THE MYTH OF A TWO STATE SOLUTION

Moshe Goldsmith, a Rabbi who immigrated to Israel from Brooklyn and who now lives in the West Bank Israeli settlement of Itamar, summed up the true intent of all of the Zionists of Israel when he told UK Daily Telegraph reporter Nick Meo that; “The Israeli government and political establishment don't want a two-state solution, they won't say that because they are just worried about what Obama and the Europeans say”.

Neoconservatives, rather than outrightly deny they have no intention of allowing the Palestinians to have their own state in a two-state outcome, instead they tell their audience that it is the Palestinians that don’t want a solution because Fatah and Hamas refuse to recognise the legitimacy of Israel. But even their audience now are starting to tell it as it really is and what they really want to see. Just a look at the comments, for example, of today’s piece by neocon Jonathan Tobin writing in Commentary magazine will show how transparent the ‘two state solution’ garbage really is as far as the Zionists are concerned.

The fact is; while Israel insists not only on staying put in the West Bank but also continue to increase settlements there, the Palestinians will never recognise Israel because in doing so it would mean the Palestinians will have effectively accepted that much of the West Bank that they had hoped would become part of a Palestinian state, in fact would become part of Israel and lost forever.

The forthcoming Israeli elections, in which it is likely that Netanyahu will not only prevail but will do so with increased support from the right-wing Zionist parties, will likely result in an Israeli government that will drop any pretence of ever allowing a Palestinian state to exist. At least two of these parties, Yisrael Beitenu and the relatively new Habayit Hayehudi party led by ultra Zionist Naftali Bennett, don’t hold back on the fact that their policies do not include the existence of a Palestinian state but do include the enlargement of Israeli settlements throughout all of the West Bank and, indeed, the annexation of the West Bank to Israel.

SO, WHO’S APPEASING WHO IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Neocons are often apt to use the analogy of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler prior to World War Two to highlight the so-called danger they think the West puts itself in when trying to avoid a confrontation between the West and Iran. But, at the end of the day, the reality is that it is the neocons that are trying, in a somewhat perverse sense and twist to the notion of appeasement, appease the Zionists of Israel inasmuch that it’s the Israelis and their neocon supporters who want to attack Iran – just as Hitler and the Nazis wanted to attack East Europe.

Prior to the Second World War, it was Hitler’s Nazi Germany that was a threat to peace and, since the implication is that trying to appease Hitler in order to avoid war merely allowed Hitler to strengthen Germany which ultimately led to war, it would follow that in the twenty-first century Middle East, where Israel is looking to start a war against Iran, it should be Israel that the West needs to disarm before it does create war, rather than Iran.

It should be noted that Iran hasn’t invaded, conquered and occupied anyone in over two hundred years while Israel in just a little over sixty years has expanded its empire around two-fold by invading, conquering and occupying lands they want as part of their dream of creating a Greater Israel.

IT’S GOING TO TAKE A REALLY BIG WAR TO CREATE THE ZIONIST DREAM OF A GREATER ISRAEL

It should be made clear from the very start; Israel has absolutely no intention, and has never had any intention, of ever allowing a Palestinian state to exist. Israel, from its very birth, has sought to find ways to expel and transfer the Arab population from what is now Israel and from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in order to annex these territories to create an Arab-free Greater Israel. That has always been the Zionists plan. There has never been any other plan that does not include the territories. It is still their plan.

Ever since 1947 the Israelis have attempted to remove Palestinians from their homelands. Of those that became refugees in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and elsewhere, half fled in fear while the rest were expelled. Other Palestinians that stayed on to resist the Israeli onslaught were killed in fighting while defending their homes and property or murdered for refusing to move on. Those few that survived the ethnic cleansing and remained were no longer seen as a threat to the Zionist state and they would either become Israelis, be forced to leave through other pressures, or move on voluntarily.

The Golan Heights had always been coveted by the Israelis for its waters and farmlands. During the period 1947 to 1967 Israel provoked many clashes with the Syrians in order to push them into a retaliation that would allow the Israelis to invade and occupy the Golan Heights.

