Israel – Page 7

Noam Chomsky: Why Israel's Netanyahu is so desperate to prevent peace with Iran

March 3, 2015 by Nasheman

The distinguished professor lays bare Israel’s motives.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters at his office in Jerusalem. (Photo: Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in the United States as part of his bid to stop a nuclear deal with Iran during a controversial speech before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. Dozens of Democrats are threatening to boycott the address, which was arranged by House Speaker John Boehner without consulting the White House. Netanyahu’s visit comes just as Iran and six world powers, including the United States, are set to resume talks in a bid to meet a March 31 deadline. “For both Prime Minister Netanyahu and the hawks in Congress, mostly Republican, the primary goal is to undermine any potential negotiation that might settle whatever issue there is with Iran,” says Noam Chomsky, institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They have a common interest in ensuring there is no regional force that can serve as any kind of deterrent to Israeli and U.S. violence, the major violence in the region.” Chomsky also responds to recent revelations that in 2012 the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, contradicted Netanyahu’s own dire warnings about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb, concluding that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AARON MATÉ: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in Washington as part of his bid to stop a nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu will address the lobby group AIPAC today, followed by a controversial speech before Congress on Tuesday. The visit comes just as Iran and six world powers, including the U.S., are set to resume talks in a bid to meet a March 31st deadline. At the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Netanyahu’s trip won’t threaten the outcome.

PRESS SECRETARY JOSH EARNEST: I think the short answer to that is: I don’t think so. And the reason is simply that there is a real opportunity for us here. And the president is hopeful that we are going to have an opportunity to do what is clearly in the best interests of the United States and Israel, which is to resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program at the negotiating table.

AARON MATÉ: The trip has sparked the worst public rift between the U.S. and Israel in over two decades. Dozens of Democrats could boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress, which was arranged by House Speaker John Boehner without consulting the White House. The Obama administration will send two officials, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, to address the AIPAC summit today. This comes just days after Rice called Netanyahu’s visit, quote, “destructive.”

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also facing domestic criticism for his unconventional Washington visit, which comes just two weeks before an election in which he seeks a third term in Israel. On Sunday, a group representing nearly 200 of Israel’s top retired military and intelligence officials accused Netanyahu of assaulting the U.S.-Israel alliance.

But despite talk of a U.S. and Israeli dispute, the Obama administration has taken pains to display its staunch support for the Israeli government. Speaking just today in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry blasted the U.N. Human Rights Council for what he called an “obsession” and “bias” against Israel. The council is expected to release a report in the coming weeks on potential war crimes in Israel’s U.S.-backed Gaza assault last summer.

For more, we spend the hour today with world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, Noam Chomsky. He has written over a hundred books, most recently On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare. His forthcoming book, co-authored with Ilan Pappé, is titled On Palestine and will be out next month. Noam Chomsky is institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than 50 years.

Noam Chomsky, it’s great to have you back here at Democracy Now!, and particularly in our very snowy outside, but warm inside, New York studio.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Delighted to be here again.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Noam, let’s start with Netanyahu’s visit. He is set to make this unprecedented joint address to Congress, unprecedented because of the kind of rift it has demonstrated between the Republicans and the Democratic president, President Obama. Can you talk about its significance?

NOAM CHOMSKY: For both president—Prime Minister Netanyahu and the hawks in Congress, mostly Republican, the primary goal is to undermine any potential negotiation that might settle whatever issue there is with Iran. They have a common interest in ensuring that there is no regional force that can serve as any kind of deterrent to Israeli and U.S. violence, the major violence in the region. And it is—if we believe U.S. intelligence—don’t see any reason not to—their analysis is that if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, which they don’t know, it would be part of their deterrent strategy. Now, their general strategic posture is one of deterrence. They have low military expenditures. According to U.S. intelligence, their strategic doctrine is to try to prevent an attack, up to the point where diplomacy can set in. I don’t think anyone with a grey cell functioning thinks that they would ever conceivably use a nuclear weapon, or even try to. The country would be obliterated in 15 seconds. But they might provide a deterrent of sorts. And the U.S. and Israel certainly don’t want to tolerate that. They are the forces that carry out regular violence and aggression in the region and don’t want any impediment to that.

