A 35-strong pack of Israeli war criminals and their camp followers, including Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom and former Security Minister and Shin Bet supremo from 2000 to 2005, Avi Dichter, lunched with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the latest Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, in Sydney on December 3. This extraordinary gathering (apparently quid pro quo for DPM Gillard's trip to Israel earlier in the year) was inexplicably ignored by the Sydney Morning Herald, and got scant treatment by The Australian, whose reporter, the appropriately named Jodie Minus, really only seemed to have eyes for the Rudd/Abbott handshake and body language: "The Prime Minister didn't waste any time moving in for the congratulatory handshake. But neither man studied at the Mark Latham school of hand manoeuvres and the grip was more passive than aggressive, with Mr Abbott holding on to just 4 of Mr Rudd's limp-looking fingers." (Rivals get hands on, 4/12/09)
In fact, the only reference in Minus' report to the latest Israeli-Australian carry-on came in this sentence: "At the Australia Israel Leadership Forum's gala luncheon... Kevin Rudd and the Opposition leader were asked to the podium to accept a copy of a Jewish picture book, Touching the Stones of Our Heritage."
It wasn't much to go on, but my interest was sufficiently piqued for me to google Stones. At that point the plot began to thicken. Up came this little blurb: "Touching the Stones of Our Heritage: The Western Wall Tunnels by Dan Bahat: Throughout the 2,000 years since the Holy Temple that stood in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Western Wall has stood as the prime symbol of Jewish yearning. Today, more than 50 years since the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the Wall remains an intense expression of national pride and of the profound affinity between the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem. Through photographs, text and original drawings, this spectacular album takes the reader on a journey of discovery through the Western Wall and its tunnels. Included is a bonus transparency overlay showing how it was, and what it looks like now... Features of this book:... Includes a full color insert of the Temple Mount with overlays showing how it looked in ancient and modern times... THE WONDER OF THE WORLD THAT WAS (AND IS) MISSED." (judaism.com)
Well, well, well - instead of handing Rudd and Abbott a book containing merely glossies of 'Israeli' landmarks, Shalom had handed them one which represents the third holiest shrine in Islam, the Haram ash-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), containing the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, as, in effect, squatting on the foundations of a structure of far greater importance - an ancient Jewish temple, the subject of much contemporary Jewish "yearning". Not that the Arabic term Haram ash-Sharif even appears in Bahat's book, the term of choice being The Temple Mount.
Now given that a copy of Stones hasn't yet found its way into my hot little hands, I can't be 100% certain, but are we not entering Hint, hint, do you get my drift? territory here? One thing's for sure though, Rudd and Abbott are not going to learn in Stones that the Haram ash-Sharif (not to mention the rest of East Jerusalem) is, under international law, occupied territory to which the Israelis have absolutely no legal claim whatever.
And the book's author, 'archaeologist' Dan Bahat? Here's a revealing snapshot: "According to the man warmly referred to as Israel's Indiana Jones, an ongoing crime continues to be perpetrated against world Jewry. 'The Jewish people around the world are disconnected from The Temple Mount today. The Arabs claim that it has nothing to do with the Jews, but we know better', says Professor Dan Bahat, one of Israel's most famous, respected and colourful archaeologists. 'At every entrance to The Temple Mount today, there are guards there who ask if you are Jewish. If you answer 'yes', they tell you that you cannot go inside. It's a crime forever'... The Temple Mount is the holiest location in Jewish life. According to religious tradition it's where the world originated and where the biblical sacrifice of Isaac took place. It's also where King Solomon built the first Jewish Temple. The Roman King Herod... rebuilt the temple. With Jews kept off the hilltop by Muslim restrictions and both government and rabbinic bans, The Kotel - a retaining wall of the second Temple - is the holiest place at which Jews can pray. 'What concerns me is a political problem connected to The Temple Mount', says Bahat. 'I believe the Chief Rabbinate made a terrible mistake in 1967 by installing signs reading that no Jew should go onto The Temple Mount (until the Temple is rebuilt)'. Asked about Ariel Sharon's famous visit to The Temple Mount in 2000, Bahat left no doubt as to his feelings. 'I am still angry over this', he says. 'Everyone blames Sharon for going to The Temple Mount and starting this Intifada more than 2 years ago. Of course this is not true, but what really makes me mad is that there was such an uproar because a Jew went to The Temple Mount in the first place. This should not be'." (Israel's 'Indiana Jones' addresses Toronto's Jewish community, toronto.ujcfedweb.org) Some disinterested scholar!
