One needed only to watch the interview on British television this week with Israel's ambassador to the UK to realise that the Israeli army's tightening of the siege on Gaza, its invasion of the northern parts of the Strip today, and the looming humanitarian crisis across the territory, have nothing to do with the recent capture of an Israeli soldier -- or even the feeble home-made Qassam rockets fired, usually ineffectually, into Israel by Palestinian militants.

Under questioning from presenter Jon Snow of Channel Four news on the reasons behind Israel's bombing of Gaza's only power station -- thereby cutting off electricity to more than half of the Strip's 1.3 million inhabitants for many months ahead, as well as threatening the water supply -- Zvi Ravner denied this action amounted to collective punishment of the civilian population.

Rather, he claimed, the electricity station had to be disabled to prevent the soldier's captors from having the light needed to smuggle him out of Gaza at night. It was left to a bemused Jon Snow to point out that smugglers usually prefer to do their work in the dark and that Israel's actions were more likely to assist his captors than disadvantage them.

The Alice Through the Looking Glass quality of Israeli disinformation over the combined siege and invasion of Gaza -- and its widespread and credulous repetition by the Western media -- is successfully distracting attention from Israel's real goals in this one-sided war of attrition.

The current destruction of Gaza's civilian and administrative infrastructure is reminiscent of the Israeli army's cruel rampages through the streets of West Bank cities in the repeated invasions of 2002 and 2003, and the Jewish settlers' malicious attacks on Palestinian farmers trying to collect their olive harvests.

The relative absence of these horror stories today is simply a reflection of the terrible success of the wall Israel has built across Palestinian farmland and around Palestinian population centres in the West Bank. Settlers no longer need to plunder the olive harvest when the fruit is being left to rot on the trees because farmers can no longer reach their groves.

In the case of the West Bank invasions, Israeli tanks rolled easily into Palestinian cities that had already been isolated and crippled by the stranglehold of checkpoints and roadblocks all over the territority. Israeli heavy armour knocked down electricity pylons as though they were playing a game of ten-pin bowling, snipers shot up the water tanks on people's roofs, soldiers defecated into office photocopiers and the army sought out Palestinian ministries so that their confidential records and documents could be destroyed or stolen.

Notably, only in the warren of alleys in the overcrowded refugee camps of Jenin and Nablus did the army find the going far tougher and suffer relatively high casualties.

Which may explain the military caution that has been exercised by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in regard to the ground invasion of Gaza. The tiny Strip, besieged on its land borders by the Israeli army behind an electronic fence and on the seafront by the Israeli navy, is one giant, overcrowded refugee camp. The past week has seen Gaza "softened up" with airstrikes on its infrastructure and government ministries. Today, land forces began wreaking more death and destruction -- fourteen killed at the time of writing -- in "mopping up" exercises in the pattern established earlier in the West Bank.

Three long-standing motives are discernible in Israel's current menacing of Gaza.

First, Israel is determined to continue its campaign of impairing the Palestinian Authority's ability to govern. This has nothing to do with the recent election of Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority. Israel's official policy of unilateralism -- ignoring the wishes of the Palestinian people -- began long before, when Yasser Arafat was in charge. It has continued through the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, a leader who is about as close to a quisling as Israel is likely to find.

Hamas's electoral success has merely supplied Israel with the pretext it needs for launching its invasion and the grounds for demanding international support as it chokes the life out of Gaza. Israel doubtless hopes that at the end of this process it will be left with Abbas, a figurehead president backed into a corner and ready to put his name to whatever agreement Israel imposes.

Second, the attack on Gaza -- as ever -- is partly a distraction from the real battle. It was widely recognised that Ariel Sharon's dogged pursuit of his Gaza disengagement policy last year was designed to free his hand for the annexation of large chunks of a greater prize, the West Bank, and for securing the biggest prize of all, East Jerusalem. Nothing has changed on this front.

As Israel keeps all eyes directed towards the suffering in Gaza, it is starting to make significant moves in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

It is preparing for the much-delayed evacuation of a handful of illegal West Bank hilltop settlements -- known in Israel as "outposts" -- demanded as the first stage of the implementation of the almost-forgotten US-sponsored peace process called the Road Map.

These outposts are tiny, often just a few caravans. It will be much to Israel's advantage if the world fails to examine too closely the miserly act of evacuating these places, which doubtless will later be presented both as Israel having made a huge sacrifice for peace and as having satisfied its side of the Road Map's conditions.

The loss of these outposts and a few larger settlements will pave the way for international acceptance of Olmert's convergence plan, his unilaterally imposed expansion of Israel's borders at the expense of a viable Palestinian state.

