Hamas: The Israeli government's sanctions are a "declaration of war"

Ehud Olmert announced on Wednesday that his government has decided to cut off fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip - only allowing the flow of water to continue. In response to this contravention of the Fourth Geneva Conventions that address collective punishment, a Hamas spokesman said they considered this move a "declaration of war".

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, wasted no time in coming out and insisting that this move by the Israeli government violates international law but, considering the scores of UN resolutions that Israel has defied for decades, it's doubtful that it will suffer any consequences as a result.

Barak also said that Israel is moving closer to a large-scale military operation in Gaza. "Every day that passes brings us closer to an operation in Gaza," Barak was quoted as saying. He said an array of options would be considered before a major invasion.

The PMO statement also said that there would be restrictions on "the passage of various goods to the Gaza Strip," but stressed that all steps "will be enacted following a legal examination, while taking into account both the humanitarian aspects relevant to the Gaza Strip and the intention to avoid a humanitarian crisis."

The thing is that there is already a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. To state that you intend to look at your legal standing in imposing such crushing sanctions in order to avoid one is absolutely ludicrous.

Meanhwile, Condi Rice is in Israel for a 24-hour drive-by visit - no doubt to bring the White House's support for Olmert's actions while pretending to be concerned about the fate of the Palestinian people as the US government keeps funneling money to Abbas in the West Bank.

Israeli officials are promoting a proposal that the West Bank and Gaza be viewed as separate entities, and that Israel act more forcefully in Gaza to crack down on Hamas militants.

Senior Bush administration officials said no decision had been made. Some State Department officials argue that the administration could only support such a separation if Israel agreed to make political concessions to Mr. Abbas in the West Bank, with the goal of undermining Hamas in the eyes of Palestinians by improving life in the West Bank.

But it would be diplomatically perilous for the United States to be seen as turning its back on Gaza. Almost half of the Palestinian population lives on the teeming strip of land. A more desperate Gaza could become a breeding ground for Al Qaeda.

“Nobody wants to abandon the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the Gaza Strip to the mercies of a terrorist organization,” said the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack. “We’re certainly not going to participate in extinguishing the hopes of a whole swath of the Palestinian population to live in a Palestinian state.”

The administration has led international efforts to isolate the Hamas-dominated government, demanding that it renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by existing agreements between the Palestinians and Israel.

So, while state department spokespuppets like Sean McCormack say one thing, the Bush administration is doing the opposite by backing Olmert in this latest move. They are already actively participating in extinguishing those hopes by giving financial and military aid to the Israeli government.

Hollow words.

Needless to say, this is not the way to promote any kind of peace process, especially in the broader volatilities going on in the region with respect to Israel's relationships with Syria and Iran. Egypt also joined Syria today in calling for an IAEA resolution to have Israel's nuclear facilities inspected - a proposal, as the article states, that is brought up regularly by Arab states which has often been put off but which, this time, seems to be receiving more of push from those 2 countries. And Syria has every reason to be concerned after Israeli air strikes occurred within its borders just 2 weeks ago - a move finally confirmed by Netanyahu on Wednesday (although no reason for the strike has yet been given).

It seems Condi's cherished November "peace conference" meeting is in jeopardy as Abbas is now under pressure from Fatah not to attend if other Arab states like Syria are shut out of the meeting. The Saudis are also threatening to boycott the conference is it isn't expected to offer anything of substance. By the time November rolls around, it may just be Rice and Olmert playing footsies at the table while everyone else stays home.

They're even fighting over what to call the damn thing:

White House: Int'l Mideast meeting is not a big peace conference

By Aluf Benn, Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press

The White House said Tuesday the international meeting on the Middle East proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush should not be viewed as a big peace conference and it is too early to say where or when it will be.

However, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday that the meeting would most likely be held in the United States but the participants are still to be worked out.

White House spokesman Tony Snow at first described the meeting as an international conference, but several hours later he backed away from that portrayal as being too ambitious.

And let's play spot the contradiction yet again:

"This is a meeting," Snow said. "I think a lot of people are inclined to try to treat this as a big peace conference. It's not."

Announcing the meeting in a major policy speech Monday, Bush said it would be chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and attended by envoys from Israel, the Palestinians and Arab nations. He framed the meeting in the context that the world can do more to build the conditions for peace.

Is it any wonder the Bush administration has been completely AWOL on the ME peace process? Let's face it: Bush's agenda is just to coast until he's done his term while passing this situation, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, to whoever wins the WH in '08. Neocons only know how to start wars, not end them. "Peace" is just a word in the dictionary between "paranoia" and "profits".

