Middle East Watch

475 مقال

• Les eurodéputés dénoncent le "châtiment collectif" infligé aux Palestiniens

  15 janvier 2009,

  Le Parlement européen a dénoncé jeudi "le châtiment collectif" infligé par les Israéliens aux Palestiniens de la bande de Gaza, estimant que cela constituait une violation du "droit humanitaire international".
  "L’embargo sur la bande de Gaza représente un châtiment collectif en contradiction avec le droit humanitaire international", estiment les eurodéputés dans une résolution adoptée à main levée, sans aucune voix contre.
  Ils demandent également "à Israël de remplir les obligations qui (…)

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• The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

  13 January 2009, by Norman Finkelstein

  The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
  Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this (…)

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• The United States Promotes Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians

  April 2009, by Francis Boyle

  As long ago as October 19, 2000, the then United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council) condemned Israel for inflicting "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" upon the Palestinian people, most of whom are Muslims. The reader has a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva (…)

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• The time of the righteous

  9 January 2009, by Gideon Levy

  This war, perhaps more than its predecessors, is exposing the true deep veins of Israeli society. Racism and hatred are rearing their heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. The "inclination of the commander" in the Israel Defense Forces is now "to kill as many as possible," as the military correspondents on television describe it. And even if the reference is to Hamas fighters, this inclination is still chilling.
  The unbridled aggression and brutality are justified (…)

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• Israel’s Righteous Fury and its Victims in Gaza

  3 January 2009, by Ilan Pappe

  My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice — even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject (…)

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• An Unnecessary War

  8 January 2009, by James Carter

  I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.
  After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had (…)

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• In the US, Gaza is a different war

  7 January 2009, by Habib Battah

  The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel’s war on Gaza.
  On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.
  As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, (…)

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• Où s’arrêtera l’offensive israélienne ?

  7 janvier 2009, par Robert Malley

  Une guerre dont ne voulaient ni Israël ni le Hamas s’est métamorphosée en guerre que tous deux sont résolus à poursuivre. Le cessez-le-feu préexistant n’était pas parfait, loin s’en faut. Israël subissait des tirs de roquettes intermittents, tout en sachant que l’ennemi juré profitait de la trêve pour renforcer son arsenal. Le Hamas endurait un embargo économique sévère contrecarrant ses espoirs de gouverner Gaza. Un compromis logique était à portée de main : fin des attaques provenant de (…)

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• The neighborhood bully strikes again

  2 January 2009, by Gideon Levy

  Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: "Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn’t be provoked into anger... Not that the bully’s not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!"
  Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF (…)

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• More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza

  2 January 2009, by Glenn Greenwald

  This Rasmussen Reports poll — the first to survey American public opinion specifically regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza — strongly bolsters the severe disconnect I documented the other day between (a) American public opinion on U.S. policy towards Israel and (b) the consensus views expressed by America’s political leadership. Not only does Rasmussen find that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the (…)

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