Peres tells Arab media “Assad must go,” and Netanyahu again hints at it too
By Tom Gross
One of the biggest slanders put out by at least three respected columnists for major American and British liberal newspapers in recent months is that Israel has been eager to stop the spread of democracy in the Arab world. (All three of these columnists are subscribers to this list, and two of them are Jewish and persistent critics of successive Israeli governments.)
It has been a great disappointment to many of Israel’s detractors in the West that negative remarks about Israel have been almost completely absent from the chants and slogans of the millions of pro-democracy protestors that have taken to the streets of Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world this year – just as they have been absent over the last two years from the chants of pro-democracy demonstrators in Persian Iran.
Israeli politicians, while preferring not to interfere too vocally in the internal affairs of Arab states, have, when asked, made clear that they prefer to have democratic neighbors rather than dictatorial ones, both for the sake of human rights in the Arab world, and for the sake of peace with their own country.
In the latest such remarks, Israeli President Shimon Peres, at a special press conference with the Arabic language media in honor of Ramadan, said that Syrian President Assad should step down from power.
(I repeat them here since the Western media more often than not ignore these kind of statements.)
“I so admire the very brave Syrian protesters,” said Peres at the press conference held on Tuesday at Beit HaNassi, the official Israeli presidential residence in Jerusalem. More than 30 journalists and television crews participated in the event from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and the local Arabic language press in Israel. (Israel has – by far – the most open media environment for Arab journalists in the Middle East, not that you would ever know it by reading the slew of anti-Israeli invective from certain commentators, academics, and politicized NGOs in Western Europe and North America.)
Peres (pictured below) added: “Assad must go. He has killed 2,000 innocent civilians, thousands have been imprisoned. The sooner he will leave the more his people will appreciate it. There is no chance he can defeat the people. If Syria’s ruler doesn’t realize this he has already lost his place. I truly admire the Syrians stance against their ruler. It is easy to go and demonstrate, but when they are shooting at you? It is amazing. Their bravery and firm stance deserves respect. I believe that people who are interested in peace will prevail. Then it will be easier to achieve peace between Israel and Syria.”
On the subject of the young Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, kidnapped while still a teenager from inside Israel a year after Israel had left Gaza and held alone in a Hamas dungeon in Gaza for the last five years, Peres said: “To take a young man and put the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict on his shoulders? This is not logical. To imprison him for more than 5 years without seeing daylight, doctors or a visit from the Red Cross? I am sure there are many people, not only here today, that are embarrassed by this behavior.”
Peres also discussed the Palestinian peace process, the Iranian nuclear issue, and Israel’s relations with the Arab world, and answered a lengthy set of questions from the Arab journalists present.
Along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish spiritual leaders in Israel, Peres sent Ramadan greetings to the Muslim world and to the Muslim citizens of Israel.
“I use this platform as President of Israel to send Ramadan greetings to the millions of Muslims in Israel and throughout the world,” said Peres. “As in years past, millions of Muslims around the world, in the Middle East, and in Israel are preparing to start the month of Ramadan, a month of fasting, prayer, and spirituality. The month is dedicated to introspection, spiritual practices, quality time with friends and family, and time to consider the present and future – as individuals and collectively. This year there is an additional significance to the soul searching of Ramadan – the Arab world around us is changing. Young people are demanding their freedom, social welfare, and prosperity. The younger generation wants change. I wish the younger generation in Arab countries success in creating a better society, more open, and more prosperous. Ramadan Kareem.”
He also went out of his way to send a special Ramadan greeting to the Iranian people.
In separate remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a rare interview to a Saudi TV station, Al-Arabiya. (Officially Saudi Arabia is at a state of war with Israel, but sources in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office tell me that sometimes Saudi and other Arab journalists are fairer to Israel than many Western ones.)
In the very first question, Netanyahu was asked: “Are you worried about the situation and the current developments in Syria?”
He replied: “Well, I’m sure the Syrian people are worried about it, because they are obviously showing enormous courage in the face of very strong brutality. Look, we don’t intervene in what happens in Syria, but we obviously would like to have peaceful relations with Syria, and we can only hope for a good future for the people of Syria – they deserve a good future, one of peace and one of freedom.”
The Saudi interviewer then followed up by asking: “So do you support what’s so called the revolution in Syria?”
Understandably, given how Israel’s opponents (especially those in Arab regimes) twist virtually anything Netanyahu says against him, he was careful in his reply, though his message is clear: “You know, anything I would say would be used, not against me, but against the process of genuine reform that people would like to see in Syria. So we don’t intervene in Syria, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not concerned. A. We’d like the peace and quiet on the Israeli-Syrian border to be maintained, and B. I would like to ultimately, have that turned into a formal peace between Israel and Syria. And C., I think that people, the young people in Syria deserve a better future, you know.”
Netanyahu continued: “I hope that we could sit down one day and I could tell you that Israel is not the only democracy in the Middle East, it’s one [neighboring] many Arab democracies. I recognize this may take time. I recognize it may have its ups and downs. But this would be a wonderful thing. Why? Because, if there’s genuine democracy in the Arab world, in the Arab countries, then there will be genuine peace. Because a genuine democracy reflects the desires of the people, and most people – Arabs, Jews, anyone – they don’t want their sons and daughters dying on battlefields. They want peace. So the spread of democracy is good for peace. It may be difficult. It may go through a period of turbulence, of convulsion, but ultimately, I think it would lead to a good direction.”
A transcript of the full interview, in which Netanyahu also answered questions on the peace process, Israel’s alleged “nuclear program,” and other topics, can be read if you scroll down below.
The interview was conducted in English but Netanyahu also spoke some words in Arabic, including “Ramadan Karim” (happy Ramadan) and “Kul Aam wa-antum bi-khair” (happy holidays).
No Arab leader has said anything in Hebrew to Israelis since assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wished Israelis peace in Hebrew in the late 1970s. It would be nice if Israeli and Arab leaders would send greetings in their respective languages more regularly in future.
(Among my previous pieces on Syria, please see here.)
(You can comment on this dispatch here: www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia. You first have to press “Like” on that page.)
FULL INTERVIEW
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s interview with Al-Arabiya TV of Saudi Arabia
July 21, 2011
Interviewer: Mr. Netanyahu, at the beginning, let me ask you, are you worried about the situation and the current developments in Syria?
PM Netanyahu: Well, I’m sure the Syrian people are worried about it, because they are obviously showing enormous courage in the face of very strong brutality. Look, we don’t intervene in what happens in Syria, but we obviously would like to have peaceful relations with Syria, and we can only hope for a good future for the people of Syria – they deserve a good future, one of peace and one of freedom.
Interviewer: So do you support what’s so called the revolution in Syria?
PM Netanyahu: You know, anything I would say would be used, not against me, but against the process of genuine reform that people would like to see in Syria. So we don’t intervene in Syria, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not concerned. A. We’d like the peace and quiet on the Israeli-Syrian border to be maintained, and B. I would like to ultimately, have that turned into a formal peace between Israel and Syria. And C., I think that people, the young people in Syria deserve a better future, you know.
Interviewer: Prime Minister, you just mentioned about peace along the borders between Israel and Syria. Now some people would say that the present regime of Bashar el Assad and before him, his father Hafez el Assad, in fact, kept peace, you know, like for about 40 years along those borders to the extent that some people would say that the regime is indispensible from the point of view of Israel. Is that right?
PM Netanyahu: No. No, it’s not right. I mean, I hear people saying it, but the point of fact, we’re not there to chose the next regime, the next government of Syria. I think it’s for the people of Syria to choose. But we didn’t have peace. We had a state of peace, no peace-no war. Even though, several people tried, including myself, secret negotiations to try to move towards a formal peace. I think what has also disturbed this is that Syria supports and has supported Hezbollah and Iran, in Lebanon. You know, the people of Lebanon, five years ago wanted to have their Cedar Revolution. Iran took it away from them with Hezbollah and with Syrian support.
Interviewer: But the borders remain quiet, yes?
PM Netanyahu: They remain quiet since the Second Lebanon War, and I hope they remain quiet in the future as well.
Interviewer: Now, as a result of what’s happening in Syria now, do you think the effects might be reflected into, like in a situation probably in Southern Lebanon or on the borders between Israel and Syria?
PM Netanyahu: Well, I hope not. I hope that no-one in Syria thinks of having a distraction, if I use that term to try to warm up, in a bad sense, heat up the border between us. And I hope Iran, or Hezbollah are not tempted to do this in order to shift attention away from what is happening in Syria. I think that would be bad for the people of Lebanon, bad for the people of Syria, and bad for Israel, bad for peace. So I hope it doesn’t happen.
Interviewer: But it’s been said, Prime Minister, that Israel is continuing with the military exercises along the borders with Lebanon, which was taken as a signal that Israel probably is preparing something.
PM Netanyahu: No. We’ve been doing this on a regular basis, because we’ve been attacked on a regular basis. You know, we had about 6,000 rockets fired, without any reason, from Lebanon by Hezbollah against Israel. Against Israel’s cities, its children, its homes. We have no claims. We went out of Lebanon. We haven’t a claim on a single centimeter of Lebanese territory. But they fired these thousands of rockets, so naturally…
Interviewer: Yeah, but the Israeli planes don’t stop really incursing into Lebanese space, yes?
PM Netanyahu: But we’re not seeking anything from Lebanon, except our own defense. We don’t seek anything from Lebanon. We say to Lebanon, and to Hezbollah, that unfortunately governs now Lebanon on behalf of Iran, we say, Don’t attack us, you know. We’ll respect you, you respect us. You know, I’d much prefer that the Cedar Revolution would have been completed, because by now, I wouldn’t have to say that. By now we would have had a peace treaty with Lebanon. If the forces of moderation, the forces of progress would have been successful in the Cedar Revolution, there would have been a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon.
Interviewer: So you think that what’s happening, in a way has a rather negative effect on the peace process in the region?
PM Netanyahu: I think there is a big question, you know, where does the Arab Spring go. If it goes towards democracy, towards reform, maybe a controlled reform process, towards modernity and towards greater freedom, which I think the Arab people deserve, there are a lot of young people in the Arab world, and they want a different future. Then I think it’s good for Israel. If it goes towards an Iranian style dictatorship, as it did, unfortunately in Iran and in Lebanon, then it’s bad. It’s bad for the peoples there, but it’s also bad for peace.
Interviewer: But in Lebanon, if you’re talking about the present government, that was as a result of elections, after all, and this is democracy, isn’t it?
PM Netanyahu: Well, we’ll see. I think that every time you get Hezbollah in there, they’ll undermine democracy, they take power. They may use the process of democracy in order to subvert democracy, in order to do Iran’s bidding, to wipe out their opponents. You know, it’s not the kind of democracy that I think the young people in Lebanon and the young people throughout the world, the Arab world, want and nor the one that they deserve.
Interviewer: But Mr. Netanyahu, it’s been said that you in Israel, here, probably wouldn’t like to see democracy or democratic regimes in the Arab world, because this would refute the Israeli claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Is that right?
PM Netanyahu: I hope that we could sit down one day and I could tell you that Israel is not merely not the only democracy in the Middle East, it’s one of many Arab democracies. I recognize this may take time. I recognize it may have its ups and downs. But this would be a wonderful thing. Why? Because, if there’s genuine democracy in the Arab world, in the Arab countries, then there will be genuine peace. Because a genuine democracy reflects the desires of the people, and most people – Arabs, Jews, anyone – they don’t want their sons and daughters dying on battlefields. They want peace. So the spread of democracy is good for peace. It may be difficult. It may go through a period of turbulence, of convulsion, but ultimately, I think it would lead to a good direction.
Interviewer: Now, Prime Minister, it’s been said, again, that the so-called revolutions in the Arab world now, are resulting into the Islamists gaining the upper hand in the politics of some Arab countries, Egypt for one, for example. Is that worrying you?
PM Netanyahu: I think it should worry the Arab peoples, because they want, I think they want a world of progress, and they want a world of genuine reform. They don’t want to go back to a dark medievalism. They want a different world. They’ve already seen the world, they’ve seen the future.
Interviewer: I’m asking your opinion, Mr. Netanyahu, not the Arab…
PM Netanyahu: I think it’s bad for them, I think it’s bad for us. Because, I think that there is a militant Islamic element that doesn’t want to recognize Israel, so naturally it’s bad for us. But I think it doesn’t recognize the kind of freedoms and the kind of changes that many of the people in the Arab world, especially the young people expect. Give them a genuine choice then you’ll see what they chose, and I think the radical Islamic parties, don’t want the same thing that most of the Arab peoples want.
Interviewer: But it’s reported that even the Americans are now trying to talk to those elements, if you like, which appear as taking upper hand in the Arab politics, i.e. Muslim Brothers, for example. Would you also try to do business with them, yourself?
PM Netanyahu: Look, we will always look for people who want peace.
Interviewer: Including the Islams?
PM Netanyahu: We will want… We don’t nullify people based on their religious belief, but we do expect them to, in their world view, to have a place for the State of Israel. If people say the State of Israel shouldn’t exist, it should be wiped off the face of the earth, the way Iran or Hezbollah or Hamas say, there’s not much place to go. If people have different views, we’ll listen to those views, but I think that from two points of view, one from the internal Arab point of view, if people say, we want democracy, then ask all those who competed in democracy to respect democracy. I think this is, you can’t ask people to say, alright, we’ll open the democratic door to those who want to destroy democracy. And the second is, from my point of view, I’m willing to negotiate peace with anyone that’s willing to accept the right of my people and my country to live.
Interviewer: Mr. Netanyahu, let me be more specific. Is it fair to say that you lost, in fact, a very important political partner, and probably good friend, with the departure of Mr. Mubarak from power in Egypt?
PM Netanyahu: I respected President Mubarak. He held peace between Israel and Egypt for over 30 years, and that’s a great achievement, and I think it should not be forgotten. What happens in Egypt depends of course on the will of the Egyptian people. But I think Egypt, I see that the current government, which is a transition government, is committed to the peace. They’ve said so openly. And in practice this is also taking place.
Will the next government in Egypt be committed to peace? I think so, because I think the stakes are too high to go back to what we had. I remember what we had. I was… Most people in the Arab world are young, so they don’t remember, but I remember what it was like as a young person, as a young Israeli, when we had a state of war with Egypt. I nearly died in a fire fight inside the Suez Canal. A lot of my friends died there. We don’t want to come back to those terrible days, it’s a terrible thing.
Interviewer: But of course, at the same time, Arabs were dying at the same time in those wars.
PM Netanyahu: Exactly. Exactly. But I have a recollection of that, and many young people maybe don’t remember that, but it’s hard for me to believe that the new Egyptian government would want to turn back the clock, go back to the terrible days of wars that we had, when the benefits of peace are evident. Not only are people not dying, but also in having trade, in having American support, having tourism. I think it’s in the vested interest of Egypt to continue…
Interviewer: So you are not worried, Mr. Netanyahu, about the future of the peace treaty, just to conclude, with Egypt, or the flow of natural gas from Egypt to Israel.
PM Netanyahu: Look, I worry, because there are people who don’t want what I just said. And they may subvert the democratic process and take over.
Interviewer: Who are these people, in your view?
PM Netanyahu: Well, I know that Iran is looking at that, trying to meddle in every place right now in the Arab world…
Interviewer: Is it a reading of the situation or based on information?
PM Netanyahu: No, no. Iran is trying to meddle in many many countries. I won’t be more specific on that. But it doesn’t want peace and it doesn’t want democracy. It doesn’t want reform and it doesn’t want change. If it did, you’d see a different Iran. Ask the Iranian people what they get. So, am I worried? Yeah. If they subvert the democratic process, if they get people to move away from peace, of course we worry. My hope is for a better result, because I think given a chance, let the Egyptian people choose, I think they’ll choose peace.
Interviewer: Mr. Netanyahu, I want to move on now to the Palestinian issue. Now, the Palestinians say that you have left them no choice in fact but to go to the United Nations so seek, if you like, or to make a bid for statehood. Have you anything to do now, or to offer, in fact, to preempt such a move?
PM Netanyahu: Well, first of all, I take… I challenge the premise and the question. Because here’s what I did. The first day that I came in I called for direct negotiations without preconditions. Shortly afterwards I lifted 400 roadblocks and checkpoints allowing the growth of the Palestinian economy, which I very much welcome. Third day, I called for two states for two peoples, in my speech in Bar Ilan University. Believe me, not an easy thing for a Likud leader to do. I did it. Fourth thing I did was I agreed on a freeze on new construction in the settlements. Something that no leader Labor or Likud did before me. The fifth thing I did, was I agreed with President Obama, if necessary, for another three months extension of the freeze.
So these are five things I did asking for direct negotiations, and I still think, if you ask me: what is there to do right now? I think we’ve shown we really want the negotiations to come. I’m willing to sit down with President Abbas right now and negotiate without pre-conditions.
Interviewer: On the basis of what? 242?
PM Netanyahu: On the basis of the desire of both of our peoples to have peace. I think we both agreed, I agreed, that we need to have the idea of two states for two peoples. I think it’s unnecessary to try to conclude the negotiations before we start them. We’ll never get anywhere. We just wasted two years.
Interviewer: But, Mr. Prime Minister, Obama, for example, talked about pre-1967 war borders.
PM Netanyahu: Yeah.
Interviewer: Now, do you subscribe to this point?
PM Netanyahu: Well, he also said the border would be different from the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It has to take into account demographic changes and other needs and so on.
Interviewer: So what’s your view yourself?
PM Netanyahu: So obviously I agree with that part and we may have different views, but it’s not important. Because we’ll bring those views to the table, President Abbas and myself. We can’t negotiate the outcome before we negotiate, so I think the right thing to do is to sit down and negotiate, and I think if I negotiate a peace with President Abbas and I believe this peace will give Israel the security it requires, I think I can deliver this peace, and I think it’s a big mistake not to use this opportunity. We’ve just wasted two years on a non-issue or an issue that has to be negotiated, the settlements. But the only way we’ll get a resolution is to sit down, pretty much as we’re doing right now, except with all due respect, I need the leader of the Palestinian people to sit down and negotiate a peace.
Interviewer: But, Mr. Netanyahu, you have been negotiating with the Palestinians for the last…about 17 years, with all that you said in fact, and nothing happening.
PM Netanyahu: Well, not quite. First of all, I haven’t been, but you’re right that six Israeli prime ministers, myself included, have been negotiating and we all agreed to a Palestinian state. So why didn’t we have peace? Some of them, two of them, made very generous concessions and we all recognize that we’ll have to make difficult compromises for peace. I recognize that.
Interviewer: The difficult compromises, would they include Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees?