And for the Republicans in Congress, there’s another interest—namely, to undermine anything that Obama, you know, the Antichrist, might try to do. So that’s a separate issue there. The Republicans stopped being an ordinary parliamentary party some years ago. They were described, I think accurately, by Norman Ornstein, the very respected conservative political analyst, American Enterprise Institute; he said the party has become a radical insurgency which has abandoned any commitment to parliamentary democracy. And their goal for the last years has simply been to undermine anything that Obama might do, in an effort to regain power and serve their primary constituency, which is the very wealthy and the corporate sector. They try to conceal this with all sorts of other means. In doing so, they’ve had to—you can’t get votes that way, so they’ve had to mobilize sectors of the population which have always been there but were never mobilized into an organized political force: evangelical Christians, extreme nationalists, terrified people who have to carry guns into Starbucks because somebody might be after them, and so on and so forth. That’s a big force. And inspiring fear is not very difficult in the United States. It’s a long history, back to colonial times, of—as an extremely frightened society, which is an interesting story in itself. And mobilizing people in fear of them, whoever “them” happens to be, is an effective technique used over and over again. And right now, the Republicans have—their nonpolicy has succeeded in putting them back in a position of at least congressional power. So, the attack on—this is a personal attack on Obama, and intended that way, is simply part of that general effort. But there is a common strategic concern underlying it, I think, and that is pretty much what U.S. intelligence analyzes: preventing any deterrent in the region to U.S. and Israeli actions.

AARON MATÉ: You say that nobody with a grey cell thinks that Iran would launch a strike, were it to have nuclear weapons, but yet Netanyahu repeatedly accuses Iran of planning a new genocide against the Jewish people. He said this most recently on Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, saying that the ayatollahs are planning a new holocaust against us. And that’s an argument that’s taken seriously here.

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s taken seriously by people who don’t stop to think for a minute. But again, Iran is under extremely close surveillance. U.S. satellite surveillance knows everything that’s going on in Iran. If Iran even began to load a missile—that is, to bring a missile near a weapon—the country would probably be wiped out. And whatever you think about the clerics, the Guardian Council and so on, there’s no indication that they’re suicidal.

AARON MATÉ: The premise of these talks—Iran gets to enrich uranium in return for lifting of U.S. sanctions—do you see that as a fair parameter? Does the U.S. have the right, to begin with, to be imposing sanctions on Iran?

NOAM CHOMSKY: No, it doesn’t. What are the right to impose sanctions? Iran should be imposing sanctions on us. I mean, it’s worth remembering—when you hear the White House spokesman talk about the international community, it wants Iran to do this and that, it’s important to remember that the phrase “international community” in U.S. discourse refers to the United States and anybody who may be happening to go along with it. That’s the international community. If the international community is the world, it’s quite a different story. So, two years ago, the Non-Aligned—former Non-Aligned Movement—it’s a large majority of the population of the world—had their regular conference in Iran in Tehran. And they, once again, vigorously supported Iran’s right to develop nuclear power as a signer of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That’s the international community. The United States and its allies are outliers, as is usually the case.

And as far as sanctions are concerned, it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s now 60 years since—during the past 60 years, not a day has passed without the U.S. torturing the people of Iran. It began with overthrowing the parliamentary regime and installing a tyrant, the shah, supporting the shah through very serious human rights abuses and terror and violence. As soon as he was overthrown, almost instantly the United States turned to supporting Iraq’s attack against Iran, which was a brutal and violent attack. U.S. provided critical support for it, pretty much won the war for Iraq by entering directly at the end. After the war was over, the U.S. instantly supported the sanctions against Iran. And though this is kind of suppressed, it’s important. This is George H.W. Bush now. He was in love with Saddam Hussein. He authorized further aid to Saddam in opposition to the Treasury and others. He sent a presidential delegation—a congressional delegation to Iran. It was April 1990—1989, headed by Bob Dole, the congressional—

AMY GOODMAN: To Iraq? Sent to Iraq?

NOAM CHOMSKY: To Iraq. To Iraq, sorry, yeah—to offer his greetings to Saddam, his friend, to assure him that he should disregard critical comment that he hears in the American media: We have this free press thing here, and we can’t shut them up. But they said they would take off from Voice of America, take off critics of their friend Saddam. That was—he invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in weapons production. This is right after the Iraq-Iran War, along with sanctions against Iran. And then it continues without a break up to the present.

There have been repeated opportunities for a settlement of whatever the issues are. And so, for example, in, I guess it was, 2010, an agreement was reached between Brazil, Turkey and Iran for Iran to ship out its low-enriched uranium for storage elsewhere—Turkey—and in return, the West would provide the isotopes that Iran needs for its medical reactors. When that agreement was reached, it was bitterly condemned in the United States by the president, by Congress, by the media. Brazil was attacked for breaking ranks and so on. The Brazilian foreign minister was sufficiently annoyed so that he released a letter from Obama to Brazil proposing exactly that agreement, presumably on the assumption that Iran wouldn’t accept it. When they did accept it, they had to be attacked for daring to accept it.

