How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas

We're privileged to re-post Andrew Higgins' outstanding piece of journalism in today's Wall Street Journal, which combines an impressive historical summary with contemporary analysis. He establishes how Israel assisted with the creation and growth of Hamas from the late 1970s. (I've known this for years from academic works; however, many people --- including a number I've encountered on the Net in recent weeks --- refuse to accept the evidence.)

More importantly, however, Higgins offers lessons which Israel's leaders conveniently forgot for the sake of this conflict:

When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel -- particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 -- Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians.

HOW ISRAEL HELPED TO SPAWN HAMAS
Andrew Higgins

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a "determined and successful military operation." More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.

Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire.

Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm "requires more than a long cease-fire" and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state "living side by side in peace and security."

A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals -- including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists -- reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.

Israel's experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.

At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory.

The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO, which Israel regarded as a terrorist outfit and sought to crush until the 1990s, when the PLO dropped its vow to destroy the Jewish state. The PLO's Palestinian rival, Hamas, led by Islamist militants, refused to recognize Israel and vowed to continue "resistance." Hamas now controls Gaza, a crowded, impoverished sliver of land on the Mediterranean from which Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.

When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and '80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank.

"When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," says David Hacham, who worked in Gaza in the late 1980s and early '90s as an Arab-affairs expert in the Israeli military. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results."

Israeli officials who served in Gaza disagree on how much their own actions may have contributed to the rise of Hamas. They blame the group's recent ascent on outsiders, primarily Iran. This view is shared by the Israeli government. "Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons," Mr. Olmert said last Saturday. Hamas has denied receiving military assistance from Iran.

Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military's Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement that was spreading across the Muslim world. He says attempts to stop it are akin to trying to change the internal rhythms of nature: "It is like saying: 'I will kill all the mosquitoes.' But then you get even worse insects that will kill you...You break the balance. You kill Hamas you might get al Qaeda."

When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel -- particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 -- Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians. The group ultimately trounced secular rivals, notably Fatah, in a 2006 election supported by Israel's main ally, the U.S.

Now, one big fear in Israel and elsewhere is that while Hamas has been hammered hard, the war might have boosted the group's popular appeal. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, came out of hiding last Sunday to declare that "God has granted us a great victory."

Most damaged from the war, say many Palestinians, is Fatah, now Israel's principal negotiating partner. "Everyone is praising the resistance and thinks that Fatah is not part of it," says Baker Abu-Baker, a longtime Fatah supporter and author of a book on Hamas.

A Lack of Devotion

Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion. Its slogan: "Islam is the solution. The Quran is our constitution." Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia.

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi. He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief. "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi.

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.

The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly. In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad. He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

Mr. Cohen, who worked at the time for the Israeli government's religious affairs department in Gaza, says he began to hear disturbing reports in the mid-1970s about Sheikh Yassin from traditional Islamic clerics. He says they warned that the sheikh had no formal Islamic training and was ultimately more interested in politics than faith. "They said, 'Keep away from Yassin. He is a big danger,'" recalls Mr. Cohen.

Instead, Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the recent war.

Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.

Mr. Segev says he had regular contact with Sheikh Yassin, in part to keep an eye on him. He visited his mosque and met the cleric around a dozen times. It was illegal at the time for Israelis to meet anyone from the PLO. Mr. Segev later arranged for the cleric to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment. "We had no problems with him," he says.

In fact, the cleric and Israel had a shared enemy: secular Palestinian activists. After a failed attempt in Gaza to oust secularists from leadership of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Muslim version of the Red Cross, Mujama staged a violent demonstration, storming the Red Crescent building. Islamists also attacked shops selling liquor and cinemas. The Israeli military mostly stood on the sidelines.

Mr. Segev says the army didn't want to get involved in Palestinian quarrels but did send soldiers to prevent Islamists from burning down the house of the Red Crescent's secular chief, a socialist who supported the PLO.

'An Alternative to the PLO'

Clashes between Islamists and secular nationalists spread to the West Bank and escalated during the early 1980s, convulsing college campuses, particularly Birzeit University, a center of political activism.

As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.

A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."

A year later, in 1984, the Israeli military received a tip-off from Fatah supporters that Sheikh Yassin's Gaza Islamists were collecting arms, according to Israeli officials in Gaza at the time. Israeli troops raided a mosque and found a cache of weapons. Sheikh Yassin was jailed. He told Israeli interrogators the weapons were for use against rival Palestinians, not Israel, according to Mr. Hacham, the military affairs expert who says he spoke frequently with jailed Islamists. The cleric was released after a year and continued to expand Mujama's reach across Gaza.

