First you have to block peace.
"Israel OK’s plan to build 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem" August 12, 2011|By Joel Greenberg, Washington Post
JERUSALEM - Israel’s interior minister has given final approval for a plan to build 1,600 homes in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, his spokesman said yesterday, a project whose announcement last year during a visit by Vice President Biden caused a diplomatic rift with Washington.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party also intends to approve the construction of 2,700 homes in two other Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem in the coming days, said the spokesman, Roei Lachmanovich. He said the moves were part of a broader response by Yishai to recent protests in Israel against rising rents and housing prices, and had been coordinated with the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
See: I Was Wrong About Israel Protest Coverage
“There is a need to build in Jerusalem, and this is almost the only option available,’’ Lachmanovich said of the areas where construction is planned.
The 1,600 homes are to be built in Ramat Shlomo, a development for ultra-Orthodox Jews. An additional 2,000 are planned for an area known as Givat Hamatos, and 700 more for Pisgat Zeev.
That's AmeriKan media code for Zionist miltants.
All three neighborhoods are on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem by Israel after it captured the territory in 1967.
Yeah, STEALING MORE PALESTINIAN LAND is the ANSWER to Israel's housing crisis.
The initial approval of plans to build in Ramat Shlomo was announced in March 2010, as Biden was visiting Jerusalem.
See: Israel Biden Their Time on Iran
He condemned the plan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the announcement during the vice presidential visit “an insult to the United States.’’
I'm insulted by the statement.
Also see: Usraeli Food Fight
Yup, everyone gets messy but no one gets harmed -- and others starve.
Yesterday’s confirmation that building would proceed, on land Palestinians seek for a future state, was criticized by the State Department and denounced by the Palestinian Authority.
“Unilateral action of this kind works against our efforts to get folks back to the table, makes it all more difficult,’’ State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington. “We think the best path forward is direct negotiations, so that the parties can agree together on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem.’’
On Tuesday, the State Department also rebuked Israel for promoting separate plans to build 930 apartments in Har Homa, another Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Rather than a rebuke how about a cutoff of aid checks?
Hagit Ofran, a leader of Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes the settlements and monitors their expansion, accused the government of “exploiting the housing crisis in Israel to promote its settlement policy.’’
Yeah, that's what it seemed like to me.
--more--"
And WHO gets THREATENED with an AID CUT?
"US threatens to end Gaza aid amid Hamas audits" August 13, 2011|By Matti Friedman, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - The US will cut $100 million in American aid money to Palestinians in Gaza if the territory’s Hamas rulers continue with “unwarranted audits’’ of local American nonprofit organizations, a state department official said yesterday.
Given the corruption at all levels of AmeriKan government I find the audit warranted, don't you?
The American threat came in response to a growing attempt by Hamas to exert control over the international organizations that support impoverished Palestinians among Gaza’s population of 1.5 million people.
This week, Hamas shut down the US-financed International Medical Corps after it refused to submit to a Hamas audit.
The State Department informed Hamas on Thursday that aid worth $100 million would be halted if International Medical Corps was not allowed to operate freely.
“If they are not allowed to reopen and operate then obviously we are looking at USAID to suspend all operations until the IMC is allowed to reopen,’’ said a state department official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “These are unwarranted audits and amount to an increase in harassment of humanitarian relief staff.’’
The US, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, does not have direct contact with the group.
Hamas has told nonprofit groups that they must be registered with the Gaza government and provide financial records.
Mohammed Awad, the Hamas minister of planning in Gaza, said the organizations had agreed to have their accounts vetted through a Hamas-appointed accountant.
“We are not saying there is corruption in these organizations, but we are trying to put things in order and to ensure that these organizations are providing services to citizens,’’ he said. “These organizations entered this land on this basis.’’
Hamas - an Islamic group backed by Iran - has been slowly spreading its influence to local groups that had remained outside its control, possibly viewing them as a political threat.
Ready for a war with Iran?
--more--"
Oh, yeah, the protests:
"Israelis take to streets for 4th week of protests" by Aron Heller August 13, 2011
JERUSALEM—Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into streets across the country Saturday for a fourth consecutive week, exanding their protest movement against the nation's high cost of living from major central cities to smaller ones in outlying areas.
The mass demonstrations have become a weekly ritual this summer, delivering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government its most serious domestic crisis.
That was the sum of my Boston Sunday Globe buried brief.
Last week, more that a quarter of a million people turned out -- primarily in Tel Aviv -- for one of the largest demonstrations in Israeli history.
In contrast, this week's gatherings were more modest and aimed at focusing attention on the country's poorer areas. Whereas last week's massive turnout was mainly in Tel Aviv, this week saw the protests spread from Nahariya in the north, on the Lebanon border, to the port city of Eilat at Israel's southernmost tip....
Please KEEP THAT AREA in MIND!
A major demonstration took place in Beersheba in southern Israel, where musicians performed and demonstrators beat drums, waved flags and held banners such as "the people demand social justice."
Another area to keep in mind.
For the first time, there were also protests in a number of Arab towns.
In less than a month, the movement has ballooned from a few tents in Tel Aviv to a nationwide phenomenon.
And HOW in the WORLD could the ISRAELI GOVERNMENT DIVERT ATTENTION?!?!
