EDITOR: You do not have to be an anti-Zionist to realise what is going on…
Even a devout Zionist like Yossi Sarid has noticed that the Israeli regime is somewhat odd… His call for its replacement is a call to save Zionism from itself, and is likely to go unheeded, but is interesting nonetheless.
Yossi Sarid / Dear citizens: you have been abandoned: Haaretz
It is a matter of life and death to get rid of this government. Don’t ask who the alternative is. If these bunglers have no replacement, the situation is very grave indeed.
After only two days of main testimony, we can already sum up: There is no longer any doubt that it was a failure, clearly the Israel Defense Forces is to blame. The Turkel Committee can begin formulating its conclusions.
It is also clear now why IDF commanders and soldiers are not allowed to give their version of events to the committee. First they duped us into believing that the leaders would protect them with leader-like chivalry. But now the picture is clearer: Netanyahu and Barak will point a finger at the army, while the army will be unable to respond and protect itself. Only the top soldier will have his say today, one against two, and try to extricate himself from the trap they set.
It is finally clear why the minister is so hell-bent on getting rid of the chief of staff. The person who shamed the government and presented it as an empty vessel full of disgrace must go home. The committee is also invited to help push Ashkenazi out. The scapegoat is ready, stewed in the milk of his superiors.
Was it not the IDF that was praised for its heroism and resourcefulness right after the flotilla, with people taking to the streets in its support? Was it not Ashkenazi who rehabilitated the bad old IDF that was defeated in Lebanon? Was not Defense Minister Barak plucked from his business only because he is an expert, as opposed to that total layman Amir Peretz? Suddenly, in two days of open doors and closed doors, once again our army is revealed in its powerlessness and poor judgment. Just ask Netanyahu and Barak.
The Turkel Committee, which was formed to investigate the flotilla, is actually investigating the situation. Here you have the two leaders, the first to jump ship. The only difference between them is that one looks frightened and tense, and the other haughty and self-assured.
At any moment he might sink his audience in a sea of details. I myself have been present on many such occasions. And he is ready at any given moment to pounce on the next adventure.
These were two days of neck-and-neck competition: Who will take more responsibility, while simultaneously fobbing it off on others. But responsibility is like respect – the more you run after it, the more it runs away. It will apparently catch up only with Ashkenazi, as it caught up with the chief of staff of the Yom Kippur War, David Elazar.
“I am responsible,” means I am a minister. But when was the last time a prime minister or a minister took responsibility, instead of just taking its name in vain?
The day after the flotilla, the title of this column was “Seven idiots in the cabinet.” Some people said we had exaggerated. Today, based on what has already been revealed, we may conclude that we have not been able to exaggerate for some time.
Caricatures of forum of seven senior ministers, From left: Benny Begin, Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Ya’alon, Eli Yishai, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Dan Meridor
Photo by: Amos Biderman
The flotilla opening a small allegorical window, illuminating the situation in general: Dear citizens: you have been abandoned. If that is the way of the flotilla, just a flotilla, imagine true tests of peace and war, life and death.
It is a matter of life and death to get rid of this government. Don’t ask who the alternative is. If these bunglers have no replacement, the situation is very grave indeed.
EDITOR: Not surprising, but important and useful information
For those dear readers who were in doubt about Israeli war crimes in Gaza… the Guardian has started to collect information about this some time ago, and in the article this evidence is reinforced by three video reports. To view those use the link below.
A soldier’s word: Haaretz
Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform.
By Amira Hass
Children in the West Bank throw stones at army vehicles and Israeli cars, mainly those belonging to settlers. That is the undeniable truth. Throwing stones is the classic way of telling the occupier, who is armed from head to toe, that he has forced himself on the occupied. Sometimes it’s part of a sweeping resistance movement, sometimes it’s a ceremonial remnant of such a movement, not devoid of braggadocio and adolescent boredom, while also a reminder to adults not to adapt.
The armed occupier bellows that this is violence, an offense just a step away from firearms. The violence of the occupier is the norm that no one questions, so much so that it becomes invisible. Only the response to that norm is presented and perceived as criminal, and the occupying nation wallows pleasurably in its eternal victimhood to justify its violent actions.
The army, especially the military justice system, has abundant means to deter young people from taking part in those ceremonies to ward off adjustment. Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform, completely normative. From the frightening conditions of such arrests, Palestinian children are taken straight to interrogation. This, too, involves intimidation, threats and sometimes a blow, sometimes temptation: Admit that you threw stones and we’ll let you go. Because detention until the end of legal proceedings might be longer than the sentence itself, sometimes it’s preferable to admit to something you did not do.
