[Reader-list] Gaza ceasefire talks intensify as Palestinian death toll exceeds 700

[Asit Das]

I/III.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/gaza-ceasefire-talks-intensify-palestinian-death-toll-exceeds-700
Gaza ceasefire talks intensify as Palestinian death toll exceeds 700
Palestinians women hold night prayers in front of the Dome of the Rock at
the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem in support of
Palestinians in Gaza on July 23, 2014, during Israel's military operation
in the Gaza Strip. (Photo: AFP - Ahmad Gharabli)

Published Thursday, July 24, 2014

*Updated at 2:47 am:* Talks to end the 16-day assault by Israel on the Gaza
Strip have intensified, with US Secretary of State John Kerry shuttling
between Jerusalem and Cairo in a bid to forge a truce.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday there had been progress in
negotiations to end the Gaza conflict but that it needed detailed
guarantees that Israel would ease its blockade of the enclave.

A Hamas official acknowledged that the movement realized that getting
Israel to end the eight-year siege in tandem with a ceasefire was
unrealistic.

"There needs to be an agreement on the principles, the schedule (for ending
the blockade) and the mechanism," the official said.

Hamas's chief Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday again insisted on a ceasefire
only after an end to the siege, in force since 2006.

The official, who works closely with Meshaal, said however that they
understood that the blockade would be eased only after the ceasefire, but
they required a schedule in place first.

The Israeli assault on Gaza has killed at least 706 Palestinians and
wounded more than 4,519, according to Gaza health ministry sources.

Meanwhile, 34 Israelis -- 32 of whom soldiers --and a Thai worker died in
Israel.

The official said he hoped the negotiations would bear fruit "in a few
days."

"The atmosphere in the talks is positive," he told AFP in a telephone
interview.

Kerry had also said negotiations were making progress. "But there is still
work to be done," he told reporters in Jerusalem.

Aides travelling with Kerry voiced hope that the diplomat could find a way
for Israel and Hamas to end the violence and then negotiate indirectly.

"There are a number of different ideas out there for how the ceasefire
could work - there are a number of different formulas - and we're open to
any of them," a senior US official said after Kerry met Israel's Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Hamas official said it required firm guarantees and details before
signing off an a truce.

"There should be guarantees by the parties demanding a ceasefire," he
added, referring to the United States but also to Egypt, which controls the
Rafah border crossing with Gaza.

The official asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to
share details of the negotiations.

Egypt brokered a truce in 2012. But its new President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,
who overthrew the Islamist President Mohammed Mursi last year, has been
hostile to Hamas.

Meshaal, who is based in the Qatari capital Doha, said in a press
conference that Washington had offered to "guarantee" such an agreement,
but it had a track record of not following through.

Another Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said Kerry's commitments were vague.

"There are no American guarantees," he said in an interview with the
Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera broadcaster.

"There is talk that guarantees will come," he said, adding that Hamas
required clarifications.

Hamas's position has been bolstered by support from Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas, an opponent of the Islamists before agreeing a
unity deal with them in April.

Abbas's PLO has said it agreed with Hamas's demands, which also include
freeing Palestinian prisoners. He met Kerry in Ramallah on Wednesday.

*UN launches human rights investigation*

Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday launched a probe into
the Gaza offensive, backing calls by the Palestinians to hold Israel to
account despite fierce opposition from the Zionist state.

The decision came after a marathon seven-hour emergency session of the top
UN human rights body, where the Israelis and the Palestinians traded
accusations over war crimes.

The 47-member council backed a Palestinian-drafted resolution by 29 votes,
with Arab and fellow Muslim countries joined by China and Russia, plus
Latin American and African nations.

The United States was the sole member to vote against. The 17 abstentions
were by the council's European members, plus Japan and South Korea.

The probe team, yet to be appointed, is tasked with reporting back to the
council by March.

*(AFP, Al-Akhbar)*
II/III.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-votes-in-support-of-un-human-rights-council-resolution-on-gaza/articleshow/38938917.cms

India votes in support of UN Human Rights Council resolution on Gaza

By PTI | 24 Jul, 2014, 01.28AM IST

GENEVA: India along with BRICS countries today voted in support of a UN
Human Rights Council resolution to launch a probe into Israel's offensive
on Gaza.

India joined Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa to vote for a
Palestinian-drafted resolution on "Ensuring Respect for international law
in The Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jersusalem".

In the 46-member council, 29 countries voted in support of the resolution
while 17 nations abstained.

The US was the only nation to vote against the resolution. European
countries abstained.

The voting came as bloodbath in the Gaza Strip continued unabated today
with Israel and Hamas refusing to back down in the 16-day conflict that has
killed over 680 Palestinians and 31 Israelis.

Earlier, India asked Israel and Palestine to demonstrate political will to
agree to a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table.

"We remain hopeful that a sustainable ceasefire will be reached between the
two sides, linked to the resumption of the peace process, for a
comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue," India's Permanent
Representative to the UN Asoke Mukerji said at the UN Security Council open
debate on 'The Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian
Question'.

He said India is "deeply concerned" at the steep escalation in the conflict
between Israel and Palestine that has resulted in a large number of
civilian casualties and heavy damage to property.

III.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-mideast-gaza-idUSKBN0FT06I20140724

U.S. lifts ban on flights to Israel as Gaza toll tops 700

BY NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=nidalal.mughrabi&>
 AND DAN WILLIAMS
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=dan.williams&>

GAZA/JERUSALEM Thu Jul 24, 2014 2:15am EDT

1 OF 4. Smokes rises during an Israeli ground offensive in the east of Gaza
City July 23, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/AHMED ZAKOT


(Reuters) - Israel won a partial reprieve from the economic pain of its
Gaza war on Thursday with the lifting of a U.S. ban on commercial flights
to Tel Aviv, while continued fighting pushed the Palestinian death toll
over 700.

A truce remained elusive despise intensive mediation efforts. Israel says
it needs more time to eradicate rocket stocks and cross-border tunnels in
the Gaza Strip and Hamas Islamists demand the blockade on the enclave be
lifted.

