AxisMundi Jerusalem
Inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories
Mahmoud Abbas “on trial”
A youth group in the Gaza Strip held a mock trial for the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. The Youth Parliament, a group under the media department of the Islamist group Hamas, prosecuted Abbas on charge of “betraying the blood of the martyrs and the injured”.
The charge was in reference to Abbas’s agreement to defer the vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month. Many human rights groups have been pressing nations to endorse the UN report critical of the Gaza War seeing it as a way to hold both Israel and Hamas accountable for the hundreds of civilian deaths in the devastating war. The vote on the Goldstone Report was delayed to next March, which looked like a victory for Israel, and some Palestinians charged his decision had raised serious questions about Abbas’s leadership. Abbas, doing some damage control, pledged to push for an exceptional UNHCR session, which is being held on Wednesday. (Read more here.)
A panel of three teen judges presided over this trial held at the Hamas media offices in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip. A man with a similar physique as the Palestinian Authority president acted the part of the defendant, wearing a mask with a picture of Abbas’s face, standing handcuffed and chained at the ankles throughout the trial. He also mimicked Abbas’s accent and intonation.
The prosecutor’s opening statement was followed by testimonies from a human rights group representative, an Arab League representative, Abbas’s defense lawyer, and Mahmoud Abbas “himself”. A young girl, representative of “the children of Palestine”, claiming to have come straight from school to testify against the “traitor”, spoke as a “witness to the crimes committed against the children”.
Abbas was unsurprisingly found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. His personal property is also to be seized for public use, the mock verdict said.
The Parliament is comprised of 50 girls and boys under the age of 18. It has already “tried” several politicians: former U.S. President George W. Bush towards the end of his term and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly before he fell ill a few years ago.
Evaluating Obama
The limelight this week was on U.S. President Barack Obama who made his debut at the United Nations in New York brokering his first summit of Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday and delivering his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. (Read more here.)
Reviews of his performance are in from the Middle East and they are not in the main favorable.
The first round of reviews analyzing the three-way summit, noted Obama’s usage of “restraint” over “freeze” – withdrawal of a demand for a full stop on West Bank settlement expansion. They maintained a pessimistic attitude towards the U.S. president, questioning his ability to revive peace negotiations. Israeli newspapers ran headlines such as “The Road to Nowhere,” “The Cold Summit,” and “Obama-Show”.
An op-ed in Yedioth Ahronoth called the meeting “artificial,” and a photo opportunity organized to “create an image of leadership and commitment to securing an Israeli-Palestinian deal”.
“The trilateral summit, or more accurately its photos, was meant to demonstrate leadership ability and personal commitment by the president to prompting revolutionary changes in Israel’s ties with the Arabs. Here you go, the president managed to bring together leaders who did not want to do it,” wrote Eytan Gilboa, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University. “Yet the forced summit, in New York and not at the White House, during the UN’s General Assembly and not as an event in and of itself, served to demonstrate the president’s weakness rather than his power.”
A columnist at the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper, saw the summit more as “a farewell souvenir photo” . Pointing to Obama’s election campaign, his record as a master of strategic politics, and various policy issues he is juggling at the moment, Rami G. Khouri forecast no rapid developments. “More likely, I suspect, will be the emergence of a slow process where Obama clears other pressing concerns from his desk – health care and the economy should be on a good course by December – before turning to the Middle East again, probably with a different set of characters in the picture,” he wrote.
Good point Joe, he gets it to about the same level as our last president did. Both completely clueless.
The Democrats like warmongering with sanctions (Obama-Iran, Clinton-Iraq) and Republicans like warmongering with bombs (Bush 1-Iraq, Bush 2-Iraq/Afghanistan).
Both have the same result, get the middle east to hate us and make people want to blow themselves up to kill. Also ends up killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The Iran question, again
It seems last week’s focus, settlement expansion, has given way to this week’s prime focus: Might Israel attack Iran?