Eight 16-year-old students at the El-Arub agricultural school refused to be part of the statistic of confessions under pressure in the so-called military justice system. Three soldiers who arrested them in October 2008 testified to the police that their detainees had thrown stones on Route 60, and the soldiers caught them on the road after chasing them. The indictments were tailored to the soldiers’ account of events.
But the truth was that the teens were pulled out of their classrooms by soldiers who drove into the school compound. The police did not bother to question the principal and his teachers, the prosecution did not append corroborating evidence to the “stone-throwing incident” (such as documentation of the incident by the police or an army war room ). And still, the military judge extended the remand of the eight teens until the end of the proceedings. A soldier’s word against the word of a Palestinian boy.
The appeals judge was somewhat discomfitted by the vague testimony the soldiers gave the police and ordered the boys released on very high bail. The military prosecution tried, as usual, to get the defense attorney (from the Ad-Damir human rights group ), to sign a plea bargain (you confess, we’ll ask for a suspended sentence and a fine ), to save everyone’s time, especially the court’s. The boys were adamant in their refusal. The three soldiers, therefore, had to testify in court after they were warned to tell the truth, and they were very unconvincing.
On July 12, after almost two years of “wasting the court’s time,” the prosecution asked that the indictments be dropped. According to the IDF Spokesman’s Office, “there was no determination by a court of law that the soldiers lied in their testimony,” which is true, and that “in agreeing to drop the indictment there is no implication regarding the credibility of the soldiers’ testimony.” Sure.
Indeed, the soldiers acted the way many had acted before them. What they did is not devoid of the adolescent braggadocio that their society accepts affectionately and leniently. In particular, they are obeying unwritten orders to deter potential activists against the occupation. Blows, twisting the truth and intimidation are all part of the system they did not invent.
Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza: The Guardian
Palestinians claim children were used as human shields and hospitals targeted during 23-day conflict
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.
A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.
The testimonies form the basis of three Guardian films which add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including more than 300 children.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) refused to respond directly to the allegations made against its troops, but issued statements denying the charges and insisted international law had been observed.
The latest disclosures follow soldiers’ evidence published in the Israeli press about the killing of Palestinian civilians and complaints by soldiers involved in the military operation that the rules of engagement were too lax.
Amnesty International has said Hamas should be investigated for executing at least two dozen Palestinian men in an apparent bout of score-settling with rivals and alleged collaborators while Operation Cast Lead was under way.
Human rights groups say the vast majority of offences were committed by Israel, and that the Gaza offensive was a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks. Since 2002, there have been 21 Israeli deaths by Hamas rockets fired from Gaza, and during Operation Cast Lead there were three Israeli civilian deaths, six Israeli soldiers killed by Palestinian fire and four killed by friendly fire.
“Only an investigation mandated by the UN security council can ensure Israel’s co-operation, and it’s the only body that can secure some kind of prosecution,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera, who spent two weeks in Gaza investigating war crime allegations. “Without a proper investigation there is no deterrent. The message remains the same: ‘It’s OK to do these things, there won’t be any real consequences’.”
Some of the most dramatic testimony gathered by the Guardian came from three teenage brothers in the al-Attar family. They describe how they were taken from home at gunpoint, made to kneel in front of Israeli tanks to deter Hamas fighters from firing, and sent by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian houses to clear them. “They would make us go first so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them,” 14-year-old Al’a al-Attar said.
Medics and ambulance drivers said they were targeted when they tried to tend to the wounded; sixteen were killed. According to the World Health Organisation, more than half of Gaza’s 27 hospitals and 44 clinics were damaged by Israeli bombs.
In a report released today, a medical human rights group said there was “certainty” that Israel violated international humanitarian law during the war, with attacks on medics, damage to medical buildings, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and delays in medical treatment for the injured.
“We have noticed a stark decline in IDF morals concerning the Palestinian population of Gaza, which in reality amounts to a contempt for Palestinian lives,” said Dani Filc, chairman of Physicians for Human Rights Israel. The Guardian gathered testimony on missile attacks by Israeli drones against clearly distinguishable civilian targets. In one case a family of six was killed when a missile hit the courtyard of their house. Israel has not admitted using drones but experts say their optical equipment is good enough to identify individual items of clothing worn by targets. The Geneva convention makes it clear medical staff and hospitals are not legitimate targets and forbids involuntary human shields.
