person:avigdor lieberman

  • Son of a bitch, what a video
    We should thank the soldiers in that video for sharing their genuine emotions and rejoicing at the sight of an unarmed Arab flying in the air after being shot

    Gideon Levy Apr 12, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-son-of-a-bitch-what-a-video-1.5992610

    Let’s say the soldiers in that video clip didn’t cheer and hoot, using foul language. Let’s say they recited Yehuda Amichai’s poem “God has pity on kindergarten children” before kneeling to take aim at demonstrators, and that after using live fire to shoot an unarmed protester they recited “El Malei Rachamim,” the Jewish prayer for the soul of the dead, assuming the protester had been killed like dozens of others. Let’s say the soldiers were shocked, meeting later for soul-baring talks into the night to discuss values.
    Let’s imagine some of them required psychological aid for trauma or post-trauma, with a few joining Breaking the Silence, confessing their deeds and repenting. And then a leftist filmmaker would make a movie about them, showing how deep was their sacrifice, how agonizing their suffering, just like in “Waltz with Bashir” or “Foxtrot.” How beautiful we could be. And then came this video and ruined everything.
    Let’s say the sharpshooters were value-driven soldiers, who had to carry out their duty while suffering wrenching pangs of guilt. Would that make them better human beings? More humane? More moral? They would tug at our heartstrings much more than those lowlifes in the video. No scandal would erupt and the beautiful soldiers would continue aiming at and shooting protesters.
    Half the country was shocked for a moment by the video. This was after two Fridays in which army snipers had killed and wounded hundreds of unarmed people who endangered no one, with Israel remaining silent. The country lived in peace with the massacre, justifying it in unified chorus. Then came the video and halted the celebrations for a moment. Is that how one talks? Is that how one takes photos? Not nice, soldiers. Even the campaign’s commander Avigdor Lieberman said that the soldier who took the pictures should be demoted. A miniature scandal over etiquette. Soldiers are allowed to kill and wound civilians to their hearts’ content but one doesn’t talk like that and one doesn’t film it.
    One should learn from the pilots. This wouldn’t have happened to them. When they dropped a one-ton bomb on a residential building in Gaza they didn’t cheer in the cockpit and they didn’t curse. Their language is as pure as the driven snow. You won’t hear them saying: “The son of a bitch. What a clip. Wow, we got someone in the head, he flew up with his leg in the air. Go, you sons of bitches.” That’s not their style. Some of them actually squirm during the debriefing session, even though they never the see the whites of their victims’ eyes, like their brothers-in-arms, the snipers, do. Maybe that’s why pilots are more value-driven.

  • La Journée de la Terre. La résilience du peuple palestinien abandonné. - RipouxBliquedesCumulardsVentrusGrosQ
    http://slisel.over-blog.com/2018/04/la-journee-de-la-terre.la-resilience-du-peuple-palestinien-abandon

    Photo : Sans abri à Gaza, source : nybooks.com

    « Si cette immigration des juifs en Palestine avait eu pour but de leur permettre de vivre à nos côtés, en jouissant des mêmes droits et en ayant les mêmes devoirs, nous leur aurions ouvert les portes, dans la mesure où notre sol pouvait les accueillir. (…) Mais que le but de cette émigration soit d’usurper notre terre, de nous disperser et de faire de nous des citoyens de deuxième catégorie, c’est là une chose que nul ne peut raisonnablement exiger de nous. C’est pour cela que, dès le début, notre révolution n’a pas été motivée par des facteurs raciaux ou religieux. Elle n’a jamais été dirigée contre l’homme juif en tant que tel, mais contre le sionisme raciste et l’agression flagrante. » (Yasser Arafat)

    Vendredi 30 mars un massacre de plus que celui de 17Palestiniens coupables de protester contre la condition infra-humaine dans la prison à ciel ouvert qu’est Gaza. Toutes factions confondues, les Palestiniens promettent de protester pacifiquement pendant un mois et demi jusqu’au 15 mai mettant à profit la journée de la Terre pour protester contre l’occupation illégale de leur territoire d’où ils furent chassés en 1948 Le 15 mai coïncide avec l’inauguration controversée de l’ambassade américaine à Jérusalem. C’est aussi la commémoration de la catastrophe (Nakba) subie par les Palestiniens lors de la création d’Israël (1948). Ils furent plus de 700 000 à fuir leur terre pour trouver refuge dans la bande de Ghaza, en Jordanie, au Liban, en Syrie. Leur enfermement et la grave crise humanitaire qui sévit à Ghaza donnent plus que jamais corps à la question du « droit au retour ». Cette demande dont les dirigeants israéliens n’en veulent à aucun prix, au contraire encourageant des juifs de la Diaspora au nom de la loi du Retour de revenir quand ils veulent en Palestine, prendre la place des exclus et pousser de plus en plus les Palestiniens restants à partir.

    Tuer délibérément « grâce aux snipers »

    Pour Ibraheem Abu Mustafa de Reuters : « Des dizaines de milliers de Palestiniens, des femmes et des enfants, ont convergé vendredi le long de la barrière frontalière qui sépare la bande de Ghaza d’Israël dans le cadre de ´´la grande marche du retour´´. Ce mouvement de protestation durera six semaines pour exiger le ´´droit au retour´´ des réfugiés palestiniens et dénoncer le strict blocus de Ghaza. Des dizaines de Palestiniens se sont approchés à quelques centaines de mètres de cette barrière ultra-sécurisée, régulièrement le théâtre de heurts sanglants contre les habitants de l’enclave par les soldats. Ces derniers ont tiré des balles réelles et fait usage de gaz lacrymogène. Selon le ministère de la Santé dans la bande de Ghaza, 16 Palestiniens ont été tués et plus de 1410 blessés dans les affrontements avec l’armée israélienne. La ´´grande marche du retour´´ a lieu à l’occasion de la ´´Journée de la Terre´´, qui marque chaque 30 mars la mort en 1976 de six Arabes israéliens pendant des manifestations contre la confiscation de terres par Israël. Les Arabes israéliens sont les descendants de Palestiniens restés sur place à la création de l’Etat d’Israël en 1948 » (1).

    Farès Chahine qui intervient à partir des territoires occupés résume la situation : « L’armée israélienne a mis en exécution ses menaces, lancées en début de semaine, d’utiliser des balles réelles pour réprimer les manifestants. Le chef de l’état-major de l’armée d’occupation avait même déclaré à la presse israélienne qu’il allait lui-même superviser la répression de :

    « La grande manifestation du retour », comme l’ont appelée les organisateurs. Les forces israéliennes, renforcées par une centaine de snipers postés tout le long de la frontière avec la bande de Gaza, n’ont ainsi pas hésité à tirer sur les manifestants désarmés qui ne portaient que des drapeaux palestiniens et lançaient des slogans réclamant le retour des réfugiés palestiniens sur leurs terres et dans leurs villages d’où ils ont été expulsés de force en 1948. (…) Au lieu de leur faire peur, les menaces israéliennes ont au contraire galvanisé les citoyens qui se sont rendus en masse vers la frontière pour scander leurs slogans. » (2)

    « L’autre point remarquable poursuit Fares Chahine, de cette journée historique était l’absence des bannières des différentes factions palestiniennes. Celles-ci ont laissé place au seul drapeau palestinien, symbole de l’unité du peuple palestinien. Des centaines de tentes ont donc été plantées tout le long de la frontière à une distance de 700 mètres environ de la clôture. Cette présence féminine remarquable a d’ailleurs apporté un démenti au gouvernement israélien de droite qui fournit de grands efforts pour accréditer l’idée que les Palestiniens sont des terroristes, des tueurs sanguinaires et des misogynes. « Malgré le danger, les Palestiniens de la bande de Ghaza, qui vivent dans des conditions inhumaines depuis de très longues années, promettent que ce 30 mars 2018 n’est que le début d’une insurrection civile contre les autorités de l’occupation. (…) La journée de la Terre, qui est célébrée depuis le 30 mars 1976, a toujours bénéficié d’un large consensus au sein de la population palestinienne. En ce jour du 30 mars 1976, les forces israéliennes ont froidement abattu six citoyens palestiniens communément appelés « Arabes d’Israël », Ces Palestiniens avaient pourtant la nationalité israélienne. Mais elle n’a servi à rien. Il s’agit de la preuve que ces « Arabes d’Israël » sont considérés comme des citoyens de seconde zone. » (2)

    Cyrille Louis du Figaro témoigne et rapporte le contenu d’une vidéo mise en ligne :

    « Une fois le fracas interrompu et la poussière retombée, les participants à cette « grande marche du retour » ont mis en ligne les vidéos tournées vendredi avec leur téléphone. L’une d’elles, filmée à l’est de Beit Lahya, a aussitôt inondé les réseaux sociaux. On y voit un jeune homme vêtu d’un jeans et d’un pull noir qui court, un pneu à la main, pour tenter d’échapper aux balles des tireurs d’élite israéliens. Une détonation claque, puis une seconde et le garçon tombe à terre. D’après ses amis, dont le témoignage a été confirmé par les secouristes palestiniens, Abdel Fattah Abdel Nabi est mort sur le coup. À en juger par ce document, l’homme âgé de 18 ans ne présentait aucun risque immédiat pour les militaires qui l’ont abattu. Pour L’ONG israélienne B’Tselem « Tirer sur des manifestants qui ne portent pas d’armes est illégal » et « tout ordre donné à cette fin l’est également ». (3)

    Les réactions

    Dans un discours le même jour vendredi, le président palestinien Mahmoud Abbas a déclaré qu’il tenait Israël pour pleinement responsable de ces morts Les Palestiniens ainsi que la Turquie ont dénoncé un « usage disproportionné » de la force. La Ligue arabe, l’Egypte et la Jordanie ont également condamné la riposte israélienne.. L’Algérie condamne « avec force » et d’un « ton très ferme » la boucherie israélienne commise par les forces d’occupation, à Ghaza, lors de la répression, vendredi, d’une marche pacifique commémorant le quarante- deuxième anniversaire de la « Journée de la Terre », sous le slogan du « grand retour » d’après le communiqué du ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAE).

    Le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, pour sa part n’a rien décidé. Réuni en urgence vendredi soir sur les affrontements dans la bande de Ghaza, a entendu les inquiétudes quant à une escalade de la violence, mais n’est pas parvenu à s’entendre sur une déclaration commune. « Le risque de l’escalade (de la violence) est réel », a estimé devant le Conseil le représentant français. « Il y a la possibilité d’un nouveau conflit dans la bande de Ghaza. Les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni ont exprimé des regrets quant au calendrier de la réunion -la Pâque juive a commencé vendredi soir- synonyme d’absence de responsables israéliens. « Il est vital que ce Conseil soit équilibré » a dit à la réunion le représentant américain..Israël a rejeté les appels internationaux à une enquête indépendante. L’usage de balles réelles par l’armée israélienne est au coeur des interrogations de la communauté internationale et des organisations de défense des droits de l’homme.

