un'analisi delle menzogne su Gaza

[Roberto Vignoli <rvignoli at gmail.com>]

January 13, 2009
AN EYE FOR AN EYELASH: THE GAZA MASSACRE - PARTS 1 & 2

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

On March 24, 1999, an emotional Tony Blair appealed to the House of 
Commons and to the people of Britain:

"We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from 
humanitarian catastrophe."

Blair described the emergency:

"Let me give the House an indication of the scale of what is happening: 
a quarter of a million Kosovars, more than 10 per cent of the 
population, are now homeless as a result of repression by Serb forces... 
Since last summer 2000 people have died." (Blair: 'We must act - to save 
thousands of innocent men, women and children,' The Guardian, March 23, 
1999; www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/ Story/0,,209876,00.html)

Not even Blair claimed all the killings had been on one side. George 
Robertson, the UK Defence Secretary at the time of the crisis, testified 
before the House of Commons that until mid-January 1999, "the Kosovo 
Liberation Army [KLA] was responsible for more deaths in Kosovo than the 
Serbian authorities had been". (Quoted, Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or 
Survival, Routledge, 2003, p.56)

The Guardian rallied to Blair's cause:

"The only honorable course for Europe and America is to use military 
force to try to protect the people of Kosovo... If we do not act at all, 
or if there is a limited bombing campaign which still fails to change 
Milosevic's mind, what is likely to be Kosovo's future?" (Leader, 'The 
sad need for force, Kosovo must be saved,' The Guardian, March 23, 1999)

The following day, NATO began its 78-day blitz of Serbia.

Ten years later and almost one-half of the 2,000 death toll that so 
horrified Blair and the Guardian in 1999 has been reached by the Israeli 
Defence Force (IDF) in its massacre of 890 Palestinians in just over two 
weeks. Some 3,800 more have been wounded. The current slaughter is far 
more one-sided than Kosovo. There have so far been 3 Israeli civilian 
deaths and 10 soldiers killed: 4 of these were victims of their own 
'friendly fire'.

KLA attacks did nothing to temper media outrage at the spectacle of the 
Serbian state attacking tiny Kosovo. The focus was on Serbian 
"massacres" and "genocide". The Observer wrote of the alleged killing of 
45 Albanian civilians in Racak by Serb armed forces on January 16, 1999:

"History will judge that the defining moment for the international 
community took place on 16 January this year... Albanians returning 
after an attack by Serb security forces discovered the bodies of men 
they had left behind to look after the houses." (Peter Beaumont, Justin 
Brown, John Hooper, Helena Smith and Ed Vulliamy, 'Hi-tech war and 
primitive slaughter - Slobodan Milosevic is fighting on two fronts,' The 
Observer, March 28, 1999)

Serb forces, the Observer wrote, were "pursuing their own version of a 
Balkan Final Solution". (Ibid.)

In 1999, British and American media were full of talk of "genocide" in 
Kosovo. A Nexis database search showed that between 1998-1999 the Los 
Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used 
"genocide" 220 times to describe Serb actions in Kosovo. (Email from 
Edward Herman to Media Lens, August 27, 2002)

We have found no examples of a British journalist describing Israeli 
actions as "genocidal" over the last month. Daily Mail columnist Melanie 
Phillips made rare use of the word on January 5:

"Many others also share the view that Israel is in the wrong. So why is 
a country [Israel] under attack from genocidal fanatics pilloried for 
defending its citizens against slaughter?" (Phillips, 'Yes, this war is 
terrible. But the alternative was worse - for us all,' Daily Mail, 
January 5, 2009)

Israel's massacre is presented as a "war", as a "Gaza conflict" between 
two sides engaged in "fighting". This is the standard fiction, as Tim 
Llewellyn, the BBC's former Middle East Correspondent, noted five years ago:

"In the news reporting of the domestic BBC TV bulletins, 'balance', the 
BBC's crudely applied device for avoiding trouble, means that Israel's 
lethal modern army is one force, the Palestinians, with their rifles and 
home-made bombs, the other 'force': two sides equally strong and 
culpable in a difficult dispute, it is implied, that could easily be 
sorted out if extremists on both sides would see reason and the leaders 
do as instructed by Washington..." (Llewellyn, 'Why the BBC Ducks the 
Palestinian Story - Part 1,' Media Lens, January 15, 2004)

