"Israel must see that there are consequences to its actions" -Interview with Raymond Deane

by Bazooka Joe Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mJp5d3ffP8

by Fred Johnston Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:52

Reuters news agency reports that Israeli warplanes and drones bombed a convoy in the Sudan not long ago; on top of this blatant terrorism, the Israeli government have now halted investigations into possible war crimes committed by their troops in Gaza. That Israel is a terrorist state is hard to deny; the world's very first civilian airline hijacking was carried out by Israel in 1954 on a Syrian aircraft. Yet because it serves the interests of the US, another terrorist state, nothing will be said about the Sudan affair, which was an act of blatant aggression. Like the US, Israel tends to attack defenceless countries - it has learned the art of bullying well from Washington. The usual mythology, swallowed whole by a cowed Western media, that Israel is defending itself, will be trotted out if anyone asks questions; in the case of Sudan, one can be sure they were acting as proxies for the US. There should be international outrage against Israel's attacks on another country - so why the deafening international silence? And now it seems Israel can get away with alleged war crimes . . . . while calling Hamas 'terrorists'! This is a pattern, played out over the decades. So long as the US wants a client-state, an 'aircraft-carrier' state in the Middle East, any attempt to produce a solution to the Palestinians' issues will be blocked and stymied at every turn. Neither the US nor Israel want a solution that does not involve the total subjugation of the Palestinians and the consolidation of Israeli (US) interests. Israel is a rogue state, a terrorist state, and has the blood-soaked record to prove it.

by George Wed Apr 15, 2009 17:45

The convoy which the Israeli's bomobed in the Sudan was carrying considerable quantities of weaponry for Hamas in Gaza. Sudan's highway minister explicityl admitted that. Seeing as Israel was at war with Hamas at the time, does it not seem to be a perfectly legitimate act of war, rather than a terrorist act?

The United States does not only fight 'defenceless' countries. North Vietnam and Iraq in 1991 both had among the largest armies in the world at the time of their conflicts with the United States.

Quit the sensationalism. Stick to the facts.

Very Respectfully,

G.F. Ryan

by Rory Wed Apr 15, 2009 18:05

Dear George,

You have no facts, you have provided no facts, so why do you talk about facts?

The bombing of the convoy occured after the 22 day offensive in Gaza had ended. Nobody knows what was on the trucks as there is no facts to be had. The minister you speak of claimed only small arms were there and that it was human trafficking that was going on. He aslo claimed the Americans did it. Not much in the way of fact there.

by George Wed Apr 15, 2009 21:46

Rory, you would make a good defensive solicitor. Clinging to technicalities rather than facing up to reality. The facts can be deduced from the circumstances of the incident.

A) To provoke an Israeli (or U.S.) airstrike so far from Israel there would have to be some very good reason. The distances involved are great and the Israeli Air Force does not have the resources to patrol above some random, distant country and hit some unlucky cluster of vehicles that just happen to be on the road at a certain time. A strike of this nature requires a pressing military necessity and detailed intelligence and planning. Think about it, such a precisely timed air strike on a precise target at such a great range required some unusual necessity, not merely killing a few human traffickers.

B) Sudan's minister for highways expressly admitted that the Israeli's had struck a convoy carrying small arms in his initial statement. He later issued a second statement suggesting possible U.S. involvement and fudging the intelligence on the convoy, without presenting any new information.

C) Israel and Hamas have been at war since the '80's and the conflict has not ended. The Israeli's are perfectly justified militarily trying to cut Hamas' supply lines.

D) It is generally accepted that Mossad has been operating in Sudan for over a decade.

Weigh up the situation. The likely facts are those that fit the situation.

V/R

by Vincent Wed Apr 22, 2009 15:52

The long awaited initial results of the Israeli military unquiry into the murderous attack on Gaza have been released. Israelis will be relieved to know that no Israeli soldier ever deliberately targetted a Palestinian civilian and they are still the most ethical military in the world. The civlians killed at the UN School was not Israels fault because it didnt nomb the school it bombed right outside the school - see , big difference ?