Equally significant are the overlooked manoeuvres Israel is undertaking in East Jerusalem as it beats a warpath towards Gaza. Last week Israel stripped four Hamas MPs of their right to live in East Jerusalem, effectively expelling them to the West Bank. It also showed that it could lock up them and dozens of other democratically elected Palestinian representatives with barely a peep from the international community.

In yet another dose of Alice in Wonderland, Israel's policy of making hostages of these MPs was referred to as "arrests" by the Western media. Few bothered to report that the MPs are being deprived of even their most basic rights, such as meeting with their lawyers.

As the four Jerusalem MPs' lawyers have argued, it is a nonsense that Israel allowed these Hamas politicians to stand in the recent elections and now, after their victory, it calls their membership of the party "support for terrorism". It is also a disturbing sign of how easily Israel will be able to begin ethnically cleansing East Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants using the flimsiest of excuses.

And third, and perhaps most significantly of all, Israel is using the siege and invasion of Gaza as a laboratory for testing policies it also intends to apply to the West Bank after convergence. Gazans are the guinea pigs on which Olmert can try out the "extreme action" he has been boasting of.

The destruction of Gaza's power plant and loss of electricity to some 700,000 people; the consequent scarcity of water, build-up of sewage that cannot be disposed of, and inevitable spread of disease; the shortages of fuel and threats to the running of vital services such as hospitals; the sonic booms of Israeli aircraft that terrify Gaza's children and unpredictable air strikes that terrify everyone; the inability of Palestinian officials to run bombed ministries and provide services; the constant threat of invasion by massed Israeli troops on the "border"; and the breakdown of law and order as Fatah and Hamas gunmen are encouraged to turn on each other. All these factors are designed to one end: the slow demand by Palestinians, civilians and militants alike, to clear out of the hell-hole of Gaza.

The traffic through the tunnels that once served Gaza's smugglers will change directions: where once cigarettes and arms came into Gaza, the likelihood is that soon it will be people passing through those underground passages to leave Gaza and seek a life outside.

If this experiment in human despair works in the small Gaza Strip, its lessons can be applied to much bigger effect in the West Bank ghettoes left behind after convergence. This is how ethnic cleansing looks when it is designed not by butchers in uniforms but by technocrats in suits.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

Friday 07 July 2006 2:44 PM GMT

The crisis began when gunmen seized an Israeli sldier

The current crisis between Israel and the Palestinians was triggered by the June 25 seizure of an Israeli soldier by Gaza armed groups.

Following are Key events in the crisis:

Sunday, June 25: Palestinian armed groups launch an attack on an army post on the Israel-Gaza border. They kill two soldiers and capture a third.



Israel starts to mass forces around Gaza, from where it had withdrawn in September 2005.



Monday, June 26: Three Palestinian groups, including the Popular Resistance Committees, the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement and the Army of Islam, claim the capture of the soldier, 19-year-old Gilad Shalit ,who also holds French citizenship.



The groups demand that Israel free detained women and minors in exchange for information about Shalit.



Tuesday, June 27: Hamas, which dominates the Palestinian government, signs an agreement aimed at ending bitter internal conflict and which implicitly recognises the existence of Israel.



Palestinian activists abduct a second Israeli youth, 18-year-old Eliahu Asheri, from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.



Overnight on Tuesday/Wednesday, Israeli aircraft destroy key bridges in the Gaza Strip and knock out the territory's sole power station, cutting off electricity to many of the 1.4 million residents.



Wednesday, June 28: Israeli ground forces enter southern Gaza. The Popular Resistance Committees threatens to kill the West Bank settler if the troops are not withdrawn, while Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, says Israel will use "extreme measures" to rescue Shalit.



Washington urges caution, but says Israel has the right to defend itself.



Israeli aircraft over-fly Syria which is home to several Hamas leaders.



Thursday, June 29: Extending its offensive to the West Bank, Israel detains scores of Hamas members, including a third of the Palestinian cabinet and a large number of lawmakers.



As the international community steps up calls for restraint, the abducted settler is found shot dead in the West Bank.



Olmert suspends a ground offensive expected in northern Gaza as Cairo tries to mediate a solution.



Friday, June 30: Israeli fighter jets blitz Gaza overnight, setting the interior ministry ablaze and striking other targets.



Israel revokes the Jerusalem residency rights of a Hamas minister and three MPs.



Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, vows his Hamas-led government will not fall and insists it is working to free the Israeli soldier, but accuses Israel of jeopardising their efforts by attacking Gaza.



Three Palestinians are wounded in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City.

Saturday, July 1: Israel rejects Palestinian demands to free 1,000 prisoners as its warplanes pound the Gaza Strip for a fourth straight night.



Shalit is said to have been treated by a Palestinian doctor for three bullet wounds.