In November 1966 Israel began a series of provocative attacks against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The PLO retaliated which gave the Israelis an opportunity to attack the village of as-Samu in the West Bank which was then occupied by the Jordanians. As a result of the attack the Jordanians entered into a defence pact with Egypt fearing that Israel was intent on occupying and annexing the West Bank. In June 1967 after a series of further provocations by the Israelis, war erupted which saw the Israelis destroy much of Egypt’s armed forces and the Sinai occupied together with the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In 1973 the Egyptians and the Syrians attempted to retake their territories lost during the 1967 Six Day War. The Yom Kippur War, as it became known, saw the Egyptians beaten again but in the ensuing peace negotiations the Israelis gave back the Sinai to the Egyptians in 1979 in return for a treaty ensuring peace. However, the Syrians, who were also badly beaten in the Yom Kippur War, were only able to reclaim some 5% of the Golan Heights territory via negotiations with the UN. By 1981 Israel had annexed the Golan Heights and it became a part of Israel.

After the 1967 Six Day War the Israelis began to build settlements in all of the territories they occupied. The settlements were withdrawn from the Sinai in 1979 as part of the peace agreements and in 2005 Israel withdrew their settlements from the Gaza Strip due to the high cost of maintaining security to the Israelis settled there. Among Zionists, though, there was always an understanding that the Gaza would one day be resettled and become part of Israel.

In the recent war against the Gazan people Israel threatened to invade the Gaza Strip with the clear intention of liquidating Hamas in much the same way as the Israelis attempted to liquidate the PLO in 1982 when the Israelis invaded Lebanon which led to the fragmenting of the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli sanctioned Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian civilian refugees by Israeli-controlled Lebanese fascist forces. With full-on invasion forces assembled at the borders with the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu only backed down after it became obvious that the eyes of the world were on him and that the US were not going to support such an action. Zionists and their neoconservative supporters were very disappointed despite many of them having supported the 2005 withdrawal because it had been done via Israel’s so-called ‘democratic’ process. Since Israel is held up as the Middle East’s shining example of ‘democracy’ and it is part of the neocons guiding philosophy on foreign policy, it over-rode the desire to hang on to the Gaza after Sharon’s decision to withdraw from the Gaza had been made. After the latest war against the Gaza, they regret having pulled out in the first place.

After so many false starts where Israel has taken three steps forward only to take two steps back, they have now learned that only a really big war will be able to provide cover for their ultimate goal of creating a Greater Israel. Rather then taking pieces of territory a small war at a time only to have to give it back due to international pressure, the Zionists of Israel are now hoping that a war against Iran, which Israel may instigate and the US and their Western allies will finish off, will provide an ideal opportunity for Israel to deal an almighty and fatal blow against both Hamas and Hezbollah which, while immense in terms of it being a blow the likes of which had not been seen before in Lebanon and the Gaza, will pale compared to the devastation a war against Iran will likely be as the US pummels Iran into regime change.

While the world’s attention is focussed on Iran, the Israelis will attack Hezbollah and Hamas by invading Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with the aim of liquidating their enemies. Then, to ensure neither Hezbollah nor Hamas rise again, the Israelis will remain in these territories with a view to annexing them.

Meanwhile, in order to placate a world increasingly concerned about Israel’s expansionist activities into the West Bank, Netanyahu makes statements about wanting to negotiate statehood with the Palestinians knowing full well that the demands the Israelis make will never be accepted by the Palestinians. All the Israelis need to do now is wait for an opportune moment – possibly one that they would create – to kick off the war they desperately need with Iran that will provide cover for their invasion and occupation of the territories they covet to create their dream of a Greater Israel.  

