freepalestine | 10.06.2008 12:25 | London | Sheffield
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Please Record the Event
11.06.2008 02:47
And anything that makes NOISE!!
June 10, 2008
Attack on Gaza Looking More Likely
by Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM - The likelihood of a large-scale Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip has crept closer as more rockets continue to land in southern Israel and another Israeli was killed by a mortar shell, further hardening attitudes among senior ministers against a proposed truce with Hamas.
(Which is the reason Israel engineered this crisis, and ignored warnings from their own defence staff that the criminal Collective Punishment of Gaza would provoke a violent response. These attacks on Gaza have been planned for at least a year, and the rockets Israel's illegal actions provoked are being used as the 'justification', as Israel seeks create the impression that they are not the aggressors, deliberately rejecting peace, and trying to reignite the fighting, in order to further stall any peaceful reconciliation.)
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane as he returned to Israel from Washington, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that a military offensive was now a more likely option than a cessation of hostilities with Hamas. "The way it looks now, we are closer to a military operation in Gaza than we are to any other type of [diplomatic] arrangement."
(Bush must have given him the OK ...)
Defense Minister Ehud Barak's assessment was similar. "A military operation is closer than ever, and it may even precede a cease-fire," he said Thursday while touring Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a 51-year-old Israeli man was killed earlier in the day by a mortar shell fired by Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip.
(In response to Israeli airstrikes the day before, which killed a 4-year-old girl, and wounded several other civilians.)
The mortar attack, which killed Amnon Rosenberg, father of three, when it slammed into a paint factory on Nir Oz, brought to three the number of Israelis killed in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in the past month.
(And the number of Palestinians killed ... ? I guess they don't matter to this reporter.)
Barak has been the strongest voice in the Cabinet in favor of accepting a truce with Hamas.
(However, this has been pure PR, as he's also been preparing the military for these attacks for months now.)
Mediated by Egypt, the truce would see an end to the rocket fire from Gaza in exchange for a cessation of Israeli military operations in the strip and an easing of the siege Israel imposed on Gaza when Hamas seized control of the area a year ago.
(Actually, it was imposed when Hamas won the Palestinian elections Israel and the US had demanded. They were further tightened when the coup attempt orchestrated by Israel and the US failed (what the Western media calls Hamas 'seizing control'), to overthrow the democratically-elected Government, and Israel began its increased attacks on Gaza. This has all been done in order to stall any peace process which Israel's Extremists reject, as this would force them to accept and live up to their legal and moral obligations.)
Until now, the government has been hesitant to launch a major operation in Gaza aimed at routing Hamas for fear it would result in a high number of Israeli military casualties. Israeli leaders have also been scratching their heads over a possible exit strategy from Gaza once an operation, which could last up to six months, is over.
(They haven't created such a strategy because they plan to reoccupy Gaza, as the fanatics who planned this rejected the 'disengagement' from Gaza.)
Were the rockets to start flying again and Hamas to reassert itself the day after a major military operation in the coastal strip ended and Israel pulled out of the area, the army would be ridiculed and Israel's deterrence undermined. Olmert has also been reticent to hastily dismiss the truce proposal for fear of offending Egypt, which has toiled hard to persuade all the Palestinian militant factions in Gaza to agree to a cessation of hostilities.
(And because he needs the PR his feigned participation in the process provides, especially now.)
But the Israeli prime minister now sounds more open to the military option, and those in the security cabinet who see the plus side of a major offensive against Hamas are gaining the ascendancy. They argue that the Islamic movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, will exploit any lull in the fighting to arm itself further. When the truce collapses, they say – most Israelis believe it will within a few months – Israel will then have to carry out a military operation in Gaza. And the toll among Israeli soldiers, facing a better-armed and better-organized Hamas, they say, will then be even higher.
(However, there is no evidence to support this idea, floated solely to avoid talking to Hamas - dialogue supported by a majority of Israelis. Hamas has said several times that it would "recognize Israel", but this is rather irrelevant to Israel's consistent rejection of peace.)