The protests initially targeted soaring housing prices, but quickly evolved into a sweeping expression of rage against a wide array of economic issues, including the cost of food, gasoline and education.
The grass roots movement has tapped into a wider sense of frustration over an eroding middle class and growing gaps between rich and poor.
Sound familiar, American?
In response, Netanyahu has appointed a special committee to address the protesters' demands.
The demonstrators have rejected all the reforms offered thus far by the government and have called for a million-person march in 50 cities across the country on Sept. 3.
Keep that event in mind as you continue down this post, readers.
Israel emerged from the global financial crisis relatively unscathed. The economy is enjoying rapid growth, and unemployment is at its lowest in decades.
Then WHY are US TAXPAYERS SENDING THEM MONEY?
Or IS THAT WHY Israel's economy was the only one that grew through the thing?
But the country's economic strength has come at a cost. The ranks of the working poor have grown dramatically as wealth has increasingly become concentrated among a small group of tycoons.
SOUND FAMILIAR, Americans?
So the LOVELY LAND of ISRAEL has the SAME PROBLEM with MONEY JUNKIE ASSHOLES, huh?
The middle class has specifically been hit hard, with high taxes and salaries not having kept pace with the price rises.
--more--"
Back to the Palestinians:
"Palestinian state to go to security council" August 15, 2011|Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinians will ask the United Nations Security Council to support their bid for statehood, a senior official said yesterday - a move that would set the stage for a showdown with the United States....
And expose us as Israel's bitch.
The Palestinian quest for a UN statehood endorsement has put Washington in the awkward position of potentially vetoing Palestinian statehood at a time when Arab countries are rising up against authoritarian rulers.
So how can USrael avoid that, huh?
But the US is Israel’s closest ally, has much invested in a peace process it has sponsored for decades, and wants the Palestinian state to emerge from negotiations, not unilateral action.
Wasn't Israel on a unilateral action?
In a separate development, the United States restored funding to international aid groups in the Gaza Strip yesterday after the territory’s Hamas rulers backed away from a demand that could have stripped the poverty-stricken area of $100 million in aid.
A US official said the United States “paused’’ its funding on Friday after Hamas ignored a 48-hour deadline for withdrawing its demand to one of the groups to turn over its books for auditing. The audit would have violated US regulations banning contact with the group, which is designated as a terrorist organization.
--more--"
"Hamas bars Gaza students from study in US" August 18, 2011|Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have banned eight teenage students with scholarships to study in the United States from leaving the territory, a Palestinian rights group said yesterday.
The move appeared to be part of an intensified Hamas campaign against independent groups that they view as a challenge to their rule and against activities that they believe promote a Western lifestyle....
Uh-huh.
Related:
Six Jewish Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
That does explain the "journalistic style" of AmeriKa's jewspapers.
The ban came a day after a network of aid groups in Gaza criticized Hamas for forcing aid workers and employees of civil society groups to register with the militant rulers before traveling for work outside the Gaza Strip. The Iranian-backed Hamas overran Gaza from the secular Palestinian Fatah party in bloody street battles in 2007.
Okay, that is where I start to really get down on the AmeriKan media.
"Hamas overwhelmingly won Palestinian Parliament elections in 2006.... Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006.... In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections.... Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in 2006.... Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006.... Hamas won a majority in 2006 elections"
So the AmeriKan media KNOWS the TRUTH but CONTINUES to DISTORT and OBFUSCATE in favor of ISRAEL, 'eh?
Btw, Hamas foiled a COUP ATTEMPT!!!! I noticed they left that out, too.
Since then, Hamas has slowly imposed its radical interpretation of Islam on residents of the Gaza Strip - a world view that is even more stern than what traditionally religious conservative Gazan’s follow.
But at least they are not CIA-Duh.
--more--"
Meet the Mossad wing of Al-CIA-Duh.
Look, Hamas may not be angels, but neither are they what my Zionist prism portrays.
Armed men cross Egyptian border, kill 8 Israelis
And when I click on it I get this?
Egypt decides to withdraw ambassador from Israel" August 19, 2011|Maggie Michael and Ian Deitch, Associated Press
My printed paper piece is by Daniella Cheslow. WTF?
"Military: 5 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel" by Daniella Cheslow Associated Press / August 18, 2011
EILAT, Israel (AP) -- Gunmen who crossed from the Egyptian desert launched a series of attacks Thursday in southern Israel, killing eight people and threatening to destabilize a volatile border region that includes the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.
Related: Another Israeli False Flag
Israel blamed an armed Palestinian group from neighboring Gaza.
Related: Israeli training camp photos, IDF dressed as arabs
Israeli forces killed five of the gunmen along the border with Egypt, the military said, and later launched an airstrike inside Gaza that killed five other militants from the same group as well as a child.
The Israeli military said three of the men killed in Gaza had been involved in planning the attack.
How could they even know that?
Gunfire continued on both sides of the border late into the evening. After nightfall, Israel's "Iron Dome" anti-missile system intercepted a rocket fired by Gaza militants at the city of Ashkelon, the military said.
Related: Israel's Iron Dome
The attacks suggested that Egypt's recent political upheaval and a resulting power vacuum in Sinai had allowed militants to open a new front against Israel on the long-quiet frontier....
The SELF-JUSTIFYING AGENDA-PUSHING all in a paragraph!