    Israël rejette toute enquête

    Vendredi 30 mars a été la journée la plus meurtrière dans la bande de Gaza depuis la guerre de 2014 : 16 Palestiniens ont été tués et plus de 1400 blessés, dont 758 par des tirs à balles réelles, selon le ministère de la Santé dans l’enclave. Le secrétaire général de l’ONU, Antonio Guterres, ainsi que la représentante de la diplomatie européenne Federica Mogherini, ont réclamé une « enquête indépendante » sur l’usage par Israël de balles réelles, une demande rejetée par l’Etat hébreu. De son côté, le ministre de la Défense israélien Avigdor Lieberman a qualifié d’« hypocrites » les appels à ouvrir une enquête. « Il n’y aura pas de commission d’enquête », a-t-il déclaré à la radio publique israélienne. « Il n’y aura rien de tel ici, nous ne coopérerons avec aucune commission d’enquête. » (3)

    Pour M.K.Bhadrakumar, l’horrible attaque de 17 manifestants palestiniens non armés et pacifiques vendredi par les forces de sécurité israéliennes a une fois de plus souligné que l’occupation par Israël des pays arabes demeure toujours la cause première de la crise au Moyen-Orient. La revendication des manifestants est qu’Israël devrait accorder le droit aux 1,3 million de réfugiés (selon les chiffres de l’ONU des réfugiés enregistrés) de « rentrer chez eux » d’où ils ont été chassés, (…)Trump entouré, dont l’islamophobie suinte de ses veines, il s’est maintenant entouré de personnes aux vues similaires, en particulier le nouveau secrétaire d’État Mike Pompeo et le conseiller à la sécurité nationale John Bolton ainsi que l’ambassadrice des États-Unis auprès de l’ONU Nikki Haley. » (4)

    La marche du désespoir des Palestiniens

     Un article du journal Le Monde nous apprend un peu plus sur cette marche pacifique :

    « Des dizaines de milliers de Palestiniens ont manifesté vendredi à quelques mètres de la clôture qui les sépare d’Israël. Au moins 16 ont été tués par l’armée israélienne. Tels des champignons de fer, les casques des tireurs d’élite israéliens se dessinent, immobiles, au sommet des collines. Des officiers assurent la liaison radio à leurs côtés. Une jeep passe dans leur dos. Les manifestants palestiniens, réunis près du camp de Bureij, contemplent ce ballet. La distance qui les sépare des soldats se compte en centaines de mètres. Soudain, une balle siffle, un corps s’effondre. On l’évacue. On continue. Ce face-à-face a duré toute la journée du vendredi 30 mars, le long de la bande de Ghaza. Cette journée marque un succès amer pour les partisans d’une résistance populaire pacifique, qui ont constaté depuis longtemps l’échec de la lutte armée. D’autant que la supériorité technologique de l’armée israélienne ne cesse de s’accroître. La manifestation de vendredi place cette armée sur la défensive, obligée de justifier des tirs à balles réelles sur des manifestants ne présentant aucun danger immédiat pour les soldats. (…) Mais contrairement aux propos calibrés des autorités israéliennes, personne n’a forcé les Ghazaouis à sortir pour réclamer le droit au retour des Palestiniens sur les terres qu’ils ont perdues en 1948, au moment de la création d’Israël. « Je n’appartiens pas à une faction, mais à mon peuple, résume Rawhi Al-Haj Ali, 48 ans, vendeur de matériaux de construction. C’est mon sang et mon coeur qui m’ont poussé à venir. (…) » (5)

    Non loin de lui, dans la zone de rassemblement de Jabaliya, dans le nord de la bande de Gaza, Ghalib Koulab ne dit pas autre chose, sous le regard de son fils.

    « On veut envoyer un message à l’occupant, résume cet homme de 50 ans. On est debout, on existe. » Dans le conflit israélo-palestinien, les mots aussi sont sacrifiés, vidés de leur sens. Dans chacun des cinq lieux de rassemblement prévus le long de la frontière a conflué le peuple ghazaoui dans sa diversité, et son dénuement. Vieillards et gamins, femmes voilées et jeunes étudiantes apprêtées, mais surtout jeunes hommes sans avenir (…) Mais personne ne contrôlait cette foule éclatée. Il est tentant de dire que ces jeunes défiaient la mort. En réalité, ils défiaient la vie, la leur, qui ressemble à une longue peine : celle des victimes du blocus égyptien et israélien, enfermées depuis bientôt onze ans dans ce territoire palestinien à l’agonie. (…) « On ne sera pas transférés dans le Sinaï égyptien, comme le veulent les Américains et les Israéliens ! On continuera jour après jour, jusqu’à ce qu’on retrouve nos terres. Le processus de réconciliation, amorcé sous les auspices de l’Egypte en octobre 2017, est au point mort, mais personne ne veut signer l’acte de décès. »(5)

    La colonisation continue : personne ne proteste

    Pendant ce temps Israël accentue sa politique de colonisation des Territoires palestiniens. Selon un rapport de La Paix maintenant, le nombre de nouveaux logements a fortement augmenté en 2017. L’an I de la présidence Trump, sans surprise, a été marqué par une poursuite des activités de colonisation en Cisjordanie. Selon le rapport annuel publié lundi par l’organisation anti-occupation La Paix maintenant, 2783 nouveaux logements y ont été mis en chantier en 2017. Ce décompte marque un léger recul par rapport à l’année précédente, mais il traduit une hausse de 17% si on le compare avec la moyenne des 10 années écoulées. Le nombre d’appels d’offres passés pour de nouvelles habitations (3154) a simultanément atteint un niveau…

    Au dernières nouvelles, ce vendredi 6 avril jour de prière. De nouveaux affrontements ont éclaté ce vendredi 6 avril entre manifestants palestiniens et soldats israéliens près de la frontière entre la bande de Gaza et Israël. Ces heurts interviennent une semaine après des violences sans précédent depuis 2014 qui ont coûté la vie à 19 Palestiniens.

    Cinq Palestiniens ont été tués et plus de 400 blessés par des soldats israéliens. Des manifestants ont incendié des pneus et lancé des pierres sur les soldats israéliens postés à la barrière de sécurité séparant les deux territoires, selon des correspondants de l’AFP sur place. Les militaires ont riposté en tirant des gaz lacrymogènes et des balles réelles (6).

    Beaucoup de commentateurs ont fait une analogie avec les massacres de Sharpeville , sauf qu’à l’époque le monde occidental avait banni l’Afrique du Sud, qui fut par la force des choses amenée à reconsidérer sa politique d’apartheid.

    Pourtant, la conscience humaine devrait retenir le bras vengeur de cette armée qui se dit « la plus morale du monde » car mettre des dizaines de snipers pour un tir aux pigeons, sauf que le pigeon est un jeune envahi par le désespoir, qui veut vivre à en mourir dans une enclave où son horizon est bouché. Il ne lui reste que la solution finale ; offrir sa poitrine et mourir pour une cause de la liberté. Ce qui est encore plus inhumain, c’est ce que doit penser le sniper dont le tableau de chasse est éloquent en fin de journée. Il ôte la vie à des jeunes comme lui qui ne demandent qu’à vivre comme lui sur cette Terre de Palestine dont il est difficile de parler d’ethnie, la science ayant prouvé que les Palestiniens et Israéliens appartiennent au même peuple de Cananéens.

    Que certains sionistes aient fait de la religion judaïque un fonds de commerce au nom de la race élue, ne doit pas porter préjudice à un peuple qui revendique de vivre sur les 18% de la Palestine originelle. S’il est connu que les Palestiniens n’ont rien à attendre des pays occidentaux tétanisés par la faute originelle, qui leur fait accepter toutes les impunités d’un pays qui brave une quarantaine de résolutions, ils sont encore mal barrés concernant la solidarité des pays arabes, encore plus tétanisés qui regardent ailleurs et se fendent de communiqués qui n’apportent rien de nouveau. La direction palestinienne s’est installée dans les temps morts et il n’y a pas de relève à l’horizon. Il est à craindre que la conscience internationale regarde ailleurs pendant qu’un peuple est en train de disparaître en tant que nation.

    « Est-ce ainsi que les Hommes vivent » aurait dit Aragon.

    Professeur Chems Eddine Chitour

    Ecole Polytechnique Alger

    Notes

    1.https://www.huffpostmaghreb.com/entry/ghaza-les-palestiniens-poursuivront-leur-protestation-apres-une-pre

    2.http://www.elwatan.com/international/israel-commet-un-massacre-a-ghaza-31-03-2018-365426_112.php

    3.https://assawra.blogspot.fr/2018/04/israel-rejette-toute-enquete.html

    4.http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2018/03/31/palestine-still-remains-core-issue-in-middle-east

    5.http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2018/03/31/a-la-frontiere-de-la-bande-de-gaza-une-grande-marche-du-retour-pacifique-mai

    6.https://www.nouvelobs.com/monde/20180406.OBS4747/affrontements-a-gaza-5-palestiniens-tues-dans-des-heurts-avec-l-armee-isr

    Article de référence :

    http://www.lexpressiondz.com/chroniques/analyses_du_professeur _chitour/289893-la-resilience-du-peuple-palestinien-abandonne.htm

    La source originale de cet article est Mondialisation.ca
    Copyright © Chems Eddine Chitour, Mondialisation.ca, 2018

  • Pour les habitants de Gaza, la situation est humainement intenable
    Guillaume Gendron, Libération, le 7 mars 2018
    http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2018/03/07/pour-les-habitants-de-gaza-la-situation-est-humainement-intenable_1634243

    Alors que les Américains ont décidé de sabrer le budget de l’agence onusienne dédiée aux réfugiés palestiniens, Pierre Krähenbühl, son commissaire général, alerte sur les conséquences de cette décision éminemment politique.

    Depuis la décision de Washington de « geler » plus de la moitié de leurs versements à l’Office de secours et de travaux des Nations unies pour les réfugiés de Palestine dans le Proche-Orient (UNRWA), cette agence des Nations unies connaît, selon son commissaire général, le Suisse Pierre Krähenbühl, « la plus grave crise financière de son histoire ». En poste depuis 2014, celui que les milliers d’employés palestiniens de l’UNRWA appellent « Mister Pierre » est face à une situation inédite. Son principal donateur, les Etats-Unis, utilise ces coupes budgétaires comme moyen de pression sur l’Autorité palestinienne (AP) pour forcer son président, Mahmoud Abbas, à revenir à la table des négociations. Le commissaire général de l’UNRWA sera à Paris mercredi et jeudi. Il y rencontrera notamment le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Pour Libération, il revient sur la situation financière de l’UNRWA et l’urgence humanitaire dans la bande de Gaza (dont l’agence est, selon ses termes, « la colonne vertébrale institutionnelle »).

    Deux mois après le gel des fonds américains, quels ont été les conséquences concrètes de cette décision ?

    Il faut d’abord rappeler les chiffres. Au moment de l’annonce, on passe d’une contribution effective des Américains de 364 millions en 2017 à 60 millions cette année. C’est 300 millions qui vont nous manquer. C’est beaucoup pour toute organisation humanitaire. Mais pour l’UNRWA, qui dépense environ entre 1,2 et 1,3 milliard annuellement, c’est un coup très dur. Pour le moment, il n’y a pas eu d’effets sur le terrain car nous avons demandé à une partie de nos donateurs d’avancer leurs contributions. La Belgique, les pays nordiques, la Russie, la Suisse l’ont fait. Cela nous a permis de maintenir les écoles et les cliniques ouvertes. Sur la question des fonds d’urgence pour l’aide alimentaire, notamment à Gaza, la situation reste délicate. Les Américains y contribuaient particulièrement, et on a failli se trouver en situation critique d’ici à la fin mars. Nous avons trouvé une solution interne, avec permutation de budget, qui nous permet de tenir jusqu’au mois de mai, mais c’est du court terme. Nous comptons beaucoup sur la conférence du 15 mars à Rome, lancée par la Suède, la Jordanie et l’Egypte pour organiser le soutien à l’UNRWA. Il ne s’agit pas que du futur de l’agence, mais d’une question de sécurité régionale.

    Votre raison d’être est attaquée : Nikki Haley, l’ambassadrice américaine à l’ONU, considère que l’UNRWA fait partie du problème car elle « crée un nombre illimité de réfugiés palestiniens ».

    C’est un mythe : l’UNRWA perpétuerait la situation en prolongeant indéfiniment le statut des réfugiés palestiniens, selon une définition différente du Haut-Commissariat aux réfugiés (HCR). Mais le HCR soutient les réfugiés afghans depuis l’invasion soviétique de 1979 et leur offre assistance, même s’il s’agit de la deuxième, troisième ou quatrième génération. Donc l’idée selon laquelle l’UNRWA opère selon des critères particuliers est erronée. Si l’UNRWA existe encore soixante-huit ans après sa création, c’est non par choix mais parce que la communauté internationale et les parties du conflit ont échoué.