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, one of two foreign doctors working at 
Gaza's biggest hospital, al-Shifa, told CBS News:

"I've seen one military person among the hundreds that we have seen and 
treated. So anyone who tries to portray this as sort of a clean war 
against another army are lying. This is an all-out war against the 
civilian Palestinian population in Gaza and we can prove that with the 
numbers." (CBS News, January 5, 2008; http://uk.youtube.com 
/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA)

Even the death toll cited above does little to communicate the true 
one-sidedness of the wider violence, injustice and cruelty. One hardly 
knows where to begin. For example, largely unmentioned by the media, 
prior to the latest invasion, 14 Israelis had been killed by mostly 
homemade rockets fired from Gaza over the last seven years as against 
5,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks. (Seumas Milne, 'Israel's 
onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed,' The Guardian, 
December 30, 2008; www.guardian.co.uk/ 
commentisfree/2008/dec/30/israel-and-the-palestinians-middle-east)

Consider the response of Blair and the Guardian to Israel's mass 
killing. From Blair there is no longer talk of the need to send bombs 
and tanks to save a stricken population (Blair led calls for a ground 
war against Serbia). Instead:

"I think the position is that there are circumstances in which we could 
get an immediate ceasefire and that's what people want to see. I think 
the circumstances focus very much around clear action to cut off the 
supply of arms and money from the tunnels that go from Egypt into Gaza. 
I think if there were strong, clear, definitive action on that, that 
would give us the best context to get an immediate ceasefire and to 
start to change the situation." (Andrew Sparrow, 'Immediate Gaza 
ceasefire is possible, says Tony Blair,' The Guardian, January 6, 2009; 
www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 2009/jan/06/israelandthepalestinians-middleeast)

No Guardian editorials have proposed a massive military assault on 
Israel as the only "honorable course for Europe and America". The 
question has not been asked: "If we do not act at all... what is likely 
to be Gaza's future?" Instead, the country's "leading liberal newspaper" 
is sensitive to the perspective of the Israeli killing machine:

"The ghost of Israel's humiliation at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon 
in 2006 hangs over this enterprise and Israel will want to exorcise 
it... Israel will judge the success of its operation on the extent to 
which it will have depleted Hamas's command structure, as well as its 
ability to launch rockets." (Leader, 'Gaza ground assault: When victory 
is a hollow word,' The Guardian, January 5, 2008)

As we will see, the claim that Israel is working merely to smash 
"Hamas's command structure" is a classic liberal herring.

The Guardian's solution: "There is only one way out of the political 
trap which Israeli forces are now entering, and that is an immediate 
ceasefire." (Ibid.)

To be fair, a second leader did contemplate a slap on the wrist:

"If Israel presses on regardless, it should face an immediate suspension 
of all arms from the EU, as Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, 
proposes." (Leader, 'Gaza: No shelter,' The Guardian, January 7, 2008)

As ever, Israeli politicians claim to have been heroically restraining 
themselves and their capacity for violence (a manifest source of pride) 
in the face of endless provocation. And yet, as recently as 
February-March last year 110 Palestinian civilians were killed during 
'Operation Winter Heat'. (See our earlier Media Alerts: 'Israel's 
Illegal Assault On The Gaza "Prison"' March 3, 2008, and 'Israeli Deaths 
Matter More,' March 11, 2008)

This military violence is piled on the staggering economic violence of 
Israel's blockade of Gaza. Prior to the latest offensive, John Ging who 
runs the Gaza operations of Unrwa, the UN agency that looks after 
Palestinian refugees, told the BBC last month:

"There's one million on food aid, including 750,000 refugees. 80% are 
below the poverty line, meaning they live on less than $2 a day. Almost 
100,000 jobs have gone in the last 18 months, since the total Israeli 
embargo came in. [Because that included most building materials] $93m of 
Unrwa construction projects, medical centres, houses for refugees, all 
are stopped. 3,200 out of 3,500 Gaza businesses have gone down in the 
siege."