An Egyptian official said on Wednesday that a more limited humanitarian
ceasefire may go into effect by the weekend, in time for the Eid al-Fitr
festival, Islam's biggest annual celebration that follows the fasting month
of Ramadan.

But the United States, whose Secretary of State John Kerry is spearheading
the indirect negotiations, was more circumspect.

"It would not be accurate to say that we expect a ceasefire by the
weekend," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"We are continuing to work on it, but it is not set at this point."

The death toll in Gaza rose above 700 on Thursday as Israeli tank fire
before dawn killed 16 people in the Hamas-dominated coastal territory,
including six members of the same family, Palestinian health officials said.

Israel has lost 32 soldiers to clashes inside Gaza and with Hamas raiders
who have slipped across the fortified frontier in tunnels. Rocket and
mortar shelling by Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas has killed three
civilians in Israel.

Such shelling surged last month as Israel cracked down on Hamas in the
occupied West Bank, triggering the July 8 air and sea barrage in Gaza that
escalated into an invasion a week ago.

Though Israel's Iron Dome rocket interceptor has shot down most of the
rockets fired from Gaza, one that came close to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
Airport on Tuesday prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
to bar American flights there.

The ensuing wave of cancellations by foreign airlines emptied Israel's
usually bustling international gateway and hurt its hi-tech economy at the
height of summer tourist season. It was hailed as a "victory" by Hamas, and
prompted an appeal by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Kerry to
intervene.

FLIGHTS TO RESUME

Saying it had reviewed the security situation, the FAA canceled the ban
late on Wednesday, and Israel predicted take-offs and landings by U.S.
carriers would resumeon Thursday though European airlines might take longer
to follow suit.

"The Europeans did not really deliberate over this, but acted more as a
follow-up to the American decision," said Gadi Regev, chief of staff for
Israel's Civil Aviation Authority.

In what appeared to be let-up in Palestinian attacks, the Israeli military
said on Thursday only one rocket had been launched from Gaza overnight. It
fell wide, causing no damage.

Israel's security cabinet released no decision after meeting late into the
night on a proposed humanitarian truce under which fighting would cease
immediately but negotiations for terms for an extended deal would begin
only in several days' time.

An Israeli official briefed on the deliberations said the army required
four of five days to destroy cross-border tunnels and rocket arsenals, but
acknowledged Palestinians were unlikely to hold fire while those missions
continued on the ground.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his fighters had made gains against Israel
and voiced support for a humanitarian truce, but only if Israel eased
restrictions on Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians, who are also under an
embargo by next-door Egypt.

"Let's agree first on the demands and on implementing them and then we can
agree on the zero hour for a ceasefire ... We will not accept any proposal
that does not lift the blockade ... We do not desire war and we do not want
it to continue but we will not be broken by it,” Meshaal said on
Wednesday in Qatar.

Israel also came under criticism from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights Navi Pillay, who said there was "a strong possibility" Israel was
committing war crimes in Gaza, where 703 Palestinians, mostly civilians,
have been killed in the fighting.

Pillay also condemned indiscriminate Islamist rocket fire out of Gaza, and
the United Nations Human Rights Council said it would launch an
international inquiry into alleged violations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted furiously.

"The decision today by the HRC is a travesty," he said in a statement. "The
HRC should be launching an investigation into Hamas's decision to turn
hospitals into military command centers, use schools as weapons depots and
place missile batteries next to playgrounds, private homes and mosques."

ROCKETS IN SCHOOLS

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has also been on a truce-seeking
mission, lashed out at militants in Gaza by expressing "outrage and regret"
at rockets found inside a U.N. school for refugees, for the second time
during the conflict.

Storing the rockets in the schools "turned schools into potentially
military targets, endangering the lives of innocent children," U.N.
employees and the tens of thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter at Gaza
schools from the fighting, Ban said. He urged an investigation.

Kerry returned to Egypt late on Wednesday after meeting in Jerusalem and
the West Bank with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Ban and a
grim-faced Netanyahu.

"We have certainly made some steps forward. There is still work to be
done," said Kerry, on one of his most intensive regional visits since
Netanyahu called off U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations over Abbas's
power-share deal with Hamas in April.

The military says one of its soldiers is also missing and believes he might
be dead. Hamas says it has captured him, but has not released a picture of
him in their hands.

Gaza has been rocked by regular bouts of violence since Israel unilaterally
pulled out of the territory in 2005.

Hamas, which rejects Israel's right to exist, balked at Egypt's proposal
for an unconditional truce, saying its conditions had to be met in full
before any end to the conflict.

The war is exacting a heavy toll on impoverished Gaza. Palestinian
officials say at least 475 houses have been destroyed by Israeli fire and
2,644 damaged. Some 46 schools, 56 mosques and seven hospitals have also
suffered varying degrees of destruction.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=ori.lewis&>,
Maayan
Lubell
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=maayanlubell&> in
Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=ali.sawafta&> in
Ramallah,Arshad Mohammed
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=arshad.mohammed&>
 and Yasmine Saleh
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=yasminesaleh&> in
Cairo, Amena Bakr
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=amena.bakr&> in
Doha and Stephanie Nebehay
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=stephanienebehay&>
in
Geneva; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=allyn.fisher.ilan&>;
Editing by Mohammad Zargham
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=mohammad.zargham&>
 andNick Macfie
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=nick.macfie&>)
32 More Palestinians Killed In Gaza, Death Toll Reaches 680

*By Ma'an News Agency*

23 July, 2014
*Maannews.net* <http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=715650>

*GAZA CITY (Ma'an) *-- The continued Israeli offensive across the Gaza
Strip on Wednesday afternoon left 32 Palestinians dead, bringing the total
number killed since midnight to 56 as world and local leaders scrambled to
arrange a ceasefire. Total death toll reached 680.