Last week the Arab media found Israel’s refusal to cease settlement expansion unsurprising and affirmative of what they said was Israel’s unwillingness to pursue a peace settlement with the Palestinians. An op-ed in Al Ahram Weekly, an English-language newspaper in Egypt, questioned the Arabs’ ability to challenge Israel: “Will they have the courage to shift the focus back from the Israeli-instigated ‘Iranian threat’ to the clear and present Israeli danger to the region?”
Lebanon’s Daily Star echoed the argument that Israel was using a perceived Iranian threat as a diversion to its greater “Machiavellian design”.
“The strategy that they employ is simple: Draw attention away from the issue of Israeli occupation and toward Iran, which they portray as a far greater threat to regional security,” the paper wrote in an editorial. “Campaigns that rely on this method tend to downplay the destabilizing impact that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has on the region, and argue that the Islamic Republic is the main – or indeed the only – source of regional violence.”
Former Israeli deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh said Israel might be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear sites if international powers had not agreed to impose sanctions by the end of this year, while the current Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said a nuclear Iran would not constitute a threat to Israel’s existence – since Israel would act first to pre-empt such a threat.
America and Israel (good bed fellows) want a war with Iran so badly they can’t see straight. All the talk about nuclear weapons and the denial of the Holocaust are just to scare people into supporting a war. Folks, don’t buy into this nonsense! Didn’t the government do the same thing with Iraq prior to invasion?
Hopeless or Hopeful?
The trilateral summit tomorrow at the United Nations in New York will be the first time the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president will be meeting since the suspension of peace talks last December, but nobody’s waiting with bated breath. According to our latest article, the inability to reach an agreement on a settlement freeze and Israelis and Palestinians accusing each other for the lack of efforts to revive peace negotiations, continue to be the bumps in the road to peace. (Read our FACTBOX about Israel’s settlements.)
After the U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s week-long shuttle diplomacy ended last week without obvious result. He had attempted to break the negotiation deadlock between the two sides, any chance of bringing three leaders together for dialogue – albeit “without preconditions” and promise for resumption of negotiations – should seem to be an occasion worth anticipating. (Read more of our coverage here.) Israeli newspapers, however, were not encouraged, calling the summit “the flight to nowhere” and projecting it would be “solely symbolic”.
Prominent Israeli commentator Nahum Barnea called the trilateral summit “not a meeting; not even half a meeting,” and “a joke at the expense of an American president who tried to get involved in Mideast politics and was stung”.
Avi Issacharoff in a news analysis for Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz, called the summit “a much sought-after photo-op” for the Obama administration:
“… Three leaders shaking hands, seemingly getting back to negotiations. This would come against the backdrop of the White House’s resounding failure to force Israel’s agreement to a complete settlement freeze or to persuade Arab states to make even tentative steps toward normalization with Israel, so a picture of the three leaders together will look like an extraordinary achievement,” wrote Issacharoff. “It might even help Obama and his administration to get the stalled peace process moving, however slowly.”
Did they hoard? Yes. Are they evil? No. It is our responsability to know this difference.
Insulting the intelligence
Good morning, children.
Today we are going to learn about two common rhetorical tricks that help greatly with the cynical manipulation of arguments.
First, disingenuousness. The Oxford Shorter English Dictionary defines disingenuous as “lacking in frankness, insincere, morally fraudulent”, in the sense of pretending not to know what you in fact know very well.
Second, the straw man argument. Wikipedia defines this as misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the straw man) and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original proposition.
Today, thanks to Mr Netanyahu, we have one handy slice of well-worn rhetoric to illustrate both rhetorical tricks.
I often wonder if the anti-Israel propagandists at Reuters like Douglas Hamilton and Alistair MacDonald sit around the table at Starbucks on Oxford Street sipping on lattes and dreaming up new and contemptible ways to slander Israel and its leaders.
At various points in their histories, sovereignty over New York, London, Paris, and Rome was also in dispute. The same holds true with Prague, Toronto, Istanbul, Pittsburgh, and today, Belfast, Gibraltar, and Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has been invaded, conquered, and colonized over a longer period of time than any other city in the world but only one nation can lay original claim to sovereignty and that is the Jewish nation. Despite numerous bloody conquests and expulsions, there has always been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the city has had a majority Jewish population since the 19th century. The fictitious “city” of East Jerusalem – which Reuters correspondents guilefully capitalize in an effort to demarcate as separate from the rest of the city – is home to the most sacred Jewish antiquities and, despite ethnic cleansing by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, 42% Jewish by population.