PM Netanyahu: Well, you know that these issues will be brought up and we’re prepared to…
Interviewer: So they’re on the table, those issues.
PM Netanyahu: Yeah, everything is on the table, but we need to get to the table, and this is my point. The main point that I’m saying is we haven’t concluded a peace either because the Palestinian leadership did not want to get to the end. Maybe they had reasons they didn’t want to get to the end of the negotiations. In my case, my frustration in the last two years is we can’t re-start the negotiations, and I repeat what I said to you a minute ago because I think this is the most important thing. I’m prepared to negotiate with President Abbas directly for peace between our two peoples right now. We can do it here in my home in Jerusalem, we can do it in Ramallah, we can do it anywhere.
Interviewer: You would be prepared also to suspend settlement activity again?
PM Netanyahu: Well, I’ve said that I think that discussing pre-conditions is a mistake, and I don’t place pre-conditions.
Interviewer: This was the reason really for the suspension of talks.
PM Netanyahu: Yeah, but why? They negotiated for 18 years under Oslo without pre-conditions. To put pre-conditions is to negotiate about what?
Interviewer: Is it so difficult for you to suspend activities of that kind?
PM Netanyahu: Well, it wasn’t easy but I did it, and no previous prime minister…
Interviewer: But again, you can’t do it again?
PM Netanyahu: Well, ask yourself a different question: why are we wasting time on this? It’s an important issue, it has to be part of the final settlement negotiation, but you know, if I told your viewers right now a fact that will shock them: the entire area, built-up areas of the settlements, takes up 2 percent of the West Bank. It doesn’t gobble up the West Bank, it doesn’t preempt the map of a Palestinian state. It’s a side issue that has been turned into a great issue that stops us from getting into the issue.
Interviewer: But it’s not a continuous piece of land for the Palestinians.
PM Netanyahu: No, you’re right, of course, we talked about the idea, the fact that the majority of Israelis in fact live in a few urban blocs that form a small part of this area. But these are issues that have to be addressed in a negotiation. But they can be addressed and they will be addressed only if we get to the negotiations.
Interviewer: But notwithstanding what you said, Mr. Netanyahu, some people would say: if the settlement activity continues at the pace, the current pace, in fact probably eventually there will be nothing really for the Palestinians to negotiate about with you.
PM Netanyahu: This is not true. First of all, the pace of settlements is not…we haven’t built new ones, there are no new settlements. The addition of housing is minor compared to the size of the territory or even the existing pattern. But I think these are relevant issues to discuss. I’ve said in my speech before, not so much to the US Congress, I’ve said it also in the US Congress and in the Israeli Knesset, I’ve said: look, some settlements will be left outside the final borders of Israel. I said we’re prepared to address all the major issues. The important thing is, we could spend a lot of time negotiating about the negotiations or we can actually get down and do it. My suggestion is to get down and do it. I think that the Palestinians are missing up a great opportunity. There is a government here and a prime minister here who, exactly contrary to the received wisdom, is able to deliver a peace settlement and wants to deliver the peace settlement. You can’t do it if you’re a marginal party in Israel or if you don’t represent the large consensus. Begin did it once and I can do it again, but I need a partner.
Interviewer: Mr. Netanyahu, what’s being said, in fact, can you really deliver, in view of the composition of your coalition, in fact, you are really so much under pressure…
PM Netanyahu: No, not at all. You just asked me about the settlement freeze. This was done by a Likud prime minister with this coalition. That’s quite impressive, given that it wasn’t done by anyone, by Labor or Likud. I call for two states for two peoples. Now, I did that and not in front of Al-Arabia, which I respect, but I did it in front of a mostly religious gathering in Bar Ilan University. You know, I think that when I speak for a peace agreement with the Palestinians that takes care, that takes into consideration Israel’s security interests and national interests, but I will bring it forward to the people, then I think I can pass it. I can negotiate it. The coalition doesn’t prevent me from negotiating and I’ll surprise you – I think that most Israelis, including members, voters of this coalition government will support a peace agreement that I will bring. The tragedy of what is happening now is that the Palestinians are again missing an opportunity, again missing an opportunity to negotiate this peace.
Interviewer: Okay. Now, you are adding in fact another, in a way, if one can say it, like a pre-condition that the Palestinians should recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
PM Netanyahu: No, I’m not.
Interviewer: You’re not?
PM Netanyahu: No, I said that I think that for the conclusion of the negotiations. I put no pre-conditions on beginning negotiations. I may have my ideas, you expressed one of them, but I’ve often said, and I’ve said this to President Abbas, to Abu-Mazen, several times. I’ve said: look, I can ask you to have all sorts of pre-conditions, you can ask me. Not for entering negotiations. You’re free to bring up anything you want in the negotiations, but let’s get on with it.
Interviewer: Prime Minister, briefly please. Some people would say that this issue of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel would really bring into reality what’s called the transfer of the Israeli Arabs.
PM Netanyahu: never. Never. I’m absolutely against that.
Interviewer: What about the laws or the bills of laws which are being enacted in the Knesset every other time? They described them as racist.
PM Netanyahu: No, this is wrong and we won’t allow it. It’s not what I believe in. You know, I grew up in a very…what you would call a “liberal tradition” that says about Israel: it’s the state of the Jewish people, they never had a state, but non-Jews, in this case Arabs, live here, and they’re entitled to all the rights in Israel. But I think that you’re going to have a Palestinian state, to which Palestinians can come freely; there’s going to be a Jewish state, which means that non-Jews live there and enjoy all the rights, but Jewish people from outside the world can come here. That is what I mean.
Interviewer: Mr. Prime Minister, I want to move quickly to the Iranian issue in fact.
PM Netanyahu: You move very quickly. You just asked a huge question. But it’s alright, it’s your interview.
Interviewer: The Iranian issue. Now, a CIA source in fact said that you are planning, or you were planning if you like, to launch an attack against Iran in September to pre-empt the Palestinian bid of statehood? Can you answer to that?
PM Netanyahu: Yeah, well, I read this in the press. I mean, it’s preposterous, but you know, they keep...
Interviewer: Do you deny it?
PM Netanyahu: I don’t even confirm it because there’s nothing to deny and nothing to confirm. It’s not a real issue. The point is we don’t want to attack anyone and we don’t threaten anyone. Iran threatens to annihilate us, Iran sends terrorists and rockets into our cities.
Interviewer: But, Prime Minister, in fact you were quoted as saying that sanctions on their own won’t make any effect on the Iranians vis-à-vis their nuclear program, but they have to be attached with a military threat. Did you say that?
PM Netanyahu: Yes. I said that a military option has to be joined to the economic sanctions if the sanctions are to work. There’s a paradox. If you don’t have a military option, the sanctions will probably fail, and you’ll probably have to use the military option whereas if you have it together, I think that that will work on Iran, and in fact, the only time that Iran stopped its nuclear program, the only time, was in 2003 when they briefly believed that the United States would take military action against them.
Interviewer: Is this one of the reasons why the Chief of Staff of the American forces is in this country on several visits?
PM Netanyahu: No, they come regularly anyway, but he came as part…
Interviewer: For coordination or for deterrence?
PM Netanyahu: No. Actually, I had a very nice conversation with him today and he gave me his view of what is happening in the entire region. I must tell you that this assumption is wrong, it’s just wrong. This wasn’t a subject of discussion.
Interviewer: Do you think that peace can be achieved between the Palestinians and the Israelis within what’s remained of the lifetime of the present Knesset?
PM Netanyahu: It can be achieved if we start right away. I don’t know how long the negotiations will take, but I know that the sooner we begin, the faster they’ll end. And I think the people of Israel and the Palestinian people, even though a lot of people are skeptical on will there be peace, but what they really expect is the leaders to put aside pre-conditions, to sit down openly, but if necessary, also with emissaries, and get on with the job of giving a future of peace for us and for you.
Interviewer: Can I, Mr. Prime Minister, just go back quickly and please briefly, go back to the nuclear issue. What about the Israeli nuclear program? Why don’t you talk about it?
PM Netanyahu: Well, without getting into the assumptions built into your question about our purported capabilities, I will say this: Israel is not threatening any country in the Middle East with annihilation. Israel is not seeking to openly declare about its intention to wipe away a sovereign country. Iran says that they will wipe us off the face of the earth. Iran threatens not only Israel. It threatens the Gulf States, it threatens Saudi Arabia, it threatens everyone.
Interviewer: Why don’t you declare what you have then? Whatever capabilities?
PM Netanyahu: Well, we like to hope that the Middle East will not have these unstable regimes with weapons of mass destruction that would threaten everybody, not only Israel, but all the Arab world and all the Arab governments.
Interviewer: Finally, I know, Prime Minister, that you know a bit of Arabic. Would you like to say anything in Arabic?
PM Netanyahu: Sure. First of all, Ramadan Karim (happy Ramadan).
Interviewer: Thank you.
PM Netanyahu: And Kul Aam wa-antum bi-khair (happy holidays).
Interviewer: Thank you.
PM Netanyahu: It’s a good time.
Interviewer: Thank you.
Above: One of Ramallah’s many nice cafes
* “A Russian ship loading grain is spewing grain and dust over the entire area. In addition, the off-loading noise the ship is making is above environmentally acceptable limit, sounding like a bad rock concert playing at the back of the boat! … The U.S. Embassy has done absolutely nothing to help us … NOTHING, ABSOULTELY NOTHING!!!”