And 2012, 2012, you know, there was to be a meeting in Finland, December, to take steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. This is an old request, pushed initially by Egypt and the other Arab states back in the early ’90s. There’s so much support for it that the U.S. formally agrees, but not in fact, and has repeatedly tried to undermine it. This is under the U.N. auspices, and the meeting was supposed to take place in December. Israel announced that they would not attend. The question on everyone’s mind is: How will Iran react? They said that they would attend unconditionally. A couple of days later, Obama canceled the meeting, claiming the situation is not right for it and so on. But that would be—even steps in that direction would be an important move towards eliminating whatever issue there might be. Of course, the stumbling block is that there is one major nuclear state: Israel. And if there’s a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone, there would be inspections, and neither Israel nor the United States will tolerate that.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about major revelations that have been described as the biggest leak since Edward Snowden. Last week, Al Jazeera started publishing a series of spy cables from the world’s top intelligence agencies. In one cable, the Israeli spy agency Mossad contradicts Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own dire warnings about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb within a year. In a report to South African counterparts in October 2012, the Israeli Mossad concluded Iran is “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.” The assessment was sent just weeks after Netanyahu went before the U.N. General Assembly with a far different message. Netanyahu held up a cartoonish diagram of a bomb with a fuse to illustrate what he called Iran’s alleged progress on a nuclear weapon.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: This is a bomb. This is a fuse. In the case of Iran’s nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium. And Iran has to go through three stages. By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb. A red line should be drawn right here, before—before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2012. The Mossad assessment contradicting Netanyahu was sent just weeks after, but it was likely written earlier. It said Iran, quote, “does not appear to be ready,” unquote, to enrich uranium to the highest levels needed for a nuclear weapon. A bomb would require 90 percent enrichment, but Mossad found Iran had only enriched to 20 percent. That number was later reduced under an interim nuclear deal the following year. The significance of this, Noam Chomsky, as Prime Minister Netanyahu prepares for this joint address before Congress to undermine a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the striking aspect of this is the chutzpah involved. I mean, Israel has had nuclear weapons for probably 50 years or 40 years. They have, estimates are, maybe 100, 200 nuclear weapons. And they are an aggressive state. Israel has invaded Lebanon five times. It’s carrying out an illegal occupation that carries out brutal attacks like Gaza last summer. And they have nuclear weapons. But the main story is that if—incidentally, the Mossad analysis corresponds to U.S. intelligence analysis. They don’t know if Iran is developing nuclear weapons. But I think the crucial fact is that even if they were, what would it mean? It would be just as U.S. intelligence analyzes it: It would be part of a deterrent strategy. They couldn’t use a nuclear weapon. They couldn’t even threaten to use it. Israel, on the other hand, can; has, in fact, threatened the use of nuclear weapons a number of times.

AMY GOODMAN: So why is Netanyahu doing this?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Because he doesn’t want to have a deterrent in the region. That’s simple enough. If you’re an aggressive, violent state, you want to be able to use force freely. You don’t want anything that might impede it.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think this in any way has undercut the U.S. relationship with Israel, the Netanyahu-Obama conflict that, what, Susan Rice has called destructive?

NOAM CHOMSKY: There is undoubtedly a personal relationship which is hostile, but that’s happened before. Back in around 1990 under first President Bush, James Baker went as far as—the secretary of state—telling Israel, “We’re not going to talk to you anymore. If you want to contact me, here’s my phone number.” And, in fact, the U.S. imposed mild sanctions on Israel, enough to compel the prime minister to resign and be replaced by someone else. But that didn’t change the relationship, which is based on deeper issues than personal antagonisms.

Gaza rebuild effort could take 100 years: Oxfam

February 28, 2015 by Nasheman

‘Only an end to the blockade of Gaza will ensure that people can rebuild their lives.’ — Catherine Essoyan, Oxfam

A Palestinian child sits above the ruins of his ruined home, and looks at thousands of homes destroyed because of the war on Gaza. © 2014 Pacific Press

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

Despair and destruction continue to envelop the blockaded Gaza strip, where the rebuilding of vital structures could take up to a century, Oxfam International has warned.

The organization’s statement comes six months after a ceasefire agreementended Israel’s 50-day assault on Gaza, which left over 2,100 Palestinians dead, decimated thousands of structures, and weakened already damaged infrastructure systems.

Oxfam is one of 30 international aid agencies that operate in Gaza, including the Norwegian Refugee Council and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), to issue a joint statement Thursday expressing alarm at the slow pace of reconstruction and worsening living conditions for Gaza’s residents.

Among the families hit by the destruction this summer was that of Abdel Momen Abu Hujair, who farms in Johr El-Diek. His wife, Um Mohammed, told the Norwegian Refugee Council:

Is this what our lives have come into? Living in a shack after we invested all what we had to build a house? I am very depressed and feel unable to take care of my children. I used to help them with their studies; their performance at school is now deteriorating. I feel no hope for the future or reconstruction. I am afraid we will spend the rest of our lives in this shack, in suffering and despair.