    On évoque une augmentation de la contribution des pays arabes…

    Il y a derrière cette hypothèse une idée reçue. On entend souvent : « Quand les pays arabes vont-ils enfin contribuer ? » Mais ils le font déjà ! L’Arabie saoudite est le troisième plus grand donateur de l’UNRWA après les Etats-Unis et l’UE. Elle donne annuellement plus que la France ou les pays hôtes. Ces trois dernières années, les Emirats arabes unis ont versé des montants importants pour l’éducation. Il faut un partenariat entre l’Europe et les pays arabes pour stabiliser les contributions à nos financements principaux – ce qu’on appelle le « core funding ».

    Si jamais vous deviez revoir votre budget à la baisse, avez-vous identifié vos priorités ?

    Il y a déjà beaucoup d’inquiétude, notamment chez nos employés palestiniens, il ne faut pas en rajouter. L’objectif pour le moment est la mobilisation de fonds.

    Les ONG s’alarment de la dégradation des conditions de vie à Gaza. Pourtant, le ministre de la Défense israélien, Avigdor Lieberman, refuse de parler de crise humanitaire…

    Pour réussir à ne pas voir la situation à Gaza, il faut vraiment ne pas y vivre. Sur place, on est passé de 80 000 personnes en 2000 qui recevaient de l’aide alimentaire, à un million aujourd’hui, sur 1,9 million d’habitants. Ce chiffre, un scandale international, est en lien direct et organique avec le blocus. Ces gens, souvent éduqués, autosuffisants, qui avaient des emplois, des entreprises, ont vu leurs marchés détruits par le blocus et l’impossibilité d’importer du matériel. La situation est humainement intenable.

    Vous évoquez le blocus, mais la détérioration des conditions de vie semble aussi liée aux décisions de l’Autorité palestinienne, qui a notamment amputé les salaires des fonctionnaires pour faire pression sur le Hamas.

    C’est un paramètre : les divisions intra-palestiniennes ont un effet sur la communauté. Sur le plan de la santé et de l’électricité, il y a des enjeux clairs liés à ces divisions, mais je pense qu’il ne faut pas perdre de vue les effets du blocus.

    L’expression « prison à ciel ouvert », vous la cautionnez ?

    Comme le disait un entrepreneur palestinien : « En principe, lorsqu’on est condamné à une peine de prison, on en connaît la durée. Là, personne ne nous en a informé. » Rien de ce qui se passe à Gaza n’est compatible avec l’argument d’un investissement dans la sécurité régionale. Ni pour les Palestiniens, ni les Israéliens, ni les Egyptiens. Maintenant, si nos activités sont touchées aussi… Dire, comme le font certains, « la crise est moins aigu qu’en Somalie, en Syrie ou au Yémen », c’est classer la souffrance… Pour les habitants de Gaza, c’est terrible d’imaginer que l’UNRWA, le seul paramètre stable de leur vie, puisse être menacé. Si l’on s’intéresse à la stabilité de la région, comment imaginer, sans l’UNRWA, que 270 000 élèves à Gaza n’aient plus accès à l’éducation dans un contexte si dégradé ? Plus de 90% de ces élèves n’ont jamais quitté Gaza de leur vie, ils ne connaissent rien d’autre que ces quelques kilomètres carrés et la crainte d’un prochain conflit. On me demande souvent si je suis inquiet par les risques de radicalisation au Proche-Orient. Je le suis d’autant plus maintenant qu’on m’a retiré 300 millions pour mon système scolaire.

    Les Israéliens accusent vos professeurs d’entretenir, voire d’instiller, un certain nombre d’idées radicales chez les élèves…

    Il a été démontré par de nombreuses études faites par les donateurs eux-mêmes – dont les Américains – que notre travail éducatif est un investissement extrêmement important. Plus de deux millions de Palestiniens ont obtenu un diplôme dans nos écoles. Nous sommes le seul le système scolaire qui a inscrit dans son cursus des cours sur les droits de l’homme, la tolérance… Bien sûr, il y a parfois eu des problèmes avec ce que l’un ou l’autre de nos enseignants a pu poster sur sa page Facebook. Quand vous vivez dans une communauté depuis cinquante ans sous occupation, cela change votre vision du monde. Et cela concerne moins de 0,5% de nos 22 000 employés. Mais aussi minime soit-il, nous prenons ce problème très au sérieux, il y va de notre crédibilité.

    Est-ce difficile de mobiliser l’opinion internationale sur Gaza ?

    Si l’on compare à ce qu’il s’est passé en 2014 au cœur de la guerre, la situation n’est évidemment pas comparable en intensité.. Ce que l’on voit actuellement, c’est un cumul, entre le blocus, la crise financière, les coupures d’électricité, la mauvaise qualité de l’eau, le traumatisme de la jeunesse après la dernière guerre, le sentiment d’enfermement… Ce qui me choque, c’est que dans les conférences internationales au sujet de Gaza, on parle beaucoup de résilience. Cela revient à applaudir les Gazaouis de tenir indéfiniment face à une injustice qui devrait être réglée politiquement. C’est féliciter les gens de survivre à quelque chose qui n’a pas lieu d’être.

    Quel rôle peut jouer la France ?

    D’un point de vue régional, je considère extrêmement important que la France joue un rôle dirigeant. Elle a toujours un regard extrêmement aigu sur les questions politiques. Cette tradition française est plus que jamais nécessaire, à l’heure où il y a beaucoup de défaitisme dans la communauté internationale autour de ce conflit. Sur les questions relatives à l’UNRWA, j’ai une attente forte sur l’éducation, thème sur lequel Emmanuel Macron s’est engagé.

    #Palestine #UNRWA #Gaza #réfugiés

  • Two Gaza Youth Killed by Israeli Airstrikes– IMEMC News
    http://imemc.org/article/two-gaza-youth-killed-by-israeli-airstrikes

    Two Palestinian youth, both aged 17, were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

    According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the two Palestinians, identified as Salim Sabbah and Abdullah abu-Sheikha , arrived to the hospital in serious condition.

    Both of the young teens received life-saving treatment, but neither of them survived, the ministry said in a statement, according to Days of Palestine.

    The two civilians, local sources said, were part of a group of six teens affected by an Israeli airstrike in an empty area in the city of Rafah.

    In the statement, the ministry said that the other four were lightly wounded.

    On Saturday, an explosive device detonated in an Israeli military jeep after crossing the Gaza borders in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where four Israeli soldiers were wounded, including two who sustained serious injuries.

    Several Israeli officials, including PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman vowed to take revenge for them.

    Therefore, the Israeli occupation army launched about 20 airstrikes in different areas, including police and border guard stations across the Gaza Strip, claiming they attacked “terror posts.”

    #Palestine_assassinée

    • Israeli Air Force Fires Missiles Into Palestinian Land In Rafah
      February 19, 2018
      http://imemc.org/article/israeli-air-force-fires-missiles-into-palestinian-land-in-rafah

      On Sunday, four Israeli soldiers were injured, including two who suffered serious wounds, when an explosive device detained near their vehicle close to the border fence in southern Gaza.

      The Israeli army then struck eighteen targets in the Gaza Strip, including six sites believed to be run by the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, one of them reportedly a tunnel extending from the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza towards Israeli areas across the fence.

      Also Sunday, two Palestinians, identified as Salem Mohammed Soliman Sabbah , 17, and ‘ Abdullah Ayman Salim Irmeilat , 15, were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Rafah.

  • Des missiles israéliens tirés sur un objectif près de Damas depuis l’espace aérien libanais
    OLJ/Agences | 07/02/2018
    https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1098863/missiles-israeliens-sur-un-objectif-pres-de-damas-depuis-lespace-aeri

    La défense antiaérienne de l’armée syrienne a annoncé mercredi avoir intercepté et détruit des missiles israéliens tirés sur une position militaire près de Damas, depuis l’espace aérien libanais.

    « Ce matin à l’aube, des appareils israéliens ont tiré plusieurs missiles depuis l’espace aérien libanais sur une de nos positions militaires près de Damas », a indiqué l’armée dans un communiqué diffusé par l’agence officielle Sana. « Notre défense anti-aérienne a pu les intercepter et détruire la plupart d’entre eux », a ajouté le communiqué.
    Selon un correspondant de l’AFP à Damas, de fortes explosions ont secoué la capitale vers 3H30 locales (01H30 GMT).
    (...)
    Ces bombardements interviennent alors que les contentieux s’accumulent entre Israël et le Liban. Le Liban a promis mardi d’agir diplomatiquement contre un mur en béton en cours de construction par l’État hébreu le long de la frontière entre les deux pays, en affirmant que certaines parties du mur empiétaient sur son territoire.
    De plus, Le Liban va signer vendredi des contrats avec un consortium formé par le Français Total, l’Italien ENI et le russe Novatek pour ses premières explorations d’hydrocarbures en Méditerranée. Deux blocs sont concernés par ces travaux de prospection, notamment le bloc 9 situé à la lisière d’une zone maritime disputée entre les deux pays. Le ministre israélien de la Défense, Avigdor Lieberman, a dénoncé le 31 janvier « le comportement provocateur » des autorités libanaises, estimant que ce bloc appartenait à Israël.(...)

  • Hydrocarbures : colère des dirigeants libanais contre l’Israélien Lieberman
    Par RFI Publié le 01-02-2018 | Avec notre correspondant à Beyrouth, Paul Khalifeh
    http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20180201-hydrocarbures-colere-dirigeants-libanais-contre-israelien-lieberman

    Les propos du ministre israélien de la Défense Avigdor Lieberman, selon lequel l’attribution par le Liban de licences d’exploration et de production d’hydrocarbures offshore, notamment à la frontière avec Israël, étaient une « provocation », ont suscité mercredi un tollé des responsables libanais et du Hezbollah.

  • Israel, Lebanon clash over offshore energy, raising tensions
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-natgas-lebanon-israel/israeli-minister-says-lebanese-claim-on-gas-field-provocative-idUSKBN1FK1J0

    Depuis le temps que cette affaire traîne…


    (carte avec la position libanaise, la revendication israélienne est en pointillés - ce qui n’est pas si fréquent…)

    Israel described as “very provocative” on Wednesday a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries’ maritime border, and said it was a mistake for international firms to participate.

    Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, whose country considers Israel an enemy state, said the comments were one of several “threatening messages” from Israel in recent days.

    Lebanese political and military movement Hezbollah vowed to defend the country’s “oil and gas rights” against Israeli threats.

    Lebanon is on the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean where a number of big sub-sea gas fields have been discovered since 2009, including the Leviathan and Tamar fields located in Israeli waters near the disputed marine border with Lebanon.

    Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “When they issue a tender on a gas field, including Block 9, which by any standard is ours ... this is very, very challenging and provocative conduct here.

    Respectable firms” bidding on the tender “are, to my mind, making a grave error - because this is contrary to all of the rules and all protocol in cases like this,” he told an international security conference hosted by Tel Aviv University’s INSS think-tank.

    Lebanon in December approved a bid by a consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek for two of the five blocks put up for tender in the country’s much-delayed first oil and gas offshore licensing round.

    One of the awarded blocks, Block 9, borders Israeli waters. Lebanon has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Israel over a triangular area of sea of around 860 sq km (330 square miles) that extends along the edge of three of the blocks.

    Israel has not issued its own tenders for Block 9, with its officials saying they were focused on blocks that would not be disputed.

    Lieberman’s words about Block 9 are a threat to Lebanon and its right to sovereignty over its territorial waters,” Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on his official Twitter account.

    Hariri said the country would take up the comments with the “relevant international bodies to affirm its right to act in its territorial waters”. In a statement from his press office, the premier said Lieberman’s words were “blatant provocation”.

    Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said he had sent a letter to the United Nations two weeks ago affirming Lebanon’s right to defend itself and its economic interests.