What was that line from the 60s? You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Well here's the wind from templemount.org: "Unfortunately, the Temple Mount presently remains under the supervision of the Waqf, the Supreme Moslem Council, and they have prevented any systematic archaeological studies. In fact, the Waqf has gotten increasingly resistive [sic] to investigations of any kind on the Platform - which they consider to be a huge outdoor mosque sacred to Islam. Who knows what events developing in the history of Jerusalem will one day change the staus quo, allowing scientific investigation of the entire Temple Mount, below ground as well as above? Then, according to the hopes and dreams of devout Jews for centuries, a Third Temple can be built on the foundations of the First and Second Temples and temple worship according to the Torah restored." Notice how "archaeological studies" and "scientific investigation" morph seamlessly into a rebuilding of a third temple? And the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque? Now you see them, now you don't. Hell, you can feel that plot thickening now, can't you? Why, if Dan (Indiana Jones) Bahat had had his way back in 1967, when the site was - ahem - acquired, the Third Temple would be packing them in right now!
Touching the Stones of Our Heritage - some "Jewish picture book," Ms Minus!
But there's more. I mentioned Avi Dichter at the beginning of this post. Although The Australian gave him an opportunity to beat the drum on Iran (Ex-Israeli spy chief warns about Iran, 4/12/09), it was left to an Australian Zionist blogger, present at the luncheon, to remind us that Dichter too has a keen interest in stones. The Ozi Zion Blog informs us that the former Shin Bet head and now Kadima MK concluded his speech "with a powerful story of how he added a 3rd stone (from Jerusalem) to the 2 stone collection of a friend - (from Aushwitz [sic] and Massada [sic]). Jerusalem is the heart of Israel and will remain so." (szcnsw.auton.telligence.net.au) In fact, Dichter has real archaeological form: "Police have prevented Muslim burial at the foot of the Temple Mount for several months, as Public Security Minister Avi Dichter responded to pleas to reserve the area as a significant archaeological site." (Dichter rules area near Temple Mount off-limits to Muslim burial, Nadav Shragai, Haaretz, 29/5/07)
And more. With former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert also in town we've got Israeli war criminals coming out of our ears. His visit was described in The Australian Jewish News (4/12/09) as "a precursor to an influx of senior Israeli politicians and other influential figures in the coming week for the second Australia Israel Leadership Forum." Now I don't know whether Olmert put in an appearance at the Forum's galah luncheon, but I do know that, among his other crimes, he's got form in messing with Jerusalem: "As mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s, Olmert oppressed the Palestinian inhabitants of the city and intensified the process of de-Arabisation. He pressed for opening the 'archaeological tunnel' near the Muslim shrines and encouraged American Jewish right-wing millionaires to build Jewish settlements in the middle of unilaterally annexed Arab districts and pushed for the building of the Apartheid Wall that cuts up Arab neighbourhoods." (The Bible & Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology & Post-Colonialism in Israel-Palestine, Nur Masalha, 2007, p 181) Oh, and he and Indiana go back some years with Olmert penning a forward to another of Indiana's books, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem.
What's really been going on in little old Sydney then? Given Australia's tendency to cosy up to Israel at various UN and other fora (and Shalom's hugs and kisses for our cold-shouldering of Goldstone and Durban II*), I can't help wondering if this hopelessly laid-back land isn't being subjected to the hard word - along the lines of Cut the teasing, bitch. If you really love me, you'll move your embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Dear oh dear, would the world still respect us in the morning? And then what? Shalom, Dichter, Olmert et al take up archaeology in earnest? Watch this space...
