1/27/2009
Obama interview with Al-Arabiyya
Maybe the reason Al-Arabiyya has kept Hanan Al-Masri off the screen is that they wanted to get the first interview in the Arab and Muslim world with Obama, as they did today.
1/19/2009
From my apartment
Watching the BBC, its reporter finally allowed in to see the destruction. 50,000 Palestinians are still living in schools since their homes have been bombed to smithereens, particularly in the north, near the borders of 1948 Israel. Audio in Arabic about Israeli tanks continuing to be placed on the areas directly adjacent to Israel's southern border.
1/18/2009
From my Apartment
the Cease fire by the Israelis seems to be real. Al-Arabiyya is showing pictures of the villages north of Gaza city in ruins after what the bombs and tanks did there.
1/17/2009
Jan. 16--22nd day: Up the coast from Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, in Beit Lahiya
The occupying forces bombed and sent phosphorous shells in the UNRWA school in Beit Lahiya this morning, killing two people and wounding others who were taking refuge there. There was also intense tank fire against residents in Khan Younis, a little than mid way down the coast. Shortly, I will put a recording of the Al-Arabiyya TV report from Beit Lahiya. The UN secretary general, Bi Kam Moon criticized Israel quite forcefully from where he was in Lebanon. Tel Aviv is considering calling a unilateral cease fire. With great lies and fanfare Olmert did call for a unilateral cease fire about 12 midnight Saudi time, just in time for the evening news in the USA.
1/16/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
R|Mail
The Palestinian minister of the interior, whom the occupation forces killed with an F16 missile grew up in Shati', born there in 1953. There was a sort of quiet in Gaza city today, but Hanan Al-Masri reported on Al-Arabiyya that there was shelling by occupation forces in Shaj'iyya, east Gaza City which is a very famous area from the first intifada. She got reports of further occupation forces shelling in Khan Younis, where the famous Mamluke city center is and which has many popular supporters of Hamas.
BBC is saying that Hamas has rejected the cease fire, but they are just picking on a speech by Khaled Meshal at the Doha meeting. Hamas has agreed to the Egyptian - French proposal. Livni is in the US with Rice, rushing there after the "mistake" the occupation forces made yesterday of bombing the UN warehouse and burning alll the supplies while Bi Moon was there. Below is a good response to a prof in Beersheba who "explained" on the New York Times why Israelis are united behind the actions of the occupying forces. Also, below that is a comment I made that was published in the comments blog of this professor. IN RESPONSE TO THE STRANGE WAY ISRAELIS ARE UNITED BEHIND THE BOMBING: Here is a good comment to a Beersheba Professors article in the NEW York times explaining how frightened Israelis are by the rockets. 1. An absolutely ridiculous essay. You whine about the terror of hearing rockets everyday, while ignoring the reason why Hamas sends those rockets. Hamas knows that rockets will never “defeat” Israel. The point is to remind Israelis that there is a destitute Palestinian population that has no chance of improving its lot as long as Israel continues to strangle it economically. How convenient is it for you to forget the root causes of this: - no trade allowed with the outside world - constant power shutdowns - constant land grabs (including the wall built on Palestinian land) - arbitrary imprisonment and killings with no legal proceedings (Israel is police, judge and jury) Lets look at the reality of the situation, this is really very similar to other historical eras. For years South Africa maintained the same policy as Israel - boxing in the indigent population while maintaining that it was necessary to contain terrorists. In Nazi Germany the same thing was done in the ghettos. Yes these comparisons are ugly, but they hold true if looked at objectively. Its time to hold Israel accountable for its actions. All necessary humanitarian aid to Palestinians should be deducted directly from aid now given to Israel. A trade embargo should be imposed on Israel also, It makes no sense for the US and the world to continue to subsidize this insanity. Once Israel also feels the pain of economic isolation it too will decide that such policies will never be productive. And here’s mine on Jan15th at 10am 1. The Occupying Forces are running the war very carefully on the ground so as to continually allow Hamas to fire rockets at Bersheeba and Ashkelon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the rockets are fired from the fields as close as possible to the Israeli border, that is to say OUTSIDE the poplulation centers. Yet the Israeli Air force and apache helicopters are striking targets all over the Gaza strip, and, even today, in the south west part of Gaza city, the elegant area just south of the French Cultural Center and the British Council. For days, they have demolished houses in Jabalia and Beit Lahia, but totally ignored the fields between Jabalia and the Erez crossing. So the rockets keep coming. I believe that that is the strategy of the high ups in the Israeli establishment. They need the rockets to keep coming in order to keep Israeli public opinion on their side, while they carry out a massive destruction and bloodletting of the various parts of the Gaza strip. Nor does it take a rocket scientist to see that with all the high tech stuff available in Israel, some teenager couldn’t have invented a rocket that would intercept a Qassam in mid flight. But, oh no. The Israeli government wouldn’t want to do such a simple thing to protect its citizens!! “Israel has to teach the Palestinians a lesson.” — 3011
1/15/2009
Tell El-Hawa, Gaza Jan.15, 20th day UN Headquarters shelled by Occupying foces
Here is the recording on from TV Arabiyya, in a quicktime movie where the movie is blank because I do not have the means to record the tv. This is Hanan al-Masri telling the announcer in Saudi Arabia, whose name is Mohammad, that she has to leave because of the smoke. A reporter from Dubai TV, wearing his "press" vest was wounded in the same building. Hanan is quite calm, but says she has to go, in good classical Arabic, right to the end.
Although Al-Arabiyya has some problems with a picture feed from Gaza now that the Occupation Troops have entered the Tell El-Hawa part of Gaza, they get phone calls from all over the strip of individual Gazan's trying to get news out of what is happening. By broadcasting these, Al-Arabiyya hopes to be able to help the civil defense crews get to places where they are needed. Below is a woman speaking on the telephone from a building were there are several families huddled inside and there is a fire which has started.
