What if Israel Was the Victim? What if the roles of Israel, Gaza, andmembers of the international community in the ongoing conflict werereversed? How would Americans and their government respond? by byJeremy R. Hammond
Gaza's offensive against Israel continued today, sharply escalatingwith a ground incursion that cut off the southern part of Israel fromthe north.
The Israeli death toll climbed past 400, at least 60 of whom werecivilians, according to UN estimates. 4 Palestinian civilians havebeen killed as a result of Jewish settlers firing rockets into Gaza inresponse to the military operation led by Hamas.
Cloud bursts with flaming smoke trails were seen over Israeli citiesas Hamas employed white phosphorus munitions. The use of suchmunitions as weapons targeting soldiers or civilians is prohibited byinternational law, but Hamas says it is only using the munitionslegally to provide a smokescreen for its ground offensive.
There have been reports of Israelis with chemical burns from thephosphorus rounds entering hospitals, but the reports could notindependently confirmed since Hamas has refused to allow any foreignjournalists to enter Israel.
The United States led an effort at the United Nations to issue aresolution calling for a cessation of hostilities, but the effort wasblocked by Russia. The Russian ambassador to the UN said, "We don'twant a one-sided cease-fire that would see Gaza end its operationsonly to allow Israel to continue firing rockets into Gaza. We areseeking a sustainable cease-fire."
Russia has repeatedly reiterated its demand for Israel to recognizeGaza's right to exist and renounce violence. Russia's foreign ministersaid earlier this week, "Israel is responsible for ending thecease-fire. Gaza has the right to self-defense. No nation would sit byand just watch as rockets exploded in their towns, hitting homes andschools, without a response. No country would tolerate that."
Israel's rocket attacks against Gaza sharply escalated after Gaza'soffensive began 9 days ago. Prior to that, no Palestinians had beenkilled since the cease-fire began last year on June 19. Israel's LaborParty led by Ehud Barak agreed to the truce in exchange for an easingof the siege of Israel by Gaza.
Barak is also the head of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which Hamaslists as a terrorist organization.
During the first week of the cease-fire, Hamas soldiers fired uponIsraeli farmers near the border in at least seven separate incidents.An 82-year old Jewish man was wounded in one of the incidents. The IDFclaimed that this was a violation of the cease-fire, but Hamasresponded by announcing a "special security zone" along the border inIsrael and warned that it would fire upon any Jews that entered thezone.
At the same time, Hamas also stepped up its operations against the IDFin the Negev region, stating that the cease-fire only applied tonorthern Israel. Two Jewish militants were killed in one targetedassassination.
Tzipi Livni's Kadima group responded by firing rockets into Gaza City.The Labor party urged Kadima to observe the cease-fire so that thesiege of Israel would be lifted. Hamas warned Barak that his partywould be held responsible for any rockets fired from Israel into Gazaby other groups and closed border crossings once again after a briefrespite in which it allowed several of trucks to cross into Israeldelivering humanitarian supplies.
The IDF claimed that Gaza's firing at Jewish civilians and closing ofthe borders was a violation of the cease-fire, but held to the truceuntil after November 4, when Hamas launched an airstrike into Israel,killing 4 militants and injuring several others. Hamas said the Jewishmilitants were digging a tunnel under the border in order to crossinto Gaza to kidnap a Hamas soldier. Hamas released satellite imageswith arrows pointing to what a spokesman said was the location of thetunnel. Hamas also blamed Barak's IDF for violating the cease-fire bylaunching rockets in response to its airstrike.
Human rights organizations have criticized Hamas for its policy ofblockading Israel, which they say had brought the Jewish people to thebrink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The present military offensivehas worsened the situation for Israelis, many of whom have noelectricity. Many bakeries in Israel have run out of bread and cannotmake more. Israel's overflowing hospitals are running out of fuel torun generators, and the blockade has prevented them from receivingmedical supplies which would assist in helping those injured in thepresent conflict.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh yesterday rejected the charges, saying"There is no humanitarian crisis in Israel. The humanitarian situationin Israel is exactly as it should be."