[*Australia a 'leader of the free world', Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 4/12/09]
[The following 2 posts of mine are highly relevant to this subject: Who Did What? (28/9/09); Mosque Busters (27/11/09)]
Showing posts with label Ehud Olmert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ehud Olmert. Show all posts
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
No Bull
When "the most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism" (aka Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan) met "a giant of contemporary Middle East politics" (aka Ehud Olmert) over lunch at Sydney's Circular Quay last week, he must have had quite an attack of the vapours, given the pheromones charging full tilt from the "balding lawyer with a modest paunch... dressed in jeans and black T-shirt with a Red Bull logo." (Olmert still dreams of peace, The Australian, 28/11/09)
Mind you, Mr Influential has always had a thing for giants, having previously described Suharto as an "authentic giant" and John Howard as a "giant in Australian foreign and security policy." (See my 29/1/08 post Greg Sheridan: In Praise of 'Great' Men)
"Olmert's term in office," Sheridan cooed, "is best remembered for the extensive negotiations, and final peace offer that he undertook with [that pygmy] Abbas."
Of these the Israeli giant said: "On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan... based on the following principles. One, there would be a territorial solution on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides." This, reports Sheridan, "would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish settlement blocks [sic] which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory and relocate to Israel. In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4% of Palestinian territory in the West Bank."
OK then, let's get this straight: the mob that, contrary to international law, stormed into the West Bank in 1967 and has refused ever since to leave, in defiance of UN resolution 242, is now offering the West Bankers the deal of a lifetime. Hmm! That aside, the giant reckons his mob is/was now prepared to give it all back except for just 6.4% of the West Bank, consisting of settlement blocs "now suburbs of Jerusalem." Incredible! But... um... don't those settlement blocs - sorry - "suburbs" extend east almost to Jericho in the Jordan Valley, effectively cutting the West Bank (and the proposed Palestinian state) in two? And the West Bank? Does that come with or without the Jordan Valley? Or with or without the bits now west of the West Bank wall? Greg? Can you get back to us on this?
"No. 2 was the issue of Jerusalem... Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty. Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state." Righto! So those Jewish settlements - sorry, "neighbourhoods" - ringing Palestinian East Jerusalem (Gilo, Har Homa, East Talpiot, Ramat Eshkol etc), wouldn't they sever said "Arab neighbourhoods" (the putative Palestinian "capital") from the West Bank? Greg? Can you get back to us on this?
"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees... I told [Abbas] I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for 5 years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1,000 per year." Run that past me again. Of the 5 million Palestinian refugees currently in exile beyond Israel's borders (wherever they may be at the moment), 5,000 get to return to their homes and lands. Greg? Are you there, Greg? But there's more to this giant than fabulous offers: "I was the first Israeli prime minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not indifferent to that suffering," he said solemnly.
Those pheromones were too much. Sheridan was clearly smitten: "Olmert is right to paint this offer as embodying the most extensive concessions, and the best deal, ever offered to the Palestinians by an Israeli leader."
And that Palestinian pygmy, Abbas? The Israeli giant, with pained look and shrug, could only lament, "He promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."
Pearls before swine, obviously.
PS: While on the subject of Israeli pearls and Palestinian swine, you might like to check out my 13/11/09 post Mendes & Dyrenfurth's Win-Win Plan.
Mind you, Mr Influential has always had a thing for giants, having previously described Suharto as an "authentic giant" and John Howard as a "giant in Australian foreign and security policy." (See my 29/1/08 post Greg Sheridan: In Praise of 'Great' Men)
"Olmert's term in office," Sheridan cooed, "is best remembered for the extensive negotiations, and final peace offer that he undertook with [that pygmy] Abbas."
Of these the Israeli giant said: "On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan... based on the following principles. One, there would be a territorial solution on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides." This, reports Sheridan, "would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish settlement blocks [sic] which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory and relocate to Israel. In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4% of Palestinian territory in the West Bank."
OK then, let's get this straight: the mob that, contrary to international law, stormed into the West Bank in 1967 and has refused ever since to leave, in defiance of UN resolution 242, is now offering the West Bankers the deal of a lifetime. Hmm! That aside, the giant reckons his mob is/was now prepared to give it all back except for just 6.4% of the West Bank, consisting of settlement blocs "now suburbs of Jerusalem." Incredible! But... um... don't those settlement blocs - sorry - "suburbs" extend east almost to Jericho in the Jordan Valley, effectively cutting the West Bank (and the proposed Palestinian state) in two? And the West Bank? Does that come with or without the Jordan Valley? Or with or without the bits now west of the West Bank wall? Greg? Can you get back to us on this?
