Killed Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh betrayed by associate, says Dubai police chief: The Guardian
Two more fraudulent Irish passports linked to Palestinian’s killing, officials say
Ian Black
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official assassinated in Dubai, was betrayed by a close associate, the emirate’s police chief claimed as it emerged today that the Palestinian’s murderers used more fake Irish passports.
Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim described whoever leaked details of Mahbouh’s arrival to his assassins as “the real killer”, Abu Dhabi’s al-Khalij newspaper reported. Tamim said last week he was 99% certain Israel’s Mossad secret service was responsible.
Mabhouh, said by Israel to have been smuggling Iranian weapons and money into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, was murdered in his room at the al-Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai on January 19. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
Tamim, voicing suspicion of an “agent” in Hamas’s ranks, urged it to investigate. But the Islamist movement has blamed its Fatah rival, which controls the West Bank, for helping the alleged Israeli hit team. Two Palestinians from Gaza who once worked for Fatah security are in custody in Dubai after being handed over by Jordan.
Nahru Massoud, a senior figure in the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has denied he was being investigated for involvement. He had been in Abu Dhabi but left the UAE before Mabhouh’s murder, he told Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV from Syria. Fatah officials had claimed he was under arrest in Damascus.
In Gaza, a Hamas MP, Salah Bardawil, said on Saturday that Mabhouh had unwittingly helped his killers by making travel plans online and discussing them on the phone, implying he was under surveillance by the Mossad. The claim was denied by Mabhouh’s brother Fayek.
Dubai police now say up to 18 suspects used altered British, Irish, French and German passports before the killing. Officials said today that at least two more fraudulent Irish passports had been linked to the killing and that some of the suspects had visited the city on a reconnaissance mission.
Tamim described the murder as “no longer a local issue, but a security issue for European countries”.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and his Irish counterpart, Michael Martin, are both due to meet the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, tomorrow in Brussels, where the passports issue is certain to be raised. Britain has insisted it had no prior knowledge of the assassination or the fraudulent use of its passports.
The Foreign Office said it did “not recognise” a Sunday newspaper report claiming a British minister had been briefed that Israeli immigration officials had copied the passport details. “The defrauding of British passports is a very serious issue,” a spokesman said. “The government will continue to take all the action that is necessary to protect British nationals from identity fraud.”
UK officials have said no action is likely before the completion of an investigation into the affair by Soca, the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
The National, the UAE’s leading English-language paper, yesterday described Britain’s outrage over the passports as “less full-throated than one might have expected.”
It added: “Israel’s wilful violation of another nation’s sovereignty to commit a murder deserves all the indignation it garners. But that so many passports have been used fraudulently is not just a matter of national shame, it is a matter of global security. There are many questions that remain. What is abundantly clear, however, is that the assassination plot is as much a European problem now as a Middle Eastern one.”
EDITOR: The War in Iran is coming soon
The unmistakable sound of war drums is in the air, and the politicians have now given way to the generals. The daily annoncements should remind all those without Alzheimer of the period in 2003 before the war on Iraq started. Is anyone fooled by this maneuver? The die has been cast in Washington, and Tel Aviv is preparing in earnest. To suprised by this war would be criminal negligence.
U.S. places Iran nuclear issue on pressure track: Haaretz
The United States is placing its efforts to thwart the Iranian nuclear program on a “pressure track,” head of U.S. Central Command general David Petraeus said in an interview to a U.S. network on Sunday.
Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Petraeus said that he thought “that no one at the end of this time can say that the United States and the rest of the world have not given Iran every opportunity to resolve the issues diplomatically.”
“That puts us in a solid foundation now to go on what is termed the pressure track,” the U.S. general said, adding that “that’s the course on which we are embarked now.”
The United States is leading a push for a fourth round of United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran because of suspicions it is secretly developing a nuclear arsenal.
Washington has been supported from fellow Security Council members Britain and France, while Russia, which has been more reluctant to impose more sanctions, has said it was now “very alarmed” by a recent IAEA report which said Iran may be working to develop a nuclear-armed missile.
Iran denies it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon and says the
accusations of Western countries are baseless.
Asked on how close Iran was to reaching nuclear capabilities, Petraeus said that “it is certainly a ways off, and we’ll probably hear more on that from the International Atomic Energy Agency when it meets here in the, in the next week or so.”
“There’s no question that some of those activities have advanced during that time. There’s also a new National Intelligence Estimate being developed by our intelligence community in the United States. We have over the course of the last year, of course, pursued the engagement track.”
“The U.N. Security Council countries, of course, expressing their concern. Russia now even piling on with that,” Petraeus said.
“We will have to see where that goes and whether that can, indeed, send the kind of signal to Iran about the very serious concerns that the countries in the region and, indeed, the entire world have about Iran’s activities in the nuclear program and in its continued arming, funding, training, equipping and directing of proxy extremist elements that still carry out attacks,” the U.S. general added.