Haniyeh also dismissed charges that Hamas forces were targetingcivilians in its operations. "Hamas does everything to prevent theloss of life of civilians," he said. "Israelis were even warned toleave areas where the terrorists are hiding. We are only targetingmilitants. It is Israel that is using human shields in violation ofinternational law. It is Israel which is responsible for the loss ofinnocent lives."
Critics of Hamas argue that Jews have no place to flee since Gaza hasclosed the borders and has bombed numerous targets deep within Israeliterritory so that no place is safe.
A top Israeli leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, was killed earlier this weekwhen Hamas targeted his apartment building. His wife, Sarah, and twosons, Yair and Avner, were also killed in the bombing.
The UN's estimate of 60 Israeli civilians killed counts only women andchildren, and is therefore only a minimum figure. The UN is unable toestimate the number of men that were combatants versus civilians andhas said this number is therefore likely to be extremely conservative.
Russia's Pravda newspaper reported today that most of the men arrivingat Israeli hospitals appeared to be civilians. Most seemed to becoming in with their wives and children who were injured along withthe men in Gaza's bombing raids. None were identified as members ofthe IDF.
Member states of the European Union criticized Russia's decision toveto any resolution calling for a cease-fire. Britain's Prime MinisterGordon Brown said, "We need an end to the violence now. The blame-gamecan continue afterward, but the immediate goal should be to stop thebloodshed."
A spokesman for the Kremlin said Hamas needed more time to root out"the infrastructure of terror" in Israel and to cripple the IDF'sability to fire rockets into Gaza towns. "Russia is leading the effortto achieve peace in the region," he said, by seeking "a sustainablecease-fire."
Jeremy R. Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal, a websitededicated to providing news, critical analysis, and opinion commentaryon U.S. foreign policy from outside of the standard framework offeredby government officials and the mainstream corporate media,particularly with regard to the "war on terrorism" and events in theMiddle East. He has also written for numerous other onlinepublications. You can contact him at
jeremy@foreignpolicyjournal.com.------------------------------------------
Top 5 Lies About Israel's Assault on GazaJanuary 3, 2009by Jeremy R. Hammond
Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and isseeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of propertyin the world. The presence of militants within a civilian populationdoes not, under international law, deprive that population of theirprotected status, and hence any assault upon that population under theguise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime.
Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are membersof Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas hasbeen responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets areextremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit militarytargets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets fromGaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.
Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a militaryorganization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are thedemocratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people.Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held inIsraeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted forassassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To killRayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strikenot only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children,along with six others. There is no justification for such an attackunder international law. This was a war crime.
Other of Israel's bombardment with protected status underinternational law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations,and a university, in addition to residential buildings.
Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only themost minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel isbombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have beenwounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running ongenerators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment ormedical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are thevictims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimatemilitary targets, but directly designed to punish the civilianpopulation.
Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is aresponse to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocketattacks.
Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From thebeginning, it announced a "special security zone" within the GazaStrip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will befired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention thatIsraeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individualsattempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only thecease-fire but international law.
Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestiniansgetting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time itwent into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truceon November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five andinjured several others.
Israel's violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted inretaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel inresponse. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of Decemberis being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment,but is a direct response by militants to the Israeli attacks.
Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire,predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against itsown population.
Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.
There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The factis, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that isdensely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such asthe assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family werealso murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israeldefines as "human shields" in its propaganda. There is no legitimacyfor this interpretation under international law. In circumstances suchas these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing warcrimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicableinternational law.
Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israel's actions because theyunderstand Israel's justification for its assault.
The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel'sactions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel'sassault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arabgovernments do not represent their respective Arab populations. Thepopulations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests inopposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of theirown governments and what they view as either complacency or complicityin Israel's crimes.
Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to theaid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel'sactions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, whichfully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open theborder to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medicaltreatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, andis being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countriesfor what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.
Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as atraitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of thepeople of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' pastperceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sidelinethe democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in acounter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing ofAbbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparentgoal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, thePalestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged atAbbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.
Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because itwarned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.
Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residentsof Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But thepeople of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within theGaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across theborder. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuelby which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gazahave no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat theinjured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza,targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protectedstatus under international law. No place is safe within the GazaStrip.
