Who Broke the Gaza Truce?

As you may have heard reported this morning, Israel has again sealed the borders to Gaza and is re-enforcing it’s siege and almost total blockade of the area. This is in response to two rockets being fired from Gaza late Tuesday by the Islamic Jihad into Southern Israel.

Israel is calling this a “grave violation” of the six-day truce between Hamas and Israel - and will almost certainly use this to bolster support from the International community for a massive ground incursion into the area. Keep in mind, given International sentiment toward israel’s behaviour in starving and blockading the Gazans for the past several months, Israel has been unable to achieve the ‘moral high ground’ on its long standing desire to invade Gaza and wipe out Hamas.

They now believe they have that advantage, as the Palestinian faction has itself violated the delicate peace treaty.

Or have they?

As with all news on Israel, you have to dig - and dig deep to uncover who did what and when.

In this case, the following article from Reuters (and in fact across most news sources midday yesterday - June 24th) reported the first blood having been let by Israel not Islamic Jihad or Hamas. The following quote is taken directly from Reuters reporting on the incident in Nablus yesterday morning (hours before the rockets were fired into Israel in retaliation by Islamic Jihad):

Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including an Islamic Jihad commander, in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday in the first fatal raid since a ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip last week.

It’s worth repeating that - “the first fatal raid”.

Few stories denouncing Islamic Jihad and the Gazans this morning mention who shot first - and crucially, who broke the ceasefire. And most alarmingly, almost all news reports significantly over-emphasize this supposed violation by Palestinians in destroying the fragile peace that had existed between Hamas and Israel.

Mission accomplished for Israel. Having successfully goaded Islamic Jihad into launching a retaliation attack, they have broken the peace they never intended to honor, and more strategically, have shifted International attention away from yesterday’s morning’s illegal raid in Nablus - and onto the ‘just’ response Israel most certainly will carry out against this “grave violation.”

The joke is on us if we don’t dig deeper; if we don’t find out the truth.

Cameras As Guns

A friend sent me a great story about about an Israeli Human Rights Group called B’Tselem that is making a very unique contribution to the struggle of the Palestinians. A recent quote from the New York Times sums it up better than I could:

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, gives video cameras to
Palestinians to document the attacks and abuses they suffer. Fidaa
Abu Aisha, left, a 16-year-old Palestinian, in Hebron with her camera,
which she uses to capture what her family says are the almost daily
attacks on them by nearby settlers. The police don’t believe them or
ignore them. The B’Tselem project, Shooting Back, has resulted
in some startling videos of settler violence.”

The metaphor or ‘cameras as guns’ really hits home to me, as after spending time in the West Bank, the only (and best) way to get the story across - to truly open people’s eyes, is through the camera. Bravo to B’Tselem for recognising that and for giving the Palestinians the tools they need to tell their story.

As my guide in the West Bank told me - with the internet and global information on the rise, it is very difficult for Israel to hide what they are doing from the rest of the world. If you cannot visit Palestine then you must witness what is happening here - online. bruised earth is proud to be one of those resources, but there are many more.

With more footage, more pictures, and more reports, the truth will find it’s way out.

Wolf Blitzer & AIPAC

How well do you know your favorite CNN on-air “personality” - Wolf Blitzer? As former member and Editor of the AIPAC in-house publication the Near-East Report,  Blitzer has done his share of lobbying, both in the public and academic spheres. The following is an excellent video of a debate in November 1989 at the University of Pennsylvania - with excerpts from Blitzer and Norman Finkelstein.

This should certainly put to rest any doubts concerning Blitzer’s personal loyalties - and should instead raise those of CNN in acting as an ‘unbiased’ news source:

Chomsky vs. Dershowitz

There have been several celebrated debates between Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky over the years, and if you do a quick search in YouTube you’ll find quite a few segments.