* “The billions that pour in here mean the Palestinian Authority does not need to try very hard to deliver the services expected by voters, it also stifles the private sector, inflates wages and causes an internal ‘brain drain’. No Palestinian business can compete with NGOs which routinely triple what a local firm would pay. Many NGOs fork out ‘danger money’ and even ‘hardship payments’ to both local and international staff (who then dine daily at the many expensive West Bank and Gaza restaurants) which further undermines the ability of local private businesses to hire. So the NGOs get the brightest and the highest paid, and the private firms get the rest but without the tax exemptions.”
* While the citizens of America and Europe are presently suffering economic hardships at home, their governments continue to pour money into the West Bank and Gaza where life is not nearly as bad as many Western journalists and NGOs would have us believe.
(You can comment on this dispatch here: www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia. You first have to press “Like” on that page.)
CONTENTS
1. Americans in Greece
2. The BBC’s priorities
3. “Awash with money”
4. Email alert from “Gaza Irish Friends” (July 12, 2011)
5. Email alert from “U.S. Boat to Gaza” (July 16, 2011)
6. “Palestine – ‘Occupation Incorporated’” (By Tim Marshall, Sky News, July 18, 2011)
[All notes below by Tom Gross]
AMERICANS IN GREECE
I attach three items below. The first two are emails sent from the boat “The Audacity of Hope” (named after President Obama’s autobiography). The boat, with American activists aboard (they have been dubbed “Hamas’ useful idiots”), remains moored in Greece, where the authorities refuse to let it sail to Gaza.
I sent these emails to some subscribers to this list on the days they were sent (July 12 and 16), but many other people have written since asking me to send them, so I attach them below. (The activists on the boat have in any case stated at the foot of their emails: “Please distribute widely”.)
Despite what the somewhat hysterical emails say, these activists are not “imprisoned” but are free to sail whenever they want, for example to the Greek islands. Or they are free to visit the sights of Athens, or indeed to return home.
They are just not free to sail uninspected to Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas which continues to smuggle in weapons to use in acts of terror – both against Israel and against fellow Palestinians. The European Union (of which Greece is of course a member) has declared Hamas to be a terrorist group.
However, if these activists want to go to Gaza, they could of course travel to Israel or Egypt and then enter Gaza by land, like everyone else who doesn’t mind having their bags searched before crossing borders.
In the second email, one of the activists says “She has been an active participant in the World Social Forum and the UN Conference Against Racism (Durban, South Africa).” – i.e. one of the most notorious anti-Semitic gatherings of recent years.
THE BBC’S PRIORITIES
Many more missiles have been fired from Gaza at Israel in recent days, not that you would have heard about this on the BBC, who have broken their near round-the-clock obsessive coverage of Rupert Murdoch’s affairs only to report in the most flagrantly biased way yesterday on the fact that Israeli commandos peacefully intercepted another boat to Gaza, and brought it to the port of Ashdod, where having inspected its cargo, its occupants (about half of whom appear to have been anti-Israeli news reporters) and their cargo were allowed to cross by land to Gaza, having first undergone the regular customs inspection.
You also won’t have heard much on the BBC, or the rest of the international media, about the particularly heavy bombing raids on Libya in recent days by British, French and other NATO warplanes, which resulted in a significant number of Libyan casualties on the ground. Nor will you have heard much about the 21 Muslim Uighur civilians gunned down by the Chinese authorities yesterday. Or about the increasing number of Syrian pro-democracy protestors now being shot dead in Damascus, where the Syrian uprising has finally reached in large numbers. (Even the coverage of USA Today of the Arab Spring has been much better than supposedly superior media like The International Herald Tribune.)
To remind readers, the BBC, the world’s most lavishly funded news network, is under a legal requirement under British law to be balanced in its coverage.
“AWASH WITH MONEY”
Thirdly, I attach an article from the Sky News website by Tim Marshall, the Foreign Affairs editor of Sky News (who is a long time subscriber to this list). He observes that “there are well over 200 NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza” (many well-funded by European taxpayers at a time when the continent is undergoing economic difficulties) and “the place is awash with money”.
He writes of the West Bank’s “smart restaurants, sparkling new hotels, and the scale of building work,” adding that “Palestine remains a friendly place, welcoming, hospitable, full of air con, hi-fi, wi-fi and wine. Journalists also take advantage of this state of affairs, writing of the poverty and suffering of Gaza for example, before retiring to very expensive sea front hotels after an excellent dinner in one of the expensive fish restaurants.”
But more importantly, he adds: “Even if the Palestinians declare full statehood in September they would not be truly independent, not only because of the continuing Israeli occupation, checkpoints, lack of freedom of movement of goods etc, but also because Palestine is addicted to aid and as long as you are addicted you are in thrall to your supplier.
Tim Marshall also repeats the quote from my dispatch last week:
“Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry,” a medical NGO worker recently told This Week In Palestine, “People need field experience and Palestine sounds cool and dangerous because it can be described as a war zone, but in reality it’s quite safe and has all the comforts that internationals want.”
-- Tom Gross
EMAIL ALERT FROM “GAZA IRISH FRIENDS” (JULY 12, 2011)
From: Irish
Date: July 12, 2011 5:08:52 AM CDT
To: gazafriends
Subject: [GazaFriends] Demand the release of The Audacity of Hope
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ann Wright, 0030 694 165 7310
Regina Carey: 0030 694 203 6296
Athens, July 12, 2011, At 10 am today, the shore electricity was cut off to the Audacity of Hope, the US Boat to Gaza, leaving us with no power. The boat has been imprisoned at the US Embassy/Greek Coast Guard dock, near Piraeus, Greece, just outside of Athens since we tried to sail to Gaza on July 1 when the Greek Coast Guard intercepted our small boat and hauled us into this compound.
Its over 100 degrees inside the boat, and a Russian ship loading grain is spewing grain and dust over the entire area. In addition, the off-loading noise the ship is making is above environmentally acceptable limit, sounding like a bad rock concert playing at the back of the boat! Six women are staying on board to protect the boat, since two boats heading to Gaza were already sabotaged in an attempt to prevent us from sailing to Gaza. Four of us are over 60. The Greek naval facility is co-located with a US Embassy compound which has one warehouse exclusively for the U.S. government, as well as a ramp for loading vehicles onto a ship. It also has a parking area for the wrecked cars of Americans who have been involved in traffic accidents plus a secure warehouse compound behind the ubiquitous high fence topped with razor wire and signs printed in both English and Greek in the US government block style lettering
The Greek Coast Guard is probably caught in the middle and may be ready to release us, but government politics seems to wants to keep us in port to appease the Israeli government, since the occupation of Palestine has been outsourced to the Greeks.
Call the Greek Embassy in Washington and .the Greek consulates around the Country and demand that they release the Audacity of Hope
Embassy of Greece
2217 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
Tel. 202.939.1300
Fax. 202.939.1324
You can also call Kim Richter at the State Department or write a text message to her at 202-647-8308, insisting that the US release this boat and the six women on board who are making sure she remains safe. Our conversation with Kate Brandeis this morning, acting Consul General for the United States bore no fruit after we told her what was happening on board this boat.
EMAIL ALERT FROM “U.S. BOAT TO GAZA” (JULY 16, 2011)
From: U.S. BOAT TO GAZA
Date: Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 1:23 PM
Subject: July 16th Alert from the U.S. Boat to Gaza
Action Alert, July 16th-
Call State Dept Emergency Operations Center
about Conditions on The Audacity of Hope!
Contact:
Ann Wright 011 30 694 165 7310
Regina Carey 011 30 694 203 6296
Jenny Linnell 011 30 694 224 6648
Athens, July 16, 2011 - Day 16 of the imprisonment of the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, at a U.S. Embassy shared pier near Piraeus, Greece, just outside of Athens.
The U.S. Embassy has done absolutely nothing to help us in 100 + degree heat at a U.S. Government shared pier! No shore power, no alternatives provided (like another pier). No consular visits to see the conditions for themselves. NOTHING, ABSOULTELY NOTHING!!!
This weekend, please call the State Department 202-647-4000 and ask for the 24 hour Emergency Operations Center. Tell them that 3 people are still enduring the inhumane, dangerous conditions on the boat.
All are women--2 Americans and 1 UK citizen. They are:
Regina Carey (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/06/18683952.php) from San Rafael, California, is a consultant specializing in strategic planning and planned giving. In her lifetime commitment to human rights she has focused her time and energy to the Rights of the Indigenous (original people), Water Rights and Peace. She is a co-founder of the Black/Jewish Dialogue Group in Marin County, California. She has been an active participant in the World Social Forum and the UN Conference Against Racism (Durban, South Africa).
Crew member Jenny Linnell, is a British citizen from Devon, England, and was a Free Gaza crew member in 2008 on the first boat that broke the naval blockade of Gaza. She stayed in Gaza for a year and worked with the International Solidarity Movement. Her exit from Gaza into Egypt a year later took over 6 weeks because she had arrived by boat. She holds a “Day Skipper” license from the Royal Yachting Association and founded a sailing collective called “Learning the Ropes”.
Ann Wright is a former U.S. diplomat with 16 years in the State Department and Deputy Chief of Mission (Deputy Ambassador) at 4 U.S Embassies (Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia) and who got the State Department’s award for Heroism for her actions protecting civilians during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to Bush’s war on Iraq.