"No. 2 was the issue of Jerusalem... Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty. Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state." Righto! So those Jewish settlements - sorry, "neighbourhoods" - ringing Palestinian East Jerusalem (Gilo, Har Homa, East Talpiot, Ramat Eshkol etc), wouldn't they sever said "Arab neighbourhoods" (the putative Palestinian "capital") from the West Bank? Greg? Can you get back to us on this?
"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees... I told [Abbas] I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for 5 years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1,000 per year." Run that past me again. Of the 5 million Palestinian refugees currently in exile beyond Israel's borders (wherever they may be at the moment), 5,000 get to return to their homes and lands. Greg? Are you there, Greg? But there's more to this giant than fabulous offers: "I was the first Israeli prime minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not indifferent to that suffering," he said solemnly.
Those pheromones were too much. Sheridan was clearly smitten: "Olmert is right to paint this offer as embodying the most extensive concessions, and the best deal, ever offered to the Palestinians by an Israeli leader."
And that Palestinian pygmy, Abbas? The Israeli giant, with pained look and shrug, could only lament, "He promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."
Pearls before swine, obviously.
PS: While on the subject of Israeli pearls and Palestinian swine, you might like to check out my 13/11/09 post Mendes & Dyrenfurth's Win-Win Plan.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Wag the Dog
'I'm just wagging the dog/If you don't know how to do it/ I'll show you how to wag the dog' (Words by Ehud Olmert. Music by The Rolling Stones)
"The findings of the 2 professors (Mearsheimer & Walt*) are right to the last detail. Every senator and congressman knows that criticising the Israeli government is political suicide... If the Israeli Government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith. President Bush, for example, has withdrawn from all the established American positions regarding our conflict. He accepts automatically the positions of our government... Almost all the American media are closed to Palestinians and Israeli peace activists. As to professors - almost all know which side of the bread is peanut-buttered. If, in spite of that, somebody dares to open their mouth against the Israeli policy - as happens once every few years - they are smothered under a volley of denunciations: anti-Semite, holocaust denier, neo-Nazi." (Who's the Dog? Who's the Tail? Uri Avnery 22/4/06)
[*The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007]
"Earlier this afternoon, the United States House of Representatives voted 390-5 in favor of H. RES. 34, voicing their support for the Israeli military effort in the Gaza Strip. The bill... demanded that Hamas end its rocket fire against Israel and renounce violence, while expressing 'vigorous support and unwavering committment' to Israel and declaring that its 2 weeks of attacks on the Gaza Strip were rightful acts of self-defense. The bill also demanded that all nations condemn Hamas for breaking the 'calm'... and that all nations recognize that the thousands of civilian casualties caused by the Israeli attacks were entirely the fault of Hamas. The bill also called upon Egypt to tighten its borders to prevent 'smuggling' into the Gaza Strip and promised US support to that end." (House overwhelmingly passes bill cheering Israeli war on Gaza, antiwar.com, 9/1/09)
"US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday. 'She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour', Olmert said in a speech in... Ashkelon. The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the 3-week old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza... Fourteen of the Council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas. The US, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to vote in line with the other 14 but Rice... became the sole abstention. 'In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour', Olmert said. 'I said get me President Bush on the phone. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the US could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour'." (Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote: Olmert, antiwar.com, 13/1/09)
"Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's Monday comments... have sparked a war of words between the prime minister's office and the US State Department [which] immediately contradicted Olmert's claims, insisting that Israel might want to 'clarify or correct the record' with respect to the comments. Rice has dismissed Olmert's claim as 'fiction'... Yet spokesmen for Olmert say that the prime minister stands behind his version of events." (Olmert stands behind Rice-shaming claim, antiwar.com, 14/1/09)
Maybe "... public gloating by an Israeli PM that he can order a US president off a podium and instruct him to reverse and humiliate his secretary of state may cause even Ehud's poodle to rise up on its hind legs one day and bite its master." (Is Ehud's poodle acting up? Patrick Buchanan, antiwar.com, 17/1/09) But don't hold your breath.
