That I regard the following news as shocking and disgraceful is surely a reflection of my own innocence. (But innocence, naive faith, idealism--they help to drive this site.)
At the same time that it is setting forth on peace talks with the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority, Israel has for the first time publicly endorsed the policy of separating Gaza and the West Bank politically (and culturally).
This policy has been obvious to anyone who has visited the Strip and the West Bank: you are seeing two starkly-different cultures and political entities. But Noam Sheizaf has the goods, reporting that the Israeli government has described "separating Judea and Samaria [i.e. West Bank] from Gaza" as "a security and diplomatic objective."
Unbelievable. Will the U.S. say a word about this? Will Clinton or Mitchell object? Israel makes lip service to a Palestinian state living alongside it but meantime a living part of the Palestinian consciousness, the largely-refugee population of Gaza, Israel has segregated and imprisoned and surrounded with remote-control machine gun towers, obviously with an eye to one day delivering it with a ribbon to Egypt. And let's be clear, this is a reflection of occupation. If Gaza were not occupied, as Goldstone said it is, Israel could not achieve this ghettoization, this breaking up of families, these attacks on fishing boats and lettuce-growers and scrap-metal-scroungers and humanitarian flotillas, this neverending destruction of human resources that is Gaza. Sheizaf:
An IDF Powerpoint slideshow, presented before the Turkel committee for the investigation of the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla, reveals the official goals of the Israeli policy regarding the Gaza strip....
Slide 20 deals with freedom of movement from and to the Gaza strip. Policy objectives are:
- Limiting people from entering or exiting the strip, in accordance with the government’s decision.
- Separating Judea and Samaria from Gaza.
...The Israeli policy regarding Gaza could be seen as violation of official and unofficial principles of previous agreements and negotiations with the Palestinians and other parties. Gaza and the West Bank were regarded as “one entity” – though not officially declared as such – already in the 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Oslo Declaration of Principles, signed in September 1993 and still an abiding document, specifically states that:
The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim period.
This declaration was ratified in following agreements from 1994 and 1995.
The recent IDF slideshow is the first time an Israeli official document publicly declares that the current policy objective is to create two separate political entities in the Palestinian territories.
This seemed implicit in the Gaza coup/countercoup stuff that went on in 2006, when Elliott Abrams was heading US policy. I’ve never seen a detailed article about the US role in fomenting, deepening, rendering violent the Hamas PA split, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was substantial.
“the US role in fomenting, deepening, rendering violent the Hamas PA split”
It’s documented and well-known: Dayton plans to increase Abbas’s forces to eliminate Hamas in W. Bank
Scott, the substantial article you are looking for that gives you the full story of the attempted overthrow of Hamas by the US in 2006:
link to vanityfair.com
scott, don’t miss the vital document link that accompanies walid’s link.
And yet the IDF bombs Gaza to retaliate for Hamas actions in the WB.
>> That I regard the following news as shocking and disgraceful is surely a reflection of my own innocence. (But innocence, naive faith, idealism–they help to drive this site.)
>> At the same time that it is setting forth on peace talks with the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority, Israel has for the first time publicly endorsed the policy of separating Gaza and the West Bank politically (and culturally).
Mr. Weiss, your observation is fatiguing. Oh, wait, I mean your propagation is an observation. Hmmm…the fatigue causes consternation? Errr…well, what I mean is stop criticizing and start cheerleading. Seeing as how you’re part of RW’s “nation”, it is your “moral responsibility”.
;-)
Somethings are obvious with a magnifying glass. Mitchell needs one real bad.
He’s about to lose his status as diplomatic hero negotiator.
Thanks Noam and Phil. This has been apparent for some time, but there’s nothing like confirmation from the horse’s mouth.
The timing is also perfect – further unmasking the bad faith currently on display in DC.
What a world we live in. It is amazing it takes documentation to “prove” what we all knew all along. Forget the “facts on the ground” – they are apparently meaningless, we have to have it written down. I am now invoking “Godwin’s Law”: This is about the same as Russian Troops showing up at Auschwitz and saying ” Umm, it looks like they were murdering people en-masse here; someone get to Berlin to see if they have any documentation about the purpose of this place.”
We are obviously better off having the documentation, but did we really need it?
This has been obvious for quite some time. The West Bank, in the mind of the Likudniks and affiliates now in power, is slated to be part of a fatter Israel. Not Gaza, yuk!. The whole aim of this settlement business is to make a future Palestinian state impossible in the OT. But they can have it in Gaza if so they wished (aren’t we kind?) ..Additionally, most Palestinians in the West Bank are also slated to make a forced “Alia” to Gaza..
A child can see this..
This is not a plan for a viable two state solution, or any solution for that matter. As has been noted above (by other posters) the US and a silent EU have been complicit in this separation of WB and Gaza for a long long time (both by silence and positive activity). What makes the author of this post think -
“Unbelievable. Will the U.S. say a word about this? Will Clinton or Mitchell object?”