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: MASTER OF THE ART OF ZIONIST HASBARA

In an article in National Review Online, the neoconservative Zionist propagandist Charles Krauthammer gave his summation of what he thought the recent confrontation between Hamas and Israel was all about. The Hasbara (propaganda) he uses is unusually very unsophisticated from a commentator who is held in so high esteem by his fellow neocons and Zionists, but is hardly surprising considering how desperate they have become after their failure to realise their war aims and the subsequent rise in stature of Hamas as an entity representing all Palestinians and not just those in the Gaza Strip.

Krauthammer begins his piece by reminding readers that;

Seven years ago, in front of the world, Israel pulled out of Gaza. It dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, evacuated every Jew, leaving nothing and no one behind.

Krauthammer then claims that this left the Gaza Strip as an “independent Palestinian entity”. However, what Krauthammer deliberately ignores is the fact that Hamas does not regard the Gaza Strip as a separate Palestinian entity but rather simply a part of Palestine that has been cut off from the rest of Palestine by Israel while beyond the Gaza Strip lays the rest of Palestine which remains occupied by the Israelis and which Hamas and other Palestinians are continuing to fight for.

Krauthammer goes on to write;

Israel wanted nothing more than to live in peace with this independent Palestinian entity. After all, the world had incessantly demanded that Israel give up land for peace.

And adds;

It gave the land. It got no peace.

First off, of course, the land wasn’t Israel’s to give in the first place and, secondly, the so-called “independent Palestinian entity”, as Krauthammer earlier in his article concedes, was only unilaterally considered as such by the Israelis after the Israelis declared and defined its borders with the Gaza. Hamas had no say whatsoever in where the borders around the Gaza were to be.

After ‘giving the land’ back to them for what the Israelis hoped would be ‘peace’, Krauthammer writes;

The Gaza Palestinians did not reciprocate. They voted in Hamas, who then took over in a military putsch and turned their newly freed Palestine into an armed camp from which to war against Israel. It has been war ever since.

This is pure garbage – not to mention a blatant piece of deceit! Krauthammer is trying to infer that it was the Gazan Palestinians who voted in Hamas when, in fact, it was Palestinians from both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who voted in Hamas. It was Israel and the US who rejected the legitimacy of Hamas’ win and who then attempted to use Fatah to overthrow Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip. If there was any ‘putsch’ at all, it was the attempt by Fatah with Israeli and US support to usurp the power of Hamas who had one it fairly and squarely in legitimate elections.

Krauthammer goes on to endorse the usual lie about who started the latest round of fighting by saying that Hamas had started it “with a barrage of about 150 rockets into Israel”, when in reality Israel had started it by breaking a truce when they murdered a Hamas leader on the street just as they had broken an earlier truce by assassinating two Palestinians riding a motorbike on 21 October 2012.

It’s good that someone like Krauthammer is reduced to writing such obvious trash if, for no other reason, it deprives the Zionists and their neocon supporters of all credibility.  

HAMAS CONSOLIDATES ITS POSITION WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE IN THE WEST BANK

In an interview in Cairo with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday 23 November 2012, Hamas’ political leader, Khaled Mashaal, cleverly realigned Hamas’ political position in relation to Palestinian statehood by taking advantage of Hamas’ new-found popularity among the Palestinians of the West Bank following the recent war between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Mashaal told Amanpour that, "I accept a Palestinian state according [to] the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right to return”, adding; "After this state is established, it decides its standing toward Israel". This now puts Hamas more in line with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah policy but with the added advantage of speaking for Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

When asked if Hamas would renounce violence, he replied, "We are ready to resort to a peaceful way, purely peaceful way without blood or weapons". He added that such a move would be conditional on the acceptance of Palestinian demands, including; "the elimination of occupation and the (creation of a) Palestinian state and ending the occupation and the wall”.

Mashaal’s statement also dispels a growing notion among the Western right-wing, and particularly among neoconservatives, that the Gaza Strip has become a separate entity from the West Bank; and, it must be said, Hamas had considered the idea of becoming a state in its own right. Mashaal has now made it clear, however, that Hamas regards all Palestinians, no matter where they are, as part of what will one day be a sovereign state of Palestine. The move puts paid to Israel’s ‘divide and rule’ policy in which it attempted to weaken Palestinian solidarity by ‘wedging’ the two groupings. Mashaal has solidly and inexorably linked the Gaza Strip’s future to the West Bank’s in the push to create a Palestinian state for all Palestinian people.

