Regarding the Massacres at the Gaza Fence

I can't say it any better than Andre Damon at WSWS:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/16/pers-m16.html

The money quote:

After all, if Israel’s actions are justified, would not US forces deployed on the Mexican border be justified in opening fire on refugees walking toward US territory? Would the European border police not be justified in sinking boats of migrants fleeing to Europe?

The answer to both of these questions would obviously be yes. The universal defense of Israel’s actions makes clear that the imperialist powers have adopted the mass murder of unarmed civilians as a legitimate policy tool.

 No doubt about it...

Israel Rampages in Gaza Again

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

This happened was during today's "4 hour humanitarian cease fire." According to witnesses and reports from the scene, shortly after 12:00n local time, as residents (survivors?) of Gaza were attempting to get necessary supplies at a market section adjoining the Shujayea neighborhood, several mortar or tank shells landed among the shoppers, killing between 17 and 20 (a figure likely to increase significantly) and wounding hundreds. 

This is what Israel does: it declares a "cease fire" then waits for people to gather in response, then the IDF kills them. It kills them in hospitals. It kills them in refugee centers and schools. Wherever Gazans are gathered in large numbers for protection or under the banner of a "ceasefire," Israel aims its missiles and shells and kills them by the score, wounding many more. 

It is apparently an identity thing to the Israelis. 

Lull and lure the Arabs into believing their safety is assured. Then kill them.

This is how the UNRWA Representative in Gaza Christopher Gunness responded to the latest school shelling in which dozens were killed -- as they slept -- and hundreds were wounded:

The UNWRA statement is unusually blunt and harsh.

Statement by UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl

Jerusalem

Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced. 

We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts. It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries   including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site.  These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.  

The precise location of the Jabalia Elementary Girls School and the fact that it was housing thousands of internally displaced people was communicated to the Israeli army seventeen times,  to ensure its protection; the last being at  ten to nine last night, just hours before the fatal shelling. 

I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces. 

This is the sixth time that one of our schools has been struck. Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed.  Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue. 

We have moved beyond the realm of humanitarian action alone. We are in the realm of accountability. I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.

As many have pointed out during this latest round of Israeli rampaging in Gaza, Israelis are losing their humanity. 

Indeed. But there are so many places where just that loss of humanity has become routinized. This Blood Summer still is only half over, too.

We Want the Killing to Stop

It seems like such a simple thing, doesn't it? Stop the killing. Cease fire. Put down your weapons. Take up the cause of... true righteousness.

The killings in Albuquerque -- the recent bludgeoning deaths of two homeless men and the even more recent execution of a fleeing suspect -- have garnered attention in part for their sheer mindlessness and cruelty, especially in the case of the homeless men, but as we learn more about the execution, it becomes clear, there's something deeply foul in the minds of those who set out to assert power over the common herd.

They kill because they want to, first of all; and they kill because they think they're supposed to: the correct path in their minds is Death to the Other. "The Other" being literally anyone in the way of... (their) power.

The three boys who have confessed to killing the two homeless men (both Navajo-Diné) in Albuquerque probably thought they were doing nothing wrong -- if they thought about what they were doing at all. I think we'll find out as the story unfolds that at least two of the boys, and maybe all three, are part Indian themselves, so it cannot be considered a racially motivated crime the way some people are already trying to make it out to be. No, the men they killed were not so much of a different race as they were just different enough to be... threatening. They were homeless, and thus a few rungs farther down the social ladder. They were apparently drunks. But harmless drunks. Their very harmlessness was part of their vulnerability and part of the threat they posed to someone -- in this case, three adolescent boys -- looking to assert their own power. The homeless men hurt no one, they wished ill on no one, and that was part of their weakness and their vulnerability and their threat. The boys who killed them probably saw weakness and vulnerability in the Other as a threat to their own status, one it's possible they only managed to secure -- in their own minds -- through violence and cruelty toward The Other.

And where might they get the idea that violence and cruelty toward the weak, the poor, the homeless, the drunk or the addicted was a way or the way to secure their own status or well-being?