So ISRAEL wants WAR with EGYPT, 'eh?
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned what she called "premeditated acts of terrorism against innocent civilians," and said the U.S. and Israel were "united in the fight against terror."
She then dropped to her knees and undid Netanyahu's fly.
**********************
Taher Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government, denied the militants' complicity, saying Gaza "has nothing to do with these attacks."
Oh, I BELIEVE THAT!
CUI BONO?
The Israeli military said the attacks had been executed by a Hamas-linked group known as the Popular Resistance Committees....
Whatever, liars.
What the web added that the paper cut:
Three blasts shook Gaza early Friday, including one that killed a 13-year-old boy, according to a Gaza hospital official. But the Israeli military did not immediately confirm reports of three more airstrikes targeting a security compound, a home and the area of the smuggling tunnels crisscrossing the Gaza-Egypt border....
"The incident underscores the weak Egyptian hold on Sinai and the broadening of the activities of terrorists," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "The real source of the terror is in Gaza, and we will act against them with full force and determination."
Yup, Israel is going to exterminate the Palestinians before September and is then going to retake the Sinai.
The Sinai desert, dominated by Bedouin tribes and never entirely under the control of the central government, have grown more violent since a popular uprising toppled longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak in February. Since then, assailants have repeatedly blown up a crucial pipeline carrying natural gas to Israel and Jordan.
Egypt moved thousands of troops into the area last week as part of a major operation against al-Qaida-inspired militants who have been increasingly active there since Mubarak's ouster.
Yeah, right, the Egyptian Revolution brought the terrorists to power.
Most of the routine traffic across the remote, mountainous border involves Bedouin smugglers ferrying drugs and African asylum seekers into Israel.
There is a thriving smuggling trade between Sinai and Gaza through tunnels under the border, and goods and people can move in both directions. If the attackers were from Gaza, they could have reached Sinai through the tunnels and then crossed the Israel-Egypt border, which is largely unfenced, making their way toward Eilat, which is 130 miles from Gaza.
How did they get there and why were they not seen? Is this all crap or what?
--more--"
Related:
Armed men cross Egyptian border, kill 8 Israelis (By Isabel Kershner and David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times)
That's what was on the web.
"Attacks between Gaza, Israel intensify after raid from Egypt; Jewish state’s treaty with Cairo put under strain" August 20, 2011|By Joel Greenberg and Leila Fadel, Washington Post
JERUSALEM - Militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into Israel, and Israeli aircraft carried out deadly strikes across the coastal territory yesterday in a surge of cross-border violence a day after attackers killed eight people near Israel’s frontier with Egypt.
Yeah, if Israel can't start a war with anyone they can always beat on Palestinians.
The multiple attacks Thursday north of the Red Sea resort of Eilat were the deadliest such incident in Israel in three years and threatened to ignite a new round of hostilities across the Israel-Gaza border after months of relative calm.
Isn't Eilat where the PROTESTS WERE?
All NOW after MONTHS of CALM, cui bono!
The killings of an Egyptian military officer and two policemen in border skirmishes after the attacks have also enraged Egyptians, putting a strain on the decades-long relationship between Egypt and Israel. Egypt said early today that it will withdraw its ambassador from Israel to protest the deaths, the Associated Press reported.
Responsibility for the rocket firings yesterday was asserted by the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group in Gaza whose leaders were killed Thursday evening in a retaliatory airstrike by Israel.
How convenient that the cut-outs are now dead, huh?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the group of planning the attacks near Eilat, which Israeli officials said were carried out by gunmen from Gaza who had infiltrated Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Then we KNOW it is BULLSHIT!
The killings of the militant leaders were “just the first response,’’ Netanyahu said yesterday while visiting soldiers wounded in Thursday’s attacks. “We have a policy of exacting a very high price from those who harm us, and this policy is being applied in practice on the ground.’’
Egyptian officials reiterated their earlier denials that the attackers came from Sinai.
The Israeli airstrikes yesterday killed eight Palestinians and wounded 40, according to Gaza’s emergency services. Medical officials said the dead included two boys, ages 5 and 13, and two who were identified as militants. The Israeli Army said it had struck rocket-launching squads.
The attacks also targeted security posts of Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, as well as smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt and what the army said were weapons manufacturing sites.
An army statement said that the military held Hamas “responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.’’
Even if it wasn't them.
The office of the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said he had contacted Egyptian and UN officials, as well as the secretary general of the Arab League, in an effort to halt the Israeli strikes.
In the southern Israeli city of Ashdod yesterday, a rocket hit a religious seminary, seriously wounding two people, medical officials said, and another struck a synagogue. The army said that three rockets fired at the coastal city of Ashkelon were intercepted by the military’s Iron Dome antimissile system.
In Cairo, meanwhile, authorities called on Israel to investigate the deaths of the Egyptian security forces along the Israel-Sinai border. It remained unclear yesterday whether the three men were killed by militants crossing back into Egypt or by fire from an Israeli helicopter that was tracking the militants.
Related: UN peacekeeping force: Israeli forces crossed Egyptian border by land
How many lie$ in the $ervice of Israel is the AmeriKan media going to $peak?
However, the killings were widely seen in Egypt as the result of a cross-border raid by Israel, and hundreds of people gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo to demand the ambassador’s removal.