In their joint statement, the organizations lay out some of the ongoing problems:

since July, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. Approximately 100,000 Palestinians remain displaced this winter, living in dire conditions in schools and makeshift shelters not designed for long-term stay. Scheduled power cuts persist for up to 18 hours a day. The continued non-payment of the salaries of public sector employees and the lack of progress in the national unity government further increases tensions. With severe restrictions on movement, most of the 1.8 million residents are trapped in the coastal enclave, with no hope for the future.

Bearing the brunt of this suffering are the most vulnerable, including the elderly, persons with disabilities, women and nearly one million children, who have experienced unimaginable suffering in three major conflicts in six short years. Children lack access to quality education, with over 400,000 of them in need of immediate psychosocial support.

The statement adds that “Israel, as the occupying power, is the main duty bearer and must comply with its obligations under international law,” and concludes: “We must not fail in Gaza.”

In an update earlier this month, UNRWA said a funding shortfall had forced it “to suspend its cash assistance program supporting repairs and providing rental subsidies to Palestine refugee families in Gaza,” and Oxfam pointed to the responsibility of the international community as well.

“Only an end to the blockade of Gaza will ensure that people can rebuild their lives,” Catherine Essoyan, Oxfam’s Regional Director, said in a media statement.

“Families have been living in homes without roofs, walls or windows for the past six months. Many have just six hours of electricity a day and are without running water. Every day that people are unable to build is putting more lives at risk. It is utterly deplorable that the international community is once again failing the people of Gaza when they need it most,” Essoyan stated.

But Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah writes that little change to the dire situation will come if aid agencies continue to make appeals to the vague “international community” and avoid putting blame on “the home governments of many of the international civil society organizations have been complicit in Israel’s military attacks and siege on Gaza.”

He continues: “Aid agencies should not have waited six long months to speak out. Now that they have done so, they should have called for specific punitive measures against the party they correctly call the ‘occupying power’ to force it to end its siege.”

“Israel, moreover, could not carry on the way it does without the complicity of ‘Western’ governments: the aid agencies should hold their governments accountable and pressure them to end their complicity,” Abunimah writes.

Human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports finding that some of Israel’s actions during the summer assault amounted to war crimes, but the head of a UN war crimes inquiry into the operation announced his resignation this month, stating: “This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.”

Israel tightens noose around Palestinian prisoners as hunger strike looms

February 25, 2015 by Nasheman

Palestinian prisoners are not fearful of the travails of a hunger strike as much as they worry about this nail-biting endeavour ending in favor of the Israeli prison administration. Such a development would dampen their resolve and discourage them from engaging in future hunger strikes. In any case, the Israeli occupation preempted their actions by inflicting severe repressive measures.

Palestinians stage a solidarity demonstration for the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in front of the International Red Cross office in Ramallah in the West Bank on February 17, 2015. Anadolu Agency/Issam Rimawi

by Hani Ibrahim, Mahmoud Issab, Al-Akhbar

Gaza, Ramallah: An open-ended hunger strike is our last resort. That is what everybody who comes out of Israeli prisons, having gone through that experience, says. However, after the long months of neglect that has befallen their cause, and after the leaders of the prisoners’ movement reached an agreement, Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails intend to take escalatory measures starting early next month, from disobedience and refusing prison police decisions, such as searching rooms and sections, to going on an open hunger strike until March 10.

The prisoners announced these steps in the media, so the news could reach the rest of the prisons, and yet, what happened yesterday came as a surprise. The Israeli occupation tried to preempt coordination among the leaders of the prisoners’ movement in order to sabotage any plan leading to a hunger strike, which usually — though not always — succeeds in achieving the prisoners’ demands.

First, Islamic Jihad prisoners at Ramon Prison, then at Nafha Prison, (both in the Negev, southern Palestine), began a disobedience campaign in response to isolating a number of the organization’s prisoners. Fatah prisoners followed suit. Detainees in Ramon Prison said in a phone call that they refused to come out of their sections. Eventually, Hamas prisoners and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine prisoners joined them.

A state of heightened tension prompted the Israelis to choose the stick over the carrot. As a result, a prisoner from Gaza by the name of Hamza Abu Sawawin (detained in 2013 and sentenced to 13 years in jail) attacked an Israeli officer from the Nachshon Unit called Haim Azoulay. Reports conflicted as to whether he tried to strangle him with an iron wire or stabbed him in his face with an iron rod. The prison administration usually deals with these situations in a very serious manner. They closed off the Ramon, Nafha, and Eshel prisons completely and put their forces in other prisons on high alert, preventing families from visiting their loved ones.

Islamic Jihad prisoners at Ramon Prison said they decided to engage in a confrontation similar to the one they had last December, namely, going on a hunger strike for three days this week (Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday). Their demands include returning “the leader Zaid Bseisi to prison,” releasing Ali al-Saffouri, Majdi Yassin and Mahmoud Abu al-Rabb from solitary confinement, and refraining from transferring any of the members of the leadership body — which the Israeli authorities do in order to disperse the prisoners and prevent them from coordinating unified steps — except after prior coordination with the organization’s leadership.