It's not as if they haven't had examples. In Albuquerque, for example, a homeless mentally ill man was summarily executed on a hillside, infamously video-recorded by the killers themselves, then hailed by the police chief as a "justified" shooting-murder-execution. Dozens of individuals have been killed by Albuquerque police in the last few years, but that homicide rate is easily bested by the homicides among the people of Albuquerque with no police involvement. The killing goes on with seeming abandon, and when we try like anything to curb some of it -- that part of it generated by the police, for example -- we're liable to see some horrible murder spree take place that the police took no part in. Except... as examples.

Examples of how to properly treat the mentally ill, the homeless, the drunk, the addicts, and the down and outs among us. If you don't kill them outright, then beat them bloody and drive them away or haul them off somewhere and dump them. If you can, you kill them. Why not? They're just useless space takers anyway.

If this is how the police treat them, under the color of authority, and with the full confidence in all the legal protection the city can provide, then why shouldn't a few teen-age boys who see what's going on do likewise? Why shouldn't they?

We want the killing to stop, but why should it stop when The Powers That Be engage in the very same kind of violence they claim they want to thwart? What is this nonsense? If they are the examples to follow, in some ways it's a wonder there isn't much more violence and cruelty and mayhem than there is.

Those who have the power have for long wielded it irresponsibly and then blame the victims of their irresponsibility for the outcomes.

It's sad and sickening.

We see the same methodology and mindset in almost all the conflicts which seem to be engulfing the world this summer. Irresponsible power-madness, continual victim-blaming, and  endless bloodshed. The destruction of Gaza merely one of numerous similar endeavors by powers and would-be powers who think they're doing what's necessary and what they are supposed to do to assert their status.

We want the killing to stop, and that means we want those who wield power in our world to do so responsibly, and this they refuse to do.

Refuse. Outright. They insist that what they do is right and proper, but anyone who emulates them (without "authorization") gets whacked; anyone who defends themselves against the irresponsibility of their rulers gets whacked; anyone who speaks out against the madness is tracked, and if it looks like they might turn into a threat to power, they are whacked.

We want the killing to stop, and we take what actions we can to monkeywrench the killing machine, but every step forward is countered by what seem like many steps back. When someone like David Correia takes to defending police brutality -- because no gun was unholstered and used -- then we have to wonder, is this the world we envision for the future: as much brutality from the police as they can get away with, so long as no one is shot? Absurd.

No, those who wield power must be brought to consciousness of their responsibility. They've lost any sense of it.

Those who wield power set the example for the rest of society, and when that example is filled with violence, bloodshed, and cruelty, is it any wonder there are so many emulations among those who take their cues from the powerful?

This is a simple -- and too simplistic -- understanding of human nature, but until those in power learn to act with dignity and with justice, as opposed to violence and vengeance, the killing won't stop, it will simply get worse. It's a descent into madness.

We want the killing to stop, but we want more than merely that.

We want to live with dignity and justice, community and peace.

It's not too much to ask and expect.

Gaza (Death From Above) Live

The sounds of drones and explosions are constant though you may not see anything but flares in the night sky...



Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Summer of Our Discontent

What a blood-soaked summer we're in, and it's not even half over. The slaughters throughout the Middle East crescent go on and on, more and more mountains of bodies piling up, or like that poor man I read about in Gaza, collecting the parts of his exploded child in a plastic shopping bag. I gagged and then I cried. What is the matter with people that allows and requires this to go on?

The Malaysian plane shot down in Ukraine is only a handful of dead compared what I'm hearing are thousands already killed in the conflict, many tens of thousands forced to flee, villages and parts of whole cities left in ruins.

And the bloodletting goes on and on and on while our leaders celebrate it, yes they do, each and every one, gleeful at the spilling of more and ever more blood. It is a passion among them, this thirst for blood.

Victim blaming continues without let up.

The victims are always to blame, the rebels are always to blame, the dead are to blame.

It's insane. And it is becoming more and more universal.

The Ayman Mohyeldin Thing at NBC

I was quite struck by Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting from Gaza for Al Jazzera during the horrid Cast Lead operation by Israel against Gaza; he was intrepid, obviously trying to true and accurate reporting, and he was clearly affected by the carnage he witnessed and the lies of the Israelis about it. All of this made for compelling news.