It’s a very clever political move by Hamas and is bound to weaken the grip on power of Mahmoud Abbas who many consider corrupt and well past his use-by date.

One can see why neocon warhawks like Max Boot were so keen for Netanyahu to re-invade the Gaza Strip.

GAZA WAR – EHUD BARAK SAYS ISRAEL NOT READY TO ‘CONQUER THE GAZA’

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday when defending the governments decision to call a truce and stop the invasion that; “It is still not time to enter Gaza in a very wide operation and conquer it”, leaving no doubt that ‘conquering’ the Gaza Strip is, indeed, the Zionists long term intention.

While it has always been surmised that invasion and occupation, with the goal of eventual annexation of the Gaza Strip, has always been Israel’s ultimate intention, this is possibly the clearest indication yet that any senior Israeli government minister has given confirming that intention.

Since the Israeli military are clearly capable at any time of overrunning the enclave with its well trained and well equipped ground forces including tanks and infantry, one needs to ask: what stopped them this time?

Considering Israeli public opinion would likely have supported an invasion in order to stop the rockets and the bombings, the only reason Israel did not follow through was, not so much that Israel wasn’t ready but, rather, because their major sponsors, the US and their other Western allies, with one eye on their own peoples public opinion, simply couldn’t afford to support such an invasion – at least not just yet. While Americans generally overwhelmingly support Israel, they prefer to see a peace arrived at via a two-state solution to the crisis rather than brute force, invasion and occupation. Britain and Europe are even less enthusiastic in supporting an Israeli invasion.

Even the warmongering Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman concedes that an invasion now would cost Israel dearly in public opinion brownie points but hasn’t given up the idea completely saying that an invasion may take place after the Israeli elections in January 2013.

Time will tell.

GAZA WAR – INVASION CANCELLED OR JUST POSTPONED?

The agreement that came into effect just a few hours is not an accord for peace but merely a ceasefire. It is unlikely to be permanent and further talks are unlikely to yield much for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Israeli troops amassed at the Gaza Strip’s borders continue their build-up and they remain on alert ready to move a moments notice as Netanyahu warns “of possible additional military action if the cease-fire fails to lead to long-term security”. What Netanyahu’s idea of ‘long-term security’ might be is anyone’s guess. It may well be that all Netanyahu wants is a bit more breathing space to gather his forces, not just to invade the Gaza, but also to consolidate his grip on the West Bank in case the Palestinians there rise in support of the people in the Gaza if and when they are invaded. He might also be considering what the reaction of Hezbollah in Lebanon might be if the crisis escalated into a war between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

One can only hope that the tenuous peace that prevails for now will become something more permanent – but unfortunately, I don’t believe for one moment that that is what Netanyahu has in mind.

UPDATE

Despite the ceasefire agreement specifically saying; “Israel shall stop all hostilities in the Gaza Strip land sea and air, including incursions and targeting of individuals…”, Israeli drones are still flying over the Gaza Strip.

 

GAZA WAR – ISRAEL MAKE PEACE DEMANDS THEY KNOW HAMAS WILL NEVER ACCEPT

According to a report in Ha’aretz today, Israel are demanding that:

…any cease-fire remain in place for a period of several years. Israel is also demanding an Egyptian commitment to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Sinai into Gaza, and that Hamas or other terror group members be kept 500 meters from the border fence. Israel also wants international assurance that, if necessary, it would be allowed to operate over the border to foil terror attacks.

Israel knows that, not only would these demands be unacceptable to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but that such demands would be impossible to monitor. They would lead to the Gaza being even more isolated than it already is as well as being deprived of defences leaving the enclave effectively devoid of any protection. Furthermore, the Egyptian people are also unlikely to abide by any Israeli demands even if their government did go along with it. Already Egyptian demonstrators are assembling at the Gaza/Egypt border to enter the Gaza Strip in support of the Palestinians.