Of course, neither Douglas Hamilton nor any of the other Reuters crop will tell you the above nor will they explain that the 1947 UN resolution to internationalize Jerusalem was to be followed 10 years later by a vote among the city’s residents on the issue of sovereignty – a vote it is clear the Jewish majority in Jerusalem would have held in favor of Israel.
In these willful refusals to report the truth, it is Hamilton who is guilty of “insulting the intelligence”.
In the firing line
Israel’s military has been hit with a barrage of human rights reports this week. One, by the Israeli human rights group Gisha, criticises Israel’s policy of banning Palestinians from leaving the Gaza strip. The Red Cross has also filed a report, “Gaza: 1.5 Million People Trapped in Despair,” as well as a film(Gaza: Paying the Price) criticising Israel’s three-week incursion into Gaza last winter, known as “Operation Cast Lead.”
Meanwhile, former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone has begun collecting evidence about Operation Cast Lead for the UN Human Rights Council.
This week also saw a report on Gaza filed by Amnesty International as well as one by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which accuses Israel of using drones that killed civilians: “Drone operators can clearly see their targets on the ground and also divert their missiles after launch,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. “Given these capabilities, Israel needs to explain why these civilian deaths took place.”
A recent report by Reuters’ Dan Williams discusses the HRW report, including critiques of the group’s research by some military analysts:
“The value of such forensics was disputed by Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons. “Human Rights Watch makes a lot of claims and assumptions about weapons and drones, all of which is still fairly speculative, because we have so little evidence,” Hewson said…Despite his misgivings about the report, Hewson said it pointed to a broader problem of Israeli military doctrine. “What Israel has is total intelligence, surveillance, and reconaissance (over Gaza), which makes it extremely difficult for them to deny they knew who they were shooting at most of the time.”
Read Dan’s entire article here.
Several columnists in the Israeli media have come to the IDF’s defence. In the Jerusalem Post, Alan Dershowitz’s blog (Called the “Double Standard Watch”) has a new article, “The UN Kangaroo Investigations,” which states that ” The very mandate that authorized the Gaza investigation reveals its bias against Israel. The council has already concluded, without any pretense an investigation, that Israel is guilty of “grave violations of human rights due to its military attacks.” Another article by Edwin Bennatan, “Richard Goldstone’s Phony Inquiry on Gaza” criticizes the recent legal onslaught as well for bias.
The problem with the reports is that Israel never co-operates in any investigation. They prefer their own sham investigations. The world is watching and they know what they’ve done.
Branding Israel
For many Israelis the sight of European delegates walking out during a speech by Iran’s president at last week’s U.N. conference on racism was a rare moment of solidarity by countries often critical of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians.
“Defeated” read a front-page banner headline in one Israeli newspaper next to a picture of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had to face the mass walkout by Western diplomats at the forum in Geneva when he called Israel a “racist state” in his speech.
In a bid to improve its image, Israel, which has always worried greatly about its international standing in public opinion, has launched a campaign called “Brand Israel”. You can read about it and the obstacles that the Jewish state faces by clicking this link .
Ahmadinejad’s speech was seen in Israel as doubly insulting as it came on the eve of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day when the country remembered the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
(Photo caption: Iran’s President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the High Level segment of the Durban Review Conference on racism at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva April 20, 2009. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse (SWITZERLAND POLITICS IMAGES OF THE DAY)
hmm, so let’s get this straight. a danish newspaper can draw up a cartoon insulting prophet mohammed, and when millions of muslims protest that, the response is that well “it’s freedom of speech” and other newspapers decide to show solidarity by publishing in other newspapers. but when someone condmens israel for murdering palestinains, and it is talked about, the issue is forbidden to be brought up. ok, i think i’m understanding this. i guess, when u r an arab, or african or hispanic, the issue is not a big deal.keep it up western countries, your policies have worked wonderfully so far, as you can see thru out the world things are looking great. great job guys
The Holocaust’s untold toll
As Israelis prepare for their annual Holocaust commemorations on Monday, one scholar has taken a different tack on the tragedy by estimating how many Jews might have been alive today were it not for the Nazi genocide.