The al Samouni family of Zeitoun who were told to stay in the house and them were bombed to death in the house were the subject of a "professional mistake". All 21 members of the family murdered that day are a "military failure". But that type of thing is to be expected. In fact none of the stuff that we all saw happeing as the Israeli army bombed its way through Gaza was actually their fault. Well all except one thing : Some geezer hit a UN truck and damaged it. We can rest assured that he will be disciplined.

So thats it folks, according to the IOF : it was all Hamas' doing (except that truck) and the IOF are still the most moral army in the world.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3705081,00.html

by Vincent Thu Apr 23, 2009 10:37

In an article today a Gaza man, Dr. Mahmoud Iyad, who lost two sons during the IDF operation in Gaza, responded to the above so called report in eloquent and dignified terms.

"The deputy IDF chief of staff is lying, with a right that belongs only to those who have power but not justice on their side," Iyad said. "It is the same power that gives the IDF the privilege not to take moral responsibility for the crime it committed."

His sons were murdered in cold blood during one of the "humanitarian Pauses " that puntuated the 22 day slaughter with Israeli occupation soldiers calling out "son of a whore" as they gunned them down. The two murdered men were trying to bring to safety their father at the time from his farm in Khan Younis. The doctor dismissed the IDF's conclusions from its investigation.
"There was no one there, all the people had evacuated. There was nothing to prevent them from identifying us, and yet they still fired, knowing they were firing at civilians. But unlike the deputy chief of staff, I don't have a press conference and I don't have microphones....They were killed through this lie called the Israeli purity of arms, but no one can tell the IDF that it's lying. They shoot, they kill, and they lie."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3705363,00.html

by Frank Adam - private citizen Sun May 03, 2009 23:45

Fred Johnston - and he is not the only one - is in serious error to assume that because two countries are allied, that all their interests and actions are totally coincident and congruent, or that if one moves it is only at the instigation of the other. Try the mini variants between nationalist factions in "the North."

We now have more than enough memoirs and archives to know that some of the inter-allied differences were every bit as serious in both the main wars of the last 20th C as to risk the entire enterprise. The USA never became an "ally" in 1917 - 19 but an "associated" power. It was still being touchy about its independence and not necessarily pro Franco-British-Italian.

In 1941 -'45 the USSR was a "co-belligerent" and never had a treaty with the USA though it did with Britain. Meanwhile UK supported De Gaulle and for a year the USA tried to foist Gouraud and even Darlan who had sided with Petain to keep teh USA & Britain out of North Africa, on the Free French...!

We know that Kim il Sung the Korean leader (literally"Fuhrer") managed to start the Korean War by getting Stalin to agree, "If it is all right by Peking," and similarly he obtained MaoTse Tung's consent, "If Moscow does not object."

Israel has more than few interests of its own which are not the USA's. For a start the USA and everybody else has never been able to make the Arabs agree to UN181 or to recognise the value or legitimacy of a two state solution to the conflict of the two nationalisms in Palestine. As proof, Egypt and Jordan did so of their own volition, and Syria and Iraq have not.

In contrast the USA has spent eighty years in a stand off confrontation with the USSR / Russian successor which is of no interest to Israel except when the Arabs and USSR teamed up to spite the USA and the spill over pushed Israel into the USA's closer than intended embrace - because the Arabs used the Soviet alliance for their private war with Israel similarly to the private Russian -Polish conflict of1918 - 1945 had its spillover on the conduct of the anti-Nazi-Germany war of 1939 -45 and the appearance of a free Polish army in the Middle East, Italy and NW Europe.

Gaza, Sudan, Lebanon; like 1948, 56, 67 and 73 was Israel looking after its very survival in spite of the USA or in defiance of it; for that matter Israel exists in spite of the Holocaust and not because of it. Israel and the USA are no more "rogue" than any other country starting with Syria & North Korea and Pakistan each stirring trouble directly or indirectly with all its neighbours.

