Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

geopolitical bros get in here - now encompassing ME & NA. what's happening at the beginning of 2014?

Bahraini government continues to crack down on opposition groups - reconciliation seems unlikely, the spirit of el-Meidan continues to rock Egypt, Quake in Southern Iran kills 1, the Iraqi civil war continues (Al-Q takes Iraqi cities), new settlement announcements delayed until after Kerry visit to Israel while Bibi emphasizes Palestinian need to recognize Israel as a Jewish State and Sharon is near death, Jordan is overwhelmed by the Syrian refugee crisis, Kuwaitis send money to Syrian rebels, Sunni reprisal on Hezbollah blasts South Beirut, Lebanon fires on Syrian helicopters, Yemen agrees on federalism as basis for new constitution while Southern rebels clash with the State, American goes to jail in UAE for a year for a youtube proof, Libya votes to extend the postrevolutionary transition - gives itself an extra year to write a constitution, Morocco holds a photography exhibit in the El Badi Palace, BP and Oman sign a gas field agreement.

Tunisia revolution continues while constitution deadline nears, Algeria energy sector is making a comeback, occupation continues in Cyprus, Erdogan is panicking, France announces big troop cuts in Mali, Ethiopia hosts South Sudan peace talks and last plane from migration program from Ethiopia to Israel flies. The UN calls for an immediate cease-fire in South Sudan, US continues to negotiate to keep troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan's Musharraf rushed to hospital, and if you haven't seen that Vice documentary from HBO about the Kashmir border, I think it's really excellent and definitely worth watching.

Kerry continues to push the peace process, Israel Jordan and the PLO sign a water agreement, the 3rd Intifada is still supposedly imminent, a Palestinian diplomat is killed in Czech, and Gaza is flooded. US is opening a huge air operations hub in Qatar.

Syria is still a mess, but at least the chemical weapons are being removed - right?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MENA_map.png

All those hyperlinks were originally in one long post but I kept hitting some unspecified error so I had to break them down to post them. They looked cool tho!

From that op-ed about the third Intifada: "For this reason, Israel is frantically Judaizing Jerusalem, including daily attempts to impose its presence in the Al Aqsa mosque, increasing settlement inside the city, destroying Palestinian homes, and transforming Palestinians into temporary residents of the city."

God, "Judaizing Jerusalem," what a reprehensible bit of propaganda that idiom is.

Since he will probably be sticking around for a while, it's probably time to revisit Assad:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115993/bashar-al-assad-profile-syrias-mass-murderer

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/world/middleeast/fighting-in-falluja-and-ramadi.html

Black-clad Sunni militants of Al Qaeda destroyed the Falluja police headquarters, planted their flag atop other government buildings and decreed the Iraqi city to be a new independent state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/world/middleeast/power-vacuum-in-middle-east-lifts-militants.html

But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region’s sectarian hatreds.

Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries’ conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers — claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively — cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy.

So you're not a follower of the Prophet, eh?

Just trying to point out the NYT's one-sided anti-Islamic agenda - this wasn't even an op-ed! Also I wanted to praise the US's hands-off approach to MENA sectarian violence.

Leiberman says Israel should accept the Kerry deal:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.567228

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bds-silences-native-american-voices/

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.567301

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/01/08/charted_how_people_believe_women_should_dress_in_seven_muslim_countries.html

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_world_/2014/01/08/charted_how_people_believe_women_should_dress_in_seven_muslim_countries/1389219236.png.CROP.promo-mediumlarge.png

The United Nations announced Tuesday that it was ceasing to update the death toll in Syria’s nearly three-year war because it can no longer reliably keep track of those killed by the conflict. The Associated Press noted that the last official figures, which were current as of July 2013, estimated that at least 100,000 people had perished.

i heard - from an anglo-syrian doctor who has been periodically visiting syria over the last few years - that the figures were only being collected in certain areas and that in homs & other central regions there was no data what-so-ever, so the death toll is certainly several times as high as the UN figure

https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s526x395/1526819_570617646353140_1840915660_n.jpg

lol

that is remarkable

el sisi wants to run for office - i guess he'll probably win?

Iran Nuclear Deal to Take Effect Jan. 20, Officials Say
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and THOMAS ERDBRINK 1:02 PM ET
Under the plan between Iran and six world powers, Iran for the first time would begin eliminating its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal.html

After crushing the Muslim Brotherhood at home, Egypt's military rulers plan to undermine the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the neighboring Gaza Strip, senior Egyptian security officials told Reuters.

The aim, which the officials say could take years to pull off, includes working with Hamas's political rivals Fatah and supporting popular anti-Hamas activities in Gaza, four security and diplomatic officials said.

Intelligence operatives, with help from Hamas's political rivals and activists, plan to undermine the credibility of Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 after a brief civil war against the Fatah movement led by Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the Egyptian officials, Hamas will face growing resistance by activists who will launch protests similar to those in Egypt that have led to the downfall of two presidents since the Arab Spring in 2011. Cairo plans to support such protests in an effort to cripple Hamas.

"Gaza is next," said one senior security official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "We cannot get liberated from the terrorism of the Brotherhood in Egypt without ending it in Gaza, which lies on our borders."

the leftist egyptians i know who've celebrated the destruction of the brotherhood also pretty loudly back hamas. was this a predictable move by the military?

it certainly fits their MO of locking down the Sinai, blaming agitation on Hamas and closing/flooding the tunnels -- it was predictable that the military would be less compassionate towards Hamas than the Brotherhood, but i don't know if anyone expected them to be this antagonistic

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6308.htm

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/no-more-sanctions-no-more-war-iran/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=no-more-sanctions-no-more-war-iran

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/15/mapped_syrian_civil_war_deaths

also lol pat buchanon xp

thought that said 'fat buchanon' i was like damn dude

body positivity!

'no body positivity for fascists'

Arab Neighbors Take Split Paths in Constitutions
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CARLOTTA GALL
Tunisia and Egypt, whose revolts ignited the Arab Spring, provide a dual lesson in the pitfalls and potentials for democracy in the region as they move toward new charters.

Still haven't read this NY Times article, but mean to

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/world/middleeast/arab-neighbors-take-split-paths-in-constitutions.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140115&_r=0

tunisia is like new poster child of arab democracy acc to bbc this morning + nyt here:

TUNIS — Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly is close to passing a new Constitution that legislators across the political spectrum, human rights organizations and constitutional experts are hailing as a triumph of consensus politics.

Two years in the making and now in its third draft, the charter is a carefully worded blend of ideas that has won the support of both Ennahda, the Islamist party that leads the interim government, and the secular opposition. It is being hailed as one of the most liberal constitutions in an Arab nation.

“They finally found some equilibrium,” said Ghazi Gherairi, secretary general of the International Academy of Constitutional Law in Tunis, the capital. “It is a result of consensus, and this is new in the Arab world.”

i haven't read the other article yet but i assume the contrast is that egypt is busy putting pre-revolution military rule back into place. apparently the big comparisons of the day for sisi are nasser and sadat

NY T re Egypt in that article:

The difference, scholars said, lies in the shape of the shards left after each country’s revolt. Tunisia’s brutal security police virtually collapsed during its revolt, while its small, professionalized military historically had no interest in political power. In civilian politics, its Islamist and secular factions were relatively evenly matched, with the Islamists winning only a plurality in Tunisia’s first free vote. Each side needed the other to govern.

In Egypt, where the military has been a political player since Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1952 coup, the generals stepped in to remove President Hosni Mubarak, himself a onetime military man, and never fully receded. Further complicating matters, each side of the political divide had reason to hope it might rule alone: The Islamists dominated the elections, while their opponents knew the military was waiting in the wings.
“The opposition knew that, first, it might never win another election and, second, the military was there,” Mr. Brown said.

GENEVA — A recent series of mass executions attributed to jihadist rebels in Syria may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief, said on Thursday.

Mass executions of civilians and of fighters who were no longer participating in hostilities were reported in the northern cities of Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa. They were carried out by armed opposition groups in Syria, in particular by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Ms. Pillay said in a statement, citing what she described as reliable testimony by witnesses.

That's ISIS, the Al-queda one, right?

yeah, it's ISIS - very bleak stuff

re pervasive accusations that AIPAC is behind the Iran sanctions legislation:

Despite growing support in the Senate for Iran sanctions legislation, Democratic leaders have yet to feel insurmountable pressure to bring the measure to the floor.

One major reason: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mostly keeping quiet.

The powerful pro-Israel lobby has not engaged in a shoe-leather lobbying campaign to woo wayward senators and push Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to schedule a vote on the bill, according to several key senators and aides. While the group supports the bill — authored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — it is not yet putting its political muscle behind a push for an immediate vote.

“I don’t know where AIPAC is. I haven’t talked to anybody,” said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who opposes any vote for additional sanctions at this time.

As of now, the Menendez-Kirk bill has 59 public supporters, including 43 of 45 Senate Republicans. But dozens of Democrats remain publicly undecided on the bill and seem unlikely to cross the Obama administration and openly back the legislation at this time. And AIPAC isn’t yet twisting Democratic arms.

A number of senators on both sides of the sanctions debate said they’d heard little from AIPAC on the issue, suggesting that wavering lawmakers are feeling little pressure from the group. With its clout on Capitol Hill and ties to deep-pocketed Jewish donors, the group’s muscle could be enough to change the political calculation over how to proceed on the contentious issue.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of getting a vote on the bill.

...California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Jewish Democrat, said she’s met with AIPAC “many times” on the issue of Iran. But asked if the group had been pressing her to support the Iran sanctions measure, she replied “not at all.”

“They respect my position, which is that sanctions are totally appropriate if this fails,” she said, referring to the diplomatic talks.

But other senators have not yet heard from the group and indicated they were entirely unaware of AIPAC’s activities on the Hill.

“I really have not talked to AIPAC about it,” said Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, a Jewish liberal and one of the few Senate Democrats publicly backing the Kirk-Menendez legislation.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s plan to transfer jurisdiction of some Israeli Arab towns, with their approximately 300,000 residents, to a future Palestinian state has the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, according to senior officials in Likud-Beytenu quoted by Maariv Friday. There was no confirmation of the report.

Unnamed official sources told the newspaper that Netanyahu has concluded that, in the event of an agreement with the Palestinians, the demographic factor must be taken into consideration, which would mean amending the borders to include some Israeli Arab towns in the new Palestinian state as Israel would include some West Bank Jewish settlements. The officials said that, during negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in recent months, Livni brought up the names of specific towns and villages to be included in the Palestinian state.

I'm not a huge fan of the idea, but mondopeeps screaming about ethnic cleansing are insane. If it's ethnic cleansing to force Palestinians to belong to the Palestinian state than it's certainly ethnic cleansing to force settlers to move (and also raises the question of why the world needs a Palestinian state if the Palestinians don't want to live there).

it's certainly ethnic cleansing to force settlers to move

I lose your analogy a bit here. I'm not sure how a view regarding which state long-time Palestinian residents should be a part of, is analagous to how we should analyze recent non-Palestinian settlers in that area.

Also, just as some Jews may not want to live in Israel, perhaps some Palestinians want to stay in Israel

American Jews not wanting to live in Israel should not be used as a reason to say there's no need for Israel, similiarly with Palestinians.

I just mean that if redrawing the border is ethnic cleansing (as I've seen claimed) then forcing someone to actually uproot their home and move bc of their ethnicity is the same. Re the second point, America doesn't share a border w/ Israel, but yr right I was being a little cheeky about the fact that plenty of Palestinians would prefer to live in Israel than in a future Palestinian State.

I just mean that if redrawing the border is ethnic cleansing (as I've seen claimed) then forcing someone to actually uproot their home and move bc of their ethnicity is the same.

I do not agree that these are the same

it's more of an a fortiori than an equivalence

hey what if jan brewer decided a bunch of heavily hispanic border towns were just gonna be mexico now, haha right??

i guess the question is whether those israeli arabs have any say in having their citizenship stripped, "transfer of jurisdiction" is pretty vague.

plus according to that quote it is "in the event of an agreement with the Palestinians" which means never i take it. so this is trolling?

iranian invitation revoked

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/01/20/united_nations_invites_iran_to_syria_peace_talks_threatens_geneva_summit.html

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/20/world/syria-torture-photos-amanpour/

(CNN) -- A team of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts has found "direct evidence" of "systematic torture and killing" by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the lawyers on the team say in a new report.

Their report, based on thousands of photographs of dead bodies of alleged detainees killed in Syrian government custody, would stand up in an international criminal tribunal, the group says.

CNN's "Amanpour" was given the report in a joint exclusive with The Guardian newspaper.

"This is a smoking gun," said David Crane, one of the report's authors. "Any prosecutor would like this kind of evidence -- the photos and the process. This is direct evidence of the regime's killing machine."

near the end of that piece:

Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court. The only way the court could prosecute someone from Syria would be through a referral from the United Nations Security Council.
Because of Russia's support for the Assad regime, and because it has veto power on the council, such a referral seems unlikely, at least for the time being.

this is so fucked: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116241/burma-2014-countryside-concentration-camps

(i know it doesn't really fit the purvey of this thread but idk where we're talking about myanmar if anywhere?)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/01/28/267836867/a-palestinian-explains-why-he-worked-as-an-israeli-informant

this profile is nuts:
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=1713

Yay Tunisia on their new constitution. Everything else here is too depressing and complicated.

yay tunisia :)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/30/how-scarlett-johansson-got-mired-in-one-of-the-middle-easts-touchiest-controversies/?hpid=z4

"touchy"

obv this whole "controversy" just made me like scarlett more

obdsv

also i love my sodastream. we use it every day. i haven't bought seltzer in years.

a disturbing amount of my twitter feed did agree that obv scarjo is a war criminal, clearly anyone can see that, etc this past week

http://africaindc.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/ethiopian-retail-establishments-protest-israeli-treatment-of-africans/

a January 22 protest march in front of the Embassy of Israel by diaspora Eritreans calling on Israel to respect the rights of African refugees.

protest took place in dc

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/08/iran-says-warships-headed-close-to-us-borders/5316199/

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday.

