Middle East Diary - 21 July 2014

 

His eminence praised the persistence of the Hamas resistance and the tremendous patience of the people of Gaza and strongly supported their rightful demands to end the current battle.

Sayyed Nasrallah heard from Meshaal comforting and confident stance, as he reassured that Hamas resistance was ready to make a second victory in July."  al-Manar

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Israel should seriousl think about agreeing to a cease fire.   It has been suggested by some of our European friends on SST that Hizbullah does not care about Gaza and will not fight the Israelis over  the "destiny" of th eGazans.  IMO Nasrallah is not making an empty gesture. If the IDF continues its ravishment of Gaza, Hizbullah will begin to fire into nothern Israel.   They can target just about anything in th enoerthern half of the country and have many, many weapons.  A good question now would be the degree of redundancy in Iron Dome.  pl

http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=162072&frid=23&seccatid=14&cid=23&fromval=1

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Hasbara work - "Now, there are 40 people in the interactive unit of the Israel Defense Forces, including videographers, animators, graphic artists and computer programmers, pumping out missives in six languages, on many platforms, in a tone much punchier than the typical news release. “Israel uses the Iron Dome to protect its civilians,” it said on Twitter over the weekend. “Hamas uses civilians to protect its rockets.”

 

Hamas has also tried to harness social media, though its categorization as a terror group by the United States and other Western countries has led Facebook and Twitter to block some official accounts. The Hebrew Twitter feed of its military wing had a polite, amusing exchange the other day with Israelis correcting its grammar."  NY Times

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An excllent article.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/world/middleeast/in-a-clash-between-israel-and-gaza-both-sides-use-social-media-to-fire-epithets-and-hide-behind-euphemisms.html?_r=0

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Iran - " Tehran: Iran has diluted its entire stock of medium-enriched uranium as required under a November deal with world powers, the UN atomic agency said in its latest report seen by AFP Monday. 

Even as talks to reach a nuclear deal with Iran were extended beyond an initial July 20 deadline, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tehran was standing by its international commitments. 

As agreed under a so-called Joint Plan of Action reached in November, the Islamic Republic has cut half of its stock of 20-percent enriched uranium down to five-percent purity. 

The rest was being converted into uranium oxide. 

Tehran also refrained from enriching above the five-percent level at any of its nuclear facilities, the IAEA report said. "  Zeenews

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You will have noticed that you don't hear any of this in the US media and among the lunatics running the US Congress.  pl

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/iran-complying-with-nuclear-deal-un-watchdog_949001.html

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Gaza Fortifications - "The Hamas movement has developed three distinct types of tunnels:

The first consists of the many hundreds of tunnels along the border between Gaza and Egypt, most of which were sealed recently by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s new regime. These are "economic tunnels." They are designed to bring merchandise and raw materials into Gaza from Egypt. Over the years, and especially after Israel’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor (the route running along Gaza’s border with Egypt), these tunnels served as an “underground railroad” of sorts to bring in weapons, including the vast stockpile of rockets that have accumulated in Gaza.

The second network of tunnels is complex and has multiple branches running off it. This network, which was burrowed beneath the cities and refugee camps of Gaza — Khan Yunis, Rafah, Jabaliya, and Shatti — was designed to hide the stockpile of rockets and launchers. At the same time, other tunnels were dug to provide protection to Hamas leaders and allow them mobility. Every single leader of Hamas, from its lowest ranking bureaucrats to its most senior leaders, is intimately familiar with the route to the security tunnel assigned to him and his family. The most senior leadership has its own specific tunnel, which serves as a “war room” in times of emergency, such as the current military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Then there are the tunnels along the border with Israel. These were intended to allow Hamas activists from the Gaza Strip to infiltrate deep into Israeli territory. Israel had already established a security fence along its border with Gaza, which has successfully prevented countless terrorist infiltrations and attacks. So the border tunnels were dug beneath the fence." 

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What is depicted here and in the many pictures of these tunnels now available is a well built preparation of the battlefied for defense of an urban area as well as for leadership protection and "sally ports" into enemy territory for raiding operations.  This is reminiscent of the Hizbullah defensive system preparation that has existed in south Lebanon for a decade or more.  Israel will continue to lose men in its effoet to uprootthis system.  Enemy fighters can emerge anywhere to fight them from prepared positions.  pl

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/israel-idf-tunnels-gaza-underground-network-failure-welfare.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=bda396dff2-July_21_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-bda396dff2-93066749#ixzz387Z3KQ51

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 Jordan abandons the war in Syria - "Jordan is realigning its stance on the three-year Syrian crisis in response to recent developments in Syria and Iraq. Last week, Information Minister Mohammad al-Momani announced that Jordan “was not interested in training Syrian opposition forces on its territory” and that its “public policy has always been not to interfere in Syrian affairs.” He told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Jordan had never trained opponents of the Syrian regime and that it continues to support a political solution that will bring stability to Syria and decrease the effects of refugees, who present a great pressure on the kingdom’s resources and infrastructure.