Sunday, July 2: Israel hits Haniya's Gaza office in a new wave of air raids as Olmert warns that his forces will use all their power to free Shalit.



A spokesman for Mahmud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says mediation efforts are nearing an impasse.



Monday, July 3: Israel sends troops and armour into the northern Gaza Strip after a series of air raids. One Palestinian is killed in clashes.



The groups holding Shalit give a 24-hour deadline of 0300 GMT on Tuesday for Israel to free Palestinian prisoners. Israel rejects the ultimatum.



Israel raids charity associations linked to Hamas in the West Bank.



Tuesday, July 4: A night-time Israeli air raid kills a Hamas activist in northern Gaza while Israeli troops advance into the area in a "limited" operation.



Israeli troops shoot dead a Fatah-linked activist in the West Bank.



Israel says after the deadline expires that Shalit is still alive, while his captors say they will not kill him.



Olmert orders the offensive to continue and rules out any negotiations.



Hamas group for the first time fire a rocket into the heart of the southern Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon, causing no injuries.



Wednesday, July 5: Israeli warplanes overnight strike the interior ministry in Gaza City for the second time.

Air raids also pound other targets in Gaza for the eighth consecutive night.



Israel's security cabinet orders the military to intensify air raids against Hamas and "targeted killings" of armed groups.



Thursday, July 6: Twenty-two Palestinian civilians and armed groups are killed in Gaza as Israel thrusts deeper into the north, re-occupying areas evacuated 10 months ago.



An Israeli soldier,too, is killed in the fighting which is centred on Beit Layiha.



Two 16-year-old Palestinians are killed in an Israeli raid in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.



The UN Security Council debates a draft resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of detained Palestinian officials but the United States describes it as "unbalanced".



Friday, July 7: Israel launches another air raid on northern Gaza, killing an armed Palestinian.

Another two Palestinians are killed by Israeli ground forces in the Beit Lahiya area.



Abbas says Israel is committing "new crimes against humanity".

Analysis: 24 Palestinians killed by Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip and 2 killed in the West Bank,

Posted on Friday, July 07 @ 15:03:53 EDT

Palestine Center for Human Rights Palestine Center for Human Rights

PCHR strongly condemns the continued killing of Palestinians by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and the disproportionate use of force in the Gaza Strip. The Centre points to the fact that IOF are not respecting the principles of necessity and proportionality, when employing their superior war machine against Palestinian resistance fighters not involved in combat activity in civilian areas. These actions are causing high numbers of civilian casualties, as well as damaging civilian property and infrastructure. PCHR reminds the international community, especially the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention, of its previous demands for them to act immediately in order to protect the lives of civilians and ensure IOF compliance with the convention. The Centre calls upon the High Contracting Parties to enact article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which ensures the respect of the convention under all circumstances. The Centre confirms its call to these parties to take the necessary punitive steps and impose sanctions on these committing serious violations of the convention.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that the past day has witnessed an IOF escalation unprecedented since the implementation of the disengagement plan nearly ten months ago. A total of twenty-six Palestinians were killed over a period of twenty-six hours: twenty-four in the Gaza Strip and two in the West Bank. This brings the number of Palestinians killed to thirty-six, since the capturing of the Israeli soldier on 25 June 2006. In addition, one hundred and fifteen Palestinians have been injured, most of them civilians. Ninety-seven were injured in the Gaza Strip and eighteen in the West Bank. There were thirty-four serious injuries, including five who are now in intensive care units. Thirty-seven women and children were among the injured. IOF are using the imprisonment of the soldier as a pretext for their attack on the Gaza Strip, destroying its infrastructure and reoccupying parts of its land.

Below is a chronology of the most notable events in the Gaza Strip:

- At approximately 03:30 on Thursday, 6 July 2006, IOF helicopters hit members of a group from the Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions, the armed wing of Hamas, near the Khozondar Gas Station, west of Jabalia. One member of the group was killed: Abdallah Mohammad Mohammad Zommar (Salha), a 24-year-old resident of the El-Karama area in Gaza City.

- At approximately 04:00, IOF supported by dozens of tanks, bulldozers, and F16s moved into the Gaza Strip towards the area northwest of Beit Lahya. The advancing forces fired machine guns, artillery shells and tank shells. At approximately 11:00 IOF hit Mohammad Ahmad El-Attar (20) with a bullet to the chest, killing him instantly. A number of Palestinians were injured by shrapnel and heavy machine gun fire. Eyewitnesses indicated that El-Attar was killed in front of his house.