The commander of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The fleet, consisting of a destroyer and a helicopter-carrying supply ship, began its voyage last month from the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. The ships, carrying some 30 navy academy cadets for training along with their regular crews, are on a three-month mission.

The voyage comes amid an ongoing push by Iran to demonstrate its ability to project power across the Middle East and beyond.

IRNA quoted Haddad as saying the fleet is approaching U.S. maritime borders for the first time. The Islamic Republic considers the move as a response to U.S. naval deployments near its own coastlines. The U.S. Navy's 5th fleet is based in Bahrain, just across the Persian Gulf.

What thread should this go on?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lynching-of-christian-man-by-muslims-is-sign-of-chaos-in-central-african-republic/2014/02/09/ecd02e54-91d5-11e3-b3f7-f5107432ca45_story.html?hpid=z1

Pumandele’s body was taken inside his small house. His father, Gilbert, seemed confused by his son’s unexpected demise. “He’s a civilian,” he said. “He doesn’t own a gun. He doesn’t carry a knife. Why? Why?”

It was a question no one in the crowds outside could answer. They possessed only anger and blame. The war had reached their home. Pumandele, they said, was the first in their community to be killed by the sectarian violence.

Some blamed the roughly 6,500 French and African soldiers, authorized by the U.N. Security Council, for being unable to protect their community. Others blamed the nation’s politicians, whose government collapsed after a coup in March by Muslim Seleka rebels, who tormented the majority-Christian population. That prompted the rise of the anti-Balaka, Christian vigilantes who are targeting Muslims.

“We want PK5 to be completely disarmed,” said Kisito Ngoni, 38, a neighbor.

“Let’s take his body to the United Nations office,” suggested Aime Neka, 32, Pumandele’s uncle. “We’ll demonstrate there until they find a solution to the violence

if i lived in israel i'd vote for bennett; dude is money:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/opinion/putting-all-israelis-to-work.html

http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/Yarmouk%20Refugee%20Camp/BitariFinal.pdf

^ btw, this article is an amazing read and i highly recommend

if this is true, holy fuck:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Egyptian-reports-highlight-alleged-Morsi-al-Qaida-cooperation-340556

But this too, from the NY Times:

QUOTATION OF THE DAY
"This is a dangerous decision. It validates an attack not just on me and my two colleagues, but on freedom of speech across Egypt."
PETER GRESTE, a journalist for Al Jazeera English, imprisoned under a widening crackdown by Egypt's government that has ensnared scores of reporters, bloggers and teachers.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26323638

Egypt's government has apparently resigned.

well.

"The country is facing huge dangers. It is time we stood together to protect it and help it get out of this narrow tunnel," he added.

"This is neither the time for demands by public workers nor the time for personal interests, but the time for us to put our country's interests above all others."

u'd think the country's interest would include a stable government for the 2 months until elections

Do you think Al-Sisi cares about that?

from that BBC article

The cabinet's decision to submit its resignation to interim President Adly Mansour was made after a 30-minute meeting on Monday attended by Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, defence minister and first deputy prime minister.

The field marshal is widely expected to announce soon that he will step down from both posts and run for president.

According to the new constitution approved in January, an election must take place by mid-April. Correspondents say Field Marshal Sisi would be likely to win, given his popularity and the lack of any serious rivals.

http://www.mrdrybones.com/blog/D14223_2.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-apWroNK5OrA/Uwpd-0j7b3I/AAAAAAAAce8/IQ8Ei5FeYuk/s1600/pew+enemy2.jpg

Surprised to see Poland so low.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BhU20FgCAAAiVyN.jpg

lolololol

Israeli forces have repeatedly violated their obligations under international human rights law by using excessive force to stifle dissent and freedom of expression, resulting in a pattern of unlawful killings and injuries to civilians. They do so with virtual impunity due to the authorities’ failure to conduct thorough investigations. This report focuses on the use of excessive force in the West Bank since the beginning of 2011. It includes cases of killings and injuries of Palestinian civilians in the context of protests against Israel’s continuing military occupation of the Palestinian territories, illegal Israeli settlements and the fence/wall.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/002/2014/en

According to Amnesty International’s research, he was among the first of at least 22 Palestinian civilians to be killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2013, four of whom were children.

Obviously every death is unfortunate, a tragedy, but let's be clear what kind of numbers we're discussing here.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2014/03/skyshield/

let's be clear what kind of numbers we're discussing here.

― Mordy , Friday, February 28, 2014 11:00 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what is 22 being opposed to here

i'm sure i'll get in trouble for answering that question, but --

i actually apologized for that callous comment on the posts very much in character thread. i guess my pt was that it actually seems like a very low number to me considering the circumstances, especially compared to neighboring countries + other western countries. eg 7,818 civilians killed in Iraq in 2013, 1,319 in Afghanistan, Syria numbers so high they are no longer counting, 11 people killed in the Turkish protests, dozens dead in Ukraine in the recent bout, not to mention the numerous fatalities of the US drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, etc. Law enforcement in the United States killed 309 ppl in 2013. Re Israel directly, in 2013 6 Israelis were killed (5 of them in the West Bank) and 9 Gazans were killed by the IDF. Essentially in looking at an occupation where protests often turn violent (rock throwings, firebombings, etc) + compared to other locations of unrest, it just struck me as pretty hysterical language (Amnesty International calling for all arms to be cut off to Israel) for what is comparably a historically + politically very low number. This is especially when compared to historical casualty numbers between Israel + Palestine in previous years which far surpassed 22 deaths (you don't even need to look back to the Second Intifada to see vastly larger numbers).

http://news.yahoo.com/israel-intercepts-ship-transporting-iranian-weapons-004328955.html

Why would Syrian-made weapons be sent to Iran to then be ferried to Gaza?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/middleeast/syria.html

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/SYRIA/SYRIA-superJumbo.jpg

Digital photography experts said they believed that the image was real.

wow.

back to this shit - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-rockets.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/03/11/289058115/which-place-is-more-sexist-the-middle-east-or-latin-america?ft=1&f=1060

groaned when that showed up in the feed

this is amazing: http://electronicintifada.net/content/phony-pluralism-israels-universities/13246

Palestinian students at Israeli universities are likely to notice an increase in the number of scholarships they can apply for in the coming months. Various websites for academic institutions will also be translated into Arabic.

These changes are the result of a government decision to allocate some $82 million over the course of six years for integrating “minorities” into the higher education system.

At first glance, it may appear that Israel has undertaken a U-turn in policy following decades of discriminatory and exclusionary practices against Palestinian students.

Yet when deeper questions are asked, it becomes obvious that whatever intentions those who drafted this policy had, standing up for the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel was not one of them.

The new policy was devised as part of a project to boost “pluralism” in Israeli universities by ensuring greater access for minorities.

The Israeli Council for Higher Education, the body behind the project, has identified the minorities targeted as “Arabs, Druze and Circassians.”

Instead of celebrating an $82 million dollar program to open higher education to Arab Israeli citizens, the author compares this to "pinkwashing," and says it is just a way to distract the world from the occupation of the West Bank. It is impossible for Israel to do anything good without it just being cynical subterfuge to hide its many crimes. imho this is a kind of psychosis.

this is the video electronicintifada didn't like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5fNIpE_rZs

http://doctorzamalek2.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/bisbb1kccaex_a9.png

529* muslim brotherhood supporters who were in the camps that were forcibly closed last summer have been sentenced to death

*bbc seems to be alone in saying 528

U.S. and Israel Said to Be Near Agreement on Release of Spy
By JODI RUDOREN

The reported deal would extend Israeli-Palestinian talks into 2015 in exchange for the release of Jonathan J. Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel, along with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

hmmmmm

i'm not a big fan of this deal

Feels like they're just manipulating the US

for what? pollard goes free in a year or two anyway bc his term is up. in exchange they let tons of prisoners go, agree to a settlement freeze, and continue unproductive conversations for another year. seems like a bad deal to israel to me. if you really want pollard just wait 2 years and get him for free.

Oh, I thought Pollard was going to be in for longer. ...Israel will really agree to a settlement freeze?

that's what is rumored to be on the table. it wouldn't be the first time - bibi froze settlements in 2009:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-declares-10-month-settlement-freeze-to-restart-peace-talks-1.3435

re his freedom:

Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is an American convicted of passing classified information to Israel while working as a civilian intelligence analyst.[1] He pled guilty and received a life sentence in 1987. Because his crime occurred prior to November 1, 1987, he is eligible for parole after 30 years in prison provided he continues to maintain a clean record, and may be released on November 21, 2015.

so talks (hopefully) over for now. imho let palestinians exhaust their interests at the UN. either they'll have some success (good for them) or, more likely, find out how impotent the UN is and finally be ready to make a deal. but they won't ever make a deal as long as they think there's a better deal that can be imposed unilaterally on israel

Why "hopefully" over?

Plus, they may not be.

But in a surprise move Tuesday, Abbas signed letters of accession to 15 international conventions, saying this was a response to Israel’s failure to release the last of four groups of prisoners by the end of March.

Israel has not responded. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry canceled plans to return Wednesday to the Middle East, but also said it’s “completely premature” to write off the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

There were some indications from Palestinian officials that Abbas’ unexpected step largely was intended as a pressure tactic. Keeping on good terms with the U.S. and negotiating the terms of a Palestinian state with Israel remain pillars of Abbas’ political strategy.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Wednesday that the Palestinians are not turning away from negotiations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/group-israel-moving-forward-with-settlement-homes/2014/04/02/c587cc5c-ba3f-11e3-80de-2ff8801f27af_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop

well, if i believed it might lead to an actual lasting peace agreement i'd be in favor, but i don't think it will.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/04/03/there_are_now_one_million_syrian_refugees_in_lebanon_a_country_of_4_5_million.html

x-post-- So you think ongoing talks that might fail would be worse than not talking at all?

Re problem with the talks--
on the one hand we have the Palestinians going ahead with UN items that annoy Israel, and on the other hand Israel continuing to authorize the building of new housing units in contested areas.

I think there are risks that ongoing peace talks pose if they don't end in a resolution. cf camp david accords + the second intifada.

Syrian situation both inside the country and with refugees elsewhere is so sad.

But how should the non-Russian, non-Iranian world address it?

A rightward-leaning description of all the problems caused by the Syrian crisis.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/opinion/syria-refugees-tisdall/

I have been reading neo-cons assert that "only if" the US had supported the rebels early on, magically Assad would have fallen and the fundamentalists would never have come in either. This hindsight view makes it sound so simple and easy

i don't know what the US or Obama can do to help in Syria, if anything, but i do know that kerry's time would have been better spent trying to find solutions to syria than trying to win a nobel peace prize for an intractable conflict to its south. i liked this article about things the state dpt can do to be better: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/03/why_the_long_face_kerry_state_department_israel_palestine

I wish the US would cut off military aid to Egypt, as we don't seem to have any influence there (which is the argument for continuing it). Some more straight talk with Saudia Arabia might be good too.

x-post-- NPR story- heard only part of it. Person interviewed wants the UN to work with countries in the area to set up refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.

<3 Afghan Turnout Is High as Voters Defy the Taliban:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/world/asia/afghanistan-voting.html?hp&_r=0

"KABUL, Afghanistan — Defying a campaign of Taliban violence that unleashed 39 suicide bombers in the two months before Election Day, Afghan voters on Saturday turned out in such high numbers to choose a new president and provincial councils that polling hours were extended nationwide, in a triumph of determination over intimidation.

Militants failed to mount a single major attack anywhere in Afghanistan by the time polls closed, and voters lined up despite heavy rain and cold in the capital and elsewhere."

Hersh, http://www.lrb.co.uk/2014/04/06/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line:

A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)

‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond in March and April.’

[...]

The foreign policy expert told me that the account he heard originated with Donilon. (It was later corroborated by a former US official, who learned of it from a senior Turkish diplomat.) According to the expert, Erdoğan had sought the meeting to demonstrate to Obama that the red line had been crossed, and had brought Fidan along to state the case. When Erdoğan tried to draw Fidan into the conversation, and Fidan began speaking, Obama cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ Erdoğan tried to bring Fidan in a second time, and Obama again cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ At that point, an exasperated Erdoğan said, ‘But your red line has been crossed!’ and, the expert told me, ‘Donilon said Erdoğan “fucking waved his finger at the president inside the White House”.’ Obama then pointed at Fidan and said: ‘We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria.’

But Erdoğan did not leave empty handed. Obama was still permitting Turkey to continue to exploit a loophole in a presidential executive order prohibiting the export of gold to Iran, part of the US sanctions regime against the country.