The high total on Wednesday afternoon came as Israeli forces continued
their land invasion of the besieged coastal enclave while shelling and
airstrikes bombarded the area from land and sea. The total death toll since
the beginning of the operation 16 days ago has now reached 680, while at
least 4,000 have been injured.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that more than 60 access shafts
leading to some 28 tunnels apparently belonging to Palestinian militants
have been found, and around 4:30 p.m. said that they had struck over 70
sites across the Strip.

Israel originally claimed the operation in Gaza was meant to end rocket
fire from Gaza, which had increased after an Israeli offensive in the West
Bank began in June, but has since focused on attacking tunnels that it says
Palestinians have used to attack Israeli soldiers.

The military also announced that two more soldiers had been killed by
Palestinian militants in clashes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, bringing the
total death toll to 31, 29 of whom were soldiers. A foreign worker in
southern Israel, meanwhile, was killed by a mortar on Wednesday.

On the ground, Saint Prophyrios Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City was
packed to overflowing as hundreds of people, mostly women and children,
sought shelter after escaping the inferno of neighboring areas like
Shujaiyya, where Israeli forces have killed nearly a hundred in intense
fighting in recent days.

"Many of them, their houses are destroyed. Many people have been injured or
killed. So we try to help these people," said Archbishop Alexios, one of
Gaza's 1,500 Palestinian Christians.

*Some progress, more needed*

On Wednesday, Kerry flew in from Cairo for whirlwind talks in Jerusalem and
Ramallah, despite a US aviation warning on flights into Israel after a
rocket struck near the runway a day earlier.

"We have certainly made some steps forward, but there is still work to be
done," Kerry said in Jerusalem at the start of a meeting with UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon whom he also met in Cairo on Monday.

The UN chief warned there was no time to lose.

"We are now joining our forces in strength to make a ceasefire as soon as
possible," he said.

Kerry then went to the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and was later to return to Tel Aviv
for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was expected
to return to Cairo in the evening.

Meanwhile, top Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said that a ceasefire was
being "finalized," adding that there had been "significant progress" hopes
were high that the coming hours would be critical in ending the siege on
Palestinians and the Gaza Strip.

An earlier attempt to push through an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire failed
after Hamas said it had not been consulted on the ceasefire before its
announcement, while Israel used the occasion to step up its attack and
launch a ground invasion.

Hamas has since offered the possibility of ceasefire conditional on the end
of a seven-year blockade that has crippled the Gaza Strip's economy and
infrastructure.

On the eve of Kerry's visit, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas pledged
Israel would be held accountable for the bloodshed in Gaza.

Abbas, who has been holding truce talks in Doha with Hamas' exiled leader
Khaled Meshaal, called for "widespread popular protest" in solidarity with
Gaza.

Protests have erupted across the West Bank in recent weeks in solidarity
with Gaza, with one dead early Wednesday and at least another killed
earlier in the week as Israeli forces violently dispersed demonstrations.

There has been a growing wave of protest across the West Bank and in
Palestinian towns in Israel, with police saying they had arrested 800
Palestinian citizens of Israelis and another 295 from East Jerusalem in the
past three weeks in protests which began before the July 8 start of
Israel's Gaza campaign.

*32 Gazans killed in 5 hours*

The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli assault soared on
Wednesday afternoon to more than 30, Gaza medical authorities said.

Ahmad Sihweil was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a group of
people in al-Qarrara in eastern Khan Younis.

Raid al-Radee, and Ziyad al-Radee, and their child Salma were killed during
an Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya.

Youssef Hammuda and Wael Assaf were killed in Israeli shelling in northern
Gaza

Five Palestinians who have not yet been identified were killed in Israeli
shelling in northern Gaza Strip.

Medics recovered the body of Hussam Ayman Ayyad, 24, after an attack on his
home in Shujaiyyeh.

Muhammad Sami Umran, 26, was killed in Israeli shelling in the city of Khan
Younis.

Manal Muhammad al-Astal, 45, was also killed.

Medics pulled the body of a child named Jana al-Muqataa out from under the
rubble of her house that was targeted by Israeli warplanes in central Gaza
Strip.

Sabrin al-Muqataa was killed in an airstrike targeting her house in central
Gaza.

Ahmad al-Bulbul was killed in an airstrike that targeted Bulbul family
house in eastern Gaza City.

Fathiya Nadi Muammar, 70, was killed and five were injured in airstrikes
that targeted the Muammar family house in eastern Rafah.

Rescue teams managed to pull three dead bodies from rubble in al-Qarara
east of Khan Younis. Medical sources identified two of the victims as
29-year-old Hasan Khalil Salh Abu Jamous, Muhammad Farid al-Astal. The
third body is yet to be identified.

Furthermore, medical sources in Gaza announced the death of Muhammad
Abdul-Raoof al-Dada in the Zaytoun neighborhood.

Separately, rescue teams pulled bodies of Mahmoud al-Abadlah and Nour
al-Abadla in al-Qarara.

Israeli Forces Bomb al-Wafa Hospital In Gaza City

Israeli warplanes on Wednesday bombed a central Gaza City hospital after
the army claimed militants opened fire from the premises, while a UN human
rights chief warned that abuses by Hamas did not justify possible war
crimes by Israel.

The Israeli military said in a statement that they had "targeted specific
sites" in the al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital compound "in light of several
occasions in which fire was opened" and "despite repeated warnings against
such activities."

The military last bombed the hospital on Thursday, forcing doctors and
patients -- 14 of whom were paralyzed or in a coma -- to flee the premises.

The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed hospitals are being used as
launching grounds for Palestinian militants, giving those inside only
minutes to flee before subjecting them to bombing raids and shelling.

On Monday, Israeli shells left four dead and wounded 60 at the Al-Aqsa
Hospital in Deir al Balah.

The military said that on Wednesday warnings were also given for civilians
to vacate the hospital, adding that "warnings have been conveyed directly
to the hospital administration and other Palestinian officials."

"The hospital grounds and its immediate surroundings have been repeatedly
utilized by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a command center,
rocket launching site, and a post" for militants to fire at soldiers, the
military added.