- At approximately 10:50, IOF supported by doens of tanks, bulldozers, and F16s moved 700 meters into the El-Farahin area of Greater Abasan, east of Khan Yunis. They fired weapons heavily and indiscriminately, and started to raze agricultural land and greenhouses. Palestinian fighters arrived and attempted to resist the incursion. At approximately 13:00, an IOF helicopter fired a rocket at the resistance fighters in an agricultural field in the area. Two were killed and five were injured, one seriously. The two that were killed were: Mohammad Sabri Shehda Abu Tir (20) and Mohammad Suliman Ali El-Najjar (24).

- At approximately 15:30, IOF fired a tank shell and a rocket from a plane at a group of resistance fighters in the Isra’ area of Beit Lahya. Eight were killed. troops fired at another group and killed three others and injured thirty-two, seven of them seriously. On the morning of Friday, 7 July 2006, medical sources announced that two of the injured had died. The Palestinians killed were: Mohammad Anwar Tafish (23), Ahmad Abdallah El-Khaldi (20), Sa’ed Ferwana (24), Mohammad Yousef Faza’ (27), Fadi Jihad El-Obeid (21), Ismail Sa’id Abu Matar (18), Abdel Rahman Hani El-najjar (22), Ibrahim Mohammad Salama Abu Rashid (18), Mohammad Maher Rabah Shaheen (19), Mohammad Jamal El-Dreimli (20), Mohammad Sarhan El-Dreimli (20), Na’el Jaber Halawa (25), and Rif’at Jamal Naser (23).

- At approximately 21:10, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a group of resistance fighters near El-Salatin Square in Beit Lahya. Three were killed instantly; and seven others were seriously injured. The dead men were: Adham El-Deiri (28), Adel Mohammad El-Atla (25), and Shadi Hamed El-Sakani (30). On the morning of Friday, 7 July 2006, medical sources announced that one of the injured had died: Ahmad Fuad Abu Askar (19).

- At approximately 22:40, an IOF plane fired at a group of resistance fighters near Bier El-Na’ja area, east of the El-Salatin area. One of the men was killed instantly: Basem Awni Riehan (22) from Jabalia. Two others were seriously injured.

- Shortly after the last incident, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a resistance fighter in the El-Salatin area, killing him instantly. The dead man was Khaled Farah Naser (22).

- At approximately 06:00 on Friday, 7 July 2006, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a Palestinian car in the El-Salatin area of Beit Lahya. Five members of the Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions were in the car, which was hit directly by the rocket. Wa’el Hisham Naser, a 19-year-old resident of Jabalia El-Nazla, was killed and the other four men were seriously injured.

In the West Bank, IOF killed a child and injured eighteen others in the city of Jenin. Three of the injured are in a serious condition. The casualties were caused during a failed extra-judicial execution attempt. On Friday, 7 July 2006, another Palestinian was killed in Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 20:30 on Thursday, 6 July 2006, an undercover IOF unit infiltrated Jenin refugee camp in two cars with Palestinian license plates. The cars stopped in front of the Popular Service Committee in the camp, near Dr. Khalil Suliman Hospital. A house of mourning for Fida’ Qandil had been set up in the committee’s premises. The undercover unit got out of the car and opened fire indiscriminately at the house of mourning. Zakaria El-Zubeidi, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (an armed wing of Fatah), and Mahmoud El-Sa’adi, an activist in the Al-Quds Battalions (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) were in the house of mourning. Both managed to get away. Eighteen Palestinians were injured, three of them seriously. Immediately afterwards, nearly thirty IOF vehicles supported by a helicopter moved into Jenin and the refugee camp to ensure the withdrawal of the undercover unit. IOF detained five of the injured. At approximately 22:20, Israeli media outlets announced that one of the kidnapped Palestinians had died. 40 minutes later, the body was handed to a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance. The dead Palestinian was identified as Ahmad Eid Ibrahim Naghnagheya (16).

At approximately 06:00 on Friday, 7 July 2006, an IOF troop contingent moved into the old Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus. A number of Palestinian resistance fighters confronted the advancing forces. One of them was hit by bullets to the upper body that killed him instantly. The dead Palestinian was Tamer Fathi Abdel Fattah Qandil (21).

PCHR condemns the killings perpetrated by IOF against Palestinian civilians and the disregard of necessity and proportionality in the use of force against Palestinian resistance fighters. These actions are considered reprisals and are a form of collective punishment under article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. PCHR calls upon the international community to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law.

Sunday July 9, 2006



Doesn't the deafening silence by the West, including New Zealand, over the unfolding tragedy in the Gaza Strip seem so breathtakingly hypocritical? Most of us support Israel's right to exist and rightly hope that the young Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, kidnapped last week, is released unharmed. But surely Israel cannot expect us to believe for a minute that their military response has anything to do with releasing the young soldier, but everything to do with taking out the elected Hamas Government.



How else do you explain the missile attack on the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh last Monday? After obliterating the prime minister's office, the Israeli military issued a statement claiming that bombing his office was intended to "secure the safe return" of their kidnapped soldier. Oh, please!



