Thank you, Keith. I was unaware of the natural gas angle. It also seems the
New York Times and the Toronto Sun are finally facing up to reality. See
below.
 
Israel's fait accompli in Gaza
By Eric S. Margolis 

"There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening
in Gaza.

In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic
terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly
rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.

North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend
itself". 

True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns,
even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities
registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads.
The firing of the feeble, home-made al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is
both useless and counter-productive.

It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli
extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse
to discuss peace. 

Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of
tonnes of bombs on 'Hamas targets' inside the 360sq km Gaza Strip to 'take
out the terrorists'.

Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them. 

Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.

As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance
and background. "

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/20091410225713053
9.html

9/1/09 3:31 PM


>From the New York Times:

NEARLY everything you've been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are
a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much
of which has taken place in the press, about Israel's attack on the Gaza
Strip.

THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice.
The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square
miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages
outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the
Israeli Army in 1948.

THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the
Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying
power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in
2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the
movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza's air space and
sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will.
As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth
Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the
Gaza Strip.

THE BLOCKADE Israel's blockade of the strip, with the support of the United
States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas
won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel,
electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the
Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of
sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.

The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition.
This amounts to the collective punishment - with the tacit support of the
United States - of a civilian population for exercising its democratic
rights.

THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire,
was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in
May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months
(according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when
Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six
Hamas operatives were reported killed.

WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is
potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak
for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been
killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year.
In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them
soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and
other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel
fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the
Gaza Strip.

This war on the people of Gaza isn't really about rockets. Nor is it about
"restoring Israel's deterrence," as the Israeli press might have you
believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli
Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: "The Palestinians must be made to
understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a
defeated people."

Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of
the forthcoming "Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the
Middle East."

<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21670.htm>

Gaza Catastrophe: Resource Conflict?

Natural Gas, Palestinian Elections, and Israel's Subversion of the 
'Peace Process'

By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

January 07, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- Israel claims it is 
fighting in Gaza to stop Hamas rocket-fire against Israel, the 
continuation of which constituted a flagrant breach of the six-months 
ceasefire. Hence, the objective of the military operation is limited 
by the aim of putting an end to the rocket-fire. In fact, the current 
outbreak of violence cannot be understood without analysing the 
asymmetries in military violence between the two parties; the dynamic 
structure of the conflict in the context of the character of the 
Israeli occupation; the central role of recent discoveries of 
substantial natural gas reserves in Gaza; and joint Anglo-American 
and Israeli attempts to monopolise the lucrative (and strategic) 
energy resources through a political process tied to a corrupt 
Palestinian Authority run by Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party. Hamas' 
unprecedented victory in democratic elections in 2006 fundamentally 
threatened these plans. Operation Cast Lead, the concurrent Israeli 
military venture, was operationalised as a war plan in early 2008, 
and already finalised in detail as far back as 2001 by Israeli 
military intelligence. Its execution in late December 2008 into 
January 2009 is designed to head-off not only domestic Israeli 
elections, but more significantly, the outcome of further incoming 
Palestinian democratic elections likely to consolidate Hamas' power, 
to permanently shift the balance of geopolitical and economic power 
in its favour. The long-term goal is the "cantonization" of the 
Occupied Territories making way for increased Israeli encroachment, 
and ultimately the escalation of Palestinian emigration.

Disproportionate Violence - 700: 4

Who bears primary responsible for the violence? You decide:

Nearly 700 Palestinians are dead, and 3,000 Palestinians injured. At 
least 13,000 civilians - half of them children - have been forced to 
flee their homes, now turned to rubble. (Save the Children Alliance, 
02.01.09 
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/219070/123106644588.htm>) 
Israeli human rights groups, like B'Tselem (The Israeli Center for 
Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) based in Jerusalem, confirm 
that the Israeli military is committing war crimes by intentionally 
targeting the civilian population in Gaza.

As I write, here comes news of example: "Israeli shelling kills 
dozens at UN school in Gaza" 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-death-un> 
reports the London Guardian. More than 40 Palestinians were killed 
"after missiles exploded outside a UN school" in Jabaliya refugee 
camp by two Israeli tank shells, "where hundreds of people were 
sheltering from the continuing Israeli offensive." Several dozen 
civilians were wounded. The school was clearly marked according to 
officials. And elsewhere, "at least 12 members of an extended family, 
including seven young children, were killed in an air strike on their 
house in Gaza City." Hours earlier, "three young men - all cousins - 
died when the Israelis bombed another UN school, the Asma primary 
school in Gaza City," where about 400 Palestinians had sought shelter 
"after fleeing their homes in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza."