    Hezbollah described the comments as “a new aggression” and said it would “decisively confront any assault on our oil and gas rights.”

  • Israeli army warns: Danger of violence escalating into war is growing -

    With eye on recent events, military intel warn of potential war ■ Abbas may have backed himself into a corner ■ Gaza threat looms over Israelis

    Amos Harel 13.01.2018
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.834343

    The odds of a neighboring country, or one of the terrorist organizations operating inside of it, launching a war against Israel this year are almost nonexistent, according to the Israeli army’s intelligence assessment for 2018.
    Sounding remarkably similar to the 2017 assessment provided to the defense minister, the military noted there is not much left of the Arab armies, and Israel’s neighbors are mostly preoccupied with themselves, while internal problems are distracting Hezbollah and Hamas.
    Is there any difference from 2017? Well, the danger of deterioration – perhaps even to the point of war – has grown significantly, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot stated. The intelligence branch and the chief of staff, who is beginning his fourth and final year at the helm of the army, are concerned about two possible scenarios. 
    The first would be the result of a reaction by one of Israel’s enemies to an Israeli show of force. The second would stem from a flare-up on the Palestinian front. When the terrorism genie gets out of the Palestinian bottle, it takes many months or even years to put it back.
    The first scenario, which the army terms “the campaign between the wars,” might happen when Israel tries to prevent rivals from obtaining advance weaponry they might want to use during a future war, according to Eisenkot.

    Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, center, being briefed by Col. Gilad Amit, commander of the Samaria Brigade, following the murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, January 18, 2018.IDF Spokesperson’s Unit
    Most of these operations occur under the radar, far from Israel’s borders. Usually, such operations draw little media attention and Israel invariably dodges the question of responsibility. The previous Israel Air Force commander, Gen. Amir Eshel, told Haaretz last August there were nearly 100 such attacks under his five-year command, mostly on Syrian and Hezbollah arms convoys on the northern front.

    However, the more Israel carries out such attacks, and the more it does so on increasingly sophisticated systems (according to foreign media reports), the higher the chances of a confrontation with other countries and organizations, increasing the danger of a significant retaliation.
    A similar thing is happening on the Gaza border. Work on the defense barrier against cross-border attack tunnels is advancing, while Israel is simultaneously developing and implementing more sophisticated methods to locate these tunnels.
    At least three tunnels were seemingly located and destroyed near the Gaza border in recent months. However, this success could exact a price if Hamas or Islamic Jihad decide to try and use the remaining attack tunnels before they are completely destroyed or redundant.

    Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, accompanied by Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot during a visit to a military exercise in the Golan Heights in 2017.Ministry of Defense
    It is usually accepted practice to call out intelligence officials over mistaken forecasts. But we received a small example of all these trends on various fronts over the past two weeks. The cabinet convened for a long meeting about the northern front last Sunday. Arab media reported early Tuesday morning about an Israeli attack on Syrian army weapons depots near Damascus. A base in the same area, which Iran had reportedly built for one of the Shi’ite militia groups, was bombed from the air in early December. In most of the recent attacks, the Syrians fired at the reportedly Israeli aircraft. The Syrians also claimed recently that the attacks have become more sophisticated, made in multiple waves and even included surface-to-surface missiles.
    A few days beforehand, there was a report about an Israeli aerial attack – apparently on a cross-border attack tunnel – next to the Gaza border. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the demonstrations to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital were dying down, out of a seeming lack of public interest. Then, on Tuesday evening, Rabbi Raziel Shevach, from the illegal outpost of Havat Gilad, was killed in a drive-by shooting attack near Nablus. The army responded by surrounding villages and erecting roadblocks around Nablus, for the first time in two years. The IDF moves were acts of collective punishment the chief of staff would normally rather avoid, but they were approved on a limited basis due to the murder of an Israeli.
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that the Shin Bet security service is close to solving the murder, but at the time of writing it was still unclear who did it. Hamas and Islamic Jihad released statements praising the deed, while, in a rare move, Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – which has been virtually inactive for a decade – took responsibility for the attack.
    Its statement, which was posted on several Facebook pages, attributed the attack to the “Raed Karmi cell,” marking the anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades leader’s death. Israel assassinated Karmi – the military leader in Tul Karm responsible for the killing of many Israeli civilians and soldiers during the second intifada – on January 14, 2002.

    U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a more amicable time, May 3, 2017Carlos Barria, Reuters
    Woe to Abbas
    The Palestinian Authority, whose leadership has avoided condemning the murder of an Israeli citizen, is making an effort nonetheless to capture terrorists in designated areas in Nablus under its jurisdiction. The Israeli moves in the area added to the humiliation of the PA, which looks like it has navigated itself into a dead end. 
    President Mahmoud Abbas is in trouble. The Trump declaration on Jerusalem provided him with a temporary escape. Last November the Palestinians received worrisome information that the Trump administration’s brewing peace plan was leaning in Israel’s favor. Trump’s so-called deal of the century would likely include leaving settlements in the West Bank in place, and declaring Abu Dis the Palestinian Jerusalem, capital of a prospective state.
    These planks are unacceptable to Abbas. However, the Trump declaration allowed the PA leader to accuse the Americans of giving up any pretense to being an honest broker. He found refuge in the embrace of attendees at the Islamic Conference in Turkey, and in halting all discussion of renewing negotiations.
    Abbas soon discovered that rejecting a reopening of talks with Israel didn’t stop the drumbeat of bad news coming his way. UNRWA was facing a severe financial crisis well before the Trump administration threatened to freeze the U.S. share of funding for the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugee assistance. The crisis, incidentally, also worries Jordan, which hosts at least 3 million Palestinian refugees and descendants. The flow of funds from the donor nations to the territories is dissipating, at a time that the reconciliation process between the PA and Hamas has ground to a halt, with Abbas saying he doesn’t see any benefit that can come of it.
    Meanwhile, Fatah members from activists in the field to the aging leadership are despairing of the chance of realizing the two-state solution. Israel protests the statements of senior Fatah officials about the right to wage armed struggle. It recently arrested a retired Palestinian general on the charge that he had organized protests in East Jerusalem. Fatah plans a council meeting next week, in which participants are expected to adopt a militant line.
    Abbas, who turns 83 in March, is increasingly feeling his years. His health has deteriorated and so has his patience and fitness to work, although it seems his love for travel has not faded. Claims of widespread corruption, some of which allegedly involve his family, are increasing. Other forces in the West Bank are aware of his weakened physical and political condition. Hamas is vigorously encouraging attacks against Israel, probably in expectation of humiliating the PA. Last week the Shin Bet asserted that for the first time, an Iranian agent was operating a Palestinian terror cell in Hebron.
    Meanwhile, a multiparty effort is being made to halt the violence and prevent a sliding into a military confrontation. Under the shadow of rockets by Salafi groups in Gaza, Israel and the PA announced the transfer of additional funds from the PA to pay for increasing the electricity supply from Israel to the Strip. There has not been a single rocket fired this week, but the situation remains fragile. The army increased security around communities close to the border and has stepped up exercises that simulate terrorists using tunnels to infiltrate under the border to kidnap and kill Israelis. The chief of staff watched the elite Shaldag unit going into action in such a scenario this week.

    Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants take part in the funeral of their comrade in the central Gaza Strip October 31, 2017. SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS
    The army has to stay alert because Islamic Jihad has yet to avenge the killing of its people together with Hamas operatives in a tunnel explosion on the border last October. In November, Jihad militants fired over 20 mortar shells in a four-minute span at an army outpost near Sderot (no one was injured).
    Shells were fired a month after that, probably by Islamic Jihad, at Kibbutz Kfar Aza during a memorial ceremony for Oron Shaul, who was killed in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge and whose body is being held in Gaza. Army officials expect more attempts.
    The large number of gliders the Palestinians have launched near the border recently likely attests to intelligence gathering ahead of attacks. Israeli officials are also kept awake by recent reports from Syria of a mysterious glider attack against a Russian air force base in the country’s north. Organizations in Gaza are in arm’s reach of this technology.

    An opposition fighter fires a gun from a village near al-Tamanah during ongoing battles with government forces in Syria’s Idlib province on January 11, 2018.OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP
    Syria war still isn’t over 
    The civil war in Syria, which enters its eighth year in March, has not completely died out. The Assad regime, which has restored its rule over most of the country’s population, is still clashing with rebels in the Idlib enclave in northern Syria and is preparing for an eventual attack to chase the rebels out of the border area with Israel, along the Golan. The two attacks on the Russian base in Khmeimim (artillery shelling, which damaged a number of planes and helicopters, preceded the glider attack) indicate that some of the groups are determined to keep fighting Assad and his allies.
    The war in Syria started with a protest by residents of Daraa, a town in the south, against a backdrop of economic difficulties for farmers whose incomes were suffering from desertification. The regime’s brutal methods of oppression led to the spread of protest, and things quickly descended into civil war, in which several countries have meddled until today. The war often has consequences on nature. There has been a rise in the number of rabies cases in Israel in recent months, mainly in the north. One of the possible explanations involves the migration of rabies-infested jackals from Jordan and Syria. During the war Syria has suffered a total collapse of civilian authority, and certainly of veterinary services. When there are no regular vaccinations, neighboring countries suffer as well.
    The Middle Eastern country suffering the second bloodiest civil war, Yemen, gets only a tenth as much attention as Syria. The war in Yemen has raged for three years. Some 3 million residents out of a total of 28 million have fled the country as refugees. Over half of those remaining suffer from food insecurity. The UN recently estimated that about a million residents have contracted cholera from contaminated water or food.
    Such outbreaks can erupt easily, even closer to home. The European Union is expected to hold an emergency session in Brussels about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Israeli defense establishment has confirmed the frequent reports by humanitarian organizations of the continued collapse of civilian infrastructure, mainly water and sanitation, in Gaza. Wastewater from Gaza, flowing straight into the sea, is reaching the beaches of Ashkelon and Ashdod. I recently asked a senior Israeli official if he doesn’t fear an outbreak of an epidemic like cholera in Gaza.
    “Every morning, I am surprised anew that it still hasn’t happened,” he replied.

    Amos Harel

  • Israel helped establish 14 illegal West Bank outposts since 2011 -

    State support ranges from turning a blind eye to offering government funds ■ Review reveals system that helps clear the way for ’legalization’

    Yotam Berger Dec 25, 2017
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.831032

    Israeli authorities in September placed one of the so-called hilltop youth under house arrest at Havat Itamar Cohen – an illegal outpost in the West Bank. That’s one example, and not the only one, of how the authorities are involved in de facto legalization of illegal outposts. (The teen, who asked that his name not be published, said he’d had a falling out with the owner of the farm, who was going to beat him. A few hours later the Shin Bet security service and the army placed the teen in another, legal facility. People at the farm declined to comment.)
    To really understand Israel and the Middle East - subscribe to Haaretz
    Another example is that of Hill 387, a small illegal outpost established on state land near Kfar Adumim east of Jerusalem. At the outpost, surrounded by privately-owned Palestinian land, an NGO called Haroeh Ha’ivri (“the Hebrew Shepherd”) operates. Its official purpose is to rehabilitate violent settler teens known as hilltop youth. In fact, the association itself established the illegal outpost. Its documentation shows that it is funded solely by the Education Ministry, with an annual budget of a few hundred thousand shekels.