And it's clear that the Israeli government wants nothing to do with this talk of "peace":

On Tuesday, Israeli officials welcomed Bush's initiative for an international summit, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said that "this is not the time to discuss the key issues."

Eisin said the meeting would provide an opportunity to bring together all those who are truly interested in peace in the Middle East. However, she said it is too early to talk about full-fledged peace talks as long as Palestinian violence against Israel continues. A peace settlement would require agreement on such contentious issues as borders, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and the status of Israel's disputed capital Jerusalem.

"Israel has been very clear. We don't think at this stage you can talk about final status issues, but such a meeting would certainly add to the capability of arriving at the core issues," she said.

Around and around it goes as tensions between the countries in the region grow as a result of the neglect of any viable path to peace.

And I haven't even mentioned Iran, which has reportedly announced retaliation against Israel should its government attack or the assassination of an anti-Syrian lawmaker in Lebanon today.
 

This is Just So Wrong

Via The Guardian:

Tony Blair has landed a major diplomatic job as the international Middle East peace envoy, responsible for preparing the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. His role, to be announced today, will be largely to work with the Palestinians over security, economy and governance.

Working from an office in Jerusalem, and possibly another in the West Bank, Mr Blair will become the special representative for the Middle East quartet of UN, EU, US and Russia. The announcement comes on the eve of his departure from Downing Street tomorrow and is privately welcomed by Gordon Brown.
[...]
The idea of Mr Blair doing this job is understood to have originated with the prime minister himself in conversation with George Bush, who then suggested it to the UN. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is said to be a keen supporter and Washington was reported last night to have mounted "an enormous push" to ensure Mr Blair got the post.

A man who lied his country into war with Iraq is thought to have enough integrity and dignity for such a post?

It was being stressed last night that Mr Blair's role - in the short term at least - would not be to act as a mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis, or to become a negotiator for the road map to peace. He might, however, be responsible for trying to persuade the Palestinians to accept the conditions for ending the international boycott of Hamas. The now defunct Hamas government has not received any international aid since its election in March 2006, although aid has been sent directly to the poorest Palestinians through a temporary international mechanism.

The quartet says aid can only be conditional on the Palestinians accepting the right of Israel to exist and giving a commitment to exclusively peaceful means and to abide by all previous agreements.

Well, that all sounds quite lofty and simple but Charley Reese offers a realistic perspective on what life is like for the Palestinians while politicians pontificate:

Alas, President Bush discovered that he didn't like democracy after all. In his mind, democracy is only good if the election produces the results he wants it to produce. He immediately cut off aid and contact to the Palestinians, boycotted them and began a campaign to get other countries to withhold aid. These actions only harmed innocent Palestinian people. Since Hamas officials, unlike Fatah, were not in the habit of squandering public money on personal luxuries, the only people deprived by Bush's actions were ordinary people.

Now the president is pretending that the Fatah gunmen, whom he has been arming, were just sitting peacefully in the shade recently, trying their hand at knitting or crocheting, when all of the sudden those bad Hamas guys came up and started shooting. Regardless of Bush's lies, the truth is that Hamas fought back in self-defense. Between Fatah's gunmen and Israeli assassins, the Hamas guys must have felt like targets in a shooting gallery.

The Gaza Strip is a hellhole. It's a small patch of land, 41 kilometers long and about 6 to 12 kilometers wide. Its 360 square kilometers are crammed with 1.4 million Palestinians, about 1 million of them refugees from Israel's earlier wars. Unemployment is over 50 percent, and the poverty level is 60 percent. Nearly 18 percent of all children there suffer from malnutrition.

Israel controls its water supply and its air and land routes, and subjects its people to frequent closures, not to mention military attacks. It's true that some members of Hamas have resorted to terrorist acts, but the ratio of Israelis killed by Palestinians is small in comparison with Palestinians killed by Israelis. In the year 2006, according to B'Tselem, a respected Israeli human-rights organization, 660 Palestinians, including 141 children, were killed by Israelis, while only 23 Israelis were killed.

Try to visualize, if you can, 141 children. That's about the population of four average classrooms. Now visualize a heap of dead children. Those shot in the head are probably not recognizable, but you can see the bullet holes in the young, tender bodies of the others. If you can visualize this, then maybe you will get an inkling of the suffering inflicted on Palestinians by the Israelis.

Blair will certainly not be rattling the Israeli government's cage, so how can anyone expect that he will advance anything - let alone peace? And the more western governments divide and punish the Palestinian people by backing Abbas, the worse the situation will become.