As foreign journalists remain banned from entry into Gaza for for no 
plausible reason, 
<http://article.wn.com/view/2008/11/27/Journalists_banned_from_Gaza_Strip_sa
y_Israel_has_offered_no/> 
Israeli human rights groups like B'Tselem are reporting extensively 
on the deliberate mass destruction of civilian life and 
infrastructure by Israeli forces. B'Tselem points out that Israeli 
officials have described how the entirety of Palestinian society can 
be considered as providing a support network to Hamas, and is 
therefore a legitimate target. 
<http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20081231_Gaza_Letter_to_Mazuz.asp
> 
But worse, the stories that B'Tselem brings to light, ignored by 
mainstream media pundits, are deeply horrifying. Here are some 
examples:

On 1 Jan. 2009, the Israeli army killed four women and eleven 
children 
<http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20090104_Killing_of_Nizar_Rian_an
d_13_Family_member.asp> 
in the Jabalya refugee camp. B'Tselem comments: "Such extensive loss 
of civilian life constitutes a grave breach of international 
humanitarian law and cannot be justified on military grounds." 
(B'Tselem, 4.01.09) The Israeli human rights group documents dozens 
of eye-witness testimonies confirming. On 4th January, "soldiers 
opened fire from a tank toward a passenger taxi outside Gaza City. 
The four children in the taxi witnessed their mother and another 
woman killed." 
<http://www.btselem.org/english/Testimonies/20090104_Women_killed_in_car_by_
tankfire.asp> 
On 27 December, two Palestinian toddlers "aged three and six, stepped 
out of their home to feed chickens in the yard. Before they reached 
the coop, the house was hit by the bombing of a nearby building." The 
three year old was killed. 
<http://www.btselem.org/English/Testimonies/20081231_3_year_old_Ahmad_a_Sinw
ar_killed_in_Gaza_Bombing.asp>

This barely scratches the surface of what has been done. Other 
Israeli human rights groups, UN agencies, Amnesty International and 
Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, along with dozens of other 
credible independent organizations confirm that Israeli forces are 
indiscriminately targeting the entire Palestinian civilian 
population, 
<http://iprd.org.uk/images/stories/pdf/LendmanGazaCrisis.pdf> blowing 
up residential areas, destroying power plants, bombing sewage 
facilities, annihilating hospitals, pummelling roads, all into bloody 
rubble.

Compare the hundreds of Palestinians killed, thousands injured, and 
tens of thousands made homeless, to the fact that only 4 Israelis 
have been killed due to Hamas rocket-attacks since the outbreak of 
conflict in December. (Guardian, 03.01.09 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/casualty-figures-civilian-dead-
gaza>) 
Of course, these deaths are condemnable and outrageous. But they are 
not cases of massive, systematic massacres of civilians - which are 
precisely what Palestinians have been experiencing under Israeli 
politico-territorial domination for the last decade.

The Long-Term View - 5000: 14

Consider, for instance, that on 19th September 2007, Israel's 
security cabinet unanimously declared the entire Gaza Strip an "enemy 
entity" - solely due to ongoing Hamas rocket-fire. Yet that 
rocket-fire was and is a response to continued indiscriminate Israeli 
military bombardments. In January 2007, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) 
staged three days of air strikes killing 30 Palestinians, and on the 
17th, the Gaza strip was placed under total closure. In response, 
over 150 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel between the 15th 
and 18th of that month by Hamas. Yet while these caused no injuries 
or fatalities to any Israelis, in that same period, nearly 700 
Palestinians <http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9233.shtml> 
(including 224 civilians of whom 78 were children) were killed by 
Israeli extra-judicial executions.

Indeed, over the last 7 years of conflict, a grand total of 14 
Israelis were killed by Hamas' rocket-fire, compared to an estimated 
5,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/30/israel-and-the-palestin
ians-middle-east> 
with advanced American and British-supplied military equipment 
(Guardian, 30.12.08) "Among those killed in the first wave of 
strikes", reports the Guardian, "were eight teenage students waiting 
for a bus and four girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one 
to 12 years old."

Who Broke the Ceasefire?