Reports in the Israeli media indicated around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday that
Israel had given warning to Gaza's main hospital al-Shifa of an impending
strike, but an Israeli army spokeswoman contacted by Ma'an denied the
claims.

The bombing comes on the 16th day of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, which
has left more than 650 Palestinians dead, more than 4,000 injured, and more
than 135,000 displaced in the coastal enclave of 1.7 million people.

The assault has left hospitals overflowing with injured amid a severe lack
of medical supplies caused by the seven-year long siege of the Gaza Strip
by Israel.

The attacks have also raised alarm around the world, as more than 50
mosques have been bombed as well as thousands of homes.

Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip could amount to war crimes, UN
rights chief Navi Pillay said Wednesday.

"There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been
violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay told an
emergency session on Israel's Gaza offensive at the UN Human Rights
Council, citing attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians, including
children.

Pillay added that the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israeli civilian
areas does not justify war crimes on the Israeli side.



She also said Israeli children and other civilians also had a right to live
without constant fear of rocket attacks.

"Once again, the principles of distinction and precaution are clearly not
being observed during such indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas by
Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups," she said.

The 46-nation council -- which is the United Nations' top human rights
forum -- was poised to call for an international inquiry into Israel's
offensive in the Palestinian territories.

The meeting was called by Arab and fellow Muslim-majority nations.

It was set to vote on a resolution lodged by Palestine -- which has
observer status at the UN -- condemning "the widespread, systematic and
gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" since Israel
launched its crackdown last month to stem rocket attacks by Palestinian
militants.

The resolution also called on the international community to "urgently
dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry" tasked with
probing "all violations of international human rights law and international
humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East
Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip."

The aim, it said, was to "establish the facts and circumstances of such
violations and of the crimes perpetrated and to identify those responsible,
to make recommendations, in particular, on accountability measures, all
with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring that those
responsible are held accountable, and on ways and means to protect
civilians against any further assaults."

It also called for the "immediate International Protection for the
Palestinian people" and requested that Switzerland, as guardian of the
Geneva Conventions governing conduct in warfare, organize an urgent
conference on the situation in the region.

The Gaza offensive, which marks the worst Israeli assault on Gaza since two
attacks in 2008-9 and 2012, has already claimed the lives of 650
Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 31 Israelis, all but two of whom
were soldiers.

"The right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation cannot justify
the launching of thousands of rockets and mortars directed against Israeli
civilians," the UN's rights monitor for the region, Makarim Wibisono, told
the session.

"Rockets attacks cannot justify the disproportionate use by Israel of air,
sea and ground firepower against targets, including tunnels and rocket
launchers, amidst a population of 1.7 million people trapped in one of the
most densely populated areas of the world," he added.

Palestinian Authority Parrots Israeli Claims on Gaza Attack

*By Jalal Abukhater*

23 July, 2014
*Electronic Intifada*
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jalal-abukhater/pa-parrots-israeli-claims-gaza-attack?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=8e6d994f0f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-8e6d994f0f-299173977>

*Mahmoud Abbas chats with Tony Blair in Ramallah while Israel attacks Gaza.
(Thaer Ganaim <http://electronicintifada.net/people/thaer-ganaim> / APA
images <http://electronicintifada.net/people/apa-images>)*

Last week, I wrote about how the *Palestinian Authority (PA) stands in the
way of the Palestinian struggle*
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jalal-abukhater/palestinian-authority-stands-way-palestinian-struggle>.
The PA isn’t helpless in the face of the atrocities being committed in
Gaza, I argued; rather, it has chosen to do nothing.

Nevertheless, if we consider the latest Israeli actions in Gaza as a very
final test for the PA, I believe it can easily be said that it has failed
in every possible respect.

As death and destruction in Gaza reach new heights, the reactions of the
Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority sound like something out of a farce. A
considerable number of major PA officials in the occupied West Bank and
abroad, including the president himself, seem to be rallying against the
desire of Palestinians facing the daily terror in Gaza.

Officials have also been making plenty of statements to Palestinians
locally and foreign envoys that serve to blame Hamas and score political
points, rather than address the heinous crimes Israel is committing and has
been committing since it imposed the siege on Gaza.

For example, in an *interview* <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIcFNqEwWh0> on
11 July with Al Mayadeen satellite channel, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas
accused Hamas of being “merchants of war” and called on them to accept the
Egyptian ceasefire initiative and proceed with political negotiations later.

Five days later, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, director-general of the PA presidency
and member of the Fatah Central Council,* commented*
<http://www.ajnad-news.com/site/ajnad/details.aspx?itemid=18876>on Hamas’
rejection of the Egyptian proposal. He accused Hamas of serving regional
agendas and “sacrificing Palestinian blood in the service of a global
Muslim Brotherhood plot.”

*Ludicrous*

Any rational political analyst following the situation in Gaza with
sufficient background knowledge on the siege and on Hamas would know that
Abdel Rahim’s claims are ludicrous.

Riyad al-Maliki, the PA’s foreign minister, has also reportedly said *in a
conversation with Frans Timmermams*
<https://www.facebook.com/frans.timmermans/posts/760356067320588>, the
Dutch foreign minister, that the current escalation in Gaza only serves
Hamas’s political interests. Abbas, Abdel Rahim and al-Maliki’s statements
are only a sample of the rhetoric coming from the PA which blames Hamas for
the escalation rather than addressing the horrific daily reality in Gaza:
the siege and closure of all border crossings; the contaminated water
system; the destroyed basic infrastructure; the raging poverty and
humanitarian crisis that has been plaguing the Strip for years.

PA officials are echoing the Israeli government’s narrative, putting the
blame on Hamas for the high loss of civilian life in Gaza and ignoring the
reality imposed on the Strip. Mohammed Omer, an award-winning journalist
based in Gaza, has *written a report*
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-civilians-still-support-resistance-despite-heavy-toll-766547339>
which
reflects a reality that Abbas and the PA are trying to deny: that there is
popular support for the resistance in Gaza. Omer writes, “The paradox of
Gaza is that as the death toll increases, so does the defiance of its
people.” He quotes 66-year-old Amnah Odeh, who said: “This situation cannot
continue, or return as it was even days ago – under Israel’s
eight-years-long siege – where life was equally, if not worse, long-term.”