When asked whether a single country, even if that country is the United States, stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Petraeus said that the U.S. would “have to embark on the pressure track next,” adding it was the job of combatant commanders to consider the what-ifs, to be prepared for contingency plans.”
“I’m not saying this in a provocative way. I’m merely saying that we have responsibilities, the American people and our commander-in-chief and so forth expect us to think those through and to be prepared for the what-ifs. And we try not to be irresponsible in that regard,” the central command chief said.
On Saturday French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said world powers would have to take new action against Iran in the next few weeks if Tehran continues to reject Western proposals on its disputed nuclear program.
Fillon said he was worried by a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week which said
“We have read the new report (on Iran) by the IAEA…and it is very worrying,” Fillon told a news conference in Damascus alongside his Syrian counterpart Naji al-Otari.
“We proposed dialogue to Iran for several months and for the moment all the propositions have been turned down,” he said. “If the situation does not change, we have no other solution but to look into new measures in the coming weeks.”
China has so far resisted imposing more sanctions.
Israel drones ‘could target Iran’: Al Jazeera TV
The Heron TP drone has a wingspan the same size
as a Boeing 737 passenger jet [AFP]
Israel’s air force has unveiled a fleet of unmanned aircraft that its says are able to reach the Gulf, putting Iran within range.
The Heron TP drones, which have a wingspan the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet, were presented to the media on Sunday, as Israel pushes for international action against the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme.
The aircraft, developed by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, can fly at least 20 consecutive hours and be used for surveillance or launching a missile attack.
“I can tell you, it can do a lot of missions. It can do some special missions, unique missions that no other UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] can do,” Lieutenant Colonel Eyal Asenheim, a drone operator, told The Associated Press news agency.
Brigadier General Amikam Norkin, the head of the base that will operate the drones, said: “With the inauguration of the Heron TP, we are realising the air force’s dream.
“The Heron TP is a technological and operational breakthrough.”
However, Israeli military officials did not specifically say if the drones were actually designed for operations against Iran.
Israel, which accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, has been putting pressure on UN Security Council members to support US moves for fresh sanctions against Tehran.
War talk
Tehran has repeatedly said that its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes and has highlighted the apparent hypocrisy of Israel, which is believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power.
On Tuesday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, said that he believed Israel was “seeking to start a war next spring or summer, although their decision is not final yet”.
However, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said that there were no plans for military action, calling Ahmadinejad’s remarks “manipulations”.
“We are not planning any wars,” he said after meeting Russian officials to discuss tougher sanctions against Iran.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the things we are hearing are a result of Iran’s feeling there is an increase in talks about sanctions.”
Israel has repeatedly said that it hopes the situation will be resolved through diplomacy, but it has not ruled out military action and has frequently suggested that Iran could face a military strike.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, and in 2007 a suspected Israeli attack destroyed what the US said was a nearly finished nuclear reactor in Syria.
Top EU official: Dubai hit may harm ties with Israel: Haaretz
A senior EU diplomat said on Sunday that Israel’s suspected role in the slaying of a Hamas militant in Dubai and the killers’ alleged use of forged EU passports will harm Israel’s relations with the European bloc.
The official said the passport controversy will be harmful for the way Israel is treated by the EU since it comes on top of strong criticism over Israel’s 2008 attack on Gaza.
The EU diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive topic on Sunday, a day before the EU’s 27 foreign ministers are due to meet in Brussels. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will also be in Brussels to see EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, among others.
Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that the assassins in Dubai made use of diplomatic passports, the Emirati newspaper Al-Bayan reported on Sunday.
Tamim also added that some of the assassins were already in Dubai for at least a year before the assassination, and used the passports in question.
Earlier on Sunday, a top Emirati official urged European investigators to launch full-scale probes into how fraudulent passports were used by a hit squad accused of killing Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
The U.A.E.’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said the Gulf country is deeply concerned that the suspected assassins used expertly doctored passports from nations that don’t require advance U.A.E. visas.
“The U.A.E. is deeply concerned by the fact that passports of close allies, whose nationals currently enjoy preferential visa waivers, were illegally used to commit this crime,” Gargash said in a statement, carried by the Emirates’ state-run news agency WAM on Sunday.
Dubai’s police chief Tamim has blamed Israel’s Mossad secret service.
“The abuse of passports poses a global threat, affecting both countries’ national security as well as the personal security of travelers,” the Emirates’ Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was quoted saying in the same statement.
The statement gave no updates on the investigation, but said the Emirates’ and Dubai authorities continue to scrutinize events that led to Mabhouh’s killing and its aftermath.
The authorities also remain in close contact with the concerned European governments, the statement added and listed the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany and Austria.
Emirati officials also said on Sunday that at least two more fraudulent Irish passports have been linked to the alleged hit squad accused of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Earlier this week, Tamim told reporters in Dubai that the alleged assassins used foreign cell phone cards to avoid being traced while calling a command center in Austria.