"There's no ray of sunlight. It's all going in the wrong direction. It's 
all well documented and predictable."

"The Quartet [of the US, UN, Russia and the EU] said a new approach was 
needed for Gaza. In fact there are even stricter sanctions." (BBC 
online, 'Bowen diary: The days before war,' January 10, 2009; 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /world/middle_east/7822048.stm)

During the ceasefire, Israel placed severe restrictions on the number of 
trucks allowed to bring food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts 
for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. Israeli 
historian, Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the 
University of Oxford, wrote in the Guardian:

"It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza 
could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if 
it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that 
is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law." (Shlaim, 'How 
Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe,' The 
Guardian, January 7, 2009; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 
2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine)

He added:

"The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But 
Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an 
eye for an eyelash."

It is the sheer cruelty of Israeli oppression that captures the world's 
imagination. Or, more accurately, defies it.
Targeting Hamas

The corporate media has been happy to echo the claim that Israel is 
"targeting Hamas" rather than the Palestinian people. In reality, the 
Palestinian people elected Hamas as its democratic government in 2006. 
And it is the Palestinian people who are paying the price now. The state 
of the art, US-supplied missiles, bombs and artillery shells are not 
being aimed at the regular army targets for which they were designed: 
tanks, command posts, trenches and bunkers. They are being fired into 
residential areas in one of the world's most densely-populated strips of 
land.

The white phosphorus (WP) shells being used are incendiary airburst 
weapons designed to incinerate a wide target area. The weapon has been 
used by US forces in their infamous "shake 'n' bake" attacks on Iraqi 
insurgents in cities such as Fallujah. On the BBC's World News, 
correspondent Ben Brown said WP shells were being used merely to 
illuminate targets in Gaza. (Brown, BBC World News, January 9)

Israel consistently claims that 80 per cent of those killed were Hamas 
"militants". Al Haq, a Palestinian legal rights group, reports that in 
fact 80 per cent of Palestinian fatalities have been civilians. 
According to figures cited by the World Health Organisation, at least 40 
per cent have been children. (Jonathan Cook, 'Civilian death toll spurs 
legal action,' The National, January 9, 2009; 
http://www.thenational.ae/article/ 20090109/FOREIGN/417838381/1002)

Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) characterised the death toll as reaching 
"alarming proportions" and indicative of "extreme violence 
indiscriminately affecting civilians." 
(http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/ 
TUJA-7N55DU?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pse)

Claims of careful targeting are hardly credible given that Israeli 
artillery shells hit three United Nations-run schools being used as 
refugee centres, killing more than 50 people. The UN had informed the 
Israeli military that the schools were refugee centres - GPS coordinates 
were provided. Israeli forces knew what they were attacking and they 
knew the centres were packed with the same families they had previously 
told to leave their homes to avoid attack.

Israel explained that Hamas fighters had been firing from within one of 
the schools. When the claim became indefensible, it was quietly 
withdrawn in "private" briefings to Westerners - a retraction barely 
reported anywhere. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=s0BRJS6WnMs)

The latest claim (Ben Brown, BBC World News, January 11) is that the 
UN-run school was hit by a stray mortar round. But just prior to the 
launch of the ground offensive, Israel shelled Palestine Square, Gaza 
City's main shopping area, killing five Palestinians. They destroyed the 
American International School. They also destroyed a mosque in Beit 
Hanoun during evening prayers killing a dozen people. At least thirty 
civilians were killed in Zeitoun when a house was shelled the day after 
Israeli forces ordered 100 Palestinians to shelter there (Mel Frykberg, 
'Israel Fighting Also The UN,' January 10, 2009; 
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45364). Were these all accidents?

