largest Palestinian parties, Fatah or Hamas. Instead, it’s made up of independent technocrats whose job is to prepare the groundwork for elections for the PA.


Q – Is Hamas part of the new government?

A – No. Although Hamas supports the government, none of the members of the new cabinet is affiliated with Hamas.


Q - Will this government abide by the Quartet's conditions?

A - In 2006, the members of the so-called “Quartet,” consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, laid out several conditions that Palestinians must meet before they agree to cooperate with or recognize any Palestinian government. They include the renunciation of terrorism, agreeing to abide by previously signed agreements, and recognition of Israel. PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah have said the new government will abide by the Quartet's conditions. However, it is important to note that no Israeli government, including the current one, has ever officially recognized the Palestinian right to statehood or self-determination. Israel has and continues to systematically violate the terms of numerous previously-signed deals, including the Oslo Accords and the 2002 Road Map to Peace, and Israel continues to practice what amounts to state terrorism, systematically using excessive force against Palestinians, including unarmed civilians as documented by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.


Q - Will the US cut off ties and funding to the PA?

A – Some members of Congress have called for the US to cut off funding to the PA, however the Obama administration has stated that because the new government doesn’t include members of Hamas, and in light of assurances from President Abbas and Prime Minister Hamdallah that it will abide by the Quartet's conditions, the US will continue to work with and fund the PA while continuing to monitor the situation.


Q – Will Israel deal with the new PA government?

A - Although the new unity government does not include members of Hamas, Israel has said it still won’t deal with it because it is supported by the group, and has threatened to punish the PA as a result. Senior Israeli government officials have also criticized the US, accusing the Obama administration of “naïveté” and sending a message that “terrorism pays.” In response, the State Department rejected the Israeli allegations, pointing out that Hamas is not part of the cabinet and stating that the US will judge the new government by its actions.


Q – Does the unity government help efforts to make peace or harm them?

A – There can be no lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis that excludes a major player like Hamas. Although Israel officially withdrew from US-sponsored negotiations following the announcement of the unity agreement in April, according to all accounts there was little or no progress made over the previous nine months of talks. Critics of the Israeli government argue that Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government were looking for an excuse to pull out of negotiations while placing the blame on the Palestinians, citing as evidence the repeated provocations Israel engaged in while talks were ongoing, most notably the announcement of some 14,000 new settlement units to be built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law and official US policy.


Q - What happens next?


A - This new technocratic government is tasked with managing the PA until elections take place in six months. Meanwhile, Israel will likely continue to apply economic pressure on the PA, withholding tax money that it is supposed to transfer and maintaining its crippling and illegal blockade of Gaza, leading to further humanitarian crises, particularly in besieged Gaza. However, it's unlikely that Israel will apply too much pressure on the PA, for fear that it could collapse and leave Israel directly responsible for all the residents of the occupied territories once again.

David Toube: an apology

I like getting things wrong and then apologising. It really puts paid to those interlocutors who say things like "oh you're never wrong, are you? or "you just can't admit to being wrong".  So I actually enjoy being wrong now and again but, sadly, I don't often get the pleasure.

So it's a with a not so heavy heart that I have to admit I got it wrong about one detail in a poll of Palestinian opinion arising out of the recent Israeli attack on Gaza and the Palestinian Authority's UN bid.

You see, David Toube, aka Lucy Lips, at Harry's Place said the following:

 It goes without saying that Hamas has lyingly claimed that their rockets lack the necessary precision to hit military targets. Previously, they’ve boasted of their success in terrorising Jews:

The Qassam Brigades committed itself to turn the life of Zionists into hell, and make them regret their heinous crimes against the innocent and crush their pride and to soak their noses in the dirt.

Hamas does this, because 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics, and believe that they constitute ‘victory’.

Follow the link and you find this:

Highlights:

•        85 percent strongly believe that the UN vote was a victory for the Palestinian cause. In contrast, only 14 percent disagree.
•        79 percent are hopeful that the UN vote will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
•        Overall, 68 percent believe that the UN vote will advance the Palestinian cause. In contrast, 17 percent believe that nothing will change and 13 percent      believe that the cause will be set back by the vote.
•        90 percent of respondents believe that the confrontations and the resulting truce represent a victory for the Palestinians. Only 10 percent disagree.
•        84 percent are hopeful that the Gaza confrontation will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
•        The majority of respondents (51 percent) believe that party that gained the most from the Gaza conflict are the Palestinians in general.
•        76 percent believe that Israel lost the most in this war.
•        89 percent say that their views of Hamas improved or improved to some extent, while only 8 percent say that their views diminished.
•         81 percent say that their views of Fatah improved or improved to some extent, while 15 percent say that their views diminished.