British ministers believe the forged U.K. passports used by the team accused of assassinating Mabhouh were secretly copied at Ben-Gurion airport, the British daily telegraph reported earlier Sunday.
British diplomatic sources said ministers were told in a briefing that the passport fraud was committed by Israeli immigration officials who stopped the British nationals, now living in Israel, as they went through the airport on recent trips.
According to the Telegraph report, officials believe the passport numbers were photocopied and then used to create new documents used by the hit squad.
The suspects used the fake passports bearing their own pictures, but with the names and numbers of innocent Europeans.
All six British passports were not biometric, which means they did not have a computer chip embedded in them. Experts told the newspaper the fraud would have been relatively simple to carry out.
The identities of French, German and Irish citizens were also used.
Germany probing identity of passport-holder tied to hit
German officials on Saturday said they are examining the identity of Michael Bodenheimer, the name that appeared on a genuine German passport allegedly used in Mabhouh’s.
The authorities in the city of Cologne, where the passport was issued, began a probe, and federal authorities are now considering a move of their own.
According to German weekly Der Spiegel, Bodenheimer, an Israeli, applied for a German passport from the Cologne authorities. Bodenheimer presented documents that proved German lineage, including his grandparents’ marriage certificate. He also showed his Israeli passport that was issued to him a year earlier in Tel Aviv.
The German passport was issued on June 18, 2009. That document was used by one of the assassination suspects in Dubai on January 19, a day before the killing.
According to Der Spiegel, Bodenheimer does not live in Cologne, as he had claimed in his application, and no other person by that name lives there. The magazine claims a man by that name lived in Herzliya until June last year.
Haaretz has learned that a Michael Bodenheimer lives in Bnei Brak. His wife told Haaretz in a telephone interview that “he has no German passport and he never asked for such a passport. He never visited Germany, except perhaps in transit on the way to the United States.”
His wife added that the ultra-Orthodox family does not have any family in Herzliya and that even though Bodenheimer’s grandparents were born in Germany, they emigrated to the United States, from where he immigrated to Israel 30 years ago.
“We are quiet people and are not used to so much attention,” she told Haaretz on Saturday. “The past week since the news of this story broke has been difficult for us. The fact that someone is using his name does not make him involved in this story.”
Bodenheimer studies at a kollel, a yeshiva for married men. He has said he was astounded to see his name on the list of suspects, supposedly belonging to a German citizen.
“At first we didn’t understand what everyone was talking about,” Bodenheimer’s daughter said. “The picture that was published doesn’t look like him at all. He is always busy with Torah study,” she said, adding that he holds no citizenship other than Israeli and American.
German media have reported that the intelligence services of the country are certain that the Mossad was involved in the killing and that the foreign minister demanded that Israel explain why it used a German passport.
Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, Yoram Ben-Ze’ev, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where he was asked about information that can shed light on the killing of Mabhouh.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Saturday that he does not expect relations between Israel and European countries whose passports were used in the assassination to deteriorate as a result of the incident.
“I do not expect a crisis in relations because there is nothing linking Israel to the assassination. Britain, France and Germany are countries with shared interests with Israel in countering terrorism,” Ayalon said, naming three of the four countries whose passports were used. At least three of the suspects used Irish passports.
EDITOR: The machine in operation
The new cranked-up Israeli propaganda machine (“if you cannot change reality, try and change what people think about it!”) is now working overtime, and its products are now disturbing even the editors of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest daily, as can be seen below. More and more of the output is sheer fascism, which is obviously in bad taste… It would be funny, but for the fact it is so sinister and presages a terrible intensification of the conflict.
PR website: Justifying state or government?: Ynet
We agree with Ministry of Information that we don’t all ride camels, but political issues are more controversial. Settlements not obstacle to peace? Golan Heights crucial for security? Whose opinions are reflected by the website?
During the last few days we have all seen the “camel advert” and other broadcasts from the Ministry of Information and Diaspora, which remind us of the “Third World” image we have earned around the globe. In addition, we have all been asked to learn how to make Israel look better abroad, via a website specially set up for this purpose.
However, a perusal of the site reveals that many of the opinions we are supposed to learn by rote are not part of any consensus. In fact, they mainly reflect the rightwing side of the political spectrum, which currently dominates.
For example, part of the site is dedicated to “exploding myths” which present Israel in a negative light. One such “myth” is the claim that we can’t reach peace because of the settlements – an erroneous claim, according to Ministry staff, it seems: “The root of the Arab-Israeli conflict does not lie in the size of the state, but in the very fact of its existence. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are also likely to be seen by Arabs as settlements,” they write.
Israelis abroad, they say, should emphasize that 25 settlements were evacuated during the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and that this took place “despite our historic right to the land.” The dozens of settlements still in place are completely ignored.
While the argument over the construction freeze continues, both between Israel and the Palestinians and within Israeli itself, Israelis – according to the Ministry of Information – are not supposed to have any doubts regarding their legitimacy. “The settlements renew ancient Jewish settlement, and their creation does not involve uprooting any Arabs,” the Ministry asks Israelis to emphasize. “Most of the Arab towns and villages in Judea and Samaria have biblical names, and are testimony to Jewish roots in this area.”
