Excellent analysis by Yitzhak Laor in the London Review of Books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/web/15/01/2009/mult04_.html#yitzhaklaor

We’ve been here before. It’s a ritual. Every two or three years, our military mounts another bloody expedition. The enemy is always smaller, weaker; our military is always larger, technologically more sophisticated, prepared for full-scale war against a full-scale army. But Iran is too scary, and even the relatively small Hizbullah gave us a hard time. That leaves the Palestinians.

Israel is engaged in a long war of annihilation against Palestinian society. The objective is to destroy the Palestinian nation and drive it back into pre-modern groupings based on the tribe, the clan and the enclave. This is the last phase of the Zionist colonial mission, culminating in inaccessible townships, camps, villages, districts, all of them to be walled or fenced off, and patrolled by a powerful army which, in the absence of a proper military objective, is really an over-equipped police force, with F16s, Apaches, tanks, artillery, commando units and hi-tech surveillance at its disposal.

The extent of the cruelty, the lack of shame and the refusal of self-restraint are striking, both in anthropological terms and historically. The worldwide Jewish support for this vandal offensive makes one wonder if this isn’t the moment Zionism is taking over the Jewish people.

But the real issue is that since 1991, and even more since the Oslo agreements in 1993, Israel has played on the idea that it really is trading land for peace, while the truth is very different. Israel has not given up the territories, but cantonised and blockaded them. The new strategy is to confine the Palestinians: they do not belong in our space, they are to remain out of sight, packed into their townships and camps, or swelling our prisons. This project now has the support of most of the Israeli press and academics.

We are the masters. We work and travel. They can make their living by policing their own people. We drive on the highways. They must live across the hills. The hills are ours. So are the fences. We control the roads, and the checkpoints and the borders. We control their electricity, their water, their milk, their oil, their wheat and their gasoline. If they protest peacefully we fire tear gas at them. If they throw stones, we fire bullets. If they launch a rocket, we destroy a house and its inhabitants. If they launch a missile, we destroy families, neighbourhoods, streets, towns.

Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian state alongside it. It is willing to prove this with hundreds of dead and thousands of disabled, in a single ‘operation’. The message is always the same: leave or remain in subjugation, under our military dictatorship. We are a democracy. We have decided democratically that you will live like dogs.

On 27 December just before the bombs started falling on Gaza, the Zionist parties, from Meretz to Yisrael Betenu, were unanimously in favour of the attack. As usual – it’s the ritual again – differences emerged only over the dispatch of blankets and medication to Gaza. Our most fervent pro-war columnist, Ari Shavit, has suggested that Israel should go on with the assault and build a hospital for the victims. The enemy is wounded, bleeding, dying, desperate for help. Nobody is coming unless Obama moves – yes, we are all waiting for Godot. Maybe this time he shows up.

Yitzhak Laor lives in Tel Aviv. He is the editor of Mita’am.

I don’t like posting articles, but this one is also good, about the reality of Israel being a fascist state.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/web/15/01/2009/mult04_.html#yonatanmendel

It’s very frustrating to see Israeli society recruited so calmly and easily to war. Hardly anyone has dared to mention the connection between the decision to go to war and the fact that we are only a few weeks away from an election. Kadima (Tzipi Livni’s party) and Labour (Ehud Barak’s) were doing very badly in the polls. Now that they have killed more than 1000 Palestinians (250 on the first day – the highest number in 41 years of occupation) they are both doing very well. Barak was expected to win eight seats in the Knesset; now it is around 15. Netanyahu is the one sweating.

I am terribly sad about all this, and frustrated. On the first day of the operation I wrote an article for the Walla News website and within four hours I had received 1600 comments, most calling for my deportation (at best) or immediate execution (at worst). It showed me again how sensitive Israeli society is to any opposition to war. It is shocking how easily this society unites behind yet another military solution, after it has failed so many times. Hizbullah was created in response to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Hamas was created in 1987 in response to two decades of military occupation. What do we think we’ll achieve this time?

The state called up more than 10,000 reservists, and even people who had not been called also travelled to military bases and asked to be sent to Gaza. This shows once again how efficient the Israeli propaganda and justification machine is, and how naturally people here believe in myths that have been disproved again and again. If people were saying, ‘We killed 1000 people, but the army is not perfect, and this is war,’ I would say it was a stupid statement. But Israelis are saying: ‘We killed 1000 people, and our army is the most moral army in the world.’ This says a lot about the psychology of the conflict: people are not being told what to think or say; they reach these insights ‘naturally’.

Since I was a soldier myself ten years ago, I worry I might be called up as a reservist. If I were to refuse now, when Israel is at war, I would be sent to prison. But still, I tell myself, that would be so much easier than being part of what my country is doing. Apparently, every single Jewish member of the Knesset, except one from the Jewish-Arab list, believes that killing more Palestinians, keeping the Gazan population under siege, destroying their police stations, ministerial offices and headquarters will weaken Hamas, strengthen Israel, demonstrate to the Palestinians that next time they should vote for Fatah, and bring stability to the region. I have no words. Only one Jewish member of the Knesset, out of 107, went to the demonstration that followed the deliberate bombing by the Israelis of an UNRWA school being used to house refugees, resulting in the deaths of 45 civilians. Once again, the Israeli slogan is ‘Let the IDF win’ and once again everybody agrees. People have short memories. By 2008, two years after the Second Lebanon War ended, Hizbullah had more soldiers than before, three times more weapons, and had dramatically improved its political position. It now even has a right of veto in parliament. The same could happen to Hamas, but once again military magic enchants Israeli society.