But follow the links within the links and you find this:

		West Bank	Gaza	Total
The results of the recent Gaza conflict prove that armed struggle, as adopted by Hamas,  is the best means of achieving Palestinian independence	Strongly  agree	50.4%	64.2%	55.6%
	Agree	36.0%	25.6%	32.1%
	Disagree	8.8%	9.6%	9.1%
	Strongly disagree	1.5%	0.7%	1.2%
	I don’t know	3.3%		2.1%

So, what do you know? David Toube might masquerade as a woman called Lucy Lips when he's on line but it doesn't mean that everything he says is a lie.  So apologies.

Finkelstein on Israel's recent defeat by Hamas and the Arab Spring

Many of us have felt let down by Norman Finkelstein recently what with his statements about BDS which didn't quite tally with the reality but he does seem to hit the spot with this piece on the New Left Project website titled Israel’s Latest Assault on Gaza - What Really Happened:

The official storyline is that Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defence on 14 November, 2012 because, in President Barack Obama’s words, it had “every right to defend itself.”

In this instance, Israel was allegedly defending itself against the 800 projectile attacks emanating from Gaza since January of this past year.

The facts, however, suggest otherwise.

From the start of the new year, one Israeli had been killed as a result of the Gazan attacks, while 78 Gazans had been killed by Israeli strikes.   The ruling power in Gaza, Hamas, was mostly committed to preventing attacks.  Indeed, Ahmed al-Jaabari, the Hamas leader whose assassination by Israel triggered the current round of fighting, was regarded by Israel as the chief enforcer of the periodic ceasefires, and was in the process of enforcing another such ceasefire just as he was liquidated.   

Hamas occasionally turned a blind eye, or joined in to prevent an escalation, when Israeli provocations resulted in retaliatory strikes by Hamas’s more militant Islamist rivals.  It recoiled at being cast as Israel’s collaborator in the image of the Palestinian Authority.

It has been speculated that Hamas was itching for a confrontation with Israel. 

But this past year Hamas has been on a roll.   Its ideological soulmate, the Muslim Brotherhood, ascended to power in Egypt.  The emir of Qatar journeyed to Gaza carrying the promise of $400 million in aid, while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to visit Gaza soon thereafter.   In the West Bank many Palestinians envied (rightly or wrongly) that Gazans fared better economically.  Meanwhile, Gaza’s Islamic University even managed to pull off an academic conference attended by renowned linguist Noam Chomsky.

Hamas’s star was slowly but surely rising, at the expense of the hapless Palestinian Authority.   The very last thing it needed at that moment was an inevitably destructive confrontation with Israel that could jeopardise these hard-won, steadily accreting gains. 

On the other side, many cynical Israelis speculated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the operation in order to boost his election prospects in January 2013.  

As a general rule, however, Israeli leaders do not unleash major military operations for electoral gain where significant State interests are at stake.   The fact that Defence Minister Ehud Barak dropped out of politics soon after the latest operation ended and his popular standing improved suggests that the forthcoming election was not a prime consideration for him.[1]

Why, then, did Israel attack?

In one sense, Israel was straightforward about its motive.  It kept saying, credibly, that it wanted to restore its “deterrence capacity”—i.e., the Arab/Muslim world’s fear of it.

The real question, however, is the nature of the threat it wanted to deter.

The latest assault on Gaza unfolded in the broader context of successive Israeli foreign policy failures.  

Netanyahu sought to rally the international community for an attack on Iran, but ended up looking the fool as he held up an Iranian nuclear device “smuggled” into the United Nations.   Hezbollah boasted that a drone launched by it had penetrated Israeli airspace, and then reserved the right to enter Israeli air space at its whim.  Now, its “terrorist” twin upstart in Gaza was gaining respectability as the Arab/Muslim world thumbed its collective nose at Israel on its doorstep.

The natives were getting restless.  It was time to take out the big club again and remind the locals who was in charge.

“At the heart of Operation Pillar of Defence,” the respected Crisis Group observed, “lay an effort to demonstrate that Hamas’s newfound confidence was altogether premature and that, the Islamist awakening notwithstanding, changes in the Middle East would not change much at all.”

Still, Israel needed a suitable pretext.  So, just as it knew that breaking the ceasefire in November 2008 by killing six Hamas militants would evoke a massive response, so it must have known that killing Jaabari would evoke a comparable response.