    Um Zuka. Olivier Fitoussi
    The Education Ministry at first denied that the NGO established the outpost, but the documents it filed with the Civil Administration show that not only did it establish the outpost illegally, it is also seeking to have it legalized retroactively.
    In 2014, Amira Hass disclosed in Haaretz that the Shomron Regional Council was behind the establishment of the illegal outpost Havat Shaharit. The Shomron Regional Council responded at the time that “the work was carried out by law and in coordination with the relevant officials.”
    Yet another illegal outpost, a kind of farm in the Umm Zuka nature reserve, was connected a few months ago to a water pipeline by a nearby Israel Defense Forces base.
    >> Settler leader used state resources to fund illegal outpost, while Israel turned blind eye <<

    Hill 387, the unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost where Jewish Shepherd operates a rehab program for teenage dropouts, in Jan. 2017.Olivier Fitoussi
    Ostensibly, after the report on illegal outposts submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by attorney Talia Sasson in 2005, no more illegal outposts were to have been established, certainly not with government assistance. The report, which revealed that the government had invested hundreds of millions of shekels directly and indirectly in the establishment of dozens of illegal outposts, was to have put an end to this phenomenon. But aerial photos and Civil Administration data show that it has not stopped, it’s only gone underground. Over the past six years illegal outposts are once more being established, some in recent months.

    Most of these outpost are hastily cobbled together, a tent or a prefab where “hilltop youth” – most of them under 18 – live off and on.
    The authorities are fighting against these outposts tooth and nail, removing them and sometimes arresting residents, among other reasons because the security forces see them as a source of violence against Palestinians. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman seems almost pleased to order their evacuation – perhaps because they don’t have a political lobby or economic backing. Last summer, in speaking to journalists covering the West Bank, he called them “disturbed” and “idiots.”
    The law is not being enforced when it comes to the better-planned and more establishment-supported outposts; they are sometimes recognized and receive assistance and protection. Since 2011, 17 illegal outposts have been established, 14 of which are known to the Civil Administration. The way they were established shows their planning. The founders or planners examined aerial photos and the location chosen was not coincidental: They are built on government land, not privately-owned Palestinian land, which increases the chance that they will be legalized in the future. They are mainly built in fairly remote locations with a commanding view of the surroundings.
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    Three of them are near but not connected to existing settlements, such as the so-called “prefab neighborhood” set up near the outpost of Sde Boaz, which was evacuated about two weeks ago. Eleven outposts were set up as farms with living quarters for a few people who raise flocks or crops. No plans are known for evacuating these outposts, although they are all illegal.
    Dror Etkes, of the left-wing organization Kerem Navot, says that the founders of these outposts chose the locales and built their structures on state land so they can claim that they should not be evacuated. “They take over as much surrounding land as possible, including private land, which they steal by other means, such as cultivation or barring access [to the Palestinian landowners].” Etkes, who is in possession of Civil Administration maps, believes the settlers saw them before they established the outposts.
    At the outpost of Nahalat Yosef, east of Elon Moreh, Etkes says: “Huge surrounding areas are private, and were taken over by planting or barring access, and have very much increased the area of the outpost. It’s methodical, and they know exactly what they’re doing.”

    Umm Zuka nature reserveGil Eliyahu
    Civil Administration data obtained by Haaretz show that dozens of demolition orders have been issued against these outposts. Nine such orders were issued against Havat Itamar Cohen, and eight against Haroeh Ha’ivri. But the Civil Administration doesn’t issue demolition orders against outposts within settlement master plans, such as Neveh Ahi near the settlement of Halamish, which was established after the murder this year of the Salomon family in the unused area of where a master plan is in force.
    But the flood of demolition orders is misleading. In fact, these outposts can expect the authorities to turn a blind eye to them, if not support them outright. “Except for Sde Boaz, there are no evacuations,” said Etkes. “This is clearly sweeping immunity against enforcement of the law. Add to this all the infrastructure around it, electricity, water, road-building; this isn’t being paid for with settlers’ private money.”
    A resident of the evacuated outpost at Sde Boaz, which was established with the assistance of the regional council, told Haaretz: “They told us that the High Court had decided that it had to be dismantled. We were told there was no choice, that it could harm the settlements – so we left. We’re not hilltop youth, we’re good, law-abiding people we understood there was no point in going on.”

    West Bank outpost of Nahalat Yosef, east of Elon MorehOlivier Fitoussi
    We might learn about the future of the illegal outposts through the case of Malakhei Hashalom, a small outpost on an abandoned army base near Shiloh in the northern West Bank, with a sheep pen that is presented as a farm. Visits to the site revealed it is inhabited by one family and visited occasionally by teens. The Civil Administration has evacuated the site a few times, but according to officials familiar with the case, a few months ago it was agreed between the Civil Administration and the site that its inhabitants would evacuate it of their own free will. The state sent them trucks and they piled their belongings on them. The Civil Administration proudly touted the evacuation. But within a few weeks later the outpost was established elsewhere, with the same sheep.
    SponsoredThe Unusual Link Between Coconut Oil and Alzheimer’s

    Yotam Berger
    Haaretz Correspondent

  • After a dozen Gaza rockets in a week, Israel is being backed into a corner -

    Frequent rocket fire from Gaza would disturb the feeling of security and would put pressure on Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman to act more resolutely

    Amos Harel Dec 13, 2017
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.828581

    Since the evening of December 6, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, eight rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into the Negev region. At least three other rockets were fired from Gaza but fell inside Palestinian territory. This is the largest number of rockets fired at Israel since the end of Operation Protective Edge, the war that Israel fought with Hamas and its allies during the summer of 2014.
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    Israeli intelligence agencies attribute most of the rocket fire, if not all of it, to extremist Salafi factions that operate beyond Hamas’ direction. Israel has also identified preliminary steps taken by Hamas over the past few days to rein in the rocket fire, including the arrest of members of these organizations. In the past, the Hamas government in Gaza has known how to make the rules of the game that it has established with Israel clear to these smaller groups – and has adopted a harsh enforcement policy when it has understood that the rocket fire was endangering the stability of its rule in Gaza.
    This time, either the message was not received or was not properly understood. It appears that in Gaza Trump’s declaration was seen as an opportunity to let off steam and attack Israeli civilian population centers. The stage of the large demonstrations by Palestinians protesting Trump’s declaration is slowly coming to an end, without leaving much of an impression on the international community, or on Trump either.
    >> Three reasons we aren’t seeing a third intifada | Analysis
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    Now there is a shift to a different approach involving firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, a period during which one “lone wolf” terrorist attack also occurred, involving the stabbing by a Palestinian at the Jerusalem central bus station of a security guard, who was seriously wounded.

    The site in the Israeli border town of Sderot where a rocket fired from Gaza fell on Dec. 8, 2017.Eliyahu Hershovitz
    The Israeli response to the rocket fire from Gaza has been rather restrained so far. As has been its custom in the past, Israel has said that it views Hamas as the party responsible for violence coming from its territory – and has exacted a price from it by bombing Hamas positions and command headquarters. But the Israeli attacks have generally been carried out when the targets were empty, and the attacks have been planned in such a way as to limit the damage. In one case, last Friday, a member of the Hamas military wing was killed, and the Hamas leadership felt Israel had gone too far. For now, it seems that the Israeli leadership does not want to rock the boat to too great an extent in Gaza.
    The Israeli government’s problem is that it does not fully control of the situation. Continued rocket fire and “red alert” rocket sirens will exact a psychological price from the Israeli residents in the region near the Gaza border, who have enjoyed a relatively long period of quiet and a major influx of new residents, as a result of a building boom and government tax breaks for the region following Operation Protective Edge. The traumatic experiences of Protective Edge and other previous periods, during military operations in Gaza and between them, are still remembered quite well in Sderot, Ashkelon and the nearby collective moshavim and kibbutzim communities.
    Iron Dome anti-missile batteries intercepted two of the rockets fired over the past few days – and missed one rocket, which fell in a populated area in Sderot but did not cause any injuries. The Israel army made a change recently in how it calculates the area where the rockets are projected to fall (known as the “polygon”), thereby only requiring that alarms sound in a very small and more focused area, and limiting the disruption to local routines in border communities near Gaza. Nevertheless, rocket fire every day, or every other day, would disturb the feeling of security that had been restored with difficulty and would create pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to act more resolutely. The distance could be short from that to another round of violence.
    The latest tensions are occurring against the backdrop of the Israeli army’s announcement Sunday that it had successfully destroyed another attack tunnel dug well inside Israeli territory that was discovered along the border with Gaza, the second in less than two months. It appears, however, that Hamas’ actions are influenced first and foremost by another factor, its reconciliation agreement with the Palestinian Authority. So far the commitments included in the agreement have not been carried out. That’s the case when it comes to the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and the resumption of funding for Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
    As far as Hamas is concerned, the bad news is coming from almost all directions: Trump’s announcement, the Israeli army’s success in locating attack tunnels and the difficulties with Palestinian reconciliation. If Hamas cannot deliver the goods to Gaza’s residents, who have been waiting with bated breath for a measure of improvement in their economic situation and freedom of movement, Hamas could well find itself dragged once again into an escalation with Israel – as it has acted in the past.
    This is the main worry keeping Israel’s senior defense officials and political leadership busy at the moment, and it explains the relatively restrained Israeli response – restraint that could end if the frequent rocket fire continues, and certainly if the rockets inflict casualties.

  • Lieberman qualifie des députés arabes de « criminels de guerre » - L’Orient-Le Jour
    https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1089020/lieberman-qualifie-des-deputes-arabes-de-criminels-de-guerre.html

    Un ministre israélien a qualifié lundi des députés arabes de « criminels de guerre » un jour après avoir appelé au boycott économique d’une région du nord, où des Arabes israéliens avaient protesté contre la décision américaine de reconnaître Jérusalem comme capitale d’Israël.

    Le ministre israélien de la Défense Avigdor Lieberman s’exprimait lors d’un débat parlementaire télévisé sur une motion de censure déposée par la Liste unie, une coalition de formations arabes qui représente le troisième groupe au Parlement israélien.

    En présentant cette motion, la députée de cette liste, Haneen Zoabi, a estimé que le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu « devrait être jugé devant la Cour pénale internationale à La Haye, parce que c’est un criminel de guerre ». « L’occupation est toujours (...) violente, illégitime et basée sur des crimes de guerre », a-t-elle ajouté, en référence à l’occupation depuis 50 ans des territoires palestiniens par Israël.

    « Vous tous, à la Liste unie, vous êtes des criminels de guerre », a rétorqué M. Lieberman, s’adressant aux membres de cette alliance qui compte douze membres arabes et un juif. « Vous exploitez les faiblesses et les avantages d’un Etat démocratique pour nous détruire de l’intérieur », a-t-il ajouté. « Vous êtes ici par erreur et le temps viendra où vous ne serez plus là », a-t-il encore lancé.

    #alliés #seule_démocratie #terre_promise

  • Après le test de missile de l’Iran, Trump remet en cause l’existence de l’accord nucléaire
    http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/international/article/2017/09/24/apres-le-test-de-missile-de-l-iran-donald-trump-remet-en-cause-l-exi

    Tout est en place pour que la moindre étincelle puisse mettre le feu à toute la plaine (et pas dans le sens où Lénine utilisait cette expression, mais plutôt au sens propre : détruire et vitrifier un peu partout sur la planète).

    Bon, on le crée ce mouvement mondial anti-guerre ?

    On peut aussi attendre qu’il soit trop tard.

    Le nouveau test de missile par l’Iran remet en cause l’accord international avec Téhéran sur le nucléaire, a déclaré samedi 23 septembre le président américain Donald Trump. « L’Iran vient de tester un missile balistique capable d’atteindre Israël. Ils travaillent aussi avec la Corée du Nord. Nous n’avons pas vraiment un accord ! », a-t-il tweeté.

    Téhéran avait annoncé plus tôt samedi avoir testé « avec succès » un nouveau missile d’une portée de 2 000 kilomètres. Cette portée permet en théorie d’atteindre Israël, l’ennemi juré de l’Iran, et les bases américaines dans la région.

