Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Of course Free Gaza is not a humanitarian group

Barry Rubin, and some other blogs, have been talking about the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's finding documents on the flotilla ships that indicate that Free Gaza's aims were not humanitarian, but political, and that they seemed to be instructing their members not to explicitly show that they are de facto supporters of Hamas in order to avoid apparent ties to terror.

The documents are almost certainly legitimate. Documents released by ITIC are, for all intents and purposes, the same as if the IDF sent them out. They work together and ITIC often publishes things before the IDF does, but it does not do so without at least the IDF's tacit approval.

The thing is that we don't need these documents to know Free Gaza's aims. Even though they are registered as a "humanitarian organization," in their own mailings they have made it very clear that they are not - and they say this explicitly on their own web site:

GOALS
There is a time when silence is complicity and inaction is unacceptable. Free Gaza is neither a "protest group" nor an aid agency. Our mission and our work are political. We are a Palestinian and international effort dedicated to the principle of non-violent direct action. We are engaged in active, civil resistance against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the violence this occupation uses to sustain itself.

We do bring medicine, supplies, and doctors to besieged Gaza as we can, but this is utterly insufficient. Although humanitarian aid is very much needed, especially now in Gaza, focusing on humanitarian efforts alone is a form of complicity in Israel's malevolent quest to destroy the Palestinian people.

They have said, in an email to their supporters, that they are against humanitarian aid!

While many potential funders recognize the significance of our work, for various reasons they have not come through with funding. Most prefer their financial contributions go toward to humanitarian aid for Palestine. But Palestine is not a charity case! There are hundreds of millions being pumped into Palestine by aid agencies that are unable or unwilling to address the political issues, or by donor countries that shirk their political, legal, and moral obligations, by throwing money at Palestine.

This aid is paying for Israel’s occupation by alleviating Israel of the responsibility to care for the people it occupies. We firmly believe that activists and people who care about Palestine should not be raising money for humanitarian aid but should focus on direct action to confront the Israeli policies that leave Palestinians in need of this aid.

So, yes, Free Gaza had already admitted to its own members a number of times that it was not a humanitarian aid agency.

In fact, it does nto even advocate peace! In another mailing sent out to members, Free Gaza said that they support a "third intifada":

The third Intifada being urged now has to be our intifada too. As Israel steps up its destruction of the Palestinian people, we need to step up our reconstruction of our resistance, our movements, of our communities in our own counties, where so many of us live in alienation and isolation. We need to be the third intifada - people here need more and say repeatedly that they need more than the demonstrations, because they are not stopping the killing here

....The third intifada needs to be a global intifada.

Even though it may be possible to read this last article as merely a call to nonviolent resistance, the usage of the term "intifada" indicates that Free Gaza had no problem with the methods of the first two.

And, indeed, they have explicitly supported violent resistance too! As yet another of their articles says,

On the Right of Resistance

We are often told that resistance is either unwarranted or impossible. Liberal apologists for Israel, such as Thomas Friedman, are constantly demanding that Palestinians lay down their arms, all the while exhorting Israelis to pick them up in ever increasing acts of violence and degradation.

...But even mainstream “peace” movements in the West try to delegitimize resistance by calling on both Palestinians and Israelis to renounce overt acts of violence, equating Palestinians who commit suicide bombings with Israelis who send F-16s, D9 military bulldozers, and Apache attack helicopters to level entire neighborhoods.

The problem is that the usually random and individual acts of violence by Palestinians against Israelis are not equal to the myriad structural oppressions and cruelties imposed on Palestinians through Israeli government policies. No Palestinian fighter jets bomb Israeli cities - because Palestine has no fighter jets....

Even immoral and self-defeating acts of violence against Israeli civilians (such as some suicide bombings are) cannot be equated with the daily humiliations, terror, and death that Israel inflicts on Palestinians by deliberate policy.

This is not to say that any and all acts of resistance are acceptable. Clearly they are not. But it grows tedious to continually hear well-meaning, but otherwise clueless, Westerners try to equate the two sides of this conflict. I am past tired of hearing white people passively whine, or shrilly demand, “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”

With respect, just because some people have chosen to remain ignorant of the long and deep history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance - from the 1936 Boycott to Bil’in today - does not mean that it does not exist.