The actual Israeli assault, however, differed significantly from Operation Cast Lead (OCL) in 2008-9: it was qualitatively less murderous and destructive.  Many commentators have therefrom inferred that Israel used more precise weapons this time and, concomitantly, that Israel had “learnt the lessons” from OCL on how to avoid civilian casualties.

In fact, 99 percent of Israeli Air Force attacks during OCL hit targets accurately, while the goal of OCL was—in the words of the Goldstone Report, which was supported by scores of other human rights reports—to “punish, humiliate and terrorise” the Gazan civilian population.

If Israel’s latest rampage proved less lethal by comparison, it was because of unprecedented political constraints imposed on it:

• Turkey and Egypt made abundantly clear that they would not sit idly by if Israel launched a repeat performance of OCL.   From early on, both drew a red line at an Israeli ground assault.  Although now officially denied, it was reliably reported at the time that Obama, no doubt prodded by these key regional actors, counselled Israel not to invade.

• Israel had hanging over its head the Goldstone Report.  It managed to elude, the first time around, prosecution at the International Criminal Court and the exercise by several countries of universal jurisdiction for its war crimes and crimes against humanity.  But the second time it might not be so fortunate.

• Gaza was swarming with foreign reporters.   Before OCL, Israel had sealed Gaza shut from the outside world with the cooperation of Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt.   In the initial phase of the onslaught, Israel enjoyed a near-total monopoly on media coverage.   But now, journalists could freely enter Gaza and credibly report Israeli atrocities in real-time.

On account of this trio of factors, Israel mostly targeted sites that could be deemed “legitimate.”  True, some 70 Palestinian civilians were killed, but that could be chalked up to “collateral damage.”

The deaths and injuries of civilians during the Israeli assault, although far fewer than in previous rounds of the conflict, received in-depth and graphic news coverage.  When Israel tested the limits of military legitimacy, trouble loomed.  After it flattened civilian governmental structures in Gaza, the headline on the New York Times web site read, “Israel targets civilian buildings.”  A few hours later it metamorphosed into “government buildings” (no doubt after a call from the Israeli consulate).  Still, the writing was on the wall: Israeli conduct was being closely scrutinised by outsiders, so it had better tread carefully.   

The salient exceptions came during the final ceasefire negotiations when Israel resorted to its standard terrorist tactics in order to extract the best possible terms, and also targeted journalists in the event that the negotiations collapsed and it would have to, after all, launch the murderous ground invasion.

The armed resistance Hamas put up during the eight-day Israeli assault was largely symbolic.  Although Israel acclaimed the success of Iron Dome, it almost certainly did not save many and perhaps not any lives.  During OCL some 800 projectiles and mortar shells landing in Israel killed three Israeli civilians, while during the recent Israeli assault some 1,400 projectiles and mortar shells landing in Israel killed four Israeli civilians. 

It is unlikely that, in the main and allowing for the occasional exception, Hamas used much more technically advanced weapons in the latest round.  Through its army of informers and hi-tech aerial surveillance Israel would have been privy to large quantities of sophisticated Hamas weapons and would have destroyed these stashes before or during the first day of the attack.  It is also improbable that Netanyahu would have risked an attack just on the eve of an election if Hamas possessed weapons capable of inflicting significant civilian casualties.  A handful of Hamas projectiles reached deeper inside Israel than before but these lacked explosives; an Israeli official derisively described them as “pipes, basically.” 

If Israel ballyhooed Iron Dome, it was because its purported effectiveness was the only achievement to which Israel could point in the final reckoning. 

The climax of Israel’s assault came when it was unable to break the spirit of the people of Gaza.  On the one hand, it had exhausted all preplanned military targets and, on the other, it couldn’t target the civilian population.  Hamas had successfully adapted Hezbollah’s strategy of continually firing its projectiles, the psychological upshot of which was that Israel couldn’t declare its deterrence capacity had been restored, and thereby forcing on it a ground invasion. 

Israel could not launch such an invasion, however, without suffering significant combatant losses unless the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) blasted everyone and everything in and out of sight as it cleared a path into Gaza.   But, because of the novel circumstances—the regional realignment after the Arab Spring, and Turkey under Erdogan; the threat of a “mega-Goldstone,” as a veteran Israeli commentator put it; the presence of a foreign press corps embedded not in the IDF but among the people of Gaza—Israel couldn’t launch an OCL-style ground invasion.  