There are no easy solutions and Palestine is not Northern Ireland. Blair lacks international credibility to be considered an impartial diplomat in this situation. Once again, he'll get his marching orders from Washington and Israel - from people who deliberately put the road map on hold and who chose to fund Abbas in an attempted military solution (ie. coup) thinking somehow that more violence is the answer. As with Iraq however, they're just creating more resistance in the Palestinian territories. Blowback - the thing they never plan for.

Related: Olmert promises to release 250 Fatah prisoners

Shalit's father: If Hamas wants talks, Israel must make deal

With friends like these...:

It is difficult to think of an American president who has caused more damage to Israeli interests than the president who is considered one of the friendliest to Israel of all time. No leader has done more than Bush - by commission as well as omission - to destroy the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.

"Rambo" Barak Reportedly Plans to Attack Gaza

"Rambo", you ask?

Via the Jerusalem Post:

Peretz accuses Barak of playing 'Rambo'

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wasted no time in replacing Defense Minister Amir Peretz with new Labor chairman Ehud Barak, passing Barak's appointment in a telephone vote of Labor ministers on Friday afternoon.
[...]
Peretz was outraged that Olmert and Barak were so quick to replace him. He told Olmert in a conversation on Friday that the telephone vote took him by surprise and that Barak violated a promise to him that the handover in the Defense Ministry would be coordinated in a respectful manner by the two of them.

"Why is Barak burning to join the government while the prime minister is away?" Peretz told Olmert, according to a source close to him. "It's not as if Barak is Rambo coming to save us. So why is [his appointment] being handled so hastily and disrespectfully?"

And here's a possible answer to that question:

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.

According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.

The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.

Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

You see, Peretz, Olmert actually does think that Barak is "Rambo coming to save us".

Meanwhile, Olmert and Bush are scheduled to meet on Tuesday - because they've both done such a bang up job (literally) of finding ways to advance the so-called "peace process", haven't they? The Palestinian people are still just pawns in their geopolitical war games and neither one of these hawkish leaders has any chance of configuring something resembling anything like "peace" as long as they're in each others' pockets.

It's ironic that they're now both talking about boosting Fatah - a corrupt, former enemy they refused to deal with when Arafat was in power. A party that was rejected by the Palestinian people in a democratically held election. You see, democracy only counts when Bush gets what he wants. The will of the actual people who vote means nothing if it does not conform to America's imperialistic interests.

Abbas swore in his emergency government on Sunday.

But in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas Islamists routed Abbas's secular Fatah forces last week, 1.5 million people faced the prospect of greater hardship and isolation, with Israel cutting back fuel supplies and local suppliers saying the coastal enclave may run out of fuel for cars and stoves within two days.

Read more about the humanitarian crisis here.

As I wrote here before, this whole coup was planned by the Bush administration. Don't just take my word for it though:

Hamas denounced the naming of the new cabinet as a "coup".

Analysts and officials said Hamas had some reason to argue that Abbas was implementing a long prepared, U.S.-backed plan to strip it of power, albeit that the loss of Gaza was a shock.

Abbas adviser and former U.S. consul Edward Abington said Washington had encouraged the president to "kick out" Hamas for a year, urging him to form an emergency government.

That's why neither Bush nor Condi did anything to promote their so-called road map. They were counting on a violent solution and made sure Abbas was well-funded in advance.

"He did not want to get into a confrontation," said Abington. But in the end, he said, "it was forced on him."

And this message is being buried in this mess:

Hamas has made conciliatory overtures, however. It still refers to Abbas as president, and says it does not want a Hamas mini-state in its 40 km (25 miles) strip of coast.

Conveniently for Olmert and the new Rambo now, they can now justify random attacks in Gaza in the coming weeks, while issuing their well-known, half-hearted apologies for the civilians they'll no doubt kill - as if more violence is the answer. When has it ever solved anything? For either side?

Meanwhile, I'm sure the Rapture Ready folks are quite excited at the news that the conflict may be expanding again - a sure sign of armageddon to them - with rockets reportedly being fired into northern Israel from Lebanon again. If Rambo has any sense whatsoever, he won't decide to produce Israel/Lebanon War: The Sequel.

There are no winners in this situation and all parties involved are corrupt and out to protect their own interests in any way they can - hardly a foundation for peace talks. This is what happens when the US keeps meddling in the ME, Israel's hawkish leaders refuse to budge, aid is cut off to people in need and violence becomes what seems to some to be the only viable solution.