The 1936 "boycott" resulted in the deaths of hundreds - it was hardly non-violent, and Free Gaza knows that very well as they extol how wonderful it was. Not to mention that they say here that some suicide bombings are acceptable!

(Now would be a good time to take screen shots of these postings before Free Gaza erases them.)

Of course Free Gaza is not a humanitarian group. It is explicitly political; and it tacitly supports violence. These facts should be brought up to every nation that has recognized it as a charity - and given it tax benefits that charity agencies normally get.

Mossad having coffee with Hamas?

Palestine Press Agency is rabidly anti-Hamas, but most of their Gaza-based Hamas stories end up panning out as being true.

Sometimes, though, one needs to be especially skeptical.

A case in point is this story, where the Mossad is said to have requested a meeting over coffee with Hamas representatives in Jenin. The meeting turned into a few meetings, some lasting several hours, and were very friendly and productive. According to these unnamed sources, the Mossad asked Hamas to maintain their cease-fire with Israel in the West Bank and in return the Israelis would allow Hamas to continue to run their social and political groups in the West Bank.

Palestine Today, as I mentioned, often criticizes Hamas. Yet these criticisms are hardly always from a moderate perspective - often if not usually, they castigate Hamas for not being anti-Israeli enough, and for "collaborating." As PPA is pro-Fatah, and the Fatah-dominated PA does indeed have contacts with Israeli authorities, it is always interesting to see how PPA tries to discredit Hamas for doing what its side does all the time.

The upshot, of course, is that the idea of working with Israel remains as distasteful as ever to the "moderates" as much as it is to the "extremists." The way to discredit anyone in the Arab world is to imply that they are in bed with the hated Zionists. The so-called "moderates" are the ones who have a combination of pragmatism and a willingness to temporarily play ball in order to gain vast amounts of Western money.

But no one should confuse this relative pragmatism with any real desire for lasting peace. That simply does not exist.

"Mohammed" moon station planned?

From The Peninsula (Qatar):

Canadian Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Redouane Al Fakir could not have chosen a better place than Qatar to announce a historic mission that aims to put the Islamic world again at the frontiers of science.

To give the Muslim world a space programme of its own, the Vancouver-based Muhammed Institute for Space Science will announce here a space mission that will land a scientific station bearing the name of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) on the surface of the moon in 2013.

“A space programme is something that is inevitable for all the nations today. It gives countries a voice and also brings in foreign investment. That is why countries like India invest so much in space programmes despite having millions in poverty. However, the Muslim nations are today lagging behind in space programmes,” said Dr Al Fakir, Director and CEO of the institute.

Dr Al Fakir’s initiative for the moon station comes as a response to the attacks against Prophet Muhammed (PBUH). “We had planned to send a telescope into orbit by 2015. It was then these attacks came and we needed to show the world that what the prophet had really strived for. Hence we started a new-bigger project — Muhammed Moon Station I,” he told The Peninsula

Through the project, Muhammed Institute aims to honour Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) for his role in the birth of rational scientific explanation that led to scientific discoveries during the golden era of Islamic civilization and ultimately to modern science as we know it today.

The institute will take the Prophet’s (PBUH) name to the moon, by putting it on a laboratory that is expected to land on the moon surface by 2013 and later will be upgraded by a much larger Muhammed Moon Station II.

The stations will be an important scientific resource for scientists around the world. Young Muslims in universities can remotely access the station by computer from Earth. It will also have educational and inspirational programmes for school children.

“Our institute is a not-for-profit educational and research charitable organisation fully focused on development of Islamic world in advanced space science. Hence, we do not differentiate between countries or regions. The organisation is for the Muslims and brings in talents of all the Muslims round the world.”

“The moon station will be a property of individual Muslims. Hence we have also made sure that the funding should also be individual-based rather than by any nation or organisation. Also the names of donors will be inscribed alongside Prophet Muhammed’s on the moon station and will stay on moon for ever. We just ask each Muslim to donate $1 for the noble cause,” said Dr Al Fakir.

Last year the same guy announced a Muslim space telescope program, also with funding from the Muslim world, and that program seems to have disappeared.