Many would do well to remember that whole Arab World is as much an imperialist construct as the Roman World or the Spanish and British empires ever were. The Arab tragedy is that they still think they are entitled and able to knock their neighbours about as in the Middle Ages and so end up pulling the cloth and tea kettle into their own laps: in the SIXTEEN intra-Arab wars since 1948:- 1300 000 ARABS have been killed by ARABS; so be proportionate about Israel or you might be sending out the wrong messages about yourselves.

by Fred Johnston Mon May 04, 2009 00:33

It is a blatant absurdity to suggest for a second that there does not exist an ironclad US/Israel alliance which has permitted Israel to continue to play up the lie of having to defend itself against surrounding countries and that it is the victim and not clearly a nuclear-armed aggressor. The US requires Israel to be its 'aircraft-carrier' in the Middle East, a pact which may have begun in using Israel as a bulwark against Soviet intentions there but has long-since morphed into the notion of Israel as a proxy defender of US interests in the Middle East vis-a-vis Iran and Iraq. In turn, Israeli forces have been used by the US in several instances in Latin America where a more overt US presence may not have been politically judicious. One need not even mention the number of times the US has vetoed moves or sanctions against Israel at the UN. If one wishes to remain blind to Israeli intentions, before one pulls down the shutters one might consider Israeli plans, already outlined but embarrassing even to Netanyahu - who has publicly downplayed them - to extend by 1,200 homes a settlement which will edge into Palestinian territory in order (don't laugh!) to accommodate what Israel terms the increasing number of young married couples in Israel. To do this, Palestinian residences will be declared illegally-built and then demolished. If this isn't imperialism, what is? Now at what point is President Obama going to cry halt to Israel about this? Never.

by Frank Adam - private citizen Mon May 04, 2009 19:05

Fred Johnston's "Absurdity!" splutter of rage may be factually correct as of now, or some past and future when the USSR used the Arabs to embarrass the USA over Israel to get the US out of Viet Nam; but it does not refute that there are aspects of Israel's interests and actions, however imperialist they may be to Fred - that are not US puppetry - and if the Arab aim to rub out a UN member is not imperialism, what is?

In the same way that each NATO ally and other US allies have their own interests besides those of the US - and vice versa. A good example is how the Haganah maintained its own intelligence under the British during WW II and occasionally did, or did not tip off "big brother." Another in how Britain and France went off to Suez '56 - which they might have got away with if they had waited till the evening of US election day? Then France took off from formal membership of NATO till last year, precisely to keep its options open. Similarly those €U countries which in their history suffered wars and occupation of the Turks are reluctant to accept Turkey into the €U and resist the US pressure ignorant of the empathies involved given the loud "anti" behaviour of Islamisicist extremists.

This has happened before in history - blatantly in how Egypt diverged from Syria in the 1973 War and since. For that matter in how the Government of Ireland changed its tune - or rather its AA Lewis guns - towards Allied flying boats taking the short cut to convoy duty from Lough Erne to Donegal Bay once the USA joined the match in 1942. Then there is the (mis)treatment of Catholic Poland - Russia's Ireland as was the saying not so long ago - by the Allies and Soviets in WW II when despite Polish anti - Russian as well as anti- German interests, she was dropped into the Soviet lap at Yalta despite having fought Germany gallantly.

Fred in effect admits the dichotomy of interests by finishing in "disgusted Tunbridge Wells" splutter about Israeli settlement policies - which the US opposes and always has; but Israel continues within its local power, on which the US does not bring down heavy guns, because it would be self-defeating about other things that Fred so kindly lists for us which hold greater US priority than the housing of a handful of thousand Arabs on a colonisation attempt of their own.