Around the time of Sheikh Yassin's arrest, Mr. Cohen, the religious affairs official, sent a report to senior Israeli military and civilian officials in Gaza. Describing the cleric as a "diabolical" figure, he warned that Israel's policy towards the Islamists was allowing Mujama to develop into a dangerous force.

"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.

Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."

Roni Shaked, a former officer of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and author of a book on Hamas, says Sheikh Yassin and his followers had a long-term perspective whose dangers were not understood at the time. "They worked slowly, slowly, step by step according to the Muslim Brotherhood plan."

Declaring Jihad

In 1987, several Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver, triggering a wave of protests that became known as the first Intifada, Mr. Yassin and six other Mujama Islamists launched Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas's charter, released a year later, is studded with anti-Semitism and declares "jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief."

Israeli officials, still focused on Fatah and initially unaware of the Hamas charter, continued to maintain contacts with the Gaza Islamists. Mr. Hacham, the military Arab affairs expert, remembers taking one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud Zahar, to meet Israel's then defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as part of regular consultations between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO. Mr. Zahar, the only Hamas founder known to be alive today, is now the group's senior political leader in Gaza.

In 1989, Hamas carried out its first attack on Israel, abducting and killing two soldiers. Israel arrested Sheikh Yassin and sentenced him to life. It later rounded up more than 400 suspected Hamas activists, including Mr. Zahar, and deported them to southern Lebanon. There, they hooked up with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed A-Team of anti-Israeli militancy.

Many of the deportees later returned to Gaza. Hamas built up its arsenal and escalated its attacks, while all along maintaining the social network that underpinned its support in Gaza.

Meanwhile, its enemy, the PLO, dropped its commitment to Israel's destruction and started negotiating a two-state settlement. Hamas accused it of treachery. This accusation found increasing resonance as Israel kept developing settlements on occupied Palestinian land, particularly the West Bank. Though the West Bank had passed to the nominal control of a new Palestinian Authority, it was still dotted with Israeli military checkpoints and a growing number of Israeli settlers.

Unable to uproot a now entrenched Islamist network that had suddenly replaced the PLO as its main foe, Israel tried to decapitate it. It started targeting Hamas leaders. This, too, made no dent in Hamas's support, and sometimes even helped the group. In 1997, for example, Israel's Mossad spy agency tried to poison Hamas's exiled political leader Mr. Mashaal, who was then living in Jordan.

The agents got caught and, to get them out of a Jordanian jail, Israel agreed to release Sheikh Yassin. The cleric set off on a tour of the Islamic world to raise support and money. He returned to Gaza to a hero's welcome.

Efraim Halevy, a veteran Mossad officer who negotiated the deal that released Sheikh Yassin, says the cleric's freedom was hard to swallow, but Israel had no choice. After the fiasco in Jordan, Mr. Halevy was named director of Mossad, a position he held until 2002. Two years later, Sheikh Yassin was killed by an Israeli air strike.

Mr. Halevy has in recent years urged Israel to negotiate with Hamas. He says that "Hamas can be crushed," but he believes that "the price of crushing Hamas is a price that Israel would prefer not to pay." When Israel's authoritarian secular neighbor, Syria, launched a campaign to wipe out Muslim Brotherhood militants in the early 1980s it killed more than 20,000 people, many of them civilians.

In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."

Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.

He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."

The Latest from Israel-Palestine-Gaza (24 January)

Latest Post: How Israel Spawned Hamas
Earlier Updates and Links to Stories: The Latest from Israel-Palestine-Gaza (23 January)

8:35 p.m. After a long and busy week, we're taking the night off. We'll be back in the morning with all the overnight developments fit to notice.

8:30 p.m. Just to make sure that no one forgets his country's emerging position amidst the Gaza conflict, Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has congratulated Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal on the "victory" over Israeli forces.

7:23 p.m. Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal has followed up his criticism of US policy on Israel and Palestine, and an Obama phone call to Saudi King Abdullah, with a more muted warning in an interview with CNN. While welcoming Obama's Friday statement and the appointment of envoy George Mitchell, Turki said: "We've heard this before. We need to see implementation. We need to see facts on the ground change. We need to see rhetoric change. We need to see presence on the ground."