The mainstream media don't serve us well when they promote only the Western view. Shalit's kidnapping happened during a raid on an Israeli military base at a key border crossing between Israel and Gaza. Shalit's base was where regular Israeli artillery shelling of Gaza was organised. Isn't it amazing that we hear about the infrequent symbolic and largely harmless mortar attacks but not about Israel's more regular lethal artillery attacks? Israel would have us believe that Hamas carried out the kidnapping. But responsibility is actually claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees, apparently in response to Israel's assassination a month ago of their founder. Their head was also the director-general of the interior ministry of the Palestinian Authority. The PRC are demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian children and women from Israeli jails whom they claim are imprisoned on concocted charges based on false confessions extracted by torture.



"Is it not astonishing," said a leading Middle East commentator, "that the entire world knows the name and face of the Israeli soldier, while the hundreds of Palestinian children held in Israel's dungeons, not to mention 10,000 adult prisoners, thousands held without charge and trial, abducted from their homes in the middle of the night by Israeli occupation forces, remain nameless and faceless before a silent world?"



You can see his point. Of course, the Israeli Government claims it won't be "held to ransom by terrorists" and launched its "Summer Rain" campaign to release the hapless hostage. The apparent rescue operation involves massive attack helicopters and fighter jets against the civilians of Gaza Strip. Three bridges linking up the 1.3 million people who live in Gaza have so far been destroyed on the pretext of preventing the kidnappers from moving their hostage. But in a particularly vindictive action, Israeli jets also bombed Gaza's only power plant, leaving half the people without water and two-thirds without electricity. The message to the Palestinian people was that they are to be punished collectively. Presumably, the strategy is to turn the population against Hamas. But according to Time magazine, it seems to be having the opposite effect.



The Israeli military forces have also "arrested" a third of the Palestinian Cabinet, including the finance minister and the parliamentary speaker. This week, an Israeli Government spokesperson said it had drawn up an assassination list of government leaders, including the Prime Minister, if Shalit is not released. Can you imagine anything more outrageous than one state threatening to assassinate the elected leaders of another state?



The silence of the "international community" is sickening. Whenever armed resistance by Palestinians occurs, Western leaders line up to condemn terrorism. Yet when violence is carried out by Israeli military forces, these events are considered "unfortunate incidents". That was the description given to the Israeli shelling of a family picnicking on a Gaza beach last month. Some Western reports even bought the absurd spin that the family's murder was possibly the result of a mine planted by Hamas.



A White House spokesperson stated: "While Washington urges Israel to ensure innocent civilians are not harmed, the hostage-taking and the attacks by Hamas last weekend have precipitated the current events in Gaza. Israel has the right to defend itself and the lives of its citizens."



According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, in just three weeks leading up to Shalit's kidnapping, 27 Palestinians were killed by the army and 59 were wounded, including 30 children; 300 Palestinians were also arrested and imprisoned.



But this isn't all. The deliberate and calculated destruction of Palestinian property, the economic strangulation of the Occupied Territories, the ongoing construction of Israel's apartheid wall and the psychological terror inflicted by military raids and checkpoints are all done to cower Palestinians into submissive silence.



The New York Times recently reported the analysis of Ali Jarbawi, a professor at the Palestinian Birzeit University, of the real reasons for the current Israeli operation: "The kidnapped soldier matters but was also a pretext for the Israelis, who also have a score to settle with Hamas. Israel wants a compliant Palestinian Authority." This latest Israeli assault is part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the ability of the elected Hamas Government to resist settling the "Palestine-Israel conflict" (as the dispossession of Palestinians is banally labelled) on Israel's terms.



Our silence makes us complicit.

"But surely Israel cannot expect us to believe for a minute that their military response has anything to do with releasing the young soldier, but everything to do with taking out the elected Hamas Government."

It s been nearly a full year since disengagement, and in that time, thousands of Kassam rockets have been launched from Gaza at Israel.

From "Sleepless in Sderot":

"Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gush Katif last summer, Sderot has become the new address for a barrage of Kassam rockets fired from the area of the now-destroyed Jewish communities of Dugit, Alei Sinai and Nisanit. According to IDF statistics, more than 600 Kassams have been launched against Israel from the Gaza Strip since last September. Several have targeted the Ashkelon industrial area, but it's Sderot, barely 3 miles away from Beit Hanoun, that has borne the brunt of the onslaught.

Last weekend alone, seventy of the crude arrowhead missiles were launched toward Israel. Four Israelis were wounded and a few buildings were damaged. Every time there?s an incoming Kassam, a warning siren sounds. It's called "Red Dawn" and provides all of 15 seconds for people to dive next to a wall or under the bed. To say that the citizens of Sderot are on edge would be a severe understatement.

