Dive into the archives.
- And If This Happened to Gilad Shalit?
Yousef Abu Zuhri, a Hamas member and brother of the movement’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, died in an Egyptian jail. Hamas is outraged, claiming he was tortured to death. (full article…)
- If the NYT Were Honest…
In Gaza, posters appeared on walls on Wednesday calling Mr. Abbas a traitor and saying he should be consigned to “the trash heap of history.” Gaza is controlled by Hamas, the militant Islamic group that is the Palestinian Authority’s main rival. (full article…) …then they would mention that resentment of the Mahmoud Abbas and the [...]
- Hamas Thugs
The Hamas government has banned motorcycle riders from carrying women on the back seat – the latest in the militants’ virtue campaign in Gaza. The ban was posted on Hamas Interior Ministry Web site on Tuesday. It says the ban seeks “to preserve citizen safety and the stability of Palestinian society’s customs and traditions.” (full [...]
- Israel’s Proxy Regime
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday dissolved the Hamas-controlled municipal council in Kalkliya, in a move that has drawn strong condemnation from the Islamist movement. (more…)
- Oh Really, Just Like the Election of Hamas Was Recognized?
And yet if [Salam Fayyad] is to retain his legitimacy for any length of time, he will eventually need some sort of mandate from ordinary Palestinians. “In the end,” Tony Blair told me, “it all has to be endorsed in an election. Ultimately, the only legitimacy can come from democracy.” (more…)
- Egyptian Hypocrisy
Egypt on Tuesday condemned the Hamas move to ban Fatah members from traveling to a key party convention in the West Bank, saying the decision was “unacceptable.” (more…)
- Neither Fatah Nor Hamas
“We don’t have a police state here in Palestine. We have two police states. One in Gaza and one in the West Bank,” says Rabie Latifah from the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq. “The abuse of Palestinian civilians by both Fatah and Hamas security forces has become systematic and is no longer the exception [...]
- Hamas is a Useless Organization
Chief Justice of the High Court of Justice, Head of the Higher Justice Council in Gaza gas issued a new decision concerning the clothing of lawyers. PCHR believes that this decision constitutes a violation of the law and an unjustified intervention into lawyers’ affairs. It also undermines personal freedoms and women’s rights through forcing female [...]
- Friedman Pulls Facts Out of Thin Air (Again)
Hamas is facing an energized Fatah in the West Bank and is increasingly unpopular in Gaza. (more…) I know it may come as a surprise to Thomas Friedman but unpopular as Hamas may be, Abu Mazen and Fatah are even more unpopular. Friedman’s use of the word “energized” simply means “U.S./Israeli-trained proxies”. But that doesn’t [...]
- Israel’s Palestinian Proxy, Hard At Work
A Hamas operative died in a Hebron prison overnight Monday after being interrogated by Palestinian Intelligence personnel. (more…)
- Israeli Threats
Lt.-Col. Avinoam Stolevitch, commander of the 13th Battalion, told Army Radio that future assaults of this sort would put Hamas at risk of a second Operation Cast Lead. (more…)
- I Rarely Agree With Hamas, But…
Senior Hamas member Sami Abu Zuhri rushed to respond to the Qalqilya incident, referring to it as “a gift from the Palestinian Authority to Israel and to (US President Barack) Obama in honor of his visit to the region.” (more…)
- Collaborators
The United States and European Union train and support Mr. Abbas’s troops in the hope of creating a strong enough force to prevent Hamas from challenging its West Bank rule and ultimately perhaps helping Mr. Abbas back into Gaza. (more…)
- Carrying Out Israel’s Work
The two, Muhammad Samman and Ahmed Yassin, were killed in a pre-dawn raid carried out by Abbas’s security forces on a building where they were hiding. Three policemen and the owner of the building, Abdel Nasser Basha, were also killed in the raid, which was described as one of the bloodiest intra-Palestinian incidents in the [...]