Israel was thus caught between a rock and a hard place.  It couldn’t subdue Hamas without a ground invasion, but it couldn’t launch a ground invasion without incurring a politically unacceptable price in IDF casualties and global opprobrium.  

It is possible to pinpoint the precise moment when the Israeli assault was over: Hamas leader Khalid Mishal’s taunt to Israel at a 19 November press conference, Go ahead, invade!

Netanyahu panicked.  His bluff was called, and Israel stood exposed, naked, before the whole world.   What happened next was a repeat of the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.  Unable to stop the Hezbollah rocket attacks but dreading the prospect of a ground invasion that meant tangling with the Party of God, Israel called in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to negotiate a ceasefire.  This time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was summoned to bail Israel out.  Not even the 21 November bus bombing in Tel Aviv—which, ceasefire or no ceasefire, would normally have elicited massive Israeli retaliation—shook Netanyahu from his determination to end the operation immediately, before Hamas resumed its taunting.

The terms of the final agreement marked a stunning defeat for Israel.  It called for a mutualceasefire, not one, as Israel demanded, unilaterally imposed on Hamas.  It also included language that implied the siege of Gaza would be lifted.  Notably, it did not include the condition that Hamas must cease its importation or production of weapons.  The reason why is not hard to find.  Under international law, peoples resisting foreign occupation have the right (or, as some international lawyers more cautiously phrase it, license) to use armed force.  Egypt, which brokered the ceasefire, was not about to accept a stipulation that conceded Hamas’s legal right.[2]

Israel no doubt hoped that the U.S. would use its political leverage to extract better ceasefire terms from Egypt.  But the Obama administration, placing American interests first and consequently wanting to bring the new Egypt under its wing, was not willing (assuming it could) to lord it over Egypt on Israel’s behalf.

If any doubt remained about who won and who lost in the latest round, it was quickly dispelled.  Israel launched the attack to restore Gaza’s fear of it.  But after the ceasefire and its terms were announced, Palestinians flooded the streets of Gaza in a celebratory mood as if at a wedding party.  In a CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour, Hamas’s Mishal cut the figure and exuded the confidence of a world leader.  Meanwhile, at the Israeli press conference announcing the ceasefire, the ruling triumvirate—Netanyahu, Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—resembled grade-schoolers called down to the Principal’s Office, counting the seconds until the humiliation was over.

The ceasefire is likely to hold until and unless Israel can figure out how to militarily prevail given the new political environment.   The days of Cast Lead are over, while a Pillar of Defence-type operation will not bear the fruits of victory.  

It is unlikely, however, that Israel will fulfil the terms of the final agreement to lift the siege of Gaza.  During deliberations on whether to accept the ceasefire, Barak had already cynically dismissed the fine print, saying “A day after the ceasefire, no one will remember what is written in that draft.” 

It is equally improbable that Egypt will pressure the U.S. to enforce the ceasefire terms on Israel.  The respective interests of the new Egypt and Hamas mostly diverge, not converge.  Egypt desperately needs American subventions, and is currently negotiating a $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, where Washington’s vote is decisive.  The popularity of President Mohammed Morsi’s government will ultimately hinge on what it delivers to Egyptians, not Gazans.   

In the meantime, U.S. political elites are lauding Morsi to high heaven, stroking his ego, and speculating on the “special relationship” he has cultivated with Obama.  Those familiar with the psychological manipulations of the U.S. when it comes to Arab leaders—in particular, contemptibly mediocre ones such as Anwar Sadat—will not be surprised by the current U.S. romancing of Morsi.

It is also unlikely that Turkey will exert itself on Hamas’s behalf.  Right now it is smarting from Obama’s rebuff of designating Egypt as prime interlocutor in brokering the ceasefire.  Turkey was reportedly disqualified because it labelled Israel a “terrorist state” during the assault, whereas Egypt “only” accused Israel of “acts of aggression, murder and bloodletting.”   

Still, aspiring to be the U.S.’s chief regional partner, and calculating that the road to Washington passes through Tel Aviv, Turkey has resumed negotiations with Israel to end the diplomatic impasse after Israel killed eight Turks aboard a humanitarian vessel headed for Gaza in 2010.   On the other hand, its recent operation has brought home to Israel that alienating both its historic allies in the region, Egypt and Turkey, is not prudent policy, so a face-saving reconciliation between Ankara and Tel Aviv (the Turkish government is formally demanding an apology, monetary compensation, and an end to the Gaza siege) is probably in the offing.

The long and the short of it is that, even in the new era that has opened up, definite limits exist on how much regional support the Palestinians can realistically hope to garner.