It goes without saying that Palestinians in Gaza wish to see an end to the
bloodshed. But returning to the slow-death *status quo* does not seem to be
an option anymore.

If Abbas, as president of the PA, wishes to represent the interest of
Palestinians in Gaza, he wouldn’t be traveling to Turkey and the Gulf,
where he has urged governments to seek that Hamas accept the Egyptian
proposal.

*Defeatist*

Hamas has indeed put forward five *realistic and achievable ceasefire
conditions*
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/exclusive-hamas-puts-forward-ceasefire-terms-amid-intense-mediation>.
Qatar and Turkey have *sponsored an initiative*
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.606130?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter>
that
has seen significant support in Gaza. Yet, instead of backing those
initiatives, the PA continues to mobilize efforts against what Palestinians
in Gaza think serve them best.

People in Gaza want to see an immediate end to the bloodshed, but not
according to the defeatist conditions put forward by Israel, Egypt and the
PA leadership.

As I mentioned in my piece last week, the Palestinian Authority is still
capable of invoking the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) and seeking justice through international law. The PA has always
claimed to be pursuing that objective. When Abbas condemned Hamas’ actions,
he made sure to declare: “We will only fight them [Israelis] with what they
fear most, international law.”

The PA has never been true to that statement yet.

The PA has been able to seek access to the ICC since 2012.

In the interim, there have been two Israeli offensives against Gaza,
thousands of new buildings have been constructed in Israel’s settlements in
the West Bank and hundreds of Israeli human rights violations have been
documented. Yet the PA refuses to turn its words into actions.

The PA hasn’t been serious about the international law to which it
constantly refers. Its attitude towards the latest attack on Gaza is
inexcusable.

*Jalal Abukhater* is a Jerusalemite, he is now a student at the University
of Dundee, Scotland; studying Politics and International Relations.

What, Really, Is (or Was) Netanyahu’s Game Plan?

*By Alan Hart*

23 July, 2014
*Alanhart.net*
<http://www.alanhart.net/what-really-is-or-was-netanyahus-game-plan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlanHart+%28AlanHart+%28Recent+Posts%29%29>

Here is my speculation which was provoked by a headline in The Times of
Israel over a report of remarks by Dan Shapiro, America’s ambassador to the
Zionist state. The headline was Envoy says US will work to get Abbas back
ruling Gaza after conflict over. According to the report Shapiro said in an
interview with Israel’s Channel 2 News that the US wants to see Abbas’s
Palestinian Authority restored to ruling Gaza and “will make efforts to
bring this about.”

In 2007, at the request of American policy makers and led by Mohammad
Dahlan, Abbas’s Fatah forces were planning to launch an Israeli-backed coup
to remove Hamas as the elected authority in the Gaza Strip and destroy it.
The coup didn’t happen because Hamas got wind of the plot and launched an
Israeli-like pre-emptive strike that defeated Fatah’s forces and drove them
out of the Gaza Strip.

Against that background and in the light of Shapiro’s remarks my
speculation is that Netanyahu’s real game plan was the product of two hopes.

The first was that he could put Hamas out of military and political
business and set the stage for the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip prison
camp to be ready, however reluctantly, to accept Abbas and his corrupt and
discredited Palestinian Authority (PA) as their leadership. (Netanyahu
might also have thought that the task of restoring Abbas and his PA to
control in the Gaza Strip would be greatly assisted by the US pouring money
into its coffers for re-construction and development).

The second was the hope that once the authority of Abbas and his cronies
was restored to the Gaza Strip there would be Palestinian elections which
could and would be rigged to bring on Dahlan as Abbas’s successor.

Very many Palestinians believe, as I do, that Dahlan, currently in exile in
the UAE and in contact with Israeli leaders as he prepares his comeback, is
an Israeli asset, in which capacity he was, almost certainly, the one who
administered the Israeli-supplied polonium that killed Arafat. (Abbas
himself has said he believes that was the case).

It could be that in Netanyahu’s vision of the future Dahlan as Palestinian
“president” would be prepared to use whatever means were necessary,
including force, to compel his occupied and oppressed people to abandon
their struggle in return for crumbs from Zionism’s table – a few Bantustans
here and there on the West Bank which they could call a state if they
wished. In other words, the Dahlan of Netanyahu’s vision would bring about
a Palestinian surrender on Zionism’s terms.

I agree that’s a sick, mad scenario but it could very well be what was in
Netanyahu’s mind. Am I suggesting that he is sick and mad? Yes, and one of
his latest comments is surely proof of that. He said on CNN that Hamas
wanted more and more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be killed by Israel
in order to generate worldwide support for its cause and push American tv
presenters into asking him tough questions. One of his actual quotes was:
“They (Hamas’s leaders) want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can.
They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the
more dead, the better.”

At the time of writing there are some indications that President Obama and
Secretary of State Kerry are beginning to panic because they know that the
latest killing spree by what Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas’s top political leader)
has called the “Zionist murder machine” is unacceptable to a growing number
of people around the world. And I think this has made Obama and Kerry
realise they if they don’t put real effort into bringing about a ceasefire,
they will be exposed, fully naked, not only as moral cowards, not only as
hypocrites but also as puppets of the Zionist state and its lobby in
America.

The problem for Obama and Kerry is that as long as Hamas has rockets to
fire at Israel (it currently has thousands) there is no way it can agree to
a ceasefire unless its main condition, the lifting of Israel’s siege of the
Gaza Strip, is part of the agreement. And there is no way Netanyahu will
accept that because lifting the siege which is best described as occupation
by remote control would mean defeat for him. (It other words, the lifting
of the siege would demonstrate and prove that Israel’s latest war had been
totally counterproductive).