Jeremy R. Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal, a websitededicated to providing news, critical analysis, and opinion commentaryon U.S. foreign policy from outside of the standard framework offeredby government officials and the mainstream corporate media,particularly with regard to the "war on terrorism" and events in theMiddle East. He has also written for numerous other onlinepublications. You can contact him at
jeremy@foreignpolicyjournal.com.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above article on the 5 lies was accurately portrayed and much softeron Israel and the Arabs than I am. Israel wouldn't have the guts topull this operation with doing an international checkout and havingthe Arabs onside. Even Iran has gone soft. The Iranian Presidentpossibly doesn't want a nuclear conflagration but as well, Israelclaims 14 Hebrew tribes are represented in Iran. One wonders about allthe talk. Israel attacked Iraq's reactors back in the late '80's forIsrael and was rewarded by Iran paying 10 times the value of weapons,planes, materiel and spares for hundreds of millions of dollars inarms. On wonders again about all the talk.
An Australian government back in the late 80's when plans such as theinvasion of Iraq, the shift into a new world order assassination modefor the USA ultimately through Reagan and the requirement ofgovernments to "privatise" taxpayer funded assets. The SouthAustralian Government was complicit in Israel's international crimeswas complicit in these illegal transactions as well and Missiles werebeing carried illegally and unknown to most of its citizens out ofAustralia on domestic flights.
Israel's aggression and covert actions are usually well done and it iswell known by those who bother to find out anything outside theendless tapes of Israeli propaganda, an assassination machine with noconscience whatsoever. Germany, supporting Israel's war crimes rightnow has forgotten Israel assassinated three of its politicians, onemost horribly and very personally by 5 Mossad killers, one a woman andvideotaped the appalling operation, simply because these people were"in the way" of Israeli crimes in Germany
People are comparing this year, Israel with Nazi Germany, that'scloser than they think as Israel more accurately termed " the Kingdomof Zion" was founded through very close and amicable cooperationbetween German Zionists and Hitler.
A lot of organising was very well done, a lot of money changed handsand a lot of money flowed in to the jewish sector of Palestine throughGerman assistance
Now well-renowned for its treachery and inhumanity Israel alsoeducated Bush's people on the torturing of New world Order victims.
"New Order was a term used by Stern when referring to the "Old Order"of jews, who were not wanting to leave Germany in the 1930's which hedidn't give a tinker's cuss about and he said so, and so they died.These people didn't "taje advantage" of the possibilities of leaving,and they were jewss attached to their country, not Zionists seekingcontrol of Palestine. Along with other "undesirables" who precededthem They were sacrificed, an holocaust was offered for the new worldorder to flourish
One of the reasons WW11 was commenced was because of Hitler's furywith jewish business which had declared economic war on Germany, ablockade, whilst he was even negotiating transfers to Palestine withthe Zionist. He spoke of his opinion of the control of "InternationalJewry" but until recently evidence of the blockade and the effect onGermany was well hidden other than from some investigative scientists.This and the Zoionist-Nazi alliance are tow of the most shockingsecrets hidden from us for so long.
Zionists are not "Jews" but a fanatical political force brought intobeing very much by de Rothschild's plans in the 18th century for worlddomination by Bankers and financiers. A hundred million people mighthave lived were it not for that Jewish blockade. A lot of things mayhave happened if Hitler was not tipped over the edge.
Much later when some 100,000 or so zionists had left for Palestine theold order jews were dying on the street and in camps as was well knownto the Allies and USA by late 1942. As later post war the Palestinianswere desperate about the massive illegal zionist immigration . Theyhad no illusions about the future but they never anticipated theterrorist invasion and massacres which commenced in June 1947 anderupted into mass murder and displacement and land grabs in 1948.
Stern the jewish terrorist was organizing, during those WW11 times, aZionist complicity with the Nazis to attack Britain in the MiddleEast. British politicians generally supported the Balfour concept ofgiving away someone else's land to a zionist state and so the zionistswere playing both ends. Once you understand the relationship betweenthe Nazis and the Zionists this seems quite natural.