It is a matter of historical record that the tentative six-month 
ceasefire was broken by Israel. On 4th November 2008, Israeli forces 
raided Gaza late at night killing 6 Palestinians, eliciting Hamas 
rocket-fire. (Guardian, 05.11.08 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians>) 
By late December, Israel called for a 48-hour truce in retaliatory 
attacks. An official from the UN Relief and Works Agency reported 
that Israel flagrantly violated the lull, exploiting the opportunity 
to drop 100 tonnes of bombs on Hamas government installations. 
(Ha'aretz, 30.12.08 
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051211.html>)

Root Cause of Palestinian Resistance: Structural Genocide in the 
Occupied Territories 
<http://www.eumed.net/entelequia/en.art.php?a=05a01>

After Hamas came to power in democratic elections, Israel imposed a 
brutal siege on Gaza in 2005, denying 1.5 million Palestinians 
electricity, fuel, food imports, medical supplies, and vital 
maintenance goods and spare parts. As water and sanitation services 
deteriorated, hunger and ill-health intensified, and mortality rates 
increased. International aid agencies like Oxfam warned of a major 
public health crisis. <http://www.oxfam.org/node/228>

The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian 
Territories, Richard Falk, warned that the Israeli siege of Gaza, 
threatening the lives of an entire civilian population, expressed 
genocidal intent:

"Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of 
Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective 
atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially 
disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on 
the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human 
community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The 
suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making 
represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world 
and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these 
current genocidal tendencies 
<http://www.transnational.org/Area_MiddleEast/2007/Falk_PalestineGenocide.ht
ml> 
from culminating in a collective tragedy... But it would be 
unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of this 
crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking into 
account the extent to which European governments have lent their 
weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian 
political force."

"Here's One I Prepared EarlierÅ "

The siege was a strategy to prepare the ground for a protracted 
military operation, known as "Cast Lead". Although justified on the 
grounds of stopping Hamas rocket-fire, the operation was planned over 
six months before <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html> 
the launch of the operation at the end of 2008.

Canadian analyst Professor Michel Chossudovsky from the University of 
Ottawa has revealed that Operation Cast Lead is in fact the legacy of 
"a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the 
government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001", aiming to produce 
a "planned humanitarian disaster," 
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11606> 
designed to inflict mass civilian casualties and terror - that is, to 
weaken resistance, increase Israeli control, and encourage 
Palestinian emigration. Contrary to Israeli official rhetoric, 
military targets are secondary to this principal objective.

In this respect, the operation beginning in December 08 actually 
implements what was known as the "Dagan Plan" in 2001 - Operation 
Justified Vengeance, named after its founder, retired general and 
current Mossad commander, Meir Dagan. The operation planned to 
destroy "the infrastructure of the Palestinian leadership" and 
collect the arms of "various Palestinian forces and expelling or 
killing its military leadership." The cumulative impact of this 
strategy would be to eliminate the viability of Gazan political and 
military resistance to Israeli penetration, permitting the forcible 
"cantonization" of the Occupied Territories under the nominal rule of 
the politically-coopted Fatah faction.

Hints that the scope of the operation, already killing and injuring 
thousands of Palestinian civilians, would be far broader than 
hitherto admitted, came when Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai 
told Israeli Army Radio that the Palestinians would "bring upon 
themselves a bigger Holocaust 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/29/israelandthepalestinians1> 
because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."

Post-1999: Gaza as Locus of Resource Conflict

The question, of course, is why now? Pundits have pointed at the 
telling coincidence of imminent Israeli elections, requiring the 
Olmert cabinet to find new ways to regain some semblance of 
credibility after the disastrous Hizbullah defeat in southern 
Lebanon, not to mention the impact of domestic scandals. Yet even 
more significant is the role of imminent Palestinian elections. As of 
September 2008, Israeli political observes noted an erupting 
"constitutional crisis" 
<http://reut-blog.org/2008/09/25/palestinian-elections-2009-hamas-fatah/%E2%
80%9D> 
in the Occupied Territories due to disagreement "between Hamas and 
Fatah over when the next Palestinian elections will be held." Hamas 
officials stated that they would "not acknowledge Abu Mazen's 
legitimacy as President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after 
January 2009, when it believes his term in office is due to finish." 
According to Hamas, "new elections should be held in January 09, 
since according to the PA's Basic Law (which also serves as its 
temporary constitution) Abu Mazen finishes his Presidential term 
after 4 years." In the event of failure to do so, the Presidency 
"temporarily passes to the Speaker of the Parliament, Abd al-'Aziz 
Dweik." As he is currently imprisoned by Israeli authorities, Hamas 
would resort to appointing Dweik's deputy "who is also a Hamas 
member."