Later, he was assigned to the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, and he appeared to be one of the only reporters on the scene who actually knew what was going on, who the major players were, and who could conduct his investigations in native Arabic and thus get closer to the truth than most other reporters. Richard Engel also speaks Arabic and has been widely respected for his reporting on events in the Middle East, but Ayman was able to get even closer to the principals and the action.

Ayman was on Democracy Now! in 2010 and gave a fairly comprehensive account of his background.

When Ayman joined NBC News, apparently at a huge increase in salary, his reports were somewhat less intense and frequent, but they were sometimes more informative and often quite personal, making the people he featured into real and very human, mostly victims, of the carnage unleashed upon them.

The other day, he was a witness to the slaughter of four children on a Gaza beach and the wounding of several more in front of his hotel. He helped to rescue and treat the survivors. He reported quite passionately what he saw and did during the incident, and his reports were widely considered outstanding first-hand accounts of a terrible tragedy.

Strangely, though, his reports were not featured on NBC Nightly News, in fact, there was not mention of him. Richard Engel, reporting from Tel Aviv was made the lead reporter on the story, a story which was covered extensively on the program, and during which Engel appeared to report accurately and pulled no punches, using footage shot by Ayman's team.

It was just that Ayman himself was missing from the story and the reporting. It seemed odd to say the least.

The next day, Glenn Greenwald reported that Ayman had been abruptly "pulled from Gaza" by an NBC executive and was not being permitted to report on the story any more. The story of the 4 children killed on the beach in Gaza was modified to include Israeli defenses of it, and eventually the story was all but scrubbed, or at least was no longer featured on news cycles.

Down the Memory Hole?

Or something even more sinister? Observers noted that as the story of the children killed on the beach faded, more and more Israel-centric stories appeared, often with no recognition of a Palestinian point of view, and featuring intense denunciations of Palestinians/Hamas to the exclusion of any reporting on the miseries and death the Palestinians -- especially in Gaza --  are enduring as a result of Israeli operations and bombardments. As the death toll rises, the victims more and more are being dehumanized and blamed.

As a rule, Engel has not engaged in that kind of reporting, and to the extent I know anything about it, Ayman never did.

Many are questioning Ayman's removal from Gaza reporting for NBC, but if I recall correctly, he was also expelled by the Israelis from Gaza during the Cast Lead operation and had to report from the border fence rather than from inside Gaza. Engel is widely respected in the field, so he's not the worst replacement for Ayman under the circumstances. The issue is that Ayman was replaced at all without explanation or reason given. He was just gone suddenly, completely and inexplicably.

Of course Greenwald is speculating on motives the way he does, but NBC is keeping mum, and apparently Mohyeldin has been successfully gagged.

Americans have fewer and fewer reliable sources of news from areas of conflict, and while he was reporting from Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin was one of the few whose reports could be considered both informative and accurate. While I wouldn't consider Richard Engel to be a complete propagandist and tool, he does have a very different approach, one that is based in a certain viewpoint about the United States and its role in the Middle Eastern conflicts (not necessarily a positive one, but one that starts from the American viewpoint) and so his focus tends to be less involved with the realities of Palestinian life under siege and attack -- which was a specialty of Mohyeldin's -- and more how it all looks from an American perspective.

Some of Ayman's reports before he was pulled:

Innocent and Gone: Israeli Strike on Gaza Kills Four Children

All in with Chris Hayes

 Andrea Mitchell Reports

He also Tweeted extensively about the events he witnessed and provided numerous images on his Instagram account.

By now, we all know that commercial as well as much alternative news is very tightly controlled in the West and the United States in particular in order to promote a particular version of events; we could go into extraordinary detail about how our "news" is often intended not so much to inform as it is to shape opinion and promote propaganda, to set narratives, and to extend the power of elites. 

Ayman was not immune from the pressures to conform to those interests, but his reporting was a distinct contrast to those who saw their role as one to support rather than challenge or provide other insights than the dominant narrative (which we have notices is nearly universal throughout the media).

Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting was actually a small portion of a whole, and his removal doesn't affect that whole to any great extent. What it does is narrow the narrative NBC has been marketing. That's a business decision that will mean that the public which relies on NBC News will have less information by which to understand events in the Middle East, and the less information they have, the more closely the public opinion can be manipulated.

The more we see this happening, the fewer alternative points of view we have to consider. 

None of this is new, but to see it again, so starkly, is more than a little disturbing.