For their part, Hamas is apparently demanding that both the naval and land blockade be lifted, demands that Israel are unlikely to accede to, particularly the naval blockade. This leaves little left to bargain with, so, while I hope that some kind of peace can be agreed to for everyone’s sake, I still fear the reality is that Israel has every intention of invading the Gaza Strip and the talk of peace is just part of Israel’s “Well, we tried but…” propaganda drive to score badly needed points in the worlds public opinion polls. And if, indeed, any truce is agreed, it will likely be very short-lived.

GAZA WAR – BACK DOOR TO CONFRONTATION WITH IRAN?

I have over the years suggested a number of scenarios by which Israel might achieve its ultimate endgame objectives of destroying its enemies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and realising the Zionist dream of creating a Greater Israel. All of these suggested scenarios have involved regime change in Iran.

I have suggested that an attack on Iran might include a simultaneous attack against Hezbollah and Hamas on the pretext of preventing either or both from mounting retaliatory attacks against Israel; I have suggested that Israel might find some casus belli to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon in the hope that such a war against Hezbollah might escalate to such an extent that it would provide an opportunity to attack Iran on the basis, perhaps, of preventing Iranian rockets and arms being shipped to Hezbollah. I have also suggested that Israel might use some excuse or another to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip which might also escalate to include an attack against Iran, again because of Iran’s supply of rockets and arms to Hamas.

Michael Rubin, a warmongering ultra-neocon writing at Commentary magazine, suggests a variation of these themes whereby Hezbollah might decide to open a second front against Israel in support of Hamas in the Gaza during the present crisis and provide yet another opportunity for Israel to attack Iran. Rubin’s argument runs thus:

Experts and defense analysts agree that Iran would respond to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities by proxy, specifically by Hamas and Hezbollah rocketry launched at Israeli towns and cities. Indeed, this is one of the reasons beyond sheer ideological spite that the Iranian leadership has gone to such great lengths to arm both Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Iranian leadership may be coming very close to forcing Israel’s hand. If Hezbollah seeks to open a second front against Israel, then Israel could find itself in a two-front war with terrorist entities. Make no mistake, Israel would achieve its objective of destroying the majority of the longest-range and most lethal missiles supplied to Hamas and Hezbollah by Iran, Syria, and perhaps even North Korea.

This might reduce the costs to Israel of undertaking a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. After all, if Hamas and Hezbollah are temporarily neutered and if the Israeli government concludes that the elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who would have command and control over any Iranian nuclear arsenal would pose an existential threat, then the Israelis may decide that their window of opportunity would never be so favourable as the present. After all, Iran’s air defense is only going to get more sophisticated with time, and its missile program is advancing steadily, and so time is otherwise not on Israel’s side.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Rubin is just fantasizing about war with Iran and the prospect of a Greater Israel at some time in the not too distant future, however, Rubin is more than just a warmongering nutjob Zionist; he is also a very influential extreme right-wing Zionist player who has the ear of both powerful Israelis and American congressmen and administration officials.

To what extent Rubin’s conjecture can be taken any more seriously than any other commentator is unknown, but it would certainly be unwise to ignore it entirely. While Hezbollah are unlikely to be silly enough to open a second front against Israel, there’s no reason why Israel couldn’t find some pretext to attack Hezbollah, afterall it wouldn’t be the first time!   

GAZA WAR – IS NETANYAHU COMMITTED TO INVADE THE GAZA STRIP?

There is some speculation that a truce between Israel and Hamas could be negotiated to avert an invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops.

While a truce and ceasefire should be hoped for, one needs to consider the realities of the situation from the point of view of Netanyahu.