Mr. Kerry also faced criticism of the administration’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, saying that the United States had declined to provide even defensive weapons to Ukraine’s army to help protect it from the Russians.

Beyond that, Mr. McCain told Mr. Kerry, “You’re about to hit the trifecta,” with the lack of a political settlement in Syria, a collapse in peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, and the eventual failure of the nuclear negotiations between the major powers and Iran.

Bristling, Mr. Kerry replied that peace talks during the Vietnam War took years, and that Mr. McCain offered no alternative except going to war. “You declare them all dead,” Mr. Kerry said to Mr. McCain. “I don’t. And we’ll see what the verdict is.”

That's a pretty weighted exchange.

Is this maybe the wrong thread, though?

why? he's calling kerry out for 3 specific things in the middle east.

Yeah, sorry. Was thinking it was basically about Ukraine. Sorry.

yeah, i thought it was relevant to ukraine too but i was more lol'ing at mccain calling him an absolute failure for his entire middle east policy

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israel’s announcement of 700 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem precipitated the bitter impasse in peace negotiations last week between Israel and the Palestinians.

From NY Times

it's hard to believe that was the reason since it seemed in the moment (and repeated by abbas + erkfat) that the precipitation was not releasing the last wave of prisoners. and there were other settlement announcements throughout the process that didn't stop talks. but i know that kerry believes the settlements are the reason there isn't peace so i'm not surprised that is what he has emphasized

The Palestinian Olympic athlete Nader al-Masri has been denied permission by Israel to cross from Gaza to participate in this year's Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem.

From NY Times email summary

http://allafrica.com/stories/201404071105.html

Part of Human Rights Watch letter

Dear Secretary Kerry,

We are writing with regard to the FY14 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which requires the Secretary of State to certify that Egypt is meeting its commitment to a democratic transition and taking steps to govern democratically prior to the release of certain military assistance.

At a congressional hearing on March 12, you said that you hoped "in the coming days" to make "the appropriate decision" with regard to restarting some US assistance to Cairo. In the view of Human Rights Watch, the Egyptian authorities continue to violate basic rights essential for the functioning of democracy.

We share your hope that Egypt will embark on a democratic transition, but the government continues routinely to violate the rights of its citizens to free expression, association, and peaceful assembly - all essential components of a democratic transition. Egypt's failure to consolidate any progress on these important issues runs the risk of further destabilizing the country by significantly eroding the potential for Egyptian citizens to resolve their differences peacefully and within the framework of a pluralistic society. Resuming assistance without concrete reforms putting an end to these violations would inevitably link the United States to ongoing repression by the military-backed government.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-west-bank-is-hilarious/2014/04/11/4ee3422a-c020-11e3-b195-dd0c1174052c_story.html?hpid=z3

Later, we got to know stand-up comic Adi Khalefa, who claims to be the funniest guy from Nazareth since Jesus. He talks about getting on a plane in Israel and noticing a sign on the bathroom reading “Occupied.”
“Not just Palestine is occupied, the bathroom on the airplane is occupied?” he cries, before launching into a faux nationalistic chant: “From the river to the sea, our bathroom will be free!”

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-23/an-enduring-fiction-about-jerusalem

a Jeffrey Goldberg article

I thought you'd have moved on and been worried about this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/palestinian-groups-fatah-hamas-announce-accord-that-could-threaten-mideast-peace-talks/2014/04/23/0e0c72ba-cafe-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html

i'm giving the accord at least a week to see if this one sticks

Ha, that's right

"poof"

https://news.vice.com/videos/syria-wolves-of-the-valley

http://prospect.org/article/us-israel-and-palestine-whats-plan-b

pretty much all the solutions offered in that article sound better to me than the current situation

good post-mortum here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/world/middleeast/arc-of-a-failed-deal-how-nine-months-of-mideast-talks-ended-in-dissarray.html

anyone who hasn't seen that vice vid i linked to a few posts ago should. it's really amazing.

Iran and the P5+1 group of nations will start hammering out a draft accord Tuesday aimed at ending a decade-long standoff over suspicions that the Islamic republic is concealing military objectives.
"We have nothing to put on the table and offer to them but transparency. That's it. Our nuclear technology is not up for negotiation," Rouhani, referring to the West, said in remarks broadcast on state television.
"Iran will not retreat one step in the field of nuclear technology... we will not accept nuclear apartheid," he said.

I guess everything is apartheid.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/05/pakistan-worse-than-we-knew/

Interesting take. Hope the below is correct:

Since the mid-1970s the ISI has supported extremist Islamic groups in Afghanistan including the Taliban, but that policy may now be changing. Contrary to many predictions, the situation in Afghanistan may be taking a turn for the better

And hope the military and ISI are changing in Pakistan

really fantastic longform piece:

https://tabletmag.creatavist.com/tantura#chapter-99641

i normally don't like 972 but i thought this was pretty sharp:
http://972mag.com/unilateral-withdrawal-makes-a-comeback-in-israeli-politics/91287/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/world/africa/us-trains-african-commandos-to-fight-terrorism.html?hp&_r=0

WASHINGTON — United States Special Operations troops are forming elite counterterrorism units in four countries in North and West Africa that American officials say are pivotal in the widening war against Al Qaeda’s affiliates and associates on the continent, even as they acknowledge the difficulties of working with weak allies.

The secretive program, financed in part with millions of dollars in classified Pentagon spending and carried out by trainers, including members of the Army’s Green Berets and Delta Force, was begun last year to instruct and equip hundreds of handpicked commandos in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali.

The goal over the next few years is to build homegrown African counterterrorism teams capable of combating fighters like those in Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group that abducted nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls last month. American military specialists are helping Nigerian officers in their efforts to rescue the girls.

i wonder if the french are involved or if this is a solo american venture.

US helping France in Niger:

http://www.stripes.com/news/report-us-commandos-training-counterterror-teams-in-africa-1.285630

the U.S. has been bolstering its network of surveillance aircraft on the continent, which includes a facility in Niger aimed at assisting French forces operating against militants in Mali as well as a more recent drone site in Chad, which supports international efforts to locate more than 200 girls kidnapped by extremists in Nigeria.

what an egyptian ballot looks like

http://doctorzamalek2.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/booz6wnccaaibo0.jpg?w=418

http://forward.com/articles/199179/netanyahu-settlement-freeze-in-west-bank-due-to-a/?

So US pressure is accomplishing that?

that's what bibi says

http://forward.com/articles/199257/the-inconvenient-truth-about-jews-from-arab-lands/?p=all

According to Weinstock, underlying the growing hostility toward the Jewish population in Palestine was the realization that the dhimmi Jews were shaking off their traditional legal status of humiliation and submission. In retrospect, the writer maintains, dhimmi status, on the one hand, and the declared attempt by the Zionist movement to be free of it, on the other, led ultimately to the Arabs’ rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and to the War of Independence the following year.

Local Palestinians and the Arab world refused to grant the Jews of the country a status different from dhimmi, and they were even less likely to recognize the Jews’ national rights. Zionism, for its part, could not accept Arab sovereignty over all of Palestine, a situation in which the Jewish minority would again find itself under dhimmi status. “Historically, then,” Weinstock says, “dhimmi status is the root of the conflict.”

What impact does this relationship have today?

“It continues to affect Israeli-Arab relations even today, because in Arab eyes the Jew who now lives in Israel is the same Jew whom they customarily saw as humiliated – and who is now taking his revenge. The Arabs experience Israel’s establishment and existence to this day as very painful revenge and as the reversal of dhimmitude. This is a very meaningful and deep aspect of the current political problem, which we cannot allow ourselves to ignore. Without understanding this, it is impossible to understand the conflict.”
Then why is it not dealt with more by academics and the press?

“For the Jewish world, the reason is that Ashkenazi Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, continue to be indifferent to and even disdainful of the Mizrahi Jews. For the Arab world, this should come as no surprise, as self-criticism is not popular among Arab journalists, intellectuals and public-opinion leaders. With the exception of a very short incidental note by [the late Prof.] Edward Said in one of his books, it is hard to find serious references to the massive emigration of Jews from the Arab countries and its causes.

“The left tends to avoid the subject, because they don’t consider it ‘kosher.’ The left has become extraordinarily dogmatic and lacks the ability of self-criticism today. People define themselves as identifying with ‘the Palestinian cause,’ and that’s all: There is no thought behind it. This subject might upset their one-sided worldview, so they simply avoid it.”

I had never heard the term "dhimmi" before. Interesting and complex stuff.

Turkey Shuts Off Water Supply to Syria

In the last few weeks, according to Al-Akhbar, the Turkish government completely stopped Euphrates waters from leaving Turkey and flowing into Syria, something made possible by the enormous reservoir behind its Atatürk Dam.

This action threatens water crises in Syria and Iraq . As one indication, the water level in Lake Assad, Syria's largest body of water, has gone down by about 20 feet, according to the paper. Within days, some 7 million Syrians could be left without water as well as electricity. Al-Akhbar says that "a halt to the water supply is now inevitable and can't be resolved unless the Turkish government takes the decision to resume pumping Euphrates water." To make matters yet more worrisome, the fanatic Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group controls the Tishrin Dam, one of Syria's three dams on the Euphrates.

Assad will simply blame Turkey

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/insurgents-seize-iraqi-city-of-mosul-as-troops-flee/2014/06/10/21061e87-8fcd-4ed3-bc94-0e309af0a674_story.html

The neo-con editorial page editor at the W. Post, Fred Hyatt, wrote before this incident that Obama was pulling US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan too soon. Watch him insist now that if US troops were there this would have been prevented...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/mosul-iraq-militants-seize-us-weapons.html

The insurgent fighters who routed the Iraqi army out of Mosul on Tuesday did not just capture much of Iraq’s second-largest city. They also gained a windfall of arms, munitions and equipment abandoned by the soldiers as they fled — arms that were supplied by the United States and intended to give the troops an edge over the insurgents.

The problem is not a new one...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpxn40DCAAAN3eC.png:large

Jason Ukman @JasonUkman
WaPo front page -- Feb. 2008 -- US bets Iraqi forces can take lead. #Mosul @partlowj
10:26 AM - 10 Jun 2014

A colleague who does a lot of work in the area reckons Kirkuk will be next. Erbil is too well defended by local militias to risk attacking at the moment.

http://i.imgur.com/MJ1CPuy.jpg

John Schindler (@20committee) tweeted at 9:38 AM on Wed, Jun 11, 2014:
Tehran won't let ISIS take over much more of Iraq without Iranians entering the fray to resist...gonna get interesting, folks #JihadWorldCup
(https://twitter.com/20committee/status/476720138046414848)

several reports Tuesday suggested insurgents had surrounded Tikrit, which is more than halfway to Baghdad from Mosul. The question becomes when and where Iraqi forces are able to stand their ground against the insurgent advance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/06/10/mosul-is-burning-and-iraq-could-still-get-worse-here-are-5-reasons-why/

man i thought the kurds were unfuckwithable

There's a suggestion that ISIS may have captured nearly half a billion dollars in cash when they took Mosul's central bank.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/iran-officials-call-action-isis-mosul.html

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, addressed the victories of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) against a fleeing Iraqi military in a meeting with Syria’s ambassador to Iran. “The expansion of terrorist elements of [ISIS] and their violent acts in Iraq was a warning for the region,” Shamkhani said. “There is a need for attention and action from governments and the international community.”

Iraq Asked U.S. for Strikes, Officials Say
Prime Minister’s Secret Request Last Month Was Rebuffed
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT 7:14 PM ET
The Obama administration declined the request by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, because it was reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that the White House has insisted was closed.

Wow. I guess not so surprising but I wonder if that means we're not going to do anything when ISIS marches on Baghdad.

apparently half a million refugees from mosul

Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers - roughly 30,000 men - simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters.

jesus

The Peshmerga have taken over Kirkuk as they don't think the Iraqi army can / will defend it - with some justification.

it's hard to believe that ISIS doesn't have any state sponsors. i don't buy conspiracy theories that they're funded by Assad, but is it possible that all their funding comes from foreign fighters, local support and captured equipment?

Don't the Gulf States fund the Syrian rebels (which ISIS was a part of at one time?)

Syrian rebels dislike ISIS and have been in conflict with them for a bit now. Saudi Arabia has been accused of funding them, but they recently dismantled an ISIS cell domestically (nb they have a history of repressing rebel groups domestically and promoting them internationally, but this suggests that they're not on great terms w/ the group).

I didn't realize this institute existed:
http://icsr.info

but a guy from it was on BBC this morning claiming that all funding was pretty much coming from foreign fighters which i found hard to believe (nb i had to stop listening for a minute to order my coffee this morning so i may have missed a claim that gulf states are involved)

They're unlikely to need to worry about money if the rumours about Mosul bank are true. There have been a couple of cases where foreigners have been caught trying to smuggle tens of thousands of dollars into Syria to aid them and i wouldn't be surprised if they had a few wealthy patrons in the gulf but i've not heard anything compelling about state funding.

it's just kinda crazy to me that there's this huge army able to takeover Mosul in an afternoon and seize half a bil in assets -- and they're independent actors w/out state support. how often does that happen? i'm struggling to think of a recent example...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-militants-moving-in-on-syria-and-iraq.html?emc=edit_th_20140612&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31119931

The group is a magnet for militants from around the world. On videos, Twitter and other media, the group showcases fighters from Chechnya, Germany, Britain and the United States.

