War Handwavium

Israel’s government has approved the stealing of 139 square kilometers of palestinian land to expand Israeli settlements. This just after President Obama had publicly called on Israel to halt all settlement expansion and just hours before Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, visits the US in a bid to defuse tensions over Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said he will not allow the building of new settlements but will allow construction in existing communities, under what Israel calls “natural growth”.

“This would be the largest area of land ever confiscated by Israel in one go since 1967,” said Hatem Abdel-Qader, the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs.

At this point, Netanyahu’s word is worthless. At this point, Israel’s intentions are clear: Israel will not stop stealing Palestinian land until there is not enough land for a Palestinian state or until the United States finally has the backbone to tell Israel to stop thieving someone else’s land. The rest of the world has long since declared Israel’s settlements illegal. Only the United States stands in the way.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/20096300295121896.html

The short version: Now they’re in power

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2009/06/20096229244641270.html

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held prisoner by Hamas, was recently transferred to Egypt in preparation for his release. He will be held there until Israel releases a number of Palestinian prisoners.

In response to this transfer, Michael Goldfarb blogged that he “shudders to think about the conditions” of Shalit’s confinement.

For those just tuning in, Michael Goldfarb was communication’s director for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. He was previously the online editor for The Weekly Standard, a neocon propaganda magazine that Rupert Murdoch refuses to sell despite the fact that the Weekly Standard has never turned a profit since it started in 1995 and loses millions of dollars a year. Goldfarb attracted some online attention and criticism for two posts ridiculing liberal bloggers as basement-dwelling Dungeons and Dragons players.

If anyone can point me to a post by Goldfarb in which he shows equal concern for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners (many of them innocent) held by American forces over the last several years, I’d like to see a URL. If anyone can point me to a post by Goldfarb where he expresses outrage at the deaths of nearly 100 prisoners at the hands of American captors, about 30 of them homicides, I would like to see a URL. Otherwise, Goldfarb’s boo-hoo shenanigans are nothing more than right wing concern trolling. If you don’t know what concern trolling is, go look it up.

A good exampe of the propaganda put out by Goldfarb and the Weekly Standard came in 2 January 2009. When Israel was bombing Palestinians in the cage called Gaza, they dropped a 2000 pound bomb on the home of one of Hamas’ top leaders, killing 4 of his wives, and 9 of his children, Goldfarb said:

But to wipe out a man’s entire family, it’s hard to imagine that doesn’t give his colleagues at least a moment’s pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions. Or maybe not, and the only way to stop Hamas is to eliminate its capacity for violence entirely. Or Israeli leaders can just try to find a diplomatic solution — as a majority of Democrats apparently favor. It worked so well with the last cease fire.

Just to break it down for you, Goldfarb, the epitome of an armchair tough guy, portrays wiping out civilians, women and children, as proper conduct of war, portrays the targeting of a man’s wife, sons, and daughters, as the proper strategy of war. If you look in Goldfarb’s bathroom, you’ll likely find the US Constitution and the Geneva Convention in there instead of toilet paper.

Goldfarb then goes on to misrepresent diplomacy and the previous cease fire between the Palestinians and Israel. For those just tuning in, Israel had a ceasefire with Hamas back in June of 2008. The cease fire was successful for several months. Then in November, Israel sent military forces into Palestinian land and killed several members of Hamas. There was a ceasefire, and it was violated by Israel.

And lastly, Glenn Greenwald explains how Shalit’s release was orchestrated by diplomacy and liberals the likes of which Goldfarb can’t stomach. While Goldfarb and his ilk will try to give Israel’s right wing war mongerer Netanyahu credit for Shalit’s release, Greenwald explains how it was the tireless diplomatic efforts of, wait for it, Jimmy Carter, along with the governments of Syria and Egypt, and the Obama administration, who secured the deal for Shalit’s release.

Would that the Goldfarb’s of the world take their praises of Netanyahu and give them to their rightful owners. (don’t hold your breath.)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/gilad_going_home.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Goldfarb

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/88291/Politics_new_third_rail_Dungeons_038_Dragons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/01/overkill.asp

http://www.warhw.com/2009/01/06/israeli-ceasefire-violation-november-2008/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/26/diplomacy/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concern_troll#Concern_troll

Netahyahu has just made a speech conceding to the theoretical possibility of a future Palestinian state. He then refused to back down on a key issue that will hinder a two-state solution from becoming real by refusing to stop Israel’s expansion of illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.

Netanyahu also stated his demand for Israel to control all of Jeruselum, despite the fact that the road-map for peace originally agreed to by Israel and Palestinians left Jeruselum an international city.