In that light it seems to me that if the Israeli war machine is to be
stopped Obama will have to confront Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby’s
traitor agents in Congress.

Will he do so?

With the mid-term elections only about four months away and the soliciting
of funds for them gathering momentum, I will be more than astonished if he
does.

Last Friday the US Senate voted 100 to 0 in support Israel’s war on the
Gaza Strip, so Netanyahu has good reason to believe that Obama is not in a
political position to press him to accept a ceasefire on terms other than
his own and that he, Netanyahu, will therefore remain free to escalate his
war on the Gaza Strip and with it the killing, slaughter, of more and more
Palestinians.

The only thing that could cause Netanyahu to seek a face saving way out of
the conflict on terms other than his own is a change in Israeli public
opinion.

Because they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to regard themselves as
the victims when they are in fact the oppressors, most Israeli Jews don’t
care about how many Palestinians are killed by their war machine. Some even
chant “Death to the Arabs” and scrawl the same message in graffiti on walls.

But almost all Israeli Jews have a very low tolerance level of casualties
on their own side. It is not impossible that if more and more Israeli
soldiers are killed in combat with Hamas fighters a significant number of
Israel’s Jews will say to Netanyahu, “Enough is enough. Stop the war.”

We shall see.

*Alan Hart* is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is
author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at
*http://www.alanhart.net* <http://www.alanhart.net/> and tweets via
*http://twitter.com/alanauthor
<http://twitter.com/alanauthor>*

US Plays Decisive Role In Israel's Attack On Gaza

*By Jonathan Cook*

23 July, 2014
*Countercurrents.org*

Two reporters for major US TV channels were summarily “removed” last week
from covering Israel’s attack on Gaza, moments before Israel launched a
ground invasion.

NBC pulled out Ayman Mohyeldin, who has been widely praised for the
even-handedness of his reporting from Gaza, just as he landed a harrowing
scoop. He had kicked a football with four boys who were killed moments
later by an Israeli missile.

Mohyeldin managed a few tweets before being removed, allegedly on
“security” grounds. But why then did NBC immediately send in a replacement?
After a public outcry, Mohyeldin was reinstated, but no proper explanation
of the decision has been provided.

Shortly afterwards, CNN “reassigned” its reporter in Israel, Diana Magnay,
after a tweet in which she labelled as “scum” an Israeli mob that
threatened her with violence as she filmed them celebrating missile
explosions in Gaza. The tweet was deleted within minutes, followed by her
rapid departure.

The impression left by these incidents and the generally deferential tone
towards Israel in US coverage is that, faced with huge pressure from the
Israel lobby, media executives are frantically policing their
correspondents’ output, including on social media.

That view was confirmed to Max Blumenthal by an NBC producer after the
channel axed Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian contributor, following her on-air
complaints about the massive over-representation of Israeli officials in US
coverage. The producer said there was a “witch-hunt” being conducted by NBC
executives, led by the media corporation’s president, Phil Griffin.

The obvious shortcomings in US coverage of a story in which Washington
itself is a key player deprive us of a vital piece of the puzzle about what
is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the region on Monday to
intensify ceasefire efforts, the day after a studio microphone captured his
sarcastic comment that it was “a hell of a pin-point operation” by Israel.
He had just been informed of a horrifying assault on the Shujaiiya
neighbourhood, which left dozens of dead, taking Palestinian casualties so
far to more than 650 killed and thousands wounded.

Washington’s good faith as honest broker goes largely unquestioned in the
US, even though the country annually provides Israel with billions of
dollars in aid and military support of the kind that enables these repeated
attacks on Gaza.

The claim is only tenable because Washington’s actual behaviour is rarely
scrutinised in detail.

Two recent investigations by the Israeli media illustrate the profoundly
unhelpful role played by the US. They suggest that, whatever its public
statements, the US is assisting Israel not only in what President Barack
Obama called its right to “self-defence” but in actively damaging
Palestinian interests.

And it seems not to matter whether the Palestinians in question are Hamas
or the preferred negotiating partner, Mahmoud Abbas.

The first disclosure concerns the offer of an Egyptian ceasefire last week.
This was presented as a crucial chance to end the bloodshed, one generously
seized by Israel and shunned by Hamas. Only footnoted in some reports were
Hamas “claims” that it had not been consulted.

Israel’s liberal daily Haaretz soon confirmed Hamas’ account with Israeli
officials and western diplomats.

The reality, according to Haaretz, is that Kerry secretly dispatched to
Cairo peace envoy Tony Blair, who in turn lobbied the Egyptian president,
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to coordinate the ceasefire’s terms with Israel’s
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sisi is currently waging an all-out war against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood,
Hamas’ ideological ally. He has harshly punished Hamas too by tightening
the siege on the shared border with Gaza. Like Israel, Sisi’s Egypt is a
major beneficiary of US aid.

In short, Sisi and Netanyahu share a keen interest to weaken and humiliate
Hamas. And yet, the US encouraged them to negotiate a ceasefire over Hamas’
head. Since then, Washington has rebuffed an alternative proposal from
Qatar and Turkey, who are more sympathetic to Hamas.

It was a foregone conclusion that Hamas would reject the Egyptian offer. It
failed to address key concerns, not least that the suffocating siege be
ended and that Israel honour earlier agreements, particularly on prisoners.

The ceasefire proposal was nothing more than a trap – one whose purpose was
to elicit a Hamas rejection and thereby provide Israel with a pretext to
launch its ground invasion.

Netanyahu, backed by the US, is using the current attack to terrorise
Gaza’s civilian population, deplete Hamas’ rocket stockpile, and then force
it to accept terms of surrender.

The second investigation comes from journalist Raviv Drucker, this time
concerning the peace talks that collapsed in April. Washington officials
have told him that US negotiators spent the talks’ key phase coordinating
positions exclusively with Netanyahu. Abbas was then presented with a fait
accompli of hardline Israeli demands.

