While saying that the conditions sought by Hamas had been turned down on the grounds that materials might be used by them for military purposes, a government official was unable to confirm a report in the same paper that the rejection stemmed in large part from Egyptian opposition. Relations between Egypt and Qatar are tense partly because of criticisms of Cairo on the Doha-based satellite channel Al Jazeera and the emirate's perceived closeness to Iran.

But while the report quoted Egyptian sources as saying that its opposition to the Qatar proposal had been co-ordinated with Israel and the international "Quartet" of the US, EU, Russia and the UN, a senior Western diplomat said this week he was unaware of any international consultations on the issue.

Date: May 24 2010

Paul McGeough

AGIOS NIKOLAOS, Greece: A global coalition of Palestinian support groups is taking protest to a dangerous new point of brinkmanship this week, with an attempt to crash through Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip in a flotilla of cargo and passenger boats now assembling in the eastern Mediterranean.

Converging at an undisclosed rendezvous in international waters, the four small cargo boats and four passenger vessels - ranging from cruisers carrying 20 to a Turkish passenger ferry for 600 - are a multimillion-dollar bid to shame the international community to use ships to circumvent Israel's tight control on humanitarian supplies reaching war-ravaged Gaza.

As the first boat in the flotilla sailed from Dundalk, Ireland, to link up with others being readied at ports in Turkey and in Greece, Israel announced that it would bar the boats from landing.

A senior foreign ministry official described the flotilla as a ''provocation and a breach of Israeli law''.

Israeli media reports say that the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has formally ordered that waters off Gaza become a closed zone to a distance of 20 nautical miles.

Israel already has a ''large naval force'' on manoeuvre in the area; and as a confrontation at sea looms, suspicion was taking hold in both camps.

Mechanical difficulties in the boat bound from Ireland - the 1200-tonne MV Rachel Corrie, named after an American who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 - prompted claims that the boat had been sabotaged. Unnamed Israeli officials have claimed elements in the flotilla would attempt to garner media attention by seeking to provoke Israeli violence.

Further complicating a tense scenario were reports of a welcome fleet of small boats attempting to put to sea from Gaza, and of an Israeli ''counter flotilla'' that had assembled near Tel Aviv as a "civil initiative … not connected to any political group''.

Israel has rejected pleas by several ambassadors, most vocally by Dublin's envoy to Tel Aviv, that their nationals on the flotilla be given safe passage to Gaza.

The illegal Israel, by any measure, must be considered as a terrorist nation (as it was in the beginning) with influences which allow it to override all laws of normal civilization.

What would the US champions of “democracy”, suggest under these following circumstances?

After many years of sanctions and constant threats of nuclear oblivion, the sovereign nation of Iran has bombed the nuclear facilities of the Zionists in occupied Palestine.  This was done, under exactly the same premise of pre-emptive strikes on the sole basis of suspicion that the US/Zionist alliance has depended for their actions in the past – and in the future?

There is no question that the Zionists are murderers; invaders; and vandals no matter what their world congresses may control by financial means.  There is no question that they have broken every civilized and international law that we are aware of.

Whatever the rest of (not the free) world may be hiding in its deepest of hearts, that this is a world threat of disaster, perhaps the greatest and growing impatience of the Europeans as to recognizing that the Hebrew/Canaanite financiers have the power to bring down Greece and with it the entire European Union unless perhaps it is too late?

Who would gain by that?  The US/Zionist alliance. And then the Zionists.

I wonder at the timing of the “Elders” or whoever are the masters of Jewish plans, and I must say that, just maybe, they have misread the gutlessness of the remaining Europeans.

After all, their actions in declaring war on a financially strapped Germany in 1933 eventually caused WW II.

The craven attitude of the US to all civilized behavior must have its origin in their debt to Jewish Financiers. England in the early centuries?

There should be no doubt that the worldwide Diaspora of the Hebrew/Canaanites and their behavior, requires a solid base for protecting any criminal Jew where ever they may be - hence the need for a nuclear powered land of absolution but - only for all Jews who may need protection from the forces of civilization.

I cannot think of any other reason other than the similarities between Germany in 1933 and America in 2008.  And Greece – and Spain – and Portugal et al.

Meanwhile, the Rudd Government has had the guts to do what only Milibrand (a Jew) in England has done – they have made a statement with the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat.  Can we hope?