And by the way, it's not that Olmert hasn't done this sort of thing before: "Candid TV footage of the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, showed Olmert coaching Prodi on what to say at their joint press conference in Rome." (Candid TV footage shows Olmert coaching Prodi, The Independent, 14/12/06)
Wagging the dog? Wagging the dogs.
"The findings of the 2 professors (Mearsheimer & Walt*) are right to the last detail. Every senator and congressman knows that criticising the Israeli government is political suicide... If the Israeli Government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith. President Bush, for example, has withdrawn from all the established American positions regarding our conflict. He accepts automatically the positions of our government... Almost all the American media are closed to Palestinians and Israeli peace activists. As to professors - almost all know which side of the bread is peanut-buttered. If, in spite of that, somebody dares to open their mouth against the Israeli policy - as happens once every few years - they are smothered under a volley of denunciations: anti-Semite, holocaust denier, neo-Nazi." (Who's the Dog? Who's the Tail? Uri Avnery 22/4/06)
[*The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007]
"Earlier this afternoon, the United States House of Representatives voted 390-5 in favor of H. RES. 34, voicing their support for the Israeli military effort in the Gaza Strip. The bill... demanded that Hamas end its rocket fire against Israel and renounce violence, while expressing 'vigorous support and unwavering committment' to Israel and declaring that its 2 weeks of attacks on the Gaza Strip were rightful acts of self-defense. The bill also demanded that all nations condemn Hamas for breaking the 'calm'... and that all nations recognize that the thousands of civilian casualties caused by the Israeli attacks were entirely the fault of Hamas. The bill also called upon Egypt to tighten its borders to prevent 'smuggling' into the Gaza Strip and promised US support to that end." (House overwhelmingly passes bill cheering Israeli war on Gaza, antiwar.com, 9/1/09)
"US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday. 'She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour', Olmert said in a speech in... Ashkelon. The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the 3-week old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza... Fourteen of the Council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas. The US, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to vote in line with the other 14 but Rice... became the sole abstention. 'In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour', Olmert said. 'I said get me President Bush on the phone. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the US could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour'." (Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote: Olmert, antiwar.com, 13/1/09)
"Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's Monday comments... have sparked a war of words between the prime minister's office and the US State Department [which] immediately contradicted Olmert's claims, insisting that Israel might want to 'clarify or correct the record' with respect to the comments. Rice has dismissed Olmert's claim as 'fiction'... Yet spokesmen for Olmert say that the prime minister stands behind his version of events." (Olmert stands behind Rice-shaming claim, antiwar.com, 14/1/09)
Maybe "... public gloating by an Israeli PM that he can order a US president off a podium and instruct him to reverse and humiliate his secretary of state may cause even Ehud's poodle to rise up on its hind legs one day and bite its master." (Is Ehud's poodle acting up? Patrick Buchanan, antiwar.com, 17/1/09) But don't hold your breath.