- Yet Sending Money To Israel is Tax-Deductible
Two founding members of what was once the largest U.S. Muslim charity were each sentenced to 65 years in prison Wednesday for funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (more…)
- Israel, Fatah & Hamas: Enemies of the Palestinian People
However, a power struggle between Fatah and Hamas over the issuance of exit permits for patients, and Israel’s reluctance to issue visas for Gazans on the basis of alleged security, means Mohammed has to now wait for a new permit to return to the Israeli hospital. (more…)
- The Market-Value of Civilian Life
The Palestine Liberation Organization and its governmental entity cannot overturn a court judgment forcing them to pay more than $116 million for a Hamas terror attack that killed a U.S. citizen and his wife, a federal judge has ruled. The case is among a handful in the country filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991, [...]
- American-Israeli Puppet Army
From the detailed description provided by Dayton, it’s clear that the Palestinian forces he’s enabling could certainly be accused of carrying out the self-policing of the West Bank for the Israelis. Because the West Bank is, after all, occupied by Israel and riddled with illegal settlements besides — plus beset by a surrounding wall, 600-plus [...]
- Mark Lynch on Obama’s Upcoming Speech
So what’s wrong with Cairo? Let me count the ways… The main problem, of course, is Mubarak’s repressive regime. It’s difficult to stomach rewarding a regime which has been systematically rolling back its limited democratic opening of a few years ago. The choice of Cairo is already being interpreted by many Arabs and Egyptians as [...]
- Joke of the Day
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of the Bush administration’s goal to promote freedom in the Middle East at the American University in Cairo in June 2005. “For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East — and we achieved neither,” Rice said. “Now, we are [...]
- This is Zionism
Three years ago in Jerusalem, I met a very bright couple in their late 40s, who had emigrated from Russia a decade earlier. When we began to speak of the Palestinians, the husband said: “In my Russian village in 1920, there was trouble with guerrillas. Budenny’s Cossacks came. They burnt the village from which the [...]
- The PA Has Zero Legitimacy
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to ask his prime minister within the coming week to form a new government without the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, signaling a breakdown in unity talks with the Islamic militant group. (more…)
- Palestine’s Willing Collaborators
The Palestinian Authority has established a special counter-intelligence squad in its West Bank-based security services to uncover agents working for Hamas and Hezbollah, the daily Haaretz reported yesterday. Haaretz said that the Palestinian Authority (PA) security services have so far arrested dozens of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the two groups. (more…)
- Double Standards
Hamas, which the State Department considers a terrorist group, won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, but the United States has refused to deal with the group until it meets conditions, including recognition of Israel. (more…) Israel however, is not obliged to renounce violence, recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination or to abide by former agreements. [...]
- The U.S. Stands For Democracy
Shortly after Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory, the U.S. cooperated with Israel to arm and train Fatah elements in preparation for a violent coup against the Hamas leadership in Gaza, which then ruled Gaza jointly with Fatah. The scheme, later known as the Dayton Plan, was reportedly managed by Dahlan in coordination with U.S. Lieutenant-General Keith [...]
- Environmental Hazards
Environmental hazards in the Gaza Strip, such as sewage contamination, have intensfied since Israel’s recent war on Hamas there because even basic infrastructure repairs are stalled by an ongoing border blockade of the territory, the UN’s environment chief said Tuesday. (more…)
- Hamas Thugs
Repressive actions are being carried out by de facto government forces in the Gaza Strip against Fatah Youth members preparing to mark Prisoners Day in Rafah, head of the youth council in the Gaza Strip Mahmoud Qanan said Thursday. (more…)
- Hamas… Shiites?
“Even the lure of billions of dollars in aid has not brought Fatah Sunnis in Judea and Samaria, i.e., the West Bank, any closer to Shiite supporters of Hamas in Gaza. These are two parallel lines that cannot meet, and this division will persist.” (more…) This statement just reveals the deep knowledge possessed by so [...]
- Punishing the Victims
It is hard to think of another place in the world where life is ruled by such cruel absurdities. Hamas, Israel and Fatah are all playing with the lives and well-being of these patients, including 57 children from Gaza who need to complete complex, expensive treatments at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Their health is now [...]