God Bless Australia and even though we do not have nuclear weapons we should still have the backbone to stand up for what we believe in.  NE OUBLIE.

Vilifying Justice Goldstone

By Stephen Lendman

26 May, 2010
Countercurrents.org

This writer's September 21, 2009 article titled "Goldstone Commission Gaza Conflict Findings and Reactions" (http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/09/goldstone-commission-gaza-conflict.html) explained the following:

On April 3, 2009, a UN press release stated:

"The Human Rights Council (HRC) today announced the appointment of Richard J. Goldstone....to lead an independent (four-person) fact-finding mission to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip....The team will be supported by staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights....Today's appointment comes following the adoption of a resolution by the Human Rights Council....to address 'the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."

Established by the UN General Assembly on March 15, 2006, the HRC's 47 member states are "responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe."

As a former South African Constitutional Court justice, Goldstone is a respected jurist. He also served as chief prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals and is a Hebrew University board member. As a Jew, he promised to be fair and even-handed, and "hope(s) that the findings....will make a meaningful contribution to the peace process....and will provide justice for the victims."

At the time, Israel refused to cooperate, Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, saying: "This committee is instructed not to seek out the truth but to single out Israel for alleged crimes." He then accused the Council of having "practically (no) credibility at all."

On September 15, the HRC released the Commission's 575 page report, titled Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

COMMENT:  The article is a good one and I also applaud Justice Goldstone for even having the courage to face the obviously aggressive and lawless power base of a race of people who refuse to obey any laws of humanity.

Nevertheless, my purpose here is not to print the crimes committed by anyone but to pursue the principle of WHY have the Jews been hated over the centuries.  However, we take it for granted that a Jewish Judge was chosen, certainly in part, because he would be (and wasn’t) more acceptable to the Occupation Forces of Palestine?  Racist?

So, even when we give this man credit, (and remember that he comes from the land of Apartheid) we are raising the racist card because he is Jewish – as though his honesty was compromised for that reason or, because a finding that criticizes the Zionists would be considered by them as “anti-Semitic”? Struth.

That in itself pre-supposes that he will verify some of the claims of the Palestinians because he is Jewish and may otherwise not be credited with impartiality.  Nevertheless, the alternative of anyone else would have been opposed by the Zionists and their fellow travelers on the same basis?

We are all aware that racism (tribalism) is still wide spread throughout the world and we have to deal with it, nation by nation.  After all, the US control of the UN is no longer a secret.

I applaud the decisions of Millibrand (?) in the UK and Steven Smith in Australia.  The unfair criticism of both of these men is undiplomatic because it is no more than a modest slap on the wrist for an international crime that would have been more seriously considered in the early 20th century.

The foolish attempt at being less interested in Australian Security by the Liberal’s Julie Bishop rather than the feelings of the Zionists, was a cardinal mistake.  It is an insult to the Australian people and yes, to the intelligence of Jewish population in Palestine.  As apparently a Solicitor, Julie should remember that the Jury of the Zionist’s peers of 47 states, has found them guilty and it would be in everybody’s interests if she let a very competent Steven Smith handle our foreign affairs.

God Bless Australia and protect our sovereignty.  NE OUBLIE.

What would happen in the Hebrew/Canaanite war on the world - or vice-a-versa - if no one knew who was a Jew and who wasn't?  Those interested in that conflict, and there are millions, would find it very hard to either support the individual or group on the basis that they are "Jewish" or to deny them equality for the same reason.

But isn't it a truism that Jewish people have for centuries been the beneficiaries of greed because of the greed and the lack of commonsense, of the citizens of the nations they have historically chosen subsequent to the Diaspora?  Even their change of names (and passports) depict the almost fanatical desire for deception for a power, and the use of money, to achieve that purpose.  They believe in minimum expense and maximum profit as a natural basis for risking any of their money.

Last time I looked, there were 26 Corporation Unions in Australia and their various councils perform in a manner as to support each other to oppose the possibility of a united worker's union to interfere with their business practices.  A "fair go" is not an issue, that's for charities.

If, one was to have access to the race of the major players in big business in Australia, I guess one would find that most are, or are obligated to, the International Jewish Organizations.

It seems to me as being undeniable that the objective of the Jewish fraternity is to have complete control of the finances (and therefore the power) which "makes the world go around".  Whenever they have been restricted to a particular nation they have had trouble in prosecuting the principle that I see as their ultimate objective.

