Tag Archives: Israel

Israeli general: Hamas must be strong enough to enforce ceasefire

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The Guardian newspaper published on Thursday a new set of leaked diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, obtained by Wikileaks (possibly in light of the current escalation of violence in Gaza—5 Palestinians dead and dozens wounded, including 2 Israelis wounded).

There are a number of interesting nuggets in the new cables. The Guardian led its story with the revelation that Israel viewed Muhammad Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s ruling generals, as an obstacle to the effort against arms smuggling to Gaza.

But to me the most interesting bit is at the bottom of this article, where it is disclosed that “the general responsible for Gaza and southern Israel, Major General Yoav Galant, that Hamas needed to be “strong enough to enforce a ceasefire.”:

He told the Americans: “Israel’s political leadership has not yet made the necessary policy choices among competing priorities: a short-term priority of wanting Hamas to be strong enough to enforce the de facto ceasefire and prevent the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel; a medium priority of preventing Hamas from consolidating its hold on Gaza; and a longer-term priority of avoiding a return of Israeli control of Gaza and full responsibility for the wellbeing of Gaza’s civilian population.”

Galant was to be made Israel’s chief of defence staff earlier this year but the appointment was cancelled due to scandal.

This is an interestingly honest assessment of a reality that is apparent to many who follow events in Gaza and Israel: that Hamas is capable and willing to enforce ceasefires with Israel, and that the calmest times along the Israel-Gaza frontier in recent years have been the result of ceasefires between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza, sometimes unilateral and sometimes negotiated.

Anthony Weiner: Extremist

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From Weiner's House website.

Democratic US congressman Anthony Weiner, has made no secret in the past of his right-wing views on Israel, for example endorsing the Zionist Organization of America’s opposition to the two-state solution.

But Thursday night Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, revealed himself to be a true pro-settler extremist. He was speaking at a debate on the Goldstone report at the New School in New York, with former congressman Brian Baird (D-WA), moderated by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen.

Baird, one of the few members of congress who has spoken out in support of the Palestinians, came across as measured and reasonable, while Weiner was combative and a little rude. Still, based on rhetorical fire, I would say weiner won the first half of the debate. But then he began a series of statements that placed him far, far outside the mainstream debate on Israel-Palestine, and also disconnected from reality, declaring, for example, that the eastern border of Israel is the Jordan River.

In Weiner’s mind, there is no such thing as an illegal settlement; the Goldstone report was authored by Libya; and the West Bank is not occupied because, he says, it’s “in Israel.”

The key turning point was when Weiner declared, referring to the West Bank: “There’s no occupation there either.”

At that moment, Roger Cohen asked Weiner to clarify, asking him: “You’re saying there is no IDF presence in the West Bank?”

Weiner’s reposnse: “Yes.”

Later on, Weiner again: “There are people who believe that settlement activity is going on in Palestinian territory. … I don’t believe that.” He specifies that all the settlements are “in Israel.”

Cohen pressed him: “The western border [of Israel] is the Mediterranean. Where’s the eastern border?”

Heckler from the audience: “The Jordan River!”

Weiner: “The Jordan River.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7AQ8rq12rI]

Mondoweiss has more.

Israel’s airport detention facility ‘like a black hole’

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I got to see the inside of Israel’s immigration detention system during my eight days in detention in January 2010 prior to my deportation. I was and am still struck by how little information has been publicly aggregated about these detention facilities.

I was reminded of this when Ali Gharib passed along this profile of Israel’s detention system from Global Detention project. The article includes a brief description of the airport detention facility I was in. On one point this account is incorrect: the facility can hold up to six people in a single cell, and I’m guessing more than 100 people total, far more than “2-4 people at a time.” But the description of the facility being “like a black hole” is accurate:

  • Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv has a small transit detention facility that is used to hold people who are denied entry into Israel or for people who are awaiting flights removing them from the country. Established in 2010 (Goren 2011), the facility reportedly holds no more than 2-4 people at a time, and generally for only very brief periods of time (Berman 2011b). However, according to a source in Israel, occasionally authorities have confined people for long periods of time at the facility, particularly in cases where detainees physically resist deportation and airlines refuse to allow them to board (Berman 2011b). This source said that the facility could be used by authorities to “break down” people and convince them to “voluntarily” leave the country because the facility is like a “black hole” with little space and detainees are not allowed any form of recreation (Berman 2011b). In February, media reports revealed that the government was intending to use the airport facility for detaining families as they await deportation, spurring one rights activist to accuse the government  of committing a “moral stain that will not be erased” (Goren 2011).