- Bit By Bit, Zionism Is Backfiring
Contrary to the views of the likely incoming right-wing government of Israel, most U.S. Jews favour peace negotiations with a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas, according to a new poll released here Tuesday by the year-old, pro-peace Jewish lobby group, J Street. (more…)
- The Most Moral Army in the World
“800 terrorists and 300 civilians, who we did not want to harm, were killed in the last operation,” Galant said. “This ratio of almost a quarter [of the individuals] uninvolved [in the fighting] is an achievement unmatched in the history of this kind of combat,” he added. (more…) Israel includes police officers in this tally [...]
- The Music of War Crimes
It’s quixotic, being a peace activist in Sderot, an Israeli town that has borne the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. When Israeli air strikes on Gaza began last month, hundreds of people from Sderot swarmed to a vantage point known as Horseman’s Hill to watch the fiery spectacle and cheer. Nomika Zion was not [...]
- Israeli Newspeak
Over the last four weeks the powerful Israeli propaganda machine has been churning out lie after lie about Hamas in order to excuse its own inexcusable onslaught. Israel stopped journalists going into Gaza, preventing any independent reporting on the war crimes its forces were committing. Truth is usually the first casualty in war. Gaza was [...]
- Gaza Faces Failed Harvests After the Bombardment
Another aid worker put it more bluntly: “Gaza needs to be fed through its mouth, not to be fed anally.” (more…)
- Attacking Gaza’s Economy
Israeli forces used aerial bombing, tank shelling and armoured bulldozers to eliminate the productive capacity of some of Gaza’s most important manufacturing plants during their 22 days of military action in the Gaza Strip. The attacks – like those which destroyed at least 4,000 homes, left some residential areas resembling an earthquake zone and more [...]
- Anything To Prove That Chavez is the Anti-Christ
A new book published in the United States alleges that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an active and open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Lebanese Shi’ite militia with training for its fighters. (more…)
- Israel’s Lies
Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. [...]
- Worse Than Killing People
I went to the burns department in Shifa hospital. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. These phosphorus burns. Their bodies were black. One person has stitches everywhere. It’s worse than killing people. They look like the living dead. I also went to the north, to Beit Lahiya. This was one of the [...]
- Scenes From Gaza
Palestinian boy Mohammed Kutkut, 14, right, covers his face as he sits next to the name sign of his killed friend Ahed Qaddas in the Fakhoura boys school in Jebaliya, northern Gaza strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. Three friends of his class where killed when the Israeli army shelled Jebaliya in the past weeks. Tens [...]
- Long Live the Tunnels
Despite constant bombardment, particularly during the early stages of the conflict, some of the smugglers’ tunnels remained open, Rafah residents and tunnel operators said. Many others have reopened since Israel and Hamas separately announced cease-fires a week ago. (more…)
- The Puppet Government
“It is unbelievable that, all over the world, people were supporting Gaza,” Yazid Khader, a spokesman for the movement, said last week. “Yet here on the West Bank people were unable to do so. We ask: will the blood spilled in Gaza be enough for the Palestinian Authority to move towards reconciliation with us?” (more…)
- Long Live the Tunnels
“Everybody’s busy rebuilding now,” said a manager of one digging team. “In a month, it will be back to normal.” (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
Amira Qirm lay on a hospital bed today with her right leg in plaster, and held together by a line of steel pins dug deep into her skin. For several days after her operation Amira, 15, was unable to speak, and even now talks only in a low whisper. In her past are bitter memories: [...]
- Back to School in Gaza
Schools in the Gaza Strip operated by the United Nations have reopened for the first time since the Israeli offensive against Hamas militants. (more…)
- Gaza in Ruins
Through the hole in the wall of his house, Sadala sees a landscape in gray and brown. This is where a neighbourhood had stood, his neighbourhood. Now there is a snake of sand around the bomb crater. It is impossible to tell where the streets once stood. Family houses have turned into piles of debris. [...]