Despite its public pronouncements, Washington was also secretly conspiring
with Israel on a huge expansion of settlement projects. These were
announced – to loud condemnation by Kerry – each time a batch of
Palestinian prisoners was released, a condition Abbas had set for his
participation.

But US opposition was feigned, writes Drucker. In reality, Washington was
“informed of the [settlement] tenders in advance”.

It is no surprise that Netanyahu has been acting in bad faith, and that his
military campaigns in the West Bank and Gaza are designed to disrupt the
recent reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah.

As Israeli analyst Noam Sheizaf points out, Netanyahu is opposed to a peace
deal of any kind. For him, “Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas are pretty much the
same. Any gain by either one of them is a loss to Israel.”

But of far greater concern should be the Obama administration’s decision to
back Israel to the hilt and the US media’s silence on the matter. There can
be no hope of a peaceful solution ever gaining traction – or these bouts of
blood-letting in Gaza coming to end – unless Washington is finally unmasked
as Israel’s abettor-in-chief.

*Jonathan Cook* won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His
latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine:
Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is
*www.jonathan-cook.net* <http://www.jonathan-cook.net/>

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

 Israel/Palestine: Some of What The Media Ignores

*By Mickey Z*

23 July, 2014
*Mickeyzvegan.wordpress.com*
<http://mickeyzvegan.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/israelpalestine-some-of-what-the-media-ignores/>

Obviously, there’s a wide range of opinions (and variations on each of
those opinions) when it comes to anything related to Israel and Palestine
(in particular, Hamas) but to cultivate a truly nuanced perspective
requires a lot more evidence and context than we’ll ever get from the
corporate media.

It doesn’t make me a supporter of Hamas if I point out how imbalanced the
media coverage is and has been. It doesn’t make me a hater of Israel when I
remind you of what’s not being said.

So, in the interest of provoking a more informed discussion, I’d like to
share some of the crucial but neglected facts. Simply put, I feel it’s
impossible to have a useful debate on the conflicts if you haven’t factored
in the following realities:

*Like all occupied people, Palestinians have the right – *under
international law*
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-legitimate-armed-resistance-vs-terrorism/5084>
–
to armed resistance.

*Even when Israel isn’t bombing them, “Gaza’s population continue to
face *devastating
results of the blockade imposed by the Government of Israel*
<http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/final_report_-_gaza_health_sector_june-july_2014_-_mads_gilbert_2.pdf>.
Gazans are deeply suffering with an unemployment rate of 38.5% as of the
last quarter of 2013, which is an increase of over 10 percentage points
compared to six months earlier, causing widespread poverty. At least 57% of
Gaza households are food insecure and about 80% are now aid recipients.”

*Since its creation, Israel has regularly *violated international law*
<http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/internationallaw/studyguides/sgil3i.htm>
 and* ignored dozens of United Nations resolutions*
<http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/>,
for example: UN Resolution 242 (Nov. 22, 1967) which emphasizes “the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and that member
states have a commitment to abide by the U.N. Charter, and calls for the
“withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied” during the
June 1967 war.

**Three billion U.S. taxpayer dollars go to the Israeli military each year*
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations%23United_States_aid>
–
$8.5 million per day – with the requirement that 74% of that money be used
to buy weapons and equipment from U.S. defense corporations. The U.S.
provides no military aid to Hamas or Palestine.

*When the U.S. needed a proxy to do so, *Israel has supported and armed
neo-Nazi governments in Central America*
<http://worldnewstrust.com/guatemala-and-war-crimes-what-were-up-against-mickey-z>,
even when this meant working with a company run by unrepentant Nazi, Klaus
Barbie (a.k.a. “The Butcher of Lyon”).

**Since 2000* <http://www.countthekids.org/>, for every Israeli child
killed, 12.3 Palestinian children have been killed by weapons purchased
from U.S. defense corporations, using U.S. taxpayer money. Before you write
this off with excuses about “human shields” or “collateral damage,” please
consider this January 1, 1948 diary entry from Israeli Founding Father and
its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, concerning the so-called Arab
problem: “What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need
precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must
strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is
inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish
between guilty and innocent.”

*Lastly, there’s this: Israel *helped create Hamas*
<http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/06/18/Analysis-Hamas-history-tied-to-Israel/UPI-82721024445587/>.
No, seriously, Israel helped create Hamas* to destabilize the PLO*
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/01/18/sharon-and-hamas/>.
Really…even the *Wall
Street Journal*
<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123275572295011847> publicly
admits that Israel helped create Hamas. (FYI: Hamas was *democratically
elected*
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006> in
the Palestinian legislative election of 2006.)

I’d understand, of course, if someone described this post as “anti-Israel,”
so let me clarify: I’m not praising or supporting Hamas. I’m also not
singling out Israel as unique in its behavior. Rather, I’m clarifying that
Israel’s government is as Machiavellian as every other government.

No state (or corporation) is guided by a “moral code” and it’s dangerous to
believe so. Accepting this ugly truth is a powerful step towards better
comprehending – and challenging – geo-political realities.

The information presented above may or may not change your perception of
this long-standing conflict but I like to hope it’ll inspire some deeper
analysis and a more useful response than: “Israel has the right to
self-defense.”

#shifthappens

*Mickey Z.* is the author of 12 books, most recently *Occupy this Book:
Mickey Z. on Activism*
<http://www.amazon.com/Occupy-This-Book-Mickey-Activism/dp/0981942814/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400380765&sr=1-10>.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on a
couple of obscure websites called *Facebook*
<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000612588462> and *Twitter*
<https://twitter.com/mickeyzvegan>. Anyone wishing to support his activist
efforts can do so by *making a donation here*
<http://www.gofundme.com/7r3nww>.