Netanyahu also stated that Palestinians must recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, signaling that he has no intention of allowing Palestinians to return to their homes lost inside Israel.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who brokered the landmark 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel, criticized key points in the speech — Netanyahu’s intention to keep all of Jerusalem and his demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Carter reserved his harshest words for settlements. “If Israeli continues to expand the settlements,” he said, “then the prospects for peace will be greatly diminished, if not made almost impossible.”

Netanyahu currently has a coalition government in Israel. Israel’s government works by having a number of seats (120), and each seat gets to pick who they want to support as Prime Minister of Israel. Currently, Israel’s government is filled with hard-right nationalists and fascists, and it is these seats (65 of the 120) that Netanyahu built his coalition government on. If Netayahu does anythign that the people holding these seats don’t like, they can withdraw their support, and if the support drops far enough, a contender can call for a vote of confidence, possibly causing Netanyahu to lose his job as Prime Minister.

Suffice it to say, Netanyahu’s power is from the most radical, right-wing nationalistic and fascist elements in Israel, and he must appease them or lose power. There are more moderate elements in Israel, and in the government, but with the current coalition government built the way it is, there is no way that America or anyone else in the world can reasonably expect Netanyahu to voluntarily make peace with the Palestinians. Israel, and Netayahu, will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to make peace with the Palestinians.

And if Obama doesn’t start dragging, then there is no hope for any peace while Obama is still in office.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Obama announced that the US insists that Israel halt any and all expansion of Jewish Settlements on Palestinian land. Immediately, every Israeli lobbyist howled about US “interference” in Israel’s democracy.

Well, if Israel wants the US to stop “interfering”, then the first thing the US should do is stop “interfering” by halting the billions of dollars in foreign aid the US gives to Israel every year, by halting the shipment of military weapons to Israel that flow steadily from the US to Israel, by halting the constant Vetoes the US exercises at the UN at any resolution that remotely criticizes Israel.

If there is to be a long term peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then Palestinians must be given a state of their own, a government of their own, international boundaries of their own, a military of their own. As long as the Israelis treat the Palestinians as second class citizens, whose lands can be taken to expand Israel’s borders, there can be no peace. As long as the US continues its blind and unquestioning support of Israel, the US will be a recruiting poster for terrorists.

If there is to be peace, the Palesinians must have their own state. And Israel must stop stealing Palestinian land or there won’t be any land left for a Palestinian state. This is, no doubt, what Israel hopes to do: make it impossible for a Palestinian state, drive the Palestinians out of Israel, and make Israel a Jewish-Only club.

Israel does not want peace with the Palestinians. Israel wants to evict the Palestinians. And slowly taking Palestinian lands, recognized across the globe as a violation of international law, is Israel’s attempt to evict the Palestinians and expand Israel’s borders.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/03/israel/index.html

AIPAC sent a letter to Obama

http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SourceMaterialsCongressionalAction/HousePeaceLetter.pdf

It says, in summary, butt out, unless the US is going to play “Good Cop” to Israel’s “Bad Cop” routine, in which case, Good Cops use rubber bullets on Palestinians, Bad Cops use lead bullets.

Also, AIPAC makes clear that Israel is totally open to implementing a Two-State solution with Palestinians as soon as someone from Gaza slays the Nemean lion, the hydra, capture the deer of Artemis, capture the Erymantian boar, clean the Augean stables in one day, slay the Stymphalian birds, capture the Cretan bull, steal Diomedes horses, obtain the girdle of the Amazon queen, obtain cattle from Geryon, obtain Hesperides’s apples, and capture Cerberus.

And buy them a pony.

And if the Palestinians are willing to meet these reasonable demands of the Israelis, then the Israelis will happily make peace with them.

In 2005, Congresswoman Harman (D-CA) told an Israeli agent that she would encourage the Justice Department to reduce Espionage charges against two members of the Pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. In exchange, the Israeli agent promised to help Harman get appointed to chair the Intelligence Committee.

The two AIPAC members were Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman who allegedly gave classified Pentagon documents to Israeli officials.

In October, 2005, the DOJ and FBI were investigating whether Harman and/or AIPAC violated the law. Around that time, DOJ lawyers concluded that Harman had violated the law.

But then Attorney General Gonzales ordered a stop to the investigation into Harman’s activities. In exchange for this, Gonzales wanted Harman to help defend Bush’s illegal wiretap program. Gonzales knew that the New York Times was about to break the story about the illegal wiretap program, and on 16 December 2005, the Times ran the article.

On Dec. 21, 2005, Harman issued a statement defending the illegal wiretap operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.” On February 12, 2006, Harman condemned the Times for publishing the article and Harman suggested that criminal charges might be brought up against the Times and the whistleblowers who broke the story.

Because of Gonzales, the investigation into Harman’s possible criminal activity was scuttled.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000003098436&cpage=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?ex=1292389200&en=e32072d786623ac1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/20/harman/index.html

Update: Harmon was one of the biggest Democrat cheerleaders for Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. And today, she’s whining that her conversations offering to help Israeli spies was recorded without a warrant.

Pure hypocrite.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/harman/index.html

Quick background: International law is clear that Israel’s “settlements” on Palestinian land are illegal:

“Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development [... and] have been established in breach of international law.”

International Court of Justice Ruling, July 9, 2004

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article7

There are currently a quarter million to half a million Jews (depending on how you count)  living on Palestinian land. Every single Jewish “Settler” is a roadblock to an eventual implementation of the two-state peace process. As I’ve mentioned before, Israel doesn’t want a two-state solution, it wants all the land for itself, so what it does is it “Settles” Palestinian land with Jews.

The sequence goes like this: Israel “claims” a chunk of Palestinian land, it then authorizes some number of Jewish “settlers” to move in to that land. The “Settlers” go in, kick out the Palestinians, tear down the old buildings and put up new structures. If Palestinians refuse to go along with the land confiscation, the “Settlers” will “encourage” them to leave. If that fails, the Israeli Defense Force will evict them by bulldozer if need be.

And if the “settlers” have to take matters into their own hands and violently remove the Palestinians from their own lands, the Israeli government almost never convict a Jewish civilian of committing a crime against a Palestinian on Palestinian land.

http://www.peacenow.org/policy.asp?rid=&cid=3102

According to OCHA, 80-90% of the files opened against Israeli settlers following attacks on Palestinians and their property are regularly closed by the Israeli police without prosecution. (http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article7)

Unfortunately, due to almost complete complicity by the Israeli government in dismissing any charges, the true statistics are hard to come by. In a three year period from ending in 2004, Jewish Invader/Squatters had killed 34 Palestinians. In some of these cases, the Jewish civlian was acting in self defense. But in many cases it was violence instigated by the Jewish civilian. Jewish invader/squatters also shoot solar panels on roofs of buildings, torch automobiles, shatter windowpanes and windshields, destroy crops, uproot trees, abuse merchants and owners of stalls in the market.

http://www.btselem.org/english/Settler_Violence/Nature_of_the_Violence.asp

Hamas killed a total of 17 Israelis in 2008. These 17 deaths were used by Israel to justify a bombardment and invasion of Gaza that killed 600 Palestinian civilians. These 17 deaths were used by Israel to prove that Hamas intends to make good on its vow to destroy Israel and qualifying Hamas as a terrorist organization.

But if 17 deaths qualifies you as a terrorist organization, then it sort of makes you wonder why Hamas are called “terrorists” while the Jews living illegally on Palestinian land, killing a similar number of Palestinians are called “Settlers”.

So, then I got to thinking, what the hell does this have to do with “settlers”? You say the word “Settler” to an American, and they may think of Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower.

These Jewish civilians are being used as human sheilds to invade and then claim Palestinian land. The degree of complicity between the Jewish “Settlers” and the Israeli Police Force and Israeli Defense Force is sufficient to demonstrate that Israel uses these Jewish civilians as militant vigilante enforcers against Palestinians who refuse to surrender their land. Once in place, these Jewish vigilante’s become “civilians” which then prevents any sort of military response against the invasion.

Have an Israeli “Settlement” take place exactly as it does now, except put the civilians into military uniforms, and it would clearly be labeled an invasion by anyone watching. The fact that these Jewish civilians get protection from the IDF and IPF by failing to prosecute any and all forms of vigilantism qualifies these civilians for a new name.

Don’t call them Jewish Settlers, call them the Jewish Militia as they deserve: civilians operating as a non-uniformed arm of the Israeli Defense Force.

Hamas is willing to sign a long term peace deal with Israel, but Israel has turned it down. 

Israel’s security cabinet has voted to reject a long-term ceasefire deal with Hamas, the Palestinian group in Gaza, until an Israeli soldier held captive is released.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/02/2009218112811761858.html

You remember Israel complaining about the thousands and thousands of Hamas rockets that were being fired at Israel, killing dozens of Israelis over the course of a couple years? The rockets that Israel said was the reason Israel had to bomb and invade Gaza?

Lemme ‘splain something to you, ok?

Israel doesn’t give a damn about the rockets.

Israel wants the Palestinians out of Gaza. Israel wants the Palestinians out of the West Bank. Israel wants to continue its expansion of Jewish Settlements on Palestinian land (currently 300,000 Jews living in land set aside for a Palestinian state). And Israel will do whatever it takes to make sure that there is a single state solution: Jews only in the State of Israel. 