I'm sure we will see more examples as time goes by and the grip of the oligarchs tightens. 

----------------------------------------
UPDATE: According to word out of NBC, breathlessly announced and spread via internet outlets, Mohyeldin will be returning to Gaza this weekend. NBC's announcement is terse and uninformative, the way they tend to be, but Mohyeldin twitted thus:

 

Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC's continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story
— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) July 18, 2014

There is a good deal of high stepping blogger triumphalism at the moment, but exactly what happened is still as murky and mysterious as ever, and we will likely never know the full story.

Victim Blaming as Art Form, Sport

In the latest round of slaughter and murder in the Middle East -- now stretching in a big arc from the Gaza Strip in the south to the streets of Damascus in the north to the besieged cities of Iraq in the east -- the active participants love to blame the victims of the slaughter for their own demise.

The victims, for the most part, are only trying to stay out of the way of the drones and bombs and missiles and bullets, but unfortunately in the modern practice of "warfighting" there's no place to go. Every place in the "battle space" is a potential or actual target and there are no shelters for the victims.

Blaming them for their demise doesn't even work as a rationalization. It's simply a formula.

The Israelis, of course, have perfected the formula.

Here is an example of nearly perfect hasbara:

  

M. Cohen • 10 hours ago 

It's simple. Just stop attacking Israel with rockets and missiles, aimed arbitrarily (but hopefully with the intent of hitting civilians, preferably children), give up the objective of destroying Israel, and concede that Israel has a right to exist, and all this can be resolved.

Hamas uses civilian sites to launch it's deadly cargo. When Israel notifies civilians their buildings may be attacked, Hamas insists the residents remain and be martyred. Is no one bothered by Hamas' willingness to sacrifice its own people to further its reprehensible policy of annihilation, or are all of you indignant (to put it mildly) critics really in favor of denying Israel's right to exist as a sovereign country.

And don't get into the "Jewish" state nonsense. Name me one Arab country which isn't de facto, if not de jure, a Moslem theocracy. Also, you might ask why the considerable Christian Palestinian population has practically disappeared from the West bank and Gaza.

They didn't leave voluntarily. It's my understanding many of them went to Israel, where they joined a very large Moslem minority, few if any of whom are leaving Israel for the outside Arab world.

No other country would tolerate this kind of aggression from a neighbor without retaliation.

To my knowledge there were no Jewish populations in Europe attacking the Nazis with hand guns, no less rockets, nor did any Jews declare the intent to destroy any European entity.

The Jews of Europe posed no threat to any state or other political, or societal entity.

Comparing the Holocaust to the present situation in the middle east is nothing more than a subterfuge for anti-semitism. Expecting the Jews to behave differently than any other similarly situated country in a world where outright slaughters are going on (for example Syria and Iraq) with far less justification and a lot less regard for human life says it all.

As far as Israel's so called control of Gaza, again why should Israel concede its sovereignty to a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction. Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. This latest round started with rocket and missile attacks from guess what - Gaza. The chances are just as good that if Israel withdrew totally from the West Bank and those Palestinians were granted statehood without a comprehensive peace agreement, Israel would be subject to attack not only from the north and south but also the east. There is nowhere in Israel that is out of range of ordinance Hamas now possesses (and is eagerly using). So from a purely defensive perspective, Israel has no choice but to react.

If Hamas gave a damn for its own people, it would cease its aggression, concentrate on improving the standard of living of its people by negotiating in good faith with both Israel and Egypt. Remember Gaza has a border with Egypt, but for some reason all the vitriol is aim,ed at Israel. Wonder why.

The reason Israel imposes embargoes on Gaza is to prevent even worse incursions over it's borders.

The author apparently ran out of time to finish the thought. But it would be a surprise to few if this hasbara was followed by a revisionist history of the region, going back at least to 1948, if not to 1948 BCE.

The formula mixes fact and fiction with repetition and victim blaming, always with the intention to leave Israel and Israelis utterly blameless, heroic and justified. All the responsibility for the deplorable state of conflict is on the shoulders of Hamas and the Palestinians. The people of Gaza deserve what they get -- because they are who they are and they do what they do.