Given the growing weakness of Abbas and the increasing popularity of 
Hamas, it was far from likely that the PA would be able to forestall 
elections until January 2010, as it had wanted to, without severe 
recriminations and domestic opposition. Both presidential and 
parliamentary elections were therefore likely in 2009, 
<http://www.imemc.org/article/58025> and would have allowed Hamas to 
consolidate its power in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli military and policy planners clearly recognized that this 
would create significant difficulties for Israel's own plans for the 
Occupied Territories. A decade back, the British the oil firm BG 
International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas just off the 
Gaza coast, 
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gas_deal_coming_polls_behind_military_op
erations_in_Gaza/articleshow/3935036.cms> 
containing 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. 
Controlling security over air and water around Gaza, Israel quickly 
moved to negotiate a deal with BG to access Gaza's natural gas at 
cheap rates.

The incentives for Israel are obvious - as the Telegraph reports: 
"Israel's indigenous gas fields - north of the Gaza Marine field - 
could run out within a few years 
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643848/Gaza-doesn't-need-aid-it-has-a-a
ndpound2bn-gas-field.html> 
and the only other long-term source will be a pipeline from 
neighbouring Egypt."

The British Foreign Office, described the reserves as "by far the 
most valuable Palestinian natural resource." Tel Aviv journalist 
Arthur Neslen cites an informed British source saying, "The UK and 
US, who are the major players in this deal, see it as a possible tool 
to improve relations between the PA and Israel. It is part of the 
bargaining baggage." 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/26/gazaagasforblair> 
The project could provide up to 10 per cent of the Israel's energy 
needs, at around half the price the same gas would cost from Egypt. 
The Gaza Strip would be effectively circumvented, as the gas would be 
piped directly onshore to Ashkelon in Israel. Neslen reports another 
informed source noting "an obvious linkage" between the BG-Israel 
deal and "attempts to bolster the Olmert-Abbas political process." 
Yet this process is designed precisely to marginalise the Palestinian 
people, as Neslen reports that "up to three-quarters of the $4bn of 
revenue raised might not even end up in Palestinian hands at all. 
While the PIF officially disputes the percentages, it will provide no 
others for fear of a public backlash." The "preferred option" of the 
US and UK is that the gas revenues would be held in "an international 
bank account over which Abbas would hold sway." No wonder then, that 
Ziad Thatha, the Hamas economic minister, had denounced the deal as 
"an act of theft" that "sells Palestinian gas to the Zionist 
occupation."

Things didn't go quite according to plan. In fact, before any deal 
could be finalised, Hamas won the 2006 elections to the Palestinian 
Legislative Council, provoking a bitter power struggle between Hamas 
and the pro-west Fatah, fuelled by the input of US 
<http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/113473> and Israeli 
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Inter
net%20Files/Content.IE5/S853E3W9/Israeli> 
arms to the latter. Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority split in 
2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah taking control of 
West Bank. Having been excluded from the US-UK brokered gas deal 
between Israel and the PA, one of the first things that Hamas did 
after getting elected was to declare that the natural gas deal was 
void, and would have to be renegotiated. 
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gas_deal_coming_polls_behind_military_op
erations_in_Gaza/articleshow/3935036.cms>

With Hamas declaring the constitutional imperative to hold elections 
in 2009, as early as January if possible, Israeli military and policy 
planners recognized the probability of a Hamas win - with all its 
political implications. At one time even stating its willingness to 
recognise Israel's right to exist 
<http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3249568,00.html> 
within its 1967 borders, a consolidated Hamas government in control 
of Gaza's natural resources would fundamentally alter the balance of 
power in the region, granting Palestinians the prospects of sustained 
economic growth, foreign investment, unprecedented infrastructure 
development, and thereby the prospect of a far more equal 
relationship with Israel, who in coming years needs to increasingly 
diversify energy supplies. Meanwhile Israel's original Anglo-America 
sponsored plans for the Occupied Territories - a docile 
Fatah-controlled patchwork of underdeveloped cantonized Bantustans 
whose natural resources are controlled by Israel and profited by 
Anglo-American companies - would be thrown into the sea.

Israeli Military Objectives

Pundits, slavishly quoting Israeli defence sources, claim that Israel 
is trying to stop the Hamas rocket-fire, and will keep the operation 
rolling until they believe that they have degraded Hamas military 
capabilities sufficiently so as to forever prevent Hamas from firing 
rockets at Israel again. Ever. Failing this, pundits tend to be 
confused about the scope of Israel's objectives, noting that the 
state aim is rather vague and intrinsically impossible to measure.

