Wikileaks cable reveals Syria's price for US support

Syrian is ready to cooperate with America again over Iraq but only at a price and flatly refuses to link an Israeli deal with Iran’s nuclear capability. These are the key messages revealed in one of the top secret cables published by Wikileaks this weekend. The cable “10Damascus8, Codel Gregg’s December 30 meeting with President” discusses “a frank one hour meeting” between Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad and six visiting US Senators Judd Gregg, Evan Bayh, Arlen Specter, Mike Enzi, John Cornyn and Amy Klobuchar on 30 December 2009. (Photo credit not known, sourced here)

Asad began the talks by saying he wanted a return of Turkish-facilitated indirect talks with Israel but said Syria's relationship with Iran should not be linked to Israeli peace negotiations. Syria's ties with Hamas and Hezbollah could be “satisfactorily resolved” only after peace was achieved. Asad said he wanted to see better relationships with the US but his foreign minister Walid al-Muallim said the ball was in the Americans’ court for taking the next positive step.

Asad called Iran the region’s most important country and said the West should acknowledged Iran's NPT-protected right to enrich uranium under IAEA monitoring. Instead of insisting Iran ship all of its Low Enriched Uranium at once as the West demands, Asad said Iran’s counter-offer to ship several batches of LEU for enrichment abroad was "reasonable". Asad said Iran was not interested in pursuing a nuclear weapon, but warned an Israeli military strike on its nuclear infrastructure would fail to end the program and would only increase Iran's determination.

Asad also refused to link Iran’s nuclear program with Israeli talks, arguing it would complicate both issues. Asad said eight months of indirect peace talks in May 2008 with Israel under Turkish auspices had achieved more than several years of direct negotiations with Israel in the 1990s. Direct talks failed because of the lack of "rules of negotiation." He said indirect talks represented the best way to establish terms of reference similar to those reached by James Baker in 1991. Asad urged the US and EU to support the Turkish initiative. “Israel's military superiority would not secure it from attack against missiles and other technologies,” he said.

Asad then bristled at suggestions Syria was allowing extremists across its borders into Iraq. Asad blamed the situation on the absence of political cooperation with the US. The Americans possessed a "huge information apparatus" but lacked the ability to analyse this information successfully. "You're failing in the fight against extremism,” he told the Senators. “While we lack your intelligence capabilities, we succeed in fighting extremists because we have better analysts.”

Asad said Syria had refused to cooperate with President Bush because it did not trust him and because his administration had wrongly accused Syria of supporting foreign fighters. When President Obama assumed office, Syria tried to be positive. Asad said he had shared the idea with Special Envoy Mitchell of a border security cooperation initiative with Iraq as a first step (the CIA analyst disputed this saying it was an American suggestion to which Syria reluctantly agreed).

Asad also compared the difficulty of patrolling the large Iraqi border with similar issues on US-Mexico border. "In the US you like to shoot (terrorists),” he said. “Suffocating their networks is far more effective.” Asad blamed “US mistakes in Iraq" for trouble in the region. The report said despite a shared interest with the US in ensuring Iraqi stability, Syria would not immediately jump to intelligence cooperation without ensuring its own interests would be respected. "I won't give it (intelligence cooperation) to you for free," Asad told the Senators.

The Senators had two other agenda items they wanted Syria to address: to facilitate the release of three detained Americans in Iran, and re-open the Damascus Community School. Asad said he was unfamiliar with the detained Americans issue but was “ready” to reopen the school after he shut it down in response to a US military attack in 2008 that killed seven Syrian civilians.

The cable went into a great more detail of the discussions than was revealed by Senator Specter’s account of the CODEL in the February congressional record. While Specter mentioned the Turkish solution and the "decoupling" of Iran he made no mention of the LEU offer or what Asad requested of the US in exchange for intelligence support.

The report is one of 15,000 Top Secret classified documents released by Wikileaks on the weekend. On Sunday they began the painstaking task of publishing over a quarter of a million leaked US embassy cables. The cables date from 1966 to February 2010 and contain confidential communications between the State Department and 274 embassies in countries throughout the world.

Israel commemorates 15th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's death

20,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square overnight to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In the spot where Rabin was shot dead, President Shimon Peres told the crowd those favouring peace would prevail but preferred to blame Arabs rather than Israelis for the delays. “There are still those that wish to remove the Jews from Israel and that these people do not make the way to peace any easier,” he said. "The road to peace is long and difficult, and our neighbours are not helping us, but we will not be denied the hope for peace nor from attaining it”.

But it wasn’t a neighbour that killed Rabin, it was one of the family. Rabin was murdered after a peace rally on 4 November 1995 by an Israeli. His assassin was Yigal Amir, an ultra-nationalist Jewish extremist who opposed Rabin's policy of trading land to the Palestinians for peace. Amir was sentenced to life in prison. Amir was egged on by the hostile spirit of the time with many political hard-liners branding Rabin a traitor for pursuing the Oslo Accords and some fringe extremists calling for his death.

The first native-born Prime Minister of Israel he was born in Jerusalem in 1922 of a Ukrainian-Belarusian family. Yitzhak Rabin grew up in a spirit of activism and both his parents were avid volunteers. After completing his studies at the School for Workers' Children, Rabin spent two years at a kibbutz before enrolling in the Kadoorie Agricultural School, at the foot of Mount Tabor. The school was surrounded by Arab villages, and the daily routine included defence training and guard duty. While at Kadoorie, Rabin joined the Haganah, the Zionist military organisation.

During the war years Rabin served as a scout for Allied Forces units invading Syria and Lebanon against Vichy French Army units. But his friendship with British forces ended in 1945 when his battalion attempted to free 200 Jews from a British internment camp near Haifa. He was arrested in June 1946 and served five months in prison. In the Israeli war of independence Rabin safeguarded convoys of food, ammunition and medical supplies to the beleaguered city of Jerusalem. He also served as chief operations officer in the campaign to drive Egyptian and Jordanian forces from the Negev. At one point in the war Rabin met Nasser, then an Egyptian army officer, where they discussed the military situation and shared a bowl of fruit.

Rabin rose through the ranks to become the second ranking officer in the IDF. He was chief of staff during the Six Days War and it was his recommendation to carry out a pre-emptive strike. He left the armed forces after Israel’s total victory in 1967 and he served as Israeli Ambassador to Washington for five years. On his return he joined the Labour Party and was appointed minister of labour in Prime Minister Golda Meir's 1973 government.

Protests over the poor preparation in the Yom Kippur war forced Meir’s resignation and Rabin was elected as head of the Labour Party, and prime minister. His first term of office was dominated by negotiations with Egypt and Syria mediated by Kissinger. He authorised the attack on the hijackers at Entebbe in Uganda in 1976 but was forced to resign a year later over reports his wife had a secret US bank account.

He returned to politics in 1984 as the Defence Minister in a new unity government. He held the post for six years during which time he was engrossed in trying to disentangle the IDF from the disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon. After the collapse of the unity government, Rabin took over the Labour leadership once more and won the 1992 election with the help of minor parties. His government made major advances in the peace process, signing the Oslo Accords with Arafat’s PLO in 1993 and the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace in 1994. He was also planning to concede the Golan Heights to Syria. Rabin, Shimon Peres and Arafat were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”.

But if his efforts were lauded overseas, they were detested by many at home. His assassin, a far-right law student named Yigal Amir was one of many deeply unhappy with Rabin’s peace moves. Amir appealed to the traditional Jewish legal concept of din rodef (law of the pursuer) to justify the murder. The tradition comes from the Talmud which allows a bystander to kill someone who is pursuing someone else with the intention of murder. Amir claimed din rodef applied because Rabin was endangering Jewish lives with his peace plans.