On the website of the "Mohammed Institute of Space Science" we see:

$43,220 raised
$1,571,198,000 to go!

I wonder how much salary he pays himself from these donations he is soliciting? And what happened to the money he raised for the space telescope?

UPDATE: One day later, they haven't raised another penny.

Indonesian minister: "Send our terrorists to Israel - we'll fund them"

Indonesian Justice Minister Patrialis Akbar tells Al Jazeera that he would like the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists to go to Israel instead and bomb civilians there - and Indonesia would even help them out.

Then he backtracked a bit when he realized that might not sound so good...

From Al Jazeera:

(h/t MB)

Gaza electricity woes continue - but not because of Israel

Hamas and Fatah traded blame for the shortages of electricity in Gaza over the weekend.

Hamas blamed Fatah for not paying the fuel bills to Israel, resulting in a shortage of industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant. Fatah replied back that they do pay (most of) the bills, and Hamas shut down the plant in order to score political points.

Things are worse as this past week has been particularly hot in Gaza and the rest of the Middle East.

What is left unsaid is that Israel provides all the fuel Gaza needs - as long as someone pays. (Also, electricity directly from Israel - 120 megawatts a day - is not affected.)

Work accident!

A 24-year old member of the Qassam Brigades, Osama Hassan, died of injuries incurred during an unspecified "jihad mission" on Friday night. No doubt it was of the peaceful jihad type that we hear so much about.

You can see lots of pictures of his dead body at the Al Qassam website, because that is apparently a wonderful thing to behold.

Open thread.

Tonight, I have a choice between blogging or catching a movie with the kids.

See you tomorrow: )

Flotilla 2: Where is Mariam?

I believe the Free Gaza movement deliberately tries to add confusion to their next Gaza mission. Either to try to mislead the Israeli authorities, or to hide the fact that they cannot find or afford a bigger ship and/or volunteers to go on these ships.

While searching the web for traces of a ship called Maryam, I encountered this article which sheds some light on the possible plans of the next Flotilla:

The voyage has been encumbered by bureaucratic and political obstacles from the start. UN resolution 1701 bars any attempts to enter Israeli territory directly from Lebanon, so Lebanon’s minister of transportation has only given permission to a French-registered ship, the Julia, to embark for Cyprus. But authorities in Nicosia have barred the ship from entering Cypriot waters, so the vessel – to be renamed the Naji al Ali after a famed Palestinian cartoonist – is expected to leave for Cyprus but change course for the Gaza Strip.

The organisers of the endeavour said they had been authorised to depart Lebanon immediately, but they were unwilling to announce the exact time of the departure, apparently in the hope of confusing the Israeli military about their intentions.

....

The exact time of the ship’s departure was not the only secret yesterday. Organisers of a group of women activists led by the wife of a former Lebanese general once held in an Israeli jail, Ali al Hajj, said they would be leaving Lebanon in a ship named the Mariam. This group claims it will have more than 50 women aboard, but it was not immediately clear that the ship even exists.

Lebanon’s transportation minister, Ghazi Aridi, emphatically denied the existence of a second ship and insisted that no permission had been requested or given for a second ship to join the Julia on the voyage. “There is a campaign called ‘Mariam’, and the organisers of the campaign to lift the Gaza blockade did not say there was a vessel carrying that name,” a local newspaper quoted Mr Aridi as saying. “I do not know anything about a second aid ship”, he added. Earlier, he was quoted as saying that the Julia and the Mariam were the same vessel.

Whether two ships or one, the Israel military has already declared that the Islamic militant group Hizbollah is behind the effort, and that the boats were likely to be filled with weapons intended to help Hamas, their allies in Gaza. Israeli officials have said that Lebanon is an especially unwelcome collaborator in the effort to break the siege because it remains hostile towards the Jewish state.

Hizbollah has denied any association with the effort, although Mr Hajj joined the group after his release from an Israeli prison in 2008.

The Lebanese government has responded to Israel’s warnings about aid ships leaving Lebanese shores with a warning of its own. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed Lebanese official as saying that the Lebanese government had sent Israel a letter saying it would hold Israel responsible for any violence befalling ships departing its shores, although it did not specify how it plans to do so.