There is no “peace process,’ there is only a “piece process,” that is, the theft of Palestinian land one piece at a time. This is Zionism, until one faces the fact that Zionism must be eliminated there will be not answers. We are not facing the warring of two legitimate movements in this conflict, you have one truly legitimate movement and that is the Palestinian, and the other is a murderous settler state wholly supported by the powers that be. The failure to recognize this means the destruction of the Palestinians.
“(But innocence, naive faith, idealism–they help to drive this site.)”
Yup, that’s what hasbara feeds on. But don’t worry, it won’t be long before you can relapse into your own “tribal” self.
There is a psychological cliche that people often accuse and attack others for phenomena that are in fact found in the lives of the accusers. I have collected about a dozen major hasbara points that Israelis make about their neighbors which end up being true about Israel. For most of the post ’67 history of Israel, the hasbara response to the idea of evacuating the West Bank and allowing a local government to take over was that Israel was only nine miles wide at its narrowest point and the country could easily be cut in half. This would be said even as negotiations were underway for a theoretical Palestinian state that was itself already cut in half.
I don’t see the “smoking gun”.
Smoking gun to what?
Can someone please point it out?
Then your reading skills are as limited as your thinking and your skills of expression.
The “smoking gun” is slide 20 of the power point presentation, which shows the goals of Israeli policy as being the division of the remnants of Palestine by cutting them off from each other as completely as they can.
Which in turn proves the current waffle from Netanyahu is a total sham designed to buy more time in order that Israel will not be brought to book for its heinous & brutal continuing theft & occupation of another people’s land.
Do note, I did not say another people’s state.
If this was dated 1994, or 2005, then it might be a “smoking gun”.
After the Hamas election, internal Palestinian struggle, and Hamas takeover of Gaza, the separation of Gaza from the West Bank was Palestinian in content. For Israel to form policies around that, even if actions that they took sought to isolate Hamas, is NOT a smoking gun.
And, it is not permanent.
Ye Gods Witty!
I hope you’re seeing a psychiatrist.
The whole bloody lot of it was Zio-manipulations & machinations.
After the Hamas election, internal Palestinian struggle, and Hamas takeover of Gaza, the separation of Gaza from the West Bank was Palestinian in content.
after hamas won the election in both gaza and the west bank what you refer to as an ‘internal struggle’ wasn’t ‘internal’ in the least. it was born of destructive foreign interference, no limitation to ‘palestinian in content’ in the least. it was to promote discord and the constant pressure from US/IS via egypt as ‘mediator’ to prevent unification or hamas and fatah is documented in several interviews.
Of course it is primarily internal. Hamas and Fatah are in a state of deferred civil war, or haven’t you noticed?
“If this was dated 1994, or 2005, then it might be a “smoking gun”.”
Why does it have to be current to be a smoking gun Witty? Is there a statute of lomitations on facts too?
The US State Department helps fund, train for and plan an antidemocratic coup by Fatah and you characterize that as “internal?”
This would be the part where you, not regarding the Palestinians as human beings, see nothing wrong with putting up barnyard fences around them to prevent them from “breeding.”
Wow, I am surprised that this shocks you. Ever since Sharon decided to cut and run from Gaza it’s been obvious that this was the game plan. It was already being implemented starting as far back as 1991, when closure as a policy was introduced and Palestinians from the West Bank were prohibited from visiting Gaza and vice versa. This step was the coup de grace.
The logic behind dumping Gaza was most clearly articulated by Arnon Soffer. An indispensable item to read to understand the logic underlying all of Israeli policy in the past decade vis a vis the Palestinians can be found here. I don’t have time now to excerpt or summarize it, but perhaps I can do so later or someone else can.
You cannot underestimate the profound extent to which demographic considerations drive everything that Israel does. Soffer’s document spells it all out. You will see that the separation of the West Bank from Gaza has been a linchpin of Israeli policy for a long time for an obvious reason: demographic pressure from both sides of the country. But it goes way beyond that… you just have to read the report. I would say it is essential to understanding anything and everything that Israel does vis a vis Palestinians. Whether or not the letter of these recommendations is being followed doesn’t matter — what matters is the mentality that underlies it all; that is what infuses the thinking of most Zionist policymakers.
In case my link to the report does not work, you can find it: Israel Demography 2004-2020, by Arnon Soffer and Evgenia Bystrov. University of Haifa, March 2005.
An indispensable item to read to understand the logic underlying all of Israeli policy in the past decade vis a vis the Palestinians can be found here.
Link is broken. Can you fix it?
“You cannot underestimate the profound extent to which demographic considerations drive everything that Israel does.”
Demographic AND territorial considerations, i.e. grabbing the maximum amount of territory while striving to reduce the number of Arabs to a minimum.
(Hmmm, wonder if I’m going to be moderated out of existence again?)
PS – Phil, it is only a smoking gun for someone like you who thought that Israel had genuine intentions of establishing a Palestinian state that would solve problems for the Palestinians.