Taghreed al-Khodeiri, reporting for the New York Times from Gaza reports: "Residents of the Tel el-Hawa district in south-western Gaza City said Israeli shelling and shooting had gone on all night and that the local Al Quds Hospital was under fire."
The picture above is of the fire in the UNWRA headquarters in Tell El-Hawa, Gaza.
This is a very elegant neighborhood, just south of the French Cultural Center and the British Council where English lessons used to be given to students who could never get to Jerusalem anyway to take the TOEFL because the Israelis kept the borders closed so often.
Tell El-Hawa Jan.15 morning
The Occupying forces simply follow their old roads, made from the time when they had actual military settlements in Gaza. Having bombed to smithereens the farm villages to the north of Gaza city, Jabalia and Beit Lahia, and machine gunning the poorer areas from the sea(Al-Shati) and from the air(As-Shaji'yya to the south and east of Gaza city), last night the occupying forces began moving north from the old Israeli settlement of Natzarim arriving with tanks in Tell el-Hawa, where there are tall buildings and many people, also the univerities and Book fair expositions parks. Here is the report from Hanan Al-Masri describing the reports of movements of Israeli troops to Tell El-Hawa. She gives no indication that in about an hour later, the very building where she was reporting from would be filled with smoke and she would have to leave. So this is the last TV Arabiyya, possibly, from the Shurook Building in Tell El-Hawa. (Also, at 1:00 Saudi time, noon Gaza time, Al-arabiyya got a telepone call from a woman with people trapped in Burj Istakhbarat with many families and children. This building is in Tell El-Hawa and quite near the Al-Arabiyya broadcast center. The BBC reporter reported that the tanks were getting near to where he was, too.
1/14/2009
Palestinian voices from Zeitun in my apartment
As we reported in "From my apartment 17th day of the Invasion," Red Cross ambulances were denied permission to get into Zeitun, to the east of Gaza City. Well, today, Al-Arabiyya interview a van load with some women who were able to get out of Zeitun. I was not able to catch the first part of the interview where the matriarch spoke of how she tried to explain to the Israeli troops that they were Jordanians. That they had already been kicked out of the west bank in 1967. Then I turned on the tape recorder when her 15-year-old daughter was talking. This is the first description I have heard of what the ground troops of the occupying forces are doing in the villages surrounding Gaza city while the F-16's and Apache helicopters demolish buildings in Gaza city itself. She describes how the occupying forces banged on their door and entered the house. They even questioned her about her "shobah" and the reporter says, "What's a shobah?" and she says, "It's just a paddle we use to stir flour to make bread." I couldn't quite understand, but it seems the occupying forces thought even that was a weapon and they arrested her brothers and threw all the children on the street(the pavement?). Below is the recording. I preserve it here on Blogger for the melodious tones--to me--of the Palestinian accent.
Later, after this live report from inside Gaza, near where the service taxis and bus-vans come, Al-Arabiyya reported that Hamas representatives at the peace talks in Cairo had agreed to the Egyptian cease fire. At first BBC tried to say that Al-Jazeera was reporting that the Hamas spokespeople in Damascus did not agree to the cease fire. But I saw Al-Jazeera and they carried the Hamas press conference in Cairo live, where the spokesperson--I forget his name--said the Egyptian brother would be carrying the Hamas agreement to the ceasefire to the Israelis.
The delay will give the Israelis more time to bomb and make mayhem tonight and they will probably disagree to to abide by the cease fire since it obligates them to stop the bombing, withdraw, and open the borders with Gaza.
An hour before midnight Saudi Time, the New York Times grudgingly put in the news that Hamas had agreed to the cease fire in an article about how some Israeli groups were calling for a war crimes investigation(NYT did not mention that Richard Falk, Princeton emeritus has called for Israel to be brought before the World Court for War Crimes) with this picture of destruction in Gaza city today, Wednesday, Jan.l 14, 2009. The picture above is credited to Hatem Moussa/Associated Press
1/13/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel shop: Tuesday January 13-18th day of the invasion of Gaza
The Israeli military let a few members of the Red Cross come into Gaza for 5 hours this morning. Katherine Ritz of the ICRC visited al-Shifa hospital and then reported to BBC's Zeinab Badawi on what she saw.
BBC got video out of a typical Red Crescent ambulance trip right after an bombing. As Katherine Ritz reported, children are becomming casualties increasingly.
BBC got video out of a typical Red Crescent ambulance trip right after an bombing. As Katherine Ritz reported, children are becomming casualties increasingly.
1/12/2009
From my apartment on the 17th day of the Israeli Attack on Gaza
Al-Arabiyya reports from inside Gaza that the Israeli troops are preventing Red Cresecent ambulances from reaching wounded in Zeitoun, and that the Israelis are still bombing on the outskirts of Gaza city, in Beit Lahia, not yet in Gaza city itself. The New York Times, which relies only on the Israeli generals, says that the tanks and called-up reservists are entering Gaza city. Below, and in the RSS feed, is the January 11th voice of Hanan Al-Ashrawi, member of the Palestine National Assembly, speaking to the BBC from Ramallah about the importance of quickly stopping the war on Gaza.
1/09/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
January 9, 14th day of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. There is fear tonight that the third phase of the Israeli invasion will start soon, with the troops coming into the "camps" part of Gaza and shooting their way among the houses. In the video is the voice of Hanan Al-Masri reporting tonight on Al-Arabiyya TV.
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit
We listened to this BBC World television interview on "Hard Talk" with Osama Hamdan, representative of Hamas in Beirut
1/08/2009
From My Apartment
Midnight Saudi Time(11pm in Gaza)January 8:
I just heard Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesperson in Beirut, interviewing with a Saudi channel called Iqra and then in English on BBC's Hard Talk. One can see why Israel and the US don't like Hamas: they are excellent defenders of the right of the Palestinians not to live under occupation.