Just Israel trying to get a war going.
So where is the next false flag? Lebanon? Syria?
Since the 18-day Egyptian uprising that forced the ouster of Israel’s staunchest Arab ally, Hosni Mubarak, Israelis have worried about hostility from the new Egyptian government.
Meaning Israel and AmeriKa were not behind that revolt.
Analysts said the border incident would make it harder for the interim military leadership to maintain Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
“Egypt is ruled by military people whose basic function is to protect the country. So when three soldiers are killed, including an officer, this is extremely embarrassing,’’ said Mustafa Kamel el-Sayed, a Cairo University political scientist. Egypt’s leaders, he added, “should ask for an official apology.’’
Egypt’s prime minister, Essam Sharaf, met with security ministers, the foreign affairs minister, and others last night to discuss the security situation. Egypt also filed an official protest with Israel and asked it to initiate an urgent investigation into how Egyptians were killed on Egypt’s territory, the Egyptian Cabinet’s Facebook page said.
Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fatouh, a moderate Islamist who broke with the Muslim Brotherhood after announcing a plan to run for president, posted a statement on his website yesterday implying that Israel had perpetrated an act of war.
“The Israeli enemy must realize that Egyptian blood is the most valuable thing we have, and all agreements and accords are not worth the ink that they were signed with if the blood of our citizens was shed or our borders were violated,’’ the statement said.
Amr Moussa, a presidential hopeful and former head of the Arab League, demanded that the Israeli ambassador be summoned over the border incident.
--more--"
Related:
"Suppressing Information about Israel's Crimes
On August 20, Times writers Isabel Kershner and Fares Akram headlined, "Casualties on Both Sides as Israel and Gaza Trade Fire," saying:
"Palestinian militants from Gaza fired rockets at cities deep inside Israeli territory on Saturday, killing one person. And Israel struck a squad that was firing mortars from northern Gaza as violence continued in the wake of an attack on Thursday that killed eight Israelis, Israeli officials said."
Instead of explaining what's really ongoing, both writers suggested Palestinians are at fault, responsible for killing Israelis, when, in fact, they had nothing to do with it.
As a result, they implied support for Israel's right to respond violently, saying nothing about its plan to assassinate Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) leaders, willfully target civilians and nonmilitary infrastructure, and perhaps continue relentless attacks.
Why?
To derail Palestinian UN General Assembly efforts for self-determination and de jure member status.
End weeks of nationwide protests for social justice issues Netanyahu won't address.
Perhaps also prevent a possible Palestinian spring and provide pretext for Cast Lead II.
Both writers, in fact, steered clear of Israeli motives, said little about Palestinian casualties, nothing about years of Gaza under siege, Israel's planned slow-motion genocide, nor explain extreme human suffering too severe to ignore.
Instead, they changed the subject, covering IDF attacks against "Hamas training facilities, weapons manufacturing sites, smugglers' tunnels, and rocket and mortar teams preparing to attack," ending their brief report, saying:
"Some 50 rockets have been fired at Israel since Thursday. (Saturday) evening, a rocket that hit a house in Ofakim wounded three, including an infant and a child."
Implied was that only Israeli casualties matter, not horrific ones inflicted regularly on Palestinians.
Not only do Times writers lie, they airbrush uncomfortable truths about Washington and Israeli crimes, betraying their readers and profession in the process.
--MORE--"
"Israel offers apology over Egyptians’ deaths" August 21, 2011|By Ian Deitch and Maggie Michael, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Israel apologized to Egypt yesterday for the deaths of three Egyptian soldiers during a cross-border clash with Palestinian militants, hours after Cairo threatened to withdraw its ambassador to protest.
Israel said the militants, who attacked on Thursday, came from the Gaza Strip and went through Egypt’s Sinai desert, which borders both Israel and Gaza. They then crossed into southern Israel, where they killed eight Israelis. There are conflicting reports of how the Egyptian soldiers were killed later that day, as Israel was pursuing militants along the border with Sinai....
And my AmeriKan paper isn't clearing things up.
Late yesterday, Palestinians in Gaza unleashed a barrage of about 70 rockets at southern Israel, the military said, killing one Israeli and wounding dozens. The huge salvo threatened to escalate the already tense situation between Israel and Gaza militants into a full-blown conflict.
WHO fired those ROCKETS again?
CUI BONO?
The violence is testing Israel’s landmark 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, already strained by the fall of longtime autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.
The attacks have also raised concerns about the increasingly lawless northern Sinai, whose porous borders with both Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip make it an attractive staging ground for Palestinian militant attacks on Israel.
Or for someone.
The fall of Mubarak in a popular uprising in February has given way to a chaotic transition with many in the discredited police force disappearing from the streets and leaving a tremendous security vacuum.
Yes, so sad that he is gone.
Egypt last week moved thousands of troops into the Sinai Peninsula as part of a major operation against Al Qaeda inspired militants who have been more active since Mubarak’s ouster.
At the same time, anti-Israel sentiment is up in Egypt and Israel is watching closely for signs that the military rulers who took power might be responding to that sentiment.
The ambush has also threatened to stoke the Mideast conflict as retaliatory violence between Israel and Gaza militants spiked. Israeli airstrikes killed at least 12 Palestinians Friday in Gaza. Armed Palestinians have fired about 50 rockets into southern Israel since Thursday, wounding more than a dozen.