On the night of 4 November 1995, Rabin was attending a Tel Aviv peace rally in what was then known as Kings of Israel Square. At the end of the rally, Rabin walked down the city hall steps towards the open door of his car. Amir emerged from the crowd and fired three shots with a semi-automatic weapon. Two bullets struck Rabin and a third injured a bodyguard. Rabin was pronounced dead 40 minutes later at Tel Aviv Medical Centre.

While Rabin’s death was a huge shock and embarrassment for Israel, his Labour Party did not benefit from his death. Hardliner Binyamin Netanyahu was a surprise winner of the Prime Ministerial election that followed in 1996 and he set Israel on a path of conflict with its neighbours it has yet to fully emerge from. Rabin was no saint and his “anti Israel” attitude was completely exaggerated by his political enemies. But in the 15 years since his death, no Israeli leader has come close to him in reaching out past the pain of Israel's history to confront the reality of its precarious geography.

Gaza: A History of Neglect

While the recent flotilla attempts to end the economic blockade have turned it into front page news, Gaza has been a forgotten add-on for most of its 62 years of existence. For millennia it was simply a part of Palestine occupied by a succession of foreign rulers. On 14 May 1948 the last of those rulers, the British high commissioner, left Palestine formally ending the colonial mandate. (photo:AP)

The Zionists immediately proclaimed an independent Israel. Within 24 hours armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq launched an attack across the frontier but stopped short at occupying Jewish settlements. The Israelis battle-hardened from fighting Germans and British alike routed the invaders.

When fighting ended in January 1949 Palestine had disappeared from the map. Most went to Israel, the west Bank went to Jordan leaving behind just the tiny strip of Gaza administered by Egypt. The strip was home to thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled across the border or were forced to leave by Jewish settlers.

Egypt’s King Farouk ordered the building of a new palace in Gaza where he could preside over a Palestinian Arab Government. But his grandiose schemes fell apart when Nasser and his Free Officers deposed him in a coup in 1952. Nasser turned his attentions to removing the hated British from the Suez Canal Zone while Gaza reverted to near lawless anarchy and fedayeen raids against Israel.

Four years later the Israelis invaded the strip in the Suez War. It followed a blitz attack on Egyptian forces in Sinai then a diversion south to open up the Gulf of Aqaba. The southern end of the Strip became one of the key battlefields of the war but the Israelis quickly overran the 8,000 Egyptian defenders before taking Gaza City.

After the war Israel told the UN it would keep its troops in Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh in Sinai. The Americans although sympathetic to Israel, reacted angrily and threatened to cut off aid and end its guarantee of unrestricted oil supplies. With a likely vote on a UN resolution condemning Israel, then Prime Minister Ben Gurion accepted the inevitable and agreed to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza in exchange for access to the Gulf of Aqaba. The war ended the facade there was an independent government in Gaza. Direct control went back to Cairo with a military governor installed in Gaza City.

Gaza changed hands again in 1967 when once again the Strip and Sinai were vital battlefields in the Egyptian flank of the Six Day War. At the end of the war the Israeli Government voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. However Gaza was conspicuously absent from the decision and the arrangement was rejected by Egypt and Syria.

Israeli historian Benny Morris said at least 70,000 Gazans emigrated to Egypt and were forced to sign documents saying they were leaving of their own free will. Israelis moved into the Strip in large numbers taking up one fifth of the land in an already crowded area. Israel finally gave Sinai back to Egypt in 1979 but once again the status of Gaza was not addressed by President Carter’s peace treaty. Egypt did however agree to renounce its territorial claims on the area freeing it to become a part of Palestine, in theory.

Growing Palestinian unrest led to the First Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and a year later to the Oslo Accords which called for the total withdrawal of the IDF from parts of Gaza and the West Bank. It also created the Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority for these areas for a transitional period of five years. It was also the first time that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to view Gaza and the West Bank as a single territorial unit. The Oslo Accords were a brave move but ultimately foundered on aspects that had been deliberately put into the ‘too hard basket’: Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees, security and border control, and the status of Jerusalem.

Yet there was impact in Gaza. The IDF left Gaza City and the urban conurbation around it and the Palestinian Authority began to administer and police the region in their place. The PA was racked by corruption and mismanagement and by 2000 most of the Strip’s 400,000 residents were frustrated by the lack of progress and the squalid conditions they lived in. The scene was set for the Second Intifada and the fracturing of the Oslo Accords.

After Israeli soldier were killed by a Palestinian mob in the West bank, the IDF launched retaliatory air strikes against PA targets in the West Bank and Gaza. Attitudes hardened on both sides with Israel turning to the right wing Likud Party while Hamas grew in popularity in Gaza. As matters dragged on for years, an exasperated Ariel Sharon decided in 2004 to unilaterally evict all Israelis from Gaza’s 21 settlements. The IDF withdrew a year later. The disengagement did not address wider issues of occupation. Israel still retained control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, coastline, infrastructure and power grid.

Nevertheless the withdrawal gave fresh hope to a peace settlement, hopes that were soon dashed again. In Palestine parliamentary elections were held in early 2006 for the first time in 10 years. Hamas stunned the ruling Fatah party by easily winning the election. With Hamas refusing to recognise Israel, the US and EU imposed sanctions on Palestine. Israel also imposed a blockade on the Strip which exists to this day. The election result also led to the “fratricidal war” between Hamas and Fatah and the latter used its greater numbers in the West Bank to wrest back power there. Hamas remained entrenched in the Strip.

They also continued their low-level war against Israel with home-made Qassam rockets a constant irritant in border regions. In December 2008, Israel lost patience and launched Operation Cast Lead with a series of air strikes before a ground-based invasion in which over a thousand Palestinians were killed and most of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed in a three-week campaign. Today the border remains sealed and the IDF strictly controls travel to and from the area.

The end result may to be harden attitudes within the Strip that its future lies not as part of a united Palestine with the West Bank but as a separate country in its own right. It is this reality that no one in the region has yet confronted.

Helen Thomas and the truth about Palestine

Nothing has depressed me more this week than the Helen Thomas affair. If you cannot have a controversial opinion after living on the planet for nine decades then when can you have one?

Thomas had to “retire in disgrace” after she said the Jews should leave Palestine. But she knows a bit about what she was talking about. All her working life she has watched the disaster that has unfolded in the region since Israel’s independence in 1948. In an age where media allow governments to get away with lies about “the peace process” for a journalist of almost 70 years standing to lose her job when she call a spade a spade even when it’s a particularly dirty shovel, is particularly odious.

Where as Palestinians can trace a 2,000 year old link of habitation with their land, the Jewish Diaspora of Europeans, Russians and Africans have been there at most a 100 years. The Jews must reach into their religion to find their ancient connection with Israel. And given how they have battered the original inhabitants into submission, It takes little wonder to imagine a Palestine which is a lot more of a Holy Land without the xenophobes that now administer the country in Jerusalem (a capital recognized by no other country).

Thomas is no fool. She knows she has no power to change facts and knows full well that the Israelis are going nowhere. She has seen first hand how US support and military hardware makes the Knesset well-nigh invincible. With the blessing of every president since Eisenhower (the first of 11 presidents Thomas reported on) Israel have increased their strangehold on Palestine. Thomas could see only too well how they turned the West Bank into a mess of powerless Bantustans and how they have bombed the Strip back into stateless inertia.

So when this knowledgeable near 90 year old is asked a leading question by a Jewish rabbi “Any comments on Israel?” it is hardly wonder she should reply “I think the Jews should get out of Palestine.”

It was the use of the word “Jews” that hung her. If she had said “I think the Israelis should get out of Palestine” it would have been perfectly valid and free from the hoary charge of “anti-Semitism”, a cliché that shows no understanding of what a Semite actually is.

Perhaps Thomas realised this or perhaps she didn’t. She is 89 years old after all. But she did quickly realise was how much an the effect her words would have on the mediated public sphere, given she is a product of it. She chose to fall on her own sword rather than have to constantly justify a position that is so anathema to the US mainstream.