Also heard that the Israeli soldiers killed an aid worker, a foreigner, in Gaza today and that the UN has had to suspend all aid to Gaza.
I just heard Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesperson in Beirut, interviewing with a Saudi channel called Iqra and then in English on BBC's Hard Talk. One can see why Israel and the US don't like Hamas: they are excellent defenders of the right of the Palestinians not to live under occupation.
Also heard that the Israeli soldiers killed an aid worker, a foreigner, in Gaza today and that the UN has had to suspend all aid to Gaza.
Jan 8th, 13th day of the bombing--What You Don't Know About Gaza
From the Jan. 8 New York Times
"OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What You Don’t Know About Gaza
By RASHID KHALIDI
Published: January 7, 2009
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."
More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on January 8, 2009, on page A31 of the New York edition."
"OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What You Don’t Know About Gaza
By RASHID KHALIDI
Published: January 7, 2009
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."
More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on January 8, 2009, on page A31 of the New York edition."
Cats-me-Jeddah Video...Jan 8, 13h day of Israeli Attack on Gaza Map
Map. I look sort of stupid smiling in the video, below. I noticed that I could upload videos to blogger, so I put some old pictures of me, some cats near my apartment in Jeddah two years ago, and some pictures of the old houses in Jeddah, to make a "video" background for a recording from Al-Arabiyya TV reporting from Gaza in the morning. It makes me nostalgic to see these names and places that I knew,from 1996, which are now under intense bombing. Below is report direct from Gaza in Arabic, from Al-Arabiyya's TV connection inside Gaza city. I have put this report from this morning by Hanan Al-Masri, as an Arabic background to this video, cats-me-Jeddah.
Stupid Thomas Friedman on Gaza
I just copied and pasted this because it is classic Thomas Friedman stupidity and lying. Below it are some good online reactions of readers, to it, however.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Mideast’s Ground Zero
comments (313)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 6, 2009
The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?”
That is, Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948: 1) Who is going to be the regional superpower — Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Iran? 2) Should there be a Jewish state in the Middle East and, if so, on what Palestinian terms? And 3) Who is going to dominate Arab society — Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future, with an Arab-Muslim face? Let’s look at each.
WHO OWNS THIS HOTEL? The struggle for hegemony over the modern Arab world is as old as Nasser’s Egypt. But what is new today is that non-Arab Iran is now making a bid for primacy — challenging Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Iran has deftly used military aid to both Hamas and Hezbollah to create a rocket-armed force on Israel’s northern and western borders. This enables Tehran to stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will and to paint itself as the true protector of the Palestinians, as opposed to the weak Arab regimes.
“The Gaza that Israel left in 2005 was bordering Egypt. The Gaza that Israel just came back to is now bordering Iran,” said Mamoun Fandy, director of Middle East programs at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “Iran has become the ultimate confrontation state. I am not sure we can talk just about ‘Arab-Israeli peace’ or the ‘Arab peace initiative’ anymore. We may be looking at an ‘Iranian initiative.’ ” In short, the whole notion of Arab-Israeli peacemaking likely will have to change.
CAN THE JEWS HAVE A ROOM HERE? Hamas rejects any recognition of Israel. By contrast, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, has recognized Israel — and vice versa. If you believe, as I do, that the only stable solution is a two-state one, with the Palestinians getting all of the West Bank, Gaza and Arab sectors of East Jerusalem, then you have to hope for the weakening of Hamas.
Why? Because nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers. Because nothing would set back a peace deal more than if Hamas’s call to replace Israel with an Islamic state became the Palestinian negotiating position. And because Hamas’s attacks on towns in southern Israel is destroying a two-state solution, even more than Israel’s disastrous and reckless West Bank settlements.
Israel has proved that it can and will uproot settlements, as it did in Gaza. Hamas’s rocket attacks pose an irreversible threat. They say to Israel: “From Gaza, we can hit southern Israel. If we get the West Bank, we can rocket, and thereby close, Israel’s international airport — anytime, any day, from now to eternity.” How many Israelis will risk relinquishing the West Bank, given this new threat?
SHOULDN’T WE BLOW UP THE BAR AND REPLACE IT WITH A MOSQUE? Hamas’s overthrow of the more secular Fatah organization in Gaza in 2007 is part of a regionwide civil war between Islamists and modernists. In the week that Israel has been slicing through Gaza, Islamist suicide bombers have killed almost 100 Iraqis — first, a group of tribal sheikhs in Yusufiya, who were working on reconciliation between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and, second, mostly women and children gathered at a Shiite shrine. These unprovoked mass murders have not stirred a single protest in Europe or the Middle East.
Gaza today is basically ground zero for all three of these struggles, said Martin Indyk, the former Clinton administration’s Middle East adviser whose incisive new book, “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Diplomacy in the Middle East,” was just published. “This tiny little piece of land, Gaza, has the potential to blow all of these issues wide open and present a huge problem for Barack Obama on Day 1.”
Obama’s great potential for America, noted Indyk, is also a great threat to Islamist radicals — because his narrative holds tremendous appeal for Arabs. For eight years Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have been surfing on a wave of anti-U.S. anger generated by George W. Bush. And that wave has greatly expanded their base.
No doubt, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are hoping that they can use the Gaza conflict to turn Obama into Bush. They know Barack Hussein Obama must be (am)Bushed — to keep America and its Arab allies on the defensive. Obama has to keep his eye on the prize. His goal — America’s goal — has to be a settlement in Gaza that eliminates the threat of Hamas rockets and opens Gaza economically to the world, under credible international supervision. That’s what will serve U.S. interests, moderate the three great struggles and earn him respect.
