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Sunday, July 20, 2014

This week's scattered links, but for one reason or another most still focus on Israel (for one thing, this weekend has been much bloodier than the previous week). Having recently read Stephen F Cohen's Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War (2011), I expected to have more to say about the civil war in Ukraine and the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines airliner, but in my short time I didn't run across much that improved upon speculation (one of the worst pieces was Bob Dreyfuss: Vladimir Putin Should Take Responsibility for the MH17 Shootdown.) As someone who is inclined to suspect that Putin was responsible for the Moscow apartment bombings that he used as a pretext to re-open the Chechen War, there's not much I would put past him, but neither evidence nor logic is yet compelling, and the unfounded charge is actively being used to further estrange relations with Russia, which quite frankly Obama needs to mend even if that means giving up ground in Ukraine. As I wrote below, Obama has made a colossal error in re-entering Iraq, on top of making an almost utter hash of Syria, and the only way out of the latter is some sort of understanding with Russia. Cohen's book, by the way, is very prophetic about Ukraine -- not necessarily about the country itself but about the massive level of cold war hangover America's foreign policy nabobs suffer from and their utter mindlessness in facing anything having to do with Russia. I've long said that the whole neocon vision was for America to behave all around the world with the same reckless dominance fetish that Israel exhibits in the Middle East. In the last two months that's pretty much what we've been seeing. The only real surprise here is how pathetic it makes the leaders look: Netanyahu, for instance, is wailing about how Hamas is forcing Israel to kill Palestinians, as if he, himself, has no control over his government. Nor does Obama seem to be any more in control of his policies. It's really quite shameful.

Nor am I the only one saying these things. Just looking at my recent twitter feed:

Saree Makdisi: It's quite clear that Israel plunged into its bombardment, as usual, without any strategic plan in mind. Quite literally mindless violence.

Roger Cohen: John Kerry says Israel "under siege" by Hamas. Read that once. Read it twice. Three times. It doesn't get any better. We have a problem here.

Ali Abunimah: Remember, Israel could have had a ceasefire any time if it agreed to basic humanitarian conditions for people of Gaza. It refused.

Sana Saeed: In case you're keeping count: this is the third IDF offensive against Gaza since the Obama administration came into office.

[Actually, the third since Obama was elected president, but Operation Cast Lead occurred before Obama took office. I like to refer to it as Israel's pre-emptive strike against the Obama administration.]

Also as Michael Poage noted, today's Kansans for Peace in Palestine demo today in Wichita drew about 500 people. It led on the KWCH News, ahead of a fairly even-handed report on Gaza that put more emphasis on dead Palestinians than on live Israelis whining about rockets.

• Juan Cole: Falluja and Gaza: Why Counter-Terrorism fails when the Problem is Political: Yeah, but for a while counter-terrorism is a workable excuse to avoid talking about political problems. It simply declares that authorities can manage dissent with violence.

  Just as the enemies of the US ultimately prevailed in Falluja, so the enemies of Israel will prevail in Gaza.

  Oppression and occupation produce resistance. Until the oppression and the occupation are addressed, the mere inflicting of attrition on the military capabilities of the resistance will not snuff it out. Other leaders will take the place of those killed.

  If Israel really wanted peace or relief from Hamas rockets, its leaders would pursue peace negotiations in good faith with Hamas (which has on more than one occasion reliably honored truces). Otherwise, invading Gaza will have all the same effects, good and bad (but mostly bad) that the US invasion of Falluja had on Iraq.

  Also see Cole's Israel's Groundhog Day: Reverse Snowballs and the Horror of Lawn-Mowing.

• Annie Robbins: Israel is in a pickle:

  Israel is likely in a pickle. Its stated goal for this invasion is to stop the missile fire (and dismantle Hamas's control of the strip). To do that it must locate Hamas' weapons arsenal and thus far, it appears it is clueless as to where they are. Israel doesn't know the extent of weaponry Hamas has amassed, either in quality or quantity. All the blowing up of civilian infrastructure, including homes and hospitals, won't end the rocket fire because it's extremely unlikely any central stash of weaponry is stored in homes, schools, hospitals or mosques. The weapons are probably underground which is why it requires a ground invasion to find them. This is what "deal with the tunnels" means when Obama says "the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels."