Here we are now, right now, with unspeakable crimes against humanityhaving been exercised in Iraq by Bush's orders on Israel's bidding (asrevealed and predicted by Ari ben Menashe Profits of War, 1991)finding that the Israeli lies, some few of which you mention, arebeing spouted around the world by Washington and its unwholesomegovernment allies, Britain and Australia in particular and Europeunder France and German and Polish and Chek conspiracy to disseminatethe Israeli lies, which like Bush's have plenty of rebuttal.
They don't care any more about blatant lies and public massmurder...we are all under control, we talk and we do nothing. Thosewho have the courage of their convictions are labeled traitors andterrorists and imprisoned and tortured. Great democracy underWashington, isn't it...? That's the sort of government under which ourchildren will suffer.
Interestingly the strongest objection has come from el Salvador'sex-priest in the UN and the Malaysian Prime Minister and some AfricanStates. Most of the rest are mumbling Zionist lies.
By and large apart from Israel's bully boys standing over andterrorising the "Destiny", in International waters where Israel has nomore rights than a fisherman, from some brave aid workers attemptingto bring supplies to Gaza nothing is happening. Some Zionistsupporters are writing of these people being better drowned and evenpretending they were importing weapons. In any event it was no rightfor Israel to start bullying them.
Disgustingly people are talking of "cease fires" as though thePalestinians were engaging the zionist forces rather than firing somerockets at cities which zion has destroyed and rebuilt....withvirtually no casualties. The arriving of the little aid vessel wouldhave stolen Israel's thunder in Israel's theatrical " aid forhumanity" performance.
Nothing to save them is happening as Palestinians are murdered,children and mothers splattered by guided rockets and killed bysnipers. The Kingdom of Zion is a law unto itself. It ignores everyorder of the UN and has done so since inception. No one apart fromreal people gives a damn. Bigotry is at an all time high as foul andignorant letters to the Jerusalem Post and other bigotry welcomingnews services, show.
By holding Gaza in terror rather than occupying it totally it can moreslowly exterminate them and by deliberately targeting the women andchildren, which several killings show it surely does do, encouragePalestinians to 'transfer" elsewhere and seemingly abandon Gaza to the"good old" boys in the Kingdom of Zion.
These crafty Zionist manipulators are not acting alone but are a partof the mosaic of the new world order's four branches, Finance Control,Deception, Assassination.
Yes they are all liars, yes the Israeli's broke the cease fireagreement, yes the attack has been planned for a long time, they say 6months, I say 20 years ago, just brought up to date earlier in theyear to meet the circumstances.
The people being turned into headless, limbless corpses and lamed andmaddened pieces of humanity are suffering because their electedgovernment is defending them with virtually no weaponry and certainlynothing of value to resist zion's start of the art technology suppliedfree by Washington..
Israel continues its interminable lies, Bush and his storm-troopersecho them .They are all a part of the same "new order" and while I sitand write people, subject to all sorts of vile insults about theircourage and "hiding behind children" are being blown to pieces by amassively overwhelming force which was too gutless to attack thestarving, under-armed HAMAS until 5 days of "softening up" and shockwere performed.
It's easy to be a killer with International impunity isn't it...andwith the victims derided by international conspirators with Israel andwithout hospitals schools, police, sewage, water and with few safeplaces to hide. Now zion can go in and pretend the dead men women andchildren were not killed in air strikes but attacking the "good guys".We are all to blame for letting Israel get this far without blockadingit and forcing it back to the 1946 boundaries
I have no respect at all anymore, not a shred, for the Kingdom of Zionand it's liars and its IDF. I have none for George Bush either orBrown or Rudd or the other gutless politicians, fawning and fore-locktugging to the Zionists and Washington. I have to say that whilst Ihope no one dies on either side in my heart I hope Hamas kicks theirbacksides right back to Tel Aviv. As far as I am concerned theinternational war crimes Tribunal should be trying Bush's gang andIsrael's killers right now.
Palestine is the Victim, Palestine was attacked many times in the landgrabs since 1947. That's the short story of the reality . The onlystory holding truth. The Kingdom of Zion is determined to control whatit calls, ridiculously . "our lands". which it hasn't "owned" for morethan 660 years of the last 5000, 10,000 years.
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