According to demographer Sergio DellaPergola, the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War Two more than halved the potential global Jewish community in the long-run. Rather than numbering some 13 million now, there might have between 26 million and 32 million Jews, he says in an article to be published in the journal of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
“The Holocaust struck a deep blow to the demographic, cultural and social fabric of the Jewish people in many ways,” DellaPergola said in a statement issued by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is professor of Israel-Diaspora relations.
DellaPergola speculated not only on the number of offspring that those who perished by the Nazis never had, but also how many Jews might have been “lost”, nominally, to low birthrates and intermarriage in Eastern Europe — the Ground Zero of the Holocaust.
Unmentioned in the Hebrew University statement is the possibility that the State of Israel might not have been set up were it not for the Holocaust, which mobilised world opinion behind the Jews’ quest for a sovereign haven. Israel is now home to 6 million Jews and a million Arab Muslims and Christians. Many demographers believe the country will soon have the majority of world Jewry given rates of assimilation in the diaspora.
Israelis mark Holocaust Remembrance Day by standing silently as sirens sound nationwide. Broadcasters air educational programmes and news media report on the conditions of Holocaust survivors in Israel.
even if half the things that were stated by sergey were true, how does this justify any of the things that israel does today? it seems that everyone had a something to say about this region except the palestinains themselves. keep in mind, this whole concept was conducted by the british and french during “secret meetings”.only after everything was already planned for partitions and occupations did the arabs get on board and tried to grab whatever territory they could. and how does any of this justify the illegal settlements that continue today? how does this justify economic blockades and restrictions within palestinains territories? it doesn’t. the only israelis who favor these type of crimes are those who have an agenda. the majority of human rights groups within israel itself who are condemn israel’s actions and policies are those who are the children of the holocaust survivors and victims. for they are the people who know what it is liked to be locked up in cage. the others just exploit and use the holocaust for their own sick agendas.
from Global News Journal:
Gaza shows Kosovo “doctrine” doesn’t apply
Protesters staged large demonstrations in Western capitals 10 years ago to urge governments to intervene to stop Serb forces killing civilians in Kosovo.Despite having no United Nations mandate, NATO went to war for the first time and bombed Serbia for 11 weeks to stop what it called the Yugoslav army's disproportionate use of force in its offensive against separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas."We have a moral duty," said then NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana as bombers took off on March 24, 1999 to "bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe".The intervention helped launch a doctrine of international "Responsibility to Protect" civilians in conflicts. Advocates of "R2P" proposed humanitarian intervention in Myanmar in 2007 and military force in Zimbabwe in 2008.But it never happened and the likelihood of this doctrine being adopted universally now in a UN declaration is slim, as was shown by the Gaza war that began two months ago.On Dec. 27, Israeli bombers went into action over Gaza. As reports of civilian deaths grew, protesters staged rallies in Western capitals to demand leaders act to end the offensive against Islamist Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave.Critics accused Israel of using "disproportionate" force, just as many said Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic had done.But intervention in Gaza was impossible politically and militarily unimaginable. Unlike Serbia, Israel is not seen in the West as a rogue state and widescale ethnic cleansing was not under way in Gaza.Solana visited the enclave on Friday as foreign policy chief of the European Union, which seeks to foster peace in the Middle East through "soft power" -- diplomacy and aid, not intervention of the kind he advocated as head of the NATO alliance.NATO never embraced the "responsibility to protect" concept, arguing that Kosovo, which most allies have subsequently recognised as an independent state, was a unique case that should not set a precedent.Soft power may eventually mean encouraging talks with Hamas -- which is now shunned by the West. In an open letter published this week, a group of former foreign ministers urged a change in that policy, saying peace depends on talking to the militants.But with rockets from Gaza again being fired daily into Israel, the