IMHO the 60 odd years of the Zionist's policies of "whatever it takes" only exacerbated the hatred of that Semite race.  The very spread of the Diaspora suited the basic policies of the "Elders" and the demand for a Jewish country of their own can only make matters worse.

To my knowledge, no other country or organization on Earth denies the same rights to it's accepted citizens and for this the Zionists again have reversed the progress of civilization. 

I cannot accept the persecution argument from the very early days of civilization without giving credence to the continually repeated hatred of various powers, or different races, and a different style of government, which have equally agreed that the powers that be are invariably Jewish.

God Bless Australia and I would truly like the ancient history of the Jews in the bible to be an example of decent human behavior rather than a portrayal of the Hebrew/Canaanites as being the creators of a world that we owe to them and them alone.  NE OUBLIE.

The Israeli navy has stormed one of six ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip, with at least two people reported killed.

Israel's Channel 10 private TV puts the death toll at about 14. Israel has so far declined to comment.

The exact location of the interception is unclear. Israel had warned the ships not to enter its territorial waters.

The ships are carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid to the Gaza Strip in an effort to break an Israeli blockade.

Turkish TV pictures taken on board the Turkish ship leading the flotilla show Israeli soldiers fighting to control passengers.

The footage showed a number of people, apparently injured, lying on the ground. The sound of gunshots could be heard. It is not clear whether the fighting is ongoing.

Al-Jazeera TV reported from the same ship that Israeli navy forces had fired and boarded the vessel, wounding the captain.

The Al-Jazeera broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, "Everybody shut up!"

see also :

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/201053133047995359.html

An Australian journalist and photographer onboard aid boats headed for the Gaza Strip have not been heard from since at least 10 people were reportedly killed during a clash with Israeli commandos.

A Fairfax spokesman says journalist Paul McGeough and photographer Kate Geraghty last made contact around noon (AEST) today while onboard the MV Samoud.

Israel's defence force says at least 10 people were killed when commandos stormed a convoy of six ships carrying aid to Gaza.

It was led by a Turkish vessel with 600 people on board and set sail for Gaza from international waters off Cyprus on Sunday in defiance of an Israeli-led blockade of the territory.

Commandos boarded the ships in international waters overnight, backed up by warships and helicopters.

Mr McGeough and Ms Geraghty joined the flotilla in Crete about a week ago, the Fairfax spokesman said.

He says the pair are on assignment covering the flotilla and have been moving from boat to boat - but were last known to be on the MV Samoud.

Both have satellite phones but Mr McGeough reported his GPS was not working, blaming the malfunction on Israeli attempts to jam communications.

Sadly Gus, just another case of plain murder in plain sight.

Even sadder is the likelihood that our political leaders will have little or nothing to say about it.

How ironic that Turkey, a country against who we once fought & with who we share the most extraordinary bond forged through that bloody history, is one of the few willing to speak out against the zionist fascists.

The time has come to rid the world of this evil criminal cancer.

Cheers,

JR

IMHO, one could not possibly spend enough time in this forum to acknowledge all of the crimes against civilization by the Jews in occupied Palestine but, fair go, where does it stop?  And how and who will appropriately punish them?

Was this the conundrum faced by greedy politicians of past centuries?

I have so often asked why?  A world population of .22 % has enormous political clout to the extent of being able to profit from wars whose dead and wounded invariably does not include any of their people?

Otherwise the so-called lessons of WW's I and II will be buried with the bones of the Bengali, Armenian and Jewish Holocaust victims just to name a few.

By Gideon Polya.on the Bengali Holocaust.

 “Churchill is our hero because of his leadership in World War 2,” Polya writes, “but his immense crimes, notably the WW2 Bengali Holocaust, the 1943-1945 Bengal Famine in which Churchill murdered  6-7 million Indians, have been deleted from history by extraordinary Anglo-American and Zionist Holocaust Denial.”

Once again with that slight diversion, we come to the present behavior of a race that has roots in at least 26 nations of the western world and has had the control of the US foreign policies by financial means for over 60 years.

I no longer subscribe to the description of the “Morlocks” of the Middle East as merely a Zionist sect quite separate from the multi-Jewish organizations throughout the western world.

These Zionists are just fanatical representatives of Jewish people who are using all methods of deception to further their objective of having a “Jewish land for Jews alone”.  Sounds good eh?  And then?