More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on January 7, 2009, on page A27 of the New York edition.
COMMENTS:
Tom, your book on the Sabra and Shatila massacres was very fine and inspiring, but the same rigour is lacking in your comment on Gaza.
It is not acceptable when a massacre of this scale is occurring to obscure or ignore the horror with this sort of lofty, geopolitical analysis.
We are talking here about a pogrom, inflicted by the Jews upon the Palestinians. And unfortunately, it's only the latest in a long list of pogroms, and they persist only because commentators such as you, Tom, refuse to look the thing clearly in the face and call it what it truly is.
Robert Fisk in today's Independent UK makes the compelling analogy with the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He also clearly itemizes the israeli lies used to minimize or undermine objections to these pogroms.
The worst lie, of course, is that one is anti-Semitic to oppose Israeli in any way, shape or form. That tired and abused fiction no longer has any currency in Europe, although it is trotted out with regular frequency in the United States, and is still used quite effectively to silence media doubts.
Just to be clear, it is not anti-Semitic to object to Israel rounding up 1.5 million people, half of them children, in a confined space, and then bombing and butchering them block by block.
And it is not anti-Semitic to question, when contemplating this long list of appalling Israeli pogroms, whether Israel is actually fit for sovereignty, or whether the US funding upon which it is entirely dependent is a wise investment given Israel's spectacular failure to live in peace alongside its neighbours in accordance with the binding peace deal achieved more than 25 years ago (Jimmy Carter, Oslo, UN Resolution 242).
It is also not anti-Semitic to wonder what on earth the US media thinks it's doing "reporting" on a massacre in a way that assumes some sort of equivalence between 4 Israelis killed over 8 years from Hamas rocket fire, and 650 people blasted to bits in little more than a week.
There is an shameless, endless parade of Israeli apologists on US media, mouthing endless unchallenged lies, such as the fiction that Hamas broke the cease fire.
It did not. Israel broke the ceasfire. Twice.
And what about the fiction that this is part of the "war on terror?" Israel would have us believe they are fighting Hamas on behalf of all of us.
It is not. Israel's narcissistic rage has nothing to do with anyone except themselves. But unfortunately for the rest of us, Israel's claim that this is part of the "war on terror" guarantees that we all will share in the suicide bombings that will follow as surely as night follows day.
That is why it is essential that the lies have to stop. It is also why the US media has to start doing its job properly.
And it is also why the international community has to contain Israel, and enforce a little more respect - through consequence - upon both Israel and its champion, the United States.
The Israeli and US leaders responsible for this should be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Israel's funding must be cut, and Resolution 242 enforced, by states other than the United States if necessary. Enforcement of 242, including withdrawal from all occupied lands, must be a condition of Israel's continued statehood.
If this does not happen, Israel and by implication the United States can expect to find that all other Western nations decline to participate in any way, shape or form in continuing the fiction that the state of Israel deserves their support.
Because it very obviously does not.
— S., New York
Avi Shlaim has a piece in the Guardian today called, "How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe." Comparing the same events in that article with their descriptions by you, Mr. Friedman, is like comparing black to white or wet to dry. In fact, they are directly opposite.
To your contention that the regional hegemony is Iran, he says it's Israel. To your contention that Hamas "overthrew the moderate Fatah", he says Hamas seized power to thwart a Fatah coup of a unity government that elected majority Hamas had set up with Fatah, but Israel refused to recognize. To your contention that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, he says they repeatedly said they would; but only inside pre-1967 borders. To your contention that this is about a struggle between radical Islamists and modernists, he contends there has been more than a little Greater Israel and a contention within Israel over the true goals with respect to Palestinians.
The two pieces are so far apart that only one can be right on the facts, Mr. Friedman. He has names and dates. You have only the standard stock phrases. If they'd come from a political entity, one would have called them 'talking points'. What do you know of Israel's National Information Directorate, Mr. Friedman?
— ondelette, San Jose
There are two Ground Zeros, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Applying that title anywhere else diminishes its meaning and treats those events lightly.
— Alan, Japan
Op-Ed Columnist
The Mideast’s Ground Zero
comments (313)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 6, 2009
The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?”
That is, Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948: 1) Who is going to be the regional superpower — Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Iran? 2) Should there be a Jewish state in the Middle East and, if so, on what Palestinian terms? And 3) Who is going to dominate Arab society — Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future, with an Arab-Muslim face? Let’s look at each.
WHO OWNS THIS HOTEL? The struggle for hegemony over the modern Arab world is as old as Nasser’s Egypt. But what is new today is that non-Arab Iran is now making a bid for primacy — challenging Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Iran has deftly used military aid to both Hamas and Hezbollah to create a rocket-armed force on Israel’s northern and western borders. This enables Tehran to stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will and to paint itself as the true protector of the Palestinians, as opposed to the weak Arab regimes.
“The Gaza that Israel left in 2005 was bordering Egypt. The Gaza that Israel just came back to is now bordering Iran,” said Mamoun Fandy, director of Middle East programs at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “Iran has become the ultimate confrontation state. I am not sure we can talk just about ‘Arab-Israeli peace’ or the ‘Arab peace initiative’ anymore. We may be looking at an ‘Iranian initiative.’ ” In short, the whole notion of Arab-Israeli peacemaking likely will have to change.
CAN THE JEWS HAVE A ROOM HERE? Hamas rejects any recognition of Israel. By contrast, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, has recognized Israel — and vice versa. If you believe, as I do, that the only stable solution is a two-state one, with the Palestinians getting all of the West Bank, Gaza and Arab sectors of East Jerusalem, then you have to hope for the weakening of Hamas.