Some of the measures that provoked the prisoners include preventing al-Tawil family from visiting their daughter Bushra and her father Jamal in Megiddo Prison, in addition to humiliating the family when they searched them before the visit, forcing them in some cases to strip off their clothes. Later on, it was found that a special Israeli force (Mitsada) with dogs stormed Islamic Jihad prisoners’ rooms after each of them was fined about $180, confiscating electrical devices and kitchen utensils, and transferring 24 prisoners to unknown locations.

The local and regional political conditions are not particularly conducive to the success of this campaign. At the Palestinian level, the West Bank is drowning in the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis and Gaza is still suffering from the effects of the war. The Arabs are preoccupied with other matters and distracted from the Palestinian issue. Egypt has completely abandoned its role as a mediator. In the meantime, Palestinian prisoners gradually lost the gains they had previously achieved over the course of nearly a year. The harsh winter conditions have added to their ordeal.

According to the head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), Qaddoura Fares, the success of the prisoners’ campaign is dependent on the political conditions and the climate. Prisoners avoid going on a hunger strike in the winter because of the adverse impact it could have on their health. Politically, their chances of success are minute as the Israeli election draws nearer and Israeli politicians try to outflank each other on the mistreatment of Palestinians. Never one to hold back, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman proposed a bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners. In addition, some observers argue that the difficulty of forming an Israeli government in the next few months will distract from the prisoners’ cause.

The prisoners movement will have to study several scenarios to avoid what happened last year when they engaged in an open-ended hunger strike for weeks but were forced to end it when three Israeli settlers were kidnapped in Hebron, south of the West Bank, and the last war on Gaza broke out. Besides, Palestinian political divisions are reflected in the prisons which house 7,000 Palestinian prisoners including 11 women, 214 children, and hundreds of administrative and sick detainees.

Mosque torched in West Bank

February 25, 2015 by Nasheman

Graffiti found on mosque’s walls reading “we want the redemption of Zion” and “revenge”.

by Al Jazeera

A mosque has been torched in the West Bank, with suspects leaving Hebrew graffiti at the site.

Jibreen al-Bakri, governor of the Bethlehem region, says the mosque in the village of Jabaa near Bethlehem was set alight at dawn on Wednesday, damaging the mosque’s walls and carpeted floor.

Israeli TV showed footage of Hebrew graffiti on the walls that read “we want the redemption of Zion” and “revenge” alongside a Jewish Star of David, the AP news agency reported.

The Israeli army said it was investigating.

Jewish vandals have targeted mosques, churches, Palestinian vehicles, dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases in so called “price tag” attacks to protest Israeli government actions against settler activity.

Israeli claims about Iran nuclear program denied by own spy agency

February 24, 2015 by Nasheman

Leaked internal assessment, obtained by Al Jazeera and the Guardian, contradicts Netanyahu’s claim in 2012 that Iran was within a year of possessing an atom bomb

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters at his office in Jerusalem. (Photo: Reuters)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim three years ago that Iran was within close reach of possessing a nuclear bomb was denied by his government’s own spy agency, Mossad, a top secret document obtained by Al Jazeera and the Guardian reveals.

In a September 2012 address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu claimed that Iran was 90 down the road to developing an atomic weapon and would do so within the year. “By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage,” he stated.

However, the leaked internal documents paint a much different picture.

On October 22, 2012—less than a month after Netanyahu’s speech—Mossad sent a classified assessment to South Africa, stating that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons” and “doesn’t appear to be ready to enrich uranium to the higher levels needed for a nuclear bomb.”

“That view tracks with the 2012 U.S. National Intelligence estimate,” Al Jazeera notes, “which found no evidence that Iran had thus far taken a decision to use its nuclear infrastructure to build a weapon, or that it had revived efforts to research warhead design that the US said had been shelved in 2003.”

Israel, on the other hand, is the only nuclear weapon state in the Middle East, illegally in possession of at least 80 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The prime minister has used claims that Iran is close to producing a nuclear bomb to justify military escalation and argue against ongoing diplomatic talks between Iran and the p5+1 countries: the U.S., Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, Germany.

At the invitation of the Republican Party, Netanyahu will make a controversial address to Congress on March 3rd, in what is expected to be another attempt to sabotage talks. The planned speech has garnered widespread opposition, from within Washington as well as grassroots movements, and a push for lawmakers to boycott the address has already gained considerable traction.

Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council told Common Dreams that the latest revelations make Netanyahu’s motives transparent. “It is very clear that he is opposed to any deal,” said Abdi. “The adage has been that no deal is better than a bad deal, but it is clear that for Netanyahu, no deal is better than a good deal if he can’t even agree with the assessments of his own security establishment.”