The simple fact is that the financial power of the Jewish organizations has been able to play to the greed of western politicians (as proposed in the Protocols) to take their “democratic” compliance for granted.  The Jews accumulate wealth and the Goyims spend it. 

Now we have another snotty-nosed contempt for world opinion or laws, by the attacks on the “Free Gaza” flotilla.

The one question I ask is - how do they get away with it – and more importantly will Turkey, the descendants of the Ottoman Empire, allow it without any courageous response?

God Bless Australia and let’s all hope that the Jewish Councils of the US do not own the Turkish government – or ours.  NE OUBLIE.

As international condemnation over the killing of at least 10 activists by Israeli forces as they raided an aid convoy en route to Gaza, a host of governments have summoned Israeli ambassadors to provide a full explanation on the assault.

The countries include:

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Denmark
Egypt
France
Greece
Ireland
Jordan
Spain
Sweden

In Australia ..... silence

By JONATHAN COOK  May 31, 2010

Nazareth.

It is quite astounding that Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago, into which our main media organizations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to step in unchallenged.

How many civilians were killed in Israel’s dawn attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla of aid? We still don’t know. How many wounded? Your guess is as good as mine. Were the aid activists armed with guns? Yes, says Israel. Were they in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Hamas? Certainly, says Israel. Did the soldiers act reasonably? Of course, they faced a lynch mob, says Israel.

If we needed any evidence of the degree to which Western TV journalists are simply stenographers to power, the BBC, CNN and others are amply proving it. Mark Regev, Israel’s propagandist-in-chief, has the airwaves largely to himself.

The passengers on the ships, meanwhile, have been kidnapped by Israel and are unable to provide an alternative version of events. We can guess they will remain in enforced silence until Israel is sure it has set the news agenda.

COMMENT:  The actions of the Zionist military was illegal under international law and far from acting in “self defense”, they invaded these ships in international waters, in the dead of night for maximum effect, and threatened the humanitarian aid activists with automatic weapons, while wearing bullet proof vests and full military outfits.  Just WHO were defending themselves?  By any measure it was a cowardly exercise by the Zionist occupation forces in Palestine.

As we now know, our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made a scorching attack on the Zionists in occupied Palestine.  Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith advises calm and a Zionist’ credible investigation.  (That is surely an oxymoron?)

Some wise observer once wrote: “Zionism is the worst enemy of the Jewish people”.

If the world is to accept that sort of clear-cut separation, then the multi-national passports belonging to the Zionists would have to be cancelled – wouldn’t they?  The Zionist organizations throughout the world would have to be re-declared “Terrorist” and their funds frozen as is customary for all declared Terrorist activists.

In addition they would be expelled from the U.N. especially since they do not even accept criticism and trade would have to be discontinued.  In fact, the Zionists themselves have declared that Israel doesn’t exist if they are a “Jewish state”.  The Israel so often referred to doesn’t legally exist under any international law.

The separation would not only have to be done, but be seen to be done.

The crimes of the Zionists must be met by properly constituted trials in the International Criminal Court. Or in Nuremberg for a replica of justice against the same type of Fascism as that by the Nazis.  They must not be allowed to succeed.

All displaced Palestinians and their descendants must be re-located to the territory that was stolen from them and their original borders re-instated.  The Jewish people born in Palestine, who were duped for decades by the criminal Zionist organizations, even as the western world was so duped, must be allowed to stay and take part in a democratic election of a new Palestine, with equal rights in all matters, including religious freedom to their respective holy places of worship.

IMHO, given the “God honored right to do anything” attitude of the Zionists and the outrage of the Palestinians at their treatment – Two State geography will never work but, Two State united demography just might.

This sort of society could be a peaceful resolution and a return to the original dual amalgamated societies that previously existed peacefully before the Zionist terrorism.  If this was arranged by the U.N. under patient guidance no one would be the loser and there would no longer be the festering hatred that currently exists in Palestine and the Middle East itself.  Even the US could be off the hook.

God Bless Australia and bring together the non-Zionists and their Arab neighbors. NE OUBLIE.

Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood

Israel has a long history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists to maintain tight control over Gaza.

By Amy Goodman , DEMOCRACYNOW!
Published October 20, 2023

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent. “This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. “This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.” Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The death toll in Gaza from Israel’s 14-day bombardment has topped 4,100 as Israel continues to block food, water and fuel from entering the besieged territory. Over 13,000 Palestinians have been injured over the past two weeks.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres traveled today to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to Gaza to demand humanitarian aid convoys be allowed entry.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES:These trucks are not just trucks. They are a lifeline. They are the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Guterres said the U.N. is actively engaging with Israel and Egypt to get the aid trucks into Gaza.