The whole discourse flows funnily from an Irish pen as Ireland for so long wanted and secured independence and is prickly pompous about its neutrality given that the RN, and now the USN defend the region from Ireland ever having to pay the full consequences of its policies - unlike the Swiss who do pay out for neutrality. Being a small power demands a certain skill at tip toeing between the tulips, and for that matter for big powers at their utmost reach - if they are to avoid overbalancing - as the politics of Afghanistan have repeatedly shown these 150 years, Armenia in classical times, and Viet Nam recently. Are Fred and friends aware the US supported Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese but took objection when he showed his Communist objectives after VJ Day? That hardly makes the USA Communist for supporting Ho Chi Minh.

Try to accord Israel the same courtesy as Ireland of desiring a quiet independence on the sidelines of great power chess politics - per Herzl's text. Ponder carefully that if the Arabs had made a treaty with Israel between 1949 and '67, or better accepted UN 181 in the first place; or even accepted the June '67 post war Israeli offer to return to the Green Line in return for a treaty of peace and recognition turning it into a legal frontier, then the Arabs would have saved the ARABS a lot of aggro - but Arab honour was and is out of common sense.

The only discernible explanation with any logic, apart from blinkered bloody mindedness, for Arab conduct is that if Arabs did accept a peace of territorial arrangements, it would deprive them of the cover for their real objective to war on Israel till destroyed. In that respect the Arab mindset resembles Hitler who swore there would be no repeat of Nov 1918 ie surrender; so in the last six months of WWII he lost the worst casualty bills and bombing per timescale, when if he had surrendered for Christmas 1944 it would have made no political difference except to save a lot of GERMAN lives. If the Arabs had made peace inor before 1967 they would be enjoying their state in prosperity but that is humiliation to their Moslem supremacist outlook qv any Hamas or Hizbollah preacher.

However that is honour and ideology for you. Are you going to return to Catholic Spain the Moorish Moslem families from North Africa who still have the keys to their Spanish houses from the expulsions of 1580 - 1610?

by Fred Johnston Tue May 05, 2009 13:06

Have I finally read the calamitous absurdity that Palestinians (above) are attempting a form of colonisation or imperialism of their own by living on their own land??? The US has no interest in stopping the advance of settlement building, and more than one hardliner in the Knesset (and certainly among the military) wishes to dump the Palestinians into the sea, if not into Syria or Jordan. There is a dangerous notion among some, it seems to me, in Israel, of a purity of race. Which is why you can be Jewish and born in the Bronx and talk infuriatingly about 'my country' when referring to the land you've just stolen from an Arab who is treated much as black people of the Southern US states were treated around 1920. The upcoming celebrations in Ballsbridge for the founding of the Israeli state is, therefore, a celebration of apartheid and State licence to kill in the name of living-space. And where have we run into that notion before?

by Vincent Wed May 06, 2009 16:15

It would appear that Israel wont be facing any consequences for its action in Gaza as the embarrassing UN leader Ban Ki Moon bends over backwards to denigrate the UN report and defiles the memory of the lives of the people murdered by Israel in and around UN buildings during the onslaught.

No further proof is required by any Palestinian that the world at large is colluding with the terrorist regime in Israel to bring about the destruciton of their dreams of Freedom from the siege and realisation of Basic Human rights.

- But in his covering letter Mr Ban says he is “carefully considering” what actions “if any” to take on the 11 recommendations by the inquiry team. Mr Ban goes out of his way to thank Israel for its co-operation in the inquiry. He makes a point – urged on him by Israeli ministers and officials – of speaking out against “continued and indiscriminate” attacks by Hamas. And he said: “I do not plan any further enquiries.” -

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/un-....html

True to form Israel issued a blanket rejection of the report before it even saw it and claimed that even after the gaza massacres the IOF remains the most moral army in the world.

SOME PHOTOS OF THE MOST MORAL OCCUPATION IN THE WORLD.

http://www.pbase.com/yalop/checkpoint_watch

by Reporter12 Thu May 07, 2009 16:06

Hasan Abu Nimah, former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations describes Ban Ki Moon's collusion with Israel and the US to smother the recent UN report into Israeli atrocities in Gaza , a moral failure.