Given the preceding analysis, Israel's official war aim is difficult 
to take seriously. On the contrary, there is thus little doubt that 
Operation Cast Lead is aimed at obliterating Hamas as a viable source 
of politico-military resistance in the Palestinian Territories, 
paving the way for the "cantonization" of the latter under the 
erection of the corrupt Abbas-led PA, before imminent 2009 
Palestinian elections could consolidate Hamas' socio-political 
entrenchment. The operation thus has two major objectives:

1) The short-term objective is to allow Israeli and Anglo-American 
unchallenged monopolisation of the Gaza gas reserves, and continued 
apartheid-style domination of the Territories.

2) The long-term objective is to create permanent conditions 
facilitating Israel's re-encroachment on the Territories, encouraging 
Palestinian emigration and expulsion from their homes, and absorbing 
their remaining lands under renewed Israeli settler-colonisation 
programmes.

The attack on Gaza is, therefore, a war on democracy; a war on the 
right of peoples to self-determination; a war on the right of 
peoples' to utilise their own resources for their own benefit. It 
continues and extends the policies of repression and discrimination 
<http://www.iprd.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid
=89> 
perpetrated by Israel in the Occupied Territories since 1948, when 
three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced from their 
homes, and hundreds massacred, by Israeli forces in the Nakba 
(Catastrophe). Since then, Israel has continued to violate UN 
resolutions, attempted to grab as much territory as possible from the 
Palestinians, denied them the right to statehood and 
self-determination, and instituted racist laws to deprive them of 
civil liberties and human rights. Even Israeli officials like Ami 
Ayalon, the retired head of Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security 
service, have condemned these policies as a form of "apartheid" 
<http://www.ihrc.org.uk/file/Apartheid2001.pdf>: "The things a 
Palestinian has to endure, simply coming to work in the morning, is a 
long and continuous nightmare that includes humiliation bordering on 
despairÅ  We have to decide soon what kind of democracy we want here. 
The present model integrates apartheid and is not commensurate with 
Judaism." (Ma'ariv, 05.12.00)

Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is supported by the US, 
Britain, and Western Europe, through financial aid, extensive 
supplies of arms and military equipment, diplomatic support. The 
global social justice movement needs to extend its support for Gaza 
far beyond marching and demonstrations, by pressuring media, 
government and civil society institutions 
<http://www.iprd.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=21
&Itemid=51> 
to recognize that the Gaza crisis is an outcome of long-term policies 
that can only be understood in the context of recognizing the reality 
of Israel as a Setter-Colonial Apartheid regime sponsored by 
Anglo-American power.

Thus, the global social justice movement should look to widening and 
deepening public understanding of the origins of the current crisis 
in the contemporary conjuncture of the global imperial system. Yet 
just as South African apartheid required a massive international 
campaign of diplomatic and economic boycotting to bring it down, so 
too will the Israeli Settler-Colonial Apartheid regime require a 
comprehensive campaign of diplomatic and economic boycotts to weaken 
the nexus that ties Anglo-American power to Israel, and move toward a 
meaningful resolution of the conflict based on democracy and equality 
for Jews and non-Jews, together.

Where can we start, practically? An outstanding example is to call 
for the establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal for 
Israel (ICTI) under UN Charter Article 22, as has been advocated by 
the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a London-based NGO with 
Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and 
Social Council. As IHRC Chairman Massoud Shadjareh observed, "The 
setting up of such a tribunal is long-overdue, and is desperately 
needed to address the war crimes perpetrated not only in the current 
attacks on Gaza but in previous campaigns against the Lebanese and 
Palestinians. The relevant procedures and precedents are in place. It 
is time for the UN to act if it hopes to regain a shred of 
credibility amongst the outraged peoples of the world." The IHRC's 
call <http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=3856> for a tribunal 
resonates with numerous comments from independent experts on Israeli 
war crimes, such as Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at 
the University of Illinois:

"The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice 
to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and 
genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the 
ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI 
by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon 
Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister 
Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's 
other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further 
infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the 
Palestinians."

So here's something you can do to make the establishment of an ICTI a 
real possibility - write to the UN General Assembly President, 
<http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=3856> demanding the creation of 
an Israeli war crimes tribunal under UN Charter Article 22.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Executive Director Institute for Policy 
Research & Development - <http://www.globalcrisis.org.uk>

C Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Blog: <http://nafeez.blogspot.com/>


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