Let there please be just a natural hot summer.

UNRWA annual report, 1952: The first signs of failure

As UNRWA passed its third year, it was starting to notice that the refugees were not quite cooperating with what UNRWA was trying to accomplish, and neither were their hosts:

13. Although they have been sheltered in their host countries, and in the notable instance of Jordan have been offered full citizenship, the refugees are people apart, lacking, for the most part, status, homes, land, assets, proper clothing and means of livelihood. Many cling to their only evidence of nationality--a worn, dogeared Palestine passport issued in Mandate days by a government that no longer legally exists. In Lebanon they cannot be issued working permits and by law cannot hold jobs; in Egypt, they cannot receive Agency relief and assistance unless they are physically located in the 5 by 25 mile Gaza strip; in Syria, although they are permitted to work when they can find jobs, they have not been offered citizenship...

Even though at this point UNRWA was still committed to reducing the numbers of refugees on its rolls, the Palestinian Arabs were not keen on losing their free services - and their host governments weren't, either:

16. The Agency has unceasingly endeavoured to limit the granting of relief only to those recipients who genuinely need it. Its field teams constantly investigate ration entitlement so as to eliminate forged ration cards and duplicate registrations, and to remove from ration rolls those fortunate individuals who have managed to obtain an income which approximates the average for the local inhabitant. Efforts along these lines have been frustrating and only moderately successful. The difficulty of obtaining accurate figures of income, when desperate measures are taken to conceal the income, is particularly unfortunate, so that the Agency's attempt to apply throughout its area of operations an "income scale" designed to eliminate from ration rolls refugees whose cash income, usually by reason of employment, is considered adequate to enable the refugee to be self-supporting has not been very effective. In addition, in Syria, Jordan and Gaza, the agreement of the government must be obtained to the removal of ration recipients for reason of income, but in these countries, due to government insistence, such a high scale has been established that seldom does removal for this reason occur. Indeed, there are numerous instances of fulltime government employees remaining on ration rolls because of the high "income scale". With sharply declining funds for relief, the Agency at the end of the year was making new plans for concentrating its limited resources on the most needy.

UNRWA at this point was still trying to find decent jobs for the refugees, but the welfare mentality was starting to strengthen:

26. The existence of vast numbers of able-bodied individuals who for four years have looked to the United Nations for the provision of all their basic needs--medical and health care, education, shelter, clothing and food--is a social and economic blight of incalculable dimensions.

And UNRWA also started to realize that its relief programs were having an adverse effect on the surrounding population, as Palestinian Arabs on the dole could afford to work for little money. In fact, they had incentive to work for low wages, because if it was found out that they were doing well they would risk losing free food, medicine and schooling for their kids:

27. The need for aggressive steps to be taken to terminate relief operations is not only emphasized by the psychologically debilitating effect of giving relief over long periods of time, with the consequent development of a professional refugee mentality, but also by the crushing economic burden--apart from the cost of the care of the individual, which the presence of the refugees has placed upon the host countries. In the absence of advanced plans for economic development, the presence of refugees has in many instances and in many areas glutted the labour market, thus depressing wages. With the assurance that his basic need for food and shelter will be met by the international community at no cost to himself, the refugee suffers less from the prevailing low wages for casual work than his indigenous neighbour. In Lebanon, despite the ban on refugee employment, much of the seasonal work in the fields is done by refugees, who are able to work for exceptionally low wages. In Jordan, the average wage level has fallen markedly in recent years, due to the presence of the refugees, who are there in such numbers that every third person in the entire country is an Agency ration recipient. In Egypt, where cultivable areas are overcrowded by Egypt's own nationals, the presence of 200,000 refugees in the Gaza strip has forced the Government not only to contribute heavily to the relief of the refugees, but also to provide relief to the non-refugee Gaza population of 80,000 who are in an even worse economic position than the refugees. Thus, in all countries where the refugees are concentrated, a heavy primary and secondary economic burden is placed upon the economy despite the fact that the basic costs of refugee care are met by the contributing governments.

No wonder the refugees would cheat to stay on the dole - they didn't want to end up as badly off as their non-refugee neighbors!