- Victims of Zionism
But the devastation of war is everywhere, the terrifying memory of it still raw. Sitting in the ruins of Zeitun, a district almost completely destroyed, Arafat Samouni painfully recounts the events that ended in the death of 30 members of his extended family in one of the war’s most publicised tragedies. Still in shock, he [...]
- Civilian Slaughter
Whatever the damage done to Hamas, what happened in Gaza was, simply put, a civilian slaughter. (more…)
- Angry Arab on Obama
Well, it took two longs days before Obama dispelled any notions of a change in US Middle East policy. For some reasons, many Arabs and many American leftists I know (you know yourselves) have wanted to believe so bad that Obama will deviate from the Zionist path of US foreign policy. I knew that it [...]
- Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
“Hamas must end its rocket fire, Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza. The United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime so that Hamas cannot rearm,” the new president said in his first major speech on the region as president. (more…)
- Gaza’s Aftermath
The three week long shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise killed, on the Palestinian side, 280 children and minors, 111 women, and 503 male noncombatants. Gaza police accounted for 167 of the dead; can you just read off Gaza police as “Hamas militants”? Or were they traffic cops & etc.? The Palestinian Center for Human rights estimated that the [...]
- Bill Fletcher on the Massacre in Gaza
The media continued to make excuses around the Israeli operations in Gaza. What was striking was the attacks on the United Nations facilities, which under other circumstances would have brought outrage in the major media in the United States; certainly if Hamas had accidentally hit a United Nations facility, there would have been charges of [...]
- Full Withdrawal Means an End to the Siege
The [Israeli] drones still fly overhead, promising the possibility of further attack. If Hamas is accused of breaking the cease fire, the people will pay. (more…)
- Victims of Zionism
“Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids,” Mr Abed Rabbo, who receives a salary as a policeman from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah said. (more…)
- Translation
Although he backed the war with reluctance and pressed for its swift conclusion, Mr Barak, 66, is Israel’s most decorated soldier and widely credited with the success of a military operation that laid the ghost of Israel’s failed attempt to crush Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. (more…) “Most decorated” translates: killed countless Palestinian civilians…
- Israel’s Leaders Are Not Simply War Criminals; They Are Fools
The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews. [...]
- Mark LeVine on the Massacre in Gaza
Who Will Save the Palestinians?
- One of the Lucky Ones
The Israeli bombing of Louay’s father’s car killed one of his brothers and injured others. The shocking fact is that Louay still doesn’t know is that he lost his eyesight completely. He will never be able to see the light again! His grandmother was beside him trying to make him feel better. He still doesn’t [...]
- Chomsky on the Puppet Government
Fatah by now is more or less functioning as Israel’s police force in the West Bank. (more…)
- So What Was the Point Again?
A total of eight hundred and forty nine rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza during Operation Cast Lead (December 27-January 18), according to police figures. (more…)
- Thwarting the Peace Offensive
Even before Hamas came to power, the Israelis intended to create an open-air prison for the Palestinians in Gaza and inflict great pain on them until they complied with Israel’s wishes. Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon’s closest adviser at the time, candidly stated that the disengagement from Gaza was aimed at halting the peace process, not [...]
- Just as Planned
“People are extremely angry and the level of hate against Israel is very high. I have lived and worked in Gaza for many years and I have never seen such hatred from the population,” said Qleibo. Gazans are not blaming Hamas, contrary to Israel’s wishes. “People laugh at Israel’s claims that this was a war [...]
- This is Zionism
‘ At least 55 Palestinians were killed on Friday, including at least 10 people who died when a tank shell slammed into their house in Gaza City during a funeral wake, according to Palestinian medics . . . In the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory, three daughters and a niece of [...]
- Angry Arab on Steven Erlanger
I am not sure whether the top Israeli propaganda award should go to Steven Elranger or Ethan Bronner or Isabel Kershner of the Times. I mean all three did their best to explain and justifiy Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians. Look at this article by Erlanger: “Whatever the military and political results of Israel’s 21-day [...]