Its members are better paid, better trained and better armed than even the national armies of Syria and Iraq, Sheikh Hassan said.
Many of the recruits are drawn by its extreme ideology. But others are lured by the high salaries, as well as the group’s ability to consolidate power, according to former members, civilians who have lived under its rule in northern Syria and moderate rebels.

...It has taken over oil fields in eastern Syria, for example, and according to several rebel commanders and aid workers, has resumed pumping. It has also secured revenue by selling electricity to the government from captured power plants. In Iraq on Wednesday, the militants seized control of Baiji, the site of Iraq’s largest oil refinery and power plant.

...
“Wherever we took territory, we would declare people apostates and confiscate their property,” Mustafa said. “We took cars and money from Christians, and from Muslims we didn’t like.”

oh right, now i remember, the interviewee did mention that they've been doing some quick turnarounds on seizing natural resources and then pumping them out for cash infusions on the black market

Yes, they are supposedly getting several hundred thousand dollars a week in natural gas from one site alone.

so is china going to send troops to protect their investments in iraqi oil?

this is a really good interview throughout but since it's 3 pages, and the most interesting bit is on the 3rd page, i'll excerpt it here:

Is there an Israeli pivot to Asia that’s been going on for the past few years?

We don’t run the globe like Washington. We try to find friends here and there, connected to, let’s say, Israeli technology or trade. We are not thinking global tectonics. I’ve been to China. They invited us to discuss borders. I say, What do you mean, borders? Are you interested in 30 miles here? They said no, no, you are the only country that in the last 70 years discusses borders on a regular basis. You negotiate borders, you change borders, you kind of mark the borders with the Palestinians, with the Syrians, with the Egyptians, with the Jordanians. There is international law that here you are familiar with, there is security point of view, there is public point of view. They were really interested in it.

And now you see why. Now they’re seizing this whole area in what they call the South China Sea. It’s wasn’t a theoretical discussion.

I’ll tell you what I think I understood. They very much appreciate, respect, what they think is the Jewish mind or the Jewish tradition, the Jewish wisdom. It doesn’t mean that they like the Jews. They respect the Jews. It’s a big difference. When it comes to Israel, I think that they are after the Israeli technology more than everything. They say, “Well, you’re smart enough, you know how to improvise,” and they think they want to copy it, to steal it, etc.

By the way, their main question—we discussed borders, and other issues, I tried to discuss Iran, to tell them that you are making a big mistake—their main question was, can you explain us what the hell—they don’t say the hell, I say the hell—is the American global strategy? They say, “We simply don’t understand what they are doing.” I say, “Why do you think that I’m the one who should explain it?” They said, “You are good friends of the Americans.” By the way, they also think that we run Washington.

I said, “Look, we are very good friends of the Americans, I won’t discuss it here in China. They are an important friend of ours, sometimes we have our differences, but it’s not a thing to discuss here. Don’t ask me about the American policy. Ask the Americans.”

oops, link: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/175547/qa-general-uzi-dayan

Oh great, wonderful messages the Chinese are taking from Israel.

ha, yeah israel exporting doublespeak and "facts on the ground" strategy.

i remember reading once that facts on the ground was originally established as a way to force the palestinians to come to the table - that there'd be a consequence for not negotiating (ie that they're negotiating position vis-a-vis the land would become weaker). obv this strategy did not work.

if the ISIS truly is limited in size do you really think they can continue to consolidate/hold power in the vast territory from which they've now pushed out state armies/police? is it possible they'll have overextended themselves, as in the islamists in mali, or that areas w/in their "control" will just break out into internecine conflicts?

the scariest thing is that having revealed just how weak the iraqi military is, the ISIS will give inspiration to many other groups (including shiites concerned w/ self-defense?) to basically take over the role of the gov't in their respective areas? = full civil war, not just "insurgencies."

that's if you don't think iraq already in full-scale civil war.

i keep remembering how talked-up the revolutionary guard was when the US was going to invade and they crumbled immediately. i'm not sure if it's relevant besides being an interesting analogue.

“For example, with $425 million, ISIS could pay 60,000 fighters around $600 a month for a year.”

According to research by the intelligence consultancy Soufan Group, ISIS may not have much trouble attracting that many fighters — if it doesn’t have that many already. Soufan Group said ISIS has attracted 12,000 militants from abroad already, 3,000 of whom are from the West.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole-425-million-and-became-the-worlds-richest-terrorist-group/?tid=pm_pop

i forget that banks actually have a lot of money--like, paper money--in them.

An incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million.

ok, but how much will that worth in one week? the dinar must be collapsing as we speak

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/iraq.html?hp&_r=0

lots of good info/updates/links in this article.

quick summary: "we spent $1 trillion for a few 100,000 dead iraqis and all we got was this stupid caliphate."

is it me or are there solid reasons why the US and UK govs might not be too worried about a militant Sunni-controlled state suddenly sprouting up next to Iran?

http://www.timesofisrael.com/massive-operation-underway-to-locate-3-teenagers-missing-in-west-bank/

One of the three teenagers is apparently an American citizen.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iraq-crisis-sunni-caliphate-has-been-bankrolled-by-saudi-arabia-9533396.html

Robert Fisk says its all the Saudis fault

"By the end of the week, we soon realised that we had to do some accounting for them," said the official flippantly. "Before Mosul, their total cash and assets were $875m [£515m]. Afterwards, with the money they robbed from banks and the value of the military supplies they looted, they could add another $1.5bn to that."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power

smh

Rolling smh 2014

http://www.timesofisrael.com/defense-ministry-one-dead-in-golan-heights-mortar-attack/ :(

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/al-jazeera-journalists-jailed-seven-years-egypt

Following on from sentencing 181 people to death in a mass trial yesterday and Kerry announcing $575m in military aid the day before.

Ugh

Brushing aside protests from the governments of Western countries, including the United States, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said on Tuesday that he would not interfere in the case of three journalists from Al Jazeera’s English-language service who have each been sentenced to at least seven years in prison.

above from the NY Times.

US should revoke military aid to Egypt.

instead kerry says we're about to reinstate it

It was not frozen very long (as noted above by Sharivari and here):

Shortly before the verdict, US Secretary of State John Kerry had said he was confident that Washington's delivery to Egypt of 10 Apache attack helicopters would take place soon.

And his department confirmed that $572 million in aid to Egypt had just been unfrozen.

Each year the United States allocates $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt, including $1.3 billion in military assistance.

This was frozen in October on condition that democratic reforms be enacted after the July 2013 military-led overthrow of Islamist elected president Mohamed Morsi and a vicious crackdown on his followers.

http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/news/us-military-ties-with-egypt-trump-rights-concerns_24642

I don't really get what supporting the Egyptian military gets us - they're next to our buddies the Saudis and they have a longstanding peaceful relationship w Israel. Is it all just about placating them to make sure they stay friendly to Israel? Cuz I don't see what strategic purpose (well, ok the canal, I guess?) is served by arming them.

i think it's really only the military that is friendly to the saudi monarchy and israel, right?

that would make sense

seriously tho what are they going to do with these attack helicopters? like, who are Egypt's enemies that they require attack helicopters?

their own people, I suppose?

they're going to keep buying parts and ammo for the attack helicopters, i think is the deal

Do you think they would they shut the canal and start trouble with Israel if we cut off the military aid? And I mean Egypt and not US military contractors

Kerry telling the Kurds not to break away from Iraq is p fucking rich. How could it possibly be in their interests to stick with this failed state when they've been after their independence for generations? I get that Kerry is just sticking up for buddies in Turkey but gtfo

otm. fuck kerry. kurdistan now!

ISIS cranks up the propaganda machine:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/who-behind-isis-propaganda-operation-iraq

Winning the Instagram war

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jun/25/map-isis-hates/

When the jihadists of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) tweeted pictures of a bulldozer crashing through the earthen barrier that forms part of the frontier between Syria and Iraq, they announced—triumphantly—that they were destroying the “Sykes-Picot” border. The reference to a 1916 Franco-British agreement about the Middle East may seem puzzling, coming from a radical group fighting a brutal ethnic and religious insurgency against Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraq. But jihadist groups have long drawn on a fertile historical imagination, and old grievances about the West in particular.

This symbolic action by ISIS fighters against a century-old imperial carve-up shows the extent to which one of the most radical groups fighting in the Middle East today is nurtured by the myth of precolonial innocence, when the Ottoman Empire and Sunni Islam ruled over an unbroken realm from North Africa to the Persian Gulf and the Shias knew their place. (Indeed, the Arabic name of ISIS—al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil-Iraq wa al-Sham—refers to a historic idea of the greater Levant (al-Sham) that transcends the region’s modern, Western-imposed state borders.)

In 2014, redrawn borders will not be as simple as Biden had hoped

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/world/middleeast/redrawn-lines-seen-as-no-cure-in-iraq-conflict.html?
emc=edit_th_20140627&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31119931&_r=0

“At least a third of the country is beyond Baghdad’s control, not counting Kurdistan,” said Zaid al Ali, an Iraqi analyst and the author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future.” “But any effort to make that official would likely lead to an even greater disaster — not least because of the many mixed areas of the country, including Baghdad, where blood baths would surely ensue as different groups tried to establish facts on the ground.”
The Obama administration has urged Iraqi politicians of different sects to come together, repeating admonitions that were so often heard in the years after the 2003 invasion. But the Pentagon — reluctant to commit more manpower to a complex and profoundly uncertain conflict — has quietly hinted it could live with Iraq’s current division, despite the dangers posed by a potential new terrorist sanctuary in the deserts linking Syria and Iraq.
...
“You could split these countries into two or three or four, and you’d have the same practice of power in each of those units,” said Peter Harling, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who spent 15 years living in Iraq and Syria. “The problem is the divisive and autocratic and corrupt way power is practiced, not the borders.”

Daash/ISIS is now crucifying more moderate Syrian rebels.

Thanks, Cheney.

Thanks, Cheney.

Cheney and his rightwing columnist supporters have made clear that the extremists were defeated when Bush left office, and they are only back because Obama let them, by not maintaining US forces in Iraq for 50 years or so...But they don't seem to argue that point very well.

I read someone else recently argue that ISIS would have gotten stronger in Iraq even if the US had maintained troops there; and at least this way (US having left because of no agreement with Iraqi government) American troops are not stuck in the middle of the battle

On my iphone so I can't link but news sources saying the three kidnapped teens have been found dead.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/06/30/kindapped-isreli-west-bank-teens/11778415/

Israel's domestic security agency has already named two Palestinian suspects in the abductions — Marwan Kawasma and Amer Abu Aysha, who are described as operatives in the Islamist militant group Hamas.

The bodies of three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped on their way home from religious school June 12 were found shot to death, the Israeli Embassy confirmed Monday.

"They were found in a city called Halhul north of Hebron" in the West Bank, said Jonny Daniels, an adviser to Israel's deputy defense minister, Danny Danon.

Israel rattling Gaza right now, bombing from land and sea. Because how else do you satisfy your thirst for vengeance? Bombing Gaza randomly, that's how...

"randomly"

Explain to me then how bombing Gaza from land, air and sea isn't random. They aren't bombing the people responsible for the abduction now, are they? For they don't know who did it. No, they are making Palestine as a whole suffer in retaliation.

How is that not random?

Because the government of Gaza is Hamas who are responsible for the abduction. When the political leadership of a territory or nation attacks another nation, their landmass is often bombed in retaliation. It's not "random," unless you're stipulating that every war in history is "random" because it unfairly makes civilians suffer.

Not sure if you realize, but it's raining bombs and shells on Gaza right now. Which will inevitably lead to innocent casualties, innocent people murdered. Israel's response to a tragedy is - again - to make a whole people suffer. Just bomb away. And this isn't even taking into account the eight casualties and hundreds of wrongfully detained already in the search for the kidnappers alone.

Xp

How do you know Hamas is responsible? The only party that claimed responsibility up till now was ISIS! But Israel conveniently ignores that.

Bombing men, women and children randomly - yes, it is random, it is not intended to get the people responsible, it is intended to inflict as much damage and death as possible, just because Israel feel they need to do 'something' - is a bloodthirsty, bonkers way of dealing with things.

would imagine w/ the billions the us has given them the israeli might be able to spring for some kind of guided missile system by now. collateral damage would still be inevitable but deliberately not taking steps to limit it in this day and age is barbarism and spinning it on the basis of 'every other war in history civilians die' or this notion that you don't bomb say military targets you bomb 'landmasses' is some sub-rumsfeld nonsense.

balls, srsly

The kidnapping was claimed by Dawlat al-Islam, and ISIS affiliated cell. No one else. But since a nation can't bomb a caliphate, or terrorists, Israel just put it down to Hamas. It is interesting - and telling - that you say "the government of Gaza is Hamas who are responsible for the kidnapping". I'd lol if it weren't so sad. You, nor Israel, have any evidence that this is the case.

Without evidence you hold a "government" and by extension its people responsible for the abduction, and from that you believe it is ok to bomb innocent people. To kill. Duly noted.

like do you really believe based on LBI's hyperbole that what is actually happening is Israel is indiscriminately carpet-bombing Gaza, or that they're using guided missile systems and trying to minimize collateral dmg, aka what they've done in every military operation in Gaza? also, if it is the latter, do you think LBI would have described it any other way that the way he did?