Meanwhile, UNRWA phased out its most "successful" works programs, again because they were being taken advantage of by the host countries. It's biggest success was a massive failure.

32. During the Agency's first year, work relief projects were vigorously planned and pushed forward by the Agency. Governments and refugees viewed the projects with suspicion, feared resettlement implications, and were slow in acceptance. Finally, a start was made because refugees wanted wages and governments wanted public works. At the peak of employment on those works programmes, more than 12,000 refugees were employed. As governments and refugees discovered advantages in the programme the Agency began to see liabilities. Local governments contributed no funds; the full burden of wages fell on the Agency; the cost was five times that of simple relief. The approved projects were typically roads and public structures, and when they were finished the refugees returned to tents and ration lines. In short the Agency found itself financing and operating labour camps to build public works which the governments themselves would have built the following year. There was no enduring benefit for the refugee nor financial relief for the Agency, and the programme was gradually brought to a conclusion as funds ran out.

So, UNRWA started a "new programme" that tried to eliminate the shortfalls of its earlier works program:

46. The objective is to be accomplished through the following activities:

(1) Helping refugees find employment where there is need for their services;
(2) Training refugees for occupations where there is a shortage of trained workers;
(3) Making loans or grants to refugees to enable them to establish small enterprises to improve their economic position;
(4) Building houses in or near urban areas where employment is available;
(5) Establishing rural villages in areas where land is available for cultivation;
(6) Developing agricultural lands through well drilling, irrigation works, access roads and similar activities;
(7) Generally, financing economic development and providing technical assistance where there are assurances of proportionate benefit to refugees.

The Arab countries looked upon this program as an opportunity for more free money without any commitment whatsoever to permanently improve the lives of the refugees, and they agreed to this new program.

Also in 1952, some refugees moved to Iraq, and Libya expressed interest in taking some of the highly-skilled workers.

UNRWA remained cautiously optimistic in this report, but made sure that they would assure the Arab countries that they would not pressure them to do anything they were not comfortable with:

78. (3) The Agency operates with the deepest respect for the sovereignties of the governments of the area. Through its trusteeship of large contributions, and with the acquiescence of governments, the Agency has present responsibilities which it is endeavouring to discharge with the help of a small international staff and thousands of Palestinians. The Agency is looking forward to, and preparing for, the day when it may transfer this responsibility. Meanwhile, there is much that can be done by governments to smooth the way for assistance to refugees. Privileges and immunities are not aims in themselves, nor challenges to sovereignty, but rather facilitating arrangements of benefit to refugees.

How about HRW's definition of "occupation"?

HRW also seems to contradict themselves about the definition of occupation, although not nearly as egregiously as Amnesty does.

When discussing whether Russia is occupying parts of Georgia in 2008, HRW writes:

Russia is bound by the law of occupation wherever it exercises effective control within the territory of Georgia without the consent of the Georgian state. Anywhere Georgian authorities are prevented from their full and free exercise of sovereignty - such as denying access for Georgian authorities including law enforcement and military forces - because of Russian presence, Russia is assuming the role of an occupying power for the purposes of international humanitarian law, and all its obligations towards the civilian population remain.

If Russia exercises effective control of access to an area, such as a so-called buffer zone, even if it grants access to some authorities, for example, Georgian police, it is still bound by its obligations to the civilian population to ensure public safety and welfare and permit humanitarian access.

The examples given in the first paragraph necessitate a presence of troops in the actual territory. The second paragraph, where such troops are not present, is ambiguous: HRW says accurately that there is a still an obligation for humanitarian access but it pointedly does not say that this is considered a legal occupation. The two issues are separate, as legal blockades (for example) must allow basic needs to get through but do no indicate an occupation.

However, in regards to Gaza, HRW has been explicit that Israel remains an occupier since Israel first announced the disengagement:

“The removal of settlers and most military forces will not end Israel’s control over Gaza,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “Israel plans to reconfigure its occupation of the territory, but it will remain an occupying power with responsibility for the welfare of the civilian population.

“Under international law, the test for determining whether an occupation exists is effective control by a hostile army, not the positioning of troops,” Whitson said. “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”

Again, this is not a direct contradiction, but the first source (written in 2008, after HRW was already committed to the definition about Gaza written in 2004) does imply that "effective occupation" means troops on the ground.

