Middle East Inside Line: Gaza Clashes, Israel to Be "Delegitimized"?; Ceasefire in Yemen

Gaza Clashes: Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Friday opened artillery and gun fire on a group of four Palestinians rigging explosives near the Gaza border. Two of Palestinians were killed. Following the incident Hamas's Khaled Meshal, in an interview with London-based Al Hayat newspaper, threatened that a new conflict would not be limited to Gaza.

Israel Tries to Cut Off Gaza Enquiry: The Jerusalem Post has learned that the response Israel gave to United Nations on the investigations it is conducting into Operation Cast Lead seeks to deter UN action.

"Israel feels the report it gave was a serious, comprehensive, credible and complete answer to the UN secretary-general,” one senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office said.


Meanwhile, according to a report by the Reut Institute, a Tel-Aviv-based think tank, Israel is facing a global campaign of delegitimization from demonstrations on campuses, protests when Israeli athletes compete abroad, moves in Europe to boycott Israeli products, and threats of arrest warrants for Israeli leaders visiting London. The think tank called on ministers to treat the matter as a strategic threat.

Blair as Player in Israel-Palestine Talks?: On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the envoy of the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia), Tony Blair, will "intensify" his work with U.S. negotiator George Mitchell to broker peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Yemen Cease-fire: A new ceasefire between the Yemeni government and northern Shia rebels came into forcetoday.

"We have decided to halt military operations in the north-western region … to stop bloodshed, bring peace to the region, the return of displaced people to their villages, reconstruction and achieve national reconciliation," Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh's office said in a statement.

Israel: A Loose Cannon for a Middle East Conflict?

Sharmine Narwani writes in The Huffington Post:

Another war is looming in the Middle East, say the pundits. It is hard to ignore the whispers -- now louder -- when they are regularly punctuated by hostile statements from various officials in the region, leading further credence to a possible conflagration.

The likely site of the newest regional battle is the Levant. Funnily enough, nobody can pinpoint exactly where, although it is clear that Israel will be involved. Which should tell us something right there.

Middle East Inside Line: Hamas in Russia, Iran FM on “Crazy Israel”, Palestine Talks
Israel, Hamas, and Russia: Who is in Bed with the Bear?

Since the Jewish state's military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a "do-over." Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war. The month-long bombardment of Lebanon resulted in a stalemate -- an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

To add to the indignity, it was a mere few thousand men -- not even a national army -- that took the IDF by surprise.

The cornerstone of Israel's military strategy is deterrence -- whether though brandishing a nuclear arsenal to warn off threatening nation-states, or by Gaza-style intensive attacks that send a strong message to a weaker party. This is a highly militarized state that has lived under the legacy of conflict its entire existence. Loss -- or even perceived loss -- is not an option.


So instead of self-examination, Israel's conflicted, and increasingly right-wing political body unleashed a belligerent tone -- angry, defiant, threatening, unfocused like a petulant and wounded child. Diversionary tactics came into play to focus domestic and international attention elsewhere and fill the frustrating void -- Hamas in Gaza, the potential nuclear aspirations of Iran, Palestinian intransigence on peace talks, Hezbollah's weapons, Syria, Turkey, anti-Semitism, the Goldstone Report.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made inflammatory statements about conflicts on half a dozen fronts.

SYRIA:

"When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," right-wing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman challenged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last Thursday, after Assad claimed that Israel is "driving the region towards war, not peace."

Lieberman went further and hit at the heart of any future Israeli-Syrian rapprochement: "We must bring Syria to realize that...it will have to give up on its ultimate demand for the Golan Heights." Israeli leaders have in the past accepted in principle that the Syrian Golan Heights, captured and occupied by Israel in 1967, would necessarily be part of any bilateral peace deal.

GAZA:

In January -- one year after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that lead to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians -- Major General Yom Tov Samia, former head of the IDF's Southern Command, told the Jerusalem Post: "We are before another round in Gaza... another war with Hamas is inevitable." And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Gaza's leaders to "watch their step, and not to cry crocodile tears if they force [us] to take action."

The hue and cry about Hamas' rockets hitting Israeli towns was Tel Aviv and Washington's driving narrative in defense of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Still is. But just this week, the Jewish State announced that a new $200 million rocket defense system called the "Iron Dome" will not be deployed against Gaza as promised. Too expensive for Gaza, says the military, explaining that it will be deployed elsewhere where there is more of an "imminent" threat.

And this comes after months of Israeli insistence that Hamas has significantly boosted its military capabilities and has obtained long-range rockets, mostly from Iran. So which is it -- either they do or don't have weapons, either they do or don't pose a threat?

LEBANON:

No two other parties have been more relentlessly subjected to Israeli threats than Iran and Hezbollah. Last summer, after it was clear that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah would likely participate at the cabinet level in any unity government formed following Lebanon's June elections, Israeli leaders fell over themselves in their rush to issue warnings. Netanyahu, Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon all threatened that any border attacks would be blamed on the Lebanese central government -- with repercussions.