 

Momani was reacting to press reports that US officials had confirmed that “Jordan was reluctant to host an expanded rebel instruction program” proposed by President Barack Obama, who had requested from Congress $500 million to finance it. After months of delays, Obama had decided to provide training and weapons to the moderate opposition and in June, national security adviser Susan Rice acknowledged that the Pentagon was aiding Syrian rebels with “lethal and non-lethal support.”"  Al Monitor

 

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Jordan has looked at the geopolitical "terrain' of its "neighborhood" as the Israelis call it and decided that it should not contribute further to the training and equipping of supposedly "moderate" Syrian rebels.  With IS across the eastern border beyonf H-4, and an internal fifthe column of Islamists both in the capital and in the south, Jordan cannot afford the luxury of indulging the R2Pers in their fantasies.  pl

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/jordan-syria-islamic-state-iraq-war-rebels-neutral.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=bda396dff2-July_21_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-bda396dff2-93066749#ixzz387aLd4kx 

 

Comments

[Anna-Marina]

So the constitutional monarchy is more liberal today than the "land of free."
"Listening to the stinging condemnation of Israel by both conservatives and Labor on the floor of the British parliament on July 14, viewers in the US might well have felt they were in a different planet. Israel was excoriated for its bombing of disabled shelters, for targeting water supplies, for damaging UN shelters, and the current invasion was characterized by as one of “illegal settlements and stolen land.” It would be unimaginable for such a conversation to be carried out in the House or Senate in the US today."
While the Brits spoke about the naked king of Israel, the servile, pro-banksters US senate has expressed, unanimously!, the US support for the genocidal barbarities of Israel. Madness.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/21/is-gaza-our-mirror/

[Joe Freedom]

"That war made Iran a Mediterranean Power - something not existing for 2300 years."

One more thing the US and Europe can thank their neocons for.

[shanks]

>All the rubble from IAF bombing has made movement difficult as well as giving Hamas great hiding places.

We have seen this on a lot of wars, haven't we?

Rubble, Resistance and Retreat.

It's almost like Hamas is learning from western textbooks on resistance.

[Poul]

jdledell.

Hope that he avoided an injury with long term side effects.

[confusedponderer]

MEMRI today offers "Footage Of Tunnels Used By Hamas For Terror Attacks"

Because, what else would a group like Hamas need tunnels for but for terrorism? Indeed, Stalingrad was full of Russian terrorists.

[Castellio]

Oren and Netanyahu, the very definition of empty men. Hollow.

[Castellio]

Yes, many reports of that. Bibi and his generals have chosen to minimize civilian deaths by using flechettes, which are designed to kill anything that moves.

[Dubhaltach]

Why would they be interested in learning from western textbooks on resistance when they have a very successful local examplar in the form of Hizbullah?

I invite you to reflect long and hard on the lenghty western record of failure when it comes to fighting a war against resistance movements and then ask yourself what Hamas can learn from such a pack of losers.

It's worth studying both sides in any war the winners and the losers both to see what worked and to see what didn't. If I were in Hamas I'd only be interested in studying western tactics to see if I could follow Hizbullah's succeful turning of Israel's tactics against it to hurt my oppressors further.

Dubhaltach

[confusedponderer]

I watched the youtube of a guest lecture by Paul Wolfowitz at Cornell the other day. He was quite clear that the problem with Syria was that it was allied with Iran.

To him there was no doubt that there should be more aid to the Syrian rebels (comm, medical, financial, political, arms) and the green movement (comm, medical, financial, political - arms?) so there could, finally, be regime change in Iran. Libya was a resounding success.

It was funny how Wolfowitz reacted to one young, staunch twenty-something conservative who described himself as a proud neo-con. Wolfowitz chuckled, and pointed out politely that a neo-con is actually someone, like himself, who went with the democratic party under Kennedy/Scoop Jackson and that he never actually changed his party orientation.

One could sum up his views as a 'freedom theology' of spreading democracy and free markets, as two mutually reinforcing goods, with a good dose of US leadership, if need be delivered by the hard and heavy hand of the US military.

And that theology still has a lot of appeal in DC. Even though it is often enough used as cover for hard-nosed geo-strategerery there is a good number of true believers in both parties.

Samantha Power, the 'genocide chick' probably focuses on genocide because it is the most extreme expression of tyranny, but I don't expect her to be in any particular disagreement with Wolfowitz over the merits of the 'freedom theology' or regime change. If so, it would be about the means, not the ends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08zwHYVRtZw

[Cee]

Of course!!! Let me tell Wolf Blitzer!!! Btw...he just said that the majority of Americans support Israel. WHO ARE THEY ASKING?
And Israel still won't admit that Hamas has a POW!

[Cee]

ISIS.

[Ryan]

I wish your nephew a speedy recovery, jdledell.