LBI, you better hope it's Hamas bc if ISIS has infiltrated Hebron shit is going to get a lot lot worse than a bombing campaign in Gaza

also fyi LBI, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha are Hamas affiliates. afaik that has not been contradicted by anyone reputable.

Mordy, I don't believe I said Israel is "carpet bombing" Gaza. No need to put words in my mouth. I did say Israel is indiscriminately, randomly bombing Gaza. Get one twitter. Get one Facebook. Deny all you want, innocent people are being targeted here. Because Israel is just bombing away. It isn't a targeted war effort; it is blind retaliation.

I don't have a "preference", this isn't about hoping it is ISIS or Hamas. It is equally terrible, those young boys. But this is now about Israel - again - disproportionally responding to an act of violence.

Facts:
- Israel does not know who kidnapped the three boys
- The Isis cell claimed responsibility (whether true or not)
- Israel (and you, Mordy) regardless hold Hamas accountable. Fine, but where's your evidence?
- Israel starts bombing Gaza out of vengeance and retaliation: not knowing if 'they" are the ones who are responsible, not targeting specific people but just throwing bombs randomly on Gaza.

And you, Mprdy, you defend this. You say Hamas is responsible (while you have no evidence), you say the bombing isn't random because it's against a people under a certain government (as if innocent people aren't killed here! As if all people are to be held responsible for their governments actions. Women? children? Really?) you defend this retaliation bombing.

I'm sorry, but how can you go to sleep at night and defend this bloodthirsty vengeance? How are you ok with people not responsible for kidnapping - children - being killed tonight?

Xp still no evidence. Still speculation. But I see it doesn't bother you to go on a speculative lead and just bomb away.

Going back to Iraqi borders/ISIS, that NYRB article was v patronizing. You can recognise Sykes-Picot et al as indefensible high colonialism w/out having a utopian view of the caliphate. It also seems doubtful that ISIS fail to recognise the longevity of the Sunni/Shia divide

I did say Israel is indiscriminately, randomly bombing Gaza.

JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft pounded dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday after vowing to extract a heavy price from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which it accuses of killing three kidnapped Israeli teenagers on the West Bank.

The Israeli air force carried out a “precision strike” against 34 targets in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the army said. The airstrikes came after more than 20 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza since late Sunday, it said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

I stand corrected. Still think it's a silly thing to do, especially the 'planning' of more repercussions.

THE FAMOUS "PRECISION STRIKES"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-pounds-dozens-of-targets-in-gaza/2014/07/01/fca1e6cd-822c-4371-9f1c-a1294d495999_story.html

On Thursday, Israel released the names of two suspects it said carried out the kidnappings. Israel said that both men are known Hamas operatives and that both have been missing since the three Israeli youths disappeared.

“Not even one Palestinian faction claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, so why do all the Palestinian people have to suffer?” asked Ziad Abu Ein, a deputy minister for prisoner affairs. The Palestinian Authority controls only 10 percent of the West Bank.

Ziad Abu Ein otm

balls otm

so glad this bombing has made Israel secure at last

WaPo article is p informative regarding how tangled this is; basically just reiterates the point that retaliation just begets more retaliation rinse and repeat ("#avengeourboys" not really a helpful attitude for ex.)

this whole 'launch rockets into sderot,' 'kidnap and kill teenagers,' 'throw rocks at civilians' and then demand that israel not respond bc it will be disproportionate shtick is some grade A bullshit.

seems to be working on you dummies so far

as usual you see the criticism as one-sided. both sides need stop it with the endless recrimination/revenge shit. otherwise it just goes round and round forever.

xp

did it occur to you that this whole incident was engineered to specifically disrupt the peace process oh hey look it's working

Whatever happened to trying to catch the people responsible for the crime?

"Throw rocks at civilians" ffs

the peace process was going swimmingly before this

Oh wait trying to find the ones responsible already killed eight Palestinians...

so you don't think this was specifically engineered to undermine the peace process

xp

Swimmingly lol

what peace process shakey? it had been abandoned before the kidnapping. maybe to undermine the hamas/plo unity government - tho that was mostly posed as a motivation by mondo types for why this was secretly a false flag operation. honestly i don't know what political purpose was served by this. certainly not the peace + stability of the palestinians or the israelis. but since when did 'palestinian resistance' ever actually help a human being?

anyway my point is that the cycle of revenge is endless (weird that Israel hasn't noticed this in the last 60 years). the only way to stop it is for one side to refuse to engage in it anymore and accept whatever consequences come of that as being preferable to an eternal cycle of violence. would be nice if either side could take this step.

xp

I'm goin off the quote in the WaPo article from this guy Mordy:

The family has sometimes operated on the fringes of Hamas, wrote Eldar, who suspects the timing of the kidnappings is too convenient. “Each time Hamas has reached an understanding with Israel about a cease-fire … at least one member of the family has been responsible for planning or initiating a suicide attack, and any understanding with Israel, achieved after considerable effort, were suddenly laid waste,” Eldar said.

but since when did 'palestinian resistance' ever actually help a human being?

probably about as often as "precision bombing"

should note I'm referring to a different WaPo article than the one curmodgeon linked:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/01/the-men-israel-blames-for-the-deaths-of-israeli-teenagers-and-their-violent-family-history/

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/qawasmeh-clan-hebron-hamas-leadership-mahmoud-abbas.html#

this would appear to support Hamas' contention that this was not a gov't-sponsored operation but parsing how much of Hamas' operations are top-down activities that are then hidden by misdirection vs. how little they actually control is p difficult. Israel obviously erring on the side of Hamas' being in control, ergo more bombing, which accomplishes... what exactly? More bad blood between the two parties? yeah that's what we need.

islamic jihad has been firing rockets from gaza for weeks (and israel returning fire on launch sites). eldar is being disingenuous by suggesting that this is primarily about the cease fire. much more likely they wanted to undermine the coalition government.

maybe they were frightened that abbas stood a legitimate chance of moderating hamas and they wanted to force hamas back into public radicalism. idk, this is very back of envelope guessing.

I think he's conflating the two; they aren't entirely unrelated

xp

Oh good a revenge killing. Problem solved!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/world/asia/iraq-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-sermon-video.html

Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip Monday have killed nine Hamas militants. The Israeli military reported the strikes targeted "terror sites and concealed rocket launchers" across Gaza after about 25 rockets were fired into Israel on Sunday. According to the Israeli military, rockets launched from Gaza injured an Israeli soldier on Monday. The increase in attacks has come amid rising tensions over the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers and a Palestinian teen. On Sunday, Israeli authorities arrested six Israelis over the suspected revenge killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who is believed to have been burned to death after he was kidnapped. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian teenager's father Monday expressing outrage over the "reprehensible" murder, vowing to deal with the suspects "to the fullest extent of the law."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4539651,00.html

A report by the BBC shows that Palestinian supporters are using fake images to illustrate the suffering in Gaza.

"Graphic images are being shared on social media to show how people have been affected by the renewed tensions between Israel and the Palestinians," the BBC reported.

"Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza."

The hashtag has received 375,000 retweets in eight days.

"A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq," the report said.

fyi LBI

here's the original BBC link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28198163

it's just a little bombing, it's still good

it's just a little photo misattribution for propaganda purposes on social media. no biggie, all in service of the cause.

omg there is misinformation on the internet

seems like a minor concern next to actual lives lost but ymmv

lol you're so disingenuous it's gross

considering that the entire scope of the hamas battleplan is to incite israel to damage gaza sufficiently so they can parade photos in front of the arab world and hopefully earn support + marginalize israel further, i think the use of fake photos is entirely relevant to the entire thing. on hamas' side this upcoming conflagration is almost entirely about producing more photos to post on twitter. it's certainly not about dealing an actual military defeat to israel.

ok

what am I being disingenuous about?

hamas battleplan is to incite israel to damage gaza sufficiently so they can parade photos in front of the arab world

Israel only too happy to oblige unfortunately.

that it's somehow excusable or unimportant that fake photos are being used to incite outrage (nb LBI in this very thread)

yes, well, basically the entire southern israel is shut down at the moment bc of constant sirens + rockets. parents on my fb haven't sent their kids to school in days and many are moving up north to be with family. but hey, israel should just ignore hamas.

when has Hamas ever been capable of dealing a military defeat to Israel (and when did I say this was their goal?) Their whole m.o. is to garner Arab pressure against Israel, that's p much the only resource they have.

xp

well the way they do that is by scoring propaganda victories through the use of misattributed photos so i think it's very relevant to the conflict. if you agree w/ that i don't know why you're being so dismissive.

that it's somehow excusable or unimportant that fake photos are being used to incite outrage

given the wealth of shit Israel actually has fomented on Palestinians it does seem p unimportant to me, a minor detail.

parents on my fb haven't sent their kids to school in days and many are moving up north to be with family

I wonder where the Palestinian parents get to send their kids/families

xp

all this boils down to imo is you are cool with bombing people. I am not. sorry if that appears disingenuous.

got it. bc their lives are shit israel shouldn't bother responding to attacks on its territory bc it will make their lives more shit.

yes, i am cool with responding to rocket fire w/ the IDF. i assume that if your home was being targeted by rockets you'd feel the same way, but thank god you don't have to worry about it.

you yourself are arguing that its against Israel's interests to retaliate militariliy so I don't really get what you think they are accomplishing.

i think that a missile was just shot at tel aviv and if you can't prevent missiles being shot at your biggest city w/ a military response you aren't really a country anymore.

but let's hear your idea. does it involve ignoring hamas and hoping the rockets stop eventually?

do you want them to bomb *just enough* to make Hamas think it isn't worth it to try and make them bomb some more idgi

but let's hear your idea. does it involve ignoring hamas and hoping the rockets stop eventually?

grant some defensible concession that will court world opinion, like, say actually dismantling all the illegal settlements (or even just say they will) and then it will look like Hamas is the unreasonable agressor voila their twitter campaign is fucked

i think they should target hamas/islamic jihad operatives + rocket stockpiles to thin a) the ppl shooting the rockets and b) the rockets being shot. do it until hamas asks for a cease fire. between the last operation, being jettisoned by iran, and the muslim brotherhood collapsing in egypt, hamas is incredibly weak as is. weakening them further will only help abbas and will hopefully stop the rockets dropping all over israel so ppl can get back to their lives.

remember the last time they dismantled settlements and withdrew? what happened then? oh yeah, hamas moved in and started firing rockets. def a good idea to try the same thing again to stop these rockets.

I remember there was looting/rioting and Palestinians burned some synagogues that were left behind (yr talking about 2005 right?)

xxp

anyway I just pulled that out of a hat - they could say they are stopping new settlements, or something else, whatever would most undercut Hamas' position as the morally righteous underdog (which btw I do not actually believe they are in case that isn't clear)

yes, but i'm talking about the fact that hamas immediately took control of gaza and started bombing israel - which is exactly what is going on today. the last withdrawal from settlements led directly to the rockets happening today. offering to withdraw from more settlements to stop these rockets seems insane to me. it'll just lead to new rockets, this time much much closer to tel aviv and jerusalem!

like i understand not liking the occupation. i don't like it. it's distasteful/immoral to be in control of ppl who don't have a vote. that's why i think israel should annex the whole bloody thing and give citizenship to the palestinians living there. but just leaving unilaterally, in light of 2005, is not a feasible option.

Mordy, I know there's false images about. There's also real ones: http://www.nrc.nl/inbeeld/2014/07/08/gaza-stad-is-getroffen-door-een-zwaar-israelisch-luchtoffensief/

No need to inform me about falsely attributed images. There're enough that are from today. Israel going all out in bloody vengeance.

you call it vengeance, i call it an appropriate response to 80 rockets

if you can't prevent missiles being shot at your biggest city w/ a military response you aren't really a country anymore.

I guess there are a bunch of countries that aren't actually countries by this estimation. sucks to be you, Costa Rica!

it'll just lead to new rockets, this time much much closer to tel aviv and jerusalem!

I don't really get how current policy of antagonizing Hamas and lending moral credence to their claims of unjust oppression really reduces the number of rockets either. The picture you paint implies that Hamas will bomb Israel *no matter what Israel does* so Israel might as well bomb back. But imo all this does is increase the amount of misery going around, it doesn't actually lead to any conclusive resolution, it just fuels the fire. Do you think if Israel's "targeted bombing" (sad megalol at this general concept too, btw) at "jihad operatives + rocket stockpiles" (which in practice inevitably leads to innocent deaths/collateral damage) is targeted enough that the Arab world - hell, the rest of the world including the twitterverse - will all say, "oh, gee this is perfectly reasonable, good on you Israel!" No, of course not. Hamas will win the "hearts and minds" battle if Israel bombs anything. Israel takes the moral high ground, not only will fewer people die, they will have stronger international support and a better position from which to negotiate a permanent solution.

xp

i think protecting your ppl comes first, before looking good in front the international community.

i also suspect that it doesn't really matter what israel does, the arab world will never be won over. they might ultimately negotiate / make peace but it won't be because israel moved them by not responding to rocket fire.

It's in in appropriately huge and devastating "response". Bombing innocent people who cannot flee anywhere because they are trapped. 40.000 reservists called up.

But by all means, keep calling a nation a 1000 times more forceful attacking Palestine "an appropriate response"... It's against international laws, but we all know how Israel feels about that.

