ABBOTT, AS HOWARD DID IN 2003, MISLEADS AUSTRALIANS

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his Defence Minister, David Johnston, are deliberately misleading the Australian people and more than likely the Australian parliament, by telling us that the government hasn’t been asked to commit to helping the US again in Iraq.

Tony Abbott is following in almost the same footsteps as John Howard did in March 2003 when he kept telling the Australian people and parliament that he hadn’t been asked by Bush to commit to the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ just before the invasion and destruction of Iraq, an event which has led directly to the current crisis in Iraq today.

One would be extremely naïve to believe that Abbott has not already been invited to participate in action against Islamic State forces in Iraq and that invitation was made and accepted when US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel both visited Australia earlier this month. One would also be extremely naïve to believe the outgoing director of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) David Irvine when he says that Australia’s involvement with the US in Iraq would not further radicalise young Australian Muslims thereby increasing the likelihood of terrorist acts being committed in Australia. Given the history of Australian Muslims participation in the current war in Iraq, it is far more likely that radicalised Muslims will consider committing terrorist acts in Australia when Abbott does join with the US in the fight against Islamists in Iraq.

While as yet no scientific polls regarding Australians opinions about going to war in Iraq again have been released, however, at least one online poll shows that a strong majority, some 75% of Australians, would be against any such action.

SO WHAT’S NETANYAHU’S GAME?

In an extraordinary and surprising move, Netanyahu has all but unilaterally agreed to a ceasefire in his war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. By ‘unilateral’ I mean without the support of the extreme right–wing of his cabinet including Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of the Economy Naftali Bennett, Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovich and Minister of Communications Gilad Erdan; all of whom were intent on destroying Hamas completely and fully occupying the Gaza Strip permanently and ultimately annexing the territory to Israel.

Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are, of course, delighted – as is Abbas and the Palestine Authority, who are now enthusiastic about the prospect of having a seaport and maybe even an airport with which to rebuild their country.

But what happens when Netanyahu is gone and the real right-wing Zionists who are in the ‘don’t care what the rest of the world thinks’ camp take over?

The war against Hamas was extremely popular amongst Israelis who wholeheartedly supported bombing the Gaza into submission with a view to full occupation. It begs the question: What next? Will the extreme right bring Netanyahu down and will they then renew hostilities by once more provoking the Palestinians in the Gaza into launching more rockets into Israel by randomly shooting dead Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank as they did to get this latest round of carnage going?

I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this is the end of it. I have no idea what Netanyahu has in mind at this stage. I can only suggest that Netanyahu, always sensitive to public opinion despite seemingly able to push affairs right up to the very edge, has backed off due to overwhelming and growing worldwide public support for the Palestinians; or possibly having been threatened by the US who would support a push for the Palestinians to enjoin the ICC if Netanyahu didn’t make peace.

Netanyahu may well have something else up his sleeve but, if he hasn’t, then this could well be the beginning of the end for Netanyahu. And, if that happens sooner rather than later, then it may be a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ for both the Palestinian people and the Israeli people if the extreme right replace him.

ISRAEL’S ENDGAME FOR GAZA MOVES CLOSER

It seems that a full-on invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s ultimate endgame plan for the Palestinian enclave, is moving inexorably closer to realisation.

Israel again has called up thousands of reservists and Israel’s Communications Minister and security cabinet member, Gilad Erdan, has announced that Israel is close to being in a position to launch a full invasion. Erdan asked that Israelis be patient.  

Erdan also made it clear that Israel will not be conceding to any of Hamas’s demands inferring that Israel had no even considered any of Hamas’s demands which were put forward for discussion during the ceasefire.

Since it was obvious that Israel was never going to entertain any of Hamas’s demands, Hamas had little choice other than to resume hostilities in order to force the issue. The alternative would be to submit to eternal ghettoisation, oppression and persecution at the hands of the Israelis. Both sides now seem intent on pushing the matter to an ultimate conclusion once and for all.

For the Israelis, the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip and the transfer of the population into the Sinai, Jordan or Lebanon have always been part of the ultimate Zionist endgame. It has never been anything else. Talk of living peacefully side by side with the Palestinians has only ever been an illusion for the benefit of Israel’s Western supporters who continue to plough money into Israel. But the reality is that Israel has never ever had any intention of allowing a Palestinian state to exist. Israel has skilfully manipulated affairs in such a way as to completely fool the West – and particularly the US – for years into believing they only want peace with the Palestinians when all the while they were merely waiting for an opportunity to grab the occupied territories for themselves on the pretext of defending themselves against ‘terrorism’.