"The government is making a bad mistake by not taking a strategic decision to end Hamas rule in Gaza," Vice-Premier Haim Ramon said Thursday. Ramon, who is one of the most vociferous opponents of the Egyptian-mediated truce proposal, believes the army "knows how to end Hamas' rule. If it's not now, then we will pay a much heavier price further down the line – both in human life and in the wider region."
(So, slaughtering more Palestinian civilians will somehow end Palestinian support for the ELECTED Government? The Israelis are making a big mistake in not taking a strategic decision to toss the Zionist Fanatics from power.)
The head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, has for some time been warning that Hamas will become a strategic threat if the military does not act soon against the Islamic movement. Israel's military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, recently warned that within two years Hamas would possess rockets with a 40-kilometer range, which would enable it to strike at Beer Sheva, Israel's fourth-largest city.
(Let's see some evidence, since these LIARS have uttered many such falsehoods recently, in order to dupe their citizens into more war and suffering. Ending Zionism's belligerent War to annex all of Palestine, and forego Israel's legal and moral obligations would prevent all of this ...)
Ramon also warns that if Israel agrees to a cease-fire, it will bolster the standing of Hamas and undermine moderate Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, especially President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom Israel is currently engaged in peace talks, and who has been at loggerheads with the Islamic movement ever since it routed his Fatah forces in Gaza a year ago. If Israel acceded to a truce, Ramon cautioned, "Abu Mazen [Abbas] will start talking to Hamas. If we're speaking to them indirectly, why shouldn't he?"
(Indeed. Why shouldn't he? They are, after all, the democratically-elected Party. This argument reveals that part of the plan in which Israel created this crisis in order to divide the Palestinians, just as they tried to do in supporting Hamas years ago, in order to undermine the PA.)
Acquiescence to a truce, he continued, would also bolster groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as their patron Iran. "Hamas is part of the radical axis that triumphed in Lebanon two weeks ago," he said. "It will be terrible if they win in Gaza."
(They have already won Gaza. Israel's rejection of Palestinian rights is the real issue at play here.)
(Inter Press Service)
We can now see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Israel's ruling Extremists are the ones who've rejected peace and coexistence with the Palestinians.
Israeli officials: We will invade Gaza before truce deal takes effect
Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News
Sunday June 08, 2008
Israeli army officials told the Jerusalem Post newspaper that the Israeli government will conduct a medium range ground offensive targeting Gaza before any truce deal with the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza takes effect.
(This has been the plan all along. Such attacks were planned months before the facade at Annapolis.)
The officials said that it's likely the operation will be approved this coming Tuesday during the meeting between the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his defense Minister Ehud Barak.
(Barak has been saying for months now that preparations for these attacks are complete.)
According to army officials, Israel does not want to appear weak, by accepting the truce deal while Palestinian resistance groups are still firing home made-shells from Gaza toward nearby Israeli areas.
(But the rockets are only a response to the illegal Collective Punishment of Gaza, as Israel's own defence staff warned would be the result of such policies. But the planning for these attacks precedes the rockets, and this is yet another Israeli rejection of peace, and another attempt to obstruct any peace process, which would force Israel to finally accept its legal and moral obligations to the Palestinians. Zionist Extremists, who reject the idea of a Palestinian state, are intent upon the Cultish dream of "Greater Israel", and will accept nothing less than the complete annexation of Palestine.)
Last week, representatives of the ruling Hamas party in Gaza returned "empty handed" from Cairo, as Egyptian mediators had received no response from Israel to the Hamas offer of a truce.
(As predicted, Israel used these talks in order to maintain the false appearance that it is interested in peace, while it made preparations for another Escalation of its war on the people of Gaza.)
The Egyptian-mediated ceasefire stipulates that Hamas will halt the fire of homemade shells into Israeli territory, in exchange for Israel lifting the 12 month-blockade and ceasing all military attacks against the Gaza Strip.
(Which is really what International Law demands ...)
Israel has set a further two demands: the release of a captured Israeli soldier, and ensuring an end to alleged "arms smuggling" through underground tunnels on the Egypt-Gaza borders.
(But these are issues to be dealt with in negotiations, not items to preclude negotiations.)
Link: www.imemc.org/article/55390
Olmert Readying Full-Scale Gaza InvasionAuthor
How many civilians will Israel 'accidentally' kill this time? What will the world's reaction be?