7:15 p.m. Hamas is not backing down in the face of Israel's attempts to cut off aid unless it is distributed by other organisations. The Gazan leadership has announced the formation of a committee of senior officials as "the only body to oversee and supervise the rescue. We will be in contact with all other bodies, whether local, national or international, to organise the relief."

7:10 p.m. While Lebanon has not been in the front line of Arab debate over Gaza, it is still worthwhile to note the statement of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Saturday. Speaking of a Day of Solidarity with Gaza, Siniora called on all Lebanese "to support the Palestinian brethren in Gaza in any way possible and according to the individual's capability".

5:50 p.m. Word is being leaked that President Obama's envoy George Mitchell will visit Israel and the West Bank next week. The sharp-eyed amongst you will already note that he is not going to Gaza.

5:35 p.m. ITV and Channel 4 have broken with the BBC and will now air a Disaster Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza. The same article also carries Tony Benn's prediction that the BBC will back down and agree to air the appeal, "Before the sun sets in London tonight."



5:05 p.m. A must-see article in The Wall Street Journal: "How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas". We've reprinted and analysed it in a separate post.

2:55 p.m. Interesting counter-move in Cairo: Hamas is meeting with Egyptian officials to discuss a possible swap of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas since 2006, for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Equally, Hamas is suggesting that members of the Palestinian Authority can assist in the monitoring of the Rafah crossing, as long as they are residents of Gaza and not the West Bank. Hamas is also proposing that European Union and Turkish peacekeepers supervise the border.

These are quite clever proposals.  Hamas is trying to separate the Shalit issue from the question of reopening the crossings, and their proposals for the border are very close to the Mubarak-Sarkozy plan pressed by Cairo soon after the initial Israeli attacks. If Cairo agrees, Egypt has effectively dismissed its earlier hopes of removing Hamas from power, and the diplomatic ball will be in  Tel Aviv's court.

2:50 p.m. Schools have reopened in Gaza, but teachers are having to deal with the "psychological trauma" suffered by children in recent weeks.

12:50 p.m. In Case You're Still Thinking About That Regime Change Idea. Washington Post reporters finally get into Gaza and report:

In dozens of interviews across Gaza on Friday, ...Palestinians generally expressed either unbridled support for Hamas or resignation to the idea that the group's reign in Gaza will continue for the foreseeable future. No one suggested that the group is vulnerable.

12:30 p.m. The New York Times has a long profile on the quick rebuilding of Gazan tunnels, damaged by Israeli airstrikes: "The tunnels are the principal livelihood for many people here, and as soon as the bombing stopped, they were right back in them with their shovels."

The best quote? “This will give us greater skills,” said one digger. “We’ll become artists.”

11 a.m. Interesting revelations in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz: Obama envoy George Mitchell will arrive in the Middle East before 10 February. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has gone on the offensive and set out Israel's preconditions in any negotiations, telling US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel will "not open the Gaza crossings without progress toward the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit".

10 a.m. Israel/Gaza time: The Israeli Government has appointed an inter-ministerial legal defense team to defend officials and soldiers against any war crimes charges.

Your Obama on Top of the World Updates (22 January)

Related Post: The Joseph Lowery Benediction
Related Post: The Inaugural - The Daily Show Tribute

5:55 p.m. Mike here- one last update: Obama has called on Israel to open its borders with Gaza.

5 p.m. Well, that's Day 2 (so far) of the Great Obama Foreign Policy Journey. Tomorrow, we'll attempt an assessment of the ups, downs, and in-betweens of the initial meetings and decisions.

The President's moves not only on Guantanamo Bay but on CIA black sites were encouraging, even if they cannot be implemented soon. Less encouraging, despite all the fanfare at the State Department were the Mitchell and Holbrooke appointments, as it is not clear the Administration has really thought through its diplomatic approach. It is a blessing, at least, that Obama and Hillary Clinton did not make the situation worse by naming Dennis Ross as envoy on Iranian matters, a move only slightly less provocative than appointing Mike Tyson to keep the peace.

The emerging conflict and muddle over Iraq and Afghanistan, brought out by the Robert Gates statement and the military-White House competing briefings on Iraq, is not encouraging.

Good night and peace to all.

4:50 p.m. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has issued what is, frankly, a very strange statement on the Administration's goals in Afghanistan.