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PALESTINE - ‘OCCUPATION INCORPORATED’
Palestine - ‘Occupation Incorporated’
By Tim Marshall
Sky News
July 18, 2011
blogs.news.sky.com/foreignmatters/Post:9af1d847-da96-4825-9836-47e32000c275
An African UN worker in the West Bank recently remarked to a mutual friend ‘When people see me coming they see a walking ATM machine’.
Driving through Ramallah, and then Jericho, the other day I was reminded of that quip as I looked at the smart restaurants, sparkling new hotels, and the scale of building work.
The Palestinian Authority likes to boast about the West Bank’ s 8% economic growth, so does the Israeli government, which uses it to suggest that a prosperous Palestine would make an easier negotiating partner. They also know the Palestinians have more lose if a 3rd Intifada breaks out.
What they fail to remind us is that there are well over 200 NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza, and 30% of the GDP here comes from international aid. Palestinians are among the most foreign aid funded people in the world and the place is awash with money.
This underlying economic problem is further complicated by the fact that UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees stipulates that not only are the Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 refugees, but so are their sons and daughters grandsons and granddaughters, great grandsons and granddaughters and so on into the future. In Palestine many people are born refugees. There are people who have a vested interest in this continuing. In 1950 there were 750,000 Palestinians in the Middle East, now there are 4.8 million. UNWRA is considered a ‘temporary agency’.
Even if the Palestinians declare full statehood in September they would not be truly independent, not only because of the continuing Israeli occupation, checkpoints, lack of freedom of movement of goods etc, but also because Palestine is addicted to aid and as long as you are addicted you are in thrall to your supplier.
The billions that pour in here mean the Palestinian Authority does not need to try very hard to deliver the services expected by voters, it also stifles the private sector, inflates wages and causes an internal ‘brain drain’.
The restaurant I went to in Ramallah had a line of expensive cars outside and ranks of NGO workers picking their way through an expensive menu inside. The NGOs do fine work alleviating suffering, helping projects with expertise etc, but they also recruit the best of the local talent and take advantage of their charitable status to get tax breaks.
No Palestinian business can compete with NGOs which routinely triple what a local firm would pay. Many NGOs fork out ‘danger money’ and even ‘hardship payments’ to both local and international staff which further undermines the local private businesses. So the NGOs get the brightest and the highest paid, and the private firms get the rest but without the tax exemptions.
“Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry,” a medical NGO worker recently told This Week In Palestine, “People need field experience and Palestine sounds cool and dangerous because it can be described as a war zone, but in reality it’s quite safe and has all the comforts that internationals want’
Of course that could change. At any moment the West Bank could explode, indeed there are scenarios you can paint which suggest violence this September after the declaration, or non declaration, of statehood. But Palestine remains a friendly place, welcoming, hospitable, full of air con, hi-fi, wi-fi and wine. Journalists also take advantage of this state of affairs, writing of the poverty and suffering of Gaza for example, before retiring to very expensive sea front hotels after an excellent dinner in one of the expensive fish restaurants.
This is not to argue that NGOs are not required, many are, but they distort the situation and fundamentally the Palestinians cannot have properly functioning businesses, nor be fully independent until their leaders are partially weaned off their addiction to other peoples’ money.
* Pakistan, a society where moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter
* “Meanwhile it is the big, rich, dumb Americans who foot the bill”
* “If Pakistan were a person, he (and it would have to be a he) would have to be completely humorless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offense, and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred.”
“THE SHAME OF PAKISTAN”
Readers have occasionally asked for more dispatches on what is sometimes termed the “wider Middle East”. I have dealt with this from time to time, for example, the Bin Laden dispatches earlier this year, or my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the Mumbai massacres in 2008.
Below I attach a strongly-worded article on Pakistan in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine by Christopher Hitchens, who is a long time subscriber to this list.
-- Tom Gross
HITCH ON PAKISTAN
From Abbottabad to Worse
Hating the United States – which funds Islamabad’s army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a year – Pakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared.
By Christopher Hitchens
Vanity Fair
July 2011
Salman Rushdie’s upsettingly brilliant psycho-profile of Pakistan, in his 1983 novel, Shame, rightly laid emphasis on the crucial part played by sexual repression in the Islamic republic. And that was before the Talibanization of Afghanistan, and of much of Pakistan, too. Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shame – which is the noble word “honor” – becomes most commonly associated with the word “killing.” Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter.
If the most elemental of human instincts becomes warped in this bizarre manner, other morbid symptoms will disclose themselves as well. Thus, President Asif Ali Zardari cringes daily in front of the forces who openly murdered his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and who then contemptuously ordered the crime scene cleansed with fire hoses, as if to spit even on the pretense of an investigation. A man so lacking in pride – indeed lacking in manliness – will seek desperately to compensate in other ways. Swelling his puny chest even more, he promises to resist the mighty United States, and to defend Pakistan’s holy “sovereignty.” This puffery and posing might perhaps possess a rag of credibility if he and his fellow middlemen were not avidly ingesting $3 billion worth of American subsidies every year.
There’s absolutely no mystery to the “Why do they hate us?” question, at least as it arises in Pakistan. They hate us because they owe us, and are dependent upon us. The two main symbols of Pakistan’s pride – its army and its nuclear program – are wholly parasitic on American indulgence and patronage. But, as I wrote for Vanity Fair in late 2001, in a long report from this degraded country, that army and those nukes are intended to be reserved for war against the neighboring democracy of India. Our bought-and-paid-for pretense that they have any other true purpose has led to a rancid, resentful official hypocrisy, and to a state policy of revenge, large and petty, on the big, rich, dumb Americans who foot the bill. If Pakistan were a character, it would resemble the one described by Alexander Pope in his Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot:
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike:
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend …
So well-bred Spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
There’s an old cliché in client-state relations, about the tail wagging the dog, but have we really considered what it means when we actually are the tail, and the dog is our goddam lapdog? The lapdog’s surreptitious revenge has consisted in the provision of kennels for attack dogs. Everybody knew that the Taliban was originally an instrument for Pakistani colonization of Afghanistan. Everybody knew that al-Qaeda forces were being sheltered in the Pakistani frontier town of Quetta, and that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed was found hiding in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistani Army. Bernard-Henri Lévy once even produced a damning time line showing that every Pakistani “capture” of a wanted jihadist had occurred the week immediately preceding a vote in Congress on subventions to the government in Islamabad. But not even I was cynical enough to believe that Osama bin Laden himself would be given a villa in a Pakistani garrison town on Islamabad’s periphery. I quote below from a letter written by my Pakistani friend Irfan Khawaja, a teacher of philosophy at Felician College, in New Jersey. He sent it to me in anguish just after bin Laden, who claimed to love death more than life, had met his presumably desired rendezvous:
I find, however, that I can’t quite share in the sense of jubilation. I never believed that bin Laden was living in some hideaway “in the tribal areas.” But to learn that he was living in Abbottabad, after Khalid Sheikh Muhammed was discovered in Rawalpindi, is really too much for me. I don’t feel jubilation. I feel a personal, ineradicable sense of betrayal. For ten years, I’ve watched members of my own family taking to the streets, protesting the US military presence in northern Pakistan and the drone strikes etc. They stood there and prattled on and on about “Pakistan’s sovereignty,” and the supposed invasion of it by US forces.
Well, what fucking sovereignty? What fucking sovereignty were these people “protecting”? It’s bad enough that the Pakistani army lacks sovereignty over the tribal area and can’t control it when the country’s own life depends upon it. But that bin Laden was living in the Pakistani equivalent of Annapolis, MD …
You will notice that Irfan is here registering genuine shame, in the sense of proper outrage and personal embarrassment, and not some vicarious parody of emotion where it is always others – usually powerless women – who are supposedly bringing the shame on you.
If the Pakistani authorities had admitted what they were doing, and claimed the right to offer safe haven to al-Qaeda and the Taliban on their own soil, then the boast of “sovereignty” might at least have had some grotesque validity to it. But they were too cowardly and duplicitous for that. And they also wanted to be paid, lavishly and regularly, for pretending to fight against those very forces. Has any state ever been, in the strict sense of the term, more shameless? Over the years, I have written many pages about the sick relationship between the United States and various Third World client regimes, many of which turned out to be false friends as well as highly discreditable ones. General Pinochet, of Chile, had the unbelievable nerve to explode a car bomb in rush-hour traffic in Washington, D.C., in 1976, murdering a political rival and his American colleague. The South Vietnamese military junta made a private deal to sabotage the Paris peace talks in 1968, in order to benefit the electoral chances of Richard Nixon. Dirty money from the Shah of Iran and the Greek dictatorship made its way at different times into our electoral process. Israeli religious extremists demand American protection and then denounce us for “interference” if we demur politely about colonization of the West Bank. But our blatant manipulation by Pakistan is the most diseased and rotten thing in which the United States has ever involved itself. And it is also, in the grossest way, a violation of our sovereignty. Pakistan routinely – by the dispatch of barely deniable death squads across its borders, to such locations as the Taj Hotel in Mumbai – injures the sovereignty of India as well as Afghanistan. But you might call that a traditional form of violation. In our case, Pakistan ingratiatingly and silkily invites young Americans to one of the vilest and most dangerous regions on earth, there to fight and die as its allies, all the while sharpening a blade for their backs. “The smiler with the knife under the cloak,” as Chaucer phrased it so frigidly. (At our feet, and at our throat: Perfectly symbolic of the underhanded duality between the mercenary and the sycophant was the decision of the Pakistani intelligence services, in revenge for the Abbottabad raid, to disclose the name of the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad.)