Just last month, Israeli Minister Yossi Peled opined, "Without a doubt we are heading for another round (of battle) in the North. No one knows when, but it's clear that it will happen."

And so both Hezbollah and Israel have moved weapons systems closer to their mutual borders.

IRAN:

Iran, in turn, has been the recipient of non-stop bombing threats from Israel over its civilian nuclear program, which the Jewish State claims is really a clandestine plan to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Never mind that some two dozen International Atomic Energy Agency reports over six years show no diversion of materials to weaponization. Or that Israeli military intelligence has been extending the date for a finished Iranian nuclear warhead since the 1990s. Last June, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan declared the new date for the first Iranian nuke would be in 2014. But Israel's war drums have kept beating as though these weapons were already sitting on launch pads, ready to go.

TURKEY:

Relatively new on the scene in the game of belligerent words is Turkey. A rare Israeli ally in the Middle East both in political and military terms, Turkey has drawn away from the alliance since Israel's widely-criticized Gaza attacks last year, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the particularly brutal IDF campaign.

Things have gone from bad to worse since, culminating a month ago in the now-infamous Ayalon row when the Israeli deputy foreign minister publicly and deliberately humiliated Turkey's ambassador in front of cameras. Israel has called Turkey anti-Semitic and very recently slammed the Turkish prime minister again when he drew attention to the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza and its daily violations of Lebanese airspace.

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Some Israeli critics suggest that the destabilizing escalation in rhetoric may not just be as a result of Israel's psychological loss in 2006, but more recently, because of an increased paranoia about international isolation -- the result of war crimes allegations documented against Israel in the UN's Goldstone Report about the Gaza war, and the country's ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands.

In a stunning attack on his government two weeks ago, Israeli writer Gideon Levy wrote a commentary piece in Haaretz in which he takes to task their "cynical" use of Holocaust Remembrance Day to propagandize toward political ends:

"An Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget."

But the escalation of rhetoric from Israel's right-wing government is not being viewed as simple political posturing -- more, like a promise of battle. As concerned as the Jewish State may be about conflict on its borders, its neighbors -- having been on the receiving end of superior Israeli weapons, and having suffered far larger numbers of civilian casualties -- are taking these words very seriously.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at a joint press conference with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Thursday pointed to this verbal escalation of hostilities by calling on Israel to "desist from making threats against Gaza, southern Lebanon, Iran and now Syria."

Because rhetoric after all creates a perception. And perception is 100% of politics -- not to be played with when standing on a tinderbox. The Levant has always been rife with small-scale border skirmishes -- that is the way of an area re-mapped by foreigners, with unnatural, artificial borders. But it is only Israel that has, since 1973, launched full-on military battles from these skirmishes. And without a doubt it is gearing up for a fight. Where, is anyone's guess.

Israel: Army Commander Undermines Claims on "Proper Conduct" in Gaza War

With two Israeli army officers, "disciplined" for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound, still not facing a criminal investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed on Thursday that he had received a full internal report from the Israelis.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday:

This document completely expresses Israel's commitment to conduct an honest internal probe according to the standards of international law. Despite the difficult conditions of fighting against Hamas terror, Israel has stringently abided by international norms and will continue to do in the future - though our foremost obligation is to protect our citizens.

However, The Independent of London reported a confession from a high-ranking Israeli official who talked to Israel's Yedhiot Ahronot. The officer said that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement, concerning the protection of civilian lives, to minimise military casualties during the Operation Cast Lead. The senior commander said:

Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria [West Bank] area... We need to be very careful because the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here [in Cast Lead] we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference.

According to the newspaper, a more junior officer who served during the operation described the new policy as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers" as a part of the policy to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war.

UPDATED Israel: The Government Responds to the Goldstone Report on Gaza

UPDATED 2 FEBRUARY: Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade Defense Minister Ehud Barak to accept an Israeli investigation into civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. However, officials said that both Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi, the Chief of Staff of Israel Defense Forces, refused to yield authority to investigators from outside the defense establishment.

"The prime minister knows what he wants to do on this matter - but he does not want to bring the matter to the cabinet," a senior source close to Netanyahu said.

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With the General Assembly convening on 5 February 5 to discuss progress on the Goldstone Report and its recommendations, Israel submitted its response to United Nations over last year's Gaza War.

Palestine: Hamas Refuses An Independent Commission on Gaza “War Crimes”

The committee will reportedly have the authority to summon everyone who was in charge of the IDF investigations and any civilian who took part in the main deliberations. However, it will not have the authority to question operational commanders. The committee is likely to take testimony of lower-ranked officials, ensuring that there is no basis to send officials to international courts.