I have a friend whose brother is a pilot in the IDF. I asked to speak to him. I told him what I thought about Israel’s behaviour and he seemed to agree with my general conclusions. He said, however, that a soldier should not ask himself such questions, which should be kept to the political sphere. I can’t agree. But the second thing he told me was more important. He told me that for pilots, a day like the first day of the war, when so many attacks are being made simultaneously, is a day full of excitement, a day you look forward to. If you take these words into account, and bear in mind that in Israel every man is a soldier, either in uniform or in reserve, there is no avoiding the conclusion that there are great pressures for it to act as a military society. Not acting is damaging to the IDF’s status, budget, masculinity, power and happiness, and not only to the IDF’s. This could explain why in Israel the military option is almost never considered second best. It is always the first choice.

Ha’aretz too is a source of unhappiness for me, since in wartime the paper is part of this militaristic discourse, shares its values and lack of vision. Ha’aretz did not criticise Israel when its troops deployed to Lebanon in 2006. Nor did it have anything to say when the same soldiers bombed Gaza’s police, schools and people. Even when there was a demonstration against the war, with more than 10,000 people taking part, both Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Ha’aretz website chose to publish a picture of a counter-demonstration, in which a few hundred participated, waving Israeli flags and shouting: ‘Let the IDF win.’

I have problems speaking to my closest friends and family these days, because I can no longer bear to hear the security establishment’s propaganda coming from their mouths. I cannot bear to hear people justifying the deaths of more than 200 children killed by Israeli soldiers. There is no justification for that, and it’s wrong to try to find one. Usually I feel part of society in Israel. I feel that I am on one side of the political map and other people are on the opposite side. But over the last few days, I feel that I am not part of this society any more. I do not call friends who support the war, and they do not call me. The same with my family. It is a hard thing for me to write, but this is how it is.

Yonatan Mendel was a correspondent for the Israeli news agency Walla. He is currently at Queens’ College, Cambridge working on a PhD that studies the connection between the Arabic language and security in Israel.

the next palestinian election,will determine who won, I think Hamas won.
None of the Arab leaders won.
Israel has to stop the fight,Obama told Levni.
King Abdullah of KSA,must be sick,he hardly can read.
Mubarak sound arrogant.

Words of kissing and making up between Bashar Al Assad and Saudi/Egyptian/Jordanian leaders. If this is true, its HUGE http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7883AD5B-5890-47D8-99E3-7D704513CD69.htm

hate to be a sceptic but i wonder how long this wil last. but you cannot miss the irony of this happening the day Bush leaves the whitehouse

For Sabrina Tavernise

“Many Civilian Targets, but One Core Question Among Gazans: Why?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gnm2C1B8vbI/SXR2hDrDn4I/AAAAAAAAC-4/ChPO5mREW94/s1600-h/cartoon2.bmp

Once again, the pundits and experts on this website got it wrong.

The Middle East envoy is shaping up to be Senator George Mitchell (of Arab-American heritage, mother’s side).

All the fears of having a Jewish envoy have been thrown out the door. No “bias”, no “jewish cabal”, to worry about. Right?

Of course the US and ISrael-haters will find something wrong….

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/01/19/mitchell_under_consideration_f.html?wprss=44

Iranian arms shipment?

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5867

Iranian arms shipment?

Akbar, what Debka propaganda sources (and other Israeli media) do not mention Fajir 5 rockets are 10.5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide. I really would like to see that Bedouin camel that carries it. 🙂 Even an elephant could not carry it. Maybe Bedouin have brontosauruses or big trucks and the smugglers a modern port that Egyptian officials can’t see.

Fajir missiles are certainly no shoulder fired missiles. The explanation that they can be in parts which is a highly technical talent demanding process and it is not very believable, because most of the missile is fuel tanks.

Then we come to the problem how to assemble in Gaza 50 large 10 long missiles and fire them against Israel. That is not done in seconds. If Iran would ship Fajir 5 missiles to anybody certainly they would give them to Hizbollah, not Hamas. The changes to get them to Gaza and guarantee a successful launch is about zero.

I am little confused what Israel means with this heavy Grad rockets. Grad is a Russian rocket launcher built on a truck. Egypt builds own ammunition (Sakr-36 and Sakr-18) for Grad systems. In Gaza they use most probably that Grad ammunition bought from Egyptian officiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21

Sad that Israelis (and Americans) believe to such stupid propaganda and seem to have no ability to use own brains.

By the way Akbar how does Israel ship the weapons to Burma’s regime? As you might know your trade partner is a miserable dictatorship, which makes Saddam look good, and there are numerous civil wars. Hmmmm….

Sim,

You’re right, sounds impossible to me…

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tunnels+gaza+smuggling+pics&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Would anyone of us live to witness an inaugration day for any Arab state where an exisiting head of state passes the torch to his successor?

Speaking for myself, I doubt it.

Ap,

wouldn’t be smarter for Israel to open the crossing with Gaza and monitor what comes in and out without having to depend on others to monitor the Gaza border , (( keep your friends close and you enemy closer))

If Israel the “democratic” and “big nation” ( Sarkozy) uses phosphorus bombs against ‘ghost’ fighters and civilians, what would stop a bunch of “lawless terrorists” to use chemical weapons too? It can easily be sneaked in the 50% tunnels not yet destroyed after 23 days of smart bombing!

To Akbar Palace,

(About #5),

It does not take much intelligence to figure out that what the Israelis were trying to do was ethnic cleansing. They simply want to make the lives of the Gazans impossible. The cartoon on your post was really an insult to other people’s intelligence.

One thing I’d like to remind you of and that is that all these people who have lost loved ones are not going to forget. Just like you didn’t forget the holocaust, the memory of the ethnic cleansing is going to haunt people forever.

Pretty short sighted of a government that pretends it wants to live in the neighborhood in peace!