Haniyeh: Israel planning Gaza escalation

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Another one for Ma’an:

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israel is laying the political groundwork for an escalation of attacks on the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister in the Hamas-led government, said Wendesday.

“We can sense there is an upcoming Israeli escalation against the Palestinian people in general and the Gaza Strip in particular,” he told reporters at a rare news conference in Gaza City.

Haniyeh said Israel’s recent assassination of two members of the small Islamist faction Army of Islam were part of an attempt to drum up international support for renewed military operations against Gaza.

Israel said the assassinations were intended to preempt Army of Islam attacks, in connection with Al-Qaeda, on Israeli and American targets in the Sinai in Egypt. Haniyeh countered that there was no basis for these claims.

“We confirm that the purpose of this assassination and of those accusations is to deceive public opinion and to win an American endorsement for such an action” against Gaza, he said.

“There is no such thing as Al-Qaeda in the Gaza Strip. What is really in existence is the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. The Palestinian resistance does not work outside the borders of Palestine.”

He added: “Through communication channels with the Palestinian resistance factions we as a government can confirm that the Palestinian resistance factions are not active outside Palestine’s boundaries.”

Haniyeh believes Israel is preparing to “wage a media campaign against the Gaza Strip. Under deceiving and illusory titles: terrorism, Al-Qaeda, white phosphorus bombs, anti-aircraft missiles, long-range missiles targeting the deepest points in Israel. This coincides with the complaint submitted by Israel to the UN council.”

“This is purely made up. This is all lies,” he said.

Israel waged a three-week war on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 that killed some 1,400 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis also died.

Wikileaks revelations

Haniyeh also commented on the US diplomatic cables made public this week by the whistleblower group WikiLeaks, which he said “showed us that this area is on top of a whole ocean of conspiracies.”

He noted a document in which Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is quoted claiming Israel consulted the Palestinian Authority and Egypt before the winter war on Gaza. President Mahmoud Abbas has denied that any such consultation took place.

“If this information is proven correct,” Haniyeh said, “it would be a national catastrophe that would take a lot of contemplation. In the whole of history there was no one revolution that moved from the line of resisting the enemy to the line of supporting the enemy and coordinating with him.”

Haniyeh added that the WikiLeaks documents confirmed Hamas’ claims that “Palestinian reconciliation is on hold because of an American decision.

“We ask the Americans to stop their intervention in the Palestinian reconciliation file so that the Palestinian people can bring an end to this division and retrieve Palestinian unity,” he said.

‘Hamas would accept ’67 borders’

Haniyeh also reiterated that Hamas would accept the creation of a Palestinian state in in the West Bank and Gaza.

“We don’t have a problem with establishing a viable Palestinian state with sovereignty on the land that was occupied in 1967, with a just solution for the refugees, including the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and with elections as the only way to transfer authority from one party to another.”

Haniyeh said that his government’s program was the same as that laid out in the 2007 Mecca agreement that established the Hamas-Fatah unity government.

Referring to the unity platform, he said: “These respective documents granted President Abbas and the PLO full control over the negotiations, allowing them to come back with the results if there are any, to call for a referendum, to call on the Palestinian people if they agree with what has been achieved in the negotiations and the establishment of a state.”

“Hamas and the Palestinian government would respect the results of any referendum.”

Irish Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire held by Israel

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Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire was denied entry to Israel on Tuesday, for ‘security reasons,’ of course, and is now being held in the same detention center  where I was held  for seven days last January before I was deported. It’s the same detention center where Richard Falk and Norman Finkelstein were held when they were denied entry. The detention center is an anonymous white building near the entrance to the airport, on the way to the long-term parking. You wouldn’t even know it was there.

I admire Maguire’s courage, her fighting spirit. Here’s an excerpt from Haaretz’ account of her detention:

Maguire’s entry was barred due to her participation in an attempt to violate Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip aboard the aid ship Rachel Corrie in June. The vessel was intercepted and boarded by the Israeli Navy and led to Ashdod harbor, with Maguire being deported from Israel, along with the ship’s other passengers.

Prior to her deportation, Maguire signed a document stating she would refrain from entering Israel again.

Israeli authorities prevented the Irish Nobel laureate from entering the country upon her arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday, proceeding to escort Maguire to a U.K.-bound flight.