Gates, unintentionally, points to the conflict that has already broken out over troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, stating that "no decision on troop deployments to Afghanistan has been made". What is even more disconcerting, however, is his explanation that the Obama Administration's new war plan will focus on "very concrete things" such as establishing control in parts of the country, going after al Qaeda, and delivering services and security for the Afghan people.

Hmm....isn't that what the Bush Administration was doing? Apparently not: "The goals we did have for Afghanistan [were] too broad and too far into the future, [were] too future-oriented, and [were] we need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years."

That, to be blunt, is gobbledy-gook. One can only hope it is not reflective of the thinking in the NSC-military meeting yesterday.



4:40 p.m. And is that an Obama pre-emptive strike in the US approach to Iran? He declares that all external support for "terrorist organizations in the Middle East" must be halted.

4:35 p.m. But George Mitchell, I fear, may already be boxed in by his President. After declaring to applause that "the US will not torture", Obama firmly declared that Hamas must not re-arm and recognise Israel's right to exist.

The question is whether the US Government will discreetly talk to Hamas in advance of such a statement, hoping to move the organisation towards recognition of Tel Aviv, or set recognition as a pre-condition for any discussions. If the latter, the Mitchell mission is a non-starter.

4:30 p.m. George Mitchell's opening statement was professional and suitably non-committal. He said there was no conflict that could not be resolved and promised a sustained effort by the Obama Administration towards Middle Eastern peace.

A reader notes, "The word Palestinians was used twice, the word Ireland I lost count. Good to know they're sending a clear message."

4:25 p.m. A bit of a show at State Department as President Obama and Vice President Biden in clear show of support --- a far cry from the ostracism of the Department and its Secretary,  Colin Powell, in first term of Bush Administration.

3:55 p.m. Richard Holbrooke has also been confirmed as envoy to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. However --- and this is both unexpected and significant --- Dennis Ross has not been named as envoy on Iranian matters.

3:40 p.m. Confirmation that George Mitchell will be Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East. The former Senator and experienced negotiator, who helped broker the 1998 Northern Ireland agreement and served as Bill Clinton's envoy in 2000 to Israel and Palestine, is of Lebanese descent. Officials and Administration contacts are keen to play up Mitchell as an honest broker:

By naming Mitchell as his personal envoy, Obama is sending a diplomatic heavyweight to the region. "He's neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian," Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told The New York Times. "He's, in a sense, neutral."

Mitchell is probably best known on the world stage for the Good Friday agreement he negotiated between Roman Catholics and Protestants that created a cease-fire in Northern Ireland in 1998.

2:35pm A list of all Obama's executive orders to date is being published here. (Thanks, mhasko)

1:35 p.m. It's official. Obama has signed an executive order requiring the Guantánamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

1:30 p.m. ABC News reports that there were no arrests at Tuesday's inauguration.

10 a.m. And so the manoeuvring within the Obama White House begins. The President, as we noted, tried to lock down any speculation over the outcome of yesterday's meeting of the National Security Council and military with the statement, "I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq."

However, CNN has heard from "Pentagon officials [who] said the generals left believing they were not ordered to being implementing [Obama's] campaign promise to pull all US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months". So a White House official is "insisting that the President did remind the commanders of his goal to remove troops, but he wants to get their input, so he asked them to come up with a plan that's workable".

9:35 a.m. They Just Won't Go Away: All week long, The Wall Street Journal has been desperately insisting that former President Bush was jolly good for the United States and one day we'll all be grateful for his wisdom and leadership. Today it's Karl Rove's turn, as he moves from "the thoughtfulness and grace so characteristic of this wonderful American family" to declare "right about Iraq", "right to take the war on terror abroad", "right to be a unilateralist", say on AIDS in Africa, right on tax cuts, right on Medicare, etc.

Number of times Hurricane Katrina mentioned in article: 0

9:30 a.m. Dramatic, almost star-struck scenes as the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, addresses State Department staff. Career diplomats are standing on desks to get a glimpse of Clinton. There is huge enthusiasm when Clinton promises to remedy the "neglect" the Department has suffered in recent years.

7:25 a.m. Today's Axis of Evil Alert: Lawyer Robert Amsterdam in The Washington Post:

The administrations of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Vladimir Putin in Russia are enjoying a robust, burgeoning friendship. Though they are separated by 6,000 miles, the two leaders' bond is sealed not only by their similar tastes for repressive authoritarianism, oil expropriations and large arms deals but also by parallel trends of increasing violence and murder on the streets of their cities.