Thomas’s Cassandra-like words exposed her to a path of political deviance. That is unsustainable in any path of American public trust which is based on the media lie that Israel is never wrong.

But she is old enough to remember another event in the same year as Israel’s independence. In 1948, the Russians imposed a wilful blockade on West Berlin aimed at starving it out of political existence. The western powers led by the US defeated it using a combination of outrage and ingenuity.

The blockade of Gaza deserves similar outrage regardless of your feelings about the legitimacy of the Hamas Government. 400,000 people are being systematically starved by a government in a brutal piece of collective punishment. In any other context, this would be called genocide. Shutting an old woman up won't make it any better.

Israel massacres peace activists in the Mediterranean

The Israel Defence Force has murdered at least 16 people after storming ships on the high sea bound for Gaza. The six ships of the flotilla were carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid and around 600 human right activists from around the world who were determined to break Israel’s three year long blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israel had repeatedly said it would not let them in and IDF forces boarded the boats around 65km off Gaza before beginning their killing spree. Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the convoy despite the raising of a white flag.

With the flotilla carrying mainly medical and food supplies, most of the world’s governments have condemned Israel’s provocative actions. Israeli police are on high alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances. Meanwhile in Gaza, the Hamas government held an emergency meeting chaired by premier Ismail Haneya, following the Israeli Television Channel 10 report that 16 activists on the ships were killed and 30 wounded, including the Israeli-Arab Islamic activist Sheikh Raed Sallah (though the Jerusalem Post said he is injured not dead).

The IDF version of events needs to be treated with extreme caution but they said soldiers were attacked with knives and clubs as they boarded the six vessels. It said the violence turned deadly when an activist grabbed a weapon from one of the commandos. “The weapon discharged,” they said ambiguously not making it clear whether the activist fired it or if it went off accidentally.

The six ships of the flotilla sailed under Turkish and American flags and set off from Cyprus yesterday. Israeli forces said they would not allow them to land and the flotilla deliberated slowed down so that any forced landing would happen in daylight hours to maximize the media exposure. Meanwhile at the port in Gaza City, Hamas prepared a welcoming party with marquees and a buffet to greet the flotilla which was expected mid-afternoon today.

The first contact happened 200 kms off the Gaza shore. The IDF contacted the flotilla by radio and told them the Gaza Strip was a closed military zone. They offered them two options either follow the navy to Ashdod Port in Israel or else be commandeered by commandos. "If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade,” the IDF told them. The flotilla radar detected three Israeli ships in the area. After boarding the vessels and going on a shooting spree, the IDF towed the vessels to Ashdod.

The Hamas Government in Gaza said it considered the dead activists "as the martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla, adding that "the world should put an end to the biggest country of pirates.” Meanwhile Gaza premier Ismail Hanaya called the attack an international crime and a political scandal carried out according to an Israeli military order. “I call on the Palestinian Authority to immediately suspend its negotiations with Israel,” he said. He also called for street protects and the Arab states to respond to “end the unfair Israeli siege."

Israel justified its actions saying it already allows 15,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza each week. However the UN said this is just a quarter of what the Gaza Strip needs. Somewhere between 35 and 60 percent of Gaza’s agriculture industry was destroyed by Israel’s three week long invasion in 2008-2009 which left the land contaminated and cratered. This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza movement has tried to ship in humanitarian aid to Gaza since August 2008 but only five have been successful and none since Operation Cast Lead turned Gaza into a wasteland. The latest action confirms Israel is prepared to thumb its nose at international criticism as it lurches further into right-wing extremist nationalism.

Lot's lot: The Death of the Jordan

“You can almost jump across this river. In other places, you don’t need to even jump. You can just cross it. It’s ankle deep.” This was an Israeli scientist’s sad assessment of the dying Jordan River. Gidon Bromberg’s anecdotal evidence was backed by his team of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmental scientists which says large stretches of the Jordan River could dry up by 2011. (photo: Getty)

A report from the EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) group say the river is in grave danger from excessive water diversion and pollution as well as being treated as a backyard dump. An astonishing 98 percent of its fresh water is currently being diverted while discharge of large quantities of untreated sewage is threatening to cause irreversible damage to the river valley. In the last 50 years, the river’s annual flow has dropped from more than 1.3 billion cubic meters to less than 30 million cubic meters and it has lost half its biodiversity due to habitat loss and the high salinity of the water.

FoEME is an unique environmental peacemaking movement and a tri-lateral organisation that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists. FoEME say their primary objective is the promotion of cooperative efforts to protect their shared environmental heritage. This, they say has a double purpose, that of advancing sustainable regional development and the creation of necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region.

The Jordan River is sacred to three religions. It is mentioned in Genesis: "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord." A pillar of salt near Deir Ain Abata in the Dead Sea is said to be Lot’s wife, after she turned to watch the destruction of Sodom. The Jordan is also the traditional baptismal site of Jesus and many of Mohammad’s venerable companions are buried near its banks, making it a holy site for Muslims around the world as well.

The Jordan Valley is also of immense ecological significance. The Valley is part of the 7,200-kilometre Great Rift Valley and is at the centre of one of the most important bird migration flyways on the planet. 500 million birds migrate annually through this narrow corridor between Europe and Africa. The area is also an important Middle Eastern wetland; both Birdlife International andWetland International have declared the entire river basin a significant bird and wetland area, maintaining many globally valuable species that are regionally or globally threatened or endangered species. The plight of the river is adding the strain on these species.

FoEME’s Israeli co-director Gidon Bromberg took journalists on a tour of the region to tell them what is killing the river and to tell them how much water is needed to save it and where the water would come from. Al Jazeera’s Orly Halpern said the river “was a narrow foul brownish stream that gurgled its way south”. Bromberg said the sewage from an additional 15,000 Israelis living in the upper Jordan Valley, 6,000 Israeli settlers, 60,000 Palestinians and 250,000 Jordanians provides the Lower Jordan with most of its water."No one can say this is holy water," said Bromberg. "The Jordan River has become holy shit.”

In their water quality study released 3 May entitled “Towards a Living River Jordan” (pdf) FoEME said the Lower Jordan needed 400 million cubic metres of fresh water annually to return to life. They suggest 220 mcm should be provided by Israel, 100 by Syria and 90 by Jordan based on the historical usage of the water. In addition, the report says the river needs an annual minor flood event to flush out the salinity of the water. It said Israel and Jordan are building new waste water treatment plants which will remove the pollutants but further action is now required to allocate fresh water.

But FoEME is pleased by the first steps. Earlier this year, the Israeli Ministry of Environment released the Terms of Reference (ToR) for their proposal to rehabilitate the LJR from the Sea of Galilee to Bezeq Stream at the border with the Palestinian West Bank. The Israeli side presented the ToR to Jordanian and Palestinian stakeholders for comments during FoEME’s Regional Advisory Committee in February. FoEME praised this as a “first step towards rehabilitation and encourages the international community to support Jordan and Palestine in the development of their own ToRs as partners to the rehabilitation effort.”

FoEME say a billion cubic metres of water could be saved if appropriate economies were introduced in Israel, Jordan and Palestine. "In the middle of the desert we continue to flush our toilets with fresh water rather than using grey water or even better - waterless toilets; and we grow tropical fruit for export," Bromberg said. "We can do much better in reducing water loss and we need to treat and reuse all of the sewage water that we produce."

Europe and Australia more worried about passport fraud than Mossad murderers

While the much-publicised hunt continues into the Dubai fake passports affair, no European country has yet launched a manhunt for the killers of the Hamas man slain in the Gulf state despite an Interpol investigation into the crime. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in Dubai on 19 January by Mossad operatives who then fled across Europe. The men are believed to have flown to Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands but none of the authorities of these countries have launched investigations. AP say this is because the hit was carried out by a friendly country and arresting Israeli agents or even digging up evidence that Israel was involved could be politically costly. "I would guess that it's in the political interest of certain countries not to get proactive in this case," said Victor Mauer, deputy director of the Centre for Security Studies at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology.

