A short and succinct letter to the editor in today’s Sydney Morning Herald from Zaid Khan puts things into perspective:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Zaid Khan

What is to be done? Chances are that if you reading this, you already have a good grasp of what is happening. Also avail yourself to first hand accounts from residents in Gaza, such as Tabula Gaza, Raising Yousef–A Mother From Gaza and Dr Mona El Farra’s blog. Spread the word and discuss it with people who may not even know all this is happening or who may uncritically accept the Israeli neocon worldview propagated in some of the major media outlets. Israel is committing slow genocide and ethnic cleansing. A simple yet powerful letter like the one above can ricochet around the world.

Here are some other ways you can help: Read the rest of this entry »

Yossi Wolfson’s clear-eyed description of the hafrada regime’s policies in the siege of Gaza and the too-little mentioned exploitation of Gaza’s gas reserves: recommended read. Boldface emphasis is editorial. This article appears in the very worthwhile Challenge magazine, Issue 107, January/February 2008

Gaza City, January 8, 2008. Empty coffins symbolize 62 patients who have died since June because Israel denied them access to medical treatment outside Gaza. Photo by Wissam Nassar

Yossi Wolfson, Economic Warfare in Gaza

NO MORE LIES or twisted tongues. Israel is saying at last what, in the past, it always refused to acknowledge: its war is against the Palestinian population.Until now, in discussions about the separation wall, closures, blockades, house demolition, and other sorts of collective punishment, the State Attorney’s Office lacked the gumption to admit in court that the aim of such measures is to harm civilians. It always came up with convoluted security claims in order to present some vital military necessity for the sake of the War against Terror. Harm to the population was described as a regrettable side effect.

But now a Rubicon has been crossed. This happened after ten human-rights organizations petitioned the High Court on October 28, 2007 against cuts in the supply of electricity and gasoline to Gaza. The petitioners claimed that the cuts amount to collective punishment, which is forbidden under international law. The State might have answered that the cuts are a necessary military measure aimed at stopping the production of Qassam rockets. Or it might have tried some other tongue twister. But no. In their response to the petition, Dana Briskman and Gilad Shirman from the State Attorney’s Office announced openly, without blinking an eye, that the cuts’ main purpose is to exert pressure on the economy as a way of influencing Hamas.

Thus the State clamps the arteries of life for 1.5 million Gazans and describes its action as an economic war. Here it infringes a basic principle of the international laws concerning warfare, which distinguish between the civilian population and the armed forces. Read the rest of this entry »

It was JFK who said that “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Our thoughts are with Gaza, where GWB’s recent visit to the region has seen Israel only ratchet up its violence and airstrikes upon a territory from which it only nominally withdrew and in fact continues to choke, killing dozens of people in the space of a few days.

Let us recall that after maintaining a ceasefire or hudna for eighteen months, the democratically elected government of Hamas was subject to nothing but economic siege, divide and rule, sabotage and targeted killings. Let us also recall that Israel rejected the offer of a truce, instead continuing its collective punishment of a whole population already brutally repressed and assassinating leaders and civilians alike, including the son of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.

The criminal strangulation of a whole population of a million and a half people in one of the most densely populated places on the planet is being committed on the pretext of rocket attacks on Israel using primitive weapons like Qassams; with pretext being the operative word. As Uri Avnery recently observed in Help! A Ceasefire: “If the Qassams were really bothering our political and military leaders, they would have jumped at the cease-fire offer. But the leaders don’t really care … [it] has an important positive side: it provides an ideal pretext for the actions of the army. The Israeli strategic aim in Gaza is not to put an end to the Qassams. It would still be the same if not a single Qassam fell on Israel.” Israel’s policy is to deliberately destroy Gaza.

The continued lobbing of these low-lethality weapons are in response to gross Israeli violations of airspace, terrifying sonic booms, the longest running illegal military occupation in modern history, Kafkaesque checkpoints which Israel closes with impunity, the indefinite holding of thousands of “administrative detainees” without charge or trial, and continued theft of Palestinian land. Add to that striking electricity generators and water treatment plants, and closing off Gaza crossings to aid and any free movement in or out, making life hell for ordinary people and truly spreading fear and terror.

As Yair Lapid, an Israeli journalist observes, while the outward objective of the IOF’s operation in Gaza is to prevent the Qassam fire, “[it is] the operation in Gaza [that] is causing Qassams to be fired. The Qassam fire will, in turn, bring about the next operation in Gaza, which will lead to the next round of Qassam fire.” Is this the way to end the cycle of violence? How would anyone feel if their home was bulldozed and their land stolen, with no hope of recourse in the courts? And so the cycle of violence continues, because Israel (thinks it) gains from it. Read the rest of this entry »

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
Whose Mission is it fulfilling?

Franklin Lamb
UN Headquarters
Naquora, Lebanon
peoplesgeography.com

Ever since one of this student’s favorite Professors, Dr. Ruth Widmeyer, an accomplished and rare beauty still, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in Soviet Studies from Harvard nearly a half century ago, announced to our Political Science class at Portland State University that our class would be representing France at the Model United Nations Session in San Diego, Lamb was smitten: both with Professor Widmeyer and with the United Nations.