7:15 a.m. Culture of Fear Alert: Marc A. Thiessen, former speechwriter for former President George W. Bush: "President Obama has inherited a set of tools that successfully protected the country for 2,688 days -- and he cannot dismantle those tools without risking catastrophic consequences."

(Note: George W. Bush was also President from 20 January to 11 September 2001, when more than 3000 people were killed in attacks in the United States.)

7 a.m. The Dark-Horse Crisis? Under the radar of most of the media, the situation in Somalia (and the Bush Administration's policy there) continues to deteriorate. The Washington Post sounds the alarm, "With Ethiopian Pullout, Islamists Rise Again in Somalia". UN agencies are threatening to halt food distribution because of attacks on their staff.

The US-fostered and Ethiopia-implemented overthrow of the Islamic Courts government in 2006 was meant to install a "proper" Government that would support American plans in East Africa. Instead, that Somalian administration has collapsed, and "more radical" Islamic groups such as al-Shahab have emerged.

6:30 a.m. In overnight fighting in eastern Afghanistan, NATO and US military claim that 28 militants killed.

4:30 a.m. Still no significant word, however, on Obama's National Security Council meeting with military commanders, including General David Petraeus, on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead, after the meeting, Obama issued a holding statement:“I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq....[I plan] to undertake a full review of the situation in Afghanistan in order to develop a comprehensive policy for the entire region.”

Dexter Filkins of The New York Times has an article, "In Afghan South, Taliban Fill NATO's Big Gaps", which highlights the tenuous situation in the country and possibly makes the Administration's case for a doubling of US troop levels.

4:20 a.m. Now, this is huge. According to The New York Times:

President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year.

So the closure is not just of Camp X-Ray but of all the "black sites" involved in the rendition programmes pursued by the Bush Administration. Those sites, reportedly scattered across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia have handled and hidden away far more detainees than the number remaining in Guantanamo Bay. If Obama combines this with an order that US intelligence services do not operate these covert prisons in future, that will be a major step back to legal campaigns against those who threaten American security.

One caveat: this order will not affect Camp Bagram in Afghanistan, which is run by the US military and is by far the biggest American detention facility outside the United States.

3:45 a.m. Well, He's Got Fidel's Endorsement: Castro on-line statement says, "I do not have the slightest doubt of the honesty of Obama when he expresses his ideas."

2:45 a.m. So let me understand this: a President re-takes the oath of office to ensure he adheres to the US Constitution while a former President and his advisors, who trampled all over the Constitution, don't have to do anything?

1:05 a.m. Today Obama will sign the order, which we mentioned yesterday, promising the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within 12 months.

Morning update (1 a.m.) One of the minor setbacks for President Obama yesterday was the delay in naming a team to implement the approach to the Middle East, Iran, and Central/South Asia. Simple reason --- it wouldn't have been fitting to roll out his special envoys before Hillary Clinton was appointed as Secretary of State.

This will be remedied today with the naming of George Mitchell as envoy to Israel and Palestine, Dennis Ross as envoy to Iran, and Richard Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The announcement brings back three politicians/diplomats from the global negotiations of the 1990s.

We'll offer an analysis as soon as the news is confirmed but, in brief.... Mitchell (with experience that includes the brokering of a Northern Ireland settlement) is an excellent choice but will be limited by Obama's so-far passive approach to the Gaza crisis and possibly by a policy that will not countenance any inclusion of Hamas in negotiations. Holbrooke (with his record in cases such as the Balkans talks in the 1990s) is well-qualified. Ross (as Bill Clinton's representative in Israel-Palestine talks) has experience but --- with a hard-line towards Tehran and ties with groups that countenance coercion of Iran rather than diplomacy --- could be a major error.

Rolling Updates on Israeli Invasion of Gaza (5 January)

Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)

2:55 a.m. Downtime until the morning. Thanks for all your support and comments today.

2:30 a.m. The lull continues but, as former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman denies on Al Jazeera that a "National Information Directorate" exists (which is a bold move, given that the NID was "outed" in The Observer of London on Sunday), signs that Israel's information campaign may not be able to hold open the window for military operations very long.

CNN International is not only leading with footage of the hospitals crisis in Gaza but pointedly noted they obtained this footage despite an Israeli-imposed ban on journalists inside the territory.

