Sometimes, a story about Palestine speaks volumes about the ways in which Washington truly views the region (such as this classic 2008 tale of a US-backed, attempted coup against the ruling Hamas party). This piece in the London Guardian is both utterly unsurprising and brutally frank. This is the West’s vision for a Palestinian future?…
Showing all posts tagged Hamas
Are we gearing up for Gaza 2?
Another war against Gaza? Here’s what establishment figure Bruce Riedel thinks. His bio speaks for itself: He’s a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in the Brookings Institution. He advised Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama on the Middle East and South Asia in the National Security Council of the White…
Call for Israel to lift siege of Gaza
The following article by Pam Walker appears in this week’s Sydney City Hub newspaper: Author and journalist Antony Loewenstein is among a group of prominent Sydney activists who will travel to Gaza to join the Gaza Freedom March on December 31, an international protest demanding the opening of the borders and the breaking of the…
Israeli politicians should keep looking over their shoulders
The case of Israeli politician Tzipi Livni avoiding the UK due to concerns over her legal status continues to echo. The British government is deeply embarassed, pro-Palestinian activists are emboldened and Zionist officials are issuing defensive statements: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the situation was “an absurdity”. “We will not accept a situation in which…
Palestinians involved in policing their own destruction
The West Bank as a model dictatorship? Israel and America are training their ideal army to kill any real opponents of a Middle East “vision”: A fifth battalion of Palestinian security forces, trained in Jordan under United States sponsorship, will return to the West Bank next week to beef up Palestinian Authority forces in cracking…
Not forgetting the war that never ended in Gaza
Nearly one year after Israel’s onslaught against Gaza, the wounds are still fresh. The Independent has published a detailed accounting of the carnage: Hilmi Samouni still hopes at some point – “inshallah” – to go back to his old job as a kitchen assistant in the Palmyra, Gaza City’s best known shwarma restaurant. But unlike…
How dare you ask anything from us, spits Israel
The Israeli government is desperate to never give up occupied territory and will bluster its way through murky international waters. Here’s why: Defense establishment officials said Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority is orchestrating a diplomatic campaign with the international community to coerce Israel into accepting a political arrangement which would pave the way for the…
Palestinian prisoners are irrelevant in the Jewish state
Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit may soon be released in a prisoner swap with Hamas. The significance for the Israelis? The New York Times provides a revealing quote: Rabbi Weiman-Kelman of Jerusalem said that the controversy over Sergeant Shalit was precisely what made life so different in Israel from his native United States and to…
Gaza remains an isolated entity
While Israel has imposed an unofficial block on foreign officials entering Gaza – “There is no ban, but we feel at this point that Gaza is a territory being controlled by terrorists and should not be visited by foreign ministers or any high-ranking dignitaries” – let’s not think the Egyptians are any better: Egyptian security…
This is how the IDF fights
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel released the following statement this week: The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) released today [2 December 2009] a new report which exposes the shifts in Israel’s combat doctrine as evidenced in the prosecution of operation “Cast Lead” and from numerous public oral and written statements made…