If these false justifications makes you feel this is 'right', make you sleep well at night, by all means.

you legit argue like a child, LBI.

all i can say is thank god israel is 1000 times more powerful than the palestinians bc in 67 and 73 they weren't 1000 times more powerful than the arab nations attacking them and it was miraculous that they survived. now they can guarantee their own survival.

and what a glorious, trouble-free, amoral survival it is

The bully never looks good

"oh did you hit me? I STAB YOU"

survival is rarely trouble free, but it's better than the alternative

No, I don't. You sweep all of Israel's force and actions under the 'nuanced' misnomer "appropriate response". There is no discussing this with you when that is the be all and end all.

You think Israel is entirely in it's right to lash out like this. You refuse to acknowledge the devastating effects, for ever trapped in the 'but they started it!' discourse.

If you want childish, there you are.

I can't think of anything more childish than constantly beating up someone smaller than you and then being angry when they don't stop fighting back

like omg they're firing rockets at our city from their garbage dump! maybe it's because we have a city.

^^ that.

The way that you guys discuss this, "vengeance," "lashing out," "beating up," in my eyes indicates how superficial your engagement with any of this really is. If you can't understand Israel's actions today in the context of defending its populace than you're always going to have to reduce military events to the asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life. Israel isn't planning on risking IDF lives in a ground invasion because they're a big bully who hates the Palestinians. They're doing it because they have an obligation to protect the civilians who live in their country. The size of the force firing the rockets doesn't matter - just the fact that life has been disrupted while rockets land in Israel. Just like Israel had an obligation to build a fence because they had to protect their citizens against suicide bombers coming in from the West Bank. Maybe LBI feels like he can understand how the Palestinians feel and so he sympathizes with rock throwing, molotov cocktail launching, rocket shooting as an expression of their dissatisfaction. But no government has the luxury of sympathizing with the people firing rockets. That's not how governments work. Anywhere, afaik.

asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life

no need to get personal

Like LBI, you don't like that when you discuss this with me, I won't talk on the terms laid out by the radical pro-Palestinian left. I can understand that you're frustrated. I do appreciate that you haven't been reduced to calling me a Ziofascism, or insinuated that I'm on the payroll of Israeli hasbara. But if you're really committed to peace, you need to understand the other POV. It seems to me like between the two of us, you're the one stuck in an echo chamber. You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media. My feed is full today of people praying for minimal casualties, and a quick cessation of hostilities, but who recognize that their lives can't continue until the rockets stop falling and the air sirens stop going off. They pray that the IDF doesn't go into Gaza because they have children serving that they are scared of losing. They aren't rah-rahing a campaign into Gaza because they are big bullies who hate Arabs.

re: military events - it's Israeli policy to *always* respond disproportionately to any violence inflicted on its populace, are you seriously suggesting otherwise? Hamas kills 3 people, Israel kills 20, etc. 8- rockets = threat of 40,000 reservists invading. The idea, now disproven with tiresome regularity, is that if the response is just forceful enough to stop the immediate danger but not so forceful that it looks like genocide, then somehow Israel will navigate the conflict to a successful (for them) conclusion. This calculus is so deeply cynical and inhumane it's hard to fathom, but that it's performed at all is due entirely to Israel's vast military superiority.

xp

You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media

dude you need to chill with the ad hominem shit. I am not on fb, I follow 20 people on twitter (all of whom are either friends/family, none related to Israel), I am not on social media.

it's rich that you complain about my echo chamber and then clearly delineate your own though, nicely done.

Every country that engages in a military conflict uses the tools available to them. The United States didn't hold back troops from Iraq or Afghanistan because their force was unfairly larger + more powerful than the Taliban or the Revolutionary Guard. The "proportionate" thing is one of the dumbest ideas to come out of I/P conflict imo. Israel should do its best to limit civilian casualties but should use whatever is at their disposal to neuter Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

I was more talking to LBI, Shakey, but okay.

The United States didn't hold back troops from Iraq or Afghanistan because their force was unfairly larger + more powerful than the Taliban or the Revolutionary Guard

idk if these are the examples of successful, morally defensible military operations that you want to make

I guess if Mexico were bombing us Mexico City would be a smoldering ruin tout de suite but that doesn't mean I would support it as justifiable

I only hear about proportionality when it comes to Israel responding to rocket fire in Gaza. I've never heard it regarding any other military conflict in my adult life of reading about worldwide conflict.

tbf the Israel/Palestinian conflict is p unique militarily

I certainly can't think of any analogous situation

The way that you guys discuss this, "vengeance," "lashing out," "beating up," in my eyes indicates how superficial your engagement with any of this really is. If you can't understand Israel's actions today in the context of defending its populace than you're always going to have to reduce military events to the asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life.

But if you're really committed to peace, you need to understand the other POV. It seems to me like between the two of us, you're the one stuck in an echo chamber. You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media.

Holy shit, dude. The ego on you. And I'm the one stuck in an echo chamber? I need to understand the other POV? Do you have any idea how condescending you are? Telling me to get perspective, implying you do and I - or anyone else not agreeing with you - don't?

You know nothing about my 'POV', possible personal involvement or engagement. And for the sake of the argument, to keep things clean - ie. without ad hominems you indeed keep using - that shouldn't have to matter. Of course I won't call you a 'Ziofascist', why would I?

I don't care who you are, I care about what you say. But your continued condescending tone, claiming you are the only one with the right view on this conflict, the one with perspective, calling me frustrated, childish, hysterical even...

I've no use to 'discuss' this with someone who uses this sort of rhetoric and takes this attitude towards me. It is, quite frankly, insufferable. You won't see me in this thread anymore. It's no use speaking to someone who inherently feels he is right and the other "doesn't understand", doesn't have perspective. All the best.

guys i think we can all agree israelis burning palestinian children alive and palestinians claiming that some video of a pallas cat they shared on facebook was from nepal when actually it was from some zoo in england are pretty much equally evil offenses. though obv only one of these activities should be funded by the american govt.

protip LBI: if you want to know insufferable, try talking to someone who assumes that you can only hold a particular position to help you "sleep at night," and that you're morally bankrupt for not agreeing with them. if you can't see how your comments on this topic amount of emotional manipulation, then i guess you're right, better you should just bow out. if you want to actually discuss this without marginalizing other opinions as monstrous, I'll always be here to talk.

well this was productive

mordy you got any protips on burning a child alive?

yeah, don't do it.

not sure if you needed to be told but you seem pretty confused in general so better to be on the safe side.

wait are you gonna tell us that hamas actually burned that palestinian child alive cuz yr gut tells you or are you just gonna tell us that throughout history plenty of children have been burned alive so big whoop amirite. help me i'm confused. are either of these morally bankrupt? cuz god knows you're not that.

Mordy is there any actual support in Israel for your annexation plan? This is not a solution I hear bandied about anywhere else tbh, and while forcibly absorbing a population that doesn't want to be part of your country into your civil society obviously presents, um, certain difficulties (particularly at this late date) it does seem preferable to me - just from a political and moral standpoint. Of course it would be ... complicated.
xxp

Is there support for any plan? I mean, there is some support for a similar plan. Bennett has proposed annexing most of the area (though not all of it) and he is in a political party with a legitimate amount of support from the population. Caroline Glick wrote about a similar plan. A lot of the concern is about "demographic timebomb" stuff which imho is not a real consideration. I think it's a more feasible solution than two state atm. Well, the binational solution looks somewhat promising too.

idk what to tell you balls. i hope the perpetrators get life sentences.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/08/gaza_attack_how_egypt_s_military_government_helped_isolate_hamas_ahead_of.html

I assume being annexed by Israel is not a very popular plan for Palestinians, citizenship or no...

No, probably not.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/07/08/world/middleeast/ap-un-united-nations-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?ref=aponline

More Iraq news:

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-destroys-shiite-mosques-and-shrines-iraq-257683

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/ahmad-chalabi-pariah-iraq-next-prime-minister

Oh no, he's back.

Chalabi return is like hearing Paul Wolfowitz is going to be the next president of the US

Public health officials in Gaza said Wednesday that 35 people have been killed in the coastal strip by Israeli airstrikes, including 16 minors and five women. At least 300 other people, more than half of them women and children, were injured seriously enough to be taken to area hospitals, they said.

Israeli casualties = 0

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the rockets [fired from Gaza], most of which fell in open areas or were intercepted by the Israeli anti-missile system.

im pulling 4 palestine in world cup over us/germany/israel

wld guess palestinians are backing argentina http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19861023

We tried to strike nuclear reactor, Hamas says
Hamas says the most recent attack on the southern city of Dimona targeted Israel’s nuclear facilities.

The Iron Dome shoots down two rockets, but others are thought to have fallen in the area. No damage or injuries are reported.

smart, trying to hit a nuclear reactor

doesn't seem like it matters very much what they are trying to hit, since they can't hit anything

they've hit some homes + commercial residences, but the iron dome has shot down the most dangerous rocket trajectories

$1.5 billion in american taxpayer dollars for iron dome alone.

Palestinians don't even get an Aluminum Dome

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/09/330160839/what-happens-when-israeli-mourners-visit-a-palestinian-family

It's pretty silly to discount rocket volleys just because most of the rockets either don't hit their targets or get shot down. The logical implication is that if the rockets start killing Israelis then the Israelis are fully justified in whatever response. But I can't imagine that's the position of the folks taking that stance.

The problem seems to be and has always been that both countries harbor and coddle a sizeable extremist population. Most Israelis I imagine support some sort of satisfactory compromise, as I imagine do most Palestinians. But a hunk of both groups support no compromise and/or the destruction of the other side. Maybe not formally, like Hamas does, but certainly implicitly. I and apparently no one has any idea how to simultaneously curb two sets of policy-dictating extremist factions. That's what seems to be what sets this conflict apart. Usually there is an establishment and a rebellion, say. In this case, we've got two establishments, and two rebellious, internal extremist groups capable of really anything. Yet the odds of the establishment cracking down on its own people, people who provide an existential component of the respective country, are nil. Which of course makes each impotent govt responsible for the actions of its minorities, which leads to perpetual conflict and blame and revenge, since it becomes everyone's collective fault.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2014/07/gaza_civilian_casualties_while_hamas_targets_innocent_people_israel_tries.html

always hear this thread to the tune of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAcB787DfQ4

Funny, I always hear this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4qh_9vH1Ww

lol

Most Israelis I imagine support some sort of satisfactory compromise, as I imagine do most Palestinians.

I agree with most of what you're saying but this might be understating the gap between normative positions on both sides. I think questions like the division of Jerusalem, or the right of return for refugees, and descendants of refugees from 48, are controversial even for moderates. I'm also not convinced (unlike Kerry) that you can possibly settle the conflict without handling these major issues.

Well, compromise means compromise. Division of Jerusalem I could see, or the transformation of the city into some sort of neutral territory. (Not that that would stop extremist violence). But yeah, not a lot of give on the issue of right of return, for obvious reasons.

One difference between the two groups, I think, is that if you are Israeli and for any sort of compromise or peace, you are not branded a turncoat traitor and targeted as such. Israel may be on the restrictive side of democracy, but they enjoy free speech. The Palestinians and their supporters, I think it's really hard to generalize what they believe, because for lots of reasons they are not always free to say what they feel or believe for fear of repercussion.

Obvious solution is to require the mutual excision/repression/outlawing of extremist elements on both sides on the grounds of their representing an existential threat

Sure. But each like I said is a sizeable, significant existential component that dictates the direction of the government, often democratically. It'd be like saying the US could get a lot more done if we just outlawed Republicans and Tea Party and religious right people. Both extremist groups have long been integrated into the respective Palestinian and Israeli governments. It's not so simple to suddenly kick them out, esp. since the alternative is, what, Egypt under Mubarak? Libya under Gaddafi? Just about any Arab nation under just about any dictator? And a lot of good that does when the dictator goes away and, go figure, the extremists are still there.

my pie in the sky fantasy resolution is that w/ the lack of iranian funding, Egyptian support, gulf states concentrating on syria + PLO antagonism plus israeli aerial campaign hamas collapses (wishful thinking #1). israel then empowers (wishful thinking #2) abbas to run new elections in gaza + west bank. maybe PLO can pull together a moderate government (wishful thinking #3) that might have the representation to negotiate w/ israel. at that point maybe kerry releases the US framework plan and both peoples can have a referendum vote or something.

more likely: israel bombs hamas until hamas runs out of rockets (through shooting them - losing them in depot explosions) and then they agree to a cease fire, repeat in two years.

If the GOP was advocating for the destruction of California I dont think there would be any issues w outlawing such a traitorous element. We did already sort of fight a civil war over these ideas.

lol GOP has long done the best it could sans rockets.

unfortunately agree w mordy on likely scenario here

War of attrition has been default mode for decades. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, being played as puppets by other countries basically dooms them to lose again and again. No other country would dare declare direct war against Israel, especially when proxy by wire transfer allows them to keep the fight going without getting involved.

The more I read about the Iron Dome, the more surreal this scenario becomes. Sure, no Israelis are being killed by shelling ... because they are hiding in their bunkers while a high-tech anti rocket system takes out the incoming missiles. As someone said on the radio this morning, if this Iron Dome were not in place, and if Israelis were not hiding in shelters, then yeah, you would have Israeli casualties. Also, you would have Israel likely already invading the Palestinian territories, which would lead to Israeli deaths, yes, but many, many more Palestinian deaths. Iron Dome, in one of the many ironies of war, is keeping plenty of people safe on both sides.