Israel tried to counter this by playing up their permission for 80 truckloads of aid (just over 1/10 the pre-conflict amount) into southern Gaza on Monday. On this evidence, this won't be enough to hold back mounting criticism.

1:25 a.m. Developments on the diplomatic front: Arab Foreign Ministers have met in New York but it is already clear that a Libyan-sponsored resolution, blocked by the US last weekend, is "dead". Instead, talk is of a French-drafted resolution, which Paris is hoping will be supported by Arab representatives. United Nations sources say this will include calls for an immediate ceasefire, a "humanitarian corridor" for aid, and a "monitoring mechanism". With the manoeuvring needed for any hope of passage, the resolution will not be brought up for a vote on Tuesday.

The Gazan death toll is now at least 548. UN officials in Gaza continue to emphasise that this is "a humanitarian crisis".


11:30 p.m. A bit of a lull in developments on military and diplomatic fronts. Al Jazeera reports that the fighting around Gaza City seems for an elevated area just outside the city which provides a vantage point across northern Gaza.

9:30 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin on the current Israeli bombardment: "Almost every building in Israel's definition is a Hamas building."



9:05 p.m. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces trying to take strategic overlook looking down on Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in Gaza.

8:55 p.m. Israeli bloggers claim that the English website of Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has been hacked by Israel. Both English and Arabic sites of Al Qassam are currently offline.

8:50 p.m. CNN is way behind the story. As fighting intensifies around and possibly in Gaza City, this is their website lead: "Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel on Monday despite a 10-day Israeli military campaign that reportedly has left more than 500 Palestinians dead."

8:45 p.m. Arab foreign ministers, who have mostly sat on their hands during this crisis, finally decide they have to make some pretence at action. Palestine Authority, Libyan, Moroccan, and Jordanian ministers are en route to New York.

8:20 p.m. The explosions we noted an hour ago seem to be the "softening-up" artillery shelling for an Israeli advance on Gaza City. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad has told Al Jazeera that Israeli tanks are trying to move into the city, and Israeli sources have confirmed that a "major battle" is taking place on the northern outskirts.

7:20 p.m. Affidavit of "Maher Najjar, Deputy Director, Coastal Municipalities Water Utility" now on-line:

As of last night, there is no electricity at all in Gaza City....Two of the lines feeding electricity to Rafah, one from Israel and one from Egypt, have been damaged.... I have no additional diesel reserves, and I cannot obtain additional diesel right now. The water wells and sewage pumping stations that still have diesel will run out within a few days, others have none.

7:15 p.m. As Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin gives live report from Gaza City, massive explosion on-screen behind him. Moyheldin: "There's nowhere for the residents of that area to go....You're seeing a very modern army unleashing weapons on a defenceless population."

7:10 p.m. Most inept disinformation campaign: "Al Jazera" on Twitter --- Sample update: "The leaders of Hamas say 'we will hide as long as needed, our women and children will suffer for us'"

7:05 p.m. Al Jazeera correspondents reporting fireballs and "white explosions" in northern Gaza.

6:30 p.m. Following story in The Times of London that Israel used white phosphorous bombs to cover its ground invasion, Moussa el-Haddad, Gaza resident and father of blogger Laila el-Haddad ("Gazamom"), reports "series of bombs in a row, followed by a large white halo, white smoke; people in vicinity cannot breathe...irritation, and exposed areas [of body] become red, blistered, and itchy".

6 p.m. Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk in Damascus to Reuters: Hamas is open to truce in Gaza but only if Israel lifts its blockade:

Any initiative not based on ending the aggression, opening the border crossings and an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has no chance of succeeding.

5:55 p.m. Al-Jazeera reports that the first week of the Gaza offensive has resulted in estimated losses of $1.5 billion.

5 p.m. The statement of Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubeida is now summarised on-line: claims of one Israeli helicopter downed, one tank and one personnel carrier destroyed, one POW taken

4:55 p.m. Al Jazeera reports Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza hit by two artillery shells

4:35 p.m. The Guardian of London is reporting "gun battles in the streets of Gaza City for the first time this morning"  with Israeli troops going house-to-house looking for Hamas fighters

4:20 p.m. Fares Akram, the Gaza correspondent for The Independent of London, writes about his father, killed by an Israeli bomb in northern Gaza on Saturday:

My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture....

As a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.

4:15 p.m. Al Jazeera: 70 percent of Gazans without clean drinking water, food distribution suspended in northern Gaza

Hassan Khalaf, director of Al Shifa hospital: "What is happening is genocide."