The site also supplies some examples of Arab towns founded on the site of ancient Jewish settlements to prove “who was here first”, as they put it.
Israelis are also requested to make it clear to their audience abroad that the term “Palestine” has no historical existence, as the late Arab-American historian Prof. Philip Hitti has said (and he is quoted on the site).
Learn by rote: Golan vital to Israel
On the site, the hills of Judea and Samaria are called “the Golan Heights of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the coastal plain,” and the site notes that “many people say that hundreds of Arab tanks on the coastal plain will put an end to the entire Jewish state,” which is why the Judean hills are so important, to stop any possible enemy advance.
The site also quotes the chief of the Operations Branch during the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, who said that “it is not possible to defend Israel without control of the hills of Judea and Samaria.”
After laying the grounds for the main claim, the site can then explain why Israel does not withdraw to the Green Line. Here too the writers use a range of quotes which do not question Israel’s right to avoid any withdrawal.
Even former US President Lyndon Johnson is recruited, with a quote from September 1968: “It is clear that withdrawal to the borders of June 4, 1967 will not bring peace. The borders must be secure and recognized.”
Eugene Rostow, one of the formulators of UN Resolution 242, is also quoted as saying that the resolution authorizes the sides to agree on territorial changes, but does not require complete or partial withdrawal from the occupied territories. The peace agreement with Egypt, Rostow noted, gave the Arabs 90% of the territories conquered in the war.
And what about the Golan Heights, which have returned to the headlines in recent weeks due to the exchange of threats between Israel and Syria? The Ministry of Information needs no referendum, nor even a government vote. “Even in the age of ballistic missiles, it is crucial that Israel retains the Golan Heights,” the site asserts, and advises that Israelis explain how the Yom Kippur war proved that the central Golan mountain range was critical in ensuring Israel’s security.
And for Israelis who want to put in a few words for “Greater Israel,” the site offers the following: “Gaining the Golan Heights renewed Israel’s connection to Jewish heritage and the ancient history of the Jewish nation on the Golan, from God’s promise to Abraham, through the settlement of the land, Gamla, and the Jewish presence in Talmudic times, all the way up to the first moshavot of Baron Rothschild in the eastern Golan Heights.”
Were there any deaths in the October riots?
The dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is also misleading in its definitions, and offers a rather partial picture of reality.
Remember the October 2000 riots? So does the Ministry of Information. Partly, anyway: “The violence of the Al-Aqsa Intifada led to riots also within the Israeli-Arab sector, as a token of sympathy. These riots continued for three days, accompanied by the blocking of major roads and stone throwing.” Where are the 13 Arabs who were killed during clashes with the police?
And what about the Orr Commission, set up specially to investigate the events? “Among the causes that led to violence,” the site asserts, “were the religious radicalization of Arab Israelis, the increase in identification with the Palestinians, and the incitement of local leaders against Israel.”
The commission’s call for wiping away the stain of discrimination against Arab Israelis and to work immediately for complete equality with the direct involvement of the prime minister has been erased from the dictionary.
The organization Peace Now has appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take down the website. “Israel’s positions as presented on this site reflect an extreme rightwing ideology, and are not even in keeping with your own statements at Bar-Ilan University regarding two states for two peoples,” wrote Yariv Oppenheimer, who heads the organization.
The Ministry of Information and Diaspora responded by saying, “It saddens us that instead of taking part in the important national effort to improve Israel’s image, which 85% of Israeli citizens support, according to a survey, you have chosen to take a number of quotes and use them in a negative campaign against Israel.”
The Ministry also noted that the site, which was launched just four days ago, “has already had over 130,000 visitors and we have had enthusiastic responses and requests for training from citizens. However, as noted on our position paper which accompanies the campaign, the site is liable to changes which will be carried out according to requirements.”
Israelis recruited to PR Corps: Ynet
If reserve military duty wasn’t enough for them, Israeli tourists are invited to join efforts to improve State’s image abroad. Ministry of Information launches campaign, complete with training centers. Remember: Israel developed cherry tomatoes
Itamar Eichner
At a party in Goa, on the top of the Eiffel Tower, in the streets of Manhattan, in the jungles of Brazil or in a Dubai hotel – you can never know when an Israeli tourist will come across prejudice and negative impressions of his distant homeland, but it’s pretty certain it’ll happen at some point. Now we’ll all have a response ready.
“Sick of how they see us abroad? You can do something to change the picture” – this is the slogan aimed at all Israeli citizens who go abroad. The Ministry of Information and Diaspora has launched an advertising campaign which includes setting up a website, distributing booklets to Israelis taking off at Ben-Gurion Airport, and coaching courses for official delegations – the first public diplomacy campaign in Israel’s history.z
During recent months the anti-Israel wave has increased around the world, reaching verbal and even physical violence at times. Arrest warrants against Israeli politicians, anti-Semitic events and disturbances during lectures given by Israeli officials – our representatives have seen it all.