And by the way, it's not that Olmert hasn't done this sort of thing before: "Candid TV footage of the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, showed Olmert coaching Prodi on what to say at their joint press conference in Rome." (Candid TV footage shows Olmert coaching Prodi, The Independent, 14/12/06)
Wagging the dog? Wagging the dogs.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Analogising
"You know, I have always argued strongly, in Arabic and English, against analogies between Israel and Nazism, and I have always argued against Arab invocations of the holocaust in describing Israeli terrorist murder of Palestinian civilians. I have been thinking all that through this week." (The Angry Arab News Service, 12/1/09)
Dealing with Polish Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-
"On 22 August [1939], as Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to sign the non-aggression pact, Hitler was at his mountain fastness in Berchtesgaden, giving a speech to his senior military commanders. Notes taken at the time indicate exactly what kind of war he foresaw: 'A life and death struggle... The destruction of Poland has priority. The aim is to eliminate active forces, not to reach a definite line... I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting or waging a war, it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness'. On 1 September, with nearly 2 million German troops pouring across the frontier into Poland from the west, north and south, the Fuhrer issued the following proclamation: 'To the Wehrmacht! The Polish state has rejected the peaceful regulation of neighbourly relations I have striven for and has appealed to arms. The Germans in Poland are being persecuted by bloody terror and are being driven from their homesteads. A series of frontier violations, of a nature not tolerable for a great power, proves that the Poles are no longer willing to respect the German Reich's frontiers. To put an end to this lunacy, there remains no other course for me but to meet force with force'. Inside the Reich, Goebbels had been whipping up anti-Polish feeling, running scare stories on the suffering of ethnic Germans." (Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower, 2008, pp 64-65)
Dealing with Palestinian Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-
"The Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, "called on the IDF to 'take off its gloves', head into Gaza with armored tractors and raze an entire neighborhood from which rockets have been launched." (IDF should wipe out parts of Gaza, Jerusalem Post, 11/2/08)
The Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, said that the Palestinians are "bringing upon themselves a greater Shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground." ('Shoah' an admission, Arabs say, SMH, 3/3/08)
"As tit-for-tat attacks across the Gaza border intensified after the collapse of the end of a 6-month truce, the 2 main rivals in the Israeli elections in February vowed to remove Hamas from power, using military means if necessary... Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister who will lead... Kadima in the election, said, 'The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple* the Hamas regime in Gaza. The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic'. Later Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing Likud party... said, 'In the long term we will have to topple the Hamas regime'..." (Israel's leading parties vow to wipe out Hamas, Guardian/SMH, 23/12/08)
[*We did not seek out war, but the circumstances became impossible. Even when it all began, we were very restrained. We didn't say that we want to topple Hamas. I don't know if we can make Hamas disappear, but we didn't say 'topple'." (Olmert: Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote, ynetnews.com, 12/1/09)]
"In attacking Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces will try to 'send Gaza decades into the past' in terms of weapon capabilities while achieving 'the maximum number of enemy casualties and keeping Israel Defense Forces casualties at a minimum', GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant said." (GOC Southern Command: IDF will send Gaza back decades, Uri Blau, Haaretz, 28/12/08)
"Tel Aviv's early insistance that this massive military exercise was about putting a halt to Palestinian rockets being fired into or near communities in the south of Israel never rang true.
Measure it by the number of rockets - 8000 - plus [sic: see my 5/1/09 post Go Figure 1] over eight years - and indeed it sounds like a genuine existential threat. Consider the toll - 20 Israeli deaths spread over eight years, which is about half the number of deaths in just a month of Israeli traffic accidents - and it all loses its oomph as a casus belli. Israel does not want to deal with Hamas - it wants to annihilate the Islamist movement. The Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, said as much when she dashed to Paris last week to head off a French push for a 48-hour ceasefire. 'There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region', she said. If there was any doubt after Livni spoke, it evaporated on Friday when the Deputy Prime Minister, Haim Ramon, told Israeli TV: 'What I think we need to do is reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern. That's the most important thing'. And at the United Nations in New York, the Israeli ambassador, Gabriella Shalev, also seemed to depart the approved script. '[It will continue for] as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely', she said." (Mission revealed: destroy Hamas, Paul McGeough, SMH, 5/1/09)
"'We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II, [Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor] Lieberman added." (Lieberman: Do to Hamas what the US did to Japan, Jerusalem Post, 13/1/09)
"Israeli analysts say a ground war in Gaza City would make the conflict to date seem tame. 'The Israeli Defence [sic] Forces will enter, with great force, with tens of thousands of soldiers, into the heart of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip', the respected commentator Alex Fishman wrote in yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. 'There will no longer be strikes at the margins from the ground and destruction from the air. Now we are talking about armoured divisions that will not leave a single stone standing on their way into the refugee camps and into the heart of one of the most crowded cities on Earth'." (Israel divided over its next move, John Lyons, The Australian, 14/1/09)