Straight out of high school, rarely having taken a step out of Clackamas County, Oregon, and never having been on an airplane or stayed in a hotel, the prospect of traveling more than 1,300 miles south to compete against the likes of Stanford and UCLA was exciting. Especially for a hayseed (city kids called us hicks in those days) whose main life achievements were a record-demolishing 6 years of perfect attendance at St. John’s Episcopal Church Sunday school and another record (at that time) at Milwaukie Union High School for a basketball free throw percentage of 89%. (I will never understand why Shaquille O’Neal can’t do better than he does at the foul line! Shaq! Habibee! Wear a blindfold for goodness sake and your percentage will surely improve!)

Responding to Professor Widmeyer’s Germanic discipline, our delegation took our work seriously. Between trips to the San Diego Zoo, the swimming pool at our El Cortez Hotel, and side trips to San Diego’s nearby sister city, Tijuana, Mexico, “to buy fresh street made Tacos”, PSU prevailed and we won the award for outstanding Model UN Delegation that year.

When we returned to Campus some of us were surprised by the reaction of the Dean of Students who graciously invited us to his office. We thought perhaps some sort of accolade might be waiting for us but all the Dean cared about was the fact that three of our delegation returned to Portland from the Model UN Session and Tijuana with gonorrhea! Read the rest of this entry »

Swedish diplomat, international human rights lawyer, weapons inspector and disarmament campaigner Dr Hans Blix is the 2007 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize. He delivered the Sydney Peace Prize lecture this evening, Sydney time. You can also listen to the lecture’s podcast:

[audio http://www.spf.arts.usyd.edu.au/sound/Blix-sydney-peace-prize.mp3]

Read his UN biography here. Read previous Sydney Peace Prize addresses posted at Reclaiming Space: 2003 — Dr Hanan Ashrawi; 2004 — Arundhati Roy; 2005 — Olara Otunnu; 2006 — Irene Khan. The following address is also available as a .pdf here (opens in a new window; 13pp)

The Globalization of Peace, by Dr Hans Blix

7 November 2007 | Sydney Town Hall

It is a great honour to be awarded the Sydney Peace Prize and to be invited to lecture.

The subject of this lecture is globalization of peace. I shall tell you from the outset what my main messages are.

First, I believe that long term the interdependence of nations that has already led to peace in a growing number of areas in the world, will lead to a globalization of peace, to a continued growth of international law and of common global institutions.

Second, we must wake up to the troublesome current reality of new great power tensions, and incipient arms races. We must revive disarmament and further develop the multilateral system of co-operation, including the United Nations.

Third, there are short, medium and long term threats both to life and peace if we do not husband the use of the earth’s resources, restrain our use of fossil fuels and restrain the growth of the human population. Read the rest of this entry »

I present Hersh’s latest New Yorker article in full here not because I treat his articles as gospel — one should always treat every piece, especially those who purport to have insider knowledge, critically — but because of the salient facts and administration ‘mood’ gleaned from the following.

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran

Seymour M. Hersh
October 8, 2007 edition of The New Yorker

ILLUSTRATION: GUY BILLOUT

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.

“Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »

Accompanied by the superlative cartoonists Andy Singer and Carlos Latuff, here is Pepe Escobar in a piece aptly entitled Welcome to Planet Gaza (Asia Times Online, 22 Sept 2007). For a related piece, see also Chris Marsden, Israel’s Collective Punishment of Gaza.

Just added: see also Sonja Karkar, The Quality of Mercy in Gaza, Counterpunch (25 Sept) and Chris Doyle, Life Behind the Wire, Guardian CiF (24 Sept)

Escobar reflects upon the recent decision by the apartheid Israeli regime to designate the occupied territory of Gaza, for which it has responsibility it is attempting to abrogate, a “hostile entity”, and rendering the region’s population as Unpeople in the service of neocon US and Israeli exceptionalism. He writes:

It is one of the most scandalous instances of collective punishment anywhere in the world in recent times. And what is the response of the high-minded “international community”? It’s the standard “three monkeys” - willfully deaf, dumb and blind.

This Thursday, the Israeli cabinet’s decision to declare the 8-kilometer-wide, 23km-long, arid Gaza Strip a “hostile territory” has started to be translated by facts on the ground. The Israel Defense Forces have begun “gradually” to cut the supply of fuel and electricity to the 1.5 million population, one of the highest densities on Earth, 50% of them already living under the poverty line, 50% of them under-15s, 33% of them refugees.

Gaza uses about 200 megawatts of electricity; 120 come from Israel; 65 are produced in Gaza; and only 17 come from Egypt. Israel says supply to generators at Gaza’s hospitals will not be affected.

There’s more to come: a trade ban, no freedom of movement, no visits to prisoners in Israeli jails, an overall hardcore financial squeeze, and sooner rather than later, another military onslaught. As the Israeli daily Ha’aretz so nicely put it, this is just a “plan to limit services to civilians”.

Nobody will get in. Few, if any, will get out. If someone wants to go to Gaza, the only way will be via Egypt.

This comes on top of other “restrictions” already in place. No fewer than 200,000 kids went back to school in occupied Palestine this September - just like millions of other kids around the world. But they had nothing apart from their textbooks because the State of Israel deems paper, ink, ballpoint pens and binding materials not to be “fundamental humanitarian needs”. Read the rest of this entry »