The countries also say they have yet to receive a request of help from Dubai about the case. The murdered man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a senior Hamas commander. He was also one of the founders of the Qassam brigades which were responsible for the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and in the subsequent heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s incursion in December 2008. Al-Mabhouh was born in Gaza in 1960 and has been known to Israeli authorities since as far back as 1989 when he was involved in the abduction and murder of two IDF members. He has been the target of two previous assassination attempts: a car bombing and a poisoning. The poisoning took place in Beirut just six months ago and rendered him unconscious for 30 hours.

In recent years al-Mabhouh was a key negotiator between Hamas and Iran. On 19 January he flew from Syria to Dubai stopping off there on his way to Bangkok. He arrived in the early afternoon without bodyguards and booked into the Al Bustan Rotana hotel using a false identity. He left the hotel an hour later and returned around 8.25pm that evening. It was likely he was being tailed during his absence. His wife rang a half hour later but there was no answer. Israeli news agency Inyan Merkazi reported a four-member squad of Shin Bet and Mossad agents interrogated al-Mabhouh before executing him. Dubai Police say he was dead by 9pm. Hotel footage show suspects following him to his room in the afternoon before checking into the room opposite. Around 8pm they gained entry to his room and waited for his return.

Al-Mahmoud’s body was found the following morning and taken for a police examination. Burns from a stun gun were found under his ear, in his groin and on his chest. Pathologists discovered his nose bled before death. They found blood on a pillow they believe was placed over his nose and mouth to suffocate him. Results from a preliminary forensic report by the Dubai police found that al-Mabhouh was first paralysed via electric shock to his ears, legs, heart and genitals and then suffocated. Dubai police identified 11 people they suspected of involvement in the murder. Five of them carried out the crime while the remaining six served as lookouts. Another four were later added to the list and they all travelled on fake Western passports, six UK, five Irish, three Australian, one French and one German. The fact that many of the passports share names with people living in Israel reinforced widespread suspicion about Mossad involvement.

Reaction in the west to al-Mahmoud’s killing was initially muted. The subtext was here was a known terrorist who was simply getting his just desserts. But reaction quickly changed once it became apparent that Israeli agents used western passports in the hit. Foreign ministers of all the countries involved complained to Israel about the identity theft involved. The EU called the nature of the killing “profoundly disturbing”. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was also distinctly uneasy in criticising Israel but said it would not be considered the "act of a friend.”

UK Police are now in Israel investigating the passport theft. There they will interview six British-Israeli nationals whose identities were stolen by the suspected killers. Officers say they are being viewed as potential witnesses to a crime, which is the fraudulent use of a passport, and will not be questioned or interviewed as suspects. British authorities say they believe the Israeli secret service Mossad was involved which Israel has refused to confirm or deny.

In a penetrating article in New Matilda last week, Mark Steven skewered western reaction to the crime. Steven said the West’s response to the assassination was simply the result of their principal and shared interest in the expropriation of national identities rather than a horror of al-Mahmoud’s death.” While assassination is condemnable, it seems the requisition of a European or an Australian identity is utterly unforgivable,” he wrote. Stevens asked the question: “While life that coheres behind names printed on European passports is to be valued highly, what is the worth of life that only exists under collective labels, such as ‘Israel’ or ‘Palestine’?”

UN to discuss Goldstone Report on Israel's war crimes in Gaza

The UN Security Council has agreed to Libya’s request for an emergency session to discuss a report on Israeli war crimes in its Gaza incursion last year. The closed door talks will take place later today to discuss South African Justice Richard Goldstone’s Report into the war which was produced without the co-operation of Israel. Palestine has approved the talks a week after deferring a UN debate on the matter to March 2010. But Libyan spokesman Ahmed Gebreel said his country had requested the meeting "because of the seriousness of the report and because we think it's too long to wait until March". (photo of Israeli air assault on Gaza on 28 Dec 2008 by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi)

The UN released the report entitled “Human rights in Palestine and other occupied territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” last month. The 575 page report looked at Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and its military air and ground offensive which lasted from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. An estimated 1,500 people were killed in the invasion of which just ten were Israeli soldiers (4 of these died from friendly fire) and three were Israeli civilians.

During the 22-day war, Israeli attacks totally destroyed the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Gaza main prison. The report rejected the Israeli justification these buildings were part of the “Hamas terrorist infrastructure” and said they were deliberate attacks on civilian objects. The report also condemned the attacks on six police stations which resulted in the deaths of 99 police officers and nine civilians. Israel deliberately targeted police on the grounds they were considered part of the Palestinian military but the report found they were a civilian law-enforcement agency.

The report found that Palestinian militants launched rockets from urban areas and did not adequately distinguish themselves from non-combatants. However, it found no evidence that mosques or hospitals were used as “military shields”. It also acknowledged Israel made significant efforts to issue warnings for civilians to get out of harm’s way but many of their warnings were not specific and lacked credibility.

It condemned Israel for its flagrant attack on the UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) field office which offered shelter to 700 people. The IDF attacked the building with high explosives for several hours despite the fact they were aware of who was there and the fact the compound contained a huge fuel depot. On the same day (15 January), Israel also attacked a Gaza City hospital without warning. The attack caused a day-long fire and panic among evacuated patients.

The report also criticised an Israeli attack on al-Fakhura junction in Jabalya next to a UNRWA school where 1,300 people were taking shelter. Mortar shells killed at least 35 people in an attack that was “indiscriminate in violation of international law”. The report said 10 out of another 11 attacks on civilian targets had no military objective. The impact was compounded by Israeli refusal to evacuate wounded or permit access to ambulances. It said IDF conduct was “criminal” and constituted “grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings.”

The report also condemned deliberate attacks against industrial installations, food production, sewage treatment and housing. Israel also used blindfolded Palestinian shields to enter houses of suspected militants and detained large numbers of men, women and children for the duration of the conflict. The entire mission was carried out according to “Dahiya Doctrine” (also practiced in the Lebanon war in 2006) which involves disproportionate force, maximum disruption and damage and the transformation of civilians into military targets.

The report also considered the continued detention of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was captured in 2006 by a Palestinian group. While the report said Shalit was entitled to POW status and is entitled to a visit from the Red Cross, it did not justify the blockade of the Strip as it constituted “collective punishment”. It certainly does not justify the imprisonment of 8,100 Palestinian political prisoners.

The report also accused Gaza forces of targeting five Fatah members who were killed for their political affiliation. It also accused the Palestinian Authority of torture and inhumane treatment of Hamas prisoners in the West Bank. Goldstone considered the West Bank situation as “closely interrelated” to Gaza but Israel refused access for them to visit the territory (they were able to visit Gaza via Egypt). The report said that attacks in the West Bank coincided with the Gaza assault and the IDF killed a number of protesters. Israel has taken no action to punish soldiers and settlers for violence against Palestinians.

The report also blamed Gaza for its persistent rocket attacks. It said that Palestinian armed groups have launched 8,000 rockets into southern Israel since 2001 with a range of 40kms from the border. These attacks have killed three people and injured another one thousand causing a high level of psychological trauma and an exodus of residents from the area. The report said they were indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations in order to spread terror and is contrary to humanitarian law.

The report recommended international legal action against Israel and Hamas for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It recommended the findings are handed to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and also urged the UN Security Council and, separately, the General Assembly, to ensure that those responsible for the crimes are brought to justice.