Why? Because nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers. Because nothing would set back a peace deal more than if Hamas’s call to replace Israel with an Islamic state became the Palestinian negotiating position. And because Hamas’s attacks on towns in southern Israel is destroying a two-state solution, even more than Israel’s disastrous and reckless West Bank settlements.
Israel has proved that it can and will uproot settlements, as it did in Gaza. Hamas’s rocket attacks pose an irreversible threat. They say to Israel: “From Gaza, we can hit southern Israel. If we get the West Bank, we can rocket, and thereby close, Israel’s international airport — anytime, any day, from now to eternity.” How many Israelis will risk relinquishing the West Bank, given this new threat?
SHOULDN’T WE BLOW UP THE BAR AND REPLACE IT WITH A MOSQUE? Hamas’s overthrow of the more secular Fatah organization in Gaza in 2007 is part of a regionwide civil war between Islamists and modernists. In the week that Israel has been slicing through Gaza, Islamist suicide bombers have killed almost 100 Iraqis — first, a group of tribal sheikhs in Yusufiya, who were working on reconciliation between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and, second, mostly women and children gathered at a Shiite shrine. These unprovoked mass murders have not stirred a single protest in Europe or the Middle East.
Gaza today is basically ground zero for all three of these struggles, said Martin Indyk, the former Clinton administration’s Middle East adviser whose incisive new book, “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Diplomacy in the Middle East,” was just published. “This tiny little piece of land, Gaza, has the potential to blow all of these issues wide open and present a huge problem for Barack Obama on Day 1.”
Obama’s great potential for America, noted Indyk, is also a great threat to Islamist radicals — because his narrative holds tremendous appeal for Arabs. For eight years Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have been surfing on a wave of anti-U.S. anger generated by George W. Bush. And that wave has greatly expanded their base.
No doubt, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are hoping that they can use the Gaza conflict to turn Obama into Bush. They know Barack Hussein Obama must be (am)Bushed — to keep America and its Arab allies on the defensive. Obama has to keep his eye on the prize. His goal — America’s goal — has to be a settlement in Gaza that eliminates the threat of Hamas rockets and opens Gaza economically to the world, under credible international supervision. That’s what will serve U.S. interests, moderate the three great struggles and earn him respect.
More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on January 7, 2009, on page A27 of the New York edition.
COMMENTS:
Tom, your book on the Sabra and Shatila massacres was very fine and inspiring, but the same rigour is lacking in your comment on Gaza.
It is not acceptable when a massacre of this scale is occurring to obscure or ignore the horror with this sort of lofty, geopolitical analysis.
We are talking here about a pogrom, inflicted by the Jews upon the Palestinians. And unfortunately, it's only the latest in a long list of pogroms, and they persist only because commentators such as you, Tom, refuse to look the thing clearly in the face and call it what it truly is.
Robert Fisk in today's Independent UK makes the compelling analogy with the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He also clearly itemizes the israeli lies used to minimize or undermine objections to these pogroms.
The worst lie, of course, is that one is anti-Semitic to oppose Israeli in any way, shape or form. That tired and abused fiction no longer has any currency in Europe, although it is trotted out with regular frequency in the United States, and is still used quite effectively to silence media doubts.
Just to be clear, it is not anti-Semitic to object to Israel rounding up 1.5 million people, half of them children, in a confined space, and then bombing and butchering them block by block.
And it is not anti-Semitic to question, when contemplating this long list of appalling Israeli pogroms, whether Israel is actually fit for sovereignty, or whether the US funding upon which it is entirely dependent is a wise investment given Israel's spectacular failure to live in peace alongside its neighbours in accordance with the binding peace deal achieved more than 25 years ago (Jimmy Carter, Oslo, UN Resolution 242).
It is also not anti-Semitic to wonder what on earth the US media thinks it's doing "reporting" on a massacre in a way that assumes some sort of equivalence between 4 Israelis killed over 8 years from Hamas rocket fire, and 650 people blasted to bits in little more than a week.
There is an shameless, endless parade of Israeli apologists on US media, mouthing endless unchallenged lies, such as the fiction that Hamas broke the cease fire.
It did not. Israel broke the ceasfire. Twice.
And what about the fiction that this is part of the "war on terror?" Israel would have us believe they are fighting Hamas on behalf of all of us.
It is not. Israel's narcissistic rage has nothing to do with anyone except themselves. But unfortunately for the rest of us, Israel's claim that this is part of the "war on terror" guarantees that we all will share in the suicide bombings that will follow as surely as night follows day.
That is why it is essential that the lies have to stop. It is also why the US media has to start doing its job properly.
And it is also why the international community has to contain Israel, and enforce a little more respect - through consequence - upon both Israel and its champion, the United States.
The Israeli and US leaders responsible for this should be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Israel's funding must be cut, and Resolution 242 enforced, by states other than the United States if necessary. Enforcement of 242, including withdrawal from all occupied lands, must be a condition of Israel's continued statehood.
If this does not happen, Israel and by implication the United States can expect to find that all other Western nations decline to participate in any way, shape or form in continuing the fiction that the state of Israel deserves their support.
Because it very obviously does not.
— S., New York
Avi Shlaim has a piece in the Guardian today called, "How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe." Comparing the same events in that article with their descriptions by you, Mr. Friedman, is like comparing black to white or wet to dry. In fact, they are directly opposite.
To your contention that the regional hegemony is Iran, he says it's Israel. To your contention that Hamas "overthrew the moderate Fatah", he says Hamas seized power to thwart a Fatah coup of a unity government that elected majority Hamas had set up with Fatah, but Israel refused to recognize. To your contention that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, he says they repeatedly said they would; but only inside pre-1967 borders. To your contention that this is about a struggle between radical Islamists and modernists, he contends there has been more than a little Greater Israel and a contention within Israel over the true goals with respect to Palestinians.