Over at the AMIT High School, a few short yards away from the municipality and Sderot's central square, students are squeezed into the ground-floor classrooms since May 21 when a Kassam burst through the red-tile roof shattering the ceiling of the 11th grade classroom. "

Israel has every right to defend herself against attack. This isn't about one soldier- its about the unrelenting attacks on Israel.

JONATHON CROOK WRITES: "reminiscent of the Israeli army's cruel rampages through the streets of West Bank cities in the repeated invasions of 2002 and 2003, and the Jewish settlers' malicious attacks on Palestinian farmers trying to collect their olive harvests...."

BECKY: Since I live in California, have never been to the West Bank, I can't verify whether Cook's claim is true or not. However, Michelle Nevada has been there, and sees this controversy from a different angle. Here is what she wrote:

Found at: http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1786574.php

where it was "hidden". --Becky



Olive Harvest in Palestine

by Michelle Nevada • Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005 at 11:25 AM



Olive harvest in Palestine

Harvest of Terror

by Michelle Nevada



There is a current and perennial fight that happens every year in Israel, and if you don't know the facts, you may be lulled into the idea that it is simply an agricultural dispute. It goes way beyond agriculture. The annual "olive tree problem" is a significant issue, not just in the rural areas of Israel, especially in Samaria, but for every person who cares about the future of Israel.

Please don't believe the claims of clueless television reporters and bleeding-heart left-wing people. It is not a case of "those settlers" destroying the olive trees in a mean-spirited attempt to make the "poor Palestinian people" go without an income or food or a job. Anyone who believes those reports has not only bitten at the bait of the Arabs, but has swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The war of the olive trees is not about olive trees at all. It's about land and safety.

The olive branch may be an ancient symbol of peace, but today, it is more a symbol of an unchecked Arab land grab. This is how it works. An Arab comes upon an old olive tree near a settlement. The tree, they know, is evidence of how long someone has lived in a place and who owns the land. Most older trees near settlements were planted by Jews, but some of the younger trees may have sprung up from an olive that rolled down a hill.

A lot of people, when picturing this scene, think the olives trees are growing in carefully defined orchards in nice straight lines, but most are not. In fact, unless you know what an olive tree looks like, you might think it was part of the scrub that dots the land of Samaria.

A lot of the trees were planted just outside of small Jewish towns in Samaria in order to define the boundaries of the settlement areas, but some trees are much older - and have been passed down from family member to family member for generations. If you don't believe the Torah, or the thousands of architectural landmarks that dot the "territories" of Israel as places of constant Jewish habitation, you can turn to these living testaments of family ownership of the land - a fact that has not escaped the notice of the Arab population.

Some trees are marked in to show who owns them, but in many areas it is just a matter of local knowledge who owns the tree - after all, it is on that person's land, or in their back yard, or it is on the block of land where their grandparents used to live. This doesn't matter to the Arabs, though.

The Arabs are intent upon proving they own the land, even though they do not. They will mark every small stick of olive tree that pokes from the ground, and they will mark the trees that are the ownership of others, as well. If the tree is marked, they destroy or erase the mark. Slowly, they attempt to mark every tree near a settlement in an effort to show that the trees belong to them. The closer the trees are, the better, because those trees can be allowed to grow large and bushy, providing perfect cover for terrorist activity against the Jewish population.

Then, claiming the "orchard" is theirs, the Arabs use the stolen and newly marked olive trees as an excuse to inch close to Jewish neighborhoods where they begin the surveillance for terrorist actions. With easily duped Westerners and soft-hearted ignorant Israeli college students as their accomplices, the Arabs make harvests of terror, reaping Jewish lives and security along with their stolen olives.

They also use these "orchards" to claim ownership of land blocks in strategic areas near Jewish communities. If you have ever been to Samaria, you will see that the Jews live on the hilltops, and the Arabs live in the valleys. It seems strange, at first. After all, the Jews are leaving all the fertile, green land for the Arabs to farm, while they struggle to make rocky and thorn-filled hillsides bloom. But when you realize that the Jews are there to protect Israel, you understand.

Those who live in Samaria chose to live on the hilltops from where Arabs could launch rockets at large cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. When you understand this, you understand why these so-called "innocent" Arabs from the fertile river valleys would trudge up a rocky hillside to claim an olive tree next to a Jewish home on a hillside. They don't want olives, they want Jewish lives.

After they establish "ownership" of their stolen olive trees, they claim the land for their own. Next, they put simple stone structures there, then homes and then they build a settlement. The closer they can get to a Jewish population, the better. After all, the Jews are no threat to them, but they are a great threat to the Jews.