First, Netanyahu has the blessing of US President Obama to do whatever Netanyahu deems best for Israel – including invade. Second, Netanyahu, as far as the Gaza is concerned, has the full support of his multi-party cabinet, the military and the intelligence community if he decides to invade.

By invading and destroying Hamas and the other fighters in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu will have achieved what many Israelis will discern as a great victory. It will be the first step in recent times of realising the Zionists dream of a Greater Israel. Netanyahu’s aim is not to stop the rockets but to invade and conquer just as the Israelis did in the Golan Heights in 1967. By invading and occupying the Gaza Strip and stopping the rockets from there once and for all Netanyahu will be able to move on with confidence in taking on Hezbollah – but only if he can get the US to attack Iran with the aim of regime change.

From Netanyahu’s point of view, this is his big chance. Unfortunately, I doubt he’ll let the opportunity pass him by.

As usual, I hope I’m wrong!

GAZA WAR – ISRAELI PROPAGANDA NONSENSE

According to Alana Goodman, a neocon propagandist herself who writes for Commentary magazine, Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren has said when talking about the Israeli bombing of Gaza:

In one case, an Israeli pilot refrained from striking a long-range missile because the pilot noticed children in the vicinity.

This is pure garbage.

I’ve been flying airplanes for over 45 years and I can tell you that when flying at even just a few hundred feet off the ground and at only 200mph it would be impossible to distinguish children from adults.

Oren is simply trying to excuse Israeli war crimes and, at the same time, project what he thinks is Israeli morality.

Oren’s story should be seen for what it is – propaganda nonsense.

GAZA WAR – INVASION AND THEN WHAT?

With Israeli troops, tanks and armoured vehicles amassing at the border of the Gaza Strip and with no let up in the tit-for-tat bombardments from both sides, it certainly seems that an invasion is imminent.

Since it was Israel that initiated and provoked the current violence that has led to this situation, it also seems likely that the Israelis had contrived and manipulated events to ensure that it would lead to invasion. In other words, this has been in the planning for some time. The question now is; once the Israelis invade the Gaza Strip, what next?

After Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 the Israelis thought that simply indiscriminately killing Palestinians and doing a lot of infrastructure damage in the Strip might be enough to weaken Hamas’ grip on the enclave and stop the rockets, so this time Israel intends to destroy Hamas completely. This will mean a full-on invasion but this time followed by permanent occupation.

During the invasion, Israel will likely take advantage of the turmoil they create by liquidating their enemies while they have the opportunity of using the fog of war to cover their crimes. This will likely be accompanied by mass arrests and possibly even transfers of population.

An invasion could also possibly lead to an exodus of civilians as refugees from the fighting who will pour across the borders into the Sinai.

Bear in mind that Israel’s ultimate endgame is the creation of a Greater Israel; this is just a part of realising that dream.

GAZA WAR – THE ISRAELI ENDGAME

Given, despite their propaganda to the contrary, that the Israelis instigated this current round of violence by the attempted targeted killings of Palestinian fighters Talat Jarbi and Mohammed Maqawi as they rode their motorbike near Rafah on Sunday 21 October 2012, and have since chosen to escalate the violence by extra-judicially murdering Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari, it has become clear that the Israelis have a long term game plan that looks ominous for the people of the Gaza Strip.

Each and every quiet period over the past three months has been broken not by Hamas but by the Israelis. Apart from the incidents mentioned above, there was also the killing of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy who was playing soccer when he was machine-gunned to death on Thursday 8 November 2012. Taking these and other incidents into consideration, a pattern of deliberate Israeli provocation emerges. On top of this is the latest call up of some 75,000 Israeli reservists which are more than double the call up numbers authorised initially. These troops are now beginning to mass on the borders of the Gaza Strip together with tanks, artillery and other armoured vehicles. The bigger picture that is emerging does not bode well for the Gazan people as a full-on invasion seems imminent.

Some of those reservists called up may also be deployed elsewhere, possibly in or near the West Bank in case Palestinian fighters in the West Bank rise in support of their comrades in the Gaza Strip. Others may be deployed to Israel’s northern borders with south Lebanon in case Hezbollah also react to events.

