Whenever you read lying msm accounts of Israel's most recent brutal hammering of Gaza, of the 'Palestinians attack/Israel responds' variety, keep in mind that Israel is essentially a one-trick pony. Its modus operandi of the past few days in Gaza is just a re-run of all those other brutal hammerings, stretching back to Operation Cast Lead of 27 December 2008-18 January 2009.
And just to remind you of that prototypical Israeli military rampage, here is Norman Finkelstein's meticulous account of same, taken from his latest must-read book, Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (2018):
"In June 2008, Hamas and Israel entered into a cease-fire brokered by Egypt, but in November of that year Israel violated the cease-fire. It carried out a lethal border raid on Gaza... Then and now, the objective was to provoke retaliation and thus provide the pretext for a massive assault.
"Indeed the border raid proved to be the preamble to a bloody invasion. On 27 December 2008, Israel launched 'Operation Cast Lead.' It began with an aerial and ground assault. Piloting the most advanced combat aircraft in the world, the Israeli air force flew nearly three thousand sorties over Gaza and dropped one thousand tons of explosives, while the Israeli army deployed several brigades equipped with sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems, and weaponry such as robotic and TV-aided remote-controlled guns. On the other side, Hamas launched several hundred rudimentary rockets and mortar shells into Israel. On 18 January 2009, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire, 'apparently at the behest of Barack Obama, whose presidential investiture was to take place two days later.' However, the siege of Gaza persisted. The Bush administration and the US Congress lent Israel unqualified support during the attack... But overwhelmingly, international public opinion (including wide swaths of Jewish public opinion) recoiled at Israel's assault on a defenseless civilian population. In 2009, a United Nations Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission, chaired by the respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, released a voluminous report documenting Israel's commission of massive war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The report accused Hamas of committing cognate crimes but on a scale that paled by comparison. It was clear that, in the words of Israeli columnist Gideon Levy, 'this time we have gone too far.'
"Israel officially justified Operation Cast Lead on the grounds of self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks. Such a rationale did not, however, withstand even superficial scrutiny. If Israel wanted to avert Hamas rocket attacks, it would not have triggered them by breaching the 2008 cease-fire. It could also have opted for renewing - and for a change, honoring - the cease-fire. In fact, as a former Israeli intelligence officer told the Crisis Group, 'The cease-fire options on the table after the war were in place there before it.' If the goal of Cast Lead was to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism,' then Israel's alibi of self-defense appeared even less credible after the invasion. Overwhelmingly, Israel targeted not Hamas strongholds but 'decidedly 'non-terrorist,' non-Hamas' sites.
"The human rights context further undermined Israel's claim of self-defense. The 2008 annual report of B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) documented that between 1 January and 26 December 2008, Israeli security forces killed 455 Palestinians, of whom at least 175 were civilians, while Palestinians killed 31 Israelis, of whom 21 were civilians. Hence, on the eve of Israel's so-called war of self-defense, the ratio of total Palestinians to Israelis killed stood at almost 15:1... In Gaza alone, Israel killed at least 158 noncombatants in 2008, while Hamas rocket attacks killed 7 Israeli civilians, a ratio of more than 22:1. Israel deplored the detention of one Israeli combatant captured in 2006, yet Israel detained some 8,000 Palestinian 'political prisoners,' including 60 women and 390 children, of whom 548 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial... It's ever-tightening noose around Gaza compounded Israel's disproportionate breach of Palestinian human rights. The blockade amounted to 'collective punishment, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.' In September 2008, the World Bank described Gaza as 'starkly transform[ed] from a potential trade route to a walled hub of humanitarian donations.' In mid-December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Israel's '18-month-long blockade has created a profound human dignity crisis, leading to a widespread erosion of livelihoods and a significant deterioration in infrastructure and essential services.' If Gazans lacked electricity for as many as 16 hours each day; if Gazans received water only once a week for a few hours, and 80 percent of the water was unfit for human consumption; if one of every two Gazans were unemployed and 'food insecure'; if 20 percent of 'essential drugs' in Gaza were 'at zero level' and more than 20 percent of patients suffering from cancer, heart disease, and other severe conditions were unable to get permits for medical care abroad - if Gazans clung to life by the thinnest of threads, it traced back, ultimately, to the Israeli siege. The people of Gaza, OCHA concluded, felt 'a growing sense of being trapped, physically, intellectually and emotionally.' To judge by the human rights balance sheet at the end of 2008, and setting aside that the cease-fire was broken by Israel, didn't Palestinians have a much stronger case than Israel for resorting to armed self-defense?" (pp 13-16)
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4 comments:
A list of msm English language reviews of this book would be very short.
Here's another book that won't be noticed by the English language msm:
"American Nuremberg, the U.S. officials who should stand trial for post-9/11 war crimes" by Rebecca Gordon, 2018.
I am just thumbing through it as it arrived yesterday but it looks very interesting, is lavishly indexed, well researched and the author has a good grasp of the origins of the Iraq war as the following quote reveals:
'In fact, despite whatever Bush himself may have believed, the US war on Iraq was never intended to stabilise the Middle East. The real goal of those who planned and carried out the war was precisely the opposite---to shake up the existing power dynamics in the region and produce a new alignment, one that would benefit the economic and strategic interests of the United States and Israel. Nevertheless waging war for either purpose--for Bush's pre-emptive self-defence or to advance US interests by changing power relations in the Middle East---is legally inexcusable. It is a crime against the peace."
OUCH
"The international rule of law was not uppermost in their minds, however, when in 1996, Cheney's fellow war hawks Richard Perle and Douglas Feith participated in a study group that advocated just this realignment strategy. The study group's brief paper, written for the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." The report urged the leaders of israel's right-wing Likud Party to make a clean break with the nation's previous geopolitical strategy, to abandon Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinianslike those that led to the Oslo Accords, and instead to use military means to actively restructure the Middle East."
So much for those still hiding behind the 'peace process' and the 'two state solution' mantra. Hello Bill Shorten et al, you know who you are.
Reply to Anonymous: Thanks for the recommendation - I will buy. While, no doubt, Perle, Cheney, and Feith would claim that the attack on Iraq was in the economic interests of the US, the facts don't bear that out. How many trillions of dollars did the war cost the US? And, incidentally, how much did it cost Australia? How much has the US recouped of those costs. No - the only country that might have gained out of that "war" was Israel.
Anon reply to Grappler,
yes I agree, economic factors run a poor second to Zionist geopolitical ambitions, it's a handy but nauseating chant for gutless and feckless PC anti Iraq war demonstrators caught in the headlights, "no war for oil."
I find it interesting that the 'powerful' oil industry moguls, like Rex Tillerson, were actually OPPOSED to the Iraq war. They want a stable market. Another poor second to the Israel lobby.
The venerable website WRMEA has some revealing figures on the costs to the USA of this folly. Australia has certainly incurred huge losses in both reputation and treasure. That's my taxes being squandered for no good reason. BTW I have recently payed the bastards too much, so it is a sore point.
However it must be said that the Iraq war was a brilliant success, it achieved it's [hidden] objectives, it helped make the Bandit State safer, but not safe, in the Middle East.
History teaches us they are just buying time.
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