The BBC is reporting Hamas has offered to release some of the hostages it seized during its attack on October 7th in exchange for a ceasefire, but Israel has rejected the deal. Earlier today, the Israeli military said it believes the majority of the 200 hostages seized are still alive.

Israel’s defense minister hinted Thursday a ground invasion of Gaza is imminent, telling troops they will soon see Gaza, quote, “from inside.”

Israel is ramping up its crackdown on the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces killed 13 Palestinians in a raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm.

In recent days, Israel has also detained 750 Palestinians, including lawmakers and journalists.

On Thursday night, President Biden gave a primetime speech from the Oval Office calling for Congress to approve $14 billion for Israel, another $60 billion for Ukraine and some for Taiwan. This comes as HuffPost is reporting there’s a, quote, “mutiny brewing” inside the State Department over Biden’s policy on Israel.

Joining us now in New York is Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and writer, president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group on Israel/Palestine. His recent piece for The New York Review is headlined “Gaza Without Pretenses: For years Israel and Hamas maintained an unstable equilibrium that kept the Gaza Strip contained. But it was always likely to be temporary.” Tareq is author of the book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.

Tareq, welcome back to Democracy Now! Before we go to the history of Hamas —

TAREQ BACONI: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: — I wanted to ask you about the current situation, the latest that we hear, the — looks like a ground invasion is imminent. The Rafah border is still closed, although there had been a deal to allow in 20 trucks of aid, coming from Egypt into Gaza, though those inside, medical groups are saying even a hundred trucks a day wouldn’t quite deal with the crisis and the need inside.

TAREQ BACONI: Well, Amy, as the situation in the Gaza Strip is quite dire, what we see today is really a continuation of efforts by Israel to place the Gaza Strip under a complete blockade. And this has been ongoing for about 16 years now. And then, after the offensive by Hamas on the 7th of October, Israel placed the Gaza Strip under what it called a total siege. What this means is that it’s prevented the entry of water, fuel, electricity and medicine into the Gaza Strip.

Now, this is a form of collective punishment. We have to understand the Gaza Strip has about 2.3 million Palestinians. About two-thirds of them are refugees from homes in what is now Israel. And about half of that are minors and children. This is a form of collective punishment and is essentially reliant on a total dehumanization of Palestinians in Gaza.

What we’re seeing happening at the moment is that humanitarian aid is being politicized, that humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza is linked to political goals. And any form of effort to try to deescalate is being blocked by the U.S. The fact that the U.S. vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution yesterday is an indication of its willingness to allow Israel to continue both its bombardment of the Gaza Strip as well as the strangulation of Gaza’s civilian population through the blocking of entry of humanitarian aid.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what that resolution was that the U.S. rejected.

TAREQ BACONI: Well, it was a resolution that was tabled by Brazil, and it called for an immediate deescalation and a ceasefire. It was a humanitarian ceasefire, which meant that the bombardment from the Israeli authorities would have to cease and allow for humanitarian aid to come into the Gaza Strip and for the restrictions to be eased. However, we see that this continues to — first of all, the U.S. blocked the resolution. And then, when there were agreements to have, as you said, 20 truckloads to enter the Gaza Strip, which is far less than the minimum that would be required to sustain Gaza’s civilian population, there are still obstacles to the entry of those trucks.

We also have to understand that Gaza has — Gaza’s population has been forced by Israeli authorities to evacuate the majority of the northern part of the strip. This has resulted in a forced displacement of about — or, the order was for the forced displacement of 1.1 million Palestinians. Now, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated strips of land in the world. Any form of evacuation is really impossible. There’s nowhere for Palestinians to leave. What that means is that any kind of bombardment that the Israeli authorities are carrying out in the Gaza Strip are killing Palestinians in their thousands. And unlike in previous military assaults, here Israel is actually quite explicit about wanting to target civilian infrastructure, ambulances, healthcare centers, clinics. And the bombing is indiscriminate, as Palestinians in Gaza are reporting, by intent.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking Tuesday about Hamas.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: This is a part of an axis of evil of Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas. Their goal, open goal, is to eradicate the state of Israel. The open goal of Hamas is to kill as many Jews as they could. And the only difference is, they would have killed every last one of us, murdered every last one of us, if they could; they just don’t have the capacity. But they murdered an extraordinary 1,300 civilians, which, in American terms, is like many, many, many 9/11s.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Tareq Baconi, you wrote the book Hamas Contained. Can you respond?