Thence comes the dehumanizing of the foe. They are animals, savage, barbaric, subhuman, inhuman, vermin. Oh, it never fails. Just as in times past the excuse for killing the women and children of the savage foe has been that "nits breed lice." Ergo, kill them all. God will know His own.


Thus even babes in arms are held responsible for the horrors unleashed against them in classic victim-blaming fashion.

The Israelis are behaving barbarically towards their captive Gazan foe, on the theory that "nits breed lice" and killing a sufficiency of the Gazan women and children -- a sufficiency that varies arbitrarily -- will teach the Garzan warriors a lesson: to yield and surrender is their only option, and even then, it will not be enough to end the slaughter, for they and they alone are responsible for the slaughter, and as they hold human life to be of no particular value -- as opposed to the high value that those who kill them hold it -- they will pay forever with their own lives and those of the people they purport to love.

I've  remarked on the tendency of elites and those in power to cast responsibility downwards. According to their own lights, the elites and the oligarchy they serve are not responsible for anything bad that happens. Only the lower orders have responsibility for such evil. They and their various "Hitlers" -- whether in the West Bank and Gaza or lurking under the beds of the high and mighty -- are the responsible parties; the elites and oligarchs who stand with one another to denounce them never are.

Victim blaming is a constant, an art form and a sport.

The Gaza Thing

I've purposely stayed well away from the latest ritual Gaza slaughterfest.

It seems clear that unless Israelis slake their thirst for Palestinian blood from time to time they aren't fulfilled. The periodic death and destruction in the vast prison/ghetto that is Gaza turns the stomach and outrages the conscience of anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention.

Israel lies, thieves and murders with near impunity, hollering constantly about all the "rockets raining down" on their sleeping innocent citizens while hundreds or thousands or however many Arabs it takes are mowed down in the Gaza, regardless of "guilt" or "innocence."

And the United States is the enabler.

Is this what it takes for a nation-state to exist? Lying? Thieving? Murdering? Enabling?

Maybe it's time to re-think the nation-state notion.

It's long past time for Zionism to fade away.

[Meanwhile, Egypt seems to be undergoing a bit of... political strain. Ahem.]

Mavi Marmara Assault -- Full Video From Cultures of Resistance

YouTube Link

I watched this last night and found it to be a very powerful documentary in this extremely raw state. I posted some comments at Glenn's Place in response to ondelette's request for peoples' impressions of what they saw.

This is a transcript of my two posts last night:

Saturday, June 12, 2010 10:33 PM ET

ondelette: On the Full video released at UN

Been watching it off and on for a while now. In some ways so sad. I know, but I don't know, that some of the men, maybe many of them, in the video are either wounded or dead now.

They are so hopeful, so frightened, so determined.

There is an early sense of calm, deliberate intensity. Many conflicting emotions simultaneously.

I paused just past the point where the Israelis are pulling alongside the Mavi Marmara. The Israelis are firing at the ship; it sounds like bullets and grenades (flash/bang?), possibly tear gas as well; they are firing constantly.

The passengers are shouting, watching over the rail, moving fast from place to place. The Israelis keep up constant fire at the ship. Their fast boat is right up against the starboard side.

—Ché Pasa
Read Ché Pasa's other letters

ondelette: On the Full video released at UN (cont'd)

Blood on the stairwell, people don't know how it got there, a passenger wounded?

Firing. One shot. One shot. One shot. Burst of shots. One shot. Helicopter overhead, passengers warding it off with sling shots, ineffective. Shots are heard. Are they firing from the helicopter?

Commandos fast roping down, not much sound, view is from the deck below. No sign of what's going on up there. Helicopter choppers away. Men with slingshots continue to aim at it.

Shots heard on the upper deck, bursts of three, four. Wounded passengers carried down, and two Israeli soldiers.

Many wounded now, some dead, shot in the head; firing continues in bursts.

Men in the stairwell armed with sticks, the famous "iron bars," one tries to open a package of pepper spray with his knife. Unsuccessful. Waiting, waiting. Firing continues outside, now a shot, now another, now three, now four. Are they firing into the stairwell? Man goes down, but there is no effort to rescue him. Firing, firing.

Blood. Blood on the walls, blood on the floor, blood on the wounded, blood on the dead, blood on the men trying to be medics. Chest compressions on a badly wounded man, compressions badly done. They're trying the best they can. Is he dead?

