Gaza‏ Jan 16/09

Resolution 1860: fig leaf to Arab failure
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10185.shtml
For Washington, and others ... including Arab states, Israel was entitled to have the time it needed to teach Hamas the lesson it deserved. Despite Musa's rumblings, and those of other Arab officials, prominent members of the Arab delegation were close to this narrative. The Egyptian president, whose foreign minister's role was key in New York, was quoted as informing the European delegation in Cairo earlier that Hamas should not be allowed to win. It is no surprise therefore that the general trend among the Arab ministers (with exceptions of course) was, on the one hand, to pretend that they were striving to bring the aggression to an end, while on the other signaling that they did not want any such accomplishment to benefit Hamas.

Egypt's Gaza truce plan is mostly bad for Hamas
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055543.html
עופרת יצוקה | בתום 19 ימי לחימה החמאס מראה סימנים שבירה שממעותיים
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1055739.html
The Egyptian proposal is mostly bad for Hamas. It doesn't let the organization bring the Palestinian public any political achievement that would justify the blood that has been spilled, and even forces on it the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, in the form of its renewed presence at the Rafah crossing (as a condition for its reopening).

The inconvenient truth about Gaza
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/929/op10.htm
The foot dragging of Palestinian diplomats in the face of Israel's Gaza onslaught suggests that for some ending Hamas is more important than ending the violence.

Thousand deaths do not put off EU
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10190.shtml
Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, the European Commission's envoy in Jerusalem, claimed that a proposed "upgrading" in relations with Israel cannot "proceed business as usual." Yet his statement was soon contradicted by Karel Schwarzenberg, foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU's rotating presidency. Schwarzenberg noted that EU governments agreed in June last year to intensify efforts to build a stronger alliance with Israel. This decision could only be revised by those governments, he said, adding: "It can't be changed at the word of a very respected representative of the European Union in Jerusalem."

Amira Hass: Gazans doing their best to avoid becoming death statistics
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054551.html
The military is steadily forcing the areas known as "population concentrations" to move inward, "clearing" areas on the periphery - first the agricultural land, and now the neighborhoods bordering them - and pushing people into an increasingly smaller territory.

All eyes on Rafah
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/929/eg12.htm
Egypt is under pressure to open the only exit from Gaza not under Israeli control. Amira Howeidy examines the legalities and symbolism of the Rafah border crossing.

Obama's pro-Israel congressional welcome
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?categ_id=5&article_id=98991
The House of Representatives voted last Friday by 390-5 for a resolution that backed Israel in its Gaza onslaught, affirming "Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." A day earlier, the Senate overwhelmingly supported Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism.

War on Hamas Saps Palestinian Leaders
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/middleeast/15fatah.html
Israel hoped that the war in Gaza would not only cripple Hamas, but eventually strengthen its secular rival, the Palestinian Authority, and even allow it to claw its way back into Gaza. But with each day, the authority, its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and its leading party, Fatah, seem increasingly beleaguered and marginalized, even in the Palestinian cities of the West Bank, which they control. Protesters accuse Mr. Abbas of not doing enough to stop the carnage in Gaza — indeed, his own police officers have used clubs and tear gas against those same protesters. ... Israel is proposing, with the tacit agreement of Egypt and the United States, to place the Palestinian Authority at the heart of an ambitious program to rebuild Gaza, administering reconstruction aid and securing Gaza’s borders. But that plan is already drawing skepticism. [“Independent Palestinian analyst” Ghassan] Khatib, for example, called the idea of any Palestinian Authority role in postwar Gaza “silly” and “naïve.”

Israel Foreign Ministry preparing for 'day after' IDF leaves Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055553.html

משרד החוץ הקים צוות "היום שאחרי" במטרה למנוע שיקום עזה ע"י איראן
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1055740.html
The Foreign Ministry has created a special task force to prepare for the aftermath of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza operation. The team will submit proposals for two of the army's main concerns - Iran and Hamas taking control of Gaza's postwar reconstruction, and the harm the offensive might cause to Israel's image abroad. The ministry hopes to avoid a situation similar to the one in southern Lebanon after the 2006 Second Lebanon War. There, Iran sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah to transfer to families whose homes had been destroyed, burnishing the militant group's reputation among the population. The goal is to allow the Palestinian Authority, as well as Arab and international entities, to lead reconstruction efforts and funding, taking credit for Gaza's rehabilitation in place of Hamas or Iran.