It appears that many Palestinians have concluded from the resounding defeat inflicted on Israel that only armed resistance can and will end the Israeli occupation.  In fact, however, Hamas’s armed resistance operated for the most part only at the level of perceptions—the projectiles heading towards Tel Aviv did unsettle the city’s residents—and it is unlikely that Palestinians can ever muster sufficient military might to compel an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. 

But Gaza’s steadfastness until the final hour of the Israeli assault did demonstrate the indomitablewill of the people of Palestine.  If this potential force can be harnessed in a campaign of mass civil resistance, and if the supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide do their job of mobilizing public opinion and changing government policy, then Israel can be forced to withdraw, and with fewer Palestinian lives lost than in an armed resistance.

This article benefited from many conversations with Palestinian political analyst Mouin Rabbani and from Jamie Stern-Weiner playing the devil’s advocate.

Norman Finkelstein is the author of many books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, most recently,Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End, and is currently working on a book with Mouin Rabbani on how to resolve the conflict.

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[1] It has also been speculated that the governing coalition had to do something to placate popular indignation at the Hamas attacks.  But in fact, these attacks have barely registered on Israel’s political radar the past year, the focus being mostly on Iran and domestic issues.

[2] In a diplomatic side note to Netanyahu, Obama vaguely promised to “help Israel address its security needs, especially the issue of smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza.”

The man's obviously a tormented moody genius.

So where was the Reverend Tony Blair?

Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister and Israel's envoy to the so-called Peace Quartet, at first came out in favour of Israel's operation against Gaza.  See this from The Daily Telegraph a few days ago:

The former prime minister and current Middle East Peace Envoy says that Hamas militants in Gaza must stop firing rockets, to put an end to Israel's retaliation and prevent the conflict from escalating.

Note the assumption that Israel, not Hamas, is retaliating.

See some more, this is from 15 November 2012, by the way

Tony Blair told ITV News: "If rockets are fired out of Gaza by Hamas or other militants in Gaza and aimed at Israeli towns and villages with the express purpose of killing Israeli civilians, the government of Israel is going to retaliate and the Israeli people will expect them to do so.

"So the most important thing is we stop the rockets from coming out, the retaliation can then stop, we get some ceasefire or calm into the situation and then work out a better way forward,

Now let's look at the Reverend's website on 19 November 2012:

Commenting on the conflict in the Middle East, on his 92nd visit to the region, Quartet Representative Tony Blair said:

"The suffering of innocent civilians, Palestinian and Israeli, makes a complete cessation the urgent objective. Israeli families need to be free from fear of rocket attacks and Gazan families relieved of the pain of the air strikes, so a ceasefire should be brought into being as soon as possible. We can then work on an agenda that ensures long-term the security of Israel and the return to normal life for Gaza, which has been absent for too long.

“We also continue to work on a credible political horizon for the two state solution that is, and remains, the only viable solution."

Note four days after openly siding with the racist war criminals of the State of Israel he now makes a pretence of even-handedness.

Now that Hamas appears to have won this latest round of Israel's Palestinian cull let's see The Guardian report on the cessation:

Announcing the ceasefire in Cairo, Clinton commended Egypt's mediation. "This is a critical moment for the region. Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace."

She also thanked Egypt's Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, for his mediation efforts and pledged to work with partners in the region "to consolidate this progress, improve conditions for the people of Gaza, and provide security for the people of Israel".

Despite securing support from western governments for its initial military operation against Hamas, Israel had failed to win US and European backing for a ground invasion as a series of key US allies in the region, led by Egypt and Turkey, strongly protested against the Israeli assault.

The agreed truce, mediated by Morsi and his spy chief, Mohamed Shehata, came after days of talks and frantic shuttle diplomacy involving regional leaders, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Clinton.

So where was the Reverend Tony Blair? Let's go back to His website:

Commenting on today's announcement, Quartet Representative Tony Blair said:

"I very much welcome this ceasefire, and highly commend the central role that Egypt’s government has played in bringing it about – with the helpful efforts of Secretary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

“We must now act quickly to ensure long-term progress in the region so that the security of Israelis is ensured, and that life returns to normal for Gazans through continual improvements in their infrastructure and economy.

“We firmly believe that a two state solution is the way forward.”