prospect of a breakthrough soon seems bleak as right-wing prime minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu tries to form a government.Viewing war damage in Gaza on Friday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store spoke of "senseless destruction." He blamed Hamas for starting the conflict, but said Israel's response "goes beyond what international law allows."Serb forces in the 1998-99 Kosovo war ignored the idea of "proportionality" on the battlefield. They were sure no army would willingly tie its own hands in the face of insurgency. They mortared, burned and raided "guerrilla" villages to driveoff civilians and deprive the rebels of cover.On Thursday, the U.N. tribunal in The Hague sentenced two Serbian generals to 22 years in jail for war crimes in Kosovo. Serbia handed them over under Western pressure.Israel openly assured its soldiers during the Gaza offensive that they would not face such prosecution. Discussing tactics for a future conflict, one senior Israeli general also dismissed "proportionality" as a deterrent."We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction," said Northern Command chief Gadi Eisenkot."This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has been authorised," he told daily Yedioth Ahronoth ast October.Defending Israel's action in Gaza, President Shimon Peres reminded NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer that NATO's own bombing of Serbia killed "hundreds of civilians".Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mocked the idea that he should ask soldiers to fight an evenly-matched battle in which a few hundred might be killed simply to win international approval for a war in which Hamas was fighting in heavily populated areas.But scholars of international law say proportionality does not mean a "fair fight" or balanced death toll, let alone making sure no civilian dies. It requires belligerents to use weapons that distinguish civilians from military targets and combatants.According to Gaza figures -- which Israel says are suspect-- some 600 of 1,300 Palestinians killed in Gaza were civilians. Of 13 Israelis killed during the 22-day war, 10 were soldiers.Human Rights Watch, the U.N. Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Israeli rights group B'Tselem have called for investigations.
Thirty years ago, the Israel state took part in my country, Guatemala, supporting the guatemalan army in our genocide, to crush the marxist insurgency. Here, died about 250,000 civilian people. Like others latinoamerican genocides, the guatemalan militaries responsibles of this mass killings are free, although the criminal prosecution has begun. Likewise, the jews military chiefs are sure of avoid the justice. USA is the main responsible for every barbaric actions, because its double standard and hipocresy. Otherwise, the latinoamerican and jews genocides were in jail, much time ago.
from Global News Journal:
Two weeks under fire in Gaza
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Voices get loud and excited over the radio Reuters news crews use in Gaza to call in the latest information. Some people complain there are no "Western reporters" inside. But we all work for Reuters, a global agency that sets the international standard.
After two full weeks of bombardment we are all worried about our families but we work and work the story. We hope it will stop.
"They bombed a car in Beit Lahiyah," says one colleague working in northern Gaza.
"Three dead arrived in Shifa hospital," says another in Gaza's largest hospital.
"Several people were injured when Israeli planes bombed the tunnels," said a third from southern Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt.
I believe Israel is doing the right thing. Having put up with the weeks of rockets being fired at them, they continually stated that they would react if the Hamas did not stop. They are defending themselves. The fact that Hamas and others have placed their launch sites in crowded areas was on purpose. They placed them specifically by schools, making it difficult to take them out. I commend Israel for doing what is right, and doing the best they can to avoid civilian casualties while still accomplishing their goals of taking the rockets and Hamas fighters out.
Hah. War criminals creating a mock trial for Abbas?
Perhaps those children can try Hamas for war crimes.
The charge:
-Launching missiles at Israeli cities, for the sole purpose of harming innocent civilians.
-Setting up rocket launchers in built up areas, forcing the Israelis to drop missiles in these areas.
-Hiding weapons and ammunition in civilian buildings, endangering innocent lives.
-Waging war without uniform or identification as soldiers.
-Using Gaza civilians as human shields to hide from Israeli attacks.
-Using ambulences and medical facilities for military purposes.
No wonder they want children to try Abbas. They want to hide their own crimes from the children.
“Look over there children. He is the criminal, not us.”