Haaretz reported that, in approving the ground invasion, the Israeli 
government had taken into account the likely high number of Palestinian 
civilian casualties. On January 9, the paper reported that Lt. Colonel 
Amir, commander of a combat engineers unit, had told Israeli TV:

"We are very violent. We are not shying away from any method of 
preventing casualties among our troops." (Amos Harel and Avi 
Issacharoff, 'Israel's three alternatives for the future of the Gaza 
war,' Haaretz, January 9, 2009; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen 
/spages/1053590.html)

Israeli media have reported that their commanders are unsurprised by the 
heavy civilian toll - the priority was indeed the protection of IDF 
soldiers:

"For us, being cautious means being aggressive," one told Israel's 
Haaretz newspaper. "From the minute we entered, we've acted like we're 
at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground. I just hope those 
who have fled the area of Gaza City in which we are operating will 
describe the shock. Maybe someone there will sober up before it 
continues." (Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 'Using aggressive tactics 
in Gaza to save soldiers' lives,' Haaretz, January 7, 2009; 
http://www.haaretz.com/ hasen/spages/1053401.html)

These are comments which define the methods and aims indicated by the 
term 'terrorism'.

On January 6, Israeli internal security minister Meir Shitreet responded 
to the massive civilian casualties on BBC's Newsnight:

"The French say, 'La guerre comme la guerre'." (January 6, 2009; 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/ b00gnjlm/Newsnight_06_01_2009/)

War is indeed war, but the civilian population of Gaza is not at war - 
the Geneva Conventions protecting civilian life apply.

Last year, Shitreet suggested that residential Gaza neighbourhoods from 
which Hassam rockets were fired should be obliterated: "any other 
country would have already gone in and level [sic] the area, which is 
exactly what I think the IDF should do - decide on a neighborhood in 
Gaza and level it." (Attila Somfalvi, 'Sheetrit: We should level Gaza 
neighbourhoods,' Ynet, February 10, 2008; 
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3504922,00.html)

He added: "We should let them know 'you have to leave, this area will be 
taken down tomorrow' and just take it down - that will show them we mean 
business."

Using violence to show a civilian population "we mean business" is, 
again, terrorism. Needless to say, Shitreet was advocating major war crimes.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared that Gazan civilians should not 
be allowed "to live normal lives"; and internal security minister Avi 
Dichter has previously demanded that Israel take action "irrespective of 
the cost to the Palestinians". (Jonathan Cook, 'Disappearing Palestine,' 
Zed Books, London, 2008, p.132)
Preparing The Propaganda For War

Well in advance of the invasion, Israel developed plans to counter the 
inevitable images of bloodied children and tiny, dismembered bodies. Avi 
Pazner, Israel's former ambassador to Italy and France, drafted in to 
support the propaganda component of the offensive, commented:

"Whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the 
world. But at least this time everything was ready and in place." 
(Anshel Pfeffer, 'Israel claims success in the PR war,' Jewish 
Chronicle, December 31, 2008; http://www.thejc.com/articles/ 
israel-claims-success-pr-war)

Eight months ago, the perfectly named National Information Directorate 
was formed within the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. This is now 
coordinating media operations across the various government departments. 
The Directorate began preparing for a Gaza offensive some six months 
ago. Yarden Vatikay, director of the National Information Directorate, 
told reporters:

"One of our lessons from the Lebanon War [2006] was that there were too 
many uniforms in the coverage, and that doesn't come over very positively."

As a result, there are now: "Fewer military officers; more women; 
tightly controlled messages; and ministers kept on a short leash." (Ibid.)

A press centre was set up in the Israeli town of Sderot, near the border 
with Gaza, so that foreign reporters would spend as much time as 
possible in the main civilian area affected by Hamas rockets.

Israeli ministers have also been ordered not to give unauthorised 
interviews to avoid a repeat of last year's PR disaster when Deputy 
Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened the Palestinians with a 
"holocaust".

"The more Qassam [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a 
longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we 
will use all our might to defend ourselves." ('Israeli minister warns of 
Palestinian "holocaust",' The Guardian, February 29, 2008; 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 2008/feb/29/israelandthepalestinians1)

'Shoah' is the Hebrew word normally used to refer to the Jewish 
Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis.

A key deception promoted by the National Information Directorate 
involves the claim that the latest cycle of violence began when Hamas 
broke a four-month ceasefire agreed last June. In fact, Israel broke the 
ceasefire when it launched a raid into Gaza on November 4, killing six 
people. On November 5, the Guardian reported:

"A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza 
was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a 
raid into the territory.

"Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, 
although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious 
break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they 
wanted to return to atmosphere of calm." (Rory McCarthy, 'Gaza truce 
broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen,' The Guardian, November 
5, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008 
/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians)

The Guardian added:

"Until now it had appeared both Israel and Hamas, which seized full 
control of Gaza last summer, had an interest in maintaining the 
ceasefire. For Israel it has meant an end to the daily barrage of 
rockets landing in southern towns, particularly Sderot."

On December 27, at the start of the latest attacks, Reuters reported 
that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had "blamed Hamas for 
breaking a cease-fire with Israel, which launched air strikes on Gaza 
killing more than 200 people." Rice commented:

"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar 
attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the 
cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza." (Tabassum Zakaria, 
'Rice: Hamas broke cease-fire,' News24, December 27, 2008; 
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2446278,00.html)

Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Telegraph on January 10:

"Hamas deliberately broke the ceasefire by firing rockets into southern 
Israel from densely populated cities, using the areas around schools and 
mosques as launching points." (Dershowitz, 'Don't play into the hands of 
Hamas,' Daily Telegraph, January 10, 2009)

The BBC's version of events from January 9 was more subtly deceptive:

"The ceasefire, brokered by the Egyptians, was often broken in 
practice... Events began to come to a climax after the Israelis raided 
southern Gaza on 4 November 2008 to destroy smuggling tunnels." (BBC 
online, January 9, 2009;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ world/middle_east/7818022.stm)

No mention was made of the six human lives also destroyed in the attack. 
The same BBC article, "Q&A: Gaza conflict," asked:

"What casualties have the Hamas rockets caused?

"Since 2001, when the rockets were first fired, more than 8,600 have hit 
southern Israel, nearly 6,000 of them since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 
August 2005. The rockets have killed 28 people and injured hundreds 
more. In the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, 90% of residents have had 
a missile exploding in their street or an adjacent one." (Ibid.)

The article noted that "Palestinian medical sources say that about 700 
people have been killed in Gaza during Israel's current campaign there." 
Again, curiously, despite mentioning that Hamas rockets have killed 28 
Israelis since 2001, the BBC made no mention of the fact that 5,000 
Palestinians had been killed by Israeli strikes over the same period 
prior to the current Israeli offensive - a figure fast approaching 6,000.

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

January 13, 2009


MEDIA ALERT: AN EYE FOR AN EYELASH: THE GAZA MASSACRE - PART 2


Plan Dalet - A Hidden History Of Ethnic Cleansing

Defending the BBC’s long record of biased reporting, the BBC’s Middle 
East editor, Jeremy Bowen, responded: “we have reported the facts about 
Israel's occupation many times, and we will do so again.” (Bowen, email 
forwarded to Media Lens, January 2, 2009)

But the “facts” of the occupation are nowhere in sight.

Unknown to most of the British public, huge numbers of Palestinians were 
forced from their land when the Israeli state was formed in 1948. The 
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé notes that more than half of Palestine’s 
native population, close to 800,000 people, were uprooted and 531 
villages were destroyed. (Pappé, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,’ 
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2006)

The intention of ‘Plan Dalet’, carried out by the military forces of 
what later became Israel, was to ethnically cleanse a large part of 
Palestine of hostile “Arab elements”. Numerous massacres occurred at 
Deir Yassin, Ayn Al-Zaytun, Tantura and elsewhere. Avi Shlaim, another 
Israeli historian, writes:

“The novelty and audacity of the plan lay in the orders to capture Arab 
villages and cities, something [Jewish forces] had never attempted 
before... Palestinian society disintegrated under the impact of the 
Jewish military offensive that got underway in April, and the exodus of 
the Palestinians was set in motion... by ordering the capture of Arab 
cities and the destruction of villages, it both permitted and justified 
the forcible expulsion of Arab civilians.” (Shlaim, 'The Iron Wall: 
Israel and the Arab World,' W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2000, p.31)

Speaking in 1955, prominent Israeli military leader and politician, 
Moshe Dayan, asked:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred for us? For 
eight years now they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before 
their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which 
they and their forefathers have lived.” (Quoted, ibid., p.101)

The Palestinians were forced to live as refugees in Lebanon, Syria, 
Jordan and on the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip. A 
series of conflicts and, at times, outright war followed between Israel 
and its Arab neighbours. During the 1967 (Six Day) War, Israel occupied 
the West Bank and East Jerusalem (previously under Jordanian control), 
the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula (Egypt) and the Golan Heights 
(Syria). This occupation brought many Palestinian refugees under Israeli 
military control.