However, Maguire resisted her deportation, causing a scene and refusing to board the flight. The flight’s captain then declared he would allow her to board the plane, finally bringing security Israeli authorities to decide that the Nobel laureate would remain in the country until the following day.

Petah Tikva District Court issued on Wednesday a temporary order to let Maguire stay in Israel until Friday, when it is to discuss a petition submitted against her deportation.

During the court hearing Maguire claimed that contrary to statements made by Israeli authorities, she did not cause any interference, but was dragged by security guards to the jet bridge, where she sat on the floor, refusing to move.

Captain of the Lufthansa flight, present at the scene, told Maguire he could not force her to board the plane as long as she refused to do so, Maguire added.

Maguire said she refused to board the plane because she knew a petition had been submitted to the Israeli court.

Israeli spies operating in the US

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Israel’s Mossad spy agency is among the most aggressive “friendly” intelligence organizations in terms of their operations inside the United States, former US intelligence officials told the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein.

Stein reports on the Post’s Spy Talk blog:

The CIA took an internal poll not long ago about friendly foreign intelligence agencies.

The question, mostly directed to employees of the clandestine service branch, was: Which are the best allies among friendly spy services, in terms of liaison with the CIA, and which are the worst? In other words, who acts like, well, friends?

“Israel came in dead last,” a recently retired CIA official told me the other day.

Not only that, he added, throwing up his hands and rising from his chair, “the Israelis are number three, with China number one and Russia number two,” in terms of how aggressive they are in their operations on U.S. soil.

Stein also picks up on an article by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi in The American Conservative magazine, which reported that Israeli agents have been attempting to recruit Arab-American informants. In the process they have sometimes posed as US intelligence officials:

“There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as ‘U.S. intelligence,’ ” Giraldi wrote recently in American Conservative magazine.

“Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a ‘false flag’ operation.”

Giraldi’s piece continued, “Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious.”

“These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation,” Giraldi added,”and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.”

Two other interesting threads in Giraldi’s article: he notes: “Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.”

UN asked Israel to delay Lebanon border tree-cutting

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New York – The head of United Nations peacekeeping operations, Alain Le Roy, said Wednesday that the UN had asked Israel to delay a controversial tree-cutting operation that led to Tuesday’s deadly skirmish along the Lebanese border.

Israel delayed the tree-chopping for several hours, he said, but the UN had wanted more time in order to avoid a confrontation.

Le Roy’s comments shed more light on the events that led up to the cross-border shelling that left three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist, and an Israeli officer dead.

The confrontation began after Israeli soldiers used a crane to chop down a tree on the northern side of an Israeli built “technical fence” along the border. UNIFIL, the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, announced earlier on Wednesday that the Israeli soldiers were operating south of the UN-demarcated “Blue Line” border, inside Israeli territory.

Speaking at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, Le Roy said UNIFIL received word from Israel around 6:30 AM local time on Tuesday about the planned tree-trimming. “We said in the morning that its important to buy time to ensure that both parties agree,” Le Roy said.

“They postponed by some hours, I expected more hours, but they postponed by some hours, yes,” he said. The skirmish occurred around 11:40 AM local time and lasted about a half hour, Le Roy said.

Le Roy also confirmed that UNIFIL relayed Israel’s announcement regarding the tree-chopping to the Lebanese side, who objected to this activity, because Lebanon “has reservations” about the route of the Blue Line in the area in question.

Responding to a journalist’s question about “who fired the first shot,” Le Roy said he would not make a definitive pronouncement on that issue, but he reiterated that Lebanese officials claimed they fired first, but only with a warning shot. Israel says its forces came under fire from a Lebanese sniper.

Israeli are already pointing to UNIFIL’s earlier statement as a validation of their version of events. ”Our routine activity yesterday was conducted entirely south of the frontier – on the Israeli side – and the Lebanese Army opened fire without any provocation or justification whatsoever,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as quoted by BBC.

The Blue Line was demarcated by the UN in 2000 following Israel’s withdrawal of its military forces from Lebanon, ending nearly 20 years of occupation.

Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, writing for the UK’s Independent newspaper, said that the dispute partly rested on the fact that “[n]o one is exactly sure where the Israeli-Lebanese border is.”

Israel’s one-state right-wingers

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About a year ago I met with a UN official who told me that she was hearing from right-wing Israeli officials who opposed the construction of the West Bank separation wall. These politicians oppose the Israeli centrist ideology of separation because they want to hold on to all of the West Bank (unclear how Gaza fits into this situation).