I remember ppl discussing that during Pillar of Defense in 2012 - that the iron dome gave Bibi the freedom to hold ground troops back until a cease fire could be reached

At the risk of linkdumping, Chomsky on BDS rhetoric and tactics: http://www.thenation.com/article/180492/israel-palestine-and-bds?page=full

eugh

chomsky railed against boycott and divestment of south africa in their day, too.

(My linking, in this case, was not based on more than thinking this was relevant to the thread, I should say.)

x-post to:
As someone said on the radio this morning, if this Iron Dome were not in place, and if Israelis were not hiding in shelters, then yeah, you would have Israeli casualties

The NPR radio report I heard said that Iron Dome was only blocking a very small percent of the incoming rockets

i heard something like 80-90% success rate? but they only target rockets that are on trajectory to hit residential areas so of the whole quantity of rockets it might be a much smaller percentage

"Iron Dome racks up 90% success rate so far"

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.604039

here's the important bit:

The Iron Dome missile defense system has achieved a nearly 90 percent success rate since Monday night, an improvement over its performance during Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012.

The defense system is activated only when the rockets fired by Palestinian militants at Israel appear likely to hit populated areas.

It has been activated to intercept about 27 percent of the approximately 180 rockets fired between Monday night and midday Wednesday. Of the times when Iron Dome was activated, it successfully intercepted the rockets nearly 90 percent of the time, and there have been few rocket hits or serious injuries.

The success of the defense system marks an improvement over the 84 percent success rate during Operation Pillar of Defense.

As my dad used to say, they only have to lose once.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21751766

I heard an interview with the MIT guy quoted in this article who is the one naysayer re the success rate. The MIT guy apparently interprets success as destroying the incoming rocket completely, while others count making contact with it

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsNxStWIMAE6eHM.jpg

Yes, despite saying I wouldn't be back, here I am. And I am truly sorry, Mordy, if I have been unfair to you - which I have been, in regards to 'how do you sleep at night'.

The above image sums up the sad state of affairs though. Do you still think this is an "appropriate response"?

i can't imagine bibi stopping the aerial campaign until gaza either stops or runs out of rockets - from a political calculus pov. from a personal pov i am reserving my emotional energy for hoping that ground troops are not sent in. my feeling is that they won't be - that bibi demonstrated in 2012 how little he wants to bring the IDF back into gaza. w/out the muslim brotherhood in egypt tho i don't know who is going to negotiate on behalf of hamas - it seems like they need a real state power to sit at the table w/ israel for them. maybe erdogan?

vice ran this doc recently about idf training for urban warfare:
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/israeli-urban-warfare

it's pretty terrifying imo. i first read about it here: http://www.skor.nl/_files/Files/OPEN18_P80-99(1).pdf < if you've never read that paper i highly recommend it

I don't think Bibi will go for a ground way (no matter how much people like Liebermann would love to see it happen). Nothing to gain from it but international scorn. Still, killing 87 Palestinians for the sake of it... The 'precision'-attack plan has gone right out of the window. Beach huts were bombed yesterday, killing a dozen people just watching football.

I will try and read that paper tomorrow, thanks.

The solution, it seems, has been right in front of our faces the entire time. The Palestinians should get their own Iron Dome defense, then both sides could safely lob missiles and rockets at each other forever.

If a 100% efficient Iron Dome were to exist, would a nation still consider it an act of aggression to have missiles fired at it? Would they feel like it justified retaliation, even though the attack could never harm anyone? (I know this seems like I'm being facetious, but i'm not).

ladies and gentlemen, the voice of Jewish ethnofascism, Knesset member Ayelet Shaked:

“This is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. The reality is that this is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started it... Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

from here

What a weird piece.

I know what it is to have been helpless victims, living and dying under racist oppressors’ boots, and I know that today’s Israelis are no longer the victims but the perpetrators of the current crisis. Yes, Hamas are dreadful hate-filled killers and woe betide Israel had they had the wherewithal to carry out their intentions. But the fact remains that it is Israel which has the tanks, bombers, artillery, nuclear warheads and missile defences of Goliath, while ordinary Gazans had nothing a week ago and even less today, as even hospitals and schools were bombed.

The takeaway being: yes, Hamas are dreadful hate-filled killers and out for blood, but currently less capable of doing mass damage than Israel, therefore Israel should stop what it is doing? Isn't the logical progression of that position that Israel should just keep taking it until Hamas actually does do some real damage? And as I asked above, isn't the progression past that point essentially that then Israel would be totally justified retaliating? Or would that justification only arrive if they helped better arm Hamas first?

And then the author actually cites alleged Israeli teen tweeting as a further source of outrage? She's got to be kidding on that point. I can only imagine that social media is horrific on both sides. Or social media anywhere, about anything, for that matter.

Where is that "This is not a war against terror ..." quote from? It says it was quoted on that far right wing person's Facebook page (red flag right there), but it is unclear if she was quoting someone else.

Response in that paper: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/war-is-war-why-i-stand-with-israel-9601001.html

I agree that social media is p much horrible always everywhere (which is why I stay away from it for the most part)

Isn't the logical progression of that position that Israel should just keep taking it until Hamas actually does do some real damage?

I think the logical progression is don't be a bully. Hamas will never match Israel militarily, let's be real here.

you don't use a shotgun to kill a fly etc

Sure, but I think this is well beyond bullying, isn't it? Isn't it war? And seriously, given Israel has the capability well at hand to do faaaaaaar more damage, and inflict far more casualties, than it currently is doing, I think it's safe to assume Israel is in flyswatter mode. As the second piece notes, there have been 9000 children killed in Syria. 9000.

Man, the comments. Love the first dude who decries the creation of Israel "so a mere 6million, which is the population of Israel, could go live in a desert after Europe had been made safe for them in 1945."

(The 9000 number, btw, is not meant to conflate the two conflicts, just underscore what a real shotgun approach evinces).

I got the impression that any figures for casualties in syria are highly speculative (& often conservative) 1

the IDF is reporting far fewer total rockets entering israeli airspace than the gaza NGO safety office is reported launched - which suggests that a lot of these rockets are falling short and landing in gaza. altho hamas has not caused any casualties on the israeli side, it's very likely they're killing palestinian civilians who get hit by poorly designed rockets.

to change subjects a bit, and interesting conservative take on syria+iraq

http://www.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2014/07/11/mullah-dreams-not-counting-sheep/

basically "let's try to dump the whole thing on iran"

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.604898

LIVE UPDATES: Egypt proposes Gaza cease-fire for Tuesday morning, sources say
Egypt sources offer cease-fire deal starting 9 A.M. on Tuesday; top IDF officer says Hamas ready for cease-fire

saw this in that annoying right-wing columnist Jen Rubin's w. post column:

Cokie Roberts hit the nail on the head when she noted that the Gaza conflict is part of a bigger problem, namely “a real absence . . . of American leadership in the region.” She explained that “ you’ve got these rockets going into Gaza from Syria and Iran,” in part because “we haven’t made a strong enough presence in that region to have people be afraid of this country. And so I think there’s a sense that, you know, they can get with anything they want to get away with.”

I am skeptical that the US could really stop Hamas from getting Syrian and Iranian missiles, and this just sounds like more blame Obama cliches.

hamas rejects ceasefire

Ezzedin al-Qassam rejected it, the political branch hasn't responded yet.

israeli security cabinet accepted the cease fire

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/15/gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas-bombing

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, suggested that Israel may now escalate military action to include a ground invasion as well as aerial and sea bombardment. "If Hamas does not accept a ceasefire by 9pm tonight, my estimation is that the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] will have to enter," he tweeted.

However there were signs of division within Hamas. Conflicting messages were delivered by the Hamas leadership within Gaza, and its international leadership. The organisation's military wing also took a more defiant stand than the political leadership.

...
Hamas has set out its key demands for ending rocket fire, which include the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the release of more than 50 Palestinian prisoners Israel recently rearrested after freeing them in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

Mordy, Israel believes that ending the blockade will just allow Hamas to get even more weapons, right? While Hamas and others say ending the blockade will help the economy, bring in more food, etc.

deputy hamas foreign minister (i think that's who he was) claimed hamas leadership heard of the cease fire through the media, not by being contacted by anybody

that was on npr this morning anyway

Israeli filmmakers at the Jerusalem Film Festival:

“Cameras here, in Israel, film and tell about the suffering and pain of Israeli citizens subject to missile attacks….A dialogue must be established, an acknowledgment of the suffering of the other. Today, we want to direct those cameras to the suffering of Gaza residents, men, women and children killed during the last few days. Those filming the suffering of Israelis should be courageous and honest enough to film the killing and destruction in Gaza as well, and tell that story as well.”

“The ‘life goes on’ conception, by which surrounding events cannot and will not affect our everyday dealings, is morally impossible. In these terrible days, we as artists and creators expect from ourselves, the festival’s administration, the spectators and the media to use this event to issue a clear, loud cry for change.

“We call the Israeli government to cease fire; we urge it not to send our troops to be killed again, in another pointless, cruel military campaign; we call it to engage in meaningful dialogue with the Palestinian people and its leaders, to achieve a viable peace for both sides.”

http://www.screendaily.com/news/israeli-filmmakers-call-for-cease-fire/5075171.article

two from hussein ibish:

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/palestinians-die-in-the-most-cynical-of-all-military-games
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/555893-has-netanyahu-closed-the-door-on-peace

Hamas has set out its key demands for ending rocket fire, which include the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the release of more than 50 Palestinian prisoners Israel recently rearrested after freeing them in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

it's interesting that one of the demands is that egypt open rafah - hamas obv would never dare fire rockets into egypt tho.

rmde at Hamas

i admit my reading on this has been intermittent, but i did not know this (or see it stated outside of twitter drive-bys):

http://forward.com/articles/201764/how-politics-and-lies-triggered-an-unintended-war/?p=all#ixzz374CPB51T

The frustration had numerous causes. Once the boys’ disappearance was known, troops began a massive, 18-day search-and-rescue operation, entering thousands of homes, arresting and interrogating hundreds of individuals, racing against the clock. Only on July 1, after the boys’ bodies were found, did the truth come out: The government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas’ West Bank operations.

The initial evidence was the recording of victim Gilad Shaer’s desperate cellphone call to Moked 100, Israel’s 911. When the tape reached the security services the next morning — neglected for hours by Moked 100 staff — the teen was heard whispering “They’ve kidnapped me” (“hatfu oti”) followed by shouts of “Heads down,” then gunfire, two groans, more shots, then singing in Arabic. That evening searchers found the kidnappers’ abandoned, torched Hyundai, with eight bullet holes and the boys’ DNA. There was no doubt.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately placed a gag order on the deaths. Journalists who heard rumors were told the Shin Bet wanted the gag order to aid the search. For public consumption, the official word was that Israel was “acting on the assumption that they’re alive.” It was, simply put, a lie.

Wouldn't you act on the assumption that they're alive, even with that?

You're not Machiavellian enough!

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5897853/gaza-israel-hamas

Israel is fighting only for appearances, says Ibish: it already struck a major blow against Hamas when, under the pretext of searching for kidnapped boys it already knew were dead, it arrested hundreds of leading Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Ibish thinks Hamas knows it can't beat Israel or extract major concessions, and is fighting to try to pressure Egypt into giving it a freer border and more money.

Israel bombs four Palestinian kids to death: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/witness-gaza-shelling-first-hand-account

precision

tbf those kids might have had access to rocks. israel couldn't afford to take that chance.

that'll teach 'em to vote for Hamas amirite

senseless

TEL AVIV — After nine days of aerial assaults on Gaza that have killed more than 200 people, Israel announced late Wednesday that it would suspend the attacks for five hours on Thursday as a humanitarian gesture at the request of the United Nations. But a senior Israeli military official said that the likelihood of a ground invasion to eliminate militants’ rockets launched from Gaza was “very high.”

to bibi's credit he is probably the most reserved israeli PM in my memory about deploying ground forces

in 2009 olmert sent in ground troops on the second day (and had more casualties in the first day from the aerial bombing than bibi has had this entire duration of the conflict)

What's your response to the killing of the four children Mordy? They were playing hide and seek on the beach. Not a suspect area by any means, not a Hamas place. Is that still part of the "appropriate response"?

oh look Israel made a gesture towards the UN how cute

i'm not an official spokesperson for the IDF, LBI. you don't need to question my opinion on every civilian casualty in gaza.

as a general quote for any question you might ever have on a related note: "i feel sad about the death of all innocent civilians in every conflict throughout the world"

I didn't approach you as "an official spokesperson for IDF". I also am not questioning your opinion "on every civilian casualty". Nice you have a pull quote at hand though, expressing you "feel sad about innocent civilians in every conflict throughout the world". Classy.

The death of these four kids is not "sad". It is sickening. They aren't collateral damage in a "conflict", they were deliberately murdered. Israel's army is fortunate enough to have the means to be able to aim properly. They abused this 'privilege' yet again. But you simply can't bring yourself to acknowledge that this is a criminal atrocity.

You want Hamas to stop sending rockets to Israel. I want that too. But in return Israel needs to stop it's apartheid and occupation policy. There is no other way.

they are collateral damage in a conflict.