This is well beyond humiliation. It makes us a prisoner of the shame, and co-responsible for it. The United States was shamed when it became the Cold War armorer of the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the 1950s and 1960s. It was shamed even more when it supported General Yahya Khan’s mass murder in Bangladesh in 1971: a Muslim-on-Muslim genocide that crashingly demonstrated the utter failure of a state based on a single religion. We were then played for suckers by yet another military boss in the form of General Zia-ul-Haq, who leveraged anti-Communism in Afghanistan into a free pass for the acquisition of nuclear weapons and the open mockery of the nonproliferation treaty. By the start of the millennium, Pakistan had become home to a Walmart of fissile material, traded as far away as Libya and North Korea by the state-subsidized nuclear entrepreneur A. Q. Khan, the country’s nearest approach (which in itself tells you something) to a national hero. Among the scientists working on the project were three named sympathizers of the Taliban. And that gigantic betrayal, too, was uncovered only by chance.
Again to quote myself from 2001, if Pakistan were a person, he (and it would have to be a he) would have to be completely humorless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offense, and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. That last triptych of vices is intimately connected. The self-righteousness comes from the claim to represent a religion: the very name “Pakistan” is an acronym of Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and so forth, the resulting word in the Urdu language meaning “Land of the Pure.” The self-pity derives from the sad fact that the country has almost nothing else to be proud of: virtually barren of achievements and historically based on the amputation and mutilation of India in 1947 and its own self-mutilation in Bangladesh. The self-hatred is the consequence of being pathetically, permanently mendicant: an abject begging-bowl country that is nonetheless run by a super-rich and hyper-corrupt Punjabi elite. As for paranoia: This not so hypothetical Pakistani would also be a hardened anti-Semite, moaning with pleasure at the butchery of Daniel Pearl and addicted to blaming his self-inflicted woes on the all-powerful Jews.
This dreary story actually does have some bearing on the “sovereignty” issue. In the beginning, all that the Muslim League demanded from the British was “a state for Muslims.” Pakistan’s founder and first president, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a relatively secular man whose younger sister went around unveiled and whose second wife did not practice Islam at all. But there’s a world of difference between a state for Muslims and a full-on Muslim state. Under the rule of General Zia there began to be imposition of Shari’a and increased persecution of non-Muslims as well as of Muslim minorities such as the Shiites, Ismailis, and Ahmadis. In recent years these theocratic tendencies have intensified with appalling speed, to the point where the state contains not one but two secret statelets within itself: the first an impenetrable enclave of covert nuclear command and control and the second a private nexus of power at the disposal of the military intelligence services and – until recently – Osama bin Laden himself. It’s the sovereignty of these possessions that exercises General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the Pakistani Army, who five days after Abbottabad made the arrogant demand that the number of American forces in the country be reduced “to the minimum essential.” He even said that any similar American action ought to warrant a “review” of the whole relationship between the two countries. How pitiful it is that a Pakistani and not an American should have been the first (and so far the only) leader to say those necessary things.
If we ever ceased to swallow our pride, so I am incessantly told in Washington, then the Pakistani oligarchy might behave even more abysmally than it already does, and the situation deteriorate even further. This stale and superficial argument ignores the awful historical fact that, each time the Pakistani leadership did get worse, or behave worse, it was handsomely rewarded by the United States. We have been the enablers of every stage of that wretched state’s counter-evolution, to the point where it is a serious regional menace and an undisguised ally of our worst enemy, as well as the sworn enemy of some of our best allies. How could it be “worse” if we shifted our alliance and instead embraced India, our only rival in scale as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy, and a nation that contains nearly as many Muslims as Pakistan? How could it be “worse” if we listened to the brave Afghans, like their former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who have been telling us for years that we are fighting the war in the wrong country?
If we continue to deny or avoid this inescapable fact, then we really are dishonoring, as well as further endangering, our exemplary young volunteers. Why was the raid on Abbottabad so rightly called “daring”? Because it had to be conducted under the radar of the Pakistani Air Force, which “scrambled” its jets and would have brought the Black Hawks down if it could. That this is true is bad enough in all conscience. That we should still be submitting ourselves to lectures and admonitions from General Kayani is beyond shameful.
Above: A new Tunisian government tourist board advert on a London bus
* Hamas arrests male hairdressers for cutting women’s hair
* In contrast to the BBC, the reports on the soccer match by Al Arabiya and other Arab media I saw don’t make any mention of Israeli occupation
* U.S. sends sophisticated new arms to Egypt despite likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood will participate in the next government
* U.S. apologizes for mistakenly placing Israel on terror watch list
* Unlike other prominent Western media, Reuters explains why Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is legal
* Gaza blockade in reverse: Hamas build a wall on the Egyptian border to prevent infiltrators
* From an article in the West Bank publication “This Week in Palestine”: “Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry. People need field experience and Palestine sounds cool and dangerous because it can be described as a war zone, but in reality it’s quite safe and has all the comforts that internationals want. Quality of life here is so much higher than somewhere like Afghanistan, but we don’t tell anyone so that we are not replaced or reassigned. In cities like Ramallah and Nablus, expensive restaurants and high-powered financial institutions are common now. Nightlife and entertainment is expanding to cater for international tastes.”
CONTENTS
1. UN Gaza flotilla probe: Israel naval blockade is legal
2. Reuters: If pro-Palestinian activists reach Gaza, they might be surprised at how well it’s doing
3. Alice Walker: “Israel is a terrorist organization”
4. Gaza authorities publish a new tourist map
5. Gaza blockade in reverse: Hamas build a wall on the Egyptian border to prevent infiltrators
6. Palestinians celebrate World Cup soccer advance (but BBC can’t report it straight)
7. “Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry”
8. Hamas arrests male hairdressers for Gaza women’s haircuts
9. Small steps to democracy in the UAE?
10. EU bans Egyptian agricultural produce following E. coli outbreak
11. Israel concerned as Obama announces huge arms deal for new Egyptian government
12. U.S. government apologizes for mistakenly placing Israel on terror watch list
13. Tunisia risks controversy with “naked women” travel ads
14. “Is Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza legal?” (Reuters news agency)
[All notes below by Tom Gross]
UN GAZA FLOTILLA PROBE RULES: ISRAEL NAVAL BLOCKADE IS LEGAL
The Israeli paper Ha’aretz reports that “The final findings of the UN commission that investigated the events concerning the Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010 do not call for Israel to apologize, and conclude that the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza is legal and is in accordance with international law and a country’s right of self-defense.”
The UN committee investigating the events of last May’s Gaza flotilla is headed by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Geoffrey Palmer, who is an expert on international maritime law.
The UN report also sharply criticized the Turkish government’s behavior in its dealings with the committee. Palmer added in the report that Israel’s independent commission led by Judge Turkel had investigated the events in a “professional, independent and unbiased” way.
By contrast, Palmer concluded that “the Turkish investigation was politically influenced and its work was not professional or independent.”
The Palmer Committee also criticizes the IHH group that organized the Gaza flotilla as well as its ties to the Turkish government, suggesting Turkey did not do enough to stop the flotilla last year. (By contrast, the Turkish authorities cooperated with Israel this year to ensure the flotilla didn’t sail from Turkey -- Tom Gross.)
According to the final draft of the UN probe, Israel has not been asked to apologize to Turkey, but the report does recommend it expresses regret over the casualties.
Palmer said that although international law permits the interception of ships outside territorial waters, Israel should have taken control of the flotilla when the ships were closer to the limit of the naval blockade – 20 miles off the coast. Israel responded by saying that its interception of the flotilla further from the coast was due to military and tactical considerations, following the organizers’ refusal to stop.
***
Tom Gross adds: the above information was widely reported last week in the Israeli media, but why do all those influential international media, which criticize Israel day after day, not report properly that the UN committee has ruled Israel was right in its assertions after all?
Unlike journalists at other media, Reuters did run a piece last year, which I attach at the end of this dispatch, explaining how Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is indeed legal under international law.
And why is the UN always spending huge amounts of money investigating supposed Israeli wrongdoings while not investigating countless wrongdoings by other governments which occur daily and most of which are barely reported by the media?
REUTERS: IF PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS REACH GAZA, THEY MIGHT BE SURPRISED AT HOW WELL IT’S DOING
Over the last two years, I have reported on many occasions how Gaza is not nearly as impoverished as many Western media have reported. In addition to many messages of support, I have received many nasty messages as a result, some from far Right extremists, but most from left-wing intellectuals (including Jewish ones).
As I have stated time and again, I have been a supporter of an independent Palestinian state all my life. But I think the utterly skewered reporting of many leading Western news media has misled politicians, resulting in their making bad policy, and this has moved us further away from a peaceful two-state solution.
It doesn’t help governments to formulate intelligent policies when, for example, Time magazine reports: “Please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them, most of them living hand to mouth.”
Or when Nobel peace-prize winner Jimmy Carter said Gazans are being “starved to death.”
Now, finally, under pressure from myself and others, virtually all these media are reversing themselves and finally reporting the truth about the “starving of Gaza”.
Both the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies have now run more positive reports about life in Gaza. This follows my most recent dispatches on this (including the one last week which has been widely linked to around the world: As North Korea starves, this is life in Gaza). (Senior staff at both agencies subscribe to this email list, including the chief executive editor of the Associated Press in New York.)