Jerusalem, a religious centre for Muslims, Jews and Christians, became a 
major centre of conflict. The Israelis also built illegal settlements in 
the newly occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank and exploited natural 
resources, in particular taking control of vital water resources.

Shlaim writes that these settlements were part of a systematic policy 
intended to exert strategic and military control which in this case 
involved, “surrounding the huge Greater Jerusalem area with two 
concentric circles of settlements with access roads and military 
positions.” (Ibid., p.582)

The public is able to learn almost nothing of this from media reporting, 
as the Glasgow University Media Group has documented many times. In 
their book, Bad News From Israel, Greg Philo and Mike Berry wrote of one 
study of media performance:

“The lack of historical knowledge made it very difficult for people to 
understand key elements of the conflict. For example, some [viewers] had 
written that 'land' was an issue but there was a great deal of confusion 
over what this meant. Another participant described how his 
understanding included no sense of the Palestinian case that land had 
been taken from them.” (Philo and Berry, ‘Bad News From Israel,’ Pluto 
Books, London, 2004, p.216)

A Media Lens reader, Chris Newman, conducted a survey of 19 BBC online 
articles on the Gaza crisis on January 5, 2009 
(http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2918). As examples of 
his analysis, he found:

1. Mentions of refugees of 1948 or 1967, who make up the bulk of the 
Gaza population and are entitled to right of return under international 
law – 1 mention in a side article.

2. Mentions of the Occupation of Gaza (as stipulated by the UN it is 
still occupied) – 2 mentions in a side article.

As Newman concluded: “very little context to the foundations of 
Palestinian resistance is given. The UN has reported that it is the 
Occupation that is the cause of the Palestinian resistance, and as such 
these are extremely important points.”

It is standard media practice for such context to be entirely absent or 
buried out of sight.


Deeper Motives - Israel’s Not-So-Hidden Agenda

Journalists fully accept Israel’s claims that its actions were taken to 
stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel from Gaza. The media has also 
speculated that the goal is to restore Israel’s military ‘credibility’. 
A Financial Times editorial observed:

“The overall aim of the politico-military establishment... appears to be 
re-establish the credibility of Israel’s deterrent power, lost in the 
34-days’ war against Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006, which offered a very 
public exhibition of the limits to Israel’s otherwise overwhelming 
military might. Now, Mr Barak says, Israel is going to ‘change the rules 
of the game’.” (Editorial, ‘A dangerous gamble in Gaza,’ Financial 
Times, January 4, 2009; 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e56ac646-da93-11dd-8c28-000077b07658.html)

But insightful, independent commentators have been willing to look at 
the deeper issues. Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook comments:

“The politicians and generals have been preparing for this attack for 
many months, possibly years – a fact alone that suggests they have 
bigger objectives than commonly assumed. Israel seized this particular 
moment – with western politicians dozing through the holidays and a 
change over of administrations in Washington – because it ensured the 
longest period to implement its plan without diplomatic interference.” 
(Cook, ‘Objectives bigger than commonly assumed,’ The National, January 
7, 2009; http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090107/FOREIGN/679011682/1140)

Cook argues that Israel’s bigger objectives can be achieved whether 
Hamas falls or remains, so long as it is crushed politically. But what 
+are+ these objectives? And why does the corporate media have nothing to 
say about them?