Dealing with Polish Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-
"On 22 August [1939], as Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to sign the non-aggression pact, Hitler was at his mountain fastness in Berchtesgaden, giving a speech to his senior military commanders. Notes taken at the time indicate exactly what kind of war he foresaw: 'A life and death struggle... The destruction of Poland has priority. The aim is to eliminate active forces, not to reach a definite line... I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting or waging a war, it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness'. On 1 September, with nearly 2 million German troops pouring across the frontier into Poland from the west, north and south, the Fuhrer issued the following proclamation: 'To the Wehrmacht! The Polish state has rejected the peaceful regulation of neighbourly relations I have striven for and has appealed to arms. The Germans in Poland are being persecuted by bloody terror and are being driven from their homesteads. A series of frontier violations, of a nature not tolerable for a great power, proves that the Poles are no longer willing to respect the German Reich's frontiers. To put an end to this lunacy, there remains no other course for me but to meet force with force'. Inside the Reich, Goebbels had been whipping up anti-Polish feeling, running scare stories on the suffering of ethnic Germans." (Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower, 2008, pp 64-65)
Dealing with Palestinian Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-
"The Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, "called on the IDF to 'take off its gloves', head into Gaza with armored tractors and raze an entire neighborhood from which rockets have been launched." (IDF should wipe out parts of Gaza, Jerusalem Post, 11/2/08)
The Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, said that the Palestinians are "bringing upon themselves a greater Shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground." ('Shoah' an admission, Arabs say, SMH, 3/3/08)
"As tit-for-tat attacks across the Gaza border intensified after the collapse of the end of a 6-month truce, the 2 main rivals in the Israeli elections in February vowed to remove Hamas from power, using military means if necessary... Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister who will lead... Kadima in the election, said, 'The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple* the Hamas regime in Gaza. The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic'. Later Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing Likud party... said, 'In the long term we will have to topple the Hamas regime'..." (Israel's leading parties vow to wipe out Hamas, Guardian/SMH, 23/12/08)
[*We did not seek out war, but the circumstances became impossible. Even when it all began, we were very restrained. We didn't say that we want to topple Hamas. I don't know if we can make Hamas disappear, but we didn't say 'topple'." (Olmert: Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote, ynetnews.com, 12/1/09)]
"In attacking Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces will try to 'send Gaza decades into the past' in terms of weapon capabilities while achieving 'the maximum number of enemy casualties and keeping Israel Defense Forces casualties at a minimum', GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant said." (GOC Southern Command: IDF will send Gaza back decades, Uri Blau, Haaretz, 28/12/08)
"Tel Aviv's early insistance that this massive military exercise was about putting a halt to Palestinian rockets being fired into or near communities in the south of Israel never rang true.
Measure it by the number of rockets - 8000 - plus [sic: see my 5/1/09 post Go Figure 1] over eight years - and indeed it sounds like a genuine existential threat. Consider the toll - 20 Israeli deaths spread over eight years, which is about half the number of deaths in just a month of Israeli traffic accidents - and it all loses its oomph as a casus belli. Israel does not want to deal with Hamas - it wants to annihilate the Islamist movement. The Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, said as much when she dashed to Paris last week to head off a French push for a 48-hour ceasefire. 'There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region', she said. If there was any doubt after Livni spoke, it evaporated on Friday when the Deputy Prime Minister, Haim Ramon, told Israeli TV: 'What I think we need to do is reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern. That's the most important thing'. And at the United Nations in New York, the Israeli ambassador, Gabriella Shalev, also seemed to depart the approved script. '[It will continue for] as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely', she said." (Mission revealed: destroy Hamas, Paul McGeough, SMH, 5/1/09)
"'We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II, [Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor] Lieberman added." (Lieberman: Do to Hamas what the US did to Japan, Jerusalem Post, 13/1/09)
"Israeli analysts say a ground war in Gaza City would make the conflict to date seem tame. 'The Israeli Defence [sic] Forces will enter, with great force, with tens of thousands of soldiers, into the heart of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip', the respected commentator Alex Fishman wrote in yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. 'There will no longer be strikes at the margins from the ground and destruction from the air. Now we are talking about armoured divisions that will not leave a single stone standing on their way into the refugee camps and into the heart of one of the most crowded cities on Earth'." (Israel divided over its next move, John Lyons, The Australian, 14/1/09)
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