- " What he was saying in effect is that he found Israel's attack on Gaza perfectly acceptable, but he disagreed only with the tonnage of high explosives that should be dropped by Israeli planes. Indeed, he should specify exactly how many dead children, how many demolished houses, how many burn victims, how many destroyed mosques he would tolerate as not being "excessive." Would half the number killed and half the damage inflicted be reasonably non-excessive, or perhaps one-third? It would be helpful for both sides to know so that the Israelis would limit their killing to the UN-specified quota, and the Gazans would know how many of their community to sacrifice for the sacred UN-sanctioned killing. For Ban, then, Israeli bombing is good -- although he would like perhaps to see a little bit less. But, in tune with his political masters, he considers Palestinians to have no right to any form of self-defense against the Israeli occupation, constant aggression and the Israeli, internationally-supported, deadly siege, with whatever means they have at their disposal. " -

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10511.shtml

by Frank Adam - private citizen Sat May 09, 2009 23:21

Fred Johnston and many others should do well to remember that all the land Israel held on the 14 May '48 had been bought, or appropriated to Israel by the UN and if the Arab parties had not attacked to steal Israel from its UN sanctioned self there would now be a Palestine Republic celebrating its 61st anniversary. Unfortunately - and it is unfortunate for the rank and file of a stupid leadership - you can not go to war with intention of wiping the neighbours off the map and then not pay a price for losing a blatant aggression which the UN Sec Gen of the time said the Arab 1948 invasion of Israel was.

Those who want to talk about "purity of race " should go back to Spain - of the three religions and the common bedroom - and swot it up. Ditto "apartheid" and South Africa. To talk in these terms about Israel, and particularly about Jews crosses the line from criticising the Israeli government - which Israelis do every day - to defaming the Jewish people and religion - an old passtime of supersessionary religions which glory in discovering that Queen Anne is dead.

What too many anti-semites forget is that anybody may, if they wish and study, convert to Judaism - likewise Islam and Christianity. The other point that all the enemies of the State of Israel forget in their pomposity is that the PLO Charter and the HAMAS Covenant are not models of multicultural and religious tolerance because they specifically seek an Arab state without any Jewish or other non- Arab minorities, all of whom are to be deported according to those Arab documents.

Meanwhile how does one become an Arab ? As distinct from a citizen of an Arab state?

by Justin Morahan Sun May 10, 2009 11:52

The United Nations bowed down before George W Bush when he invaded Iraq and they have bowed down before Israel in refusing to say any more about Gaza.

It's time for the United Nations to disband as a failed entity pretending to be a force for good.

by Vincent Sun May 10, 2009 14:55

I disagree Justin,

The UN is all we have. The noble ambitions of the United Nations have been usurped by the ignoble savages. In this case, the ravenously greedy X Imperialist powers have positioned themselves around the flailing corpse of this institution and they are tearing and gnawing at it with all the tenacity of a bunch of hungry Hyenas.

It is necessary to disband the security Council immediately in order to save the UN.

by Frank Adam - private citizen Sun May 10, 2009 16:14

The UN was created as an attempt to put some - at least incipient - parliamentary gloss on international relations which otherwise are plain power broking. It does succeed as a clearing house for a lot of routine technical and admin business and serves as a forum for a lot of tiddlers and second eleven that otherwise would not get a hearing at all.

Like all parliaments, the UN has its "rotten boroughs": for starters 42 members with fewer than a million population, of which 16 with less than 100k. This compares with the third of the World population in India and China with merely two votes - albeit the Chinese veto in the Security Council thanks to Roosevelt. Strange to note Israel with 7 million population is the median of the range with Switzerland - though CH continues to wallflower.