For the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip there is now little to lose. They will likely fight on and they will pin their hopes on world opinion and outrage against Israeli atrocities influencing the world’s Western leaders into forcing the Israelis into stopping their war and accepting Hamas’s demands.

There will be no peace for either side any time soon. 

ISRAEL: NO BETTER THAN ISIS OR AL-QAEDA

ISIS, or just IS (Islamic State) as they now call themselves, as well as al-Qaeda are, of course, Israel’s arch enemy – as well as much of the rest of the world. But is Israel any better than their arch enemies when it comes to committing crimes against humanity? And, just because Hamas also happens to be an Islamic organisation, can it really be compared with IS or al-Qaeda?

Neocon propagandist Jonathan Tobin, writing today in Commentary magazine, would have you believe that Israel are, as usual, the victims, while Hamas and the other Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fighting for their freedom are terrorists who need to be treated with the same contempt as IS and al-Qaeda.

The reality, as anyone with even an iota of a sense of logic and compassion can see, is that Israel that also behaves in such a way that the carnage and death they bring to civilians in the Gaza Strip has the same result that the carnage and death that IS and al-Qaeda bring down upon the peoples they choose to ravage. The only difference between them is the weapons and methods they choose to commit their crimes. IS and al-Qaeda us small arms and knives to kill their victims whereas Israel use aircraft and tanks to pump bombs and shells into their hapless victims.

Zionist propagandists and their neocon allies attempt to equate Hamas with IS and al-Qaeda are plainly falling on deaf ears in the West as the enormous protest rallies and marches in support of the Palestinian cause demonstrate.

NATAN SHARANSKY: NEOCON ZIONIST NUT JOB

Natan Sharansky, an Israeli intellectual, extreme right-wing neocon Zionist and ex-deputy prime minister of Israel, has written an article published in the Washington Post in which he says: “The pictures of destruction and mourning in Gaza that have filled media around the world for the past several weeks have been very painful and sad to view. One would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli who does not sympathize with the suffering of Gaza’s victims.”

Is he nuts?

Did he miss the stories about Israelis taking grandstand seats in Israel overlooking the Gaza Strip to watch the place being bombed? Did he not hear about the cheers that went up from the Israelis watching the bombings every time there was an orange ball from a bomb detonating followed by a huge explosion as the sound of the detonation caught up with the sight of it?

‘One would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli who does not sympathize with the suffering of Gaza’s victims’?

Really? Who does this nutjob think he’s kidding?

ARE AUSTRALIAN SAS TROOPERS ALREADY IN IRAQ?

Neoconservative propagandist Max Boot, writing in the UK magazine Spectator, says:

With more American (and, one hopes, allied) eyes on the ground, it will be possible to call in more air strikes with greater effectiveness, as occurred in Afghanistan during the autumn of 2001. Western commandos such as Seal Team Six, Delta Force and the British and Australian SAS should also expand operations to carry out the kind of intelligence-driven leadership targeting that was an important part of the 2007-2008 surge. (Bold is my emphasis.)

Well, we know there are already American ‘advisors’ on the ground in Iraq and more are on the way, that much we have already been told, but there has been no announcement from any of America’s allies about any UK or Australian special forces being deployed on the ground in Iraq. Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, however, has offered to send ground forces if asked to.

Max Boot has been around the traps for a very long time and has over the years developed a strong network of US administration and defence department insider sources so, when Boot writes that special forces – including Australian SAS – should expand operations in Iraq, one wonders if Boot hasn’t let the cat out of the bag by inferring that they should expand on the numbers that are already there. Knowing the Abbott government’s propensity not to ‘discuss military operational matters’, one shouldn’t be too surprised to find that Australian SAS units may already be in Iraq.

NETANYAHU: THE BETTER OF THREE EVILS?

If either of Netanyahu’s right-wing political rivals for the Prime Minister’s job had been leading Israel over this last year or so, what would be the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank today?

A future potential Israeli leader is the extreme right-wing Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party which is devoted to creating a Greater Israel that includes all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and excludes any possibility of there ever being a Palestinian state. Bennett is currently Minister of the Economy in Netanyahu’s cabinet.

Another contender is the even more extreme right-winger Avigdor Liebermann, the controversial leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party and currently Foreign Minister in the Israeli government. He is also a past Deputy Prime Minister.

Had either of these two rivals of Netanyahu been Prime Minister of Israel during the past year or so we would be looking at a vastly different Middle East today.