    Le ministre israélien de la défense, Avigdor Lieberman, a dénoncé samedi une « provocation » et « l’ambition de l’Iran à devenir une puissance mondiale pour menacer les pays du Moyen-Orient et les Etats démocratiques dans le monde ». De son côté, dans un communiqué, le ministère des affaires étrangères français s’est dit « extrêmement préoccupé » : « [Paris] demande à l’Iran de cesser toute activité déstabilisante dans la région et de respecter toutes les dispositions de la résolution 2231, y compris l’appel à ne pas procéder à ce type d’activités balistiques. »

    Lire aussi : Donald Trump continue de menacer l’accord nucléaire avec l’Iran
    Une multiplication des invectives contre l’accord

    Ce test intervient dans un climat très tendu entre l’Iran et les Etats-Unis, le M. Trump menaçant de sortir son pays de l’accord sur le nucléaire que Washington a signé en 2015 avec Téhéran conjointement avec l’Allemagne, la Chine, la France, la Grande-Bretagne et la Russie.

    L’accord n’interdit pas les activités balistiques de l’Iran mais la résolution 2231 du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, qui l’a entériné, demande à l’Iran de ne pas mener d’activités pour développer des missiles conçus pour porter des têtes nucléaires. Ce texte est censé garantir le caractère strictement civil et pacifique du programme nucléaire iranien, en échange de la levée progressive des sanctions contre Téhéran.

    Lire aussi : Assemblée générale de l’ONU : impasse sur le sort de l’accord iranien

    Mais depuis l’arrivée de M. Trump à la Maison Blanche, les Etats-Unis ont multiplié les attaques contre l’accord, que le président américain avait promis de « déchirer ». Le 15 octobre, le chef d’Etat doit notifier au Congrès américain si l’Iran respecte ses engagements dans le cadre de l’accord nucléaire. S’il annonce que ce n’est pas le cas, alors le Congrès pourra réimposer les sanctions contre le pays.

  • Trump and Putin are the real targets of Israel’s alleged strike in Syria -

    Exceptional strike, attributed to Israel, signals Netanyahu can disrupt a ceasefire in Syria if Israel’s security interests are ignored ■ Incident comes amid anti-Hezbollah war game

    Amos Harel Sep 08, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.811078

    The weapons manufacturing plant that occurred early Thursday morning in western Syria is a site clearly identified with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The exceptional attack, which foreign media are attributing to the Israel Air Force, appears to be a message to the world powers that maintain a prominent aerial presence in the area. Over the past two years, Russia has invested huge efforts in saving and rehabilitating the Syrian president.
    The bombing is not routine, either in its target or its timing. In an interview with Haaretz last month, outgoing air force chief Amir Eshel said that over the past five years, the air force had launched attacks on the northern military theater and on other fronts.
    But most of these forays were designed to quell efforts to strengthen Hezbollah and other terrorist and guerrilla groups. This time, according to Syrian reports, the target was a government one – a missile production facility run by the Assad regime – rather than another Hezbollah weapons convoy destined for Lebanon. 
    >> Analysis: Israel Just Shot Itself in the Foot
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    Over the past year, senior Israelis have highlighted their concerns following the wide steps taken by the Iranians to try and enlarge and upgrade the supply of precision missiles in Hezbollah’s possession. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi have all made reference to this in public appearances. 
    For several years now, Hezbollah has maintained a huge weapons arsenal, containing between 100,000 and 130,000 missiles and rockets (according to various estimates). If the proportion of precision missiles is increased and their precision improved, that could enable the organization to inflict more devastating damage to the Israeli home front in a war.
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    In accordance with its declared policy, Israel is acting to prevent Hezbollah improving the quality of its weapons. The chaos the Syrian civil war has caused, during which serious damage has been inflicted on the capabilities of Assad’s army, has seemingly made this easier for Israel. Syria has for years been a no-man’s-land that no one has controlled. That changed with the arrival of the Russians two years ago. 
    According to foreign media, the deployment of Russian squadrons in northwest Syria since September 2015 hasn’t entirely halted the Israeli attacks. But the strategic reality has become more complicated. The prime Russian interest is the survival of the Assad regime. For Moscow, it is important to show that the regime is stable and that Russia is the party dictating what takes place in Syria. The attack on the facility – the Syrian Scientific Researchers Center – undermines that image, and could concern the Russians.
    skip - Shehab News Agency tweet

    The timing of the action attributed to Israel is sensitive. At the end of July, in a Russia-led effort, the Assad regime reached a partial cease-fire with Syrian rebel groups. Although the fighting has continued in various regions, its intensity has declined in many places. The United States, whose interest in Syria has been on the decline, acceded to the Russian initiative. 
    Washington and Moscow also failed to heed Israeli protests that the agreement to reduce friction in southern Syria failed to require Iran and allied militias to steer clear of the Golan Heights.
    Consequently, the attack attributed to Israel – the first to be reported since the agreement was reached – may be interpreted as an Israeli signal of sorts to the world powers: You still need to take our security interests into account; we’re capable of disrupting the process of a future settlement in Syria if you insist on leaving us out of the picture. 
    Since the attacks attributed to Israel began in January 2012, the Assad regime has shown restraint in the vast majority of cases, other than in one incident in March this year when missiles were fired at Israeli planes after an attack near the town of Palmyra in eastern Syria. One missile was intercepted by an Arrow missile over Israel.
    At first, the Syrian regime totally ignored most of the attacks. At later stages, it would accuse Israel and sometimes even threaten a response, but it didn’t follow through. The reason is clear: The damage sustained by the regime from the responses was marginal compared to the harm to civilians in the civil war, and the last thing President Bashar Assad wanted was to drag Israel into the war and tip the balance in the rebels’ favor.
    Israel will have to see how recent developments are received in Moscow, Washington and Tehran. The response won’t necessarily come immediately.

    Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting in Moscow, October 2015.AP
    Russia is not hostile to Israel but, above all, it looks after itself and Assad. The Russians will also take the consequences on countries in other areas into account, as well as its tangled relations with the United States – which has been acting as a present-absent party in the Middle East for a long time now.
    This comes against the backdrop, beginning Tuesday this week, of a large Israeli military exercise based on a war scenario with Hezbollah. In fact, Israel is taking pains to declare that the exercise was planned nearly a year in advance and that it has no warlike intentions. But the fact that the exercise was carried out has raised the anxiety threshold among Hezbollah’s leaders.
    Al-Manar, the Hezbollah television station, declared Wednesday that Hezbollah isn’t worried about a war. That’s very inaccurate. To a great extent, Hezbollah, like Israel, is worried about a war and would prefer to avoid one – but in the Middle East things sometimes happen when you don’t exactly intend them.
    The early morning attack came exactly 10 years and a day after the bombing of the North Korean nuclear facility in eastern Syria, which U.S. President George W. Bush and others attributed to Israel. Last time (and then too, by the way, an attack came during a major exercise by the air force) a war was averted. That’s the hope this time too.

  • As violence intensifies, Israel continues to arm Myanmar’s military junta
    Responding to a petition filed by human rights activists, Defense Ministry says matter is ’clearly diplomatic’
    By John Brown Sep. 3, 2017 | 5:58 PM
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.810390

    The violence directed at Myanmar’s Rohingya minority by the country’s regime has intensified. United Nations data show that about 60,000 members of the minority group have recently fled Myanmar’s Rahine state, driven out by the increasing violence and the burning of their villages, information that has been confirmed by satellite images. But none of this has led to a change in the policy of the Israeli Defense Ministry, which is refusing to halt weapons sales to the regime in Myanmar, the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma.

    On Thursday, the bodies of 26 refugees, including 12 children, were removed from the Naf River, which runs along the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Of the refugees who managed to reach Bangladesh, many had been shot. There were also reports of rapes, shootings and fatal beatings directed at the Rohingya minority, which is denied human rights in Myanmar. The country’s army has been in the middle of a military campaign since October that intensified following the recent killing of 12 Myanmar soldiers by Muslim rebels.

    Since Burma received its independence from Britain in 1948, civil war has been waged continuously in various parts of the country. In November 2015, democratic elections were held in the country that were won by Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi. But her government doesn’t exert real control over the country’s security forces, since private militias are beholden to the junta that controlled Myanmar prior to the election.

    Militia members continue to commit crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of human rights around the country, particularly against minority groups that are not even accorded citizenship. Since Myanmar’s military launched operations in Rahine last October, a number of sources have described scenes of slaughter of civilians, unexplained disappearances, and the rape of women and girls, as well as entire villages going up in flames. The military has continued to commit war crimes and violations of international law up to the present.

    Advanced Israeli weapons

    Despite what is known at this point from the report of the United Nations envoy to the country and a report by Harvard University researchers that said the commission of crimes of this kind is continuing, the Israeli government persists in supplying weapons to the regime there.

    One of the heads of the junta, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, visited Israel in September 2015 on a “shopping trip” of Israeli military manufacturers. His delegation met with President Reuven Rivlin as well as military officials including the army’s chief of staff. It visited military bases and defense contractors Elbit Systems and Elta Systems.

    The head of the Defense Ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate — better known by its Hebrew acronym, SIBAT — is Michel Ben-Baruch, who went to Myanmar in the summer of 2015. In the course of the visit, which attracted little media coverage, the heads of the junta disclosed that they purchased Super Dvora patrol boats from Israel, and there was talk of additional purchases.

    In August 2016, images were posted on the website of TAR Ideal Concepts, an Israeli company that specializes in providing military training and equipment, showing training with Israeli-made Corner Shot rifles, along with the statement that Myanmar had begun operational use of the weapons. The website said the company was headed by former Israel Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki. Currently the site makes no specific reference to Myanmar, referring only more generally to Asia.

    Who will supervise the supervisors?

    Israel’s High Court of Justice is scheduled to hear, in late September, a petition from human rights activists against the continued arms sales to Myanmar.

    In a preliminary response issued in March, the Defense Ministry argued that the court has no standing in the matter, which it called “clearly diplomatic.”

    On June 5, in answer to a parliamentary question by Knesset member Tamar Zandberg on weapons sales to Myanmar, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel “subordinates [itself] to the entire enlightened world, that is the Western states, and first of all the United States, the largest arms exporter. We subordinate ourselves to them and maintain the same policy.”

    He said the Knesset plenum may not be the appropriate forum for a detailed discussion of the matter and reiterated that Israel complies with “all the accepted guidelines in the enlightened world.”

    Lieberman statement was incorrect. The United States and the European Union have imposed an arms embargo on Myanmar. It’s unclear whether the cause was ignorance, and Lieberman is not fully informed about Israel’s arms exports (even though he must approve them), or an attempt at whitewashing.

    In terms of history, as well, Lieberman’s claim is incorrect. Israel supported war crimes in Argentina, for example, even when the country was under a U.S. embargo, and it armed the Serbian forces committing massacres in Bosnia despite a United Nations embargo.

    #Israël_Birmanie

  • Hungarian premier praises Hitler ally, Israel accepts clarification to avoid marring Netanyahu visit

    Viktor Orban’s remarks placed Israel in an embarrassing position in light of Netanyahu’s slated visit. After protesting remarks, Israel decided to consider matter resolved even though Hungary didn’t apologize

    Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon Jul 02, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.798853

    Two weeks before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to join a diplomatic summit in Budapest, tension erupted between Israel and Hungary over a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in which he praised the leader of Hungary during the Holocaust, Miklos Horthy, who collaborated with the Nazis. Israel protested the remarks, but according to a senior Israeli official, Jerusalem agreed to accept a weak clarification by the Hungarian foreign minister in order to avoid damaging the upcoming summit.

    The affair began on June 21, when at a political rally of Fidesz, the party Orban heads, the prime minister said of Horthy, who was regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 to 1944: “The fact that history did not bury us after World War I was thanks to a number of extraordinary statesmen like the regent, Miklos Horthy. This fact cannot be contradicted by mentioning the unfortunate role of Hungary during World War II.”

    According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Horthy led anti-Semitic policies, passed laws against the Jews over the years, was an ally of Adolf Hitler and collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. From 1942 to 1943, Horthy resisted German pressure to place the Jews in ghettos and deport them to extermination camps. But after Germany conquered Hungary in 1944, Horthy appointed a puppet government obedient to the Nazis and gave it full authority to act against the Jews. As a result, half a million Hungarian Jews were sent to extermination camps; most were murdered in Auschwitz.