But Palestinian authorities initially did not support a UN review of Goldstone’s report. A week ago, President Mahmoud Abbas withdrew Palestinian support for a vote in the UN Human Rights Council to have the report sent to the General Assembly for possible action. Such a vote may have eventually led toward possible war crimes tribunals. Palestinian officials said Abbas’s decision was made “under heavy US pressure”. The decision was widely criticised within Palestine. Electronic Intifada called it “the most blatant case yet of PA betrayal of Palestinian rights and surrender to Israeli dictates.”

But now a senior Palestinian politician, Yasser Abed Rabbo, has said they had erred by seeking the deferral. "We must say a mistake has been made,” he said. “This mistake should not be underestimated or concealed.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile claimed the report's conclusions would "devastate the peace process". This is a disengenous complaint given that peace talks are currently going nowhere due to Netenyahu’s insistence on continuing with illegal settlement-building in the West Bank. It is Israel who have "devastated" the peace process just as they devastated Gaza ten months ago.

Waltz with Bashir: re-examining Israel's 1982 war in Lebanon

(pic by Wolf Gang)

I watched the wonderful animated Israeli film Waltz with Bashir on TV tonight and was reminded of the first time I saw it on a rainy night in a Dublin cinema last year. It was just before Christmas and the film's bright and vivid colours were an antidote to the grey of Irish winter. The subject matter, a genocide in the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war remains shocking despite the passing of the years. My interest in the film was also piqued by a recent visit to the Middle East. I had travelled overland from Turkey to Israel a month earlier. I avoided Lebanon, perhaps a bit afraid but I was also fascinated by the region and its seemingly intractable problems. So I expected the film to say a lot about Israel and Lebanon and I wasn't disappointed. What I did not expect was that the film would also say much about the fragile and treacherous nature of memory.

I also thought of the selectiveness of my own memories of Israel. My overriding impression was of a siege society. Though I never felt particularly unsafe, every public building is a terrorist target and long queues for searches are commonplace. The only people not searched are the young men and women in uniform who carried guns into railway stations with the same insouciance as others carry guitars. They carried them in uniform and in mufti. They carried them on the streets and in the markets and the cinemas and cafes. They nestled up to them on buses and trains in Jerusalem's thriving new city. They also patrolled with them along the ancient chequered streets of the Old City. This epicentre of the Israel’s problems since the 1967 Six Day War is divided by its Jewish, Christian, Armenians and Arab quarters and also by the sensitive and doubly disputed Temple Mount, which is cordoned off behind razor wire.

But perhaps the Israelis are right to feel paranoid. In 61 years of existence, the nation has found it difficult to convince its neighbours it should exist at all. Border travel is only possible to Sinai and to Jordan where a three-hour grilling is likely from suspicious hosts that prefer their visitors to arrive and leave via the front door at Ben Gurion airport. At Allenby Bridge, the Israelis want to know where you have been and where you are going. They want to know where you are staying in Israel. They would particularly like to know if you are going to the West Bank or Gaza.

In asking these questions, Israel is attempting to cover its guilt. Because despite its first world status in a third world Arab region, Israel has never properly dealt with the people it shares Palestine with. Like the Jews, the Palestinian Arabs also have an affinity with their land and they know 1948, the year the Israeli state was founded, as Al Nakbar - “The catastrophe”. Hundreds of thousands were forced off their land and became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and southern Lebanon.

The Palestinians weren’t wanted anywhere, but Lebanon was particularly difficult. This small but always vibrant country has long been a strategic melting pot. It was already a patchwork of different religious groups before 100,000 mainly Sunni Islam Palestinian arrived. Most were treated with hostility. There hasn’t been a census in Lebanon since 1932 because the powerful Christian Maronites don’t want confirmation the population is shifting towards Islam. The arrival of the Palestinians was a major factor in the complex civil war that tore the country apart between 1975 and 1990. The Mediterranean metropolis Beirut was destroyed many times over, the US and Israelis were dragged in and in the end Syria established a fragile hegemony over the warring tribes.

The Lebanese Palestinians were disenfranchised and living in squalid camps. These camps were the seeds for the PLO which used the cover of the civil war to wage their own counter-insurgency across the border on Israel. In April 1982, a PLO splinter group shot an Israel diplomat in London. Although the victim survived, this was the excuse Israel needed to invade southern Lebanon. They established a buffer zone with tacit American support.

Waltz with Bashir tells the story of this chaotic invasion. The Bashir of the title is Bachir Gemayel who led the Maronite Phalangists during the Civil War. Gemayel was a hero to his people and his face was a ubiquitous presence on posters and walls across Beirut. His Christian militia supported the Israeli invasion (though not in public) as both forces saw the PLO as the enemy. For two months Israel enforced the 40km buffer zone while they negotiated with Gemayel for him to become Lebanese Prime Minister with their support. But in September 1982 a bomb detonated at his HQ killing him and 26 other senior Phalangists. Though it was a fellow Christian employed by Syria who would later be convicted, the murder gave Israeli PM Menachem Begin to perfect excuse to expand the war against the PLO. Israel invaded Beirut, breaching a guarantee Begin gave the US not to do so.

The name of the film comes from the elaborate dance-like steps taken by one Israeli soldier to avoid sniper fire while running across a Beirut street illuminated by a background of a giant poster of Gemayel. The scene is played out like a waltz but it was far from serene. The Israelis overwhelming firepower allied to the Phalangist support soon secured the city. Once in power Gemayel’s people thirsted for vengeance against their PLO enemies. With IDF permission, 1,500 of their fighters entered the Shabra and Shatila refugee camps where the last PLO militants hid out among the refugees. The Israelis assisted their operation by continually lighting flares to assist their night-time activities.

Over the next two days, they went on a reign of terror. There is no agreed list of casualties but the Red Cross counted 300 deaths and said there were many more. The Israelis went further and admitted 800 civilians died. But various Palestinian bodies, including Red Crescent say the real death toll was several thousand. Whatever it was, Israel did not call off the slaughter until a TV journalist named Ron Ben-Yishai threatened to tell the world about it. A subsequent Israeli inquiry blasted the IDF for doing nothing to stop the genocide.

Waltz with Bashir is a film of laughter and forgetting. It was made by Ari Folman who was a 19 year old infantryman at the time of the war. Folman had lost his memories of the Lebanon campaign and was attempting to piece them back together with the help of people he served with. The film received mixed reviews in Israel with some saying he was too sympathetic to the IDF and others finding the parallels between the Palestinian camps and Nazi camps distasteful. The film is banned in Lebanon but 90 people attended a private screening in Beirut in January. Folman was delighted. "I wanted to show young people what war really looks like without glam and glory, without brotherhood of man and all the stupid things you might see in big American anti-war movies,” he said at the time. “Maybe that will convince them not to attend the next war that our leaders are cooking up for us."

Hezbollah acknowledge defeat in Lebanon election

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has acknowledged his party lost the weekend parliamentary election in Lebanon to the ruling coalition. The Sunni dominated March 14 coalition, led by Saad Hariri won 71 seats in the 128-seat parliament, while the Hezbollah coalition known as March 8 took 57. Speaking on Monday after official results were released, Nasrallah congratulated the government and opposition in a televised address on Monday. "We accept the official results in a sporting spirit," he said.

The loss of the Hezbollah-led opposition has been attributed to the poor performance at the polls of the Free Patriotic Movement, its Christian ally. The Free Patriotic Movement, led by General Michel Aoun, did poorly in the polls winning just 27 seats. Aoun blamed the loss on the large numbers of overseas voters who were flown in to cast their votes. He also said he has "thousands of complaints" about the March 14 forces' "violations" of the election law. "Laws and traditions were violated.” He said. “Regretfully, Patriarch Sfeir's Saturday statement took a tragic tone about the dangers posing to Lebanon which caused fear among people.”

AP's Sam Ghattas also noted the key influence of Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, head of Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic. Sfeir issued a last-minute warning about Iranian influence claiming that the nation's character and its Arab identity were under threat. Ghattas said that fears of a Tehran-supported government helped splice Christian swing voters from their supposed Shiite allies to deliver election victory to March 14.