During the recent conflict Liebermann said that Israel will eventually need to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and ‘overthrow’ Hamas saying that “the occupation of Gaza and the overthrow of Hamas is a process that would take more than four months”. Naftali, a little less brash than Liebermann, nonetheless is adamant about obtaining a positive Israeli ‘victory’ over Hamas saying that the Israelis should continue until the Gaza Strip is ‘demilitarised’, a euphemism for occupation which is the only way Israel can ever hope to permanently keep Hamas out of the Gaza Strip.

Both Liebermann and Bennett are strong Greater Israel Zionists and support increasing settlements in the West Bank as well as building new ones in the Gaza Strip with a view to eventually annexing both territories to Israel.

The difference between the Liebermann-Naftali attitude and Netanyahu’s is that neither Liebermann nor Naftali make any secret about what they envisage for the future of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Netanyahu on the other hand, who actually wants the same thing, is far more politically pragmatic about these issues given that, as prime minister, he needs to tread a fine line between the reality of needing US support militarily and politically and knowing that the US will not support an invasion and full occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In other words, Liebermann and Naftali are both of the ‘We don’t care what the world thinks’ faction of Israel’s extreme right-wing as opposed to Netanyahu who very much cares what the rest of the world thinks of his actions because he needs to rely on their support for all that he does.

Liebermann and Naftali, if they had their way, would simply go ahead and fully occupy the territories at the slightest excuse, while Netanyahu will only do so when he feels he has the US on his side and has a big enough casus belli to do it.

NEOCONSERVATIVE PSYCHOPATHY: THEIR MADNESS IS SPREADING AMONGST THEM

Yesterday, regular readers may recall, I wrote briefly about the psychopathy of Daniel Pipes and his ludicrous beliefs relating to Hamas and its struggle against Israel’s attempts to destroy the Gaza Strip. Today, it seems, that psychopathy is spreading among other neoconservatives. Jonathan Tobin, writing in Commentary magazine says:

As bad as the situation there [the Gaza Strip] is, the Israelis have done their best to limit their fire to those shooting at them. As is the case with all wars, including those fought by the United States, sometimes mistakes happen and civilians sometimes do get caught in the crossfire created by terrorists eager to turn their neighbors into “martyrs.”

Tobin goes on to say:

Anyone who truly cares about Gaza’s civilian population will draw the appropriate conclusions and concentrate their criticisms on the terrorist group whose genocidal ideology impels it to continue their war against Israel’s existence as long as there are Palestinians left to be sacrificed.

Clearly, the neocons are getting desperate and have got together and decided that the more gullible amongst those that read their rants may not recognise the neoconservative’s psychopathy and actually accept their lunatic ravings at face value. Little can be said about the state of mind of those that go along with their nonsense.

DANIEL PIPES: EXTREMIST NEOCONSERVATIVE PSYCHOPATH

In his latest piece published on the neoconservative online magazine National Review Online, Daniel Pipes demonstrates the extent of his utter lunacy by writing:

Hamas’s greatest strategic weapon in its effort to damage Israel’s reputation and ostracize it was neither rockets nor tunnels but wrenching photographs of dead civilians purportedly killed by the IDF.

This leads to the bizarre situation in which Hamas seeks the destruction of Palestinian property, compels civilians to sustain injuries and death, inflates casualty figures, and may even intentionally attack its own territory — while the IDF takes gratuitous fatalities to spare harm to Palestinians. The Israeli government goes further, providing medical care and food and sending technicians into harm’s way to make sure that Gazans continue to enjoy free electricity.

I’m surprised that NRO even published this transparent piece of absolute garbage that exposes Pipes to be nothing less than a raving psychopath.

NEOCONS DELUSIONAL OVER WORLD OPINION ABOUT GAZA CRISIS

Seth Mandel, a neocon propagandist writing for Commentary magazine, seems to think that Hamas has overplayed its hand during the current crisis in the Gaza Strip. Mandel says “that maybe the international community is so torn up by the violence in Gaza that they want more than ever to prevent its recurrence. And no matter how often they try to blame Israel, they seem to understand that there’s only one way to prevent future bloodshed: demilitarize, at least to a significant degree, the Gaza Strip”.

Looking at the demonstrations around the world, particularly the massive display of solidarity from the South African people recently, most people around the world, whilst agreeing that they want more than ever to prevent the violence from reoccurring, would prefer that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip be given their freedom, and, if any one side needs disarming, it should be Israel.

Mandel is delusional if he believes that the world supports what Israel has in mind for the Gaza Strip.