The army responded to the claims. “The IDF operated in accordance with rules of war and did the utmost to minimise harm to civilians uninvolved in combat. The IDF’s use of weapons conforms to international law,” it said. The IDF said an investigation was under way into allegations hospitals were targeted. It said Israeli soldiers were under orders to avoid harming medics, but: “However, in light of the difficult reality of warfare in the Gaza Strip carried out in urban and densely populated areas, medics who operate in the area take the risk upon themselves.”
Use of human shields was outlawed by Israel’s supreme court in 2005 after a string of incidents. The IDF said only Hamas used human shields by launching attacks from civilian areas. An Israeli embassy spokesman said any claims were suspect because of Hamas pressure on witnesses. “Anyone who understands the realities of Gaza will know these people are not free to speak the truth. Those that wish to speak out cannot for fear of beatings, torture or execution at the hands of Hamas,” the spokesman said in a written statement.
However, the accounts gathered by the Guardian are supported by the findings of human rights organisations and soldiers’ testimony published in the Israeli press.
An IDF squad leader is quoted in the daily newspaper Ha’aretz as saying his soldiers interpreted the rules to mean “we should kill everyone there [in the centre of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist.”
• This article was updated on Tuesday March 24 2009 to reflect changes made for the first edition of the Guardian newspaper.
Focus U.S.A. / Will Israel really attack Iran within a year?: Haaretz
After interviewing dozens of Israeli, American and Arab officials, Atlantic Magazine correspondent concludes Israel may not even ask for American ‘green light’ to attack Iran nuclear sites.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites within a year, if Iran stays the current course and the U.S. administration doesn’t succeed in persuading Israel’s leadership that U.S. President Barack Obama is ready to stop Iran by force if necessary, so argues Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine’s September cover story, obtained by Haaretz ahead of publication.
Based on dozens of interviews the Atlantic correspondent conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials, Goldberg came to the conclusion that the likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous “green light” from the U.S. – or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, so that Washington won’t try to stop the unilateral operation.
“…one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran – possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft…,” Goldberg paints a possible scenario.
The repercussions of such a strike, which could include the bombing of the Iranian facilities in Natanz, Qom, Esfahan, and maybe even the Russian-built reactor in Bushehr, are less than clear, despite the endless discussions and several simulations. American experts speculate that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities will only slightly delay the nuclear program, whereas some Israelis, according to Goldberg, are a bit more optimistic, in light of the successful Israeli operations against Iraqi and Syrian reactors in the past.
The results might be dire: It’s likely that the Israeli air force won’t have much time to waste in Iran, as Hezbollah will probably retaliate against Israel in the North and the fighter jets will be needed there. The unilateral operation might throw relations between Jerusalem and Washington into an unprecedented crisis, and might even unleash full-scale regional war with possible economic repercussions for the whole world, not to mention the cost of human lives.
The timetable in this issue is an evasive one – the red lines were pushed back again and again, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told New York Times reporters this week: “Based on my conversations with allies, it’s not so much the timing of when or how the Iranians might pursue the nuclear weapons, it’s whether they do so. And so whether it would take six months, a year, or five years, it’s that deep concern about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that is the preoccupation of our friends and partners. And we would be pursuing the path we’re pursuing regardless of any issue of timing because we think it’s got the best potential for changing Iranian behavior.”
According to Goldberg, for Israel the red lines are clear. The end of December is Netanyahu’s deadline to estimate the success of “non-military methods to stop Iran.”
And while Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, reminded Goldberg that “the expression ‘All options are on the table’ means that all options are on the table,” – the Israeli interviewees repeatedly questioned Obama’s resolve to actually do it. Some even asked Goldberg if he thought the American president was actually an anti-Semite, forcing the reporter to explain that Obama is probably “the first Jewish President” – but not necessarily Likud’s idea of a Jew.
But the reply he got from one official was: “This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble.”
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, stressed that “This president has shown again and again that when he believes it is necessary to use force to protect American national security interests, he has done so” – but the Israeli government might need stronger assurances.
Israel is trying to convey the message not only through the official channels – Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin visited Chicago recently to meet with the billionaire Lester Crown, one of Obama’s supporters, and asked to him to convey Israel’s concerns to the American President, Goldberg reports.
“If the choice is between allowing Iran to go nuclear, or trying for ourselves what Obama won’t try, then we probably have to try,” one senior Israeli official told Goldberg. Basically, the Israeli military officials agreed that it would be tough for Israel to do it alone – but on the other hand, the conclusion is Netanyahu might well risk this operation and alienation of his closest ally if he becomes convinced Iran’s nuclear bomb “represents a threat like a Shoah.”