However, the ICRC is also explicit in its definition of occupation - and proves that HRW is wrong.

The ICRC has a document that describes belligerent occupation, and it says clearly:

Occupation ceases when the occupying forces are driven out of or evacuate the territory.

It would be interesting to hear whether any HRW official or Amnesty, for that matter) could be quoted as saying that they disagree with the ICRC.

By the way, the US Army and Navy Field Manual 27-5, Section 1-1b, has its own definition of occupied territory that is also at odds with HRW:

The term “occupied territory” is used to mean any area in which military government is cxerciscd by an armed force. It does not include territory in which an armed force is located but has not assumed supreme authority.

There is one thread of consistency throughout this research: by any definition of occupation that pre-dates Israel's disengagement, there is no way that Israel is legally occupying Gaza. Apparently, some NGOs have felt it necessary to redefine a very specific legal term to apply to Israel ex post facto.

This, of course, calls into question the objectivity of these NGOs altogether.

Rumor that US officials to meet Hamas next week

Al Quds al-Arabi quotes a Hamas source saying that US officials will unofficially meet with Hamas in an Arab country next week.

The story goes on to say that the Hamas officials were asked by the US to keep it quiet so that Jewish lobbying groups wouldn't find out.

Lower-level contacts between the State Department and Hamas were used to set up this meeting, according to the report.

It goes on to say that many European countries have been urging the US to open up a dialogue with Hamas.

George Mitchell is aware of and supportive of these contacts, the report says.

We have seen these claims before. In late May, Hamas spokesman Abu Marzouk claimed that there have been contacts between the organization and the State Department. It is plausible - diplomats itch to do diplomacy and dislike being told they cannot speak to major players - but it is equally plausible that Hamas is making this up.

News from the PalArabic press

There are rumors that Hamas plans to remove a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that was erected by Egypt in Khan Younis, and replace it with something else. The monument is meant to commemorate those who died in the 1956 Sinai campaign. No hard evidence for this move is being reported, but there is concern that this could further erode the already strained relations between Egypt and Hamas.

An eight-year old child was shot in the head and killed in a "family dispute" in central Gaza.

The government of Turkey has supposedly asked Syria to take down the many posters that have popped up showing Turkish prime minister Erdogan together with Bashir Assad, Hassan Nesrollah, Khaled Meshal and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Erdogan is stressing that he is still in full solidarity with that gang, but now is not the time for the West to see these sorts of things. The Syrian government did as asked with impressive speed, and even arrested the printers of the posters for good measure, according to the article.

A "peace activist" wants to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews

The person who is behind the "Free Palestine" movement that is the front for the Hezbollah-sponsored "Freedom Flotilla 2" from Lebanon describes his desire for a Jew-free Palestine: (from MEMRI):

"Whenever that criminal gang of Israeli pirates seizes a ship, I become more optimistic that the day will come when these ships will carry these dregs of European garbage back to their own countries.

"Let Gilad Shalit return to Paris. Let those murderers return to Poland. Once they are back there, we will hunt them down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres, from Deir Yassin to this day.

[...]

"I would like to say something to the Israeli people."

Interviewer: "To the settlers."

Yasser Qashlaq: "Yes, to that gang of criminal murderers. Board the ship we are sending you, and return to your countries. Don’t be misled by the Arab leaders or the moderate camp. You will never be able to make peace with us. Our children will return [to Palestine]. There is no reason for coexistence. Even if some of our leaders or regimes sign [peace] with you – we will never sign. Do not be misled by these regimes. Return to your countries."

Qashlaq's biography in his website says that he is "from Safed" - but he was born in Damascus in 1971. He says such peaceful statements as "tear down the so-called Temple of Solomon."

He also writes that he grieves when he sees Egypt confiscating weapons that are being smuggled to Gaza as if they are illegal drugs.

The sparse "Free Palestine Movement" website does not say a word about being against violence.

Four years of captivity for Gilad Shalit

Today is the fourth anniversary of Gilad Shalit's capture.