30,000 troops, the number of reservists that were initially called up, is a force that, with air and artillery support, would easily be able to overwhelm Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip in the event of an invasion and occupation by the Israelis.

In the event of being overwhelmed, most fighters would be able to escape to Egypt by either fighting their way out or merging with Palestinian refugees who would likely flood into the Sinai region of Egypt to escape the war.

I hope I’m wrong, but I do not believe that a Hamas promise to halt the rocket launchings into Israel will stop the coming onslaught of the Israelis into the Gaza and the bloodbath that would accompany such an onslaught. The Israelis are intent on invading and occupying the Gaza Strip in order to ultimately annex it to Israel pushing the Palestinians there out into either the Sinai or Jordan.

But the ultimate endgame has yet to play out. Israel still want regime change in Iran and the destruction of Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as complete domination of the West Bank.

Gaza, it seems, is just the first step toward their dream of a Greater Israel that will include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and, if possible, south Lebanon up to the Litani River. It’s also quite clear that the US and the West are going to be doing their best to help the Israelis achieve their goals.  

GAZA WAR – THE MYTH OF THE ‘HUMAN SHIELD’

It has become standard practice for the Israelis in all of their conflicts with their enemies to invoke the myth of the ‘human shield’ whereby they accuse their enemies’ fighters of using civilians as ‘human shields’ against attack. The present war against the Gazan people is no different as the IDF’s tweet infers.

However, the ‘human shield’ notion is nothing more than a propaganda ploy designed not just to demonise Israel’s enemies but also to mitigate Israel’s own war crimes against a civilian population.

In the case of the wars against the people of the Gaza Strip, the Israelis, by accusing Gazan fighters of using the civilians as ‘human shields’ ignore the fact that, one, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth and fighters are forced to use urban guerrilla tactics to defend themselves which means civilians are around when fighting occurs, and two, the majority of the fighters are actually billeted in their own homes with their families and many are civilians themselves who volunteer to fight when the Gaza is threatened or invaded.

To imagine that Hamas can evacuate civilians from areas that are under aerial and ground attack is pure nonsense; where should they be evacuated to? Alternatively, to expect Gazan fighters to amass on some battlefield where they can be mown down by the Israelis is plainly delusional.

Dropping leaflets over the Gaza warning civilians not to be in places where fighters are does not exonerate the Israelis from the war crime of killing civilians – especially when they are fully aware of the fact that civilians have nowhere to go to avoid Israeli bombings. Knowing that civilians have nowhere to go yet still going ahead and bombing is a not just a crime of killing civilians, but is a deliberate crime of killing civilians.

Finally, of course, there is the hypocrisy of the Israelis accusing anyone of using human shields when they are well known for practicing such crimes themselves as shown here, here and documented here.

GAZA WAR – MAJOR ATTACK IMMINENT?

According to the RT Live Update blog it seems the Israelis are planning to shutdown internet access to the Gaza Strip. If this is the case, then clearly the Israelis have further actions planned for the Gaza Strip. This is increasingly likely since, according to the IDF official Twitter account, rocket fire from the Gaza into Israel continued throughout the night keeping some one million Israelis in shelters overnight.

Meanwhile Israeli troops have been massing at the border with Gaza preparing for what may well be a full-on invasion of the Gaza Strip. As dawn breaks on Thursday morning any such invasion will likely be preceded by an intense air assault then artillery barrage as the tanks and troops move in. In another sign of an imminent attack, according to the IDF’s official Twitter account, Israel has dropped leaflets over the Gaza Strip warning civilians to keep clear of Hamas and other militants and their installations. This is reminiscent of a similar sequence of events prior to Operation Cast Lead.

A meeting of the UN Security Council was not able to resolve the crisis other than to plead to the belligerents to cease any further violence. While Arab states asked the UNSC to condemn the Israeli attacks on the Gaza, the US has strongly supported Israel’s military actions.