GAZA CITY — It is not unusual for militants to launch rockets from sites near my hotel. Israeli missiles and shells have also landed pretty close to al-Deira, an old red stucco inn with a large terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Just a few hundred yards down the beach is the fishing harbor.

like when you say "deliberately murdered" do you actually believe that the IDF targeted these kids for some reason? why? obv every civilian casualty damages israel's international reputation and damages the IDF's ability to operate in gaza. what would they have to gain from deliberately targeting children? sadistic glee? is that really what you believe?

personally, I reject the entire concept of collateral damage. it's entire formulation is intended as a moral sleight-of-hand to absolve the actions of a military. but war means innocents get murdered. that's what it is, that's what it has always meant, that has always been a part of it. if you participate in a war, that is what you are signing up for.

xp

the pics are v clear about 4 kids playing around on a sea wall; if journos could them clearly it i don't know what the unit who shot them was looking at.

that one kid was shaped like a rocket

in the social mediasphere, the amount of vicious antisemitism these operations bring out is pretty shocking

the amount of eliminationist racism coming from israel supporters doubly so, frankly. all you have to see is a mention of events like the beach shelling to see a stream of what follows: the kettle logic that it didn't really happen like that, that the kids deserved it, that hamas made it all happen, that they'd grow up to be jihadis anyway, and on and on

win/win

social media re I/P is odious and unavoidable.

like when you say "deliberately murdered" do you actually believe that the IDF targeted these kids for some reason? why? obv every civilian casualty damages israel's international reputation and damages the IDF's ability to operate in gaza. what would they have to gain from deliberately targeting children? sadistic glee? is that really what you believe?

― Mordy, Thursday, July 17, 2014 12:03 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

After having learned about the ins and outs today, that is what I believe. That beach wasn't a known Hamas hotspot. No rockets have been fired to Israel from that place (because it is just a beach, there is nothing there). Israel had the spot in clear vision. They didn't strike once but repeatedly. Targeting that spot of the beach, on those kids. There really is no other way to interpret it as it being deliberate. I don't know why, I refuse to believe it is because "sadistic glee". But this is what happened,

Social media on this: to be avoided at all cost.

yeah, it's really hard for me to interpret what looks like the "deliberate" killing of four kids according to journos, using superior american-backed drone technology as "civilian casualties" (or to look at this as a "conflict", which imo is a word loaded with the assumption of even-somewhat-equal warfare -- israel shelling a tiny strip of land for essentially throwing oversized rocks at them is not close). that's either murder -- unlikely, i agree -- or just straight up manslaughter based on human/technological error that decided four kids playing on a beach were hamas operatives.

and as someone with a lot of exposure to the Free Palestine side of reactive social media as well as a jew oversensitive to antisemitism, i can't say i've spotted a single example of anything that smells like antisemitism. nothing that has criticized israel or its citizens on the basis of judaism rather than as a nation. maybe you've been around some different people.

10000 sq miles vs 140 sq miles

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/16/371556/israel-must-kill-all-palestinian-mothers/

israeli MP calling for genocide

Israeli explanation in NY Times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/world/middleeast/gaza-strip-beach-explosion-kills-children.html?_r=0

Alon Ben-David, a well-sourced Israeli military affairs analyst, said on Israeli television that the first beach blast targeted a structure that Israel believed was used by Hamas. He said the second blast might have been aimed at the running children, perhaps mistaken for militants. He added that given the military’s technologically advanced surveillance equipment, “it is a little hard for me to understand this, because the images show that the figures are children.”

I wonder how this split between the non-Israeli Jewish diaspora, which is increasingly anti-Israel, and Israeli Jews, who are increasingly militant/racist/insane will play out in the generations to come. I was reading some Malzberg essay (from the 90s) recently where he expressed how profoundly insulting and ahistorical it is for Israel to claim centrality in Jewish identity, when for so long - for centuries - it was the Jewish diaspora that was the center and lifeblood of Jewish culture. Now all of a sudden because you live there you are the most Jewish and other Jews should feel obligated to stand in solidarity with you? Younger Jews, particularly in America, are totally alienated from Israel; this seems like a major schism, with no real precedent afaik. Certainly reflects how I feel.

xp

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/16/371556/israel-must-kill-all-palestinian-mothers/

israeli MP calling for genocide
--j.

They should put all the palestinians in concentration camps amirite

@ggreenwald
"Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife" = NYT-ese for: Israel bombs 4 boys playing on a beach

Jeff A. Taylor @TheFree_Lance
"At Dealey Plaza, JFK Finds Self At Center of Foreign Policy Debate" #NYTHistory

They should put all the palestinians in concentration camps amirite

― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, July 17, 2014 3:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mm perhaps they could avoid the stigma of camps by simply surrounding a demarcated region with military checkpoints

/!\ alert /!\ ^^^^^^^^^ this is not me drawing an equivalency it is a grim joke /!\ alert /!\

this has been your knock on the floor post

can we please not do this bullshit on this thread?

But my argument is not with the Palestinians or even with Hamas. People in the thick of it pursue their own agenda as best they can. But what’s our agenda? What do we, in the cosy safety of tolerant old England, think we are doing when we call the Israelis Nazis and liken Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto? Do those who blithely make these comparisons know anything whereof they speak?

In the early 1940s some 100,000 Jews and Romanis died of engineered starvation and disease in the Warsaw Ghetto, another quarter of a million were transported to the death camps, and when the Ghetto rose up it was liquidated, the last 50,000 residents being either shot on the spot or sent to be murdered more hygienically in Treblinka. Don’t mistake me: every Palestinian killed in Gaza is a Palestinian too many, but there is not the remotest similarity, either in intention or in deed – even in the most grossly mis-reported deed – between Gaza and Warsaw.

Given the number of besieged and battered cities there have been in however many thousands of years of pitiless warfare there is only one explanation for this invocation of Warsaw before any of those – it is to wound Jews in their recent and most anguished history and to punish them with their own grief. Its aim is a sort of retrospective retribution, cancelling out all debts of guilt and sorrow. It is as though, by a reversal of the usual laws of cause and effect, Jewish actions of today prove that Jews had it coming to them yesterday.

Berating Jews with their own history, disinheriting them of pity, as though pity is negotiable or has a sell-by date, is the latest species of Holocaust denial, infinitely more subtle than the David Irving version with its clunking body counts and quibbles over gas-chamber capability and chimney sizes. Instead of saying the Holocaust didn’t happen, the modern sophisticated denier accepts the event in all its terrible enormity, only to accuse the Jews of trying to profit from it, either in the form of moral blackmail or downright territorial theft. According to this thinking, the Jews have betrayed the Holocaust and become unworthy of it, the true heirs to their suffering being the Palestinians. Thus, here and there throughout the world this year, Holocaust day was temporarily annulled or boycotted on account of Gaza, dead Jews being found guilty of the sins of live ones.

-howard jacobson in 2009: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-letrsquos-see-the-criticism-of-israel-for-what-it-really-is-1624827.html

For the record and as I told Mordy privately, I regretted that post right away and apologize for it.

I wonder how this split between the non-Israeli Jewish diaspora, which is increasingly anti-Israel, and Israeli Jews, who are increasingly militant/racist/insane will play out in the generations to come.

The word "increasingly" is doing a lot of work here. I think it's broadly true that insane militancy is getting stronger in Israel, but still think it's not very strong. And I think it's broadly true that anti-Israel and anti-Zionist feelings are increasing among American Jews, but also think that American Jews, including young American Jews, generally see themselves as pro-Israel and Zionist. If Israeli politics 20 years from now is dominated by people like Ayelet Shaked, that could change. But that's not Israel now. Israel is represented by Ayelet Shaked about as well as the United States is represented by Michele Bachmann.

There really is no other way to interpret it as it being deliberate. I don't know why, I refuse to believe it is because "sadistic glee". But this is what happened.

There really are lots of other ways to interpret it. Do you think Russians shot down a Malaysian passenger plane with 300 people aboard because they want to kill Malaysians? I don't, and it's not because I'm a Vladimir Putin apologist.

No, the way it looks now, is that separatists shot it down *thinking* it was a Ukranian cargo plane. They messed up. But your comparison is flawed on so many levels.

the neofascist right in israel looks a lot like its european counterparts. same tshirts anyway...

http://www.talschneider.com/2014/07/14/goodnightleftside-2/

but also think that American Jews, including young American Jews, generally see themselves as pro-Israel and Zionist

some interesting stats here

Older Jews are more likely than younger Jews to see caring about Israel as an essential part of what being Jewish means to them. More than half of Jews 65 and older say caring about Israel is essential for their Jewish identity (53%), as do 47% of Jews ages 50-64. By comparison, 38% of Jews in their 30s and 40s and 32% of Jewish adults under age 30 say caring about Israel is central to what being Jewish means to them. It is hard to know whether these age differences suggest that U.S. Jews’ attachment to Israel will weaken over time. If younger Jews retain their lower levels of attachment to Israel, then overall attachment to Israel may weaken with time.

and then there's this:http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=326

Indeed, a mounting body of evidence
has pointed to a growing distancing from Israel of American Jews, and the distancing seems
to be most pronounced among younger Jews.
Insofar as younger Jews are less attached to
Israel, the inevitable replacement of the older
population with younger birth cohorts leads
to a growing distancing in the population
overall.
In recent years, several studies have
pointed to the distancing phenomenon, be
they studies focusing on attitudes toward Is
rael specifically (e.g., Cohen 2002; Luntz), or
those painting a more generalized portrait of
Jewish identity among younger adult American Jews (e.g., Cohen and Kelman 2007;
Greenberg 2004, 2006; Ukeles et al. 2006).
Studies pointing to an attenuated American
Jewish relationship with Israel are not a recent phenomenon; in fact, they stretch back
nearly a quarter of a century. With such titles
as, “Are American and Israeli Jews Drifting
Apart?” (Cohen 1989b), “Ties and Tensions”
(Cohen 1987), or “From Romantic Idealists
to Loving Realists: The Changing Place of
Israel in the Consciousness of American
Jews” (Cohen 1985), a long trail of literature
documents diminished attachment to Israel
among American Jews (see in addition,
Cohen 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989a, 1989c, 1990,
1991a, 1991b, 1992, 1996; Cohen and Liebman
2000; Cohen and Lipset 1991; Liebman and
Cohen 1990; Waxman 1992).

urgh sorry for spacing

IDF talking it up a notch http://htz.li/Wd74M0

Taking, not talking

here we goooooo

Declaring a new phase in its operation, Israel’s military said it was entering the coastal strip to wipe out Hamas’s rocket capabilities and to dismantle what is believed to be an extensive network of tunnels used by the militants to infiltrate Israel.

W. Post

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/middleeast/israelis-watch-bombs-drop-on-gaza-from-front-row-seats.html?_r=1

"atmosphere of fear in Israel"

well Charles Krauthammer has confirmed that Israel's doing the correct and moral thing by invading, we can all sleep well tonight!

what would they have to gain from deliberately targeting children? sadistic glee? is that really what you believe?

― Mordy, Wednesday, July 16, 2014 5:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadistic glee:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/israeli-crowd-cheers-as-missile-hits-gaza-live-on-cnn

Exactly.

Meanwhile, Bill Maher manages to defend slaughter and domestic violence in 140 characters:

http://i.imgur.com/WPotumg.jpg

Operation Protective Edge

i've been thinking for like 5 minutes but i literally do not have words for that besides fuck bill maher

Has been and always will be a horrible person

christ Maher's smug mug. enough of him.

I am a big Zionist and screw Bill Maher and screw people in Sderot who treat a war like a Transformers movie and screw anybody who thinks that being a Zionist means you're psyched about innocent people getting killed.

I support dropping that shithead on Hamas. Or Israel.

An unusually cogent piece appears on the NYT Op page:

Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world.

Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel’s interests. It offered Hamas’s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.

Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat....

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/gaza-and-israel-the-road-to-war-paved-by-the-west.html

here's the first issue of a magazine ISIS have put out - https://ia902500.us.archive.org/24/items/dbq01_desktop_en/dbq01_desktop_en.pdf

http://ottomansandzionists.com/2014/07/18/the-turkish-governments-journey-down-the-rabbit-hole/

the one comment so far worth reading too

bill maher was at a video game party years and years ago and my friend who worked at c@pc0m drug him out by his collar because he was drunk and grabbing all these womens's asses and being gross

this is really tremendous: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/18/father-children-gaza-bloodshed-palestinians-israelis

Turks tossing around genocide accusations is p rich. they should know amirite

xp

if only hamas had a state sponsor like putin who could casually mention that hamas would be willing to completely demilitarize under agreeable supervisory bodies in exchange for open borders + lifting naval embargo - i feel like that could actually produce change between Israel + Gaza (thinking of syria as a template). it's hard to imagine bibi agreeing to this, but it's even harder for me to imagine hamas agreeing :/

yeah good guardian piece
xp

look i know this kind of terminology gets thrown around in extremely loose and inflammatory ways but idk how to interpret this in any other way than to say it's fascist:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15326#.U8q0_WK9KSO

a political rival of netanyahu's and not a minister w/ portfolio (if i read wiki correctly) but still:

Sovereignty – Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever. Liberation of parts of our land forever is the only thing that justifies endangering our soldiers in battle to capture land. Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel.

a "solution" to make "living room", i mean, come on now...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/world/middleeast/attack-kills-at-least-20-egyptian-soldiers-at-checkpoint-in-western-desert.html