Only last week, there were disturbances at lectures given by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in Oxford, UK, and Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in the University of Southern California.
A survey carried out for the Ministry of Information and Diaspora under MK Yuli-Yoel Edelstein (Likud) revealed that 91% of Israeli citizens believe that Israel’s image abroad is extremely negative. Some 85% were ready to join the effort to improve this image.
What can be done? The new project, launched Wednesday, aims to train citizens to be Israel’s PR representatives. As part of the project, an extensive media campaign is underway to encourage Israelis to enter the website www.masbirim.gov.il and learn how they can help.
The Ministry will also distribute booklets containing most of the information available on the website to the three million Israelis going abroad each year. Israeli airlines El Al, Israir and Arkia have agreed to distribute the leaflets too.
The booklet begins, “Before you fly, allow us to tell you about the project, “Explaining Israel”. How many times have you come across information about Israel that is nowhere near the truth? Probably many times. Now’s the time to help.”
Among other things, the booklet explains how to get important messages across. “Personal stories, feelings and experiences – share them. We’re all human. Present new points of view – it’s worth noting that each side has its own version of events. Speak concisely – long speeches are likely to lose your audience’s interest. Clear sentences aid understanding. Use humor – it always helps.”
If you want to impress your audience, you can present a number of positive items: Israel is the only state in the world in which the number of trees has not fallen in the 21st century. Israeli inventions: Drip irrigation systems, a system for beaming pictures from space back to the earth, desert agricultural techniques, and much more. And the grand finale: Israel developed the most popular varieties of cherry tomatoes.
The website also details myths about Israel common abroad and the real situation in contrast.
One such myth: “Israel is a huge country”, and the appropriate response: “Not true. Israel is one of the smallest states in the world. India is 150 times bigger, Germany 16 times, and Italy 13 times. Israelis make up just one thousandth of the world’s population.”
Another example: “Israelis don’t really want peace,” and the suggested rejoinder: “Not true. Despite seven wars and terror that has continued for more than six decades, Israel has made huge concessions for the sake of peace with its neighbors Egypt and Jordan.”
Edelstein told Yedioth Ahronoth on Tuesday, “In light of Israel’s negative image abroad, the Ministry of Information and Diaspora understood that in response to the vast sums invested by Arab states in their propaganda against us, we have to recruit our human capital – Israel’s citizens.”
Why do Israelis have barbeques?
The campaign was planned after extensive research using surveys and focus groups. One part of the campaign includes three television clips which present the problem of Israel’s image in a humorous manner.
In one clip, a British TV presenter tells viewers that the camel is the most common form of transport in Israel, used for transporting goods, water, riders and ammunition in the desert. In another clip, a Spanish journalist says that Israel has no modern means of cooking, which is why residents have barbeques in the park.
Some of the content of the booklet is likely to raise differences of opinion even among Israelis. The booklet notes proudly that minority rights of Arab Israelis are respected, and as proof of this presents Rana Raslan – the Arab Israeli woman who won Israel’s 1999 beauty contest. Key moments in Israel’s history are presented, including the Balfour Declaration, the Eichmann trial and Israel’s wars side by side with successes in the Eurovision Song Contest and European basketball, as well as the field hospital in Haiti following that country’s devastating earthquake.
The Ministry has also set up information centers around the country which will hold coaching workshops, adjusted to suit the group being trained. Various groups will be invited to take part including ministers, MKs, diplomats, military officers, businesspersons, guides, celebrities, sportspersons and youth group delegations.
Private individuals who go abroad often can also benefit from professional training in various centers. It is hoped that thousands will undergo training, which is offered by the company Debate.
Fact and fictions: Al Ahram Weekly
With the threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda is likely to start raising its ugly head, writes Ramzy Baroud*
And so it begins.
Trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli army general and current minister Yossi Peled, suggesting another war is on its way. More recently, Israel’s ultra-right and unabashedly racist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in the case of war.
Israel has, with one exception, determined the time and place of all of its wars with the Arabs. The one time when Israeli forces were attacked was in 1973, an Arab attempt to regain territories that were captured by Israel in 1967.
When Lieberman told an audience at Bar Ilan University his “message that should go out to the ruler of Syria from Israel” he was effectively saying that Israel will topple the Syrian government when it decides the time is ripe. Considering Peled’s earlier statement that war is imminent, the only possible conclusion is that “regime” in Syria is high on Israel’s agenda. It is the last chance of fulfilling the US neoconservative vision of yesteryear.
This inference should have sent shockwaves throughout the world, and especially in the US media which knows full well by now the price of past Israeli-neoconservative follies.
So why does the Western mainstream media, especially in the US, continue to guard Israel’s image when the country’s belligerence is so blatant? And if some in the media are indeed well-intentioned in their coverage why do they continually fail to point out Israel’s criminality and aggression?