The last thing Israel wants is Peace with the Palestinians. So, when Hamas offers a peace treaty, Israel finds any excuse to turn it down. The return of a single soldier is suddenly more important than a long term peace, stopping the thousands of rockets, and moving the region towards a long term peaceful solution.

Because Israel doesn’t want peace. Israel doesn’t want a long term peaceful solution. Israel wants all the land for Israel. And Israel is going to maintain it’s blockade on Gaza for as long as possible in order to push out as many Palestinians as possible.

Hamas offered peace. Israel rejected it.

As far as Shalit is concerned, Israel and the Palestinians have done prisoner exchanges many times over the years. This time need be no different. Israel and the Palestinians could easily negotiate some trade for Shalit versus Palestinian prisoners, like they’ve done before. But Israel is allowing Shalit to remain a prisoner, demanding he be released without any prisoner exchange, something they know Hamas will refuse to do, before there can be discussion of peace.

Because Israel does not want peace.  Israel wants LAND.

And just to reveal their true intentions, Israel just siezed Palestinian land in the West Bank and approved 1600 Jewish families be moved there.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/02/2009216134248562227.html

Israel does not want peace.  Israel wants the LAND.

If there is to be a long term peaceful solution, there needs to be a two-state solution. And the world is going to have to drag Israel, kicking and screaming, to a peaceful two-state solution, because Israel wants all that land for itself.  And if anyone is going to drag Israel to a peace deal, they really ought to do it soon while there is any Palestinian land left or any Palestinians left alive.

In Israel’s elections yesterday, the far right Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman won 15 seats. Lieberman is an extremist who lives in a Jewish settlement the West Bank. His critics say he campaigns on racism and fascism. He has called for Israel to redraw its borders to expand Israel into Arab lands. He has called Arabs living in Israel a “fifth column” of Israel’s enemies and demanded that they should take “loyalty oaths” and those who refuse should be stripped of their citizenship. Their “crime” is that they opposed Israel’s recent war against Gaza that killed hundreds of civilians.

It is depressing that this needs to be pointed out, but in a “Democracy”, people are allowed disagree. Actually, they are supposed to disagree, or at the very least expected to disagree. What Lieberman is doing is supressing the voices of the people who disagree with him. At which point you no longer have a Democracy. You have fascism, a single-party state. No criticism is allowed. No alternative views are allowed. No dissenting views are allowed. The fact that Lieberman is doing this within the Israeli government makes it no less fascist.

Lieberman is on par with Americans during WW2 putting Americans of Japanese decent into “internment” camps. Or more recently, Lieberman would be on par with George W. Bush in March of 2003 telling Americans who oppose his invasion of Iraq that you’re either with us or against us.

As for his accusations of “fifth columns” in Israel, I must reluctantly agree that there may be some truth to the charge. The column, however, is composed of Jews coming out of Israel who build settlements on Palestinian land, acting as a slow invader of Palestinian territory.  The stated purpose of these settlers is clear. They are taking land from Palestinians. The reasons they give boil down to either religious reasons (God promised this land to the Jews) or one of two political reason, either they want to claim as much land for Israel as possible before the Palestinian state is formed, or they want to claim so much land for Israel that a Palestinian state becomes impossible.

There are currently 250,000 Jews living in illegal settlements on Palestinian lands.

In January 2009, the Israeli government attempted to bury a report by their own military on Jewish settlements because the facts were so damning.  30 settlements were built on land privately owned by Palestinians. 75% of the construction in settlements were done without permits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7861076.stm

Jewish settlements in Palesetinian land accounts for about 400,000 dunums of land area. Or about 400,000,000 square meters. or about 400 square kilometers.

http://asp.fmep.org/app/settlement/ShowSettlementTablePage.aspx

There is a fifth column at work. And they are Jewish Settlers slowly invading Palestinian land. Lieberman himself lives on a settlement in teh West Bank.

Israel is using settlers are the fifth column, the private, unflagged, unofficial army to quietly invade and conquer Palestinian lands and expand the borders of Israel. Were the Israeli military to invade these lands, it would be immediately condemned internationally. So instead, Israel turns a blind eye to its people doing the invading for them.

The relationship between the Israeli government and Jewish Settlers invading Palestinian land is reminiscient of white racist politicians in the American South who turn a blind eye to the violence committed by private groups like the Klu Klux Klan. Except in this case, Lieberman as an Israeli politician who is also a settler in Palestinian land would turn out to be a governor of Alabama who also happens to be a member of the KKK.