Avi Shlaim observes:

“The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the 
pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. 
The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen 
by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their 
struggle for independence and statehood.” (Shlaim, 'How Israel brought 
Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe,' The Guardian, January 7, 
2009; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine)

Historically, the United States - Israel’s armourer and diplomatic 
sponsor - has played a supporting role, belying its carefully-crafted 
image as a “neutral broker”. Thus, the US was the only country to 
abstain from last week’s United Nations Security Council resolution 
calling for an immediate ceasefire. A BBC report noted blandly that “the 
US abstention weakened the impact of the vote because Washington's 
support would have placed more pressure on Israel to halt its 
offensive”. (‘Bombs hit Gaza as UN calls for truce,’ January 9, 2009; 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7819371.stm)

A glimpse of the real US role, buried in almost all mainstream coverage, 
was provided by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. The US ambassador to the UN, 
Zalmay Khalilzad, had “received explicit instructions from his superiors 
at the State Department to torpedo any initiative proposed by the Arab 
bloc which is designed to grant the Security Council the status of an 
official arbiter that will have direct involvement with disentangling 
the Gaza crisis.” (Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz correspondent, and Reuters, 
‘U.S. to foil any Arab bid to push Security Council resolution for Gaza 
cease-fire,’ Haaretz, January 5, 2009; 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052887.html)

Hamas has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term 
ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders. But Israel 
has rejected the offer, just as it rejected the Arab League peace plan 
of 2002; and just as it has always rejected the international consensus 
for a peaceful solution in the Middle East. Why? Because the threat of 
such ‘peace offensives’ would involve unacceptable concessions and 
compromises. The well-known Israeli writer Amos Elon has written of the 
“panic and unease among our political leadership” caused by Arab peace 
proposals. (Cited, Noam Chomsky, ‘Fateful Triangle,’ Pluto Press, 
London, 1999, p.75)

The Palestinians are seen as an obstacle by Israel’s leaders; an 
irritant to be subjugated. Noam Chomsky writes:

“Traditionally over the years, Israel has sought to crush any resistance 
to its programs of takeover of the parts of Palestine it regards as 
valuable, while eliminating any hope for the indigenous population to 
have a decent existence enjoying national rights.” (‘Chomsky on the US, 
Israel, and Gaza,’ January 8, 2009; 
http://www.thecommentfactory.com/noam-chomsky-on-the-us-israel-and-gaza-1298)

And so, as Chomsky notes:

“The key feature of the occupation has always been humiliation: they 
[the Palestinians] must not be allowed to raise their heads. The basic 
principle, often openly expressed, is that the ‘Araboushim’ – a term 
that belongs with ‘nigger’ or ‘kike’ - must understand who rules this 
land and who walks in it with head lowered and eyes averted.” (Chomsky, 
‘Fateful Triangle,’ op. cit., p.489)

The full title of Jonathan Cook’s latest book indicates the reality 
underpinning current Israeli policy: ‘Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s 
experiments in human despair.’ Behind “a mask of false legitimacy”, 
Israel “has carried out the destruction of Palestinian identity and 
living space and the theft of resources.” (Cook, ‘Disappearing 
Palestine,’ p.70)

Veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery concurs, arguing that the Gaza 
blockade is “a scientific experiment designed to find out how much one 
can starve a population and turn its life into hell before they break.” 
Avnery adds: “The present war is a continuation of the experiment by 
other means.” (Uri Avnery, ‘Molten Lead in Gaza,’ Counterpunch, January 
2-4, 2009; http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery01022009.html)

Reporting from inside Israel, Cook has carefully documented the 
longstanding oppression of the 4 million Palestinians in the occupied 
territories of Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the 1.2 million 
second-class Palestinian citizens within Israel itself. Because of their 
relatively high birth rate, Palestinians are seen by many Israelis as a 
“demographic time-bomb”; a threat to the Jewish nature of the Israeli state.

In 2002, General Eitan Ben Elyahu, a former head of Israel’s air force, 
declared on Israeli television that “eventually we will have to thin out 
the number of Palestinians living in the territories.” (Cook, op. cit., 
pp.134-135)

This vision of ethnic cleansing would have been familiar to David 
Ben-Gurion, one of the main architects of Israel and its first prime 
minister. The vision is a campaign of bombing, starving and maiming to 
terrorise the Palestinian population into flight; a terrible echo of 
1948. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, was massive and brutal, 
but incomplete: 80 per cent not 100 per cent of the Palestinians were 
expelled.