Saad Hariri, son of Rafiq Hariri who was assassinated in 2005, is now poised to follow in his father’s footsteps and become the new Prime Minister. The Arabic An Nahar newspaper said consultations will be launched next Friday 20 June (which is the day parliament term expires) to name the new prime minister who will form the next cabinet and appoint a new parliament speaker. Another newspaper As Safir claims Hezbollah has no objections to Hariri becoming leader if it can do a deal to nominate the speaker.

Hariri will be anxious to negotiate particularly given that Hezbollah still control a powerful private army. Hezbollah’s militia won support in Lebanon by driving the Israeli army out of the south of the country in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. The March 14 group see the dismantling of this army as a key cornerstone to any lasting Lebanese peace. But his supporters are adamant he will not give them a veto over government policy. It was the veto negotiations which brought the government to a standstill last year and sparked clashes that killed at least 80 people. One Hariri spokesman said Hezbollah’s weapons are “a matter for national dialogue in order to progressively unify them under the army’s control.”

But even though doubts remain about Hezbollah’s willingness to disarm, the election result was well received by Beirut Stock Exchange. On Tuesday shares of Solidere, Lebanon's largest construction and development firm, rose 15 percent. Fadi Mubarak, head of treasury at Lebanon's Credit Bank, said the election’s effect was positive and people saw it as a good sign. Many Lebanese worried that a Hezbollah win would have alienated the country's main donors and left oil-rich Persian Gulf investors feeling skittish.

Hariri’s victory has also been greeted with relief in the West which fears Hezbollah’s terrorist links and Iranian support. But writing in The Irish Times, Michael Jansen says the election should not be read as a victory for Arab moderates. The political balance in the country remains almost the same as it was before the poll with the ruling coalition actually losing one seat since the previous election in 2005. Jansen quotes Paul Salem of the Carnegie Middle East Centre who said “nobody won and nobody lost”. Salem said Hezbollah might be comfortable with the outcome because Israel has been deprived of a pretext to attack Lebanon.

While it seems unlikely Hezbollah would be satisfied to remain perpetually in opposition, the role of Israel cannot be ignored. Later today Obama envoy George Mitchell will go to Lebanon after visits to Israel and Egypt and before heading on to Syria. There he will try and advance a political solution between Israel and its northern neighbours. Mitchell's trip was indicative of his overall approach - to talk to everyone and then "try to move the ball down the field one yard at a time."

Israel flexes its muscles: The West’s shameful boycott of the Durban Review Conference

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said she is “shocked and disappointed” by the US decision not to attend the anti-racism Durban Review Conference which starts today in Geneva, Switzerland. The US joins Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Netherlands, Germany and Italy in boycotting the conference. Speaking yesterday High Commissioner Navi Pillay said these countries have allowed a couple of issues to dominate, outweighing the needs of numerous groups who suffer worldwide on a daily basis. “These are truly global issues,” she said “And it is essential that they are discussed at a global level, however sensitive and difficult they may be."

Navi Pillay is right. It is shameful that these Western nations have allowed their Israeli interests to trump discussion of a wide range of important human rights issues. According to the Financial Times, the boycotters say they want to avoid a rerun of the original 2001 Durban meeting at which Israel was attacked over its racist policies towards Palestinians. Although this year’s draft communiqué was reworded to address concerns, the US was still unhappy at the final product.

The Obama administration announced its decision on Saturday. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said that although the US was “profoundly committed to ending racism and racial discrimination”, it could not sign up because the language in Friday’s communiqué text reaffirmed the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA). “The DDPA singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” said Wood. “ The [US] also has serious concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding ‘incitement,’ that run counter to the US commitment to unfettered free speech.”

Australia used similar arguments in announcing their boycott. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he’d taken the decision with regret “as Australians are a people committed to eliminating racism and racial discrimination.” He claimed Australia was committed to advancing human rights and had put in place policies to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous people (one of the main items for discussion at the conference). However, he said he could not support a document which reaffirmed the DDPA in its entirety. “We cannot be confident that the Review Conference will not again be used as a platform to air offensive views, including anti-Semitic views,” said Smith. “Of additional concern are the suggestions of some delegations in the Durban process to limit the universal right to free speech.

US and Australian concerns seems over dramatised when looking at the actual text of the original 2001 DDPA (pdf). Just one out of 122 issues related to the treatment of the Palestinians. This is issue 63 which reads: “We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State and we recognize the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and call upon all States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion.”

Hardly over controversial, and sentiments shared by many across the world. The decision looks even more suspicious having looked at the agenda of the 2001 conference. It dealt with five major human rights themes: trafficking in women and children, migration and discrimination, gender and racial discrimination, racism against indigenous peoples, and protection of minority rights. In none of the press releases related to these five areas, is Israel mentioned by name.

The call for laws against incitement is more problematic, but some boycotting nations already have similar laws (eg Volksverhetzung in Germany) on their books. The relevant passage in the DDPA (Action 145) urges “States to implement legal sanctions, in accordance with relevant international human rights law, in respect of incitement to racial hatred [through the Internet]”. In any case, the action is stated as an “urge” and does not imply outright agreement. And even if the states disagree with the provision, this is surely not reason enough to boycott the entire conference? This means the only logical reason countries are pulling out is because they do not want any public discussion of Israeli policy in the Palestinian territory.

Admittedly early draft versions of the Durban 2 declaration were rabidly anti-Israel. The 3 March version found by Ha’aretz found that Israel's policy in the Palestinian territories constituted a “violation of international human rights, a crime against humanity and a contemporary form of apartheid”. However the final version I read this evening (Rev 2) contained no explicit mention of Israel at all. The commitment to avoid a just settlement in Palestine has trumped “the commitment to prevent, combat and eradicate racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” The US and Australian position on human rights commitments has been shown up as a pious platitude and the boycott is shameful politicking.

Israel bombs Sudan

The New York Times has revealed Israeli warplanes attacked a truck convoy in Sudan in January. There are also unconfirmed reports of a second attack in February. The Times says the first attack occurred to block a suspected arms delivery to Hamas in Gaza. Depending on which report you read, anywhere from 39 to 800 people were killed in the two attacks. The Times’ sources are two American officials privy to privy to classified intelligence assessments. They say Iran was smuggling weapons to Palestine via Sudan. Sudan has admitted the attacks took place but Israel has yet to formally take responsibility.

The story broke in the most unlikely way. The little known Mabrouk Mubarak Saleem, Sudan’s minister for highways, claimed earlier this week that a “major power” had carried out two previously unknown air strike inside Sudan – one on 27 January 27 and another on 11 February. His comments were reported by the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shurooq on Tuesday. They found a local angle saying “a major power bombed small trucks carrying arms” headed towards Sudan’s border with Egypt.

On Wednesday, the Iranian English language PressTV reported that America had carried out the attacks from a base in nearby Djibouti. It said Sudan had confirmed reports that the US Air Force conducted the January strike. It said 39 people were killed in the attack which occurred in the desert northwest of Port Sudan, near the Mount Al-Sha'anoon. It quoted Saleem’s claim that "major power bombed small trucks carrying arms, burring all of them. It killed Sudanese, Eritrean and Ethiopians [passengers] and injured others."

Today, Sudan changed its tune and said Israel was probably responsible. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig said the Sudanese were still gathering evidence at the site, and would not react while the investigation was ongoing. He claimed that the convoys were likely smuggling goods, but not weapons. "We contacted the Americans and they categorically denied they were involved," he said. "We are still trying to verify it. Most probably it involved Israel."