As the reports below by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ibrahim Barzak demonstrate, as is often the case, Palestinian journalists are less anti-Israeli than left-wing Western journalists, including left-wing Jewish ones:
Nidal al-Mughrabi, the Reuters correspondent in Gaza, began his report last week:
“GAZA (Reuters) - If pro-Palestinian activists unexpectedly manage to slip past Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip in the coming days, they might be surprised by what they see in the Hamas-controlled enclave when they disembark.
“Roads are being paved, houses are being built, new cars have taken to the busy streets and shops are full of myriad products.”
***
And Ibrahim Barzak of the Associated Press reports (July 5) that “Maher Khoudari boasts that his Gaza grocery has a wide assortment of chocolates for sale – even some you couldn’t find in the cosmopolitan Israeli city of Tel Aviv.” He adds that “Gaza is awash in big ticket items such as cars and refrigerators.”
***
However, AP just can’t let their report continue without reverting to the Palestinian “victimhood” narrative. The AP story continues:
“Israel has made much of the fact that there is no starvation in Gaza,” said Gaza economist Omar Shaban. “But the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not about food,” he added. “The humanitarian crisis is about education.”
***
Tom Gross adds: In fact everyone in Gaza gets a free education, and there is almost universal literacy in Gaza, which AP neglects to mention. And as for being such a “crisis” location, the International Monetary Fund reported that Gaza’s economy expanded 16 percent in the first half of 2010.
But the real question is why don’t AP, and The New York Times and the BBC and CNN go across the border into Egypt and report on how life there is in many ways much worse than in Gaza? Could it be because that way they wouldn’t have a story with which to attack Israel?
ALICE WALKER: “ISRAEL IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION”
Perhaps as a result of reading misinformation about Israel in certain American media, the author Alice Walker, who attempted to sail in a second hostile Gaza flotilla last week (but was prevented from doing so by the Greek authorities) has told Foreign Policy magazine that: “Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves.”
GAZA AUTHORITIES PUBLISH A NEW TOURIST MAP
Although tourism to the Gaza Strip remains low, as I have mentioned before, some of Gaza’s nice restaurants, music venues (those not closed down by Hamas) and beaches do feature in international travel guides such as the Lonely Planet.
Now a new English-language guide and map funded by the Bank of Palestine, has been produced and is to be handed out free of charge. Besides documenting its archaeological and tourist sites, the map will include practical information such as the location of hospitals and government buildings, according to the Gazan ministry of tourism.
“Gaza City is the world’s fourth-most-ancient city,” said Amir Shurrab, who helped produce the map. “This project was our dream and aspiration, which we finally realized.”
Many tourist maps in the past have detailed the 3000 year-old Jewish history in Gaza, including the many synagogues. It remains to be seen whether the new map – the first produced under Hamas rule in Gaza – will mention the area’s rich Jewish heritage.
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Above: On the beach in Gaza earlier this month.
GAZA BLOCKADE IN REVERSE: HAMAS BUILD A WALL ON THE EGYPTIAN BORDER TO PREVENT INFILTRATORS
While complaining to the international media about the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, according to some news reports, Hamas last week began building its own 12 meter high fortifications to block Gaza’s western border with Egypt. Hamas is said to be concerned about the spillover of post-revolutionary chaos from Egypt into Gaza and wishes to prevent a new influx of militants from Libya and Egypt who have links to Al Qaeda.
Hamas has recently clamped down on the Al Qaeda-affiliated group, the “Army of Islam,” shooting dead several of their members. Hamas blames them for the resurgence of rocket fire into Israel in violation of the informal ceasefire agreed with Israel four months ago.
On Saturday, July 9, another three Qassam missiles were fired from Gaza at the Israeli city of Ashkelon and the Eshkol district. There were no injuries. Three more Kassam rockets hit southern Israel last night.
PALESTINIANS CELEBRATE WORLD CUP SOCCER ADVANCE (BUT BBC CAN’T REPORT IT STRAIGHT)
In its first-ever home World Cup match in Ramallah last week, the Palestinian national soccer team defeated Afghanistan to move into the second Asian World Cup qualifying round. The Palestinians came away with a 3-1 aggregate victory after drawing the Afghanis 1-1.
In its sports report on the match, the BBC couldn’t help but mention several times how “Palestine” is under Israeli occupation, but interestingly didn’t mention once how parts of Afghanistan are, in the views of many, under British occupation. Nor did they mention how, in recent weeks, Britain and her allies have killed far more Afghans, including Afghan civilians, than Israel has killed Palestinians – this despite the fact that Afghans are not rocketing British towns and villages, as Palestinians did again to Israel last weekend.
In contrast to the BBC, the reports on the soccer match by Al Arabiya and other Arab media I saw don’t make any mention of Israeli occupation.
The Palestinian team will now play Thailand in a home-and-away match, first in Thailand on 23rd July and then in Ramallah on 28th July, for a chance to move closer to the World Cup finals. Let’s hope they go through and that one day soon Israel and Palestine can play each other in a sportsmanlike manner in the World Cup.
(Incidentally, the Palestinian team is the only one of world football body FIFA’s 208 members which is not a UN recognized state. The hundreds of other peoples in the world who would like to have their own independent states, such as the Tibetans and the Chechens, have not been allowed by FIFA to participate in the World Cup.)
For those interested, here is the unofficial Blog of the Palestinian National Football Team:
http://footballpalestine.blogspot.com/
“PALESTINE IS THE BEST-KEPT SECRET IN THE AID INDUSTRY”
From an article in the West Bank publication “This Week in Palestine”:
http://thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3385&ed=193&edid=193
“Palestine is the best-kept secret in the aid industry,” I am told by Emily Williams, an American project manager at a medical NGO. “People need field experience and Palestine sounds cool and dangerous because it can be described as a war zone, but in reality it’s quite safe and has all the comforts that internationals want. Quality of life here is so much higher than somewhere like Afghanistan, but we don’t tell anyone so that we are not replaced or reassigned.”
That quality of life is becoming rapidly more apparent in the “A” areas. In cities like Ramallah and Nablus, expensive restaurants and high-powered financial institutions are common now. Nightlife and entertainment is expanding to cater for international tastes.
HAMAS ARRESTS MALE HAIRDRESSERS FOR GAZA WOMEN’S HAIRCUTS
The Hamas government in Gaza has begun enforcing a law banning men from cutting women’s hair. Several male hairdressers in Gaza have been arrested in recent days.
Hamas claims that Islamic law forbids men cutting women’s hair.
The fact that Hamas is now enforcing the law – which was introduced a year ago – is being interpreted as an attempt to bolster Hamas’s Islamic credentials against critics who say it has become too moderate.
Adnan Barakat, a hairdresser with 27 years experience in Gaza, said: “The women’s salon cannot function without me. This has been my work since 1984. I have no other profession. What can I do now?”
Hatem al-Ghoul, another Gaza hairdresser, said he was now living in fear after his salon was twice attacked with small bombs in the middle of the night. He said he had been serving female clients at his small salon in Gaza City for more than 25 years, after Israel allowed men to cut women’s hair (and vice versa) during the period of Israeli rule in Gaza.
Hamas has also tried to introduce new rules to oblige female lawyers to cover their hair in court and to make high-school girls wear long dresses. But they have been enforced patchily, with many Gazan women and girls refusing to obey.
SMALL STEPS TO DEMOCRACY IN THE UAE?
The United Arab Emirates said on Monday that the pool of voters for this year’s election to the Federal National Council will be 50,000 greater than previously announced, and almost 20 times more than in the 2006 elections. A total of 129,274 Emiratis will be eligible to vote, up from 6,595 who qualified five years ago.
Anwar Gargash, the chairman of the UAE electoral committee, said the expansion of the electorate demonstrated “the commitment of the UAE and its leadership to further promoting political participation.”
The so called-Arab Spring has put the UAE, a federation of seven Gulf emirates, under pressure to increase freedoms, but until now the response has mostly been to crack down brutally on bloggers, intellectuals and other reformers.
EU BANS EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE FOLLOWING E. COLI OUTBREAK
The European Union has found that a recent deadly outbreak of E. coli infections in Germany and France originated in Egyptian fenugreek seeds and as a result the EU has imposed a ban on some of Egypt’s farm exports for the next four months.
The ban comes at a time when Egypt is struggling to earn the foreign currency it needs to pay for imports and provide employment to its people.
Egypt has already lost considerable foreign exchange earnings this year as a result of a sharp reduction in Western tourism.
In addition, Suez Canal workers have been on strike for the past three weeks, depriving the economy of toll fees, while yesterday a pipeline delivering Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan was blown up for the fourth time this year, cutting off deliveries.
SEEKING MORE THAN $8 BILLION IN DAMAGES
Yesterday’s attack came just after authorities had completed repairs from the previous strike. The repeated attacks have forced Israel to use other, more expensive fuels to power its generating plants while Jordan has been forced to ration electricity. Jordan depends on Egyptian gas to generate 80% of its electricity, while Israel gets 40% of its natural gas from its neighbor.
Shareholders of East Mediterranean Gas Co. said on Monday that they will take legal action against Egypt, seeking more than $8 billion in damages for interruptions in the natural gas supply from Egypt to Israel.
ISRAEL CONCERNED AS OBAMA ANNOUNCES HUGE ARMS DEAL FOR NEW EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT
Despite the revolution that overthrew Egypt’s pro-Western regime earlier this year and the very real possibility that the new government to be elected this fall (autumn) will contain many members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama Administration has announced plans to move ahead with an arms deal with Egypt worth more than $1 billion. The deal includes 125 Abrams tanks, one of the leading fighting vehicles used by U.S. forces.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the deal would provide Egypt with “a modern tank fleet, enhancing its capacity to meet current and future threats.”