Israeli PM raises spectre of full-scale Gaza operation
Published: Friday June 6, 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday raised the spectre of a full-scale military operation in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip despite Egyptian attempts to mediate a truce.
(The one that Israel started planning and preparing for months before the Annapolis charade started.)
"According to the information as it is now, the pendulum is much closer to tough military action," Olmert told journalists on arrival in Israel following a three-day trip to the United States.
(In other words, he's closer than he was yesterday of starting the attack which he was going to all along ...)
His comments came a day after a man was killed in southern Israel in a mortar attack claimed by the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement that has run Gaza since it ousted forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas a year ago.
(Forces that were under the command of US and Israeli Extremists, in an attempt to overthrow the ELECTED Government. The mortar followed months of increased attacks on Palestinians, in which hundreds of civilians have been killed, along with the imposition of illegal measures of Collective Punishment Israel's own defence staff warned would provoke a violent response, and its Attorney General called "illegal".)
But Olmert also suggested that the door to a negotiated truce was not completely closed.
(Riiiight. And the US wanted diplomacy to work with Iraq ...)
He said his government was still considering whether to avoid getting "into a violent and hard conflict with the terror organisations in Gaza" or to launch "operations that would be much more aggressive and hard."
Israeli forces launched several raids after Thursday's attack.
(They also razed several farms, continuing a deliberate program of destroying Gaza's ability to produce its own food.)
On Friday, a military engineering unit operating armoured bulldozers on the Gaza side of the border was embroiled in a firefight with Hamas gunmen, the military said.
(No mention of the farms being destroyed, like so many others over the past year.)
A member of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed and an Israeli soldier was wounded in the exchange of fire.
Earlier on Friday at least 10 Palestinians were wounded in an Israeli air raid on a Hamas police post in the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics said. The military said the raid was in reply to Thursday's attack.
(Which was a reply to Israel's rejection of peace, earlier attacks, and the illegal Collective Punishment of Gaza. Israel killed a 4-year old girl with its airstrike)
Violence in and around the impoverished sliver of land has continued despite Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire and slow-moving peace talks with Abbas, who has only held sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since his forces were ousted from Gaza.
(This has continued because Israel intentionally created this crisis, and so long as they can avoid any international intervention, they will continue down this path.)
At least 491 people, nearly all Palestinians and mostly Gaza militants, have been killed since Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed in November, according to an AFP count.
(Human rights organizations, however, report that at least half of those killed were civilians, not militants. Note how this is written. They've lumped the deaths all together in order to hide the vast disparity between casualties, since Israel's casualties remain in the single-digits, while Israel has slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians.)
The Israeli military said on Friday that Palestinians fired more than 2,300 rockets and mortar bombs at Israel in the past six months.
(Nobody bothered to ask how many munitions Israel had pumped into Gaza during that same period, however ...)
Thursday's attack has increased pressure on the government to act against Gaza militants, and Israeli media suggested a military offensive could be just days away.
(Israeli media, supported by the Government, which is trying to create the impression that this is a new, "defensive" development, as opposed to the premeditated Aggression they started planning for a year ago.)
Before leaving Washington on Thursday, Olmert played down the chances of achieving a truce in and around Gaza. "Israel's conditions for a truce are not bearing fruit in the way that could lead to a ceasefire," he said.
(In other words, the DEMANDS and blocks to peace Israel used are having the desired effect. The process has allowed Israel to create a facade that it is interested in peace, while it's been plotting this attack all along.)
Israel has demanded an end to rocket attacks and arms smuggling from Egypt, as well as progress in negotiations for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants in 2006.
Hamas for its part has demanded an end to the blockade of Gaza that Israel says is aimed at forcing militants to halt their attacks on the Jewish state.
(But has also said has nothing to do with the rockets - which were provoked by the 'blockade' - and is actually designed to undermine the ELECTED Government - which Israel knows will not allow Israel to avoid its legal responsibilities in any final status negotiations, and Israel isn't prepared to do this - and 'soften up' Gaza for this long-planned invasion and possible reoccupation.)