Cook warns that the political rise of Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant 
from Moldova who leads a far-right party, is a sign of things to come. 
Lieberman, says Cook, “is the likely face of Israel’s political future. 
He has been publicly promoting, and garnering support for, the expulsion 
of Israel’s Palestinian minority, a policy that has been secretly 
formulated by more mainstream leaders for some time.” (Ibid., pp.139-140)

Israeli historian Benny Morris, previously a liberal voice, “is one of a 
growing number of Israelis espousing this hardline policy of expulsion, 
or ‘transfer’ as it is more commonly, and coyly, referred to.” (Ibid., 
p.141)

Cook argues that Israel’s real intention is to replicate the apartheid 
model of South Africa; to transform Palestinian cities into Bantustans 
in a sea of Israeli-dominated territory, leaving Israeli settlers in 
possession of the arable land and vital water resources. He warns:

“The apartheid model is unlikely to be the end of the story, however... 
Another solution – transfer – will be needed. The Israeli public is 
already being softened up, with government ministers openly subscribing 
to it. Palestinians will have to be encouraged, or made, to leave their 
homes and land.” (Ibid., pp.149-150)

Ilan Pappé notes that leading Zionist figures have long held such views. 
One of them, Yossef Weitz, wrote in 1940: “it is our right to transfer 
the Arabs” and “The Arabs should go!” (Pappé, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of 
Palestine,’ OneWorld, Oxford, 2006, p.23)

In 1948, David Ben-Gurion argued:

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and 
the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab 
population." (Edward S. Herman and Grace Kwinjeh, ‘Ethnic Cleansing: 
Constructive, Benign, and Nefarious (Kafka Era Studies, No. 1),’ ZNet, 
August 9, 2006; http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/3419)

Fifty years later, in 1998, Ariel Sharon made the same point:

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly 
and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with 
time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization or 
Jewish state without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of 
their lands." (Ibid.)

On May 24, 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a joint session 
of congress that "I believed and to this day still believe, in our 
people's eternal and historic right to this entire land." (Ibid.)

Disturbingly, up to 60 per cent of Israeli Jews support schemes to 
encourage or force Arabs to leave both the occupied territories and 
Israel. (Cook, op. cit., p.141)


Conclusion

Edward Herman and Grace Kwinjeh point out that Israel's brutal invasion 
of Lebanon in 2006 was portrayed as an act of self-defense against a 
threat from Hezbollah. In fact, as Kaveh L Afrasiabi wrote, this was a 
war “to annex a major chunk of Lebanese territory without necessarily 
saying so, under the pretext of security buffer and deterrence against 
future attacks on Israel". (Quoted, Herman and Kwinjeh, op. cit.)

This drive to "redeem the land", in Zionist parlance, requires the 
forcible takeover of land in the possession of others. As such, Herman 
and Kwinjeh note, it “constitutes a model case of a quest for a 
‘Greater’ entity - here a Greater Israel - a drive which in the case of 
Milosevic's and the Serbs' alleged drive for a ‘Greater Serbia’ was 
presented as a prime element of illegal activity in the ICTY 
[International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia] indictment 
of Milosevic.” (Ibid.)

As Chomsky says so well, the violent reactions of Hamas “can be 
condemned as criminal and politically foolish, but those who offer no 
alternative have no moral grounds to issue such judgments, particularly 
those in the US who choose to be directly implicated in these ongoing 
crimes — by their words, their actions, or their silence.” 
(http://www.thecommentfactory.com/noam-chomsky-on-the-us-israel-and-gaza-1298)

The ongoing assault on Gaza, then, is about far more than restoring 
military pride, preventing rocket attacks and crushing Hamas. It is 
about Israel’s strategic plan to deliver the Palestinian people to an 
abysmal fate in pursuit of the Zionist dream.

As is the case for all major US-UK allies, honest analysis of state 
policy of this level of ugliness is all but unthinkable for a mainstream 
corporate media that is anything but free and independent.


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