Many wounded, some dead.

It looks like no one is afraid anymore. Firing, firing, one shot, one shot, two shots, one shot, three shots. Firing.

Dawn. The ship is traveling away from the dawn, moving westward, away from Gaza, west. Firing, firing. Shooting continues as alarm sounds on ship. Loudspeakers in other languages, then English. "Please go to your cabins. Go to your seats. The Israelis are using live ammunition. Please go to your seats."

Men mill around holding sticks, "iron bars." They pray. Smoke. So many smokers. Dawn.

Hearts are racing. What now?

—Ché Pasa
Read Ché Pasa's other letters

Permalink

The only thing I would add at this point is that what is shown in the raw footage is how a resistance struggle actually looks from the inside as an action is taking place. Superficially, it's not very dramatic most of the time; a lot of standing and milling around, nervous waiting. Flashes of bravery. Carrying and caring for the wounded and the dead. Mostly though, it's a situation of growing tension and not knowing what will happen next, nor necessarily when your own turn will come -- for whatever Fate has in store.

The dramatic action that you see on the teevee is the exception, not the rule.

I was struck, too, by all the people sitting around smoking and nervously laughing toward the end of footage. That's part of the truth of these things that people almost never see. But it is very real.

"What Should The Israelis Have Done?"

The hasbaraniks continue to infest the Interwebs like locusts, presenting the IDF Spokesman's Line on the Mavi Marmara Affair, rigidly adhering to the talking points that they repeat by rote over and over and over again, about how surroundsed, beset and victimised poor little friendless Israel is in the midst of a ravening horde of Arabs and how necessary it is to prevent weapons from being smuggled into Gaza, and how Hamas is a Terrorist Organization that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, and how many times the convoy was offered safe passage to Ashdod and how cruel and vicious the passengers were to the kindly IDF Commandos who carefully rappelled down to the decks so as not to disturb the passengers' slumbers, only to be met with a ravening horde of Peace Terrorists who pummeled them with Terror Sticks and stabbed them with Terror Knives and threw them over the Terror Rails of the Terror Ship until the patience of the Gentle Commandos who were only enforcing the necessary blockade was exhausted and with Immense Sorrow in Their Hearts for what the Peace Terrorists were forcing them to do, they fired into the ravening hordes of Peace Terrorists on that one ship, just the one remember, and finally, with great difficulty, brought the unfortunate situation under control. Heroically.



That's the Line from hasbara HQ. Now some of the hasbaraniks will embroider this basic story with tales of the Holocaust and all the Little Hitlers that have popped up in our midst, or they will go on about how the many outspoken Jewish critics of Israel's behavior are objectively Pro-Terrorist and clearly self-hating Jews, etc. etc. Each hasbaranik has their own little quirk. But the core story is repeated over and over and over again, in an almost trance-like state. A wonder to behold.

Every now and again, a hasbaranik will ask, "Well, what should Israel have done, Mister Smartypants?"

My answer? Simple:

Welcome the humanitarian aid ships, issue no threats or orders, offer to escort them to the Port of Gaza, and assist in the unloading and distribution of supplies by paying for personnel and transport. Then thank the Peace Terrorists and peacefully escort them back to international waters.

Couldn't be simpler.

No deaths, no violence, and... Israel breaks its own blockade.

What a concept.

So far nearly everyone is thinking about this incident and the situation that led to it tactically. "What would you have done to preserve the blockade?" when the simple and I believe correct answer is strategic: Israel breaks its own blockade and assists the humanitarian convoy in achieving its humanitarian objectives.

If the Israelis had done that, the picture today would be very different, many people would still be alive and healthy, the situation in Gaza would start to measurably improve, and Israel's image would undergo a transformation.

Israel has the power to make this kind of strategic move, power that Hamas doesn't have. Israel has the ability to move forward.

Why doesn't it do so?

The Carnage Stops for the Moment

Image of white phosphorous falling inside the UN school in northern Gaza where a woman and a child were killed on January 17.

So they've stopped for the moment. Snipers have no doubt fanned out to liquidate/exterminate the usual "pockets of resistance," but for the moment "quiet" has descended on the smoking, blood-drenched ruins of Gaza.