It is strange that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President George Bush and the UN are screaming about "illegal outposts", but never seem to see the huge explosion of Arab homes, communities and mosques suddenly growing up hillsides near Jewish neighborhoods - all foreshadowed by the stealing of olive trees.

This is why, when I hear that the "settlers are destroying the Palestinian's olive trees," or that the "settlers are throwing rocks at the poor Palestinians who are trying to harvest their olives," I shake my head in disbelief and anger that any news agency would listen to this fiction and believe it.

But, I guess if someone is sitting in an office in downtown Tel Aviv or New York or Chicago, and has never seen an olive tree in Samaria, he might not understand the significance of an olive tree, and he might think that this is just a petty squabble between neighbors. But it's not. It's deadly serious business.

When I hear that the people of Elon Moreh or Itamar or Kedumim have destroyed olive trees, I know they have done it out of desperation. It says in Torah that we cannot destroy a fruit tree. These are religious people. The only reason they would go against a Torah prohibition is to protect life. I know that when they choose to destroy an olive tree it is to protect the lives of Jews in those towns. This is not about preventing an olive harvest, it is about preventing a harvest of terror.

So, the next time you are approached by a well-meaning soul who wants to help "rebuild Palestinian olive orchards" in the name of "peace", or you hear of a mixed up group of people like the Kibbutz Movement thinking that planting olive trees for Arabs is a good thing, please pass on this lesson. I hope they may be educated into understanding what a dangerous thing they are doing. But, if they don't get the message, we can still offer them an olive branch, just to be sure.

Below is a chronology of the most notable events in the Gaza Strip:

- At approximately 03:30 on Thursday, 6 July 2006, IOF helicopters hit members of a group from the Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions, the armed wing of Hamas, near the Khozondar Gas Station, west of Jabalia. One member of the group was killed: Abdallah Mohammad Mohammad Zommar (Salha), a 24-year-old resident of the El-Karama area in Gaza City.

- At approximately 04:00, IOF supported by dozens of tanks, bulldozers, and F16s moved into the Gaza Strip towards the area northwest of Beit Lahya. The advancing forces fired machine guns, artillery shells and tank shells. At approximately 11:00 IOF hit Mohammad Ahmad El-Attar (20) with a bullet to the chest, killing him instantly. A number of Palestinians were injured by shrapnel and heavy machine gun fire. Eyewitnesses indicated that El-Attar was killed in front of his house.

- At approximately 10:50, IOF supported by doens of tanks, bulldozers, and F16s moved 700 meters into the El-Farahin area of Greater Abasan, east of Khan Yunis. They fired weapons heavily and indiscriminately, and started to raze agricultural land and greenhouses. Palestinian fighters arrived and attempted to resist the incursion. At approximately 13:00, an IOF helicopter fired a rocket at the resistance fighters in an agricultural field in the area. Two were killed and five were injured, one seriously. The two that were killed were: Mohammad Sabri Shehda Abu Tir (20) and Mohammad Suliman Ali El-Najjar (24).

- At approximately 15:30, IOF fired a tank shell and a rocket from a plane at a group of resistance fighters in the Isra’ area of Beit Lahya. Eight were killed. troops fired at another group and killed three others and injured thirty-two, seven of them seriously. On the morning of Friday, 7 July 2006, medical sources announced that two of the injured had died. The Palestinians killed were: Mohammad Anwar Tafish (23), Ahmad Abdallah El-Khaldi (20), Sa’ed Ferwana (24), Mohammad Yousef Faza’ (27), Fadi Jihad El-Obeid (21), Ismail Sa’id Abu Matar (18), Abdel Rahman Hani El-najjar (22), Ibrahim Mohammad Salama Abu Rashid (18), Mohammad Maher Rabah Shaheen (19), Mohammad Jamal El-Dreimli (20), Mohammad Sarhan El-Dreimli (20), Na’el Jaber Halawa (25), and Rif’at Jamal Naser (23).

- At approximately 21:10, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a group of resistance fighters near El-Salatin Square in Beit Lahya. Three were killed instantly; and seven others were seriously injured. The dead men were: Adham El-Deiri (28), Adel Mohammad El-Atla (25), and Shadi Hamed El-Sakani (30). On the morning of Friday, 7 July 2006, medical sources announced that one of the injured had died: Ahmad Fuad Abu Askar (19).

- At approximately 22:40, an IOF plane fired at a group of resistance fighters near Bier El-Na’ja area, east of the El-Salatin area. One of the men was killed instantly: Basem Awni Riehan (22) from Jabalia. Two others were seriously injured.

- Shortly after the last incident, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a resistance fighter in the El-Salatin area, killing him instantly. The dead man was Khaled Farah Naser (22).