Today the Haaretz weekend magazine published a huge, and hugely important article by Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf (who blogs at Promised Land) about the right-wing proponents of a one state solution. Sheizaf interviews several politicians, analysts and activists who propose granting Israeli citizenship to most, if not all Palestinians.

It’s a fascinating article that shatters the old categories of left and right in Israeli politics:

“The prospects of the negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas do not look promising. President Obama undoubtedly thinks otherwise, but if Abbas speaks for anyone, it’s barely half the Palestinians. The chances of anything good coming of this are not great. Another possibility is Jordan. If Jordan were ready to absorb both more territories and more people, things would be much easier and more natural. But Jordan does not agree to this. Therefore, I say that we can look at another option: for Israel to apply its law to Judea and Samaria and grant citizenship to 1.5 million Palestinians.”

These remarks, which to many sound subversive, were not voiced by a left-wing advocate of a binational state. The speaker is from the Betar movement, a former top leader in Likud and political patron of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense and foreign affairs minister – Moshe Arens. On June 2, Arens published an op-ed in Haaretz (“Is there another option?” ) in which he urged consideration of a political alternative to the existing situation and the political negotiations. He wants to break the great taboo of Israeli policy making by granting Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians in the West Bank. Arens is not put off by those who accuse him of promoting the idea of a binational Jewish-Palestinian state. “We are already a binational state,” he says, “and also a multicultural and multi-sector state. The minorities [meaning Arabs] here make up 20 percent of the population – that’s a fact and you can’t argue with facts.”

As Washington, Ramallah and Jerusalem slouch toward what seems like a well-known, self-evident solution – two states for two nations, on the basis of the 1967 borders and a small-scale territorial swap – a conceptual breakthrough is taking place in the right wing. Its ideologues are no longer content with rejecting withdrawal and evacuation of settlements, citing security arguments calculated to strike fear into the hearts of the Israeli mainstream. Their new idea addresses the shortcomings of the status quo, takes account of the isolation in which Israel finds itself and acknowledges the need to break the political deadlock.

Once the sole preserve of the political margins, the approach is now being advocated by leading figures in Likud and among the settlers – people who are not necessarily considered extremists or oddballs. About a month before Arens published his article, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud ) said, “It’s preferable for the Palestinians to become citizens of the state than for us to divide the country.” In an interview this week (see box ), Rivlin reiterates and elaborates this viewpoint. In May 2009, Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely organized a conference in the Knesset titled “Alternatives to Two States.” Since then, on a couple of occasions, she has called publicly for citizenship to be granted to the Palestinians “in gradual fashion.” Now she is planning to publish a position paper on the subject. Uri Elitzur, former chairman of the Yesha Council of Settlements and Netanyahu’s bureau chief in his first term as prime minister, last year published an article in the settlers’ journal Nekuda calling for the onset of a process, at the conclusion of which the Palestinians will have “a blue ID card [like Israelis], yellow license plates [like Israelis], National Insurance and the right to vote for the Knesset.” Emily Amrousi, a former spokesperson for the Yesha Council, takes part in meetings between settlers and Palestinians and speaks explicitly of “one land in which the children of settlers and the children of Palestinians will be bused to school together.”

It’s still not a full-fledged political camp and there are still holes in the theory. But although its advocates do not seem to be working together, the plans they put forward are remarkably similar. They all reject totally the various ideas of ethnic separation and recognize that political rights accrue to the Palestinians. They talk about a process that will take between a decade and a generation to complete, at the end of which the Palestinians will enjoy full personal rights, but in a country whose symbols and spirit will remain Jewish. It is at this point that the one-state right wing diverges from the binational left. The right is not talking about a neutral “state of all its citizens” with no identity, nor about “Israstine” with a flag showing a crescent and a Shield of David. As envisaged by the right wing, one state still means a sovereign Jewish state, but in a more complex reality, and inspired by the vision of a democratic Jewish state without an occupation and without apartheid, without fences and separations. In such a state, Jews will be able to live in Hebron and pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and a Palestinian from Ramallah will be able to serve as an ambassador and live in Tel Aviv or simply enjoy ice cream on the city’s seashore. Sounds off the wall? “If every path seems to reach an impasse,’ Elitzur wrote in Nekuda, “usually the right path is one that was never even considered, the one that is universally acknowledged to be unacceptable, taboo.”