Actually, unless this is the calm before an even bigger Israeli storm then what appears to have happened here is that resistance from Gaza together with support for the Palestinians from Egypt and Turkey has had the US ordering Israel not to persist in its Palestinian cull for the time being. There are many lessons which can be drawn from this, I'm sure, but Blair seems to have played no role in this whatever, except to side with Israel, pretend not to side with anyone and then report a ceasefire deal on his blog as if all the main players were working for him. So that's where he was.  Same as me, he was at home updating his blog.  So former UK PM, Israel's envoy to the Peace Quartet, Very (excruciatingly) Reverend, Tony Blair, can now tack on to the end of his CV (resumé for Americans), blogger. Yes, it's Blogger Blair!

Syria: the Palestinian dilemma

Here's a Comment is Free piece from The Guardian website by Sharif Nashishibi:

Palestinian leaders, organisations and officials were generally silent at the start of Syria's revolution, mainly out of concern for the fate of the half million Palestinian refugees in the country.

However, that has now changed, and not in President Bashar al-Assad's favour. Attacks on Palestinian camps by Syrian forces loyal to him – most recently last week against the Yarmouk camp – have resulted in killings, injuries, and the displacement of thousands. This has angered Palestinian refugees, many of whom are now openly supporting the revolution, as well as taking in Syrian refugees.

This is particularly damaging for the Assad regime because it has long regarded itself as a guardian of the Palestinian cause.

In an obvious reference to Palestinians, Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, wrote on Facebook that "guests" in Syria "have to respect the rules of hospitality" or "depart to the oases of democracy in Arab countries". He later removed his comments following an outcry.

The regime's supporters often cite the fact that Palestinian refugees in Syria are treated far better than in other Arab countries. What they overlook, though, is that the law enshrining the rights of these refugees was enacted well before the Ba'ath party took power.

While several Palestinian leaders have now broken their silence about Syria, attitudes vary. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO's secretary-general, described an attack by Assad's forces on a Palestinian camp in Latakia as "a crime against humanity." On the other hand, Nour Abdulhadi, the PLO's director in Syria for political affairs, later said Palestinian refugees "will remain as supporters of the Syrian government" – a claim seemingly out of step with the facts.

One major blow to Assad has been Hamas's stance. Not only did it refuse a request to hold pro-regime rallies in refugee camps in Syria, but it also allowed residents of Gaza to stage protests against him.

Its senior leaders left Damascus earlier this year, with political leader Khaled Meshaal – who reportedly twice turned down requests to meet Assad – now living in Qatar.

The article first appeared on Friday so comments are now closed.

Israel's attacks on Gaza - consolation, training or maybe both for Iran

It's not really news when Israel kills Palestinians but when zionist sources describe Palestinian retaliation as "Palestinian.... rocket attacks" on Israel you know there's a game on.

In a meeting Saturday night with the mayors of southern Israeli communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue hitting Palestinian forces in Gaza responsible for a barrage of rocket attacks.

Netayahu praised the residents for their resilience in the face of the rocket barrage.

“We will continue to hit whoever plans to attack citizens of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. " At the same time, we will continue to improve home front defense including by means of additional Iron Dome systems, the effectiveness of which was shown again over the weekend."

More than 130 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since an Israeli airstrike killed the leader of a Palestinian terrorist group.

Ah, so it was Israel attacking Gaza not the other way around.

Here's Gush Shalom on the same escalation:

In the beginning of the week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu failed in his attempt to get an American autorization for an attack on Iran, which might raise oil prizes and overthrow the world economy. At the end of the same week, he is setting the Gaza Strip border on fire with an act of "liquidation" which was certain to precipitate a barrage of rockets at the communities of southern Israel and make their children huddle in air-raid shelters on the Purim holiday.

The bombings and killings in the Gaza Strip look like a general rehearsal and test of weapons systems towards the great war to come - and a "consolation prize" for not yet have gotten the authorization.

In recent weeks, there were many indications of a growing distance between Hamas and Iran, and an unwillingness of the Hamas leaders to take part in a war between Israel and Iran, should it break out. A responsible Israeli leadership should have been seeking to deepen this gap, and therefore do all in its power to keep the Gaza border calm. But a responsible leadership is not exactly the right term for Israel's present government.

And what's this distance between Hamas and Iran all about?  Well it could be described as fallout from the Arab spring.  Hamas is distancing itself from Syria's Assad regime.  Here's The Guardian:

Hamas will not do Iran's bidding in any war with Israel, according to senior figures within the militant Islamic group.

"If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be part of such a war," Salah Bardawil, a member of the organisation's political bureau in Gaza City, told the Guardian.