  Rudoren claimed Netanyahu "won plaudits from Israeli leftists this week for embracing an Egyptian cease-fire proposal." Win plaudits from media pundits he did, but this was not an Egyptian proposal, it was a proposal cobbled together by Tony Blair after Obama had previously spoken with Netanyahu and offered to help broker a truce (without any input from Hamas). A ceasefire catering to Israel represents nothing more than a surrender for Palestine, a surrender worse than retreating to the status quo of endless occupation because hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who were freed in the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap in 2011, were rearrested from the West Bank during a pogrom hyped as a response to the claim Hamas kidnapped the 3 Israeli youths, a claim that has never been backed by even a shred of evidence.

• Nathan Thrall: How the West Chose War in Gaza: Israel's assault on Gaza is really a war on Hamas, more specifically on the willingness of Hamas to participate in a "national consensus" government alongside Fatah.

  Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel's interests. It offered Hamas's political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.

  Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel's security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace. [ . . . ]

  Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn't obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn't reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing.

  For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it's worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza's border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay.

  The weird thing about this story is not so much what Israel has done as how the Obama administration has allowed itself to be paralyzed by the association of Hamas with terrorism. It's not even has if the US has never been willing to reclassify an organization once it wound up on the T-list -- Bush, for instance, made up with Ghaddafi's Libya. But where Israel is involved, Obama suddenly turns chickenshit. It's not just that Netanyahu has outfoxed Obama. It's more like Obama is suffering full-fledged Stockholm Syndrome.

• More Israel links:

  • 13 IDF soldiers killed in Gaza as Operation Protective Edge death toll climbs to 18: The Palestinian death toll is up to 435, although there is no recognition of that in this piece from the Israeli press. The numbers are increasing quite rapidly as Israel's "ground incursion" proceeds, and while they are still extremely lopsided, this is the first indication that Israel will pay a price for its aggression.
  • Massacre in Gaza: At least 60 killed in Shuja'iyeh, over 60,000 in UN Shelters: This seems to have been the most immediate Israeli response to the loss of 15 Israeli soldiers.
  • Mohammed Omer: Gaza Hospitals Can't Cope. No surprise here, but the problem isn't just increasing demand: it's power plants being disabled, vital supplies being blockaded, and the occasional Israeli bombing of hospitals.
  • Richard Silverstein: Gaza War, Day 14: 18 IDF Dead, 430 Palestinian Dead: Sums up the above, noting "it is precisely this mounting loss of its own soldiers which may cause Israelis to take stock of this bloody mess and step back from the brink. Clearly, Israelis have no sense of proportion or concern when it comes to Palestinian dead."
  • Hamas wants to pile up 'telegenically-dead Palestinians for their cause' -- Netanyahu, on television: Israel's propaganda line is that Hamas is not only responsible for all Palestinian deaths, that they crave more and more Palestinian deaths in their diabolical scheme to shame Israel. Not only is Netanyahu saying this, IDF puppet like David Brooks has put it even more succinctly: "Hamas has basically decided they want to see their own people killed as a propaganda coup." Or as Bill Clinton put it, "in the short and medium term Hamas can inflict terrible public relations damage by forcing (Israel) to kill Palestinian civilians to counter Hamas." Netanyahu has yet to explain why he fell for this dastardly plan, allowing his government and the IDF to be so manipulated by Hamas.
  • Hasbarapocalypse: Naftali Bennett says Hamas committing 'massive self-genocide': I think Bennett (Israel's Economy Minister, head of the second largest party in the latest Knesset elections) gets credit as the first person to describe what's happening in Gaza as "genocide." Most likely he just mangled the talking point, but maybe added a little wish fulfillment.
  • Benjamin Wallace-Wells: Why Israel Is Losing the American Media War: "If Netanyahu is so bothered by how dead Palestinians look on television then he should stop killing so many of them. But his complaint is in itself a concession." The author attributes this to social media exposing more of the actual battleground, but I suspect something that Robbins (above) aludes to: blockaded off as it is, Gaza is becoming increasingly opaque to Israel at the same time it is becoming more transparent to the rest of the world. Moreover, although Israel remains effective at manipulating key parts of the media -- I could assemble a half dozen links on how distorted coverage has been in the Washington Post -- there are just too many alternative sources of news and analysis for them to control. Moreover, there are too many people in the media who know better -- I'm not seeing the link now, but there was an amusing report about Barney Frank feeling he was being ganged up on defending Israel on a CNN interview.
  • Thalif Deen: Why No Vetoed Resolutions on Civilian Killings in Gaza? Partly because Russia and China have vetoed resolutions condemning Assad in Syria, so they don't have a lot of moral authority to go after Israel, and given that all they would get out of it is a bit of embarrassment for the US (a country which has already vetoed hundreds of resolutions on Israel) that's evidently not worth the effort. Turns out all the world's powers have axes to grind -- not with each other so much as with the various people unfortunate enough to fall under the thumbs of their deranged clients.
  • Dead Gazans Missing From Senate Endorsement of Israeli Invasion: All 100 US senators, including some you might expect to know better, voted in favor of an AIPAC-authored, which this piece quotes in toto. While taken as an endorsement of Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza, it actually says no such thing: it denounces Hamas rocket attacks (which currently threaten 5 million Israelis), declares them "unprovoked," reaffirms "Israel's right to defend its citizens and ensure the survival of the State of Israel," and demands that Abbas "dissolve the unity governing arrangement with Hamas and condemn the attacks on Israel." To the Senate's knowledge, no Palestinians have been harmed.
  • As Israel attacks Gaza, 110 Palestinians injured and 12 detained in clashes at Al-Aqsa compound: One of Kate's roundups of Israeli press reports, showing among other things that Israel has not let up on arrests in the West Bank, that settlers continue to run amok, and that protests against Israel's operations in Gaza are being brutally suppressed. Also more details on Gaza.
  • Lawrence Weschler: Israel Has Been Bitten by a Bat: Basically a rant, and a couple days old, but worth reading: "I know, I know, and I am bone tired of being told it, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is plenty of blame to go around, but by this point after coming on almost 50 years of Israeli stemwinding and procrastinatory obfuscation, I'd put the proportionate distribution of blame at about the same level as the mortality figures -- which is, where are we today (what with Wednesday morning's four children killed while out playing on a Gaza beach)? What, 280 to 2?" The title refers to rabies.