The bottom line is that it's inhumane to manufacture wars. Period.

Related: Johann Hari: Israel must negotiate with Hamas
 

The Engineered Crisis in Gaza

Make no mistake. This was planned by the Bush administration. Via Chris Floyd's blog:

...from Conflicts Forum last January:

Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January [2006], Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government...

The Abrams program was initially conceived in February of 2006 by a group of White House officials who wanted to shape a coherent and tough response to the Hamas electoral victory of January...Since at least August [2006], Rice, Abrams and U.S. envoy David Welch have been its primary advocates and the program has been subsumed as a “part of the State Department’s Middle East initiative.”

The stalled Bush road map for ME peace was not just a matter of neglect. It was part of a grand scheme to cause more chaos in the Palestinian territories. Although financial support had been suspended to the Palestinian government following the last democratic election - the results of which the Bush administration refused to accept - the state department, following approval from the Democratically-controlled congress (full of Israel-supporting hawks), funneled $59 million to Abbas this past April and encouraged Israel to stop withholding aid and tax monies owed to the Palestinians as well. That US money (and along with money from Egypt), which was reportedly supposed to fund "non-lethal training and equipment for Abbas' security forces and $16 million for upgrades at the Karni crossing into northern Gaza" has obviously come in quite handy now that the territories have been plunged into civil war. Undoubtedly, Bushco, as it often does, did not anticipate that those they and Abbas wanted to strip power from - Hamas - would actually emerge victorious in Gaza as it did this week. Subsequently, Abbas dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency and chose a new prime minister to replace the former Hamas politician who held that post laying the groundwork for another proxy war against Iran:

Washington, Europe and Israel prepared to throw open the taps on financial aid to Abbas that was cut off a year ago when Iranian-backed Hamas used its popularity in impoverished Gaza to defeat Abbas's more secular Fatah in a parliamentary election.

Meanwhile on Friday, Hamas' political leader held a news conference in which he said that Hamas does not want to seize power from Abbas:

Addressing media in the Syrian capital, Meshal said that Hamas had not wanted to take over the Gaza Strip.

"Hamas does not want to seize power ... We are faithful to the Palestinian people," Meshal said, promising to help rebuild Palestinian homes damaged in the months of bloody infighting.

"What happened in Gaza was a necessary step. The people were suffering from chaos and lack of security and this treatment was needed," Meshal continued. "The lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion."

"Abbas has legitimacy," Meshal said, "There's no one who would question or doubt that, he is an elected president, and we will cooperate with him for the sake of national interest."

But he also warned Fatah followers not to move this conflict to the West Bank where the moderate movement is dominant.

Meshal called for the Arab League foreign ministers, who are holding an emergency meeting in Cairo to discuss the situation in Gaza, to help mediate talks between Hamas and Abbas.

"I hope [that] ... the Arab ministerial meeting in Cairo presents a strong responsible Arab stance, as an umbrella to hold the national Palestinian dialogue to approach a Palestinian accord," Meshal said.

Meshal said Abbas' dissolution of the unity government "will not remedy the situation ... and will not solve the problem. There will be no two governments and no division of the homeland."

Abbas rebuffed him casting the entire Hamas movement as terrorists:

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an Abbas adviser, rejected Meshaal's gesture. "There will be no dialogue with coup seekers, masked men and murderers," he said.

The Israeli government has also dismissed the idea of an international peacekeeping force, stressing continued violent aggression while "mulling" over aid to the Palestinian people:

A proposed multinational force deployed along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt must be willing to fight the Islamic militant group Hamas to stop weapons smuggling in the area, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Friday.

At a news conference during an official visit to Portugal, Livni said Israel was not interested in any proposal involving a monitoring force for the Philadelphi corridor where Hamas uses tunnels to bring in weapons. Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday after days of heavy fighting with Fatah forces.

"Those who are talking in terms of international forces have to understand that the meaning is not monitoring forces but forces that are willing to fight, to confront Hamas on the ground," Livni said.
[...]
"At this stage, there is not even the beginning of the conditions under which a possible peacekeeping force could operate," said Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht. "At this point, a proposal would stand no chance."

And here's how at least one Israeli official describes Gaza:

Israel has been careful not to become involved in the fighting, and Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said Friday that despite calls from the right for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew in 2005, Israel would not move in to confront Hamas, which is sworn to destroy it.

"There is no intention to re-enter that swamp, Gaza, in this situation," Sheetrit told Israel Radio. "At this point, Israel has no reason to intervene."