Israel retracts flotilla satire video, but gov’t officials love it

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New York – The Israeli government was forced to apologize this week for endorsing a YouTube video satirizing the Gaza aid flotilla that Israeli commandos attacked on Monday.

The clip, titled “We Con the World,” was produced by Caroline Glick, the deputy managing editor of Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper. The music video, set to the Tune of We Are the World, depicts the imagined activists behind the Gaza convoy singing about their plans.

“We’ll make the world abandon reason. We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas is Mama Theresa,” the song goes.

It continues, “There’s no people dying, so the best that we can do is create the biggest bluff of all.”

White Jewish-Israeli actors also appear in the video playing the role of Arabs, putting on faux accents.

Israel’s Government Press Office, thinking the clip was government-produced, emailed it to journalists, but was then forced to retract and apologize later.

Rachel Shabi, writing in The Guardian newspaper, reports that while the government officially doesn’t support the video, government spokesmen love it:

The Israeli government press office distributed the video link to foreign journalists at the weekend, but within hours emailed them an apology, saying it had been an error. Press office director Danny Seaman said the video did not reflect official state opinion, but in his personal capacity he thought it was “fantastic”.

Government spokesman Mark Regev said the video reflected how Israelis felt about the incident. “I called my kids in to watch it because I thought it was funny,” he said. “It is what Israelis feel. But the government has nothing to do with it.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

House okays $200m in military aid to Israel

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[My report on yesterday's vote.]

New York – The US House of Representatives passed a measure Tuesday that paves the way for an additional $200 million in military aid in support of Israel’s plans for the “Iron Dome” missile defense system.

The proposed expenditure is in addition to a record-breaking three billion dollars in military aid already requested by the White House.

The Obama administration requested the funds last week and relayed a message to Israel through the Pentagon that it would receive the support. The resolution, the first step in a two-part legislative process, was introduced on Monday by Rep. Glenn Nye, a Democrat from Virginia. The measure, like most legislation perceived to be in support of Israel, was expected to pass overwhelmingly.

After a half our of debate, the measure passed on a voice vote, but Rep. Mike McMahon of Staten Island, New York, requested a count of yea and nay votes which is expected to take place Thursday. Several representatives, mainly Democrats, spoke in favor of the resolution.

Speaking on the House floor, Nye said the proposal would “advance the cause of peace by helping israel’s
capability to defend itself against terrorist attacks.” Congresswoman Jan Shakowsky said the weapons system was needed because, “Too many Israeli families live under the daily threat
of attack from missiles by Hamas and Hezbollah.”

“The United States remains committed to Israel’s qualitative military edge, including its advantage over non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which boast increasingly sophisticated and powerful weapons as a result of support from Iran and other state actors,” the resolution states in its preamble.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak requested the funds from the US after Israel’s armed forces excluded the project from their own proposed budget. Barak discussed the plan with top US officials during a visit to Washington earlier in May.

The Iron Dome is designed to shoot down homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip and Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah.

Opponents of the resolution argue that the measure amounts to an unnecessary increase in military aid to Israel and would have disruptive strategic implications in the Middle East.

Josh Reubner, advocacy director for the Washington-based US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation said, “The Obama administration has put its full weight behind the proposal,” and that lawmakers were “fast-tracking the first stage” of the appropriations process.

“Our role here is to raise critical questions about the amount of military aid that’s going to Israel and to expose the damaging strategic implications of funding missile defense for Israel,” he said in a phone interview.

The Iron Dome, Ruebner argued, could “actually increase [Israel's] offensive capabilities” by “making it cost free for Israel to engage in aggression and wars.”
He added that the Obama administration ought to hold Israel accountable for refusing to abide by commitments to freeze West Bank settlement expansion. “That’s something that [Vice President Joseph Biden promised after Israel’s noncompliance.” Ruebner’s group urged its members to call Congress to ask them to reject the resolution.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli news outlets reported that a homemade projectile fired from Gaza landed in Israel, causing no damage or injuries. It was the first so-called “Qassam rocket” to be fired into Israel in 10 days. Such attacks have been infrequent since the end of Israel’s three-week offensive on Gaza in early 2009, which left some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead. Gaza’s Hamas-run government imposed a ceasefire at the end of the war, which it has enforced ever since.

Above: The “Iron Dome” defense system is illustrated by Raphael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.