[NancyK]

Supposedly 57% of Americans support Israel invading Gaza. I don't find this number surprising since most Americans get their info about Israel from their church, which is hoping that this battle will be the big one that will bring back Jesus or from the TV which is notoriously pro Israel. Unless a person reads this site, watches Al Jazeera or perhaps Jon Stewart, they believe the garbage they are told, that all Israelis are democracy loving people who just want to live in peace, and all Palestinians are terrorists who want to destroy peaceful Israel. Then there are the American Jews, many who have never even been to Israel but out of some strange feeling of perhaps survivors guilt or the equally strange view of Israelis being Super Jews, they blindly support Israel,
My husband served in the IDF and lived in Israel for many years. He admits what Israel is doing is wrong, but it makes him very sad to admit this. He always says the country he fought and was injured for was not like this when he lived there. He also says it appears that Israel controls or very heavily influences the US Congress and that was not the case when he lived their in the late 60's early 70's.

[turcopolier]

Nancy K

Your husband is an honest man. It saddens me as well that the Israel I dealt with for many years is gone, replaced by a hyper-nationalist colonial power. pl

[Matthew]

Shanks: Stalingrad.

[turcopolier]

Nancy K

"He also says it appears that Israel controls or very heavily influences the US Congress." I understand the process of reward and punishment through which this has occurred but more puzzling is the wild and uncritical enthusiasm of the MSM for Israel. When someone like Bibi is tolerated in saying crap like "a man's got to do what a man's got to do," then one can only say that all integrity has departed from the media in the US. pl

[Fred]

CP,

They can best be described as secular 'true believers' or perhaps 'ideological jihadists'. They are fanatic in the rightousness of their ideas and opposing ideas, or the people, are enemies to be destroyed.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Last I heard, his lover was a Shia Muslim.

So he proposes to destroy the seat of Shia power in the world and replace it with MTV neo-paganism?

He himself I believe is a Jew, clearly unwilling to acknowledge the debt that Jews owe to Iran over 2500 years.

[Lysander]

The key political lesson from this war is that Israeli deterrence is dead and that Israeli strategy has become one of genocidal massacre. The resistance fighters and rocket launchers are all below-ground. Hence, Israel's attacks are designed solely to inflict civilian casualties with the foolish hope that Gazans will turn against Hamas and IJ. But the opposite is occurring: resistance forces are gaining confidence and are inflicting serious casualties on the IDF (for example, 28 fatalities so far, dozens more wounded, a captured soldier, and ongoing rocket fire). In fact, both Hamas and IJ seem to be operating on the level of Hezbollah in 2006. All of this points towards the dead end of Zionism. Israel is rapidly losing any legitimacy around the world (except amongst elites in North America and parts of Europe) and eventually will face an existential military threat on its "borders." The Liberation of Palestine will then be back on the agenda, especially if the fascist/racist/nationalist current continues to grow and dominate the Israeli state and society. In North America, the BDS movement will continue to expand and in time will crack the Zionist consensus. In short, Israel will be haunted by everything it is doing.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Thank you for giving support to my rather lone voice that US Christians have a lot more to do with support for the State of Israel than the so-called neo-cons, AIPAC, and other such cabals.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I thought Mr. T. said that in an episode of the A Team - "a man's got to do what a man's got to do,"

[NancyK]

I'm not sure that all US Christians are more supportive, but some, especially those who dwell on end days and the rapture are very pro Israel when you add neo-cons and AIPAC, it makes a perfect storm.

[Charles I]

one must have both courage and conviction to tell a truth against a tide. The MSM has shown little of either for a long while.

[Castellio]

I think all, certainly most, posters here are acutely aware of and include in their thoughts and calculations the extremely important influence of Christian Zionists.

What I object to is your desire to let the "neo-cons, AIPAC and other such cabals" off the hook, in spite of clear historical evidence to the contrary. When you do that, you are simply playing the role of a Hasbarist.

I also object to the fact that you can't grasp that many of the most active and effective centers of resistance to current US Middle East policy are "in the Churches". This is a very large subject in itself, but the fact that you seem blithely ignorant of this – especially as it plays out on the ground throughout the US – suggests you simply aren't serious in your comments.

You also rhetorically misrepresent how western democracies work. You pretend that what we have is a mirror-like reflection of popular desires. Its not. Maybe you could google Paul Manley to learn how he was barred from even running for a nomination for, supposedly, the most progressive Canadian political party, based on comments regarding the illegal kidnapping of his own father in international waters. This is hardly an isolated case. One "can't run" for parties because one needs to be vetted first by Zionist supporters.

So, why do you say what you say, why do you ignore what you ignore, why do you accuse others of downplaying the role of Christian Zionism when almost all comments factor it in?

I believe, I could be wrong, that you like the large generalization, use religion as your only sociological tool, don't want to have your thoughts disturbed by the "anecdotal history" of others, ie. personal experience and confusing historical facts, and prefer to comfortably proselytise a war of religious civilizations.

To break those habits, you could start by reading today's article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/22/blinded-by-israel-visionless-in-gaza/

[Fred]

This doesn't help Bibi's political position. Delta cancels all flights to Israel.

http://news.yahoo.com/delta-cancels-israel-flights-over-missile-fear-150757559.html