<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"><html><head><meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></head><body>And another:<br/>http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/palestine-and-israel/2066-all-ceasefires-in-gaza-are-temporary-but-what-stopped-israel-invading-this-time <div>Sent from phone</div><hr/><div><b>From: </b> Mark Barrett <marknbarrett@googlemail.com>
</div><div><b>Date: </b>Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:41:39 +0000</div><div><b>To: </b><peopleincommon@lists.riseup.net>; <occupycomms@email-lists.org><occupycomms@email-lists.org>; Politics and Spirit Network<politicsandspiritnetwork@yahoogroups.com>; <project2012@googlegroups.com></div><div><b>Subject: </b>Perspectives on Gazan Conflict</div><div><br/></div><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>Both these articles by <span><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Amir-Taheri" target="_blank"><font color="#850029">Amir Taheri</font></a> </span>give a glimpse into the real power struggles hidden in the Gaza/Israel conflict. This approach is more conducive to a long term peaceful settlement than the self-righteous ranting against Israel over the past few days, on Twitter, online, and demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy, <br>
<br>I admit to being biased. I am Jewish, by descent not religion, and I have relations in Israel. So it would be impossible to say I am neutral. In practice I don't know what this means. I am against killing in any form. To say that the retaliation of Israel was 'out of all proportion', makes no sense to me. Would it have been ok if they had only killed the same number of Israelis that were killed? No! <br>
<br>I have seen the racial hatred that Israelis exhibit to black Africans, and heard them slinging obscene slogans across to demonstrators for peace, mad with anger and rage. And yet, I see they are human beings too. When we take sides we assume we know what is going on. Compassion sees both sides without judgement.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br><br></font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Same author...does a good job ¿NO?:<br>
<br><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_bam_yqozHuWdPRiNHdi4aY365L" target="_blank">http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_bam_yqozHuWdPRiNHdi4aY365L</a><br>
<br><h1><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_bam_yqozHuWdPRiNHdi4aY365L" target="_blank">Why Hamas loves Bam</a></h1>
<h2>Cheered by his Mideast moves</h2>
<ul><li>By AMIR TAHERI</li><li><span>Last Updated:</span> 4:44 AM, November 11, 2010</li><li>
<span>Posted: </span> 10:19 PM, November 10, 2010</li></ul>
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<img alt="headshot"><div>Amir Taheri</div>
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<p> "Abu Hussain! Palestine loves you!!!" </p><p> This
slogan, in English, appears on a poster and other products produced by
the Palestinian Hamas movement and put on sale in Gaza. Yesterday, it
adorned the front pages of several leading Arab dailies. </p><p> The "Abu Hussain" is President Obama. The poster pictures him wearing the signature Arab headgear, the <i>kaffiyeh</i>. </p><p>
That the most radical Palestinian faction has declared its love for
the president may be bad news for the stalled Middle East peace talks,
which Obama has promised to help restart before the end of the year. </p>
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<img alt="He's their hero: Mugs depicting Obama in an Arab kaffiyeh on sale right by similar Yasser Arafat curios in a Gaza shop Tuesday." title="He's their hero: Mugs depicting Obama in an Arab kaffiyeh on sale right by similar Yasser Arafat curios in a Gaza shop Tuesday." height="450" width="300">
<div>AP</div>
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He's their hero: Mugs depicting Obama in an Arab kaffiyeh on sale right by similar Yasser Arafat curios in a Gaza shop Tuesday.</div>
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<p> According to its charter, Hamas wants to eliminate Israel and to
replace it with a single Palestinian state covering the territory of the
Jewish state and the territories it occupied in 1967. </p><p> Iran,
Libya and a range of radical Islamist movements, including al Qaeda,
support Hamas' policy, sometimes known as the "one-state solution." But
Obama has said he supports President George W. Bush's two-state policy. </p><p>
If Hamas' declaration of love for Obama is based on a
misunderstanding, the problem may lie in Obama's ambiguous approach to
the Arab-Israeli conflict. </p><p> When Bush said he wanted a two-state
solution, he saw the realities on the ground as the starting point.