Israel's open dams flood Gaza, hundreds evacuated

February 23, 2015 by Nasheman

Hundreds of Palestinians were evacuated from their homes Sunday morning after Israeli authorities opened a number of dams near the border, flooding the Gaza Valley in the wake of a recent severe winter storm. Anadolu/Ashraf Amra

The Gaza Ministry of Interior said in a statement that civil defense services and teams from the Ministry of Public Works had evacuated more than 80 families from both sides of the Gaza Valley (Wadi Gaza) after their homes flooded as water levels reached more than three meters.

“Opening the levees to the canal has led to the flooding of several Palestinian homes, and we had to quickly evacuate the afflicted citizens,” the statement said.

Gaza has experienced flooding in recent days amid a major storm that saw temperatures drop and frigid rain pour down. The storm displaced dozens and caused hardship for tens of thousands, including many of the approximately 110,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents left homeless by Israel’s assault over summer.

For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea, destroying as many as 80,000 Palestinian homes. According to the UN, some 30,000 Gazans are still living in emergency shelters.

Gaza civil defense services spokesman Mohammed al-Midana warned that further harm could be caused if Israel opens up more dams in the area, noting that water is currently flowing at a high speed from the Israeli border through the valley and into the Mediterranean sea.

Evacuated families have been sent to shelters sponsored by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in al-Bureij refugee camp and in al-Zahra neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Valley is a wetland located in the central Gaza Strip between al-Nuseirat refugee camp and al-Moghraqa. It is called HaBesor in Hebrew, and it flows from two streams — one whose source runs from near Beersheba, and the other from near al-Khalil.

Israeli dams on the river that collect rainwater have dried up the wetlands inside Gaza, and destroyed the only source of surface water in the area.

Lacking any alternative means, locals have continued to use it to dispose of their waste, creating an environmental hazard.

Gaza is also prone to severe flooding, exacerbated by a chronic lack of fuel that limits how much water can be pumped out of flood-stricken areas. The fuel shortages are a result of the eight-year Israeli blockade, which limits the import of fuel for the electric power station in Gaza, as well as other kinds of machinery related to pumping and sewage management that could help Gazans combat the floods. The most recent war has worsened the crisis.

Gaza’s sole power station, which was damaged during the war, is struggling with a severe lack of fuel and is only able to supply the enclave with six hours of power per day.

Gazans are now living by candlelight and wood fire because of electricity shortages, and rely on sandbags to stop their ruined homes from flooding.

This is not the first time Israeli authorities have opened the Gaza Valley dams.

In December 2013, Israeli authorities also opened the dams amid heavy flooding in the Gaza Strip. The resulting floods damaged dozens of homes and forced many families in the area from their homes.

In 2010, the dams were opened as well, forcing 100 families from their homes. At the time, civil defense services said that they had managed to save seven people who had been at risk of drowning.

Following a ceasefire agreement that ended the seven-week summer assault, which left more than 2,160 Gazans dead and over 11,000 injured, Israel said it would reopen Gaza’s border crossings with Israel and allow construction material into Gaza.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to the Gaza Strip in October that the devastation he had seen was “beyond description” and “far worse” than that caused in the previous Israel-Gaza conflict of 2012.

According to the Palestinian Authority, rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion.

However, Israel had repeatedly blocked the entry of building material, prompting the UN in September to broker another deal. The reconstruction of Gaza has yet to begin.

Israel routinely bars the entry of building materials into the embattled coastal enclave on grounds that Palestinian resistance faction Hamas could use them to build underground tunnels or fortifications.

For years, the Gaza Strip has depended on construction materials smuggled into the territory through a network of tunnels linking it to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

However, a crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army after it overthrew then-President Mohammed Mursi has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector.

(Ma’an, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)

Only 5% of $5.4bn aid pledged to Gaza actually received says Palestinian government official

February 21, 2015 by Nasheman

Palestinians praying under a mosque in Gaza destroyed in the 51-day Israeli summer offensive. Photo: Anadolu

by Tom Porter, IBTimes

Only about 5% of the international aid pledged to help rebuild Gaza after the conflict with Israel last year has actually been received, according to a Palestinian government source.

The source in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa told humanitarian news service IRIN that while governments worldwide had pledged to contribute $5.4bn (£3.49bn, €4.74bn) to relief efforts, only about $300m had actually been received, reports Al Jazeera.

Gaza was heavily bombed by Israel during the month long war with Hamas in July last year, with nearly 100,000 homes destroyed and about 2,200 people, most of them Palestinian civilians, killed, according to UN figures.

In a conference in Cairo following the conflict, countries around the world pledged billions towards reconstruction costs and aid.

Among the largest pledges were those from Qatar, which offered $1bn, while Saudi Arabia and the US pledged $500m and $212m respectively.

In January, Egypt and Norway urged countries to honour their pledges.