Floating among political and media analysts is the assertion that Israel has greater mastery of media wars than the Arabs. The National Information Directorate, an Israeli propaganda centre that was established a few months prior to the devastating Israeli war on Gaza last year, is often cited in this respect. Ironically, the centre was established after recommendations made by an Israeli inquiry into the equally bloody Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006. Independent war inquiries often chastise the army for violations of human rights, rather than recommending the establishment of a propaganda body to justify the crimes committed against civilians.
Even so, this hasbara should have had little impact on the Western media’s depiction of Israeli crimes and hostilities towards its neighbours.
Some claim Israel’s media success story is the brainchild of Israel’s own media expertise under very specific circumstances: that Israeli spokespersons are articulate and charming, Palestinian retaliations to Israeli crimes in Gaza are vile and gruesome; that the Israeli media blackout was so successful that Western journalists had no other way of finding any credible, decipherable facts; that there are no Arab spokespersons who are well-informed and articulate enough to present even the semblance of a coherent narrative to challenge the one offered by Israel.
None of the above is convincing. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is as faltering in English as he is in his mother-tongue. The Palestinian resistance merely killed 13 Israelis, 10 of whom were soldiers — and recently “regreted” the killing of the three civilians — while Israel killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. The Israeli media blackout of Gaza during the war — which continues even now — hardly prevented footage and reports from being beamed to all corners of the earth, thanks to the valiant efforts of Arab media and independent reporters, photographers and cameramen from all over the world, supplemented by the United Nations’ and other independent groups’ findings. All of this meant the scope of the tragedy was known to all. And finally, eloquent Palestinian and Arab academics, diplomats and activists can be found in every major Western city and reputable university or research institute.
Yet somehow it was Israel that “claim[ed] success in the PR war”, according to Anshel Pfeffer in the Jewish Chronicle, days after the initial Israel attack on Gaza. Pfeffer quoted Avi Pazner, Israel’s former ambassador to Italy and France, and “one of the officials drafted in to present Israel’s case to the world media,” claiming that “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.”
Utter nonsense. As somehow who has been grilled and challenged in the media for making such outrageous statements as “Israel must learn to respect international human rights,” I cannot take seriously the media’s claims to objectivity. If this were the norm, no Israeli hasbara campaign could have even dented public perceptions of the criminal war. No unfeeling Israeli army spokesperson could possibly explain the logic of the wanton destruction of Gaza, as hungry civilians were chased in an open air prison with nowhere to escape and no one to come to their rescue.
Israeli officials continue to congratulate themselves on a job well done, and must be preparing yet another marvellous hasbara campaign to justify the killings that are yet to come. However, there are some things that are becoming increasingly obvious, at least to the rest of us. First, the secret of Israeli success, if any, was not its own doing, but rather stemmed from the media’s decision, made years ago, to protect Israel’s image. Second, despite the fanfare and self- congratulating commentary, Israel has now largely lost the media war, and the tide since the Gaza war has been turning, thanks to the under-funded but solid and increasingly determined efforts of independent media groups, intellectuals, journalists, civil society activists, artists, poets, bloggers, ordinary people and those in the media who possess the courage to challenge Israel’s hasbara.
* The writer is editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
Israel’s coming war: Al Ahram weekly
War is in Israel’s nature; indeed, it is its essence, writes Galal Nassar
For quite a while it seemed that the Israelis were preparing to go to war. Not only did they engage in highly publicised military manoeuvres, but they also issued political threats at the highest level. As brinkmanship prevailed, Israeli so-called doves vied with hawks in issuing hardline statements. Left-wing Defence Minister Ehud Barak seemed just as belligerent as right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, with Binyamin Netanyahu seeming like a moderate in comparison.
Israel’s belligerence commanded regional and international attention as Israeli media continued to feed the frenzy. Analysts spared no time speculating about war, and some envisioned alternative scenarios for the conflict. Commentators offered their opinion on the time and venue of battle. Some said it was going to be in weeks or months. Others, citing remarks by Chief of Staff General Gabi Ashkenazi during recent manoeuvres in the Negev, said perhaps two years.
In the midst of this maddening bravado, one has to keep in mind that Israel lives by the sword. Israel is an entity that is born out of war and survives on war. It should come as no surprise that Israel would want war. Such is the destiny of our region. As long as this fabricated product of imperialism remains a curse in its midst, war is a haunting possibility.
Still, let’s contemplate a number of relevant facts:
First, Israel is not going to wage a war unless it has a chance of winning quickly and with minimum losses. This is because Israel, being a vulnerable, fabricated and alien entity in the region, is haunted by an abiding feeling of insecurity. Because of its demographic vulnerability, Israel fears that it may cease to exist. Israel was implanted by iron and fire in the bosom of a region that doesn’t accept it. This is why it is afraid to lose even one war. You can tell from the torrent of studies that the Israelis prepare on that subject, as well as the endless conferences held on war, such as the one that took place in Herzliya. Since its creation, Israel has been talking endlessly about war. After every war, the Israelis form committees to look into all aspects of failure. Such committees were held after the 1973 War and the 2006 war in Lebanon.