The two pieces are so far apart that only one can be right on the facts, Mr. Friedman. He has names and dates. You have only the standard stock phrases. If they'd come from a political entity, one would have called them 'talking points'. What do you know of Israel's National Information Directorate, Mr. Friedman?
— ondelette, San Jose
There are two Ground Zeros, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Applying that title anywhere else diminishes its meaning and treats those events lightly.
— Alan, Japan
Fishawi Coffee Shop, Jeddah
This is the 8th of January, 10th of Muharram at the coffee shop in the old city of Jeddah. Before coming to the coffee shop we listened to Al-Arabiyya TV with Hanan Al-Masri reporting from Gaza. I made this little video of my life in Jeddah, when I was there last year, with some pictures of my neighborhood and the old city. In the background of the pictures is the voice of Hanan Al-Masri reporting on the Israeli bombings in Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya, and Shaj'iyya. Hearing her Palestinian accented voice reminds me of my life in Gaza in 1995-96, but I don't have any pictures to go with it. Video Audio Only
1/07/2009
Hanan Al-Masri from Gaza reporting Jan. 4th (Arabic recording)
I saved this on the web as, for me, at least, I like to hear the report from Gaza in the Palestinian accent of an Arab woman). On the TV, though, she appeared a bit haggared from what were probably sleepless nights.
Link to sound file
Link to sound file
Hanan Ashrawi's voice from Ramallah
Hanan Ashrawi in English, speaking on BBC World TV about the Israeli Ground invasion in the evening of January 4, 2009. Link and download
1/06/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
The situation is terrible. The Israelis are inflicting the most casualties, and
bombing the most here on the narrow streets of Shati' and on the area of Shaj'iyya--areas where most of us are refugees from 1948 Israel. This whole attack on Gaza
is like the long history of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The Israelis have some sort
of theory that they can make the original residents of the Gaza strip, those who have been living on the old Archaeoligical Tells since the Bronze age will somehow resent us new arrivals and clamp down on us. Officially we watch the Israelis talking to the western media saying they are not against the people of Gaza, but only
against Hamas. But Hamas is also the people. When the Israelis say they are against Hamas, but not the people: it is their code word for saying they are not against the original Gazans but only against the pasky Palestinians.
bombing the most here on the narrow streets of Shati' and on the area of Shaj'iyya--areas where most of us are refugees from 1948 Israel. This whole attack on Gaza
is like the long history of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The Israelis have some sort
of theory that they can make the original residents of the Gaza strip, those who have been living on the old Archaeoligical Tells since the Bronze age will somehow resent us new arrivals and clamp down on us. Officially we watch the Israelis talking to the western media saying they are not against the people of Gaza, but only
against Hamas. But Hamas is also the people. When the Israelis say they are against Hamas, but not the people: it is their code word for saying they are not against the original Gazans but only against the pasky Palestinians.
1/05/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
Tonight there is heavy bombing in Beit Hanoon, and the southern part of Gaza City, Shajiyya. The Israelis have cut the Gaza strip into five sections so no medical or food supplies can come up to us from Rafah. The Israeli navy off the coast is also shelling us here at the Shati'(Beach) camp tonight, and the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya television stations farther up the hill from the coast here have their generators running ongoing television reports. But for us here on the old refugee camp on the beach, there is no electricity. The Israelis have cut it off.
Our Tea and coffee shop didn't make the map on the New York times.
The December 6 New York times, surprisingly gives the names of one family that was killed near this tea and falafel shop--the best falafel in the Middle East--this Monday night:
"Haitham Dababish, emergency chief at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said that seven members of the Abu Aeisha family were killed earlier Monday after an Israeli naval shell hit their house in the Beach refugee camp in western Gaza City. The father, mother and five of their children died."
Our Tea and coffee shop didn't make the map on the New York times.
The December 6 New York times, surprisingly gives the names of one family that was killed near this tea and falafel shop--the best falafel in the Middle East--this Monday night:
"Haitham Dababish, emergency chief at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said that seven members of the Abu Aeisha family were killed earlier Monday after an Israeli naval shell hit their house in the Beach refugee camp in western Gaza City. The father, mother and five of their children died."
From my apartment
As I sit in my apartment, I can watch the scene in Gaza through my little TV screen. Both Al-Jazeera, which I saw at Al-Nakheel restaurant eating an 8 rial falafel plate, and Al-Arabiyya have TV views of Gaza at night. The electricity has been cut off in most places in Gaza; so all we can see are the occasional explosions in Jabalia. Just watching this shows how close Jabalia is to Gaza city. In fact, I used to walk to visit friends in Jabalia from my apartment and English school near the Palestine mosque. It was a nice walk, first along a large wide street, and then along narrow lanes of houses with small gardens behind the walls.
When you think about this Israeli invasion, it is typical of the general role of Israel in the Arab world, and that is to push back, and destroy development.
When you think about this Israeli invasion, it is typical of the general role of Israel in the Arab world, and that is to push back, and destroy development.
Fishawi Coffee Shop, Jeddah
During the morning hours here in Jeddah, people have reported that they can hear Hanan Al-Masri reporting direct from inside Gaza on for Al-Arabiyya. It had been reported from my apartment last night that the television feed into Gaza might have been cut, but it seems to be working all right now. Perhaps Hanan Al-Masri only works during the daylight hours. After all, reporters need some rest.
1/04/2009
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
Al-Shifa hospital to the south of this famous falafel shop reports that 27 children were killed in the bombing and the ground invasion in the Beit Lahia area today. Israel now controls most areas around Beit Lahia, in walking distance from us...a pretty long walk, however.