THE GAZA CONFLICT: IRRISISTIBLE FORCE MEETS IMMOVABLE OBJECT

It doesn’t look good for the people in the Gaza Strip. It’s unlikely that the present ceasefire will hold long enough for there to be any meaningful outcome for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Israelis are demanding the Palestinians disarm and the Palestinians flatly refuse to do so.

It is an all too familiar tactic that the Israelis have always employed when dealing with the Palestinians whereby they make an unrealistic offer which they know the Palestinians cannot possibly accept and then, when the Palestinians reject the offer, the Israelis and their backers blame the Palestinians for the breakdown in negotiations. The Israelis know full well that Hamas and other Palestinian fighters will never give up their arms.

On the other hand, Netanyahu, with the backing of the Israeli people and President Obama, are determined to destroy Hamas and all Palestinian resistance. Netanyahu will likely blame the Palestinians for any continuation of war after having refused to be demilitarised. The Israeli side, in turn, will also refuse Palestinian demands to lift the blockade on the grounds that lifting the blockade will allow Hamas and their allies to be rearmed.

The Palestinians want their own sovereign state free of any dominance by Israel. The Palestinians want to be able to trade freely with whoever they want. They want all of their lands back and the Israeli settlers gone. They want free access between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. They want the Israeli military cleared from the West Bank and Jordan border areas. They want East Jerusalem as their capital. None of these demands, however, will ever be acceptable to the Israeli right-wing.

In the Palestinians favour is support for the Palestinian cause from the people of the world – especially after witnessing first hand the carnage that Israel wreaked on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during this latest round of fighting. Israel’s propaganda this time around has failed them. Internet technology has exposed their propaganda to be just that – lies and distortions of the truth. Israel has accused Hamas of using the Gazans as ‘human shields’ because they launched their rockets and mortars from within civilian areas when the reality is that there actually is nowhere else in the Gaza Strip from which launch their armaments short of in the middle of an empty paddock where they will be exposed to the enemy. No one is buying the ‘human shield’ nonsense anymore. No one is buying the Israeli garbage about Hamas bombing their own hospitals and schools. No one really believes that Hamas have forced civilians to stay in their homes after the Israeli have warned that they’ll be bombed. No one believes anymore the transparent Israeli lie that they are only targeting Hamas and other militants. Israel’s lies about how they conduct war have been exposed.

So, what’s next?

Unfortunately, the Israelis haven’t achieved even their stated aims of disarming Hamas and closing down all of the tunnels. And they certainly haven’t got anywhere near their, until recently, unmentioned aim of destroying Hamas completely, transferring the Palestinian people out of the Gaza Strip and reoccupying it for themselves with the eventual aim of annexing it into Israel.

At very best, the likely outcome will be either an extremely edgy and prolonged ceasefire or a renewal of the bombing of the Gaza Strip followed by a full-on invasion and occupation. In the event of a prolonged ceasefire, Israel will likely provoke the Palestinians in much the same way as they did that stared this round of violence; by randomly shooting civilians trying to work in the fields close to the border. Once the Palestinians retaliate to the shootings by launching rockets into Israel, Israel will then use this as an excuse to launch their full-on offensive against the Gaza Strip.

In the end, either this time around or the next, the Israelis will eventually attempt to gain the Gaza Strip for themselves using an irresistible force, and the Palestinians will remain as difficult an object to move as they have before. The only force that has any chance of dissuading the Israelis from eventually taking the ultimate step to their goal is the power of public opinion and a complete change in attitude from the US and their Western allies.

ISRAELI HARD RIGHT EXPOSE ZIONISMS TRUE AIMS FOR GAZA

I have for these last ten years on this blog been writing that the ultimate goal of right-wing Zionism has always been the creation of a Greater Israel that would ultimately incorporate the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and even south Lebanon up to the Litani River if they thought they could get away with it. I have written over the years that it has never been the intention of Israel to allow any form of Palestinian state to exist. Talks about a ‘two state solution’ and ‘Palestinian sovereignty’ have only ever been conducted by Israel in order to appease the West, particularly the US, in order to ensure the continuing flow of aid and support to Israel. There has been an endless parade of ‘talks’ about ‘peace’ over the years. They have included  the Jarring Mission, the Rogers Plan, the Reagan Plan, the Oslo Accords, the Wye River Memorandum, the Camp David Summit, the Taba Summit, the Elon Peace Plan, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Agreement, the Arab Peace Initiative, the Road Map to Peace, the Madrid Conference, the Hebron Protocol, the Annapolis Conference, the Beirut Summit, the Peace Valley Plan, etc., all of which have been going on for years and none of which – not one – have amounted to anything, and all the time while these talks and negotiations have been going on, Israel has slowly and insidiously permeated its way onto lands that do not belong to them.