    Orban’s remarks were made as part of an extremist nationalist and racist campaign he is conducting ahead of elections in 2018 and to prevent his party’s voters from leaving it for the extreme right-wing party Jobbik. One of Orban’s close advisers is the American political consultant Arthur Finkelstein. The latter served as campaign director for Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Likud’s campaigns in 1996 and 1999, and for Yisrael Beiteinu and its chairman, Avigdor Lieberman, in 2006. He was also deeply involved in the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu’s joint campaign in 2013.

    Orban’s statements drew criticism from the Hungarian Jewish community and the World Jewish Congress. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., the leading institution in Holocaust research in the United States, released an unusually harsh statement in response to Orban’s remarks: “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemns any attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of Hungary’s wartime leader, Miklos Horthy, who was a vocal anti-Semite and complicit in the murder of the country’s Jewish population during the Holocaust.”

    The U.S. museum also wrote that Orban’s praise for Horthy as a statesman was “a gross distortion of historical fact and is the latest in a long series of propagandistic attempts of the Fidesz political party and the Hungarian government that Mr. Orban leads to rewrite Hungarian history.”
    Orban’s remarks placed Israel in an embarrassing position considering that Netanyahu is to meet his Hungarian counterpart at a summit in Budapest on July 18, and the next day he and Orban are to meet with the leaders of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. This is Netanyahu’s first visit to Hungary since he returned to the prime minister’s office in 2009.
    Still, Orban’s remarks required a response by the government in Jerusalem and four days after the speech, Israel’s ambassador in Budapest, Yossi Amrani, issued a statement noting that Orban’s words were very disturbing and the collaboration of the Horthy regime with the Nazis must not be forgotten, as well as the race laws enacted during his time and the destruction of Hungary’s Jewish community. “Whatever the reason and national goal might be, there is no justification for such statements,” Amrani said in a public statement.
    A senior Israeli official said that Amrani also communicated through quiet channels with senior officials in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry in Budapest, demanding clarifications and saying Israel hoped Orban’s statements would not cast a pall over the upcoming summit. A few days later, when the Hungarian government had still not issued a clarification, Amrani gave an interview on a major Hungarian television station and reiterated Israel’s demand for clarification and a warning that the tension could hurt the summit.
    Quiet diplomatic contacts had been underway since Wednesday in an attempt to resolve the crisis, and on Saturday Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto spoke by phone to Amrani to put an end to the affair. In a statement to the press released after the phone call, Szijjarto said he had made clear to the Israeli ambassador that the Hungarian government had zero tolerance for any kind of anti-Semitism.
    Szijjarto also said that he told Amrani that “the regime of Miklos Horthy had its positive times but also very negative times and we must respect the historical facts that clearly indicate this.” The foreign minister added that the positive part of Horthy’s legacy was his work to stabilize Hungary after World War I, but the very negative part was “his historical sin,” when contrary to his promises he did not protect the Jewish community, passed laws against it and that hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. “All of these are historical sins whose seriousness cannot be diminished,” Szijjarto said.
    Although Szijjarto did not clarify Orban’s remarks, apologize or express regret for them, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, with an eye on the upcoming summit, decided to act with restraint and end the affair. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in response: “Israel believes that the statements by the Hungarian foreign minister to the Israeli ambassador in Budapest constitute an important clarification with regard to recognition of Horthy’s crime against the Jews of Hungary. We will always remember the 564,500 of our brothers and sisters of the Jewish community of Hungary who were murdered in the Holocaust.”
    Zionist Union Ksenia Svetlova turned to Netanyahu on the issue. “As you dared to cancel your meeting with the German foreign minister after he met with Breaking the Silence, I demand that you cancel your visit to Hungary and your meeting with Viktor Orban, who has expressed sympathy for his country’s dark past from the time of the Holocaust, and not for the first time.”
    "I expect the person who turned the ’whole world is against us’ [mantra] into a career to have the same standards against people from the extreme right in the world," she added.
    “These says I am working on an amendment to the proposed entry into Israeli law so that it prohibits the entry into Israel of declared anti-Semites, people who oddly enough have become his party’s partners, and are even invited by them to visits to Israel,” Svetlova said.

    #Israel #genocide #Hungary #Hongrie

  • Une catastrophe se profile à Gaza
    Par Charlotte Silver le 12 juin 2017 | The Electronic Intifada | Traduction : J. Ch. pour l’Agence Média Palestine
    http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2017/06/14/une-catastrophe-se-profile-a-gaza

    Israël va réduire de 40 % sa fourniture d’électricité dans la Bande de Gaza occupée, transformant une situation déjà désastreuse en catastrophe.

    Israël dit que la prochaine réduction, approuvée dimanche par le ministère israélien, se fonde sur une requête de l’Autorité Palestinienne.

    Avant la réduction, la population de deux millions de Gazaouis n’a reçu que quatre heures d’électricité par jour, les hôpitaux, la désalinisation et les usines de traitement des eaux usées étant gravement mis en péril ou rendus inopérants.

    Déjà, les services médicaux, y compris les graves interventions chirurgicales, ont été sévèrement réduits à cause de la constante crise énergétique.

    Les groupes électrogènes de l’hôpital sont au bord de la panne, a déclaré lundi Gisha, association israélienne de droits de l’Homme qui surveille le blocus de Gaza.

    Gisha a écrit dimanche une lettre urgente au ministre israélien de la Défense Avigdor Lieberman, l’avertissant qu’une réduction supplémentaire d’électricité « est la ligne rouge à ne pas dépasser ».

    On dit maintenant aux Palestiniens de Gaza de se préparer au pire. On dit que la coupure réduira la moyenne quotidienne d’électricité de 45 minutes supplémentaires.(...)

    #Gaza

  • The attack in Syria: Israel’s policy of ambiguity is nearing an end

    Strike in Damascus international airport attributed to Israel ■ Why isn’t Russia taking action? ■ defense chief draws a new red line: No Iranian and Hezbollah military presence on the Syrian border

    Amos Harel Apr 28, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/1.786074

    What has been done up to now with a degree of ambiguity, not to say discretion, is now being done for all to see. Syria confirmed on Thursday, in a report from its official news agency, that the Israeli airforce struck a military compound next to the Damascus airport before dawn.

    Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz implicitly acknowledged Israeli responsibility for the strike when he explained in a somewhat sleepy radio interview from the United States on Army Radio that “the incident totally fits with our policy for preventing weapons transfers to Hezbollah.” And all of this happened while Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was away on a visit to Russia, the chief sponsor of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
    Katz’s comments followed an earlier, first acknowledgement of its kind by Israel, after numerous reports in the Arab media of an Israeli airstrike in Syria in late March. And this past Tuesday, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer told journalists that about a hundred missiles, some intended for Hezbollah, were destroyed in that March airstrike. But it is still not certain that a deliberate decision has been made to abandon the policy of ambiguity that Israel has adhered to for the past five years, neither denying nor confirming its responsibility for such air strikes.
    This policy of ambiguity seems to be based on the idea that Israel’s refusal to comment on these strikes makes them less of an embarrassment for the regime and thus does not whet the Syrians’ appetite for revenge as much. The recent deviations from this policy were likely random occurrences and not the product of long-range strategic thinking.

    The initial reports from Damascus did not specify what types of weaponry was hit. Arab intelligence sources (quoted by an Amman-based reporter for Reuters) claimed that the targets this time were arms shipments from Iran being smuggled on civilian commercial flights via the international airport in Damascus.

    #Syrie #Israël #Hezbollah

  • Contre-courant
    http://www.dedefensa.org/article/contre-courant

    Contre-courant

    Circulation antidromique

    L’influx nerveux emprunte quelquefois un chemin paradoxal, de l’extrémité neuronale vers la partie céphalique, il est alors dit antidromique. C’est le cas démontré de certaines situations d’excitation nociceptive où le courant va à la moelle épinière et rebrousse aussi chemin vers les terminaisons collatérales. Celles-ci vont alors sécréter des neuropeptides pro-inflammatoires, perçues comme excitation nociceptive. Ainsi se crée une douleur auto-entretenue.

    Le Général Mattis, actuel Secrétaire à la Défense a rendu visite à son homologue en Palestine occupée, Avigdor Lieberman.

    Lui porter la bonne nouvelle de Pâques, résurrection pour les uns, éternelle traversée du désert pour les autres.

    L’accord passé avec l’Iran à propos du nucléaire est valide et l’Iran respecte (...)

  • After Trump request, Netanyahu formulating goodwill gestures toward Palestinians -

    At the meeting the security cabinet decided to curb settlement construction, Netanyahu told the ministers: We must not mislead the Americans, they are tracking every house in the settlements, including in East Jerusalem.

    Barak Ravid Apr 02, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.780952

    The Trump administration is asking Israel to carry out a series of goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the security cabinet last Thursday, when he announced plans to curb construction in the settlements. 
    These measures should have an immediate effect on the Palestinians’ economic situation, ministers and senior officials who attended the meeting told Haaretz.
    >> Get all updates on Israel, Trump and the Palestinians: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
    During Thursday’s meeting, Netanyahu said several times that U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to advance the Israeli-Palestinian issue and for the two parties to reach an agreement, the sources said.
    >> Analysis: Israel’s most right-wing cabinet ever curbs settlement construction - but the settlers keep mum >>
    Netanyahu said he did not know exactly how Trump wants to make progress, but the prime minister stressed the importance of Israel demonstrating goodwill and not being seen as the one causing the U.S. initiative to fail.
    Three ministers and two senior government officials who participated in Thursday’s meeting, or who were updated on the details of it, briefed Haaretz on what happened behind the scenes during the nighttime discussions about contacts between the United States and Israel on the Palestinian issue.
    All five asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter, and also because it was a closed meeting.
    Netanyahu said he intends to agree to the American demands for additional goodwill steps in the West Bank and Gaza, with the potential for an immediate uptick for the Palestinian economy. He did not provide details about what moves would be taken, but a number of the ministers present understood that one possible step would include granting the Palestinians permission to build in Area C (some 60 percent of the West Bank, under full Israeli civil and security control).
    Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has blocked previous efforts by Netanyahu to take similar actions, once more presented his reservations. Bennett said he expects that any actions Israel takes on the ground, and the goodwill gestures to the Palestinians, will not expand into moves with major foreign policy implications.

    The Beit Aryeh settlement, north of Ramallah, April 1, 2017. Netanyahu has pledged to curb settlement construction.THOMAS COEX/AFP
    The leader of the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party added that if Netanyahu does consider such moves, he expects the matter to be brought back to the security cabinet for a further discussion and approval.
    Netanyahu scheduled a meeting with the Israel Defense Forces’ Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, and other officials, for Sunday, when they will attempt to put together the package of goodwill gestures and other steps.
    Even though the Prime Minister’s Office stated in recent days no limitations will exist on construction in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem situated over the Green Line, Netanyahu sounded less emphatic in the security cabinet meeting and hinted that there would not be full normalization on this issue.
    “There are no limitations on construction in Jerusalem, but we will need to act wisely,” he told ministers, hinting it’s possible that certain limitations may be imposed on building in the capital.
    In addition, Netanyahu informed the security cabinet a decision had been made to limit the activities of the highest-level planning committee of the IDF’s Civil Administration, which approves building plans for the settlements. Instead of meeting once a week, as was customary, the committee will now meet only once every three months.
    Netanyahu told the ministers that each of the committee’s meetings – during which decisions are made and then revealed about building plans for the settlements, even if they are only minor technical decisions – leads to media reports, which then causes friction and tension with the international community. Accumulating such plans and having them brought up for discussion only four times a year will limit the amount of global protest, added Netanyahu.
    At the same time, limiting the activities of the IDF’s planning committee could also have an influence on the number of plans approved, as well as the pace at which they advance.
    A senior member on the Yesha Council of settlements in the West Bank said fewer committee meetings would mean a slowdown in the planning process. It would be enough for Netanyahu or Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to cancel just a single committee meeting for supposedly technical reasons in order to create a situation in which no plans are approved for a full six months.
    In a meeting of the heads of the coalition, Bennet turned to Netanyahu and said that the new policy on settlement construction will be tested by how it would be implemented. “I ask that after Passover a date would be set for the Supreme Planning Committee to convene in order to approve construction plans,” said the education minister. Netanyahu did not respond, but his chief of staff, Horowitz, said that he will check and will soon schedule a committee meeting.
    Netanyahu also told the ministers Thursday that stricter limitations and supervision will be imposed on construction in unauthorized outposts. It is assumed no further construction will be allowed in existing unauthorized outposts, and new ones will be removed shortly after they go up.