Israel said the clashes on Thursday began when armed militants who crossed from Sinai launched a series of attacks on cars and buses.
Israel accused a Hamas-allied group, the Popular Resistance Committees, of carrying out the ambush. Hamas praised the attack but denied involvement.
There have been differing accounts of how the Egyptian soldiers were killed. Egypt says it was an Israeli airstrike along the Sinai border after the attacks.
Israel has offered conflicting accounts. One said there was an exchange of fire between its soldiers as they pursued the militants along the border. A senior Israeli military officer said it was possible that Egyptian soldiers had been killed accidentally.
An Israeli military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said Friday that a suicide bomber, not Israeli soldiers, killed the Egyptians. He said the attacker had fled back across the border into Egypt and detonated his explosives among the Egyptian troops....
And you WONDER WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE a WORD THEY SAY?
--more--"
Related:
"Another Israeli False Flag? - by Stephen Lendman
Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel's Security Agency) have long, odious histories of committing them. More on that below.
At issue now is whether the August 18 bus and other attacks inside Israel were committed by external elements or Israel, and if so, why?
Also at issue always is cui bono? In fact, Hamas and various Palestinian resistance groups have nothing to gain. Clearly Israel benefits greatly at least two ways:
(1) The upcoming September UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian self-determination Israel very much wants to derail.
(2) Weeks of nationwide internal social justice protests Netanyahu also wants to diffuse and end.
Both are compelling reasons for employing tried and true tactics - change the subject by diverting public attention.
In this case, scaring people enough to put safety above pocket book issues, as well as getting UN member states perhaps to rethink the wisdom of supporting Palestinian sovereignty at this time, with Israel allegedly under attack.
Whether it works will be known when the UN General Assembly meets in September. What's clear is that last March, Israel informed all Security Council members and prominent EU countries that if Palestinian self-determination efforts within 1967 borders persisted, unilateral Israeli steps would follow, implying harsh ones.
In addition, diffusing social justice protests temporarily worked based on an August 18 Reuters report, saying:
Campaigners "called off planned weekend demonstrations against the high cost of living after a series of terror attacks in the south left seven people dead."
Of concern is how to reignite protest energy after it wanes, even for a short time. Resumption often lacks initial levels of passion, mass support, and commitment to stay the course, especially when people have other daily priorities, besides worrying whether their country is under attack.
Add it up and it suggests classic false flag reasons, perhaps with planned follow-up attacks for reinforcement. They're likely if Israel also has another objective in mind - using the attacks as pretext for Cast Lead II.
Israel blamed the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees (PRC - a coalition of resistance factions) for launching internal attacks.
PRC spokesman Abu Mujahid told AFP:
"We salute (the operation) and we are proud of it, but we do not claim it. The occupation wants to pin (it) on us in order to escape its own internal problems."
Hamas also denied responsibility, spokesman Taher al-Nunu telling AFP:
"These (unfounded) accusations are an attempt to distract from the Israeli domestic crisis."
As expected, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak pointed fingers, despite no corroborating evidence, saying:
"The source of the terror incidents is Gaza and we will act against them with all our strength and determination."
Also as expected, New York Times coverage was pro-Israeli. On August 19, Heba Afify and Isabel Kershner headlined, "A Long Peace Is Threatened in Israel Attack," saying:
"A cross-border terrorist attack and an Israeli retaliation (threatened) to undermine" peace with Egypt, with no evidence, except rhetoric, to suggest either.
Afify and Kershner implied Israel was right, saying "attackers were Palestinians from Gaza who had crossed into Israel from the Egyptian Sinai, an assertion Egypt rejected."
Based on no evidence whatever, Israel's scripted story is that Gaza-based "terror" operations "began weeks" earlier, likely "involv(ing) 10 to 15 terrorists," entering Israel "with rifles, explosive belts, grenades, (and) heavier weapons."
Yet Times writers didn't question how they managed unspotted, given tight Israeli security and high-tech surveillance, assassinating children and farmers on the slightest pretext.
As for a "long peace," there's been none for decades. Daily, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and other human rights organizations document regular Israeli bombings, shellings, Cast Lead, Mavi Marmara and other massacres, shootings, targeted assassinations, other attacks, casualties, incursions, Gaza under siege, mass arrests, illegal settlement expansions, bulldozed homes, theft of Palestinian land, dispossessions, and overall Israeli lawlessness - enforcing militarized hell on Palestinians, not peace.
On August 19, PCHR discussed Israel's response to internal August 18 attacks, saying:
Israeli forces "launched a series of air attacks against civilian-populated areas in the Gaza Strip," including "extra-judicially executing Kamal al-Nairab, Secretary General of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), 4 PRC leaders and a two-year old child...."
Other strikes injured 23 Palestinians, including seven children, six women and three police officers.
On August 20, various news agencies said Israeli air attacks and shelling raised the death toll to 16 and counting. In response, Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades armed wing suspended its unilateral ceasefire, a spokesman saying:
"There can be no truce with the Israeli occupation while it commits massacres against the Palestinian people without justification."
In fact, blaming victims, lawlessness, violence, crimes of war and against humanity, collective punishment, intimidation, attacking unarmed civilians, and overall brutality are Israeli specialties. Combined, they define a rogue state, defiant of international law principles, pursuing its own interests extrajudicially, and getting away with it.