Goldberg delves into Netanyahu’s relations with his father – the historical lessons he learned from Ben-Zion Netanyahu – and his eagerness not to disappoint him. He also offers a long list of Iran’s verbal hostilities toward Israel to remind his readers that Israel is not personally obsessed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“I once asked Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a leading Iranian diplomat who is now Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, why the leadership of Iran persistently described Israel not as a mere regional malefactor but as a kind of infectious disease. ‘Do you disagree?’ he asked. ‘Do you not see that this is true?'” Goldberg writes.
A recent poll conducted in six Arab countries showed a shift of opinion in favor of the Iranian nuclear weapon – views that the Arab leadership clearly doesn’t share with the street.
For Netanyahu, it’s clear the bomb will not only strengthen Iran’s proxies, but will undermine Israel’s status as a safe haven for Jews, embolden terrorists all over the word, and make the Arab countries more reluctant to make peace with Israel.
According to Goldberg, all the Arab officials he spoke to didn’t think that the U.S. administration truly understood Iran’s ambitions. “The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies,” one Arab minister told Goldberg.
Dennis Ross, special adviser to the U.S. president, told the Atlantic that imposing sanctions on Iran could work, despite Israeli doubts, because the Iranian government already faces public alienation. “They are looking at the costs of trying to maintain control over a disaffected public. They wanted to head off sanctions because they knew that sanctions would be a problem. There is real potential here to affect their calculus. We’re pursuing a path right now that has some potential.”
Last week, Obama unexpectedly joined a White House briefing for a small group of senior reporters in Washington, raising questions whether he intended to convey some new message to Iran or hint at some new initiative. The accounts of the meetings were somewhat different, and the final impression was that there still is no answer for the question, what President Obama is ready to do if sanctions fail.
David Sanger, the New York Times reporter, heard from the White House sources that during his latest visit to Washington Netanyahu didn’t list Iran as one of his top agenda items “whereas at the previous meetings when he has come here, [Iran] was the number one, two, and three issue,” on the agenda, which might indicate that Netanyahu got some clear reassurances from the U.S. administration.
IDF chief: Future Gaza flotillas will be blocked by Israel’s defensive shield: Haaretz
Ashkenazi tells Turkel committee IDF troops were not ready for violent resistance they met when they boarded a Gaza-bound aid ship, killing nine pro-Palestinian activists in May.
Future aid flotillas traveling to Gaza to break the naval siege on the territory will be blocked by the Israel Navy’s defensive shield, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said on Wednesday.
“If they come, they will be stopped by our defensive shield,” Ashkenazi said in his address at the naval graduation ceremony in Haifa. “There is no doubt that you will manage to stop the nearing threats,” he told the graduates.
Earlier Wednesday, Ashkenazi testified before an internal probe into Israel’s deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, saying that the raid quickly became “chaotic,” and the soldiers had no choice but to “continue with the plan.”
IDF troops were not ready for the violent resistance they met when they boarded a Gaza-bound aid ship and killed nine pro-Palestinian activists, Ahskenazi told the inquiry, headed by former chief justice Jacob Turkel, adding that the outcome of the May 31 raid was impossible to predict.
“From the moment the operation began, it was clear that the circumstances were unprecedented,” he said, adding that as commander he took full responsibility for the troops’ actions.
Meanwhile, despite initial reports that military personnel would not testify before the Turkel committee, Ashkenazi has authorized Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit to testify before the panel.
Ashkenazi also approved the questioning of General (Res.) Giora Eiland, who headed the IDF’s internal inquiry into the deadly raid.
Poisoning of Gaza water puts population at risk: The Electronic Intifada
Report, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 11 August 2010
Thousands of Palestinians flock to the beaches in Gaza despite knowing it is heavily polluted. (PCHR) The signs which dot the beach along the Gaza City waterfront are clear: “THIS BEACH IS POLLUTED,” they read, and yet they seem to serve only as obstacles for children running to the sea rather than warnings to be heeded of the serious health risks associated with swimming here. For those who care to doubt the sign’s veracity, one need only to stroll north along the beach for a couple hundred meters to see raw sewage being pumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea from one of the 16 discharge sites along the coast. Yet thousands fill Gaza’s beaches and waters in spite of the clear dangers.