He denied the group would launch rockets into Israel at Tehran's request in response to a strike on its nuclear sites. "Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region," said Bardawil. "Our strategy is to defend our rights"

The stance underscores Hamas's rift with its key financial sponsor and its realignment with the Muslim Brotherhood and popular protest movements in the Arab world.

It's curious to see how Israel and Iran both have issues with Palestine arising over the Arab spring, But what attracted my curiosity in the first place was how an attack by Israel on a Palestinian target could be described as a Palestinian attack on Israel.  Perhaps that too was a rehearsal for an Israeli attack on Iran.

Netanyahu on Palestinian unity

There's a piece in yesterday's print edition of The Guardian (Monday's online edition) by Harriet Sherwood about a unity government being formed by Fatah and Hamas.

The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a new unity government in the West Bank and Gaza, which will be headed by Mahmoud Abbas, it was announced on Monday.

Reconciliation talks between the two factions have struggled to make progress since an agreement in principle was signed last spring.

I'm sure there have been many articles on this subject over the years but a couple of points stood out here. First, Sherwood, while highlighting a potential rift within Hamas, equates violence with rejecting Israel's "right" to exist and she contrasts both violence and rejectionism with "popular resistance:

There was no immediate response from Ismail Haniyeh, the de facto Hamas prime minister of Gaza. Over recent months, a rift has openedbetween the Gaza-based leadership of the Islamist organisation and its external leadership on the group's future strategy.

Israel and the United States have voiced concern about a closer relationship between Fatah and Hamas, and are opposed to any unity government that includes Hamas. Despite Meshaal's efforts to turn Hamas towards a strategy of popular resistance, it has not formally renounced violence and accepted Israel's right to exist.

The print edition contains a final paragraph missing from the online version. It's this:

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said if the new government went ahead, "Abbas will have chosen to abandon the way of peace and to join with Hamas".

Now why does any unity agreement among Palestinians amount to Abbas abandoning peace and not Hamas embracing peace? Regarding the latter, I'm not saying they should embrace peace as unconditionally as Abbas has done. I'm merely pointing out the scope for interpretation that Netanyahu has completely ignored.

Arab spring and Palestine

I always think of this chap, Azzam Tamimi, as Hamas's man in London. He's certainly very close to them but I have heard him speak and he admitted to being "embarrassed", for example, by Hamas's charter. He also claims a fondness for democracy that you don't hear from many Hamas advocates. So, here's Dr Tamimi in The Guardian, print and on line today:

When, at the start of this year, Palestinians around the world marked the anniversary of the 2008-09 Israeli war on Gaza, few could see any hope. The Gaza Strip was still under siege, Palestinian reconciliation seemed out of reach, the Arabs were useless and the US unable, or unwilling, to broker a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine National Authority (PNA).

Then came the Arab popular revolutions, and the mood among Palestinians switched from desperation to euphoria. Soon after the fall ofHosni Mubarak I visited my old friend, the Hamas leader Khalid Mish'al, in Damascus. He told me he was sure the change in Egypt, which he expected would be followed by similar changes in other Arab countries, meant that it would not be too long before Palestine was free.

My friends in Gaza would tell me the same thing, and so would my relatives in Hebron and the diaspora. They all believed that the Mubarak regime was an impediment to the Palestinian struggle for freedom; once the Egyptian people were free, a genuine democracy in Egypt would support the Palestinians.

At the very least, in the short term, Palestinians believed that post-Mubarak Egypt would not take part in the siege of Gaza, which would all but collapse if Egypt were to open the Rafah crossing between Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Indeed, last Friday Egyptian foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi told al-Jazeera that, within seven to 10 days, steps will be taken to alleviate the "blockade and suffering of the Palestinian nation".

Palestinians monitored the Israeli reaction to the collapse of the Mubarak regime. It did not surprise them to see Israel immensely worried. Mubarak was an ally who contributed to Israel's security in a very hostile Middle East. The neutralisation of Egypt, and the minimisation of its role in the Palestinian cause since President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978, constituted Zionism's greatest success since Israel was created 30 years earlier. Rather than spearhead the struggle to liberate Palestine, Mubarak's Egypt led the so-called Arab moderate camp, an alliance of pro-Israel and pro-US Arab states that included Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, the PNA and the United Arab Emirates.

Palestinians began to imagine what would happen if a popular revolution in Jordan were to bring about a similar change; then one in Saudi Arabia; and perhaps Morocco. Israel would have lost its most important allies in the region and the PNA would be isolated, having been fatally wounded by revelations in al-Jazeera and the Guardian about the concessions its negotiating teams offered in secret to the Israelis.