Gazans now worry about a possible Cast Lead II, Israel using perhaps false flag attacks as pretext to launch it. Again, it's the oldest trick in the book, Israel expert at it like America.
Previous Israeli Targeted Assassinations and False Flags
An Israeli specialty, they began well before 1948 during the Mandatory Palestine period when Jewish terrorist groups targeted Jews, Brits and Arabs. Involved were paramilitary Hagana members, Irgun headed by future prime minister Menachem Begin, and Lehi (also called the Stern Gang) led by another future prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. They were rogue killers before entering politics.
In November 1944, Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne, Britain's Middle East minister of state, near his home in Cairo.
In September 1948, it also killed UN mediator Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem, five months after Israel was established. Yitzhak Shamir personally approved the assassination.
In July 1946, Irgun bombed the King David Hotel, massacring 92 Brits, Arabs and Jews, wounding 58 others, an operation future prime minister David Ben-Gurion approved as head of the Jewish Agency at the time.
Before and after May 1948, many thousands of targeted killings occurred or were attempted, most little remembered today except among relatives and their descendants.
Little wonder Israel's history is so bloodstained, involving individual and mass killings, including on April 9, 1948 (during Israel's "war of independence") when Irgun, Lehi and complicit terrorists slaughtered well over 120 Palestinian men, women and children in the bloody Deir Yassin village massacre. On April 14, The New York Times reported 254 killed.
Post-1948, Palestinian supporters were targeted regionally and in Europe. Waves of successful and attempted assassinations occurred, notably against high-profile figures.
In 1954, Israeli agents in Egypt planted bombs in various buildings, including US and UK facilities, using evidence to implicate Arabs. The so-called Lavon Affair failed when a device prematurely detonated, letting Egyptians capture and identify one of the bombers. In turn, it led to rounding up an Israeli spy ring.
More recently, Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai after two earlier failed attempts. Abu-Dhabi's the National reported he was poisoned, drugged, and suffocated after previously surviving a failed shooting. Found dead in a Dubai hotel on January 20, 2010, police accused Mossad of murder.
Earlier incidents included Palestinians Abdel Wael Zwaiter, shot 11 times by Israeli agents in Rome after returning home from dinner. It was the first of dozens of retaliatory assassinations against persons suspected of involvement in the 1972 Munich summer Olympic killings of Israeli athletes, coaches and officials, allegedly by Black September members, a resistance, not a terrorist organization.
On June 14, 1980, Yahia El Meshad, then head of Iraq's nuclear program, was found bludgeoned to death in his Paris hotel room. No one was arrested, but French authorities named Israeli intelligence.
On August 20, 1983, Mamoun Meraish was shot and killed while driving in Athens. Israeli agents were blamed.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Mossad was implicated in numerous Beirut and other car bombings, one of its specialities.
On January 6, 2007, Haaretz reported that newly released British documents claim Shin Bet collaborated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the hijacking of Air France 139 from Israel, diverted to Entebbe, Uganda.
Arab terrorists were falsely blamed. Elite Israeli commandos led by Yonatan Netanyahu, Bibi's older brother, became instant heros for their "miraculous" rescue. An unnamed UK diplomat blamed Israel, saying:
"The operation was designed to torpedo the PLO's standing in France and to prevent what (was seen as) growing rapprochement between the PLO and the Americans."
British diplomat DH Colvin included information in the document that Israel and the PFLP collaborated. Haaretz said it "was written on June 30, 1976, three days after the hijacking and prior to the rescue operation."
On September 25, 1997, two Mossad agents with forged Canadian passports attacked Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan, spraying him with an unknown poison. He survived and recovered to explain.
In January 2002, a car bomb killed former Lebanese cabinet minister Elie Hobeika and three bodyguards. In 1982, he was involved in the infamous Sabra and Shatilla camp massacres. Days before his assassination, he expressed willingness to implicate then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's direct role. Clearly, Mossad killed him to prevent it.
In May 2002, Mossad murdered Mohammed Jihad Jibril, son of Ahmed Jibril, founder and head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
In August 2003, Mossad assassinated Ali Hassan Saheh, Hezbollah's top security officer. Prime Minister Sharon ordered Meir Dagan, its head until January 1, 2011, to conduct assassinations abroad.
No explanation is needed for why Mossad exists. It functions as a de facto Murder, Inc. within or outside Israel, making Mafia families seem benign by comparison.
From 2002 - 2006, it was responsible for numerous car bombings, killing Hezbollah, Hamas, and other officials regionally.
On February 12, 2008, a car bomb killed Hezbollah member Imad Hugniyeh in Damascus. Mossad again was responsible.
On August 1, 2008, it killed Muhammad Suleiman, a Syrian army officer close to President Bashar al-Assad, shot by snipers offshore near his vacation villa.
Rafik Hariri's Assassination
On February 14, 2005, compelling visual and audio evidence revealed real time intercepted Israel aerial surveillance footage of routes former Prime Minister Hariri used on the day his motorcade was attacked. Clearly, Israel was involved.
Washington blamed Syria. Assad denied responsibility. Hezbollah was later falsely named. It was a typical Mossad assassination though no one at the time knew for sure. The blast ripped a 30 foot crater in the street, injuring over 100 besides those killed.