Shati Tea and Coffee Shop
Most of the customers of this tea and Falafel shop stayed in their houses today, as the bombing and shelling continues from the air on the second day of the ground invasion. Some cameras from AP filmed us going out in our horse and donkey carts at the end of the day to get water. There is very little water. With the Israeli troops cutting off Gaza city from the south, the aid cannot get to us from the Rafah Egyptian crossing. The old busses to Rafah, of course cannot go through the new Israeli army check points and the aid from Rafah cannot get through. Al-Shifa Hospital just south of this tea shop on the coast reports the death toll since the bombing began 9 days ago is 507.
From my Apartment
January 4, 2009 Tonight, the news channels cannot get the television feed from Ramattan Gaza Live. Perhaps the Israelis have intensified the ground and aerial assault to such a degree that Hamas can no longer run its television station. Also Al-Arabiyya seems to have lost its contact with Hanan Al-Masri broadcasting direct from Gaza. Fortunately I still have a cassette recording of her.
BBC world did interview Hanan Ashrawi in Ramallah. The Israeli ground forces now control the farm fields around Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon on the north, after considerable fighting in which about 25 civilians were killed. They are reported to have moved south of Gaza city which is mostly farm fields and orange orchards, accross the sites of the Bronze age cities like Tell Farah to their old fortified compound and settlement of Nasiriyya, on the sea. In the south, they are surrounding Rafah, their favorite place of bulldozing, where Rachel Corrie was killed by one of the military bulldozers, made probably by Caterpillar in the US.
Al-Arabiyya, like BBC is reporting that the Israelis have divided Gaza into three separate areas.
Depressing that the World can't stop Israel from repeating in Gaza what it does in the West Bank: imposing its military settlements inhabited by armed settlers.
You can download and hear the BBC World TV interview with Hanan Ashrawi here.
(During my lunch break from teaching today, I was able to record Hanan Al-Masri telling Al-Arabiyya about the movements of Israeli ground forces in Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya. You can download it here to hear her.
BBC world did interview Hanan Ashrawi in Ramallah. The Israeli ground forces now control the farm fields around Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon on the north, after considerable fighting in which about 25 civilians were killed. They are reported to have moved south of Gaza city which is mostly farm fields and orange orchards, accross the sites of the Bronze age cities like Tell Farah to their old fortified compound and settlement of Nasiriyya, on the sea. In the south, they are surrounding Rafah, their favorite place of bulldozing, where Rachel Corrie was killed by one of the military bulldozers, made probably by Caterpillar in the US.
Al-Arabiyya, like BBC is reporting that the Israelis have divided Gaza into three separate areas.
Depressing that the World can't stop Israel from repeating in Gaza what it does in the West Bank: imposing its military settlements inhabited by armed settlers.
You can download and hear the BBC World TV interview with Hanan Ashrawi here.
(During my lunch break from teaching today, I was able to record Hanan Al-Masri telling Al-Arabiyya about the movements of Israeli ground forces in Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya. You can download it here to hear her.
1/03/2009
From my apartment
January 3, 2009
Now, on one side I see the buildings and coast of Gaza, and on the other an Israeli Army photo showing the Israeli soldiers walking with their back packs and guns into the Gaza fields at night through the green night goggles film.
Now, on one side I see the buildings and coast of Gaza, and on the other an Israeli Army photo showing the Israeli soldiers walking with their back packs and guns into the Gaza fields at night through the green night goggles film.
From my apartment
From my a apartment on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia, I can look out over Gaza city through the tiny screen of my television. At nine thirty Saudi Time(GMT+3) I heard that the Jami' Filastine, the Mosque of Palestine in Gaza had had a bomb dropped near it. I used to live at the corner of Shari' Filastine and Shari' Tariq ...the same tariq who gave the name to Gibraltar. The mosque was only about 40 meters from my apartemt where the English Center was. It is also an area of clothing factories and many African Palestinians live there.
I well remember the barber shop I used to go to in the street opposite the Palestine mosque. It is at the top of a slope that goes down to the sea. Not far from our English Language Center was a secondary school where the priciple helped us get permission and license from the Palestinian Authority to have a school.
The Israelis started their ground assault tonight and there is fighting in Beit Hanoon, near the Erez Crossing. There is also fighting in Beit Lahia. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed. The Israeli army entered Gaza at three entry points, called ma'abir in Arabic: Beit Hanoon, Shaji'iyya, and Rafah in the South. Shaji'iyya goes rignt into Gaza City and is a quarter not far from where I marched with a funeral demonstration from the Palestine Mosque to the Israeli settlement of Nasriyya in 0ct 1995.
At about 10 o'clock Saudi time, 9 o'clock Gaza time, I heard the report from inside Gaza on Hamas TV(Ramattan Gaza Live) which is carried by Al-Arabiyya tonight...that the Israeli Navy was lobbing bombs at the coast of Gaza City. This would be Mukhayyam Shati, a maze of one story houses with corrugated tin roofs where the original refugees kicked out of Ashkelon had to settle.
This is the ninth day of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Up until now it had been constant bombing of administrative buildings and mosques, causing 430 deaths and thousands of wounded.
I guess the direct reports of the Al-Arabiyya are only during the day, when I am teaching. Now the TV is the night view from a tall building in Gaza and labeled Ramattan Gaza Live, which is the Hamas TV station, bombed in the first days by the Israelis, but apparently still working.
I well remember the barber shop I used to go to in the street opposite the Palestine mosque. It is at the top of a slope that goes down to the sea. Not far from our English Language Center was a secondary school where the priciple helped us get permission and license from the Palestinian Authority to have a school.
The Israelis started their ground assault tonight and there is fighting in Beit Hanoon, near the Erez Crossing. There is also fighting in Beit Lahia. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed. The Israeli army entered Gaza at three entry points, called ma'abir in Arabic: Beit Hanoon, Shaji'iyya, and Rafah in the South. Shaji'iyya goes rignt into Gaza City and is a quarter not far from where I marched with a funeral demonstration from the Palestine Mosque to the Israeli settlement of Nasriyya in 0ct 1995.