Following the publication of his (now famous) The Case for Israel, Dershowitz began a massive book tour to try and ‘correct’ anti-Israel views by writers such as Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. Taken from one of these tours, the following clip shows a classic exchange between the two scholars - focusing on settlements in the West Bank, the separation barrier, and the realities of peace in the near future:

Hebron Settlers (Yet Again)

It seems every week there is something new to write about in Hebron - and the right-wing settler community in particular. Today, the peaceful group Breaking the Silence, blogged about on this site earlier this week, have had to cancel their tour of Hebron amid safety concerns of yet more violent attacks by Jewish settlers.

Let’s look at the numbers here and see how preposterous these safety concerns really are:

• 160,000 Palestinians in Hebron
• 400 Hardline Jewish Settlers
• 2,000 IDF Troops

Given the statistics above, any sane person would surmise any potential danger to visitors to originate from the overwhelmingly Palestinian population of the town. Instead, these 400 settlers watched over and protected by some 2,000 soldiers cannot be controlled? Let’s say that number again - 400 settlers?!

One must either question the qualifications of a 2,000 strong army unit that cannot protect a tour group against 400 settlers, or see the blinding truth in all this. The Army has no stomach or desire to reign in the settlers - acting as their accomplices in the ongoing racist atrocities that take place in front of their eyes. It is ironic that many members of Breaking the Silence were one-time IDF soldiers who likely protected settlers in towns like Hebron. They are now running tours attempting to show others the horrors they witnessed first-hand.

Conveniently, these tours cannot be ‘protected’ and thus must be cancelled.

This is the story of how 400 Settlers rule over 160,000 Palestinians. This is the story of Israel in a nutshell.

Ongoing Land Demolition (Read This)

As this post is being written, Palestinian homes are being flattened in many parts of the West Bank. The ongoing demolition policy in the occupied territories is a strange a complicated Web of policy, politics, and Zionist vision - one which is intentionally obtuse for casual observers from the West to fully comprehend.

Among other figures - one that jumps out is the fact that 85% of the water in the West Bank is used by Israeli settlements - a staggering figure if one remembers that water in this area of the world is the absolute key to life and community. With this kind of control, Israelis and settlers are free to expand, and to take the best and most fertile pieces of land for themselves. The result - evacuation of the native Palestinians from their land, and in it’s most visible and perverse sense - the annihilation of homes, crops, and livelihoods.

Jeff Halper, Coordinator for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) states that:

Tens of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone, where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time…With 18,000 homes demolished in the Occupied Territories since 1967 and thousands more targeted, we will do our best to resist those demolitions we can reach.

The tangled political process involved with ‘legally keeping’ one’s home in the West Bank is a mesh of red tape that is almost unimaginable by Western standards. In many cases, families must petition the Israeli government (a process that can last 6 months to 6 years) to claim rightful ownership and thus protect their homes. Given the long process, the government has full legal right to destroy homes that have ‘not complied’ with these legalisation measures (simply because the applications and process have been caught in adminstration during this time!).

It is truly shocking this is allowed to continue unabated - and under the noses of the West, whose light condemnation will never reign in Israel’s clear long-term goals in the region. It is thanks to groups like ICAHD that Israelis themselves are standing against this ongoing terror; standing up for the Palestinians and at the same time, their own humanity.

An excellent short video by ICAHD discusses the realities on the ground:

Breaking the Silence

The past few months has seen a vast number of current and former Isreaeli soldiers speaking out about their experiences in the occupied territories - experiences that have had a profound effect on both sides of the green line. In particular, one recent and extremely influential organization, Breaking the Silence has made a huge impact collaborating testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifadah.

As their site states:

These soldiers who serve in the Territories are witness to, and participate in military actions which change them immensely. Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military.

Interviewing hundreds of soldiers who have served in the territories, Breaking the Silence is helping to shatter some of the myths of the Israeli soldier, and expose (perhaps for the first time) the toll occupation takes on both Israelis and Palestinians - occupiers and the occupied.