But many are wondering exactly what threat the Obama administration thinks Egypt faces. It is on friendly terms with all its Arab neighbors and has been at peace with Israel since the late 1970s.
With tourism to Egypt falling by more than 25% this year, resulting in billions of dollars of lost income, one also has to wonder why the Egyptian authorities want to spend yet more money on arms.
***
Among recent dispatches on Egypt, please see: Egypt: The Hangover begins (& Egypt Air wipes Israel off the map)
U.S. GOVERNMENT APOLOGIZES FOR MISTAKENLY PLACING ISRAEL ON TERROR WATCH LIST
John Morton, the director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, has apologized for the placing of Israel instead of North Korea on a new Homeland Security terror watch list they compiled. The list puts travelers from that country under suspicion of having terrorist ties.
“The U.S. does not and never has considered Israel to have links to terrorism, but rather they are a partner in our efforts to combat global terrorism. We are very sorry for the error,” Morton said.
The list of 36 nations does include a number of other U.S. allies, however, such as Bahrain, Morocco, Turkey and the Philippines.
TUNISIA RISKS CONTROVERSY WITH “NAKED WOMEN” TRAVEL ADS
Following the period of deadly protests that brought down dictator Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia is trying to regain its place as a favored Mediterranean tourist destination.
Over the past few weeks, billboards have appeared in Paris and London depicting a smiling, sultry and apparently naked woman, enjoying the benefits of a massage.
The caption on the advert reads: “They say that in Tunisia, some people receive heavy-handed treatment.”
Another advert shows ancient Roman ruins near to a sexy woman, with the words: “They say Tunisia is nothing but ruins.”
A director at the Tunis-based advertising agency behind the campaign said: “We identified the central problem for would-be tourists as the fear of violence and chaos in post-revolutionary Tunisia, so we decided to face the issue head on.”
Tunisia’s revenue from tourism has shrunk by 50% so far this year.
[All notes above by Tom Gross]
REUTERS ARTICLE: IS ISRAEL’S NAVAL BLOCKADE OF GAZA LEGAL?
(Tom Gross adds: This Reuters article was published in June 2010, and I post it again now since several major international media continue to quote activists claiming that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is illegal without explaining that the vast majority of international lawyers say otherwise.)
Q&A: Is Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza legal?
Reuters news agency
June 2, 2010
www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/02/us-israel-flotilla-gaza-idUSTRE65133D20100602
LONDON (Reuters) - Israel has said it will continue a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip despite growing global pressure to lift the siege after a navy raid on a Turkish ferry carrying aid killed nine activists this week.
What is the legality of the blockade and did Israel’s intervention breach international law? Below are some questions and answers on the issue:
CAN ISRAEL IMPOSE A NAVAL BLOCKADE ON GAZA?
Yes it can, according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law and codified in the 1909 Declaration of London. It was updated in 1994 in a legally recognized document called the “San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.”
Under some of the key rules, a blockade must be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral states, access to neutral ports cannot be blocked, and an area can only be blockaded which is under enemy control.
“On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal,” said Philip Roche, partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with law firm Norton Rose.
WHAT ARE INTERNATIONAL WATERS?
Under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea a coastal state has a “territorial sea” of 12 nautical miles from the coast over which it is sovereign. Ships of other states are allowed “innocent passage” through such waters.
There is a further 12 nautical mile zone called the “contiguous zone” over which a state may take action to protect itself or its laws.
“However, strictly beyond the 12 nautical miles limit the seas are the “high seas” or international waters,” Roche said.
The Israeli navy said on Monday the Gaza bound flotilla was intercepted 120 km (75 miles) west of Israel. The Turkish captain of one of the vessels told an Istanbul news conference after returning home from Israeli detention they were 68 miles outside Israeli territorial waters.
Under the law of a blockade, intercepting a vessel could apply globally so long as a ship is bound for a “belligerent” territory, legal experts say.
CAN ISRAEL USE FORCE WHEN INTERCEPTING SHIPS?
Under international law it can use force when boarding a ship.
“If force is disproportionate it would be a violation of the key tenets of the use of force,” said Commander James Kraska, professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College.
Israeli authorities said marines who boarded the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara opened fire in self-defense after activists clubbed and stabbed them and snatched some of their weapons.
Legal experts say proportional force does not mean that guns cannot be used by forces when being attacked with knives.
“But there has got to be a relationship between the threat and response,” Kraska said.
The use of force may also have other repercussions.
“While the full facts need to emerge from a credible and transparent investigation, from what is known now, it appears that Israel acted within its legal rights,” said J. Peter Pham, a strategic adviser to U.S. and European governments.
“However, not every operation that the law permits is necessarily prudent from the strategic point of view.”
OPPONENTS HAVE CALLED ISRAEL’S RAID “PIRACY.” WAS IT?
No, as under international law it was considered a state action.
“Whether what Israel did is right or wrong, it is not an act of piracy. Piracy deals with private conduct particularly with a pecuniary or financial interest,” Kraska said.
HAVE THERE BEEN ANY SHIPPING DISRUPTIONS AFTER THE RAID?
None so far but the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), an association which represents 75 percent of the world’s merchant fleet, has expressed “deep concern” over the boarding by Israeli forces, arguing that merchant ships have a right to safe passage and freedom of navigation in international waters.
“These fundamental principles of international law must always be upheld by all of the world’s nations,” the ICS said.
* Below: New photos of Gaza from the Palestinian press and from the UN, of the kind the Western media are very reluctant to publish.
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GAZA AS SEEN IN THE PALESTINIAN PRESS LAST WEEK
[Note by Tom Gross]
This is a follow-up to a series of previous dispatches on this website showing the real Gaza (for example, here and here), not the phony version given by many media in Europe and north America.
The first set of photos below appeared last weekend in the Palestinian-run and owned Gaza publication Palestine Times. The link to these and further photos in The Palestine Times is at the end of this dispatch, followed by some other photos of Gaza just posted by the UN on the official UNRWA website.
This is not the image of Gaza you will have heard about again today, in report after report on BBC World Service radio, or in the lengthy article that dominated most of page 2 of today’s International Herald Tribune (the self-billed “Global edition of The New York Times”.)
(That IHT/NYT “news report” had the audacity repeatedly to liken the well-off American and European political activists on the forthcoming Gaza flotilla with the Auschwitz survivors on the Exodus. Two readers wrote to say it was one of the most sickening comparisons they had ever seen in a supposedly respectable newspaper.)
Below is the real Gaza, the territory that the British Prime Minister (misled, it is now acknowledged, by BBC reports) called a “prison camp”. (The Palestinian media may have considerable faults, but on the issue of covering everyday Palestinian life, they are more honest than many Western journalists, whose prejudices against Israel get in the way of their objectivity.)
Meanwhile, the media continue all but to ignore places where there really is a humanitarian catastrophe, such as North Korea, where a new report has revealed that 650,000 people are on the verge of dying through starvation, and emaciated women and children lie sprawled on streets throughout the Communist state.
-- Tom Gross
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PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEKEND, A TYPICAL SUMMER WEEKEND IN GAZA
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Tom Gross adds: Previous dispatches have shown the shops and markets and swimming pools, restaurants, toy shops and candy stores of Gaza – all illustrated by photos taken from the Palestinian media itself.
Another shopping mall is to open soon in Gaza. It will include cinemas, Western-style coffee shops and boutiques carrying international brands such as Armani, Ralph Lauren, Polo and Tommy Hilfiger.
These photos from last weekend continue to show Palestinians enjoying their time on clean beaches, horse-riding, sailing, smoking water pipes and barbequing.
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You can see these and more photos here, at The Palestine Times.
(Of course, life in Gaza could be better still if the government there engaged in a little more good governance rather than concentrating their efforts on procuring thousands of weapons to use against Israel.)
NEW UNRWA PHOTOS OF GAZA
(Photos below, courtesy of UNRWA’s press department.)
GAZA’S CHILDREN PARACHUTE INTO RECORD BOOKS FOR THIRD YEAR IN A ROW
In a press release, the UN agency UNRWA reports (on June 30, 2011) that “Gaza’s children stormed into the Guinness Book of World Records for the third year straight today, as they broke the record for the world’s biggest parachute game.”
“3,520 children playing with 176 parachutes, more than doubled the record set by pupils at Plymstock School in Plymouth, England on 4 April 2006, when 1,547 children played with 58 parachutes. International witnesses were on hand to count, including two judges in charge of signing the official statement on behalf of Guinness.”
Record-breaker Haitham El Ghoul, 12, said: “We have been training every day for more than 10 days. I’m so happy with what we have achieved today. And I am most happy because the children of Palestine get another mention in the Guinness book of records. I was confident that we would succeed, and feel so proud of our achievement.”
“When we were raising the parachute up it felt like we were raising the name of Gaza and Palestine up to the sky,” Yumna Jarbou, 14, said. “This is the first time I ever took part in breaking a world record – and it felt so good.”
In 2009, children in Gaza broke the record for the most number of kites flown simultaneously, while last year they not only broke their own kite record, but set a new record for the number of basketballs bounced simultaneously.
Their next attempt at a world record will be on July 14, when more than 2,000 children will compete for the record for the highest number of footballs dribbled simultaneously.
-- Tom Gross