- At approximately 06:00 on Friday, 7 July 2006, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a Palestinian car in the El-Salatin area of Beit Lahya. Five members of the Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions were in the car, which was hit directly by the rocket. Wa’el Hisham Naser, a 19-year-old resident of Jabalia El-Nazla, was killed and the other four men were seriously injured.



In the West Bank, IOF killed a child and injured eighteen others in the city of Jenin. Three of the injured are in a serious condition. The casualties were caused during a failed extra-judicial execution attempt. On Friday, 7 July 2006, another Palestinian was killed in Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus.



PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 20:30 on Thursday, 6 July 2006, an undercover IOF unit infiltrated Jenin refugee camp in two cars with Palestinian license plates. The cars stopped in front of the Popular Service Committee in the camp, near Dr. Khalil Suliman Hospital. A house of mourning for Fida’ Qandil had been set up in the committee’s premises. The undercover unit got out of the car and opened fire indiscriminately at the house of mourning. Zakaria El-Zubeidi, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (an armed wing of Fatah), and Mahmoud El-Sa’adi, an activist in the Al-Quds Battalions (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) were in the house of mourning. Both managed to get away. Eighteen Palestinians were injured, three of them seriously. Immediately afterwards, nearly thirty IOF vehicles supported by a helicopter moved into Jenin and the refugee camp to ensure the withdrawal of the undercover unit. IOF detained five of the injured. At approximately 22:20, Israeli media outlets announced that one of the kidnapped Palestinians had died. 40 minutes later, the body was handed to a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance. The dead Palestinian was identified as Ahmad Eid Ibrahim Naghnagheya (16).



At approximately 06:00 on Friday, 7 July 2006, an IOF troop contingent moved into the old Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus. A number of Palestinian resistance fighters confronted the advancing forces. One of them was hit by bullets to the upper body that killed him instantly. The dead Palestinian was Tamer Fathi Abdel Fattah Qandil (21).



PCHR condemns the killings perpetrated by IOF against Palestinian civilians and the disregard of necessity and proportionality in the use of force against Palestinian resistance fighters. These actions are considered reprisals and are a form of collective punishment under article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. PCHR calls upon the international community to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law.

JONATHON COOK WRITES:

"or even the feeble home-made Qassam rockets fired, usually ineffectually, into Israel by Palestinian militants."

BECKY: Feeble? Home-made? Ineffectual?

What is this? Warmer, fuzzier rockets? Toys? Not important or consequential?

Cook doesn't have a clue. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis believe this, by the way. Cook's purpose is to dupe well-meaning leftist social justice activists like the readers of LA.IMC!! See thIS report from today's papers:

FROM:

Israeli Cities Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, and Ofakim Soon in Range of Palestinian Rockets

- Itzik Saban (Ynet News)

A senior officer in Israel's security establishment said Sunday that Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, and Ofakim will soon be within range of rockets fired by Palestinians in Gaza.

The officer said terror groups are seeking to smuggle from Egypt Russian-made Grad missiles with a range of 22 km and to produce similar rockets in Gaza.

NADIA WRITES: "PCHR (Palestine Center for Human Rights) condemns the killings perpetrated by IOF against Palestinian civilians and the disregard of necessity and proportionality in the use of force against Palestinian resistance fighters. These actions are considered reprisals and are a form of collective punishment under article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. PCHR calls upon the international community to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law."

BECKY: I note that of the mounting death toll from the Israeli incursion has only taken the lives of men and teenage boys in the ENTIRE account above.

If the IDF (your bias is showing by saying IOF) WERE

killing civilians, WHY have NONE of them been women?

This is war folks!! War which was brought on by the entrenched desire of the Palestinian PEOPLE* to destroy Israel, kill or drive out the Jews, and establish the 23rd Arab/Islamic state so all of Israel can return to looking just like Gaza!!

Israel held back despite having been shot at with rockets since the day after they withdrew from Gaza in Sept. 2005---a little reported event on Indymedia BTW.

Indymedia was silent when perfectly good housing for 8,000 people in Gaza was bulldozed at the request of the PA. Indymedia was silent when 26 synagogues were burned to the ground on Sept 11th 2005!

And ONLY when the HAMAS militants had tunneled under the Intl. border into a sovereign country recognized at the UN, attacked and KILLED 2 IDF soldier, wounded four more, and kidnapped a 19 yr-old Corporal, only THEN did Israel respond with this incursion.....that by even Nadia's reports appears to be going after the Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad purveyors of terror.

Calling this justified response to end further attacks against innocent Israeli citizens a reprisal doesn't exonerate those who planned, executed, and are planning more attacks.

Nor has Nadia's list documented collective punishment. Indeed, it documents just the opposite.

* recent poll shows majority of Palestinians support Hamas, kidnappings, and rocket attacks across the border