How Baldwin saw Palestine

Paul Heideman discusses solidarity with Palestine through the work of Black
author James Baldwin, in a version of an article first published at Marxist
Marginalia
<http://herrnaphta.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/baldwin-on-palestine/>.
July 23, 2014

[image: James Baldwin (Carl Van Vechten)]James Baldwin (Carl Van Vechten)

WITH BOMBS again exploding Palestinian homes and lives in Gaza, it is
helpful (or comforting, at least) to return to the classic works of the
struggle against Zionism. Edward Said's "Zionism from the Standpoint of its
Victims" comes to mind here, as do the poems of Mahmoud Darwish.

One writer who isn't often classed as part of this tradition, but should
be, is James Baldwin. Here's a passage from Baldwin's last novel, *Just
Above My Head* (1978), in which he addresses the subject of terrorism:

I was traveling before the days of electronic surveillance, before the
hijackers and terrorists arrived. For the arrival of these people, the
people in the seats of power have only themselves to blame. Who, indeed,
has hijacked more than England has, for example, or who is more skilled in
the uses of terror than my own unhappy country? Yes, I know: nevertheless,
children, what goes around comes around, what you send out comes back to
you. A terrorist is called that only because he does not have the power of
the State behind him--indeed, he has no State, which is why he is a
terrorist. The State, at bottom, and when the chips are down, rules by
means of a terror made legal--that is how Franco ruled so long, and is the
undeniable truth concerning South Africa. No one called the late J. Edgar
Hoover a terrorist, though that is precisely what he was: and if anyone
wishes, now, in this context, to speak of "civilized" values or "democracy"
or "morality," you will pardon this poor nigger if he puts his hand before
his mouth, and snickers--if he laughs at you. I have endured your morality
for a very long time, am still crawling up out of that dungheap: all that
the slave can learn from his master is how to be a slave, and that is not
morality.

Reading this passage today, one is struck by its prescience. Twenty years
before 9/11, Baldwin eviscerated Bush and now Obama's pious apologias for
the "war on terror." The contemporary relevance of the passage, however,
can obscure its own context, which is just as notable. Baldwin's emphases
here, on stateless peoples and hijackings, make it clear that the occasion
for his reflections is the Palestinian struggle, which during the 1970s
especially took the form of hijackings meant to draw international
attention to the occupation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PALESTINE CAME to be a prominent issue during the Black Power years, as
Black radicals who identified with anticolonial movements embraced the
Palestinian struggle against Israel (for more on this story, check out Alex
Lubin's *Geographies of Liberation*).

This embrace led to allegations of anti-Semitism (which were not always
unjustified) against Black Power figures, ultimately culminating in Johnson
Publications' decision to shut down *Black World*
<https://coral.uchicago.edu:8443/display/chicago68/Negro+Digest-Black+World>,
an important Black cultural and political journal, over a supposedly
anti-Semitic article about Zionism.

In this context, Baldwin's writings on the subject, though brief, display a
remarkable clarity, as he unhesitatingly declares that Israel represents
imperialism, not Jewish self-determination.

Thus, in 1972, in his essay "Take Me to the Water," Baldwin recounted his
reasons for not settling in Israel when he became an expatriate in the late
1940s: "And if I had fled, to Israel, a state created for the purpose of
protecting Western interests, I would have been in a yet tighter bind: on
which side of Jerusalem would I have decided to live?"

Here, Baldwin displays an awareness that, in 1948, most of the left still
lacked. When he made the decision to flee the U.S., Baldwin realized he
could scarcely accomplish his goal by settling in a country then
replicating our own bloody frontier days.

Indeed, Baldwin's clarity on this question stands out from almost any
analysis on the left during the period of Israel's birth. Stalinism, in
particular, played a destructive role here, as the USSR's eagerness for an
ally in the region led it to jump in as the second country to recognize
Israel (the first, of course, was the United States). In its wake,
Stalinists and their fellow travellers across the world refused to take a
principled stand for Palestinian self-determination. Baldwin, always an
iconoclast, took a different route.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BALDWIN'S MOST substantial writing on Palestine came in 1979, with his
"Open Letter to the Born Again." This letter was occasioned by Jimmy
Carter's dismissal of Martin Luther King's former aid Andrew Young from his
position as ambassador to the UN because of his decision to meet with a
Palestinian Liberation Organization delegation. Baldwin is again clear on
the circumstances of Israel's birth:

Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises. From the time of the Balfour
Declaration (during World War I) Palestine was under five British mandates,
and England promised the land back and forth to the Arabs or the Jews,
depending on which horse seemed to be in the lead. The Zionists--as
distinguished from the people known as the Jews--using, as someone put it,
the "available political machinery," i.e., colonialism, e.g., the British
Empire--promised the British that, if the territory were given to them, the
British Empire would be safe forever.

But absolutely no one cared about the Jews, and it is worth observing that
non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic.

Baldwin goes on to speak of Europe's history of anti-Semitism, the
civilizational links between the Inquisition and Franco. The situation in
Palestine, he makes clear, is not the result of terrorism or Jewish
malfeasance, but European imperialism:

But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it
was created for the salvation of Western interests. This is what is
becoming clear (I must say it was always clear to me). The Palestinians
have been paying for the British colonial policy of "divide and rule" and
for Europe's guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years...The
collapse of the Shah not only revealed the depth of pious Carter's concern
for "human rights," it also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to
whom Israel supplied arms. It happened to be, to spell it out, white South
Africa.

Baldwin's sharp sense of geopolitics, his grasp of the gulf which separates
Jewishness from Zionism, and his willingness to locate the source of the
problem in 1948 ("for more than thirty years") all would put him on the
left edge of the Palestine solidarity movement today. Thirty years ago, in
the United States, he must have felt as if he resided in the most desolate
political wilderness. Studied today as a writer of sexuality and gender, or
of civil rights, Baldwin's international radicalism remains in the
hinterlands.

Those of us struggling to make good on his vision of real justice in the
Middle East have a right and a duty today to claim Baldwin's voice for our
side, and in doing so help bring his radicalism the recognition it deserves.

*A version of this article first appeared at Marxist Marginalia
<http://herrnaphta.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/baldwin-on-palestine/>*.


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Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions
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Following is a list of United Nations Security Council resolutions
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