An International Court of Justice (ICC) Special Tribunal (STL) investigated Hariri's killing. On January 17, its sealed indictment was released, Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare saying the next day that the confidential document was important for the people of Lebanon, the international community, and "for those who believe in international justice."
On June 30, arrest warrants for four Hezbollah members were issued. None were detained. At the time, Hezbollah said no arrests would be made, calling the tribunal a Washington/Israeli manipulated sham, covering up a classic Mossad operation.
On August 17, the 47-page indictment was released, holding Hezbollah members responsible based on falsified evidence. Those named include Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra. Badreddine was called the mission head.
No evidence proves it or that others named were involved. Clearly, Hezbollah had nothing to gain from the assassination but plenty to lose if, in fact, responsible.
A Final Comment
Later evidence may prove one way or the other whether Israel staged the multiple August 18 attacks. It has much to gain by doing so. Hamas, PFLP, and other Palestinians, however, have everything to lose, so why risk involvement? No advantage comes to mind.
In contrast, Israel has compelling reasons as explained above and may succeed precisely as planned. In fact, if Cast Lead II is intended, a trifecta of successes may follow. Palestinians and working Israelis, however, will suffer enormous defeats.
As a result, public awareness of what's at stake is essential to derail Israel's latest scheme. Failure to do so is an unacceptable option.
--MORE--"
"Hamas says Gaza militants, Israelis agree to a cease-fire; Truce shaky as strikes go on after deadline; Diplomats work to fix Egypt rift" August 22, 2011|By Amy Teibel, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Gaza militants agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to stop spiking violence, a Hamas official said yesterday, after a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border set off a three-day round of Israeli airstrikes and militant rocket barrages from Gaza.
The sudden flare-up also threatened Israeli-Egyptian relations, after Egypt said five of its police officers were killed as Israel’s troops and aircraft pursued the militants responsible for killing eight people Thursday. Egypt complained strongly as thousands demonstrated in Cairo, and Israel apologized.
The media still hasn't cleared that up.
The senior Hamas official said afternoon that militant groups in Gaza agreed that the truce would go into effect last night. Hamas security personnel would enforce the agreement brokered by Egypt, the official said. He said Egypt told the groups that Israel would agree to halt its airstrikes only if the Palestinians stopped the rocket fire first.
A spokesman for Israel’s government would not comment, and it was not clear whether the cease-fire would hold. Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes continued hours after the cease-fire was to take effect at 9 p.m. local time.
Translation: the headline of the story was Israeli PR.
Earlier yesterday, a salvo of rockets from Gaza struck an empty school and sent thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters.
ANOTHER FALSE FLAG, cui bono!!
Israel responded with airstrikes and diplomats scrambled to limit the violence.
The diplomatic efforts were also aimed at limiting the damage from the deaths of the Egyptian police officers. An Israeli envoy arrived at Cairo’s international airport yesterday morning and was whisked off in a convoy of four waiting cars, airport officials said. Israel’s government would not comment on the envoy’s identity or the details of his mission.
A second unidentified envoy arrived later, the Egyptian officials said. France and Germany were also working with the Israelis and Egyptians to end the diplomatic spat, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss ongoing diplomatic efforts.
US Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman also arrived to help mediate, according to an official at the American Embassy in Cairo, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Alongside the diplomacy, Israel threatened to intensify its attacks if the rocket barrages continue. Speaking to Israel Radio, military spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said Israel “will not hesitate’’ to widen its military operation if necessary. Diplomats scrambled to try to prevent the violence - the deadliest since Israel went to war against Gaza militants 2 ½ years ago - from spiraling out of control.
You SEE WHERE THIS IS ALL GOING, right?
CUI BONO?
Large-scale Israeli military operations in Gaza would create new friction with the Muslim world at a time when the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is preparing to ask the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state. Pictures of a major Israeli offensive in Gaza could hurt the Jewish state’s efforts to minimize world support for the Palestinian statehood bid.
They can try, but they will fail. No nation can defy the cosmos of history.
A spokesman said Abbas’s Palestinian Authority planned to use the renewed violence to bolster its case for statehood at the UN next month. “An independent Palestinian state is the remedy for violence,’’ Husam Zomlot said. “It would control its borders and prevent such deterioration from happening.’’
And Israel doesn't want that. It wants the land.
And ONCE AGAIN whatever USrael does seems to BACKFIRE!
Abbas, who wields limited power in the West Bank under Israel’s overall security control, asserts no such control in Gaza. Hamas routed his loyalists from Gaza in a violent 2007 takeover, and a reconciliation pact the two sides signed in May has stalled.
Yeah, ONCE AGAIN NOTHING about Hamas WINNING ELECTIONS!
Israel had pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Hamas, backed by Iran, opposes both peacemaking with Israel and Abbas’s statehood bid.
Related:
"Hamas would abide by any PLO negotiations"
Had enough LIES YET?
Under Hamas rule, Gaza’s militants have increased the quality and range of their rocket arsenals and now target the largest city in Israel’s south - Beersheba, 25 miles away. Most of the rockets launched since Thursday have been military-grade Katyushas smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.
Isn't that where the PROTESTS WERE?
