Newt and Palestine

As unusual as it is, Newt is partially correct in stating that Palestine is a "made up state" but also, as usual, he leaves out some facts that most Americans either don't know or choose not to remember. True...Palestine didn't exist before 1920 when it was created as a "pseudo state" by Britain in breaking up the Ottoman Empire. There is no distinct Palestinian language and history and effectively they are Arabs just like most of their neighbors. By the same token Israel is a "made up state" as well. It was created in 1947 when the UN decided to partition Palestine and create the state of Israel. You could say that the "Palestinian state" predates the state of Israel.
It should also never be forgotten that Israel would not exist today were it not for the billions and billions of dollars(in cold hard cash and military aid) pumped into it by the U.S. since its founding. Israel never has been able to stand on its own two feet and probably never will. The harsh reality is that Israel is somewhat of a rogue state and its actions with respect to the Palestinians are in violation of numerous UN sanctions and the Geneva Conventions.

Nothing Good Will Come Out of Egypt

I haven't waded in on the mess in Egypt. If you have visited here over the years you know how I feel about U.S. support for Israel (we should have cut them off years and years ago) and I feel exactly the same about our aid to Egypt. We have a long history of supporting oppressive dictatorships all over the world and especially in the Middle East. Juan Cole expresses my views completely. We continually make the the wrong choices on Israel and Egypt and all the rest. Don't forget Ortega, Saddam Hussein, and the Shah of Iran, just to name a few.

Here is another view from Foreign Policy that basically says the same.

More On Gaza

There has been some lively discussion on my previous post It's Begun. Toward furthering that discussion I would like to bring your attention to a post at Salon by Glenn Greenwald. The entire post needs reading but I will excerpt two very important things.

The first is in regards to perspective on what the situation is really all about from a Palestinian point of view.

More to the point: for those who insist that others put themselves in the position of a resident of Sderot -- as though that will, by itself, prove the justifiability of the Israeli attack -- the idea literally never occurs to them that they ought to imagine what it's like to live under foreign occupation for 4 decades (and, despite the 2005 "withdrawal from Gaza," Israel continues to occupy and expand its settlements on Palestinian land and to control and severely restrict many key aspects of Gazan life). No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years, one which builds walls around you, imposes the most intensely humiliating conditions on your daily life, blockades your land so that you're barred from exiting and prevented from accessing basic nutrition and medical needs for your children to the point where a substantial portion of the underage population suffers from stunted growth.

The second is a reference to George Orwell's Notes on Nationalism, which as Glenn notes is rather prescient when it comes to recent events.

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

AN UPDATE TO GLENN'S POST: The Israeli Supreme Court several days ago ordered the Government to allow reporters into Gaza, yet Israel continues to block all journalists from entering. The reason, as casual_observer notes in comments, is clear:

The reason Israel has done this must be that they will do whatever they must--including ignoring their own high court--to limit evidence that Gazans are indeed human beings and that they are suffering the horrors that occur when war is unleashed on densely-packed urban civilians.

Israel knows full well that reporting from Gaza turns Gazans from vague abstractions to suffering human beings. And they will not allow that reality to be communicated to the world.

It's Begun

Israeli forces have begun the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. AFP and others are reporting that Israel has begun heavy shelling of the northern sections of Gaza and there are unconfirmed reports that the tanks are rolling. There are reports that the area was blanketed with leaflets earlier warning residents to "leave the area immediately" to ensure their safety.

The Israel's seem to be effectively ignoring the UN and the thousands protesting around the world calling for a cease fire. The White House has signaled that they have no problem with the ground attack.

The Israeli press has reported that this action has been planned and underway since March of 2006 following a visit from Condi Rice. The plan is evidently to end the Qassam rocket attacks by the removal of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip, the region that the resistance uses for the launch of these rockets, and to move them toward Gaza City and to confine them there. If this is the case, and it is looking more and more like it is, and couple the recent two months of forced starvation for the people of Gaza then you are looking at another Israeli violation of the Geneva Convention (pdf) that "Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Neither the civilian population as such nor civilian persons shall be the object of attack. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives."

Such a plan of forced evacuation could also be defined as ethnic cleansing:

The United Nations Commission of Experts, in a January 1993 report to the Security Council, defined “ethnic cleansing” as “rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area.”

The casualty count in Gaza is already at 425, possibly more. How many more innocents on both sides are going to die before this ends?

A Little More on Gaza

There seems to be a much more civilized discussion going on in the blog world over the situation in Gaza and the Israeli assault than what is normally seen. Phoenix Woman at FDL has a good post and a link to Juan Cole which I am reposting here. Jane Hamsher is also noticing the change in the dialogue with her post "The Third Rail of "Israel" Cools in the Blogosphere". The comments on my previous post show the same "change" with the exception of our English commenter Mr. Duff.

It is possible to discuss this subject. Juan Cole enlightens us a little on the inevitable claim "but Hamas has been lobbing rockets at Israelis for years from Gaza!"

Juan Cole tells us about these rockets, and provides some perspective:

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.

There is more to read at FDL and of special note is the situation with respect to food being allowed into Gaza by the Israelis. Basically, the Palestinians are being starved to death in addition to being bombed.

Israel Is Wrong

This latest attack in Gaza by Israel is just another example of what is wrong with the whole concept of a Jewish state. It was a mistake to take the Palestinian land in the first place and Israel's failure to reach a peaceful steady state with them is a tragedy. The U.S. should condemn this latest action and withdraw their support immediately. We cannot afford it anyway and especially the way our assistance is and has been used. The failure of Israel to act like a good citizen of the family of nations is shameful. I lost count somewhere of the number of U.N. resolutions Israel has ignored not to mention the Geneva Conventions which they have ignored as well. Yeah, the holocaust was a tragedy of epic proportions but one has to ask whether it justified taking away the Palestinian's country to create Israel or just made the tragedy that much worse.

Full disclosure: I lost some good friends on the USS Liberty and the whole incident made me reevaluate my feelings toward the existence of a Jewish homeland. The West never had the right to create the country in the first place and the behavior of the Israeli's ever since has more than justified this point of view.