Obama and his special emissary, George Mitchell, however, have talked
about a return to the pre-1967 "borders" as demanded by several UN
resolutions. </p><p> But there <i>were</i> no borders in 1967 -- only
cease-fire lines drawn at the end of the 1948 war. And there was no
Palestine to have any borders -- the cease-fire lines separated Israel
on the one hand from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria on the other.
Indeed, a return to those cease-fire lines would be tantamount to
recreating a situation that had already led to two wars. </p><p> Obama
also drops hints that he means to be tough with Israel. To advertise his
toughness, he makes occasional statements about Jewish settlements. Yet
this puts the whole exercise on a different trajectory, with talks
focused on the settlements rather than the core issue -- the creation of
a Palestinian state. </p><p> Pressuring Israel may look good to "Abu
Hussain" and his Hamas admirers. But it may reduce the chances of
agreement on the creation of a Palestinian state. </p><p> Fearful that
its chief ally, America, might be trying to abandon it or, worse still,
stab it in the back, Israel may revert to what Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir called "the hedgehog strategy." Because Israel holds the lands on
which a Palestinian state is to be built, there would be no progress in
that direction. </p><p> History shows that Israel has made concessions
-- including withdrawing from vast territories it captured from Egypt,
Jordan and Lebanon -- only when it has felt sure of its principal ally. </p><p> Peace is made when </p><p>
1) the winner of a war (or a series of wars) is convinced that he can
create a new status quo in his favor, especially by ensuring his
security, and 2) the loser also feels that the peace offer is the best
it could hope for under the circumstances. Obama's approach meets
neither condition. </p><p> The winner, Israel, feels threatened by what
it feels is a US attempt at bullying it into a deal. The loser, the
Palestinian side, is deluded into thinking that, thanks to Obama's
support, it can hold out for an ever-elusive better deal. Believing that
they have US support, some Palestinians are even talking of declaring
statehood without winning prior Israeli approval. </p><p> Obama's
Mideast policy has made progress toward peace more difficult. His
promise of achieving a peace deal before year's end seems destined to
join a long list of other broken promises. </p><p><i>Amir Taheri is the author of "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution."</i>
</p><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><h1>In Gaza nothing is simple, nothing is certain</h1><p><span><b><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Amir-Taheri" target="_blank"><font color="#850029">Amir Taheri</font></a></b><span></span></span></p>
<div><font color="#850029"></font></div><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_p"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-1"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-2"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-3"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-4"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-5"></a><a name="13b236bbe8ccb964_13b22fe4be2c5a17_13b22dcbcede6b47_13b21b4fe3a63623_13b21a5e6ff96773_tab-6"></a><div>
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<div style="width:1031px;min-height:107.01px"><div><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><ul>Last updated at 12:01AM, November 19 2012</ul>
<div><div><p>From Hamas to Iran, Egypt to to the US, this new power game has many players, but no maps</p><p>
Over the past few days, it has been oft-repeated that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has ignited the current conflict in Gaza because of low electoral calculations. But being dragged into a conflict with an uncertain outcome looks like poor strategy on the eve of an election, especially when Israel’s economy is doing rather well and he was likely to be returned to office again. </p>
<p>A mini-war in Gaza does, however, serve the interests of other players in the region’s new power game. The Hamas leadership, for instance, could benefit from a conflict with Israel as a way of warding off Arab Spring-style tensions in Gaza. Hamas would also be happy to wreck the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic show of seeking symbolic statehood in the West Bank; Hamas is a bitter rival of Fatah, the more secular group that runs the West Bank. The conflict could also divert attention from the internecine feuds between Hamas factions, which are supported in their rivalries by foreign governments. </p>