For the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip, deprived of their freedom of movement, worn down daily by the all-pervasive effects of the Israeli-imposed closure, the sea is one of the few sources of respite available in their lives, and for a people that have been denied their economic livelihood, it is the only such activity that is affordable and available. The sea plays an integral part in the lives of this coastal community: it is a place to fish, to play and to gather with family. The importance of the sea to the people of Gaza cannot be understated: “without the sea there is no Gaza,” explains Abdel Haleem Abu Samra, public relations officer of the Palestinian Center for Human Right’s Khan Younis Branch.
The intimate relationship Palestinians in Gaza share with the sea thus makes the current state of Gaza’s beaches and sea all the more disheartening and disconcerting. Due to the effects of the total closure imposed by Israel in 2007 — principle among them a complete lack of construction materials to build new wastewater treatment facilities or spare parts to repair existing ones, as well as an acute lack of fuel and electricity to run necessary waste treatment cycles — an average of 20,000 cubic meters of raw sewage is dumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea every day, estimates Monther Shoblak, director general of the Coastal Municipality Water Utility, although in some areas this figure reaches 70,000-80,000 cubic meters per day.
Beyond tarnishing Gaza’s once pristine shores, the noxious consequences of the deterioration of the wastewater treatment operation in Gaza resulting from the closure hold much more grave implications: the Gaza Strip is, quite literally, being poisoned. Ninety percent of the water available in Gaza from its only source — the coastal aquifer — is undrinkable, and nitrate and chloride levels reach six and seven times the international safety standards put forward by the World Health Organization (WHO). As the director of the operation to keep the water in Gaza clean, it is Monther’s job to cure this poisoning, but, like a doctor without medicine, there is little he can do while the tools he needs are denied to him and his operation under the policy of closure, which has been practiced on Gaza by Israel in various forms since 1991.
Like all Palestinians in Gaza, Monther and his staff at the Coastal Municipalities Water Utilities are forced to improvise, to make do with very little; few others, perhaps, must do so much with so little. Monther is tasked not only with disposing of the wastewater created by the 1.5 million people in this tiny strip of land but also with ensuring that they have access to safe, clean drinking water. That approximately 80 percent of Gaza’s population lives in refugee camps, some of the most densely populated areas on earth where adequate infrastructure is rare and the conditions for waterborne disease are rife, is the least of Monther’s concerns: for more than three years now, Monther has been forced to conduct his efforts while being deprived of the resources needed to do so, with perseverance in place of concrete and ingenuity instead of a supply of clean water. Monther analogizes the plight of Gaza’s wastewater treatment facilities with an old car that is forced into continual use despite being denied the spare parts needed for upkeep: eventually the car falls into disrepair and begins to spit plumes of jet black, highly polluted smoke — a highly relevant image in Gaza, where adulterated gasoline is the normal input into cars due to sharp restrictions on fuel under the Israeli closure.
Compounding the challenge facing Monther and his staff is the fact that they must also adapt Gaza’s deteriorating wastewater treatment facilities for a rapidly increasing population which, accordingly, produces a rapidly increasing volume of waste. Gaza’s current wastewater treatment facilities were constructed with an operational capacity of 32,000 cubic meters of waste a day. With a growth rate that is one of the world’s highest — an estimated 3.6 percent annually — Gaza’s surging population has overwhelmed the capacity of the waste treatment facilities, and Monther estimates that the facilities are now receiving at least 65,000 cubic meters of waste daily. Unable to handle more than half of its intake, much of the sewage is directly transported to the sea, where it is dumped completely untreated. Much of this sewage washes back onto Gaza’s shores, polluting the beaches and creating toxic swimming conditions for the countless children and adults seeking escape from the intense summer heat.
Nowhere is the deteriorating condition of Gaza’s wastewater operation more evident than in Beit Lahiya, in the northern region of the Strip. One of the Gaza Strip’s three wastewater treatment facilities, the Beit Lahiya station receives more than 25,000 cubic meters per day, almost twice its operational capacity. Exacerbating this problem, the facility is cutoff from access to the sea, and thus the untreated wastewater flows directly into the surrounding area, creating a cesspool — literally a lake of sewage — that now comprises approximately 450 dunam (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters). The Beit Lahiya station stands as one of the most extreme examples of the environmental and health disasters that the Israeli policy of closure has realized in the Gaza Strip. The consequences of the sewage lake have been fatal and not only because, in March 2007, the lake’s embankment broke and the subsequent flooding killed five people: the contamination of the groundwater in the northern Gaza Strip caused by the pollution has resulted in nitrate levels that are in some places seven times higher than WHO’s international safety standards.