“No one has said to us that they’re not committed to what they have pledged, but also due to the oil price and other issues in the Gulf, there has been a bit of a lingering,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende told a news conference, reports Reuters.

In late January, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency announced that it had suspended all reconstruction work in Gaza after running out of money, and that tens of thousands of Gazans were living in rubble.

“People are literally sleeping amongst the rubble, children have died of hypothermia,” Robert Turner, the agency’s director for Gaza said.

700 British artists vow to boycott Israel

February 16, 2015 by Nasheman

A Palestinian woman places an olive tree branch and a Palestinian flag on a piece of land close to the West Bank illegal Israeli settlement of Ofra during a protest against Israel’s settlement expansion, on February 9, 2015. AFP/Abbas Momani

700 British artists have signed a pledge to boycott Israel as long as it “continues to deny basic Palestinian rights,” the latest major success for the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS).

“In response to the call from Palestinian artists and cultural workers for a cultural boycott of Israel, we pledge to accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights,” the call reads, according to the group Artists for Palestine UK, which organized the pledge.

“We support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.”

The signatories include artists from many fields, including writers, film directors, comedians, musicians, actors, theater directors, architects, and visual artists.

The pledge’s supporters included many British citizens of Jewish heritage as well, including prominent actress Miriam Margolyes.

“My support for the Palestinian cause is fiercer because I am Jewish and I honor the strengths of that religion and the suffering my people have experienced through the years. My visits to Palestine showed me at first hand how the people there are treated by Israeli forces. Their lack of humanity disgusts me — I want no part of it,” she said in a statement.

“I realize we were fed a lie about the foundation of the State of Israel, a lie forged certainly out of desperate need to help the dispossessed millions devastated by the horror of the Nazi regime. But to force people from their homes, from their ancestral lands — that is no answer.”

Former head of the English PEN writers’ union, Gillian Slovo, compared his support to the boycott of Israel to the boycott of South Africa in a statement.

“As a South African I witnessed the way the cultural boycott of South Africa helped apply pressure on the apartheid government and its supporters. This Artists’ Pledge for Palestine has drawn lessons from that boycott to produce an even more nuanced, non-violent way for us to call for change and for justice for all.”

One hundred of the artists who signed the pledge also published a letter in the Guardian newspaper on Friday explaining their decision.

“Israel’s wars are fought on the cultural front too. Its army targets Palestinian cultural institutions for attack, and prevents the free movement of cultural workers. Its own theater companies perform to settler audiences on the West Bank — and those same companies tour the globe as cultural diplomats, in support of “Brand Israel,”‘ the letter noted.

“We invite all those working in the arts in Britain to join us.”

The boycott movement has grown increasingly strong in recent years around the world and particularly in Western Europe and North America, once bastions of support for Israel.

The Palestinian call for Academic and Cultural Boycott, which was launched in 2004 as part of the global BDS campaign, aims to pressure Israel to end its long-standing occupation of the Palestinian territories and history of human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Supporters argue that thus far outside political pressure and domestic left wing organizing has failed to effect change in Israeli policies, but believe a grassroots civil society movement to pressure the country’s authorities could effect meaningful change.

The boycott targets official and institutional collaboration with Israel or Israeli-government funded institutions, but does not sanction individual Israeli artists, a fact noted by some of the signatories of the British boycott letter.

“The choice not to present work in Israel is not an attack on Israeli artists, but rather a recognition that the thing you do may not be appropriate in a situation of ongoing violent conflict, and that to ignore that is to support the idea that everything is under control and life and culture continue as normal, while bombs fall,” choreographer Jonathan Burrows said in a statement.

The New York-based Anti-Defamation League said in a report in October that Pro-Palestinian activism has risen significantly on US campuses since Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip in the summer.

Israel’s recent offensive in the Gaza Strip began July 7 and lasted for 51 days; it killed more than 2,310 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

The Jewish civil society organization said that there had been 75 “anti-Israel” events scheduled on US campuses since the beginning of the 2014-2015 academic year, which started in late August or early September at most American universities.

During the previous academic year, student groups at US colleges hosted at least 374 anti-Israel events, the report said.

It said nearly 40 percent of those events were held in support of an international campaign to seek boycott against Israel.

Also in October, The Washington Post reported that more than 500 anthropologists have publicly joined an academic boycott of Israel initiated by the American Studies Association, with another 77 joining anonymously.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

Egypt, Norway urge donors to meet pledges for Gaza reconstruction

February 6, 2015 by Nasheman

A Palestinian girl sleeps on a mat at her destroyed home in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on January 30, 2015. AFP/Mohammed Abed

Egypt and Norway urged donors on Thursday, including Gulf states squeezed by low oil prices, to keep promises of providing $5.4 billion in aid for the Palestinians after the devastating Israeli assault Gaza last year.