TAREQ BACONI: Well, I mean, this language that the Israelis and the American officials have been using to demonize Hamas has been entirely based in the effort to depoliticize the Palestinian struggle and to present any form of armed resistance against what is a violent apartheid regime as a form of terrorism. The impact of this is really to try to give Israel a carte blanche to continue dealing with the question of Palestine, with the quest by the Palestinian people to gain their inalienable rights, through force and through a security doctrine. The President Biden’s linking of the attack that happened on 7th October to 9/11 is really a carte blanche for Israel to do what it wants to in the Gaza Strip. And it’s an affirmation that all the lessons that have been learned after Israel’s — after America’s own 9/11 have really been lost.

Now, this language isn’t new. Successive Israeli governments have linked Palestinian resistance generally, and Hamas specifically, to 9/11 and to terrorism, and has used that link in order to reinforce and reentrench its occupation. What we have to understand here is that this isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically. This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank. The effort to link Hamas’s attack to 9/11 is really to give cover to pursue genocidal tendencies that the Israeli political establishment has articulated long before October 7th.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the Israeli military — also Biden very much bonded, sort of bound to this analysis, as well — talks about the Hamas attack on October 7th killing over 1,300 Israelis. Over 200 are being held by Hamas, looks like the majority of them, according to the Israeli government, are still alive. The Israeli government says Hamas uses civilians as human shields. And in this comment of the Israeli military saying they’ve given a green light to move into Gaza whenever it’s ready, the economy minister, Nir Barkat, said in an interview with ABC News, concerns over hostages and civilian casualties will be secondary to destroying Hamas. Were you surprised by the October 7th attack? And talk about what Israel is saying right now and, of course, what’s happening in Gaza.

TAREQ BACONI: Well, the 7th of October attack was certainly surprising for someone like myself who’s been studying Hamas for a long time, but I imagine also for many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as well as probably for Hamas’s leadership. It was surprising not in its timing, obviously, and not in the offensive — the nature of the offensive and how it took place. But it was surprising mostly in the scale of it and the ability of Hamas to really penetrate into Israeli-controlled territory around the Gaza Strip and to spend the length of time that fighters, Hamas and otherwise, were able to spend in Israeli towns. You have to understand that for many Palestinians and more broadly, there’s a myth of an Israeli invincibility, that Israel is impenetrable, at least from the Gaza Strip, and that its army is unparalleled. And that expectation was probably in the minds of Hamas’s leadership when they were planning and staging this attack. And instead of any form of effective defense on the Israeli side, what we was a complete shattering of this illusion. We saw the reality that actually Israel’s army is not invincible and that the blockade that is placed around the Gaza Strip is perfectly penetrable and that Hamas was able to overturn Israel’s myth of invincibility very, very quickly.

Now, the scale of the attack and the number of hostages that Hamas was able to capture and take back into the Gaza Strip probably exceeded its expectations, which also meant that the retaliation that we now see is also probably far worse than Hamas might have anticipated. Now, that’s not to say that Hamas didn’t anticipate some form of retaliation, because that has always been, at least in the past 16 years, the equilibrium between Hamas and Israel, that Hamas would try to pressure Israel, through rockets or otherwise, to lift or ease restrictions on the blockade, because the blockade itself is a form of violence that’s strangulating 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, and Israel would respond with disproportionate military force, military force that would result in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Now, the expectation has always been, from the Israeli side, that this situation is tenable, that it can be sustained, and it adopted what it called the military doctrine of “mowing the lawn,” that it would do this every few years, and then that this equilibrium would be sustained indefinitely. What we saw on the 7th of October was Hamas overturning that equilibrium and saying, “Actually, you cannot have any kind of calm or security for your citizens as long as your boot remains on our necks. The Palestinians will not acquiesce to their imprisonment silently.” So that equilibrium has now shattered.

AMY GOODMAN: I waned to ask you if you could talk about Israel’s involvement in Hamas gaining power. In 2009, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for over 20 years, told The Wall Street Journal, quote, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.” Another former Israeli official, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, said he was given a budget to help finance Islamist movements in Gaza to counter Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement. Another former Israeli military official, David Hacham, said, quote, “When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake. But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.” Your response, Tareq Baconi?