“Nitrate is a silent killer,” says Monther: it is colorless, odorless and tasteless, but when consumed at levels even much lower than those present in Gaza, continued nitrate intake results in a reduced oxygen supply to vital tissues such as the brain. Nitrate intake is particularly dangerous for infants, for whom it can result in brain damage and possibly death. Information regarding the long term consequences for the people of Gaza in this regard is still unknown, however, for, as one donor has said: “Nowhere else in the world has such a large number of people been exposed to such high levels of nitrates for such a long period of time. There is no precedent, and no studies to help us understand what happens to people over the course of years of nitrate poisoning.”
The implications of Gaza’s growing population thus also present serious concerns for the other aspect of Monther’s task, which is to provide safe and clean drinking water to the people of Gaza Strip. The coastal aquifer, which runs underground along much of the Strip, is Gaza’s only source of potable water and its most important natural resource. Historically, this aquifer has served as the lifeblood for the people of Gaza and has given rise to the agriculture, particularly citrus farms, for which the Gaza Strip is famous. Once, before the imposition of the closure policy by Israel in the early 1990s, one could dig a hole within 100 meters from the beach and find drinkable water, says Monther. Now, he explains, the CMWU has been forced to issue a warning against the drilling of wells within two kilometers of the beach, which, taken in combination with the “buffer zone” unilaterally imposed by Israeli military on Gaza’s border with Israel — tacitly acknowledged at 300 meters but practiced sometimes at distances much further — leaves little space for water extraction.
As inconvenient as it may seem, the reason behind the ruling is even more worrying: the aquifer is polluted, poisoned by sewage and depleted by the rising population which it can no longer support. Only 10 percent of the aquifer’s water now meets international standards for consumption, and, if no changes are made, Monther fears that this figure may soon reach 0 percent. A UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) report published in September 2009 stated that water extraction is roughly double the capacity of the aquifer. Accordingly, Monther explains, people in Gaza are drilling more and deeper wells, further polluting the aquifer with water from the saline aquifer to the east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, and from the sea.
Confronted with this rapidly deteriorating situation and denied by Israel the resources with which to address it, Monther and his staff have been forced to adopt unconventional means of tackling Gaza’s wastewater issues. In the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, Monther explains, the wastewater situation had reached a crisis level: like Beit Hanoun, waste was being dumped directly into the land area surrounding the cities, as the area lacked both an adequate waste treatment facility and the materials needed to construct it. In response to the crisis, which threatened to deny access to safe drinking water for the combined population of 350,000, Monther and his staff turned to a practice employed by many Palestinians in Gaza surrounded by rubble left by Israel’s latest offensive: they begin to collect aggregate from the nearby remains of the Philadelphi Route, the border between Gaza and Egypt which was partially destroyed in 2008 when thousands of Palestinians flowed into Egypt seeking food and supplies. With these secondhand supplies, the CMWU was able to construct what Monther refers to as a “near state-of-the-art facility.” Although chloride levels — the counterpart to the pollution problem poisoning Gaza’s water — are still as high as six times the international standard in this southern area, Monther believes that they “are saving the city of Khan Younis by addressing the increasing levels of nitrates and removing the raw sewage from the densely populated urban areas.”
In such ways, Monther and his staff at CMWU continue their efforts to keep the water of Gaza clean, but, as he admits, “we know its not enough: the water in Gaza is deteriorating quickly. Until we find another source of water, the population in Gaza remains at great risk.” For now, the poisoning of the Gaza Strip continues, and, for all Gaza’s efforts and ingenuity, there is little that can be done to stop it as long as the closure continues. The treatment of Gaza’s wastewater cannot progress as long as Israel restricts basic building materials and adequate levels of fuel and electricity, and, with a rising population over-burdening the capacity of the current facilities, Gaza’s wastewater treatment operation only deteriorates. As Desmond Travers, a member of the UN Fact-finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, concluded in the Mission’s Report: “If these issues are not addressed Gaza may not even be habitable by WHO standards,” and the September UNEP report has warned that the damage being incurred now “could take centuries to reverse.”[ 6] As long as the closure persists, however, the people of Gaza remain helpless to combat these problems; they have little choice but to wait, spending their time at the beach trying to ignore the pollution that piles up around them.
This report is part of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ Narratives Under Siege series.