The Israeli Government said it is preparing to appoint a committee focusing on two main areas: 1) the quality of the investigations conducted by the Israel Defense Forces into incidents and 2) decisions taken by the Cabinet, the Security Cabinet and the IDF General Staff over the use of force. The first area will establish whether the internal investigations met the relevant international standards and the second will determine whether there is a basis to Goldstone's claims that the operation was planned in advance as a punitive campaign against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, announced  that he has decided to establish an independent panel of inquiry to evaluate the accusations on human rights violations carried out by his PA security forces during the Gaza War.

On the political front, Israel slammed the Goldstone Report's "misrepresentations" in a written response submitted to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, "Gaza Operation Investigations: Update":

As Israel has clarified before, Israel disagrees with the findings and recommendations of the Report, which reflect many misunderstandings and fundamental mistakes with regard to the Gaza Operation, its purposes, and Israel’s legal system.

Israel is committed to ensuring that every such incident is fully and fairly investigated, to ensure that lessons can be learned and that, if justified, criminal or disciplinary proceedings initiated.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added that the Goldstone Report was "distorted, false, and irresponsible":

This morning we handed the UN a report of the investigations and operations that took place during Operation Cast Lead. This report stresses that the IDF is like no other army, both from a moral standpoint as well as from a professional standpoint.

All of the soldiers and officers whom we sent to battle need to know that the state of Israel stands behind them even on the day after.

Israel: A Response to Talk of Holocaust and Evil (Levy)

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Auschwitz (see separate entry) Haaretz's Gideon Levy responded sharply, declaring, "Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda".

Israel's bigwigs attacked at dawn on a wide front. The president in Germany, the prime minister with a giant entourage in Poland, the foreign minister in Hungary, his deputy in Slovakia, the culture minister in France, the information minister at the United Nations, and even the Likud party's Druze Knesset member, Ayoob Kara, in Italy. They were all out there to make florid speeches about the Holocaust.

Israel: Netanyahu’s Speech on Evil at Auschwitz

Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.



It won't help much. International Holocaust Remembrance Day has passed, the speeches will soon be forgotten, and the depressing everyday reality will remain. Israel will not come out looking good, even after the PR campaign.

On the eve of his departure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Yad Vashem. "There is evil in the world," he said. "Evil must be stamped out at the beginning." Some people are "trying to deny the truth." Lofty words, said by the same person who only the day before, not quite in the same breath, uttered very different words, words of true evil, evil that should be extinguished at the start, evil that Israel is trying to hide.

Netanyahu spoke of a new "migration policy," one that is evil through and through. He malevolently lumped together migrant workers and wretched refugees - warning that they all endanger Israel, lower our wages, harm our security, make us into a third-world country and bring in drugs. He zealously supported our racist interior minister, Eli Yishai, who has spoken of the migrants as the spreaders of diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, AIDS and God knows what else.

No Holocaust speech will erase these words of incitement and slander against migrants. No remembrance speech will obliterate the xenophobia that has reared its head in Israel, not only on the extreme right, as in Europe, but throughout government.

We have a prime minister who speaks about evil but is building a fence to prevent war refugees from knocking at Israel's door. A prime minister who speaks about evil but shares the crime of the Gaza blockade, now in its fourth year, leaving 1.5 million people in disgraceful conditions. A prime minister in whose country settlers perpetrate pogroms against innocent Palestinians under the slogan "price tag," which also has horrific historical connotations, but against whom the state does virtually nothing.

This is the prime minister of a state that arrests hundreds of left-wing protesters against the injustices of the occupation and the war in Gaza, while time grants mass pardons to the right-wingers who demonstrated against the disengagement. In his speech yesterday, Netanyahu's equating Nazi Germany with fundamentalist Iran was no more than cheap propaganda. Talk about "degrading the Holocaust." Iran isn't Germany, Ahmedinejad isn't Hitler and equating them is no less spurious than equating Israeli soldiers with Nazis.

The Holocaust must not be forgotten, and there is no need to compare it with anything. Israel must take part in the efforts to keep its memory alive, but in doing so it must show up with clean hands, clean of evil of their own doing. And it must not arouse suspicion that it is cynically using the memory of the Holocaust to obliterate and blur other things. Regrettably, this is not the case.

How beautiful it would have been if on this international day of remembrance Israel had taken the time to examine itself, look inward and ask, for example, how it is that anti-Semitism has reared its head in the world precisely in the past year, the year after we dropped white-phosphorous bombs on Gaza. How beautiful it would have been if on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Netanyahu had declared a new policy for integrating refugees instead of expulsion, or lifted the Gaza blockade.

A thousand speeches against anti-Semitism will not extinguish the flames ignited by Operation Cast Lead, flames that threaten not only Israel but the entire Jewish world. As long as Gaza is under blockade and Israel sinks into its institutionalized xenophobia, Holocaust speeches will remain hollow. As long as evil is rampant here at home, neither the world nor we will be able to accept our preaching to others, even if they deserve it.