TAREQ BACONI: Well, the origins of that is really Hamas emerged as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood chapter in the Gaza Strip. And the Muslim Brotherhood chapter was not a political party. It was a social party. And its operations in the Gaza Strip and throughout the Palestinian territories were actually granted licenses by Israeli occupying forces at the time, so there was a license for the Muslim Brotherhood chapter to operate openly in the Gaza Strip. When Hamas was established in 1987 and became a political party and a military party that was engaged in active resistance against Israel’s occupation, the policies within the Israeli government shifted, and obviously it became less open to allowing Hamas to function. However, that did not deter Israeli authorities from encouraging and promoting divide-and-rule tactics between the Islamist national movement, so Hamas, and secular nationalism around Fatah. And this has always been a tactic that the colonial forces have used globally, and obviously Israeli colonialism is no different. So it has directly and implicitly attempted divide-and-rule policies.

This really turned and came to a head in 2007, when Hamas, after winning democratic elections in 2006, rose to power, and the Israeli authorities, along with the U.S., attempted to initiate a regime change operation, which facilitated a civil war between Hamas and Fatah and allowed Hamas to take over the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israeli authorities have actively embraced the idea that Hamas would be accepted as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Now, part of the calculus in that is because of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians. This is a demographic issue. Israel wanted to sever the Gaza Strip from the rest of historic Palestine in order to reinforce its claim that it’s a Jewish-majority state. By getting rid of 2 million Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are refugees demanding return, Israel can claim to be both a Jewish state and a democracy and restructure what is its apartheid regime. Now, in order to do that, it acquiesced to maintaining Hamas in governance, and it claimed that it placed a blockade around the Gaza Strip because Hamas was in power. And obviously this was bought in the international community, using what we were just talking about, the idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization, axis of evil, and, therefore, that this blockade makes sense.

What policymakers don’t understand is that Israel has engaged in blockades around the Gaza Strip and attempted to get rid of the population in the Gaza Strip long before Hamas was even established as a party. But with Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, this created a perfect fig leaf for Israel to maintain the Gaza Strip as a separate strip of land. And to do that, it had to acquiesce and, in some ways, even enable Hamas to maintain its position as a governing authority there. And this also further reinforced its efforts to try to maintain division among the Palestinian leadership and play divide-and-rule policies between the PA and Hamas.

AMY GOODMAN: What would you like to see happen, Tareq, right now? It looks like Israel is on the verge of a ground invasion of Gaza. What do you think needs to happen?

TAREQ BACONI: Well, the most immediate need right now is for a deescalation. World leaders, and specifically the U.S. and the Biden administration, need to understand that this is not a retaliation by Israel towards Hamas. What we are seeing now is the effort by Israel to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign and to continue the Nakba, which began in 1948 and which has been ongoing since in fits and starts here and there. What we’re seeing is a massive rupture in the daily ethnic cleansing that Israeli authorities are going — are implementing against the Palestinians in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, as well as in the Gaza Strip. And now we’re seeing that rupture take the ethnic cleansing campaign from a daily continual basis into a significantly more focused attempt at getting rid of millions of Palestinians. We need to deescalate, and we need to ensure that humanitarian aid comes into the Gaza Strip, because this is impacting Gaza’s civilian population. This is a starting step.

The next step needs to be an acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid regime that is maintaining a system of domination against millions of Palestinians. It’s the only sovereign power in the land of historic Palestine, and it allows rights only to Israeli Jewish citizens, not to Palestinians. What happened on October 7th is a testament to the fact that that reality cannot go on. And that overturned the assumption that the U.S. administration as well as regional powers have always had, which is that Israel can continue to act with impunity, without any cost to its citizens. And I believe we cannot go back to that paradigm anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: Tareq Baconi, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Palestinian analyst and writer, president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, author of the book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. We will link to your piece in The New York Review headlined “Gaza Without Pretenses: For years Israel and Hamas maintained an unstable equilibrium that kept the Gaza Strip contained. But it was always likely to be temporary.”

When we come back, we continue our conversation with the legendary Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who’s reported from the Occupied Territories for over three decades. Back in 20 seconds.

https://truthout.org/video/israel-helped-start-hamas-to-weaken-palestinian-hopes-for-statehood/

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