Bernard-Henri Levy writes::

Why so much emotion about the soldier Shalit ? Don't all conflicts produce prisoners of war, and isn't the young PFC from a tank crew, abducted in June, 2006, just a prisoner among others?

Well, actually, no. For there are, first of all, international conventions governing the status of prisoners of war, and the sole fact that this one has been sequestered for four years, the fact that the Red Cross, which regularly visits Palestinians in Israeli prisons, has never been granted access to him is a flagrant violation of the laws of war. But moreover and most of all, we must never tire of repeating this: Shalit was not captured in the fury of a battle but during a raid in Israel, when Israel, having evacuated Gaza, was at peace with its neighbor. In other words, calling him a prisoner of war is tantamount to judging that the fact that Israel occupies a territory or has ceased to occupy it changes nothing in terms of the hatred one believes it deserves. It means accepting the idea that Israel is at war even when it is at peace, or that we should make war against Israel because Israel is Israel. And if we do not accept that, if we refuse this logic that is Hamas's own logic and which, if words mean anything, is the logic of total war, we must begin by completely changing the rhetoric and the lexicon. Shalit is not a prisoner of war but a hostage. His fate is comparable to that of, not a Palestinian prisoner, but a kidnap victim being held for ransom. And he must then be defended as we defend the hostages of the FARC or the Libyans or the Iranians -- we must stand up for him with the same energy devoted to the defense of, say, Clotilde Reiss or Ingrid Betancourt.

Hostage or prisoner, no matter, why all the fuss over a single man? Why this focalisation on an individual "of no importance to the community," a man "made of all men, worth them all and of the same value as anybody" [Sartre]? Well, it is because Shalit is, precisely, not just anybody, and that he is going through what sometimes happens, in times of extreme tension in world history, to individuals in no way predisposed to play a part who suddenly become the captors of this tension, those who attract the resultant lightning, the points of impact of forces that, in a given situation, converge and clash. The dissidents of the era of communism were such, as are the persecuted of China or Myanmar today. Or, yesterday, this or that humble Bosnian figure an unparalleled concentration of adverse circumstances catapulted to prominence, turning him into a sort of a chosen one, in reverse. So it is with Gilad Shalit. Thus this man whose face is still that of a child incarnates, most unwillingly, the unending violence of Hamas; the mindless urge to exterminate of its supporters; the cynicism of those "humanitarians" who, like those of the Free Gaza flotilla, refused to take a letter from his family; or, once again, the double standard whereby he does not benefit from the same wealth of sympathy as, precisely, a Betancourt. Is a Franco-Israeli worth less than a Franco-Colombian? Is the signifiant Israel enough to degrade him? Exactly why hasn't his portrait been hung next to that of the heroic Colombian, on the facade of the Hotel de Ville in Paris? And how can one explain that, in the little park in the 12th arrondissement where it was finally displayed, it has been so regularly vandalized, and with such impunity? Shalit the symbol. Shalit, like a mirror.

One last question, that of the price the Israelis seem ready to pay for the liberation of the captive and the related question of hundreds, some mention a thousand, of potential assassins who will then be released. This is not the first time the problem has occurred. Already, in 1982, Israel freed 4,700 combatants being held in the camp of Ansar in exchange for eight of its own soldiers. In 1985, 1,150 of them (including the future founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassine) were set free in return for three of theirs. Not to mention the bodies, just the bodies, of Eldad Regec and Ehud Goldwasser, killed at the outset of the last war in Lebanon, traded, in 2008, for several leaders of Hezbollah, some of them sentenced for serious crimes. The idea, the double idea, is simple, and it is to Israel's credit. Against the cruelty, first of all, of the famous reasons of State, against the workings of the cold monsters and their terrible laziness, at the opposite of the glacial intransigence Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia was not afraid to decry in the wake of Aldo Moro's kidnapping by the Red Brigades and the way he was abandoned by his "friends," calling it another face of terrorism, this categorical and irrefutable imperative: between the individual and the State, always choose the individual. Between the suffering of only one and the turmoil of the Grand One, the one alone must prevail. A man may be worth nothing, but nothing -- and especially not the swaggering, chest-inflating pride of the Collective -- is worth the sacrifice of one man. And then, against a pseudo "sense of the Tragic" that serves as an alibi for so many instances of cowardice, in the face of the dime-store dialecticians rambling on ad infinitum about the possible perverse effects this action or that (the potential rescue, in this case, of a Daniel Pearl) might provoke in the distant future when faced with a situation of which we are presently unaware, this principle at the heart of Jewish wisdom, admirably summed up in Ecclesiastes (III: 23): do not concern yourself with that which goes beyond your works -- in your ignorance of the kingdom of ends and purposes and its ruses, just save the soldier Shalit.