Gideon Levy: Compared to previous wars, Gaza op is child's play
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055574.html
גדעון לוי | משחק ילדים
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1055708.html
The fighting in Gaza is "war deluxe." Compared with previous wars, it is child's play - pilots bombing unimpeded as if on practice runs, tank and artillery soldiers shelling houses and civilians from their armored vehicles, combat engineering troops destroying entire streets in their ominous protected vehicles without facing serious opposition. A large, broad army is fighting against a helpless population and a weak, ragged organization that has fled the conflict zones and is barely putting up a fight. ... This war is also child's play because of its victims. About a third of those killed in Gaza have been children - 311, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 270 according to the B'Tselem human rights group - out of the 1,000 total killed as of Wednesday. Around 1,550 of the 4,500 wounded have also been children according to figures from the UN, which says the number of children killed has tripled since the ground operation began.

Israeli Forces Shell UN Office in Gaza
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/15/world/AP-ML-Israel-Palestinians.html

Gaza hospitals and UN warehouse hit
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009116089728759.html
Around 700 Palestinians were sheltering in the UN complex at the time of the strikes which left two civilians and three staff members injured. Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said fires were still raging hours after the attack and "tens of millions of dollars worth of aid" had been destroyed. John Ging, the director of Unrwa operations in the Strip, also accused the Israelis of using phosphorus shells. ... Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for Unrwa, robustly denied that Palestinian fighters were among refugees sheltering there. "At no stage during the fighting today did any Israeli official pick up the phone and tell us there were militants in our compound. We always take action against militants ... there were no militants in our compound and now they [the Israelis] are changing their story, saying militants were 'in the vicinity'," he said.

In the US, Gaza is a different war
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/2009116089728759.html
Major US television channels also adopted the equal time approach, despite the reality that Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones by a hundred fold. However, such comparisons were rare because the scripts read by American correspondents often excluded the overall Palestinian death count. By stripping the context, American viewers may have easily assumed a level playing field, rather than a case of disproportionate force. Take the opening lines of a report filed by NBC's Martin Fletcher on December 30: "In Gaza two little girls were taking out the rubbish and killed by an Israeli rocket - while in Israel, a woman had been driving home and was killed by a Hamas rocket. No let up today on either side on the fourth day of this battle." ... Unlike the correspondents from ABC and NBC, who have filed their reports exclusively from Israeli cities, Arab crews are inside Gaza, with many correspondents native Gazans themselves.

Saudi silence on Gaza linked to 'US nuclear gift'
http://www5.irna.ir/En/View/FullStory/?NewsId=305303&IdLanguage=3
What was ignored in the past three weeks by the western and even regional media was signing an agreement on nuclear cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia.

Rabbi Cohen slams Zionism for Gaza misery
http://www5.irna.ir/View/FullStory/?NewsId=299601&IdLanguage=3
The European Spokesman of Authentic Orthodox Jewish Opposition to Zionism has lambasted the international community for ignoring history of Palestine and the Zionism movement which is currently spreading terror and coercion in Gaza.

Israel surrounds Iran's aid ship in Gaza
http://www5.irna.ir/En/View/FullStory/?NewsId=305152&IdLanguage=3
Warships of the Zionist regime surrounded the Iranian ship "Shahed" carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip, an Iranian official told IRNA Thursday. ... The consignment, which has been prepared under supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross, contains Iran's humanitarian aid and food supplies for the oppressed people in Gaza.

Israeli leaders called ‘mass murderers’ in British parliament
http://www5.irna.ir/View/FullStory/?NewsId=301246&IdLanguage=3
In an official statement, Miliband claimed that both he and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for an immediate ceasefire since the beginning of Israel’s attacks 17 days ago, but insisted that there can be “no equivalence” between the two sides. “Hamas have shown themselves over a number of years to be murderous in word and deed. Their motif is resistance and their method includes terrorism. Israel is meanwhile a thriving democratic state with independent judiciary,” he said.

Gaza op may be squeezing Hamas, but it's destroying Israel's soul
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055968.html
Shelling a United Nations facility is something not to be done at any time, but doing it on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem is beyond lunacy.

Gideon Levy: Someone has to stop Israel's rampant madness in Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055969.html

Michael Warschawski: Barak and all Israeli Leaders—To the Hague
http://www.alternativenews.org/content/view/1541/389/

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