There are conflicting reports on casualties. The New York Times story repeated Saleem’s figure of 39 but they also quoted a second government spokesman who said more than a hundred were killed. However, the Los Angeles Times reported yet another Sudanese government source, Fatih Mahmoud Awad, a Transport Ministry spokesman, who said as many as 800 people died in the two attacks. He said each convoy had more than a dozen vehicles. It is possible that the reports are not conflicting and that the major casualties occurred in the February strike. However, very few details have emerged yet about the second attack.

Both the US and Israel had the motive to carry out the attack. Earlier this year Israel signed an agreement with the US in one of the last acts of the Bush administration. On 15 January, then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni flew to Washington to sign a memorandum of understanding to marshal an international effort to prevent arms from reaching Gaza. Under the terms of the agreement the US would organise “like-minded” countries to use methods such as interdiction to prevent arms from reaching Gaza.

The Sudanese strikes appear to be the first examples of interdiction. Israeli analysts called it a comfortable strike against a distracted enemy. Israeli security specialist and writer Gad Shimron said Sudan was a “pro-Hamas hostile state”, but was in no position to respond. They're in over their heads with Darfur; the last thing they need is further complications,” he told the Jerusalem Post. Shimron was with Mossad when they entered Sudan in the 1980s for Operation Moses to airlift Ethiopian Jews to Israel. "The air force knows this place [eastern Sudan] well. It flew at low altitudes there during Operation Moses," he said. "It's logical to assume that the weapons were tracked from the minute they left Iran.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to confirm Israeli involvement but gave a strong hint overnight when there was "nowhere in the world" that Israel cannot reach. Speaking at a conference at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, he said Israel operates everywhere where we can hit what he called “terror infrastructure”. These were to be found “in close places, in places further away, everywhere where we can hit terror infrastructure,” he said. “We hit them and we hit them in a way that increases deterrence.” It is the closest yet that Israel has admitted to an act of war on Sudan.

Below is very brief footage Al-Jazeera acquired of the first bombing aftermath.

Netanyahu still favourite to form government in Israel

Likud leader Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is clinging on to his belief that he will be Israel’s next Prime Minister despite Tzipi Livni’s surprisingly good showing in Tuesday’s election. Final results released yesterday defied the opinion polls and confirmed that Livni's Kadima party has a one seat advantage over Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. Kadima won 28 seats and Likud 27 in the 120-seat parliament leaving both well short of a workable majority. Nevertheless both sides have claimed victory. The Interpreter put the resulting confusion best with its headline of “Tzipi wins, Bibi leads and everybody is in government”.

But one of Tzipi or Bibi must take the spoils. Netanyahu maintains he should be given the first chance to form a government because of the broad right-wing make-up of the new parliament he says would back him ahead of the more centrist Livni. He can rely on the 12 seats of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party while the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party (who finished third with 15 seats) is also likely to back him. Its leader Avigdor Lieberman is angling to become finance minister in a Netanyahu administration. Meanwhile the Likud leader received a boost yesterday when the small Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party which gained three seats confirmed they also would support him. President Shimon Peres now has two weeks to decide who will get the chance to lead the horse-trading.

If Netanyahu does win, it will be his second coming as Prime Minister. He succeeded Yitzhak Shamir as Likud leader when the latter retired after his 1993 election loss. Netanyahu immediately cultivated the ultra-right in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords signed by the Labor government. He attended rallies organised by extremist groups where the mob called for the death of the “Oslo criminals” (Labor leaders Rabin and Peres) and compared them to Nazi collaborators by calling them “Judenrat”. Netanyahu played a key role in inciting the rising tide of hatred against Rabin. After one suicide bomb in Tel Aviv, he pinned the blame squarely on the Prime Minister, “I accuse you [Rabin] of direct responsibility for stirring up Arab terror…You are guilty. This blood is on your head”. Netanyahu’s feverish pronouncements led to their inevitable conclusion when a disgruntled right-wing settler assassinated Rabin in November 1995.

The tensions caused by the suicide campaign prevented Labor’s Shimon Peres from capitalising on Rabin’s death. And Netanyahu’s election in 1996 as Prime Minister spelled the end of Israel’s acceptance of the Oslo Accords, though he did not significantly change Israeli policy on the issue. Nor was his government’s stance on the Palestinian question radically different from that of Rabin’s before him or Peres’ and Barak’s after him. Both the Likud and Labor Prime Ministers believed in the imposition of a strong Jewish state dominating a small Palestinian protectorate. Netanyahu’s policy promise was what he called “the three no(s)”: no withdrawal from Golan, no compromise on Jerusalem, no negotiations with the Palestinians. However he broke that last promise in office and signed an accord with Arafat in 1997 to withdraw Israeli forces from Hebron. This was the beginning of the end for Netanyahu and he was defeated by Peres’ Labor Party in 1999.

Netanyahu’s hawkishness was marginalised after Ariel Sharon took power in 2001 and eventually broke away to form Kadima. But as Barry Rubin says, Netanyahu has himself moved towards the centre in recent years. He also states that in Israel he is now more acclaimed for his “brilliant handling of the economy” when he was minister of finance in Sharon’s government between 2003 and 2005. However Rubin concedes that it won’t be easy for Netanyahu to form government and his “ability to corral a half-dozen quarrelling parties is unlikely.”

The least complicated outcome might see Likud and Kadima forming a coalition government. While Lipni may be reluctant to serve under Netanyahu, Ha’aretz considers it a live possibility. The Israeli newspaper quotes a source saying Kadima would demand the key foreign and defence portfolios in a Netanyahu administration. The way might then also be open for Livni to inherit the premiership in a couple of years. Another advantage of this arrangement could see Likud do away with some of its more extreme (and potentially embarrassing) rightist and ultra-Orthodox allies. As a Netanyahu aide admitted to Ha’aretz, "such a government would be hard to govern and very unpopular with the general population.”

Abbas tries to muscle in on Gaza peace talks

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas made a powerplay for Fatah involvement in the Gaza peace talks when met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Monday. He criticised Hamas saying they promoted conflict with Israel and says they must respect his authority as leader of the Palestinian state. He also warned he will not talk with any group that fails to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Abbas’ party Fatah is the largest faction within the PLO whereas Hamas is not aligned with it.

Abbas’s call comes a week after Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal described the PLO as impotent. Meshaal, who is exiled in Damascus, said the PLO “expresses a state of impotence, abuse and a tool to deepen divisions". Hamas have ruled Gaza alone after defeating Fatah security forces in a five day civil war in 2007. However Gaza's borders have been closed in an 18-month Israeli blockade as revenge for continued Qassam rocket attacks from the Strip. Israel launched a devastating all out attack on Gaza in late December that left 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead (a disparity of a hundred casualties to one). The war ended with on 18 January both sides declaring unilateral ceasefires.

Egypt has been mediating between Israel and Hamas in attempt to avoid further bloodshed as well as end the blockade. Mubarak will now walk a delicate tightrope as he holds separate talks with Israeli officials and Palestinians from both Hamas and now Fatah factions. Relations are at an all-time low between the two groups. Fatah accuses Hamas of killing, torturing and beating up Fatah activists in Gaza while Hamas in turn accuses Fatah of helping the Israeli military to strike Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip during the war. While the talks go on, so do the tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Gaza. Gaza resumed rocket fire on Israeli border towns shortly after the ceasefire and in response warplanes launched air strikes across Gaza late on Sunday. Yesterday, one Palestinian was killed and four others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a vehicle carrying militants in the southern town of Rafah.

Meanwhile Barack Obama’s new Middle East envoy George Mitchell outlined American priorities for the region. Speaking in Israel last week, he said the new administration wanted to consolidate the truce and immediately address Gaza’s humanitarian needs. His appointment was welcomed by Palestinians who remember his last mission to the Middle East in 2000 when he recommended the Israelis lift the restrictions that prevent the Palestinians building up their economy. But Israeli PM Ehud Olmert told him bluntly that Israel would respond to what he called “every Hamas violation of the cease-fire, be they rocket attacks, strikes along the border fence or smuggling through tunnels.”