Hamas, so far as we can tell from afar, didn't fight. There was no resistance to Israeli tanks and bombs and bullets. The entirety of Gaza was an Israeli free-fire zone, and there was no where at all for Gazans to find safe refuge within Gaza, no way at all for non-combatants to flee. They are trapped, encaged, without succor, without hope, to be slaughtered at will by the dartk forces of death and destruction arrayed against them.

All the European heads of state are assembled at Sharm el-Sheikh to assure Israel that they support its right to defend itself against the perfidy of the Palestinians, that they are determined to get humanitarian aid to the Gazans as quickly as possible, and (according to Gordon Brown) to provide counseling services to children who have been traumatized by the struggle.

Mouin Rabbani comments on the proceedings that it is breathtakingly inconceivable that not one of these glittering heads of state has mentioned the word "occupation". How can they discuss what's happened without mentioning the occupation? Rabanni's counclusion? The Two State Settlement is dead. The very notion of "negotiations" has been discredited.

Rabbani opines that the next step is not a One State Solution, as that ideal is unlikely in our lifetimes. The next step is more likely an extistential struggle. He doesn't describe it, not yet. But given past history, the "extistential" solution is the elimination of the Palestinians by force.

Warsaw/Gaza

Throughout the current Israeli Aktion against the Gaza Strip, observers who wish to incite Zionist Israel defenders have compared the Israeli operations to the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942-43.

The comparison is not exact, of course. For one thing, the Germans and their allies didn't use air power against the Ghetto inmates, at least not to any great extent. They didn't have helicopters, and their fighter planes and bombers stayed on the ground. There were only about a 1000 Jewish fighters in the Ghetto, and their numbers were reduced smartly and consistently by the Germans and their allies.

The Germans had been emptying the Ghetto for months before the Uprising in 1943, and there were only about 55-60,000 people left in the Ghetto by that time. Deportations continued during the Uprising, the point being, of course, to remove all the inmates and obliterate the Ghetto.

By contrast, Gaza is sealed off completely, and there has been no effort whatsoever to get people out of there. The cordon is complete. At best, no more than a few hundred wounded and civilians with foreign passports have been allowed to leave. 1.5 million Palestinians are trapped in Gaza with no means of escape. There is no safe place, no refuge at all anywhere in the Gaza Ghetto. The Israelis bomb and shell at will, and they are using horrific weapons like White Phosphorous shells, "bunker busters", and possibly DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) weapons as well.

For its part, Hamas has been a pathetic defender of Gaza and its people. While there are supposed to be some 15-20,000 Hamas fighters in the enclave -- a small number in proportion to the population -- they have been utterly unable to defend against he Israeli onslaught. Their rocket squads have never been an effective assault mechanism, and the number of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza has been reduced to no more than a few per day. From the sketchy reports out of Gaza, mostly on Al Jazeera, it appears that there is sporadic guerilla action from Hamas, but very limited, and hardly even noticed by the Israeli Death Machine.

Israel claims that every military aged male in Gaza is a "terrorist," and so all the dead male adolescents and adults are by definition "Hamas Terrorists" in their eyes. But the casualty figures, right now being reported on Al Jazeera as 905 dead and over 4,000 injured, indicate that at least 40% of the casualties are women and children, and of the dead and injured men, only a few are actually "Hamas." There is no sign that the Israelis actually intend to wipe out or even seriously reduce the numbers of Hamas in Gaza. Many Israelis have appeared on Al Jazeera who have said that "Hamas can stay," as long as the rocket fire stops and they do not rearm. Of course the Israelis lie, but still.

Almost all the Hamas spokespeople who have appeared on Al Jazeera have been in Syria; I cannot recall seeing even one interviewed in Gaza itself, though I could be wrong. Al Jazeera does have reporters on the ground in Gaza, and they are reporting live from their Gaza studios and on location (mostly at the hospitals) in the warzone throughout the day, but their reports seem oddly sterile. It seems they are being very careful in what they show and how they report on what is happening, as if they are under some sort of censorship rule, but by whom is the question. Their reports from Israel are obviously under some Israeli control -- although it seems to be relatively light -- but their reports from inside Gaza seem to be almost sanitized, only showing the bombing and shelling from a "safe" distance (although often live), rarely going out on the streets for face to face interviews with Gaza residents, never (so far as I can recall) interviewing Hamas officials in Gaza, but very prominently featuring the panicked delivery of the dead and wounded to the hospitals -- with a special emphasis on the children. There have also been a number of reports showing the appearance of "normal life" during the alleged daily "3 hour humanitarian cease fires" -- that are nothing of the sort. Gazans are shown shopping for food and sundries in the outdoor markets, some are interviewed, the usual denunciations of Israel and complicit Arab governments are expressed, and life goes on.

