Richard Silverstein
This is exactly the sort of gift that Israeli rightists like Bibi Netanyahu love. Faced with a mounting internal crisis in the form of the J14 movement, Palestinian rejectionists have handed him his "Get Out of Political Crisis Free" card. Yesterday’s attack in Eilat has fueled an Israeli reaction that can be described as uncontrollable fury, which has killed 14 including three children. Today, an Israeli drone performed heroically for the fatherland by incinerating a car (or in other reports a motorcycle) carrying a Palestinian doctor and his family to hospital seeking treatment for a sick child. The doctor, his brother, and the doctor’s little boy were killed in the attack. Ynet announced: Oops, we missed. The drone was aiming for a terrorist cell traveling nearby. WAFA says the doctor’s brother was an Al Quds commander, which would mean that the IDF is willing to kill sick 2 year old children in order to get alleged terrorists as well.
It might be fitting to ship the boy’s coffin to the prime minister’s residence and let it sit outside his door for a few days for him to think about the blood he is shedding. Oh but I forgot, Palestinian blood is less red than Jewish blood.
Hamas has called off the ceasefire it had been honoring since the end of Operation Cast Lead in 2009. Now, either we will have another war or somehow someone will patch things up so Israel and Palestine can continue to limp along like the cripples they are.
Egypt has pulled its ambassador in light of Israel’s killing of two Egyptian police officers yesterday on the Gaza border. If I were Israel I’d wake up and smell the fresh coffee brewing in Cairo. It’s no more Mr. Nice Guy in its relations with Egypt. If you break the china you’ll pay the price unlike under Israel’s pliant friend, Mubarak. This report says five Egyptian police were killed yesterday by Israeli fire, but earlier reports said two died. Two deaths may be a mistake, but five begins to look like a massacre, which may explain the withdrawal of their ambassador.
Egypt is also demanding an official Israeli apology, which now makes two Muslim countries insisting Israel apologize for killing their citizens. Before you know it every country in the region may want one! The Foreign Ministry may want to save time and effort by preparing a formal 'Apology template’ in which they leave blank spaces to fill in the particular details of the atrocity for which Israel is apologizing.
Lia Tarachansky has exposed a potentially very important disagreement among senior Israeli officials about who is responsible for the attack. Bibi Netanyahu very specifically blamed the Popular Resistance Committees for the attack. But in her interview with IDF spokesperson Avital Leibowitz, the latter refuses to say that the PRC is responsible. In fact, she says specifically that she "isn’t prime minister Netanyahu," implicitly rejecting her boss’ claim. I think this is a major break in the story. It appears that Israel wanted to assassinate the leadership of PRC and took advantage of the terror attack to do so, all the while lying in implicating the group in the attack. All that Leibowitz will say on tape is that someone from Gaza is responsible, which is a little like saying that someone from Saudi Arabia was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Unlike the Palestinian news agency Maan, Israeli media can’t seem to acknowledge readily Palestinians were killed today in Gaza. The Haaretz main headline is Rockets Hit Ashdod in Southern Israel and Ynet’s is Rocket Salvo Hits South. Only in the fourth paragraph of this story do you learn the IDF has killed 15 Palestinians.
Finally, Pres. Obama–is anyone home? Where is Dan Shapiro, your ambassador to Israel? Are you going to celebrate the birth pangs of democracy as Condi Rice did during the Lebanon War? Or are you going to do something before the Israeli landlord truly goes insane (baal ha-bayit hishtageah)? Oh, why waste my breath. Obama is simply going to continue the same limp policy he’s always followed regarding Israel.
SourceThe views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment