Egyptian's Protest Against Mubarak’s Rule

Scott Nelson for The New York Times

Riot police officers rushed to confront protesters on Tuesday in Cairo. More Photos »

By KAREEM FAHIM and MONA EL-NAGGAR
Published: January 25, 2011
Courtesy Of "The New York Times"

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of people demanding an end to the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak filled the streets of several Egyptian cities on Tuesday, in an unusually large and sometimes violent burst of civil unrest that appeared to threaten the stability of one of the United States’ closest Arab allies.

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The protests, at least partly inspired by the toppling of the authoritarian government in Tunisia, began small but grew all day, with protesters occupying one of Cairo’s central squares. Security forces, which normally prevent major public displays of dissent, initially struggled to suppress the demonstrations, allowing them to swell.

But early Wednesday morning, firing rubber bullets, tear gas and concussion grenades, the police finally drove groups of demonstrators from the square, as the sit-in was transformed into a spreading battle involving thousands of people and little restraint. Plainclothes officers beat several demonstrators, and protesters flipped over a police car and set it on fire.

Protests also flared in Alexandria, Suez, Mansura and Beni Suef. There were reports of three deaths and many injuries around the country.

Photographers in Alexandria caught people tearing up a large portrait of Mr. Mubarak. An Internet video of demonstrations in Mahalla el-Kubra showed the same, while a crowd snapped cellphone photos and cheered. The acts — rare, and bold here — underscored the anger coursing through the protests and the challenge they might pose to the aging and ailing Egyptian leader.

Several observers said the protests represented the largest display of popular dissatisfaction in recent memory, perhaps since 1977, when people across Egypt violently protested the elimination of subsidies for food and other basic goods.

It was not clear whether the size and intensity of the demonstrations — which seemed to shock even the protesters — would or could be sustained.

The government quickly placed blame for the protests on Egypt’s largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is tolerated but officially banned. In a statement, the Interior Ministry said the protests were the work of “instigators” led by the Muslim Brotherhood, while the movement declared that it had little to do with them.

The reality that emerged from interviews with protesters — many of whom said they were independents — was more complicated and reflected one of the government’s deepest fears: that opposition to Mr. Mubarak’s rule spreads across ideological lines and includes average people angered by corruption and economic hardship as well as secular and Islamist opponents. That broad support could make it harder for the government to co-opt or crush those demanding change.

“The big, grand ideological narratives were not seen today,” said Amr Hamzawy, research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center. “This was not about ‘Islam is the solution’ or anything else.”

Instead, the protests seemed to reflect a spreading unease with Mr. Mubarak on issues from extension of an emergency law that allows arrests without charge, to his presiding over a stagnant bureaucracy that citizens say is incapable of handling even basic responsibilities. Their size seemed to represent a breakthrough for opposition groups harassed by the government as they struggle to break Mr. Mubarak’s monopoly on political life.

Security officials said a soldier in Cairo, along with two protesters in Suez, were killed in circumstances that were not immediately clear. Scores of demonstrators and more than a dozen soldiers were injured in the Cairo clashes, which lasted hours and included bouts of rock-throwing by both protesters and the police.

There were mixed signals about how the authorities planned to handle the unrest. In contrast with other recent political demonstrations in Cairo, thousands of security officers seemed content at times to contain rather than engage the protesters — especially when it became clear that the demonstrators would not retreat from Tahrir Square. In a statement, the Interior Ministry said its policy had been “securing and not confronting these gatherings.”

But there were signs of other containment tactics. Several times Tuesday afternoon, cellphone networks appeared to be blocked or otherwise unavailable for people calling from Tahrir — or Liberation — Square. Many people had trouble getting access to Twitter, the social networking tool that helped spread news of the protests. Twitter confirmed that its site had been blocked in Egypt, Reuters reported.

By early Wednesday, the police appeared determined to clear protesters from the streets, leading to more clashes.

On a bridge, drivers stopped their cars and some joined the protesters, chanting, “The people want the downfall of the regime.”

In the days leading up to the protests, more than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the “Day of Revolution,” organized by opposition and pro-democracy groups to be held on Police Day, a national holiday. The organizers framed the protest as a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment. The Muslim Brotherhood said it would not officially participate, though some members were among the protesters in Cairo.

But many people said they did not belong to any particular group and were attending their first demonstration. They included Ramy Rafat, 25, who said he lived in El-Marg, an impoverished neighborhood in north Cairo. Mr. Rafat, who has a master’s degree in petroleum geology and is unemployed, said he learned about the protest on a Facebook page forKhaled Said, 28. Mr. Said’s family says police officers fatally beat him last year.

“There are a lot of things wrong with this country,” Mr. Rafat said. “The president has been here for 30 years. Why?”

Aya Sayed Khalil, 23, brought her sister, her mother and her father to the protest. “I told them the revolution was coming,” she said. Asked about their political affiliation, Ms. Khalil’s mother, Mona, said, “We’re just Egyptians.”

The marchers came from all social classes and included young men recording tense moments on cellphone cameras, and middle-age women carrying flags of the Wafd party, one of Egypt’s opposition groups. A doctor, Wesam Abdulaziz, 29, said she had traveled two hours to join the protest. She had been to one demonstration before, concerning the treatment of Mr. Said.

“I came to change the government,” she said. “I came to change the entire regime.”

What began as a small demonstration outside Cairo’s Supreme Court building around noon Tuesday quickly swelled. Hundreds marched through winding streets while security officers shadowed them in a moving cordon. Scuffles broke out as the officers tried to halt the march by linking arms and forming lines.

“Freedom, freedom, freedom,” the protesters chanted. “Where are the Egyptian people?”

By midafternoon, groups of people had converged in Tahrir Square, where they met security forces in full riot gear and a water cannon truck. Several people said the clashes began in earnest after protesters tried to take control of the water cannon.

In front of the Mugamma, a towering administrative building in the square, young men threw rocks at the police as older demonstrators tried to stop them. Several young men were carried away from the clashes, clutching bloodied tissues to their heads.

As night fell, the crowd grew larger. An older man with a bullhorn appealed to his more Internet-aware counterparts, asking them to spread the word to railway workers and dockworkers. Many people said they planned to sleep in the square.

After midnight, the security forces, using concussion grenades and tear gas, renewed attempts to disperse the protesters.

Since Jan. 14, when President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia fled his country during a popular revolt, autocrats throughout the region have fretted about responses by their own restive populations who shared many of the grievances that toppled Mr. Ben Ali: rampant corruption, injustice, high unemployment and the simple lack of dignity.

It was unclear whether the day of demonstrations would lead to any broader social unrest. “I think it is the beginning of the process,” said Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo.

“Some of the demonstrators are still in Tahrir and said they will not leave until their demands are met by the government,” he said, hours before they were forced out of the square. “Their demands will not be met by the government, but they will not give up.”

Who Will Care When Israel Self-Destructs?

Tantrums and Sheeshas

By Yvonne Ridley in Syria
October 11, 2010
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

After the collapse of the faux Middle East peace talks Israel’s growing isolation in the world is not entirely unexpected. A side-effect is that America has discovered that it cannot force the rest of the international community to embrace the Frankenstein monster it has nurtured. With the exception of Egypt, and in the absence of financial or military inducements given to the Pharaoh Hosni Mubarak, few self-respecting states are willing to embrace the Zionist brat. In any case, no one takes much notice of Egypt these days, where Mubarak is preparing to crown his son as his successor. His slavish support for Israel prompted by copious amounts of US aid has lost him trust, credibility, respect and international standing. Even the Americans are beginning to realise that their Cairo rent boy is of little value these days.

Of course, the concern now is that the more isolated the Zionist State is, the more dangerous, unpredictable and out of control it becomes. Having such an unstable, failed state in the Middle East is bad, but having one with at least 200 nuclear warheads at its disposal should focus the minds of the powers that be; nowhere more so than in Washington where Barack Obama is cruising towards a bruising in the mid-term elections thanks to the collapse of the peace talks. And now his Zionist aides are jumping ship at an alarming rate, a sure sign that he is in trouble.

These are desperate times for America’s Democrats as they scramble around looking for some good news in the Middle East to pull out of the hat. It’s not that easy, though, since Israel’s lawless and unruly behaviour has alienated many of its neighbours; Turkey, for example, is still waiting for an apology after Israel’s murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara, on which nine humanitarian peace activists paid the ultimate price for their support for Palestinians.

The one country in the Middle East which could influence friends and enemies alike is Syria. It is being courted by the west, has influence with Hezbollah and Hamas, and counts Iran among its many friends. Of course, this is nothing new. “Syria first” was the clarion call of the Clinton administration in those heady days when peace was almost a tangible entity. Perhaps that is why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a point of schmoozing with her Syrian counterpart, Walid Mouallem, in New York recently.

At the time of their meeting, I had just arrived in the ancient city of Aleppo in Syria to embark on a magical tour of the old trade route called the Silk Road. From the third century BC, Syria was at the crossroads, the meeting place for people from distant, exotic countries who wanted to ply their wares and trades. From north, south, east and west they gathered along the Silk Road to exchange goods and ideas, trade and learn from each other. Like many other things in this region, sometimes you have to step back in time to get a clearer vision of what the future holds. Perhaps Mrs Clinton would have been better advised to meet the Foreign Minister in his own backyard so that some wisdom and inspiration could rub off on the sinking Obama administration.

This wasn’t the first Clinton-Mouallem meeting. By my reckoning they must have had at least one brief encounter around 15 years ago when Mouallem served as Syrian ambassador in Washington at a time when Hillary Clinton was America’s First Lady and husband Bill was in the White House.

Mr Mouallem is a consummate professional and will have seen and heard it all before; it will not have been lost on him, if no one else, that in the two decades since he last met Hillary nothing has really changed in the Middle East. Israel is still the cause of extremism and violence across the world and the Road Map to peace is littered with broken treaties, failed accords and the blood of innocents. So he must have had a feeling of déjà vu when the US Secretary of State stressed the need for “constructive dialogue” to “remove hurdles”. All the usual, tired old sound bites he’d heard before were rolled out as America tried in vain to persuade another nation to accept and befriend the belligerent state of Israel.

I wonder if Bill Clinton advised his wife that only by charming the Syrians into entering direct peace negotiations with the Israelis could she hope to make progress towards reviving the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. She was certainly building on a line started in Damascus last month when she dispatched Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to the Syrian capital. During his visit Mitchell tried to persuade Foreign Minister Mouallem that dialogue with the Zionist State would complement, rather than obstruct, the peace talks.

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, was also sent to Syria and to meet Mouallem and try to persuade Syria to get involved in negotiations. Maybe Mouallem had read Indyk's autobiography, “Innocents Abroad”, in which he reveals how the 1990s Bill Clinton team opted for a "Syria first" strategy, believing that peace with Damascus was easier and more pressing for the Israelis than peace with the Palestinians. Indyk revealed that after signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, Bill Clinton famously sat down with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the Map Room at the White House and said he had orchestrated Palestinian-Israeli peace in order to concentrate on a peace deal with Syria. Well, 15 years on, and with no progress, it seems few want to even touch, let alone sip, from the same poisoned chalice as Israel.

It was obvious to all that the latest talks would fail as spectacularly as they did. Disenfranchised Palestinian groups like Hamas remained silent as they gave Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas enough rope to hang himself, and he didn’t disappoint them. Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his teddy bear in the ring, stamped his feet and refused to stop building illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. This tantrum did him no favours with his US sponsors, the Quartet or the UN. Someone should have told Netanyahu that you can't roll over and play the victim in an empty room.

Syria was wise not to be sucked in to the charade otherwise Damascus might have become a useful fall guy for the Israelis to blame for the failure of the talks. That’s a favourite trick of Israel, but this time there was no one else to blame. What this whole episode has exposed is Israel’s

- inability and lack of desire to make peace;
- determination to expand settlements in the West Bank;
- continuing brutal siege of Gaza; and
- desire to bring down the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Movement’s disregard for other Palestinian factions strips him of any credibility. The good news is that if anyone ever considers sitting down for peace talks with Israel again there will have to be pre-set terms of reference.

As I made my way from Aleppo through to the bustling seaside port of Lattakia (where the latest Viva Palestina Convoy to Gaza has also arrived), it was clear that the failure of the peace talks came as no surprise to anyone in the Arab world. From the ramshackle and remote Baghdad café on the road to Damascus, to the capital itself, the very mention of the failed talks barely raised an eyebrow; the old men pulled on their sheeshas with hardly a break. The only surprise in their eyes was that new boys on the block in the Middle East peace game, such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, were actually shocked by the breakdown of the negotiations. I almost felt sorry for the poor sap as he reminded Israel, rather feebly, that the construction of new settlements was illegal and that he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu's refusal to extend the building freeze in the West Bank. Like a kid about to be dispossessed of his school dinner money by the playground bully, Mr Ban stood, almost trembling, as he squeaked his disapproval.

Such disappointment was also expressed weakly and meekly by the US, Turkey, France and Britain. Western observers saw, for the first time, something that everyone in the Middle East has been able to see since the creation of the Zionist state; it has no long-term future. They all had a hand in its creation, but plucky little Israel has turned into a monster.

Arguably the most culpable today is (Mr. Looks-like-a-one-term) President Obama. Who remembers his famous Cairo speech in the summer of 2009, where he virtually assured us that there would be “no new settlements”; that rings very hollow now, and haven’t the Israelis punished him for saying it? Not only is the Frankenstein monster biting the hand that feeds it, but Israel is also wrecking Obama’s chances of a second term of office. The speedy collapse of the talks made him look totally ineffectual on the world stage. Hillary Clinton’s charm offensive with the Syrians is the desperate act of a doomed US administration.

There is little chance of Damascus sitting down with Israel while the thieving Zionist State has Golan in its clutches. The Syrians have also made it clear that they will not entertain a separate peace with the Israelis while illegal settlements exist in the West Bank and Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians remain under siege.

So Benjamin Netanyahu and his man-made monster of a state can throw ugly tantrums but they will have no effect; sooner or later the ghastly creation will self-destruct. And when it does, the old men and their bubbling sheeshas will hardly pause for breath.

Journalist and author Yvonne Ridley is also the European President of the International Muslim Women's Union

Egypt's Youth Build New Opposition Movement

Egypt's Youth Look To Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence To Build New Opposition Movement

By SARAH EL DEEB
Source: "AP News"
Sep 16, 2010 03:50 EDT
Courtesy Of "Anti-War Newswire"

Inside a small apartment tucked away in a middle class Cairo neighborhood, a trainer teaches a dozen volunteers of a budding opposition movement the basics of political organization — communication, recruiting, gathering signatures.

The instructors draw inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and download books from American scholar Gene Sharp, whose tactics of civil disobedience influenced public uprisings against authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Iran and elsewhere.

Over the past six months, about 15,000 of these volunteers have formed the kernel of a burgeoning youth opposition movement in Egypt who are pinning their hopes for leadership on Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate and former chief of U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency.

ElBaradei's return to his homeland Egypt in February infused opponents of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly three-decade rule with a new energy. They hoped that with his calls for democratic reform, he could compete for the presidency in the elections expected in fall 2011.

But they have come up against a hard reality. Egypt's opposition is fractious and co-opted and not even a respected figure like ElBaradei stands much chance of uniting them into a real force for change ahead of a parliamentary vote just months away or even in time for the presidential elections.

So ElBaradei's followers are trying something new: harnessing people power.

"We need an overarching dream to make us feel part of something," said 18-year-old Abdul-Rahman Salah, who was among volunteers receiving training in political organization. "People are starting to change."

Next year's presidential vote is heavy with uncertainty. It is far from clear whether the ailing 82-year-old Mubarak will run again, or push forward his son, Gamal, 46. The powerful intelligence chief — Mubarak aide Omar Suleiman — is also cited as another possibility.

ElBaradei has said he won't run unless conditions for the race are made more fair. But he says he hopes that by 2011 his campaign will be an effective force in the country's politics.

Few groups in Egypt have ever managed to channel widespread popular dissatisfaction into a credible political challenge. Egypt's recognized opposition parties are paper facades, funded by the government with almost no popular base and only a few token parliament seats. The ruling party, which monopolizes power, operates by patronage and backroom deals.

Hampering the creation of any popular movement is a pervasive security apparatus that keeps close tabs on dissent, often disperses protests by force and co-opts party leaders.

Also, change is locked out by the political process. Rigging ensures ruling party victories in elections. No party can be created without government permission. Recognized parties can field candidates for president, but independents — like ElBaradei — can run only after an approval process that effectively gives the ruling party a veto.

People power has only really been used in Egypt with any success by the opposition Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which is technically outlawed but possesses an extensive social services network and grassroots organization.

But coordinators say they intend their new campaign, managed from the small office in Cairo's Mohandiseen neighborhood, to one day be at the heart of a civil disobedience movement that will take on the Mubarak regime.

So far, they have focused on gathering signatures online for a petition ElBaradei launched four months ago. The aim is to show the extent of public support behind his call for electoral reforms and constitutional amendments to allow for fair elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood is helping in the campaign, though it and ElBaradei's supporters may seem like strange bedfellows.

So far, the petition has collected 800,000 signatures, nearly 700,000 of them secured through the Brotherhood website, a sign of how its network dwarfs that of the nascent group in this country of nearly 80 million.

Critics warn that the alliance with the Brotherhood may drown liberal voices and drive away potential supporters wary of Islamist ideology.

But the campaign organizers appear unfazed.

Coordinator Abdul-Rahman Youssef said keeping close to Egypt's most organized group has its benefits, especially when the demands are as fundamental as a free ballot box.

"No one faction can organize civil disobedience alone," he said.

Government-sanctioned opposition parties are more suspicious of ElBaradei. They have rejected his call for a boycott of November's elections for the 500-seat parliament, which he says will surely be rigged. Some dismiss a boycott as a "risky" option that would benefit the government.

"ElBaradei is most responsible for confusing the situation," said Rifaat Saeed, the octogenarian head of a left-wing party with just two seats in parliament.

Another 9,000 volunteers are to be trained or have applied to join the campaign of ElBaradei supporters. After operating mainly online, volunteers have started going door-to-door to gather signatures and reach out to people, following the ideas of Sharp.

In his writings, Sharp offers nearly 200 methods for protesters to pressure authoritarian regimes, from adopting symbolic colors to staging mass strikes.

Egypt's new movement has not implemented Sharp's more dramatic steps yet. But ElBaradei said he won't hesitate to call for civil disobedience if the government remains intransigent.

In the meantime, they have successfully avoided heavy arrests by security services.

"So long as we appear weak, the security agencies will leave us alone," said Ahmed Ezz, the lead trainer. "We just want a space to breathe, to be free, and we are looking to create a trend."

Amr el-Shobaky, a political analyst at the Al-Ahram Center think tank, said the signature campaign is impressive, and such steps to gauge public opinion and set up a structure are new for Egypt's opposition.

But, he cautions, "no one has an answer to what the next step would be."

Source: AP News

The Next Middle East War

Some say further confrontation between Hizbullah and Israel is inevitable. If so, what will be Egypt's position

By Abdel-Moneim Said
19 - 25 August 2010
Issue No. 1012
Courtesy Of "Al-Ahram"

I asked a friend of mine who works in a reputable research centre in Washington whether he expected Israel to launch a military strike against Iran. He pondered the question for a few moments and then gave an answer that conveyed both yes and no at the same time.

He was certain neither Netanyahu nor any other Israeli leader could undertake such an action without receiving a green light from Washington. He paused briefly and then said, "Israel could not afford to take a step of that magnitude on its own, because of the enormous repercussions it would have on the future of the region, and perhaps the world."

Just as I was about to ask my next question he resumed, "As long as Washington continues to talk of not putting American lives at risk, no one in Israel would dare act unilaterally. But the moment that the Obama administration stops using that rhetoric then you know that the time is at hand."

Between the lines this reads: Israeli and US thinking on the question of Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon is the same, as was the case with respect to Iraq when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. The difference is that, today, American flesh and blood is present on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan and the countries of the Gulf, and US interests in that area more intensive, more extensive and more densely populated with staff and dependents than ever before. Therefore, if Israel started a war, Israel would not be the only party to sustain the consequences through, for example, retaliation against its own nuclear facilities and other military responses. In fact, the bulk of the damage would be borne by the US in terms of lives, material and political damage.

Just as I was about to ask what was new in that perpetually close US-Israeli relationship, my interlocutor pre-empted me with the question as to whether I had been following Ehud Barak's visits to Washington. After I told him that I had not, he said that never before in contemporary Israeli history had a minister of defence made so many visits to Washington -- one every three weeks or so -- with these visits interspersed by visits from other Israeli Ministry of Defence and Mossad officials and visits by their American counterparts to Tel Aviv. Such intensive exchanges indicate that some very important strategic matter is afoot and that this requires a lot of face-to-face talks, exchanges of opinion and points of view, and ironing out of differences over procedures and ways of working.

"Don't forget that the way Israel works militarily is completely different from Washington. Israel identifies its primary strategic target and then trains all its forces on hitting it, and that's all there is to it. That's what happened when it struck the Osirak reactor in Iraq and Al-Kibar reactor in northern Syria. In fact, Israel never even admitted to carrying out that latter strike, leaving it up to others to draw their own conclusions." If the US wanted to carry out an operation of that sort, the US military would use a completely different approach. It would not strike the target until after having first destroyed all the enemy's defence fortifications that could obstruct the ability to reach the target. Second, it would try to paralyse the enemy air force to prevent it from hampering the missions of American aircraft. Third, it would ascertain that it had neutralised all hostile missile bases and retaliatory capacities for at least a sufficiently reasonable period so that friendly targets would have the time to prepare themselves. Only then would it deliver the strike, and in a way that would be both surgical but painful. Reconciling such completely different military working styles is a hugely complicated and arduous task.

Clearly then, although it is not yet time to strike, planning and preparation are proceeding full steam ahead. In this regard, Barak is acting not only in the capacity of military coordinator but also as foreign minister because -- as my interlocutor put it -- no one in Washington can stand Lieberman. When the official Israeli foreign minister wants to meet American Likudist extremists he goes to New York, waits there for an invitation from Washington that never comes, and flies back to Israel. So, if anyone from the current Israeli government (apart from Netanyahu, of course) is going to tend to the political side of matters with the US it is Ehud Barak.

Reviewing developments on this front since the beginning of the year, the US chief-of-staff visited Israel in January to discuss the Iranian nuclear escalation. In February, US National Security Advisor James Jones and US Intelligence Chief Leon Panetta paid follow- up visits, the latter secretly. Before the month was out, Ehud Barak was in Washington to discuss sanctions against Iran and ways of dealing with the Iranian nuclear question, as well as security cooperation and the missile defence system, and the situation in the Middle East and the Palestinian territories. No sooner did Barak return to Israel than Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen arrived there to discuss ways of sustaining the qualitative superiority of the Israeli armed forces and common security challenges. That was on 28 February. Then, shortly after Mullen returned to the US, Israeli Chief-of-Staff Gabi Ashkenazy returned the visit, appearing in Washington in March to discuss the Iranian nuclear question. Just over a month later, on 28 April, Ehud Barak came to Washington to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to discuss Israeli security. There followed a series of visits to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden, the secretary of defence and other security officials, and return visits to Washington by Netanyahu with his teams of advisors. This brings us up to 26 July and Ehud Barak's most recent call on Washington to discuss the Iranian nuclear question, negotiations with the Palestinians and an Israeli shopping list for American weapons.

A few days before that meeting, Daniel Kurtzer, who served as US ambassador to Cairo and then to Tel Aviv and who is currently a professor of Middle Eastern policy studies at Princeton University, came out with a short contingency planning paper for the Council on Foreign Relations in New York entitled, A Third Lebanon War. The paper takes the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as the first Lebanon war and the war in the summer of 2006 as the second. It foresees a possible eruption of a third Israeli war against Lebanon sometime between 12 and 18 months from now as the result of three interrelated factors. The first is Hizbullah's growing political clout in Lebanon since the second Lebanon war. Secondly, Hizbullah's arsenal is now more powerful quantitatively and qualitatively than it was at that time, having since steadily rearmed with Iranian and Syrian help, in spite of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 calling for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and the implementation of the Lebanese cabinet decision of 26 July 2006 stating that "there shall be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state." Thirdly, Israel sees Hizbullah as a forward military arm for Iran that could either deliver a first strike or a retaliatory strike in the event of an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Kurtzer sees several indicators of looming danger. One is the increase in Hizbullah's anti-Israeli rhetoric, as exemplified by Hassan Nasrallah's fiery speech of 4 June when he warned that attacks against Lebanon would be met with strikes against strategic targets in Israel. In Israel, meanwhile, there has been a similar increase in official statements and public commentary about Hizbullah and Iran. Particular play has been given to weapons shipments to Lebanon and military training camps, prompting intensive debate in the Israeli media over whether Israel should be intercepting ships it suspects of carrying weapons to Lebanon. A third factor is heightened levels of Israeli military and civil defence preparedness. Kurtzer notes that the IDF exercise "Firestone 12" was predicated on scenario involving extensive Hizbullah assaults against Israel using long- range missiles and advanced air-defence systems.

What strikes one most about this contingency paper is that it advises the US administration to do all in its power to forestall such a war. Kurtzer suggests measures ranging from diplomatic intervention and pressuring the involved parties inclusive of Israel and Syria to possibly negotiating with Hizbullah itself. He can also envision the option of the US sanctioning a limited Israeli strike against Hizbullah's missile supply lines and training camps, even if these are located inside Syria. He argues that although such strikes might risk engaging Syria, they would be restricted to purely military targets and remove the justification for a wider Israeli offensive. This alternative fails to take into account, first, current US-Israeli military coordination with respect to Iran and, second, the possibility that Hizbullah might decide to play along, go on the offensive and effectively abort US-Israeli plans for Iran.

Will it help us to understand all this if we see it in the broader context of a region brimming with dangerous forks in perilous roads, most of which lead to violence, whether at the country or regional level or even beyond that? During the past decade, since the turn of the century, we have had the American wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, civil wars in Iraq and Sudan, the second Lebanon war, the Israeli war against Gaza, not to mention lesser battles and skirmishes, and various forms of terrorism and counterterrorism. The sources of all this bloodshed are not what concern me here. In all events, their political, economic and cultural dimensions are too numerous and too intricately intertwined to go into now, although one suspects that many of them have to do with the perpetual state of a region that has failed to explore other options for handling sharp historical contradictions. Rather, what I would like to focus on is Egypt, which is located in the centre of the morass and forever trying to maintain equilibrium and to lessen the extremism and fanaticism of the various parties. From this perspective, I see two interrelated issues. The first is how right Egypt was to choose the strategic option of peace, which not only brought the restoration of its land but also kept Egypt away from that maelstrom of violence and extremism that has shaken the region so drastically over the past decade. The second is the many attempts to drag Egypt into that horrific maelstrom.

During the past few years, various forces have set their sights on Sinai with the purpose of destroying the splendid reputation it had acquired through the development of the southern portion of the peninsula and with the aim of using it as a base to infiltrate into the rest of Egypt. Means towards this end included the tunnels dug beneath the Egyptian-Palestinian border, the mass storming of that border and encroachment into Sinai, the terrorist bombings in Taba, Dahab and Sharm El-Sheikh, and terrorist infiltration and recruitment activities, the most notorious of which was the cell that Hizbullah attempted to plant with the aim of threatening the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. It is difficult to see these actions as isolated developments. Most likely they formed part of a greater plan to prepare a theatre of operations.

Now, I am sure that we have people who are competent and prepared to deal with threats of this nature, these being the people who have thwarted previous bids to propel Egypt towards the precipice of war and violence. However, what concerns me is that our political and intellectual elites seem to have turned inwards, and that the outside world seems to have vanished from public debate in Egypt. Apart from certain political forces that still speak of the "Egyptian regional role" as though we were still in the 1950s instead of the world of the first decade of the 21st century, there is precious little discussion of the state of the region and its looming perils. In the Egyptian press, television talk shows and other forums you find only a desolate blank where we should be seeing a range of perceptions and ideas on how to deal with some very worrisome regional conditions.

Aside from the occasional accusatory fingers pointed -- rightfully for the most part -- at Israel or the US, analyses of the regional situation, assessments of the challenges it poses to Egyptian interests, and reflections on how Egypt should respond are virtually absent from our agenda. I am aware that our parliamentary and presidential elections are coming up and that both of these merit the close attention of all political forces in our country. But how can we close our eyes to looming dangers and the authors of these dangers who would like nothing better than for us to fall in line submissively and unsuspectingly behind them? I know that our economic situation, which has both discouraging and encouraging aspects, demands our attention. But we allow this to distract us from vital matters connected to Egyptian national security?

The Palestinian Authority Is imprisoning Gazans

The same government that includes a call to end the blockade on Gaza, in practice aids in imprisoning the Gazans by preventing them from holding valid Palestinian passports.

By Amira Hass
Published 02:12 28.07.10
Latest update 02:12 28.07.10
Courtesy Of "Haaretz NewsPaper"

Lies and power go hand in hand. But what is considered outrageous in a sovereign state is catastrophic for a society fighting for its freedom. The Palestinians have two sets of leadership under occupation competing for the dubious title of "government" - and both are generating lies to perpetuate their status. The Hamas government, which won the majority of the vote in democratic Palestinian legislative elections, is not recognized by most countries. Yet these countries warmly accept the Palestinian Authority government, which was appointed by the president and leader of the party that lost the election, Fatah.

This is the government that has explained its decision to postpone the municipal and local elections, originally scheduled for July 17 this year, by its desire to prevent the political rift between the West Bank and Gaza from widening. Parallel elections would not have been possible in the Gaza Strip because of the split between the parties and clashes over authority and legitimacy.

It is possible to argue over the logic of the initial stubbornness to hold elections that would have fortified the double-rule reality (one political experience in Gaza, and a different one in the West Bank ). This is why, indeed, independent circles in Gaza welcomed the decision to postpone. But everyone knows the real reason behind the postponement was internal disputes within Fatah, as well as a possible fear that competing slates would succeed - despite the fact that Hamas announced it would boycott the elections.

The same government that includes a call to end the blockade on Gaza in every one of its statements, in practice aids in imprisoning the Gazans by preventing many of them from holding valid Palestinian passports. Not only does the Fatah government refuse to send blank passports to Gaza to be filled out, thus forcing Gazans to use the services of special go-between agencies which send the applications to Ramallah, but its general intelligence service even intervenes - as has been revealed lately - and in many cases vetoes passports for Gaza residents.

Now, with Egypt easing the restrictions on entry through its border with Gaza, this arbitrary cruelty has become even more pronounced. The feeling of imprisonment, and the lies accompanying it, generates bitterness toward the government in Ramallah - even among those who are not Hamas supporters.

Security forces in the West Bank continue to arrest people identified with Hamas. The fact that the vast majority of these people are imprisoned for extended periods without a trial or any charges brought against them, raises the suspicion that this practice is not meant to foil security risks, but to actually take revenge for Fatah's defeat in Gaza and to repress its political opponents.

Take Murad Amira, for example, from the village of Na'alin. As a volunteer paramedic in the Red Crescent he goes every Friday to the demonstrations held in his village against the separation wall. He was arrested by the Palestinian general security service six weeks ago and only released yesterday - without any explanation provided to him, his family or friends.

The Ramallah government supports the popular struggle in its words, but at the same time its security services continuously harass activists in Na'alin who are close to Hamas: They arrest them for two or three days, release them, and arrest them again. That is why official support for the popular struggle is viewed as just another fabrication. It's no surprise the protests have remained the private domain of those directly affected by the lands expropriations and haven't drawn the masses, certainly not those who fill the coffee houses, restaurants and festivals in Ramallah.

These are the same security authorities that have won praise from the occupier for the quiet they've achieved while the occupier acts: confiscating land, demolishing homes, expelling people, arresting children, preventing free movement and killing. The lies that accompany these activities and their close affiliation with Fatah cast a shadow over the trustworthiness of the leadership in the eyes of its people.

Red Cross: Israel's Gaza Blockade Illegal

By Stephanie Nebehay Stephanie Nebehay
Sun Jun 13, 8:06 pm ET
Courtesy Of "Yahoo News"

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip violates the Geneva Conventions and called for its lifting.

The neutral humanitarian agency also urged Hamas Islamist militants holding Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured nearly four years ago in a cross-border raid, to allow his family to have regular contact with him, in line with international law.

Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla two weeks ago, in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed, highlighted acute hardships faced by 1.5 million Gazans due to the closure since 2007, it said. They endure unemployment, poverty and warfare, and health care whose quality is at an "all time low."

"The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law," the ICRC said in a five-page statement. It was the first time the ICRC has said explicitly that Israel's blockade constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law embodied in the Geneva Conventions, an ICRC spokeswoman said. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population.

Israel is entitled to impose restrictions on military material for legitimate security reasons, but the scope of the closure is disproportionate, covering items of basic necessity, according to the ICRC.

"We are urging Israel to put an end to this closure and call upon all those who have an influence on the situation, including Hamas, to do their utmost to help Gaza's civilian population," said Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Middle East.

The ICRC said Hamas had continually rebuffed its requests to allow its officials to visit Shalit in detention.

"In violation of international humanitarian law, it has also refused to allow him to get in touch with his family," it said.

Under customary international humanitarian law, captors holding detainees must allow them family contacts, while the Geneva Conventions require that they be treated humanely.

BASIC NEEDS

Arab League chief Amr Moussa visited the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the highest Arab official to do so since its seizure by Hamas Islamists in 2007, and called for an end to Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks on Friday with Middle East envoy Tony Blair on the blockade.

Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel would continue discussions with the international community to prevent weapons and military equipment from reaching Gaza and to allow in humanitarian aid, an apparent signal it was open to revising blockade procedures.

"Under international humanitarian law, Israel must ensure that the basic needs of Gazans, including adequate health care, are met," the ICRC said.

The blockade, about to enter its fourth year, was "choking off any real possibility of economic development," it said.

States are obliged to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief supplies, equipment and personnel, according to ICRC which deploys 100 staff in Gaza.

"The Palestinian authorities ... must do everything within their power to provide proper health care, supply electricity and maintain infrastructure for Gaza's people," it added.

Fuel reserves in Gaza, vital for keeping hospital generators running during daily power cuts, keep drying up, it said.

Stocks of essential medical supplies were at an all-time low because of a halt in cooperation between authorities in Ramallah, the Fatah-ruled West Bank, and Gaza, the agency said.

"The state of the health care system in Gaza has never been worse," said ICRC health coordinator Eileen Daly. "Health is being politicized: that is the main reason the system is failing."

Only 60 percent of Gazan residents are connected to a sewage collection system, according to the ICRC which voiced concern that drinking water in most of Gaza is unfit for consumption.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Why Israeli Siege Is Illegal

UPDATED ON: Monday, June 14, 2010
14:58 Mecca time, 11:58 GMT
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

Israel denies that it occupies Gaza, but it still maintains "effective control" over the territory [AFP] The International Committee of the Red Cross has described Israel's blockade of Gaza as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. That conclusion rests on the Israeli government' status as an occupying power in Gaza, which assigns it certain obligations to the people of Gaza. Those obligations are spelt out in detail by the Fourth Geneva Convention. At their most basic, though, they require Israel to provide for the basic needs of the people, particularly food and medical care. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate. The convention also requires the occupying power to allow sufficient shipments of aid - food, clothing, medical supplies and other essentials - and to take steps to preserve the health care system in the occupied territory. Many Gazans rely on generators for power; their improper use has killed more than 100 people Israel does not meet those basic requirements, according to many observers. Eighty per cent of people living in Gaza rely on food aid to survive; 14 per cent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition. Power cuts are routine: 98 per cent of the population copes with routine blackouts. Fuel supplies are heavily restricted. More than 100 basic medicines are unavailable in Gaza, and the territory’s few remaining hospitals - several were damaged during the 2008-2009 Israeli war in Gaza - lack basic supplies and equipment. But Didn't Israel Withdraw From Gaza? How Is It Still An Occupying Power? It’s true that the Israeli government no longer has a presence inside the Gaza Strip. Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the withdrawal of all Israelis (including both soldiers and settlers) from the territory in his 2005 "unilateral disengagement plan". But the Fourth Geneva Convention applies whenever a state has "effective control" over a territory. The Israeli government still controls Gaza’s airspace, and its land and sea borders. The only goods and people allowed into Gaza are those approved by the Israeli government. Last month’s raid on the aid flotilla bound for Gaza is an instructive example. The organisers of the flotilla say their boats were on course to travel through Gazan waters, not Israeli waters. But the Israeli army still attacked the flotilla to prevent it from entering Gaza - showing that Israel maintains control over Gaza. If There Was No Occupation, Would The Blockade Still Be Illegal? The principle of “proportionality” is central to international law: The military advantage gained by an action must outweigh the harm caused to the civilian population. Douglas Guilfoyle, a maritime legal expert, says the blockade does not meet the proportionality test The blockade does not meet this test. It imposes hardships on the entire population of Gaza - 1.5 million people - purportedly in order to achieve a limited military aim: preventing Hamas from firing rockets at Israel. What’s more, documents revealed last week by the Israeli human rights organisation Gisha show that the blockade actually has a political aim, not a military one. A written statement from the Israeli government described the blockade as "economic warfare" and said it was intended to break Hamas’s control over the government in Gaza. What About The Egyptian Government? The Egyptian border crossing with Gaza, at Rafah, has been mostly sealed since Hamas took power in June of 2007. (The Egyptian government reopened the crossing earlier this month following Israel’s raid on the aid flotilla.) But Egypt is not an occupying power in Gaza - it does not exercise "effective control" over the territory - so, whatever the moral and political arguments against its blockade, it is not required to apply the same legal standard as Israel.

Egypt A Ticking Time Bomb

The Arab world’s leading nation has become a political and cultural backwater — and that’s not good

By Eric Margolis
By Eric Margolis, QMI Agency
Last Updated: April 25, 2010 2:00am
Courtesy Of The Toronto Sun

As battered air travellers struggle to recover from Iceland’s volcanic big bang, another explosion is building up.

This time, it’s a political one that could rock the entire Mideast, where rumours of war involving the U.S., Syria, Israel and Iran are intensifying.

President Hosni Mubarak, the U.S.-supported strongman who has ruled Egypt with an iron hand for almost 30 years, is 81 and in frail health. He has no designated successor.

Mubarak, a general, was put into power with U.S. help after the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat by nationalist soldiers. Sadat had been a CIA “asset” since 1952.

Egypt, with 82 million people, is the most populous and important Arab nation and Cairo the cultural centre of the Arab world. It is also an overcrowded madhouse with eight million people whose population has tripled since I lived there as a boy.

Not counting North Africa, one in three Arabs is Egyptian.

Egypt was once the heart and soul of the Arab and Muslim world. Under Sadat’s predecessor, the widely adored nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt led the Arab world. Egyptians despised Sadat as a corrupt western toady and sullenly accepted Mubarak.

After three decades under Mubarak, Egypt has become a political and cultural backwater. In a telling incident, Mubarak recently flew to Germany for gall bladder and colon surgery. After billions in U.S. aid, Mubarak could not even trust a local hospital in the Arab world’s leading nation.

The U.S. gives Egypt $1.3 billion annually in military aid to keep the generals content and about $700 million in economic aid, not counting secret CIA stipends, and vast amounts of low-cost wheat.

Mubarak’s Egypt is the cornerstone of America’s Mideast Raj (dominion). Egypt’s 469,000-man armed forces, 397,000 paramilitary police and ferocious secret police keep the regime in power and crush all dissent.

Though large, Egypt’s military is starved by Washington of modern weapons, ammo and spare parts so it cannot wage war against Israel. Its sole function is keeping the U.S.-backed regime in power.

Mubarak has long been a key ally of Israel in battling Islamist and nationalist groups. Egypt and Israel collaborate on penning up Hamas-led Palestinians in Gaza.

Egypt is now building a new steel wall on the Gaza border with U.S. assistance. Mubarak’s Wall, which will go down 12 metres, is designed to block tunnels through which Gaza Palestinians rely for supplies.

While Washington fulminates against Iran and China over human rights, it says nothing about client Egypt — where all elections are rigged, regime opponents brutally tortured and political opposition liquidated.

Washington could quickly impose real democracy to Egypt where it pulls all the strings, if it wanted.

Ayman Nour, the last man who dared run in an election against the eternal Mubarak — “pharaoh” to Islamist opponents — was arrested and tortured.

Now, as Mubarak’s health fails, the U.S. and Israel are increasingly alarmed his death could produce a political eruption in long-repressed Egypt.

Mubarak has been trying to groom his son, Gamal, to succeed him. But Egyptians are deeply opposed. The powerful 72-year old intelligence chief, Gen. Omar Suleiman, an ally of the U.S. and Israel, is another possible strongman. CIA will also be grooming another army or air force general for the job.

Egypt’s secular political opposition barely exists. The regime’s real opponent remains the relatively moderate, highly popular Islamic Brotherhood. It would win a free election hands down. But its leadership is old and tired. Half of Egyptians are under 20.

Mohammed El-Baradai, the intelligent, principled, highly respected Egyptian former UN nuclear chief, is calling for real democracy in his homeland. He presents a very attractive candidate to lead post-Mubarak Egypt.

Washington hopes it can ease another compliant general into power and keep the security forces loyal before 30 years of pent-up fury at Mubarak’s dictatorship, Egypt’s political emasculation, thirst for change and dire poverty produce a volcanic eruption on the Nile.

Gaza's Calm Determination

By Norman Finkelstein
Source: The Electronic Intifada
April 26, 2010
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

To preserve my sense of purpose, and keep the Palestine struggle from becoming a lifeless abstraction, I need periodically to recharge my moral batteries by reconnecting with the actual people living under occupation and by witnessing firsthand the unfolding tragedy. From each trip I invariably carry away a handful of stark images that I fix in my mind's eye to dispel the occasional hesitations about staying the course. When the memories begin to fade I know it is time to return.

And so, in June 2009, six months after Israel's invasion, I joined a delegation that journeyed to Gaza for a brief visit. Though I had been to Gaza before, most of my time during previous trips to the region was spent with friends in the West Bank. Israel has prohibited me from entering the country for ten years, thereby making it impossible for me to visit the West Bank, allegedly because I am a "security" risk. An editorial in the Israeli daily Haaretz titled "Who's Afraid of Finkelstein?" cast doubt on the decision's premise -- "Considering his unusual and extremely critical views, one cannot avoid the suspicion that refusing to allow him to enter Israel was a punishment rather than a precaution" -- and went on to argue against banning me. Nonetheless it is unclear if or when I will be able to see my Palestinian friends again. In the meantime, going to Gaza via Egypt at least enabled me to get some feeling for developments on the ground.

Having just spent several months perusing Mahatma Gandhi's collected works, and deeply inspired by his commitment to living the life of the impoverished masses, I had resolved to rough it in Gaza. But this was easier said than done. Along with several other delegates I volunteered to stay at a Palestinian family's home rather than a hotel. Dressed to the nines, hair gelled, and reeking of cologne, several Palestinian youths met our group to select their home-stays. They departed first with one young female member of our delegation, then another, then another. The only candidates left hanging at the end of the evening were middle-aged men. We checked into the hotel.

It would be untrue to say that I was terribly jolted by the devastation that I encountered everywhere in Gaza. During the first intifada I had passed time with families in the West Bank living in tents beside the rubble of their former dwellings. Israel would routinely detonate the family residence of an alleged activist in the dead of night after giving the occupants just minutes to evacuate. Soon after the 2006 war I toured Lebanon. Many of the villages in the south had been flattened. The Dahiyeh district of Beirut resembled photographs from bombed-out cities during World War II: large craters where apartment houses and offices once stood, the occasional shell of a building in the distance. So by now I have become somewhat inured to Israel's calling card to its Arab neighbors.

Nonetheless a few memories from that trip to Gaza remain etched in my mind with particular sharpness. I remember an 11-year-old girl peering out of thick-lensed glasses while she lingered beside the American International School that had been demolished. Speaking in perfect English (her father was a physician and her friends ranked her the top student in the class) the girl wistfully remembered that it had been the best school in Gaza. I also recall the evening we met with government officials in a tent beside what had previously been the Palestinian parliamentary building and was now just a pile of smoldering rubble. Although the devastation was apparently designed not just to subdue Hamas but also to humiliate it, the representatives seemed oblivious to any slight to their dignity from having to convene in such reduced circumstances. And I can still see the huge rectangular depression in the heart of the Islamic University campus where the science and technology building once stood. An administrator recalled with pride tinged by melancholy that, just prior to the attack, the university had installed cutting-edge equipment for biological research in the building.

No Palestinian I met evinced anger or sorrow at what happened. People appeared calmly determined to resume life, such as it was, before the invasion, although the continuing blockade plainly weighed heavily on them. A young hijab-clad guide sitting next to me on a bus one night casually mentioned that her fiance had been killed on the last day of the invasion, and then punctuated her statement by staring, dry-eyed, into my pupils. It was neither an accusation nor an appeal for pity. It was as if Israel's periodic depredations were now experienced as a natural disaster to which people had grown accustomed; as if Gaza were situated in the path of tornadoes, except that in Gaza every season is tornado season. Some demented mind in an air-conditioned Tel Aviv office conjures up poetic names for its numberless "operations." Why not a little truth in advertising just this once and call them "Operation Attila the Hun," "Operation Genghis Khan," or "Operation Army of Vandals?"

The female head administrator of a children's library housed in a magnificent edifice that would be the envy of any major city in the United States offered some painful reflections. (Watching the children hard at work in the library, I secretly breathed a sigh of relief that whether wittingly or by miracle Israel had not inflicted on it the same fate as the American International School's.) She was one of seven siblings all of whom had obtained advanced degrees, and, apart from her, had left for greener pastures abroad. She had studied in Great Britain but against her parents' recommendation decided to return to her home. She recalled questioning her decision when, on her way to work one day, Israeli soldiers forced her to wade waist-deep in mud to get past a checkpoint.

Our delegation consisted mostly of Americans. Originally I assumed that I was the only Jew on the delegation, but after making several discreet inquiries I began to wonder whether anyone on the delegation was not Jewish. So far as I could tell Gazans did not care much about our pedigrees, although, to my mortification, the rector at the Islamic University introduced me as a "Holocaust survivor." I politely corrected him: "tenure-battle survivor." Did I really look 90 years old?!

Hamas has a fearsome reputation, but it met its match with the feisty feminists leading our delegation. Among their complaints, forthrightly expressed, was that Hamas did not allow the delegation sufficient freedom of movement at night. Although Hamas eventually gave ground my sympathies went out to them, and not just because in these verbal bouts they appeared the underdogs. It is not as if Gaza had a lively nightlife. Furthermore, Israeli ships still fired on Gaza every night, and Hamas feared that Israel (or its Palestinian underlings) might create an incident to discredit it. It is also not as if Hamas's security concerns lacked plausibility: after all we were Americans, and US intelligence agencies have been complicit in the repression of Hamas.

I had several meetings with Hamas officials and cadre. It was later conveyed to me that those I met were mostly from Hamas's "moderate" wing, although I cannot say exactly what distinguished them from members of the "hard-line" wing, and a lot of the speculation on this matter appears poorly informed. In his dispatch from Gaza The New Yorker's Lawrence Wright knowingly told readers that Gaza-based Hamas leader and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is a "moderate" who has "spoken of negotiating a long-term truce with Israel," whereas Damascus-based head of the Hamas politburo Khaled Meshal is a "hard-liner" who is "more likely to initiate radical, destabilizing actions." But Meshal, the "hard-liner," has repeatedly called for a diplomatic settlement with Israel.

At each of the parleys with Hamas members I repeated the same message: the current diplomatic posture of Hamas seemed in alignment with representative political organizations, respected juridical institutions, and major human rights groups. Many Hamas members appeared genuinely surprised when I rattled off the "pro-Palestinian" positions espoused by these mainstream bodies. If I was correct, then Hamas should couch its political platform in their language because the chink in Israel's armor is its diplomatic isolation. Hamas must hammer away the critical point that Israel is the real outlier in the international community and obstacle to peace: not "Hamas says," but "the UN General Assembly resolution supported by 160 nations says"; not "Hamas says, but "the International Court of Justice says"; not "Hamas says" but "Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say."

My interlocutors seemed earnest and willing to listen. (They even heard out in good humor the head of the delegation when she implored them to shave their "scary beards" to improve Hamas's image in the West.) Although Hamas sought to emulate Hizballah's victory in 2006, after the massacre it perhaps sunk in that Israel cannot be defeated by shooting firecrackers and Roman candles at it. When I was leaving Gaza, US President Barack Obama had just arrived in Cairo to deliver his landmark address. Hamas sent a letter to him partly informed by our conversations.

For most of the time in Gaza, our delegation was guarded by young Hamas militants. As we parted ways at the end of the visit I felt moved and obliged to state publicly that in my opinion none of them was deserving of the death Israel has attempted to inflict on them. I am aware that according to the "laws of war" they are "legitimate" military targets. But in a rational world the locution "laws of war" would make as much sense as "etiquette of cannibals." It is probably true that violent conflicts would be more lethal and destructive in the absence of these laws, but it is also true that, in their pretense of neutrality, they obscure fundamental truths. Whether from conviction, frustration, or torment, these young men have chosen to defend their homeland from foreign marauders with weapon in hand. Were I living in Gaza, still in my prime and able to muster the courage, I could easily be one of them.

This essay is the fifth chapter ("Inside Gaza") of Norman Finkelstein's latest book, This time we went too far, available from OR Books.

Norman G. Finkelstein's books include Beyond Chutzpah, The Holocaust Industry, A Nation on Trial and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.