A frivolous government: Haaretz Editorial
The testimonies of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak to the Turkel Committee reveal grave flaws about their judgment and discussions on the most sensitive diplomatic and security matters.
The testimonies by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to the Turkel Committee arouse considerable concern. In describing the decision-making process before the takeover of the Turkish flotilla to the Gaza Strip, the two men revealed grave flaws about their judgment and discussions on the most sensitive diplomatic and security matters.
The suspicions that arose immediately after the operation were confirmed in all their gravity in the testimonies. Netanyahu testified that a decision by the defense minister had imposed the naval blockade on Gaza at the time of Operation Cast Lead; the defense minister had apparently informed the prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert. According to Netanyahu, no discussion was held in any larger forum about the blockade and its implications. When threats about breaking through the blockade grew, the government tried to use diplomacy to thwart the flotilla, and when the diplomatic effort failed, it resorted to the bullying takeover of the ships.
According to Netanyahu, the main consideration guiding him in his decision later to open the gates of Gaza was Israel’s image in the international media. The Palestinian population’s suffering was not on his mind beyond the general statement that “there is no humanitarian crisis” in the Gaza Strip.
In the same spirit, the meeting of the forum of seven senior ministers before the takeover focused on the implications for “the media effect,” as Netanyahu said. He recalls a cursory discussion: “I received several ideas, issued a few instructions … but we didn’t get into a discussion of the operation’s details.”
Barak presented a completely different version, to the point that it’s hard to believe that the prime minister and the defense minister took part in the same discussion. According to the defense minister, the ministers and officials went into detail, asked serious questions and expressed concern about complications: “There wasn’t a situation of people not understanding the situation.” Barak praised the government and attributed the responsibility for the hitches to the military, just as Netanyahu had attributed the responsibility to the defense minister.
The Turkel Committee has done well not to be content with the narrow mandate it received from Netanyahu and Barak and in deciding to examine the nature of their decisions. The significant contradictions between the testimonies and the attempts by the prime minister and the defense minister to pass the buck on down show that something basic is creaking at the top. The committee must thoroughly examine the issues so we can learn lessons and reduce the risk of similar mishaps in the future
The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears!: Truthdig
Aug 9, 2010
By Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges made these remarks Thursday night in New York City at a fundraiser for sponsoring a U.S. boat to break the blockade of Gaza. More information can be found at www.ustogaza.org.
When I lived in Jerusalem I had a friend who confided in me that as a college student in the United States she attended events like these, wrote up reports and submitted them to the Israel consulate for money. It would be naive to assume this Israeli practice has ended. So, I want first tonight to address that person, or those persons, who may have come to this event for the purpose of reporting on it to the Israeli government.
I would like to remind them that it is they who hide in darkness. It is we who stand in the light. It is they who deceive. It is we who openly proclaim our compassion and demand justice for those who suffer in Gaza. We are not afraid to name our names. We are not afraid to name our beliefs. And we know something you perhaps sense with a kind of dread. As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, and that arc is descending with a righteous fury that is thundering down upon the Israeli government.
You may have the bulldozers, planes and helicopters that smash houses to rubble, the commandos who descend from ropes on ships and kill unarmed civilians on the high seas as well as in Gaza, the vast power of the state behind you. We have only our hands and our hearts and our voices. But note this. Note this well. It is you who are afraid of us. We are not afraid of you. We will keep working and praying, keep protesting and denouncing, keep pushing up against your navy and your army, with nothing but our bodies, until we prove that the force of morality and justice is greater than hate and violence. And then, when there is freedom in Gaza, we will forgive … you. We will ask you to break bread with us. We will bless your children even if you did not find it in your heart to bless the children of those you occupied. And maybe it is this forgiveness, maybe it is the final, insurmountable power of love, which unsettles you the most.
And so tonight, a night when some seek to name names and others seek to hide names, let me do some naming. Let me call things by their proper names. Let me cut through the jargon, the euphemisms we use to mask human suffering and war crimes. “Closures” mean heavily armed soldiers who ring Palestinian ghettos, deny those trapped inside food or basic amenities—including toys, razors, chocolate, fishing rods and musical instruments—and carry out a brutal policy of collective punishment, which is a crime under international law. “Disputed land” means land stolen from the Palestinians. “Clashes” mean, almost always, the killing or wounding of unarmed Palestinians, including children. “Jewish neighborhoods in the West Bank” mean fortress-like compounds that serve as military outposts in the campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. “Targeted assassinations” mean extrajudicial murder. “Air strikes on militant bomb-making posts” mean the dropping of huge iron fragmentation bombs from fighter jets on densely crowded neighborhoods that always leaves scores of dead and wounded, whose only contact with a bomb was the one manufactured in the United States and given to the Israeli Air Force as part of our complicity in the occupation. “The peace process” means the cynical, one-way route to the crushing of the Palestinians as a people.