Amnesty's hypocrisy, part 2 (Zvi)

Zvi commented on my last Amnesty post, and elaborated on it:

Amnesty has created its own contorted definition of the term "occupation," which it applies exclusively to Israel. Where Israel is concerned, Amnesty abandons the definition of occupation as defined under international law - which it applies to every other country and conflict - and uses its own contorted definition instead.

Amnesty does not apply this contorted definition to any other country or conflict, anywhere in the world.For example, Amnesty does not apply the same definition to Azerbaijan, despite the fact that Azerbaijan completely surrounds the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Amnesty does not claim that Azerbaijan is "occupying" Nagorno-Karabakh. Amnesty did not and does not apply this definition in the Balkans, or in Yemen (where the Saudis are blockading part of the country and cutting off land borders as well) or in Iraq.

Most importantly, Amnesty has never applied this definition to Israel's Arab neighbors. in 1967, the Arab powers (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon) cut off Israel's access to the Red Sea in a deliberate attempt to choke Israel to death. At this time, nearly the entire Israeli border was controlled and absolutely closed by Arab armies. Nobody has ever been insane enough to claim that at this point, Israel was "occupied" by the Arabs.

In addition, the definition is bizarrely illogical. As long as a power does not close all of a region's borders, it has no control over what comes in or goes out. It might as well have no control over any border whatsoever.

Israel cannot control Gaza's border with Egypt at all, as is clearly demonstrated by the profusion of weapons-smuggling tunnels that run across this border and the occasional demolition of the Egyptian border fence. In other words, the closure of Gaza relies in equal parts on Israeli and Egyptian actions. Amnesty's definition must therefore be applied equally to Israel and Egypt, since there can be no closure of a territory without a complete encirclement. Thus, either Amnesty must lay responsibility for Gaza at the feet of an international anti-Hamas coalition consisting of two equal partners - Israel and Egypt - or Amnesty's bizarre definition of "occupation" is simply another example of arrogant hypocrisy.

Elder, you are absolutely right. Israel cannot fulfill the responsibilities of an "occupying power" because Israel cannot control anything that happens in Gaza. Gaza is controlled exclusively and entirely by the Hamas regime, a bloodthirsty jihadi regime that is at war with Israel and whose ambition is not freedom but rather the genocidal slaughter of the Jews. This regime has exclusive control over all activities in Gaza.

It is categorically impossible for Israel to "ensuring the welfare of the inhabitants of Gaza" - people who live under the boot of Hamas and whom Hamas holds hostage to its war against Israel - without sending in the army, occupying Gaza, and crushing Hamas. Only by occupying Gaza could Israel fulfill Amnesty's demands. But if Israel did that, Amnesty, and every other critic of Israel, would go absolutely berserk.

Amnesty is putting Israel in a position in which Amnesty will attack Israel no matter what Israel does, short of allowing its citizens to be bombed and mortared and doing nothing about it. Amnesty is doing this by fabricating a special definition for a term that has a very different legal definition. Amnesty then uses its private definition in the context of international law, where only the real legal definition may be used. In doing so, Amnesty appears to me to be guilty not only of hypocrisy and malicious mischief, but of fraud. If Amnesty's lawyers agreed to this fabrication, then perhaps they should be disbarred.

Of course, it is not only Amnesty. The UN has also called Gaza "occupied" - and "proved" it by offering an obscure footnote that, when researched, proved the exact opposite! The commission apparently felt that no one would bother looking up the footnoted case.

What we see is that even respected international agencies will subsume logic to their own bias. They "know" that Gaza is occupied, and they therefore must find - or make up - reasons after they already made that determination in their minds.