That term speaks volumes. Nothing like dehumanizing the Palestinians by declaring that they live in a swamp.

Olmert is set to meet with Bush next Tuesday. And, in case you missed it, one former UN official had harsh words for everyone involved in the so-called I/P peace process this week.

De Soto also accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior U.S. officials of having "hijacked" efforts by former Quartet envoy James D. Wolfensohn to negotiate an agreement to provide greater freedom of movement for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

It was obviously "hijacked" for a reason: the Bush administration has absolutely no use for diplomacy, preferring instead to try to solve problems using military might and continued violence. None of their violent "solutions" have worked. Not in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Palestinian territories. Yet, they continue on their failed path because it's the only way they seem to know how to operate - even when the results continually and literally blow up in their neocon faces - leaving hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, terrorized and displaced civilians in their wake. Crimes they will never be held accountable for.

It's madness.
 

Random News & View Roundup

- Following up on last week's stunning testimony about a warning given to a senior RCMP officer prior to the Air India disaster, which James Bartleman has kept under his hat for 22 years, the inquiry judge said on Monday that the government is now trying to "discredit" him.

Ottawa — The head of the Air-India inquiry is accusing the federal government of trying to undercut James Bartleman's startling testimony about what transpired in the days leading up to the deadly 1985 bombing.

John Major, in a pointed intervention at the hearings Monday, observed that there seems to be an “effort by government to discredit Mr. Bartleman.”

The former Supreme Court justice went on to express concern that Gordon Smith, Mr. Bartleman's former boss at the Foreign Affairs Department, appeared to have aligned himself with that effort.

“You're just falling into line with the others,” Mr. Major interjected as Mr. Smith was fielding questions from lawyers.

“I'm not questioning your sincerity, but it's obvious that they don't like that testimony (by Mr. Bartleman). You are one of several who seem upset by that evidence.”

This is all quite bizarre. So many questions...

- Euegene over at Le Reve Gauche has a great roundup of reactions to the Alberta PC party's decision to reject rent controls. I wonder how many of their members live in rentals where the cost has increased $1000/month lately.

- Oh come on already: just give Wolfowitz his walking papers and be done with it. Why do the Europeans feel they have to make a deal with the Americans to let them pick the next World Bank sockpuppet? Wolfowitz broke the rules. Send him packing. End of story.

- FYI: May 8 is World Red Cross Red Crescent Day.

- Remaking the Peace Movement -
The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement

The New York Times ran a story May 6 called With New Clout, Antiwar Groups Push Democrats. In the first sentence of the story the Times reports that, "Every morning, representatives from a cluster of antiwar groups gather for a conference call with Democratic leadership staff members in the House and the Senate."

The "anti-war" groups the article refers to are not your standard, every-day peace group, that have long been working to end the war. They are talking about more recently formed groups, funded with more than $7.1 million since January, to go out and take control of the anti-war message and to capture the bulk of mainstream media coverage about the anti-war movement. Thus groups like Win Without War, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, National Security Network, MoveOn, and others are being heavily funded by foundations close to the Democratic Party and are being largely directed by Democratic Party strategists.

The Times reports, Rodell Mollineau, a spokesman for Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, "said the coalition amplifies what Democrats are trying to do in Washington to end the war." "It helps us reverberate a unified message outside the Beltway." "These groups give voice to a message we're trying to get outside."

The unified message that the Democrat leaders are talking about is that the mess in Iraq is all the fault of George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress. This theme is now dominating the work coming out of these Democratic Party front groups and their job is to make sure that no one points any fingers of responsibility at the Democrats in Congress who continue to fund the occupation. We are not supposed to talk about that unsettling fact.

To their credit the Times did mention that there is currently some controversy surrounding this Democratic led effort. They write, "There's a dividing line between those groups who feel the most important thing is to be clear on bringing the troops home as soon as possible, and the groups that feel that unity within the Democratic Party is most important and the most important thing is for the Democrats to win the White House," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of Code Pink, an antiwar group that is not part of the alliance. "So the groups who feel the most important thing is to win the White House would naturally be more inclined to listening to Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she says the only way we can get a vote through is if we water it down."

- Uvi Avnery: The Real Question Isn't Why Olmert Started the War in Haste, But Why He Started It At All.

Yes, Olmert must indeed go home. We need a new leadership, one that understands that Israel will know tranquility only if we make peace with the Palestinians, even when the price is the dismantling of settlements. Is this being discussed seriously? Would this demand draw hundreds of thousands to the square? Of course not.