Some Israeli Zionists now believe they are close to their goal if only they could get Netanyahu to cross the point of no return in the Gaza Strip. One extreme right-wing Zionist, Martin Sherman of the Israel Institute of Strategic Studies Zionist think tank, has gone so far as to pen in one of Israel’s most nationalistic papers, The Jerusalem Post, an article in which he suggests that “the only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region”. This should leave no doubt in anybody’s mind what Israel’s true intentions ultimately are.

And Sherman is not alone in coming out with what the Zionists really wish to achieve. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel will need to overthrow Hamas and reoccupy the Gaza Strip. Israel’s Economy Minister, Naftali Bennett, another extreme right-wing Zionist, is calling for the government to go forward to “victory” and to “demilitarise” the Gaza Strip which effectively means permanent occupation though he hasn’t quite gone as far as suggesting transfer of Palestinians – at least not yet.

Netanyahu is playing his cards close to his chest. Despite some 95% of Israelis have succumbed to the relentless propaganda and who now support the war against Hamas, and Obama conceding to Israeli requests for more ammunition, Netanyahu is clearly not entirely convinced that America will support an all-out push to finish off Hamas and is certainly not sure what the world-wide repercussions would be if Israel were to reoccupy the Gaza Strip on a permanent basis.

They’re not there yet, and I hope they never will, but the intent is there as it always has been. For now, though, only time will tell what Netanyahu’s up to.

NEOCON PROPAGANDA: ‘ISRAELIS TAKE PRISONERS BUT HAMAS KIDNAPS ISRAELI SOLDIERS’

Writing in Commentary today, Israeli apologist and neocon propagandist Jonathan Tobin said: “…the Netanyahu government decided to accede to the [ceasefire] proposal put forward by the United States and the United Nations. But that decision has been rendered moot by the decision of Hamas to use the cover of the cease-fire to launch a suicide attack on Israeli forces that led to the possible kidnapping of a soldier.”

Not mentioned by Tobin was the ‘kidnapping’ of almost 300 Palestinians who had been taken by the Israelis during the first days of their invasion of the Strip, and nor did Tobin mention that many of them had been ‘interrogated’ by Shin Bet, the Israeli security service who are notorious for their use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, a Western euphemism for torture.

Tobin forgets that it is the Israelis that have invaded the Gaza Strip and that the Gaza people have a right at all times to defend themselves against any aggression and also have the right, as do the Israelis, to take prisoners of war.

Tobin argues that, rather than a truce, Israel should go all out to destroy Hamas and demilitarise the Gaza Strip. To ‘demilitarise’ the Gaza Strip will involve a prolonged occupation and who knows what horrors Tobin has in mind when he says ‘Hamas should be destroyed’.

IS THE U.S. GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES AGAINST THE GAZAN PEOPLE?

The hypocrisy of the US knows no bounds. On the one hand they tell the world they are demanding the Israelis put a halt to the carnage they are wreaking in the Gaza Strip and, on the other hand are resupplying the Israelis with the wherewithal to continue their carnage.

The US knows full well that the weapons and fuel they are supplying to the Israelis is for the purpose of continuing to wage war against civilians. They have no excuse. The US are fully aware that Israel are committing war crimes yet the US continues to supply weapons which they know the Israelis are more than likely to commit further war crimes with.

Why are the nations of the world not condemning the US for their complicity in Israeli war crimes?

WARNINGS DO NOT ABSOLVE WAR CRIMES

The Israelis have been in the habit of calling some Palestinian families to warn them that their homes are about to be bombed. Most of these homes are owned by civilians, most of whom have no connection to Hamas or any other political or militant organisation.

Deliberately bombing civilians is a war crime but, by warning the civilian occupiers that their homes are about to be destroyed, the Israelis believe that it somehow absolves them of any crime. Furthermore, not only do the Israelis think that it absolves them of crimes, but it also provides them with an opportunity to then accuse Hamas of using civilians as ‘human shields’.

How would it be, one wonders, if an Hamas operative telephoned the mayor of say Sderot and told him that the town hall was about to be bombed by rockets but, due to the fact that they can’t guarantee the accuracy of the rockets, it would be best if he evacuated the entire township within the next ten minutes. And if the mayor then refuses to evacuate could he not then be accused of using civilians as human shields?