But although the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions did inspire Arabs to demand political reform or regime change, it was not Jordan, Morocco or Saudi Arabia that saw this the most. There were a few demonstrations, but demands were generally for political reform rather than a change of regime. Instead it was Yemen, Libya and Syria that witnessed the more dramatic protests, which soon escalated into armed struggle in Libya and calls for regime change in Yemen and Syria.

When I saw Khalid Mish'al in February, he did not expect a popular uprising in Syria. He believed the regime was less vulnerable because of its support for resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, as well as its anti-imperialist stance. But solidarity with the Palestinian or Lebanese resistance was not enough to protect any autocratic regime. This worried some Palestinians, and they rushed to express support for Bashar al-Assad's regime; but Hamas remained silent, to the regime's displeasure.

While the euphoria created by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions has been dampened by the Libyan experience, seen by many in the Arab region as a revolution gone drastically wrong as a result of armament and western intervention, most Palestinians still believe a new era is coming. The more Arab dictatorships that are replaced by genuine democracies, the closer Palestine will be to liberation. Democracies representing the will of the Arab peoples can only be anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.

One immediate fruit of Mubarak's removal and the uprising in Syria has been the revival of Palestinian reconciliation efforts. Responding to grassroots pressure, both Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo and decided to work for the formation of a unity government and the resolution of disputes over security and elections. Fatah is anxious that it may lose favour with Egypt, while Hamas is anxious it may soon lose Syria as a safe haven. Unsurprisingly, Israel threatened to take action against the PNA if Fatah went through with the deal with Hamas.

For many years Israel claimed to be the only democracy in the region. And yet Israeli politicians appealed to the US to intervene in Egypt to prevent Mubarak's fall, and campaigned for him to remain in power. Israel clearly believes it can count on Arab dictators who are more interested in power and personal wealth than in serving their nations, let alone serving the Palestinian cause.

Despite its claims of superiority, Israel appears to suffer from the same symptoms that plague Arab dictators; the failure to learn that they need to change before it is too late. It's been too late for Mubarak, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh. Israel has oppressed the Palestinians for so long, and has incurred the wrath of the Arab masses whose revolutions are bringing hope to Palestinians.

Whichever way one looks at it, the Arab revolutions are the best news the Palestinians have had for decades.

Comments are still open.

Unity until.....?

Guardian editorial on the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas:

The Arab spring has finally had an impact on the core issue of the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It came in the form of a draft agreement between Fatah and Hamas which took everyone by surprise. There are three chief reasons why, after four years of bitter and violent conflict between the rivals, Fatah acceded to all of Hamas's political conditions to form a national unity government.

The first was the publication of the Palestine papers, the secret record of the last fruitless round of talks with Israel. The extent to which Palestinian negotiators were prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate Israel surprised even hardened cynics. The Palestinian Authority found itself haemorrhaging what little authority it had left. The second was the loss to the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen, of his closest allies in Hosni Mubarak and his henchman Omar Suleiman. While they were still around, Gaza's back door was locked. But the third reason had little to do with either of the above: Abu Mazen's faith in Barack Obama finally snapped. For a man who dedicated his career to the creation of a Palestinian state through negotiation, the turning point came when the US vetoed a UN resolution condemning Israel's settlement-building. In doing so, the US vetoed its own policy. To make the point, the resolution was drafted out of the actual words Hillary Clinton used to condemn construction. Fatah's frustration with all this has now taken political form.

Israel's politicians reacted darkly to the news of reconciliation. From right to left, they shared an assumption which is out of date. It is that they retain the ability – and the right – to dictate what sort of state Palestinians will build on their borders. Having spent years fashioning the environment, the penny has yet to drop that a future environment composed of free Egyptians, Jordanians and even possibly Syrians could well fashion Israel's borders. Even after Mubarak fell, the consensus was that Cairo was so preoccupied with internal problems that it lacked the energy to make foreign policy.

Not so. Yesterday foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi announced that Egypt would shortly be lifting the siege of Gaza. These events pose a direct challenge to the status quo that Israel, the US and the EU have fashioned. Do they now subvert the will of the Egyptians they claim to champion? Does the US do what it did the last time Fatah and Hamas reconciled at Mecca, and pull the plug on the unity government? Do the Quartet threaten to withdraw the PA's funds, because, as is very likely, Salam Fayyad will no longer be there to disburse them? The US could twist Fatah's arm, but Fatah might just sign on the dotted line all the same.

Comments are still open. I wouldn't say they're free, but they are still open.