Secondly, Israel doesn’t go to war before getting permission from the country that sponsors it and forever protects its expansionist drive and violations of international law. And American consent often means European consent. This has always been the case.
In the light of the above points, which no Israeli would contest, one has to assess the seriousness of Israel’s highly publicised threats. The Israelis are always eager to learn from the outcome of their wars against the Arabs, and have learned a thing or two from their previous two wars on Lebanon and Gaza. Therefore, they surely know that their superior war machine gives no guarantee of victory. Also they know that once a war starts, it may not end as quickly as they wish. They know, too, that they cannot keep war away from their areas and that they cannot keep their casualties to a minimum.
These are the lessons that the Israelis have learned the hard way through battles with groups that pay no attention to the balance of power, and whose inferior resources are more than compensated for by their superior determination. The Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups have performed so well in recent wars that many researchers in occupied Palestine are now looking into the strengths of resistance groups and “resistance countries”, the latter being reference for Syria and Iran. The Lebanon and Gaza wars have reinforced the culture of Arab resistance in general and may entice other countries in the region to rethink their positions.
What I am saying here is that Israel will have to think long and hard before waging another war. Reacting to Lieberman’s recent threats, Syrian officials said that any future war would not spare Israeli dwelling places and cities. Their reaction, firm and fast as it was, is perhaps why the Israelis toned down their statements of late. In fact, Netanyahu has tried to rein in Lieberman’s bullishness and arrogance, and Barak has somewhat backpedalled.
How about Israel’s guardian and protector, the US? Few would dispute the fact that debt-ridden and war- exhausted America is in no mood for a third war in the region, not with Iraq and Afghanistan still flaring up. The US fears defeat in Afghanistan as it continues with its endless war on an invisible enemy named terrorism. The cost of these wars, coinciding with a grinding economic crisis, is taking its toll on the US. Recently, US Vice-President Joe Biden said that the US deficit was a threat to national security. Biden was appalled at the $1.6 billion trade deficit and the $3.8 billion budget deficit, and the $12.4 public deficit.
Also recently, China reacted to Washington’s intention to supply Taiwan with state-of-the-art weaponry with harsh words. The Chinese were also outspoken in their protests regarding Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama on 16 February. There is a reason for that. China holds huge amounts of US government bonds, and if it starts selling these bonds in the international market, the Americans could be in trouble. China’s international clout is increasing, and the Americans know they cannot run the show alone for long.
Some people believe that Israel’s warmongering is a product of US concern over Iran’s nuclear programme. The US, we know, wants to create a missile shield in four Gulf States: Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. But had the US thought it beneficial to attack Iran at a time when it has two wars going on in the vicinity it would have done so already. Iran can influence the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran also controls the flow of oil in the Straits of Hormuz. Also, Israel will certainly be hit by Iranian missiles if Iran is attacked, for Iran doesn’t make a distinction between the US and Israel. Besides, Arab resistance groups are likely to react to any attack on Iran.
Therefore, the Americans cannot allow Israel to start a war that may get out of hand. The Americans know from their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that wars are easier to start than to end.
A few months ago, US ships landed at the coast of occupied Palestine to unload troops and sophisticated weapons destined for military drills in the Negev. At the time, analysts talked about war for a while, then forgot all about it. Israel’s threats of war are a customary phenomenon in Israel. It is a by-product of the partisan rivalry between Israel’s hawks and doves, although it is hard sometimes to tell the difference between the two. As for the deployment of Patriot missiles in the Gulf, this is just America’s way of making a quick buck to alleviate its financial woes.
War is not a walk in the park, neither for America nor Israel. But one mustn’t forget that Israel is a military establishment created in war and modelled on perpetual war. Israel has been born and raised in the lap of imperialism, and this imperialism still sponsors it to this day. In other words, Israel cannot live, thrive, or survive without the very act that brought it to life: war.
Friday February 19, 2010, in Bil’in
5th anniversary demonstration against the separation fence at Bil’in, speech by Palestinian Prime Minister Salim Fiad, protesters tear down part of the fence, before the IOF (Israel Occupation Army) attacks with Gaz and bullets
Another video clip from the same event at Bil’in
Five years of struggle against the fence and the settlements
Five years of popular demonstrations suppressed by force, nearly two and a half years since the High Court of Justice ordered to change the route of the wall, dozens of nightly army invades into the village, hundreds of arrests, dozens of trials, leaders in jail or prohibited of taking part in the demonstration and the struggle continues!
Walled in, disappearing: the Story of al-Nu’man: Al Jazeera TV
Imagine being a 5 year-old, like Sulaiman Jamal. In order for Jamal to get to school in the morning, hell – snow – or sunshine, he must walk around 4 kilometres to get to school because his school bus can’t get anywhere close to his house.