The two nations, who led a donors’ conference in Cairo in October when the cash was pledged, wrote an open letter to donors and said people in Gaza were suffering with an extremely slow pace of reconstruction.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the two felt it had become necessary to remind donors who had promised to help rebuild Gaza that they “should fulfil their obligations in this regard.”

“No one has said to us that they’re not committed to what they have pledged, but also due to oil price and other issues in the Gulf, there has been a bit of a lingering,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende told a news conference.

The two ministers, after a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Oslo, did not single out any nations for criticism nor say how much of the $5.4 billion pledged had reached the Palestinians.

Last year, among countries pledging aid, Qatar offered $1 billion, and Kuwait and United Arab Emirates promised $200 million each. The United States pledged $212 million, France 40 million euros ($45 million) and Germany 50 million euros.

“We know that there are houses now being built and reconstructed but the pace of this is not at a level where we had foreseen and where we had wished it, so this is very important,” Brende said.

The two ministers said they would follow up with personal contacts with other countries in coming weeks.

“It’s not my role here to have a ‘name and shame’ list, but we do have an overview of this and we will specifically follow up on the countries that have not been able to deliver so far,” Brende said.

For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea, killing 2,310 Gazans, 70 percent of them civilians, and injuring 10,626.

The Israeli offensive ended on August 26 with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire deal.

The assault also left the densely populated enclave in ruins, displacing more than a quarter of Gaza’s population of 1.7 million and leaving 100,000 people, mostly children, homeless.

According to UNRWA, over 96,000 Palestine refugee family homes were damaged or destroyed, including 7,000 homes that were completely lost, during the aggression and the total funding required to address that need is $720 million.

Besides homes, the Israeli strikes targeted 13 public hospitals; 17 private hospitals, including al-Wafa Hospital which was completely destroyed; 23 governmental health centers, four of which were completely destroyed; and four private health centers, including the Khalil al-Wazir Clinic which was completely destroyed.

In January, UNRWA said it has been forced to suspend its cash assistance program for repairs to damaged and destroyed houses in Gaza due to lack of funds.

The suspension of the program, which also covers rental subsidies to the homeless in Gaza, will affect the lives of tens of thousands of people who are in dire need for assistance following the Israeli assault on the besieged enclave.

To date, UNRWA has received only $135 million in pledges, leaving a shortfall of $585 million. While some funds remain available to begin the reconstruction of totally destroyed homes, the agency has exhausted all funding to support repairs and rental subsidies, it said.

According to UNRWA’s Director in Gaza, Robert Turner, “none of the $5.4 billion [pledged in Cairo] has reached Gaza. This is distressing and unacceptable.”

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Palestinians to become ICC member from April 1, UN confirms

February 6, 2015 by Nasheman

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Reuters / Enrique Castro-Mendivil)

by RT

Palestine will join the International Criminal Court on April 1, announced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday. The Palestinians will be able to sue Israel for war crimes, a move the Israeli administration has consistently opposed for decades.

The UN treaty website says that due to the court’s procedures “the statute will enter into force for the State of Palestine on April 1, 2015.”

Along with the ICC application, the UN chief approved other sets of documents, enabling Palestine to join 16 international agreements, conventions and treaties.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the ICC application documents on the last day of 2014, following the UN Security Council’s resolution on December 30, which rejected Palestine’s official bid for statehood, a document vetoed by the US in support of Israel.

The Palestinian delegation submitted its ICC application on January 2.

Israel’s immediate reaction was negative.

“We will not let Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers and officers be dragged to the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, AFP reported.

Israeli Prime Minister and leader of the ruling rightwing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP Photo / Jack Guez)

The Israeli administration immediately applied financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority, freezing the transfer of half a billion shekels (over $127 million) in monthly tax revenues it collected on behalf of the Palestinians.

The US joined the financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority on Monday, when the Obama administration announced a review of America’s annual $440 million aid package to the Palestinians. As AP pointed out, once the Palestinian Authority apply any case against Israel to the International Criminal Court, US financial help to Palestine will cease immediately under American law.

Joining the ICC will give the Palestinian Authority new and powerful leverage to make Israel more compliant regarding withdrawal from the occupied territories.

International Criminal Court’s building (ICC) in The Hague (AFP Photo / Vincent Jannink)

In anticipation of the ICC bid last week, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour announced the Palestinians will prosecute Israel for crimes committed during the war in Gaza last summer. According to Mansour, Palestinians will also sue Israel for constructing settlements on the occupied Palestinian territory.

In late 2014, the Palestine stepped up its efforts to gain international recognition as a sovereign state. It came following the failure of the latest round of US-brokered peace talks with Israel, which was initiated after the bloody 50-day armed conflict in Gaza that left some 2,120 Palestinians and 68 Israelis dead.

Unlike before, this time around the aspirations of the Palestinians have found much wider international support, as many countries have openly spoken in favor of creating a sovereign Palestinian state.

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