On Friday, hundreds of people gathered near the closed Rafah border crossing with Egypt for a demonstration called by Hamas to protest against the Israeli blockade.
(A week ago, Israel opened fire on these same demonstrations.)
Hamas wants Egypt to open the Rafah border crossing -- the only gateway to Gaza not under Israeli control.
(But the US-behloden Government is wary of pissing off Extremists who start wars at the drop of a hat.)
In January, Gaza militants blew open large sections of the border fence, sending hundreds of thousands of Palestinians pouring into Egypt to stock up on vital supplies before it was resealed a few days later.
Egypt has been acting as mediator in the truce talks because Israel refuses to negotiate directly with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organisation.
rawstory.com/news/afp/Israeli_PM_raises_spectre_of_full_s_06062008.html
Hundreds rally in Tel Aviv against killings in Gaza, Sderot
'A country that controls another nation by force is not normal,' demonstrator says. Protestors wave signs reading 'Children in Gaza and Sderot want to live' and 'End the siege on Gaza'
Anat Shalev Published: 06.07.08, 23:42 / Israel News
Hundreds of people marched on Saturday along Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard to Meir Garden to protest the 41st year of the Israeli occupation, (the Collective Punishment of Gaza), and the incessant rocket attacks on the country's southern region.
Demonstrators carried signs reading "Children in Gaza and Sderot want to live" and "End the siege on Gaza".
Among those who took part in the rally was Knesset Member Dov Khenin of the leftist (read: centrist) Hadash party, who told Ynet that "the purpose of this demonstration is to warn of two possible wars – a 'small war' in Gaza, and the larger regional war with Iran, which (Transportation Minister Shaul) Mofaz speaks of. The latter may result in a large-scale catastrophe.
"There is an alternative to fighting," the MK continued, "we can reach a ceasefire agreement and subsequent calm in Gaza; we can discuss a prisoner exchange deal similar to the one that was struck this past week (between Israel and Hizbullah).
(But Israel is currently ruled by Extremists who reject out of hand the very idea of a Palestinian state, and have deliberately engineered the current crisis, including the provocation of rocket attacks, which Israel's own defence staff warned would result from Collective Punishment. Only removing them from power can end their war.)
"We must advance the negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria and base them on the implementation of the Arab peace initiative. Life here must be based on dialogue and negotiation rather than fighting," Khenin said.
Adi Dagan of the Women's Coalition for Peace told Ynet the rally was organized to "remind people that a country that controls another nation by force– in this case the Palestinian nation - for 41 of the 60 years of its existence, is not a normal country and cannot maintain a normal way of life – not for the Israelis and not for the Palestinians.
"We see that despite the Oslo accords, the disengagement from Gaza and the ongoing negotiations between us and the Palestinians the occupation continues and is becoming a permanent reality of apartheid," she said.
Warnings Pour in For Israel to Cease Collective Punishment
Red Cross Condemns Gaza Collective Punishment (the First Round)
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
Probe: At Least Half of Palestinians Killed by IDF Were Civilians
Israeli Attacks on Palestinians, Killings, Doubled Since Annapolis
UN Condemns Collective Punishment of Gaza
It's All Right, I'm Only Bleeding
Israel, World Jewry Drift Apart
Jewish Groups Condemn Collective Punishment of Gaza
Poll Reveals Neo-Con Zionist Groups Unrepresentative
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
Zionism's Support Faltering
Western Jews Revolt Against Zionist Bully Tactics
1650 Illegal Settlement Spots Approved This Week Alone
As Predicted: Israel Rejects Truce, Calls Offer 'Failure'
Real Diplomacy: Carter Meets Hamas
No Peace Without Hamas
Hamas ready to accept Israel as its neighbour: Carter
Hamas Offers Gaza Truce
Calling Israel's Bluff: Hamas Offers Truce, Negotiations
Israelis open fire on Gazan protesters
As Predicted: Israel Delays Vote on Gaza Strip Cease-fire
When Will Israel Quit Pretending It Wants Peace?
Divide & Rule: Palestinians Stuck at a Crossroads
Israel Storms SE Gaza, Razes More Farms
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
Israel's Goals: Regime Change, Reoccupation
Zionist Extremism Key Impediment to Peace