How much of this somewhat tip-toe reporting is due to the nature of the conflict and the real dangers the reporters face -- and they certainly face plenty of dangers, even in London, where one reporter was stoned live on camera when he was reporting on a pro-Israeli demonstration -- and how much is due to management instructions from Doha I can't say, but it is... odd.

They are reporting on Arab government complicity and failure to act to end the carnage, and there are many reports of the massive demonstrations around the world -- and in Israel and Arab capitals as well -- against the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. Al Jazeera had extensive reporting on and from the United Nations about their actions (and inactions) toward some sort of eventual "durable" ceasefire. The extent of the reporting was surprising given the general level of cynicism in the Middle East regarding anything the United Nations Security Council does or doesn't do or say.

They have featured Barack Obama's non-statement statements about the Gaza situation, and they have had panels speculating on how the Incoming will approach the Middle East conundrum. Most panelists seem to be of the opinion that there will be little substantive change in the American government position favoring Israel, but that there may be more "engagement" in the region toward some sort of settlement of the hostilities and conflicts.

[To Be Continued...]

UPDATE: January 15, 2009

I had a wan hope that this bloody Gaza reduction campaign would be over by the time I got back to this post, but no. The efforts at a ceasefire have come to naught thanks to the intransigence of the Israelis backed by the USA, both Outgoing and Incoming Administrations, the appalling corruption of the Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian governments, along with the languid indifference of other Arab and world governments to the plight of the Palestinians.

It's tough to compare what is going on in Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and liquidation. As I've said before, it's a comparison we really don't want to make. And yet what's been going on in Gaza, the methodical and deliberate campaign of death and destruction undertaken by the Israelis, the terror the Gazans are experiencing every minute the Israeli Aktion continues, and the near futility of resistance -- no matter how heroic it may be in individual circumstances -- all evoke echoes of what happened in Warsaw in 1943.

What is significantly different is that there is no effort at all, by anyone, to get the Gazans out of there. They are being slaughtered in place and their cities are being destroyed around them. Except for a handful of injured and those with third country passports, no one is being let out -- or taken out -- of the Gaza enclave. The people are sealed in. In Warsaw, the deportations continued while the Uprising was going on. And in every other conflict I can recall, civilians have been able to (or have been required to) flee in advance of the Death Machine. In Gaza, they must stay. There is nowhere to run or to hide, no way out, and the Gazans can only await their doom.

Even the indifference of so many world governments -- not so much the indifference of the Peoples of the world -- is an echo of the disinterest of the world in the plight of the Jews of Europe during the Nazi hey-day.

The reports right now on Al Jazeera describe increasing horror in Gaza, as the Israelis are shelling and bombing UN headquarters and relief supplies warehouses, fuel depots, hospitals with hundreds of patients, apartment houses with hundreds of families still in them (reports are that some have collapsed and that perhaps hundreds of people have been killed in the latest bombings), the Red Crescent hospital is on fire, and a building housing journalists from Reuters and a number of Arab news services has been hit.

Yet the word being passed around the Al Jazeera crew is that this is a last spasm of violence before a ceasefire which, for some reason, they expect to see implemented within the next 24-48 hours. From what they have been saying, the AJ crew seems to believe that Egypt has brokered ceasefire terms with Hamas that are acceptable to Israel, and that there will be an interim agreement today when the Israeli representative arrives in Cairo, and that the fighting will stop sometime in the next couple of days.

If that's true, it will be an echo of how the Israeli campaign against Lebanon and Hezbullah sputtered to an end in 2006. In that conflict, the violence against infrastructure, civilians, and relief efforts increased the closer to the ceasefire things got. Then there was a last spasm of cluster bombing of southern Lebanon villages and then it was over, Israelis pulled out, and Hezbullah declared victory.