Some of these moving interviews can be viewed below, and for more information we encourage you to visit Breaking the Silence on the Web:

“UK a Hotbed of Anti-Israel Views”

There were some very interesting statements made yesterday in the Opinion section of the Daily Telegraph by the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, who accused the UK of creating a ‘hotbed of anti-Israel views’. Predictably, the Jerusalem Post jumped all over the statements, publishing the article on their front page as further proof of the one-sided and unfair treatment of Israel throughout the UK and European Media and Education systems.

Most notably, Prosor points out:

Israel faces an intensified campaign of delegitimization, demonization and double standards.

Israel’s military reaction to the attacks it faces is given in depth, microscopic coverage. Yet the attacks to which Israel is responding are often ignored. Terror attacks, ambushes, suicide bombings or the constant barrage of rockets being fired on Israeli citizens are frequently disregarded.

The average British citizen is painfully unaware that since Hamas seized control of Gaza last year, 1,400 rockets and 1,500 mortar bombs have landed on Israeli soil.

First off, the UK and Europe are not the U.S. There is no AIPAC, and there is also no default cultural bullying around open views of the Middle East and Israel in particular. The UK for its part has always been celebrated as a ‘hotbed’ of protest, demonstration, and opinion. As our own politicians know all too well, there is absolutely no hiding from the British press who on their best day can be described as ‘pushy’, on its worst, downright carnivorous.

Flipping through the Guardian and Independent and even The Times Web sites today, there are countless articles and opinion pieces about the Unites States - many less than complimentary. Why is George Bush not lambasting the UK for promoting anti-American sentiment?

Mr Prosor’s comments demonstrate both his defensiveness and his frustration - statements made by a man and a country used to getting their way in the Western media for far too long.

More Settler Violence

The cover of today’s Ha’aretz chronicles a recent attack on a group of Palestinian Shepards in the West Bank by six masked settler using clubs and rods late on Sunday near the West Bank settlement of Susya. The settlement, located near the Hebron Hills is home to some of the most extreme and ruthless of the hard-line Jewish settler communities.

What is most infurtiating about this recent attack, is the calculation and planning that likely went into the attack - a hate crime that ended with one Palestinian woman being seriously injured and unable to get proper medical attention in Israel as the West Bank borders have been closed (as a ’safety measure’) for the Jewish Shavuot holiday. A spokesman for the Israeli Army justifies the massive border closure with the comments:

The Israel Defense Forces will increase its alertness in order to ensure the safety of the citizens of Israel, while preserving, to the best of its ability, the daily life of the Palestinian population.

As always, the safety of Israel’s citizens within the ‘Green Line’ matter far more than Palestinians in the West Bank. What is even more chilling - the settlers knew a vicious and planned attack would mean little medical attention could be offered to the victims during the Shavuot holiday closures .

They knew the borders were sealed.

They were cold, considered - and as we continue to observe, sadistically and pathologically cruel in their ongoing terror campaign against the Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

Robert Fisk & Palestine

A personal favourite and one of the most persuasive and accomplished of International journalists covering the Middle East for the past 30 Years, the UK Independent’s Robert Fisk has been described by the New York Times as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain”. His titanic recent compilation, The Great War for Civilisation pulls together his writings of the past 25 years covering Algeria, Iran-Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel and is absolutely essential reading for anyone looking for a comprehensive and first-hand view of what has occurred in the Middle East over the past three decades. The Sunday Times has remarked: ‘There is nobody in British journalism to match Robert Fisk. This book is his testament.’

In the late 90’s Fisk created a three-part miniseries on the Muslim world dubbed Beirut to Bosnia, featuring an outstanding introduction on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the focus for the second installment. If you don’t have time to read his writings directly, I whole-heartedly recommend the 45 minutes or so it requires to experience Fisk in his element - deep within Palestine:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5904743936230037024

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