3:55 p.m. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida says on Al Aqsa Television said on Monday that the group has "thousands" of fighters and will welcome Israel into Gaza "with fire and iron"

3:03 p.m. Al Jazeera reports eyewitness accounts of Israeli troops demolishing some houses and taking up positions on rooftops of others.

2:42 p.m. Now Livni sets out the rest of her strategy, pointing to restoration of Fatah/Palestinian Authority in Gaza --- Agreement on border crossings (and thus passage of aid) was in 2005 with EU and "legitimate" Palestinian Authority --- Hamas is "illegitimate"

Head of EU delegation: EU "insists on cease-fire at earliest possible moment", not after Israeli military operations --- We have difference in view from Israel on this: "This has to be clearly set."

2:34 p.m. If Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sets out same line in private that she has just set out in public, there is no hope of any Israeli movement toward cease-fire --- Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "Everybody here knows that European Union is peripheral....Israel is satellite of United States"

Livni lays out the political strategy of "moderates" with Israel against "extremists": "Everybody in this region needs to choose where he belongs" --- Hamas is connected with Iran, Damascus, and Hezbollah

2:25 p.m. Press conference of EU delegation and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has just started --- Livni: "Situation is that we face terror....Now we need to against terror, against Hamas."

2:22 p.m. Intriguing diplomatic manoeuvre: Speaker of Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani travelling to Damascus to meet Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

2:20 p.m. YNet News reports 24 rockets fired at southern Israel with several people lightly wounded.

2:15 p.m. Al Jazeera is focusing on humanitarian crisis and now the increasing number of child fatalities:

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_gEBO-6VRjs[/youtube]



12:35 p.m United Nations Relief and Works Agency representative tells CNN that 250,000 Gazans have no access to clean water. It is a "rapidly deteriorating situation".

Fuel terminal is due to reopen today. Israel says it is sending in 80 trucks today (compared to 750/day during the truce period).

12:30 p.m. Oxfam tell BBC that they cannot bring food into Gaza because of the security risk.

11:40 a.m. In case you missed it, this report from Israel's Ha'aretz:

The ground invasion was preceded by large-scale artillery shelling from around 4 P.M....Hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas.

11:05 a.m. The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator has issued an updated report, through 5 p.m yesterday, on the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

It is essential that patients and ambulances are able to reach hospitals, that agencies are able to access warehouses in order to conduct distributions. Currently movement within the Strip is severely challenged.

10:50 a.m. Yesterday we noted one of few examples of "Palestinian viewpoint" on CNN, the interview with Gazan resident Moussa el-Haddad and his daughter Laila in North Carolina. Interview has just been repeated on CNN International.

Laila el-Haddad is posting on events in Gaza via Twitter.

10:40 a.m. Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz calls for move from military operations to diplomacy:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Jerusalem today provides Israel with an exit ramp from the fighting against Hamas in Gaza. Sarkozy proposes declaring a lull in combat, which would test whether Hamas would agree to halt firing rockets. Israel would do well to respond affirmatively to the proposal, which protects its right to respond with force in the event the Palestinians continue firing from the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal puts out Israeli public-relations line:

In the clearest break from a strategy it used to pursue Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli leaders have set out clearly defined -- and relatively modest -- expectations for the current Gaza offensive.

10:20 a.m. A day of activity on the diplomatic front, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a Hamas delegation in Cairo and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in New York. A European Union delegation is arriving in Egypt before continuing to Israel and possibly Palestinian territories.

On Sunday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, and Russian envoy Alexander Saltonov met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Neither discussion produced any breakthroughs --- Livni pointedly rejected Saltanov's offer of communication with Hamas via Russia:

We are serious in our intention to harm Hamas and we have no intention to give them legitimize them and pass messages on to them. We have nothing to discuss with Hamas.

10:15 a.m. Israel/Palestine time: Israel has continued its aerial and artillery bombardment in support of its ground offensive, hitting 30 Hamas targets as well as a mosque which the Israeli Defense Forces claimed was storing weapons.

The Gazan death toll is now 521. At least 12 more civilians, including seven members of a family, have been killed in strikes on refugee camps and homes.

The IDF says 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel on Sunday. The number, while less than the number launched at the start of the 10-day conflict, is an increase from the the 20 fired on Saturday.

Most Gazans are confined to homes without electricity and with shortages of food and water.