Olmert also told Mitchell that Gaza border crossings will not open permanently for the passage of goods unless a deal is reached on kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. As The Guardian points out, what Mitchell offers is sustained engagement right from the start of the Obama administration. The British daily says George Mitchell is “someone who will stay with it day after day, as he did in Northern Ireland.” This will be necessary as the history of Gaza’s politics is just as intractable as Northern Ireland’s.

Originally part of the British mandate of Palestine, Gaza came under harsh Egyptian military control after the 1948 war. Its citizens were forbidden from entering Egypt itself but in the 1950s its teeming refugee camps were a breeding ground for the Egyptian-founded Muslim Brotherhood network which brought about an which brought about an awakening of political Islam. Some refugees became Palestinian fighters known as “fidayun” and began conducting raids on isolated Jewish settlements near the border. Yasser Arafat emerged as leader of the “fidayun” calling his group The Movement for the Liberation of Palestine (which spelt “fatah” – victory – in reverse).

After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip. The crowded Strip held 850,000 of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories. A third of these were children and the unemployment rate was around 35 percent. For the next twenty years Gaza suffered a form of apartheid under a new occupier while continuing to be ignored at Arab summits. The failure of the PLO to provide protection against harassment propelled many people into the arms of Islamist groups. In 1987 the people’s frustration turned into the intifada (“shaking off”). This involved throwing stones at soldiers, preventing workers from getting to Israeli crossing points and liberating villages for a few days before the Israeli army returned. In response, the IDF bombarded villages with tear gas, charge in large numbers and used steel bullets wrapped in rubber.

Initially the 1993 Oslo Accords were viewed positively in Gaza. There would be no more curfews, or nightly break-ins or harassment on the roads. However as the Israelis imposed border closures it quickly became apparent that Oslo had turned Gaza into a huge prison. In the mid 1990s Israel encircled Gaza with a huge wall, electric fences and guard towers which effectively sealed off the Strip. The second intifada in October 2000 saw the beginning of primitive rocket attacks across the border into Israel.

In 2005, Israel enacted its unilateral disengagement plan to evict Israelis from 21 settlements in Gaza despite intense criticism from right-wing factions. But hopes that this would lead to a permanent settlement soon died. The locals were far from grateful and voted Hamas to victory in Palestinian government elections a year later. They would eventually muscle Fatah out of the Strip. Israel was left guarding a very hostile prisoner that does even recognise the existence of its jailor. Mitchell will need all his considerable skills of diplomacy to sort out the mess.

Backman turnoff overdrive: Free speech and the Australian Israeli lobby

Paul Ramadge, editor of The Age, has badly damaged his reputation for editorial independence over his role in the Backman affair. The story began a couple of weeks ago when freelance journalist Michael Backman wrote an article in the Melbourne broadsheet heavily critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Australian Jewish lobby publicly attacked it as "offensive to Jews". Within days, The Age editor issued an apology for the article (and incorrectly blamed a lack of supervision over the holiday period for publishing it). Backman also apologised to the Jewish community for any hurt caused. He subsequently removed the offending article from his own site but the text can be still be retrieved thanks to the ever reliable Google cache.

The fact is that Backman has nothing to apologise for. His issues about Israel need to be discussed and not thrown out of the public space. Backman does not deny Israel's right to exist, but his is an angry thesis bristling with frustration about the way it is treated with kid gloves in the western world. Like most things written in anger, it is far from perfect. His comparison between Israel/Gaza and Melbourne/Bendigo was hilariously bad and was deservedly lampooned by right-wing commentators such as Tim Blair. And his allegations about rude Israeli backpackers in Nepal were totally unsubstantiated.

Nonetheless, many of his statements in the article about the state of Israel are absolutely true and well worth repeating:

“Israel's utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all.”

“The enmity many Muslims now feel for Israel has nothing to do with religion.”

“Hamas did not enjoy the support of all the people of Gaza. It does now.”

“Israel needs to change.”

And Israel does need to change. Ever since its birth, the country’s consistently hawkish attitude towards any kind of a negotiated settlement means that the Palestinian question continues to be one of the world’s most intractable problems. Palestinians still call 1948 “Al Nakbah”. In English it is “the catastrophe” from which they have never recovered. It is also a catastrophe that Israel has never acknowledged.

Its treatment is in stark contrast to what the nation deems as its own catastrophe: the Holocaust. But the Holocaust does not belong to Israel and its treatment of survivors has not always been impeccable. According to Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, during the war Zionists were more worried by the threat of Palestinians than the fate of European Jews and were selective about which Jews could enter the country (they wanted only the fittest). And afterwards, only ten percent of the three million Holocaust survivors went to Israel (the vast majority preferred to flee to America). Those that did arrive were initially hated by the Zionists who were already there before the war. The newcomers, like the many Arab Jews who also migrated to Israel after 1948, were housed in camps that must have given many of them uncomfortable reminders of what they left behind.

Pappé also says Israelis refer to the Holocaust as “the other planet”. The wording is important as it means the incomprehensible acts of that other planet could not possibly be imagined in theirs. However since 1948, Israel has treated Palestinians ("unpeople") with exactly the same disrespect as Germany treated its unwanted minorities ("untermenschen"). To get round these inconvenient arguments, Israel claimed patrimony over the Holocaust. The Shoah was conflated with the notion of Israel in order to serve the national ambitions of successive Israeli governments. Pappé suffered death threats for his ideas and was forced to leave Israel.

Whenever anti-Israeli ideas such as Pappé’s and Backman’s appear, the Holocaust and associated shibboleth of anti-semitism can be used to stop them. It works particularly well in Australia. While hard hitting criticism similar to Backman's are published as a matter of record in the vibrant Israeli press, they were deemed too potent for our media. Not for the first time the ever watchful Israeli government lobby got their way and extracted grovelling apologies from all concerned. The effect is to muzzle effective debate about Israel in this country.

The Australian architect for this strategy is Colin Rubinstein. For the last ten years, Rubenstein has been the executive director for Australia’s most powerful Israeli lobby group, the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Based in Melbourne and funded by private donations, AIJAC is a high profile and assertive lobby group. It was Rubenstein and the AIJAC who were the most aggressive lobby group against the awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi. Although their bullying tactics were exposed by Antony Loewenstein’s "My Israel Question", they continue to have a chilling effect on the Israel debate in this country. They do this by consistently attacking any public suggestion Israel is in the wrong or might need to compromise, and then use their considerable muscle, and manufactured shame over the Holocaust to close the argument down. It is usually easier for a journalist or an editor to self-censor than to take them on.

And so when Rubenstein saw Backman’s article, he did what he always does when confronted with an anti-Israeli polemic and went for the jugular. Rubenstein arranged to meet with Age editor Paul Ramadge twice last week. Meanwhile the Australian Jewish News reported unnamed “critics in the Jewish community” (they were Jewish Community Council of Victoria president John Searle and Zionist Council of Victoria president Danny Lamm) calling Backman’s column “blatantly anti-semitic” and “hate speech against the Jews”.

Of course it was neither, There is no evidence of anti-semitism in the article. It is not hate speech against the Jews but rather hate speech against the Israeli government. That might not be appealing to some, but it is not unreasonable to publish such an attitude. It is also protected under the “fair comment” provisions of our libel laws. But it didn't take long for the lobby group pressure to bear. Paul Ramadge caved in to Rubenstein and cravenly removed the piece.

On his website Michael Backman proclaims “truth belongs to the people; not the government”. But in this case, as in many others related to reporting of Israel in Australia, truth belonged to neither. It was the power to influence that took truth off the agenda. It is not a matter of whether you agree with Backman or not, the default position is you cannot even say what Backman said and have it published in a leading newspaper. Like it or not, Colin Rubenstein remains one of the Australia’s most powerful gatekeepers of opinion in the public sphere.