Category Archives: Palestine

Netanyahu, Hitler Apologist?

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Benjamin Netanyahu, who we all know is the Prime Minister of Israel, now claims that Hitler didn’t want to annihilate the Jews until he was given the idea by a Palestinian!

Here is what he actually said yesterday.

    “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini [the Muslim religious leader in Jerusalem] went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.'”

I learned about this from two articles, one from the New York Times, the other from Talking Points Memo, that discuss the actual history. Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a notorious Nazi collaborator and anti-Semite, but Hitler had already killed a million Jews by the time they met.

From the New York Times article, here is a historian at Hebrew University in Jerusalem commenting on Netanyahu’s claims.

    “He moves the responsibility of the Holocaust, for the destruction of the Jews, to the mufti and the Arab world. This is a trick intended to stain the Arabs of today because of the Arabs of the past. To pile on the Arabs of the past by easing up on the Germans of the past.”

Not even the Germans want any part of this! Here is the statement Angela Merkel’s spokesman made to the press today.

    “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust. … We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own.

I’ve never been a fan of Netanyahu, but is it possible to get any worse than this?

What Palestine Wants

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Yahya Dbouk, “Gaza Attack Will Break the Siege,” Al-Akhbar English (Beirut):

    “For the Palestinians, there can be no ceasefire without an end to the siege on Gaza, regardless of how this is reached. There can also be no ceasefire without Israel pledging that they will not resume their assassinations when things are calmer, and attacks by both sides have stopped.”

If the Palestinians can achieve this, and Israel can achieve guarantees (backed by Egypt?) that missiles will no longer be brought into Gaza or fired from there (which means monitoring land and sea traffic once the blockade is lifted), a more durable peace is possible.

What Am I Missing?

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From today’s New York Times:

    “Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a home [in Gaza City] on Sunday…. The airstrike, which the Israeli military said was meant to kill a Palestinian militant involved in the recent rocket attacks, was the deadliest operation to date…. Among the dead were five women and four small children, The Associated Press reported, citing a Palestinian health official. …
    “‘There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,’ Mr. Obama said in his first public comments since the violence broke out. ‘We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.'”

So the U.S. position is that missiles raining down on Gaza from Israel are justified self-defense, while missiles raining down on Israel from Gaza are something no country on earth would tolerate.

UPDATE: One day later, however, we see a little nuance.

    “William Hague, the British foreign minister, said in a television appearance on Sunday that he and Prime Minister David Cameron ‘stressed to our Israeli counterparts that a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation,’ The Associated Press reported.”

And this:

    “Reda Fahmy, a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament and of the nation’s dominant Islamist party, who is following the talks…insisted Sunday that Israel was to blame for starting the current round of violence by killing Hamas’s top military leader, and that Israel would have to act to end it. … ‘We can’t pressure the victim while the perpetrator isn’t even ready to settle,’ he said.”

So who is to blame for starting the violence? Was it the militants of Gaza for escalating their rocket attacks over the past months, or was it Israel for its assassination of Hamas’ military leader, Ahmed Jabari, at the very moment when he was preparing to sign off on a long-term cease-fire proposal? Peace activist Gershon Baskin writes in the New York Times:

    “Passing messages between the two sides [Israel and Hamas], I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. … On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt.”

More on Baskin’s cease-fire proposal here. Baskin was the one responsible for opening back-channel negotiations with Hamas that led to Gilad Shalit’s release.

Israel Does the Unthinkable

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Israel has fired on a naval relief convoy attempting to reach Gaza with supplies such as concrete, medicines and food, leaving nine civilian activists dead and around thirty injured. The attack took place in international waters. A report from the scene:

Already the justifications have begun. According to Ha’aretz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “said the Israeli troops who opened fire were justified for defending themselves.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak “called the flotilla a political provocation and said the sponsors of the flotilla were violent supporters of a terror organization.” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said “that the organizers of the Gaza aid flotilla have connections to international terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaida.”

But in the words of Al Jazeera reporter Ayman Mohyeldin:

    “All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation.”

Turkey called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the incident, and summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest. Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden also summoned their Israeli ambassadors. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan called the raid “state terrorism,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniya labeled it “barbaric,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it was “inhuman.” The response of Western leaders has been more tepid, with talk of “disproportionate” use of force. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “shocked” and added, “I condemn this violence.”

Turkish foreign affairs specialist Murat Mercan had the best commentary I’ve seen so far on the repurcussions of the event:

    “We are going to see in the following days whether Israel has done it as a display of decisiveness or to commit political suicide.”