Since he doesn’t have an Identification Card, little Sulaiman must always have his birth certificate handy; because a soldier at the gate to his village must verify it before allowing him out to school in the morning or back home in the afternoon.
Now you can begin to imagine what life is like for Sulaiman and dozens of children like him who live in Al-Nu’man, a dwindling village on the outskirts of Bethlehem…
The residents call it the forgotten village. For seven years now, the path of Israel’s illegal wall has severed the village from its natural Palestinian surrounding, barring all non-residents from entering. A military gate was set up to make sure Al-Nu’man is sealed off from the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers pass by unbothered, unstopped. Most of them live in the Israeli settlement, Nekodim, also built illegally on Palestinian land in Bethlehem. Palestinians in the area call this road ‘Lieberman Road’ in reference to the Israeli Foreign Minister, who lives in Nekodim.
My crew and I set out to visit the village. We approached the gate on foot – as no Palestinian cars are allowed on Lieberman road, unless they have the ‘proper’ permits from the Israeli army. As soon as Joseph and I got close, a female soldier sitting in a grey concrete tower overlooking the Al-Nu’man gate began screaming: [Waqef in Arabic] STOP! STOP! So we did; she kept screaming…until two soldiers approached us and told us to turn off our cameras.
They asked for our ID’s; when we took out our Palestinian identification cards, the soldiers were almost baffled by our audacity. ‘Come with me’ he said, refusing to hand back our ID’s… We were briefly detained, underwent a security check then told to leave promptly or else… But we’re in the West bank I kept countering; I am going to a Palestinian village… No response…
We continued filming – right where the soldiers left; and the female soldier kept screaming…
By that time, children were coming back home from school. Like Sara, a seventh grader. She greets while gasping for air from the walk up the road… She moved on, walking through the metal entrance, through the gate, and into a room where Israeli soldiers check and search all residents before being allowed in. I looked up and saw the long windy, uphill road that awaited Sara before she gets to the first house in the village. The thought of the journey was daunting…
Rights ‘overruled’
Standing by were 3 peace activists on a mission on behalf of the World Council of Churches, who have been coming here for months. They attempted to get into Al-Nu’man but were quickly turned back…
Phil Lucas, the spokesperson of the mission, told me the residents feel isolated. “From our point of view, their rights are being overruled – they’re not being given the rights that people resident in a village anywhere in the world should have – so our presence here is simply a reassurance to them that they’re not forgotten by the world”, Phil said..Israel’s Wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, de facto annexes over 30% of the occupied West Bank, leaving Palestinians with isolated islands of population centers on which they are supposed to manage an impossible task: build a state. This Wall isolates a little over 300,000 thousand Palestinians, including over 50,000 in what Israel calls ‘seam zones’. These are areas sandwiched between the Wall and the Green Line, which is the effective borders of the Palestinian Territory Israel occupied in 1967. This ‘seam zone’ reality affects all aspects of life – down to the simplest detail. Al-Nu’man is sealed from three directions by the Wall.
Jamal Dirawi is a prominent anti-wall activist and the head of Al-Nu’man’s village council. With much sarcasm, Jamal told me how a few weeks back, the residents entered lengthy negotiations with the Israeli army and called on help from international organizations to secure the entry of a veterinarian into Al-Nu’man. The sheep, which the residents raise, needed vaccinations.
‘In the end we failed’ Jamal said with a smile. ‘But’, he added, ‘we entered another round of negotiations and succeed to grant the sheep permission to leave the village and get vaccinated, with guarantees they would return to Al-Nu’man’! Only when I saw the pictures of the incident on his mobile phone did I believe this story actually happened. ‘Don’t be surprised’ he said, ‘this applies to any non-resident trying to enter: plumbers, electricians, you name it”.
Al-Nu’man battle with Israeli restrictions dates to 1992. Since then, Israel has banned resident from building any new homes. Around the same time, it sanctioned plans for the construction of a new illegal settlement. It’s called Har Homa; and it has been expanding ever since.
But Al-Nu’man has been shrinking… The population is now a third of what it was in 1992… Those who need to expand their homes or build new ones are forced to move out and barred from returning, even for a visit.
Incidentally, Jamal was meeting a delegation of international diplomats [mostly European] before I met him. After coordinating with the Israeli army, the diplomats were allowed into Al-Nu’man. ‘So what was their reaction’, I asked Jamal. ‘It’s terrible’, he imitated one of the visiting dignitaries…
Troops attack a Sunday Mass with tear gas at Beit Sahour city
Israeli troops fired tear gas and concussion grenades on Sunday midday at a Mass held by residents of Beit Sahour city, southern West Bank. Residents from Beit Sahour along with international supporters gathered at the evacuated military base of Ush Grhab east of the city. People held banners demanding the halt of the Israeli renewed work at the site and called for the end of settlement activity around their city.