The Security Council might need amendment by including India Brazil and Nigeria, but unless the big powers for better or worse, are kept on board, or at least squared off, they will go their own way and the whole exercise will collapse as the League of Nations did in the 30's with the USA out from the start and the Germans and Japanese walk outs. Before anybody gets to dewey eyed about Gaza, or Swat, or Darfur, remember the UN did nothing about Yemen, or Angola or Belize or Saudi pinching Eritrea from Ethiopia or assorted Arab harrassment of Israel for sixty years - which is why Israel boiled over.

by Reporter12 Mon May 11, 2009 13:38

A series of pictures and reports sums up in bleak terms the destruction wreaked upon the Gazans recently. Some aspects of the report make it painfully clear that the Israelis were there to act like a bunch of vandals and excelled in this field. In acts such as the slaughter of tens of thousands of chickens under bulldozers and the killing of the Zoo animals the immoral contempt for all thing Palestinian can clearly be seen.

http://www.guernicamag.com/art/1009/gaza_laid_bare/

- Many of the creatures on display were hit by missile attacks during the opening days of the war, including the zoo’s pregnant camel. Others succumbed to starvation as the war dragged on; the presence of Israeli troops on the premises prevented the zookeepers from reaching the animals and feeding them. A few, including one horse, appear to have been shot dead by soldiers at point-blank range. Those that survived the conflict did so by eating the corpses of their brothers and sisters. “When the Israelis withdrew and I finally made it back inside, the only animals left alive were crazed with hunger and traumatized by all the death around them,” says Mr. Bedowi. “They are all terrified now, even the lions.” -

by 2candodat Tue May 12, 2009 09:22

Here is a video Idfnadesk Doesn't Want You to See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJaPZLNLBu8&feature=related
From the CBC Website

Idfnadesk and More children among Gaza dead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAzns3cvf8A&feature=related

Israeli Police Officers Assaults Palestinian Boys in Jerusalem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGRRRwB96M&feature=related
"On March 12, 2006, plain-clothed police officers assaulted two children, ages 15 and 11, who were on their way home in the neighborhood of Abu Tor in East Jerusalem . The officers beat the two boys and took the older one to a police station where they abused him severely. The family has filed a complaint." www.btselem.org
(B'Tselem is an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories)

by Feyadeen Tue May 12, 2009 16:29

And your source for this claim is ... the same Israeli army that spent three weeks bombing and shooting schools, hospitals, UN buildings sheltering refugees, civilian housing and ambulance crews, then printed up t-shirts with pictures of pregnant women bearing the slogan "one shot, 2 kills". Forgive me if I don't take everything they claim at face value.

by Feyadeen Wed May 13, 2009 10:58

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/israel-gaza...rdian

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/23/israel.ga....html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/israel-whit...-gaza

by Frank Adam - private citizen Wed May 27, 2009 23:12

Fedayeen must be very young and ignorant of whom he has named himself. I was teenager in the fifties and remember that the original fedayeen of the Arab vendetta on Israel were a bunch of irregulars hired by Nasserist Egypt who regularly infiltrated Israeli borders to kill civilians by throwing grenades and shooting into villages; and attacking civil transport to the effect that in the years before the Sinai Campaign deterred the Nasser government into more responsible behaviour, traffic to Beer Sheba had to travel in escorted convoys.

I am not aware that the Fedayeen - 50's Nasserist or others since - acheived anything in terms of the Arab political aims to recoup on 1948 Arab losses. They, and most other Arab actions to sustain a state of war and violence just creates fear and wary suspicion without creating anything for their constituency who are reduced to charity scrounging when Fedayeen violence closed Arab job opportunities in Israel both by the Arab induced 1948 war and the intifadas' kamikaze attacks on Israeli civvy street after 2000.

Cut the self-justifications for a moment and consider how things could have been otherwise if the Arab parties had accepted UN 181, had NOT rejected UN 194; had accepted the June 1967 Israeli offer to return to the Green line for a peace treaty; had not shut down the jobs and relative prosperity available after 1967 by the ill considered second intifada tactics far beyond civil disobedience?