At about 10 o'clock Saudi time, 9 o'clock Gaza time, I heard the report from inside Gaza on Hamas TV(Ramattan Gaza Live) which is carried by Al-Arabiyya tonight...that the Israeli Navy was lobbing bombs at the coast of Gaza City. This would be Mukhayyam Shati, a maze of one story houses with corrugated tin roofs where the original refugees kicked out of Ashkelon had to settle.
This is the ninth day of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Up until now it had been constant bombing of administrative buildings and mosques, causing 430 deaths and thousands of wounded.
I guess the direct reports of the Al-Arabiyya are only during the day, when I am teaching. Now the TV is the night view from a tall building in Gaza and labeled Ramattan Gaza Live, which is the Hamas TV station, bombed in the first days by the Israelis, but apparently still working.
Shati Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
This was an e-mail to be on the New York Times OpEd page in response to an OPED of Benny Morris. Three days passed and the New York Times did not publish my letter; so here it is:
I take the opportunity of the pot hole made by an amateur rocket that hit the ground in Beersheba New Year’s Day, or New Year’s Eve, to remind readers of the New York Times that Beersheba and Ashkelon on Israel’s southern border were formerly inhabited by the ancestors of the current population of the Gaza Strip. Scholars, like Benny Morris, who writes the only Op-Ed on Gaza so far in the NYT, could cite page paragraph and line of the historical record of the Palestinian Exodus from Ashkelon, which is still vivid in the memories of the sons and daughters of the original refugees living in Gaza today.
A little knowledge of the facts would explain why sending a baking powder powered rocket to thud down in Ashkelon, Sederot, or Beersheba is no more than a symbol of attempting to right the record of history. In fact, it is precisely the expression of what actually happened when Israel was created that is most upsetting to the State of Israel and the reason for its war on Gaza. If Israel would agree to give Palestinian Muslims and Christians equal rights in Israel, rather than refusing to give back the land to those who were forced to leave in 1948, there would be no rockets from Gaza, or Helium balloons floating over from Khan Yunis with pictures of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
It is always Israel’s dis-information campaign that escalates something—in this case the Qassam rockets on Ashkelon—to make it difficult for the Palestinians, or for anyone trying to support decency and justice—to explain that they were expelled from their land and 500 villages bulldozed in the post 1948 era. Who knows--perhaps the linkage that “experts” are making between Hamas and Iran, is to cover up the fact that the fledgeling state of Israel destroyed the archaeological remains of the Shi’a mosque where the Martyr Hussein’s head was venerated in Al-Majdal? Majdal, the industrial area of Ashkelon and the home town of Mary Magdalen, of “DaVinci Code” fame is where many of the residents of Shaj’iyya, and Jabalia are from. Shaj’iyya, which means “the brave”—perhaps because its kids would always protest the killing of a schoolmate by marching 7kms to burn tires in front of the Israeli Farms near Tel Farah, (where Flinders Petrie started the science of Archaeology, by the way) is on the slope descending from the Greek Orthodox church area of Gaza city. Shaj’iyya was bombed today, as was Jabalia in the first day of what will now be a week or so of targeted assassinations of people according to their postal addresses. Some of the new names of people we learn from these targeted assassinations, Nizar Riyan, for example, will help remind the world of the history, the civilization, and the fighting people that Israel is bent on covering up.
I take the opportunity of the pot hole made by an amateur rocket that hit the ground in Beersheba New Year’s Day, or New Year’s Eve, to remind readers of the New York Times that Beersheba and Ashkelon on Israel’s southern border were formerly inhabited by the ancestors of the current population of the Gaza Strip. Scholars, like Benny Morris, who writes the only Op-Ed on Gaza so far in the NYT, could cite page paragraph and line of the historical record of the Palestinian Exodus from Ashkelon, which is still vivid in the memories of the sons and daughters of the original refugees living in Gaza today.
A little knowledge of the facts would explain why sending a baking powder powered rocket to thud down in Ashkelon, Sederot, or Beersheba is no more than a symbol of attempting to right the record of history. In fact, it is precisely the expression of what actually happened when Israel was created that is most upsetting to the State of Israel and the reason for its war on Gaza. If Israel would agree to give Palestinian Muslims and Christians equal rights in Israel, rather than refusing to give back the land to those who were forced to leave in 1948, there would be no rockets from Gaza, or Helium balloons floating over from Khan Yunis with pictures of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
It is always Israel’s dis-information campaign that escalates something—in this case the Qassam rockets on Ashkelon—to make it difficult for the Palestinians, or for anyone trying to support decency and justice—to explain that they were expelled from their land and 500 villages bulldozed in the post 1948 era. Who knows--perhaps the linkage that “experts” are making between Hamas and Iran, is to cover up the fact that the fledgeling state of Israel destroyed the archaeological remains of the Shi’a mosque where the Martyr Hussein’s head was venerated in Al-Majdal? Majdal, the industrial area of Ashkelon and the home town of Mary Magdalen, of “DaVinci Code” fame is where many of the residents of Shaj’iyya, and Jabalia are from. Shaj’iyya, which means “the brave”—perhaps because its kids would always protest the killing of a schoolmate by marching 7kms to burn tires in front of the Israeli Farms near Tel Farah, (where Flinders Petrie started the science of Archaeology, by the way) is on the slope descending from the Greek Orthodox church area of Gaza city. Shaj’iyya was bombed today, as was Jabalia in the first day of what will now be a week or so of targeted assassinations of people according to their postal addresses. Some of the new names of people we learn from these targeted assassinations, Nizar Riyan, for example, will help remind the world of the history, the civilization, and the fighting people that Israel is bent on covering up.
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