- (Un?)Intended Consequences
Down the street I see that someone has rehung a Hamas flag. Most still support them; the feeling is that Hamas is holding its own and has not folded, and they admire it for that. (more…)
- Israeli Propaganda (Courtesy of the New York Times)
Steven Erlanger, in a particularly appalling article, excuses Israel’s grotesque behavior in Gaza. He no longer even attempts to justify his reporting of Israeli allegations as fact; he simply accepts it all verbatim: “Hamas fighters are also putting civilians at undue risk by storing weapons among them, including in mosques, schools and allegedly hospitals, too, [...]
- Angry Arab on Isabel Kershner of the NYT
There is something called “war propaganda” and the New York Times has proven that it is more than ever an arm of the Israeli terrorist propaganda. Isabel Kershner is one of many propagandists for Israeli terrorism in the New York Times. Just look at this passage: “But Israel tightened the military pressure on Hamas on [...]
- Israel Must Lose
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and [...]
- In the Occupied West Bank
A Palestinian has been shot dead and several others wounded after Israeli security forces opened fire during a protest in the West Bank against Israel’s war in Gaza. (more…)
- The Massacre Continues
“Last night was awful. So many explosions from the air, from tanks, from everywhere…”; “I swear, tonight I prayed for the Israelis that someone will save them from their leadership… After this, Hamas will have 50,000 suicide bombers”. (more…)
- Child’s Play in Gaza
One can say Hamas hides among the civilian population, as if the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv is not located in the heart of a civilian population, as if there are places in Gaza that are not in the heart of a civilian population. One can also claim that Hamas uses children as human shields, [...]
- The Puppets in Ramallah
Fatah is keeping a lid on protests, not letting West Bankers draw it into Israel’s war on Hamas. Senior voices in the secular party that runs the Palestinian Authority (PA) see restraint as key to its quest for statehood. Getting entangled in Gaza, they say, would only embolden Hamas. (more…)
- Blight Unto the Nations
And, unlike Hamas, it is not deliberately targeting civilians (as evidenced by their dropping of leaflets telling civilians to evacuate certain buildings). (more…) Is it not deliberate if I warn you that I intend to kill you before actually pulling the trigger? I’m sorry, but these leaflets are a ridiculous argument Israel is using to [...]
- Thomas Friedman Justifies Israeli War Crimes
Israel’s counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, [...]
- Israel Shuts Out World Press
Then Seaman lets everyone know what he expects from them: “You’re here, and you are covering our side.” This means that — even two weeks into Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against the Palestinian organization Hamas — no independent reporters are being allowed into Gaza. Seaman has no qualms about making it clear that Israel wants [...]
- No Alternative to Negotiation
And Hamas is not alone on the battlefront. Dozens of Fatah gunmen belonging to the faction’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, are reportedly participating in the fighting alongside Hamas gunmen. … Hamas is also being aided by other groups such as Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front [...]
- It’s Not Our Fault
Operation Cast Lead is not a reprisal raid but a defensive war meant to clip Hamas’ wings before it surprises us with a Palestinian version of the Yom Kippur War. It’s not our fault we have a strong, well-run army and state-of-the-art weaponry. (more…) Of course, I hadn’t considered this before… The slaughter (one cannot [...]
- Shoot First
At the first sign of movement in the dark Gaza alleyway, Alon opened fire without hesitation. Snipers liked to operate at night, he said, and the area had been cleared of Israeli troops. “He could have been advancing to attack,” the Israeli lieutenant explained. “We are treating everything as hostile right now. We were told [...]
- This is Zionism
A Palestinian besieged in the Khuza’a area, in south-eastern Gaza, reported today that Israeli soldiers shot a woman waving a white flag and civilians who were fleeing a bombed house on army orders, killing at least three and wounding others. (more…)
- The Gates of Hell, the Window to Heaven
I see a picture on my computer of a jovial Israeli soldier posing with two of his weapons with a toothy smile. I then read an article by a Haaretz journalist in the former Netzarim settlement quoting an Israeli tank commander saying he rather likes it in Gaza, because “it’s interesting” there, and other young [...]