Since Thursday’s ambush, militants have fired about 100 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel. On Saturday, rockets killed an Israeli man in Beersheba and seriously wounded two others.
Or SOMEONE HAS!
Because security has traditionally trumped all other concerns in Israel, some of the country’s social activists fear that the spike of violence with the Palestinians could overwhelm a spontaneous and surprisingly strong summerlong revolt against the country’s high cost of living.
And CUI BONO?
The attacks and counterattacks over the weekend have abruptly shifted the country’s attention away from the economic protests that were coalescing into a serious threat to the government.
See: A changed agenda?
And CUI BONO?
It is unclear whether the public’s attention will ever shift back to the brief period marked by heightened awareness of social ills and the near-giddiness over the prospect that Israel might become a “normal’’ country where money matters, not military needs, can take center stage.
Yup, SMELLING MORE LIKE a FALSE FLAG every minute!
Thousands of Israelis erected protest tents in city centers and hundreds of thousands took to the streets in mass demonstrations that became a weekly Saturday night ritual this summer, sending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambling to find solutions and keep his government together.
I guess he won't have to worry about that now.
Stav Shaffir, one of the protest movement’s leaders, said yesterday that protesters in several of the movement’s tent encampments in southern cities were forced to seek cover in bomb shelters.
But Shaffir insisted that the attacks would not derail the protests. “The rockets are a short-term danger,’’ she said. “The disintegration of a society is a long-term threat… . We have to keep going. We can’t let the security situation erode us from within.’’
Related: Israel tent protests called off after Eilat attacks
--more--"
"Despite unofficial truce, some Gaza militants fire on Israel; No one is injured; meanwhile, Abbas again delays vote" by August 23, 2011|By Ian Deitch, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip launched rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel yesterday, despite an unofficial truce meant to defuse escalating exchanges of rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes.
Are you SURE it was THEM, mouthpiece?
Around midday, a group that had held out from joining the cease-fire announced it would comply. Even so, Palestinians launched two rockets into Israel a few hours later, the military said. They caused no injuries but damaged property and set fire to a field.
Palestinians must have the worst aim of anyone that ever existed.
The latest round of violence began with a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border on Thursday when gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed vehicles, killing eight people. Six of the dead were civilians and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion.
Actually, that's where the Zionist AmeriKan media picked it up; Israel had been attacking Gaza for a week.
That touched off deadly Israeli airstrikes and heavy Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. Palestinians pummeled southern Israel with about 70 rockets Saturday night, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.
About 15 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
How do they know that?
“Most of those who dispatched the terrorists to carry out the attacks are now under the ground,’’ Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel told a television station yesterday evening.
How convenient.
In a separate development yesterday, the Western-backed Palestinian president delayed local elections for a third time without setting a new date. Palestinian democracy has been crippled since the Islamic militant Hamas violently overran the Gaza Strip in 2007....
What are we supposed to do when it is OBFUSCATION and OMISSION as STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE from my jewspaper?!!!
A senior Israeli military officer said Israel’s newest rocket defense system did not provide full protection from a barrage of Palestinian rockets.
Colonel Zvika Haimovitch said the Iron Dome system he oversees picked off four of five rockets in a salvo Saturday from the Gaza Strip. The one it missed killed an Israeli man, he said.
The sudden flare-up in violence also caused new friction in relations between Israel and Egypt, after Egypt accused Israel of killing five of its security personnel along the border while pursuing militants responsible for the frontier ambush on Thursday.
Now it is just an accusation?
Under pressure from popular anti-Israel sentiment, the Egyptian government at one point threatened to recall its ambassador to Israel. Israel apologized and Egypt recanted.
--more--"
Can you blame me for being sick of reading this pro-Israel press release called a newspaper?
"Israeli court rejects bid to alter barrier" Associated Press / August 24, 2011
JERUSALEM - The Israeli Supreme Court has rejected a Palestinian village’s appeal to reroute a section of Israel’s West Bank separation barrier straddling the Jerusalem municipal border, saying the petitioners didn’t prove the barrier would smother the village.
We call it the apartheid wall.
Residents of Walajeh village had contended the path of the section under construction would cut them off from their farmlands, cemetery, and water source.
As it was meant to do.
Israel says the barrier, which at multiple points dips inside the West Bank, is crucial to keep out Palestinian attackers.
Walajeh, a community of 2,000 on Jerusalem’s southwest edge, is almost entirely surrounded by Jewish settlements.
The planned barrier would completely encircle the village with a fence, cutting it off from most of its open land, according to an Israeli Defense Ministry map.
Locals have demonstrated against the barrier’s construction for five years, in at least one instance lying down in front of bulldozers.
That is how Rachel Corrie was killed.
But Chief Justice Dorit Beinish ruled Monday that the barrier saves Israeli lives because it “blocks terrorists from entering Jerusalem.’’
And as we all know, Israeli lives are the most precious on earth.
The wall blocks all terrorists except Zionist zettlers, that is.
Israel did agree to adjust its path to keep the natural spring on the village’s side of the barrier. The cemetery and farmlands will remain on the other side, but Israel promised to construct an underground passageway so villagers could reach the cemetery. It also promised to erect access points for Walajeh’s farmers to work their lands under the army’s supervision.
Would that make you happy if it were your hometown?
--more--"