Also, a few links for further study:

• Hayes Brown: What You Need to Know About the Tunnels That Bring Life -- and Death -- Into Gaza: Some useful background on the Gaza tunnels that Israel is so desperately attempting to destroy. The key point is that since Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza after removing its settlements in 2005 -- Israel referred to this as "putting Gazans on a diet" -- the tunnels have become an indispensible lifeline, at least partly alleviating the suffering that Israel imposes:

  All told, what passes through the tunnels makes up a substantial portion, if not the vast majority, of the Gazan economy at this point. In October 2011, United Nations figures estimated that "800,000 liters (around 5,000 barrels) of fuel, 3,000 tons of gravel, 500 tons of steel rods and 3,000 tons of cement" passed through the tunnels daily.

  Of course, missiles and other contraband enter Gaza through the tunnels, but as long as the tunnels are needed for importing essentials like food and building materials there will be no popular support for shutting them down.

• Dahr Jamail: Incinerating Iraq: Probably the best journalist working in Iraq since the US invasion -- see his Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (2007) -- brings us up to date. From early on the US was responsible for stirring up Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq, and when things got out of hand the US was able to shift alliances, offering protection to Sunni tribal leaders willing to turn on "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" and thereby temporarily reducing the violence. When US troops left, they advised Maliki to ease up on the Sunnis, but true to form -- this was, after all, why the Americans installed him in the first place -- he kept pushing down the Sunnis and wound up with an explosion engulfing the northwestern third of Iraq and threatening Baghdad. If Obama had any sense, he would have backed away from Maliki, offering US aid to negotiate a diplomatic solution (preferably extending the talks to Syria, now that Assad isn't looking so awful). Instead, he reaffirmed his support for the discredited post-occupation Iraqi government, the only way Americans seem to know how: by sending bombers, "advisers," and special forces troops, a commitment that will convince Maliki that he doesn't have to reform a thing, that he can win outright, and one that puts Obama on the slippery slope of having to send more and more reinforcements in to stave off a face-loosing debacle. This was possibly the single dumbest decision in month chock full of foreign policy disasters (e.g., Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan/Pakistan).

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