Alas, Israel’s concept of “Palestinian state” is the one that solves ISRAEL’S problems! So it should be truncated, contained and constrained and asphyxiated from every dimension, and offering only as much air for its population to breathe as would prevent them from trying to sully the demographic purity of Israel. Gaza is to be discarded and eliminated in any which way, including white phosphorus. West Bankers are to be herded into ever smaller and smaller cantons that leave all choice land and water to Israel and its mammouth settlements, and then those should be enclosed contained and blocked from all future development, and THAT will be magnanimously declared by Israel to be the “Palestinian state.”
My link above did not work so here it is:
web.hevra.haifa.ac.il/~ch-strategy/…/israel_demography_2004-2020_en.pdf
Israel Demography 2004 – 2020: In Light of the Process of Disengagement
by Arnon Soffer and Evgenia Bystrov. Haifa Univ, March 2005
still doesn’t work
“innocence, naive faith, idealism–they help to drive this site.”
And I am thankful for it every day.
The use of a nationalist, racial religion provides ideological rationalization for continuing crimes against a targeted population in order to expand the offensive nation, and the world allows it to happen without defending the victims. Whether or not the Zionist ideology’s potency comes exclusively from its arguments or US arms is difficult to determine. Zionism resonates with American hegemons, though, so the goal for those who oppose Israel’s militant expansion is to break the legitimacy of this dark ideology to its most generous American benefactors. Americans who support Israel’s militant policies need to be exposed as terrorists. American settlers need to be prosecuted with the same crimes that sent John Walker Lindh to prison for twenty years. American evangelical leaders who foment aggression in favor of Israel need to be tarred as American mullahs. The BDS movement needs to be expanded to American businesses. America’s support for Israel must become morally painful before it will end.
The rest of the IDF presentation posted by Noam Sheizaf is pretty standard hasbara. On slide no. 51 however, is a claim I have never seen before. The cargo of the flotilla is listed by vessel (e.g. “Daphne – medical equipment, construction materials, toys, food, generators, school supplies”). For the Mavi Marmara, it says (in red): “No equipment (cargo) on board”. Does anyone know if this is true? Was the Mavi Marmara only carrying passengers? If the claim is not true, it should be pretty easy to disprove.
The only info I have is from a speech I caught on youtube from Osama Qashoo about the Israeli raid. He mentioned that they had to use the medical supplies they had on board for Gaza to treat the wounded from the raid. See here at 3:50 in:
link to youtube.com
My admittedly limited understanding was that the Mavi Marmara was primarily used as a passenger ship. Since they had to use the medical supplies for their own, perhaps this is why the IDF feels it can claim that the ship had no supplies for Gaza. Sorry I don’t have more specifics.
The Mavi Marmara, I believe, was carrying several hundred tons of relief supplies, in fact. There was an al-Jazeera report from the Mavi Marmara where they showed crates full of food supplies. I’m afraid I don’t have a link to it handy.
I recall the claims from the hasbara front that the flotilla wasn’t really about bringing humanitarian help and that it was political and this was supposed to discredit the flotilla as humanitarian aid with a devious hidden agenda. There were also news items about the goods not qualifying as humanitarian aid.
I thought of course it’s political. It was about challenging the blockade. They could have gone without any goods at all and it would have been fine.
In essence this nullifies all the promises made and the agreements signed in the last 20 years.
The Oslo accords call for a viable Palestinian state, not cantons.
Agreements signed with the P.A. are binding in regard to both the West Bank and Gaza.
Yet, both the US and the Israeli government continue to harp over the division between Hamas and Fatah, as though Palestinian conciliation is somehow the stumbling block on the way to one viable independent Palestinian state.
How did that division come about, anyway? Who continues to reinforce that division, perpetuate it and prolong it?
Well, as the famous Vanity Fair article proves, it is the work of the US and Israel. Good old divide and conquer.
So, what’s Abbas doing sitting at the negotiations table?
Of course these talks will fail. There is no substance to these talks. They are mere theater for the upcoming US elections.
So, what’s Abbas doing sitting at the negotiations table?
Selling out Palestine.
Creating Palestine.
Palesrine already exists.
Witty seems to forget that all those poor “brown people” actually did have a nation already before Zionists showed up. And unlike Witty’s flaky notion of “Jewish nationality,” Palestinians actually do have land that they do own, regardless of who’s squatting on it presently.
Dismembering Palestine.
‘ The Oslo Declaration of Principles, signed in September 1993 and still an abiding document, specifically states that: The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim period.’
Sounds like the estimable signers were suffering from diplopia. No, that’s not a disease of diplomats; it means double vision.
Saying ‘one territorial unit’ doesn’t make it so, when they are discontiguous and Israel controls traffic between them. It didn’t work for East and West Pakistan, and it won’t for New Palestine either.
Israel of course is acting in bad faith — divide and conquer — but the quoted statement demonstrates what a farce the earlier Oslo exercise was. The absence of Gazan representatives demonstrates what a farce this one is.