These are some names. There are others. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish in the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2009, had a pair of Israeli tank shells rip through a bedroom in his Gaza apartment, killing three of his daughters—Bessan, Mayar and Aya—along with a niece, Noor.
“I have the right to feel angry,” says Abuelaish. “But I ask, ‘Is this the right way?’ So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate.”
“Whom to hate?” asks the 55-year-old gynecologist, who was born a Palestinian refugee and raised in poverty. “My Israeli friends? My Israeli colleagues? The Israeli babies I have delivered?”
The Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali wrote this in his poem “Revenge”:
At times … I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!
*
But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.
*
Likewise … I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.
*
But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.
And if these words are what it means to be a Muslim, and I believe it does, name me too a Muslim, a follower of the prophet, peace be upon him.
The boat to Gaza will be named “The Audacity of Hope.” But these are not Barack Obama’s words. These are the words of my friend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. They are borrowed words. And Jerry Wright is not afraid to speak the truth, not afraid to tell us to stop confusing God with America. “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands [killed] in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
Or the words of Edward Said:
Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming controversial; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate; your hope is to be asked back, to consult, to be on a board or prestigious committee, and so to remain within the responsible mainstream; someday you hope to get an honorary degree, a big prize, perhaps even an ambassadorship.
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For an intellectual these habits of mind are corrupting par excellence. If anything can denature, neutralize, and finally kill a passionate intellectual life it is the internalization of such habits. Personally I have encountered them in one of the toughest of all contemporary issues, Palestine, where fear of speaking out about one of the greatest injustices in modern history has hobbled, blinkered, muzzled many who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. For despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and self-determination earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual.
And some of the last words of Rachel Corrie to her parents:
I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: “This is the wide world and I’m coming to it.” I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside. When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I’ve ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.
And if this is what it means to be a Christian, and I believe it does, to speak in the voice of Jeremiah Wright, Edward Said or Rachel Corrie, to remember and take upon us the pain and injustice of others, then name me a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ.
And what of the long line of Jewish prophets that run from Jeremiah, Isaiah and Amos to Hannah Arendt, who reminded the world when the state of Israel was founded that the injustice meted out to the Jews could not be rectified by an injustice meted out to the Palestinians, what of our own prophets, Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein, outcasts like all prophets, what of Uri Avnery or the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, who writes in his poem “Rypin,” the Polish town his father escaped from during the Holocaust, these words:
These creatures in helmets and khakis,
I say to myself, aren’t Jews,
In the truest sense of the word. A Jew
Doesn’t dress himself up with weapons like jewelry,
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Doesn’t believe in the barrel of a gun aimed at a target,
But in the thumb of the child who was shot at—
In the house through which he comes and goes,
Not in the charge that blows it apart.
The coarse soul and iron first
He scorns by nature.
He lifts his eyes not to the officer, or the soldier
With his finger on the trigger—but to justice,
And he cries out for compassion.
Therefore, he won’t steal land from its people
And will not starve them in camps.
The voice calling for expulsion
Is heard from the hoarse throat of the oppressor—
A sure sign that the Jew has entered a foreign country
And, like Umberto Saba, gone into hiding within his own city.
Because of voices like these, father
At age sixteen, with your family, you fled Rypin;
Now here Rypin is your son.
And if to be Jew means this, and I believe it does, name me a Jew. Name us all Muslims and Christians and Jews. Name us as human beings who believe that when one of us suffers all of us suffer, that we never have to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us all, that the tears of the mother in Gaza are our tears, that the wails of the bloodied children in Al Shifa Hospital are the wails of our own children.
Let me close tonight with one last name. Let me name those who send these tanks and fighter jets to bomb the concrete hovels in Gaza with families crouching, helpless, inside, let me name those who deny children the right to a childhood and the sick a right to care, those who torture, those who carry out assassinations in hotel rooms in Dubai and on the streets of Gaza City, those who deny the hungry food, the oppressed justice and foul the truth with official propaganda and state lies. Let me call them, not by their honorific titles and positions of power, but by the name they have earned for themselves by draining the blood of the innocent into the sands of Gaza. Let me name them for who they are: terrorists.