<p>Over the years, Hamas has evolved into a network of black-market operators, terrorist groups and racketeering outfits behind a façade of political and charitable activities. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas could have transformed it into a functioning mini-state. Instead, it has used it as a bunker for war against Israel, provoking the Jewish state into imposing a blockade that provides opportunities for smuggling activities. </p>
<p>Hamas has not allowed anyone to leave the refugee camps and settle in the enclave as a normal citizen. Some “refugees”, who are, in fact, prisoners of Hamas’s strategy, have been in those camps for generations. Today, Gaza is an open sore, a concentration camp with 1.5 million captives. </p>
<p>Now, because in the Middle East nothing is ever simple, an Israeli intervention could end up helping Hamas’s unpopular and divided leaders. Israel, if it sends in troops, could end up crushing rival jihadist groups, ending their challenge to Hamas. </p>
<p>Both Iran and the Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states support factions outside Hamas, as well as in it. Iran supports Islamic Jihad, supplying it with Fajr missiles. With a range of 75km the Fajr has already been fired at Tel Aviv. Iran has an interest in a mini-war in Gaza to deflect attention from the uprising against its Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad. </p>
<p>The Arab monarchies support jihadist groups such as Liwa al-Islam (Banner of Islam) and Ansar al-Allah (Companions of God). Hamas has to compete for popular support against such extremist groupuscules, so conflict with Israel helps. </p>
<p>On a miniature scale, the power struggle in Gaza reflects the broader fight over the future of the Middle East, filling the vacuum created by what is perceived as a strategic retreat by the US. The Gaza episode could provide an opportunity for Muhammad Morsi, the Egyptian President, to cast himself as the region’s peacemaker-in-chief. The Muslim Brotherhood, now dominating governments from Morocco to Turkey, as well as Cairo, hopes to continue its advance by expanding into Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and, later, Lebanon. </p>
<p>The Arab monarchies regard alliance with the Brotherhood, especially in Egypt and Turkey, as essential for halting the emergence of an Iranian-dominated “Shia Crescent”. However, they also wish to contain the Brotherhood’s advance into Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait so they are funding Salafist groups as a counterbalance. </p>
<p>For its part, Iran, worried about the emergence of a “Sunni Crescent”, is playing the Shia card and fomenting sectarian trouble in Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. To divert attention from the Sunni-Shia feud, Iran also is attempting to refocus attention on Israel as “the enemy”. Tehran has tried to provoke Israel by sending a drone into its skies from Lebanon and, more recently, by ordering Islamic Jihad in Gaza to resume rocket attacks. </p>
<p>Ever since the the Arab Spring started in December 2010, the Palestine issue has been on the backburner. This is partly because the main regional players think that a far bigger prize is at stake. Mr Morsi has sugarcoated his agenda for re-Islamisation in order to reassure the Arab middle classes. His show of moderation has also helped his government to secure almost $10 billion in additional aid from the US and the EU. A similar recipe had already scored success in Turkey under its Islamist government. </p>
<p>Egypt does not want a conflict with Israel. Nor does it want jihadist groups to gain a foothold in the Sinai under the pretext of fighting Israel through Gaza. At the same time Egypt, like Turkey, must advertise solidarity with Hamas even if only by such stunts as the visit to Gaza by Hesham Kandil, the Egyptian Prime Minister. </p>
<p>Whichever side wins in Gaza and, more broadly speaking, in the Middle East, the chances of providing real stability or seeking peace with Israel remain slim. All participants in the new power game in the Middle East are travelling without maps. </p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood, with its anachronistic dream of reviving the Caliphate, has no answer to the region’s problems. Khomeinist Iran’s promise of a better world with the imminent return of the Hidden Imam is hardly better. As for the United States, it is deluding itself into believing that “moderate” Sunni allies will help to bring hostile Shia Iran to its knees. A decade ago the US, under President George W. Bush, allied itself with the Shia to fight the Sunni camp led by al-Qaeda. President Obama, always wanting to be the opposite of Bush, may be committing a similar mistake by helping the Brotherhood to win power in Arab states. </p>
<p>If it walks into Gaza, Israel will be entering a minefield in which victory may turn out to be no better than defeat. </p><p><i>Amir Taheri is author of The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution </i></p>
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