    Palestinian women in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 30, 2017. New goodwill gestures would aim to improve the Strip’s dire economic situation.SAID KHATIB/AFP
    Even though the new construction policy is not part of an agreement with the United States, or even part of the unofficial understandings with the White House, the Trump administration is following their implementation very closely, said Netanyahu.
    Israel must keep to its new policy of restraint and implement it strictly, without trying to deceive the Trump administration, because the Americans know about every house being built in the settlements, he added.
    At Sunday’s Likud ministerial meeting Monday morning, Horowitz, who manages communications with the White House on the issue of the settlements, said that originally the Americans had requested a complete freeze in construction. "It started from zero," Horowitz told the ministers. “The result we reached was much better.” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response: “I won’t go into it here, but you don’t know how right he is.”

    #Israël #Palestine #Etats-Unis #colonisation

  • Netanyahu announces policy of restrained settlement construction in ’show of good will’ to Trump

    Prime Minister informs ministers that while no formal understandings have been reached in talks with the White House, Israel will unilaterally limit new construction almost exclusively to already-developed areas of existing settlements.

    Barak Ravid Mar 31, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.780641

    Israel will adopt a policy of limiting new construction in West Bank settlements to within the boundaries of areas that have already been built upon or in some specific cases precisely adjacent to them, Prime Minister Netanyahu said at a security cabinet meeting late Thursday night
    >> Get all updates on Israel, Trump and the Palestinians: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
    A minister who was present at the meeting and requested to remain anonymous said Netanyahu informed the cabinet that despite several weeks of discussions on the issue, no understandings have yet been reached between Israel and the United States regarding settlement construction and that the differences between the sides remained unchanged.
    >>U.S. senator slams decision to build new settlement: ’Netanyahu not serious about two states’>>
    However, Netanyahu said he had decided to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s reservations regarding the settlements by unilaterally adopting a policy of restrained construction that will almost exclusively include building in already-developed areas of existing settlements to avoid appropriating new land or expanding the territory of established settlements.
    “There are no understandings with the Americans and this wasn’t agreed one with the administration, but rather these are restrictions that Israel is taking upon itself in response to the president’s request,” said the minister. “In any case, the ’payment’ to the Americans isn’t over.”

    >> Israel’s settlers are beginning to miss Obama | Analysis >>
    Another senior source who also requested to remain anonymous said Netanyahu told the cabinet ministers that out of consideration for Trump’s positions, Israel will take significant steps to reduce, in so much as possible, the expansion of existing settlement territory beyond already-developed areas and that this too would be significantly restricted to allow for the progress of a peace process.
    At the meeting, Netanyahu presented four main points outlining Israel’s new policy in the settlements:
    1. Israel will continue construction, when permissible, within previously developed areas.
    2. Where this is not permissible, Israel will allow construction in areas adjacent to those already developed.
    3. Where neither of these criteria are met, due to legal, security or topographical constraints, Israel will allow construction on the closest land possible to developed areas.
    4. Israel will not allow the creation of any new illegal outposts.
    A second minister who participated in the meeting said that Netanyahu said no understanding had been reached in the talks with the White House and that, in effect, the sides had decided “to agree to disagree.”
    However, Israel unilaterally agreed to adopt a policy that would take into consideration Trump’s concerns that continued construction in the settlements would expand its West Bank territory to a point that would prevent the creation of a Palestinian country in the future.
    “This isn’t an agreement with the Americans, but rather unilateral policy by the government of Israel,” said the second minister. “The Americans said that they don’t agree with construction in the settlements in any case, but that they can live with it and there won’t be an international crisis over every new home that’s built.”
    Netanyahu told the ministers in the meeting that he believes Israel should limit construction in a show of good will toward Trump.
    “This is a very friendly administration and we need to take his requests into consideration,” Netanyahu told the ministers. No vote was taken during the meeting, but all the ministers agreed to the policy of restrained construction and there were no arguments or conflicts between Netanyahu and any of the ministers.
    “This is moderate, reasonable policy,” said one of the cabinet ministers. “There’s no limit on the number of housing units and no distinction between the blocs and the solitary settlements. It will be possible to build, but in a gradual and measured way and without taking more and more hills.” 
    Netanyahu’s announcement of new policy came as the cabinet approved the construction of a new settlement for the first time in over 20 years, in part to house those evacuated from the illegal outpost of Amona in February. 
    A White House official told Haaretz that Netanyahu had informed the Trump administration that he intended to stand by his commitment to build this new settlement, but that a new policy would then be adopted that would restrict new construction in consideration of Trump’s concerns.
    Over the past few weeks, Netanyahu mostly kept the minister’s in the dark on the details of the talks with the American government and managed them with only his closest advisors. The only minister who was briefed was Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who had to know because the Civil Administration, which is responsible for planning and building in the settlements, is under his authority.
    Last week, Netanyahu’s senior advisors held four days of talks in Washington with U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt and his team, but didn’t succeed in reaching a final understanding. However, in a joint statement released by the two sides at the end of the round of talks, they said that Israel is prepared, in principle, to restrict construction in the settlements in consideration of Trump’s desire to push forward with a peace process.
    Israel’s umbrella organization for settlers, the Yesha Council, responded to the news, but did not attack the decision. “In wake of the decision and despite some restrictions, the understandings reached between the governments of Israel and the U.S. administration permit the continued settlement construction in all the communities in Judea and Samaria, and even the establishment of a new settlement for the residents of Amona,” the council said.
    “The true test will be the immediate renewal of planning and development throughout the settlements. We will stand guard and work to make sure that the Israeli government will actualize this plan,” they said.

  • Inside the clandestine world of Israel’s ’BDS-busting’ ministry

    The Strategic Affairs Ministry’s leaders see themselves as the heads of a commando unit, gathering and disseminating information about ’supporters of the delegitimization of Israel’ – and they prefer their actions be kept secret.
    By Uri Blau Mar 26, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.779434

    The Haaretz report that Minister Gilad Erdan wants to set up a database of Israeli citizens who support the BDS movement has led to questions about the boundaries of freedom of expression and the government’s use of its resources to surveille people of differing opinions. The report also shone a light on the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which Erdan heads, and cast doubt about its ambiguous activities and goals.
    >> Get all updates on Israel and the Jewish World: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
    Now, through official documents, Haaretz reveals some elements of the ministry’s clandestine activities, whereby even its location is a secret, described only as “greater Tel Aviv.” Its internal terminology comes from the world of espionage and security; its leading figures appear to see themselves as the heads of a public affairs commando unit engaged in multiple fronts, gathering and disseminating information about people they define as “supporters of the delegitimization of Israel.”
    That definition does not necessarily include only supporters of BDS, but intentional ambiguity remains, alongside campaigns and public diplomacy activities against these individuals in Israel and abroad.

    Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Olivier Fitoussi
    “If you want to win the campaign you have to do it with a great deal of ambiguity," the ministry’s director general, Sima Vaknin-Gil, who is a former IDF chief censor, explained to a Knesset panel recently. “The way I worked with military issues like Hezbollah or terror funds or Syria or any other country against which I conducted a campaign as an intelligence officer – we didn’t tell the other side what we intended to do; we left it ambiguous.”
    The ministry spends tens of millions of shekels on cooperative efforts with the Histadrut labor federation, the Jewish Agency and various nongovernmental organizations in training representatives of the “true pluralistic face” of Israel in various forums.

    The Strategic Affairs Ministry was established mainly as a consolation prize for ministers when the need arose to pad them with a semi-security portfolio during the formation of governing coalitions, and has taken on various forms. It was founded in 2006 as a portfolio tailored to Avigdor Lieberman. It was dismantled two years later and reestablished in 2009 in a different format. Under each ministry it was given new meaning and content.

    Strategic Affairs Ministry Director General Sima Vaknin. Alon Ron
    During Lieberman’s tenure, its authority was defined mainly as “thwarting the Iranian nuclear program.” In addition, Nativ, which maintained contact with Jews in Eastern Europe during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, came under its aegis. Then, under Moshe Ya’alon (2009-2013), the ministry focused on “Palestinian incitement” as well as the Iranian threat. During the term of Yuval Steinitz (2013-2015), the ministry was unified with the Intelligence Affairs Ministry into the “Intelligence Ministry.” In May 2015, it was once again separated out and given to Erdan, incorporating the Public Diplomacy Ministry, which had been removed from the Prime Minister’s Office.
    A harsh state comptroller’s report in 2016 concerning the “diplomatic-media struggle against the boycott movement and manifestations of anti-Semitism abroad,” noted that the transfer of authority to fight BDS from the Foreign Ministry to the Strategic Affairs Ministry was damaging to the powers of the Foreign Ministry and created unnecessary duplication that paralyzed government action in that area, as Barak Ravid reported extensively at the time.
    According to the comptroller, after years of contention and mutual entrenchment, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given in to pressure and shifted more powers for fighting BDS from the Foreign Ministry to the Strategic Affairs Ministry, together with major funding.
    In October 2015, the security cabinet finally gave the Strategic Affairs Ministry responsibility to “guide, coordinate and integrate the activities of all the ministers and the government and of civil entities in Israel and abroad on the subject of the struggle against attempts to delegitimize Israel and the boycott movement.”
    Nevertheless, tensions with the Foreign Ministry remained. The reason for this might also be a difference in approach. According to the comptroller’s report, the Foreign Ministry’s strategy of action against BDS “focuses on expanding dialogue with individuals, bodies, organizations, corporations and institutions abroad” – i.e., dialogue – as opposed to surveillance and more aggressive public diplomacy activities by the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

    Tzahi Gavrieli. Tomer Appelbaum

  • The role Russia played in the Israel-Syria missile clash
    Syria’s missile fire at Israeli warplanes may indicate that Assad and his Russian protectors are not fully coordinated.

    Anshel Pfeffer Mar 19, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777965

    Over the six years of the Syrian war, dozens of airstrikes carried out against Hezbollah targets there have been ascribed to Israel. Until now the government has refused to acknowledge or deny them. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman have stated publicly that Israel does attack in Syria to defend its strategic interests – in other words, preventing Hezbollah obtaining “balance-breaking” weapons for its arsenal in Lebanon. The attacks that took place early Friday were the first to be confirmed officially by the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson. While it remains unclear what the target or targets were – was it a Hezbollah convoy, a weapons factory or storage, and whether a senior Hezbollah commander was killed in the airstrike as some reports in the Arab media have claimed – a series of important questions arise from the little information that has been published.
    >> With missile fire, Assad is trying to change the rules of the game | Analysis <<
    First, why has Israel changed its policy and suddenly acknowledged an attack? Syria’s air-defense forces launched a long-range missile in an attempt to shoot down Israel’s fighter-jets. The missile was fired much too late to endanger the planes, but could have fallen on civilian areas within Israel and was therefore intercepted by an Arrow 2 missile. The loud explosion which was heard as far as Jerusalem and the missile parts that fell in Jordan meant that some explanation had to be given. But a statement on the missile intercept would have been sufficient. The decision to take responsibility for the attacks as well would have been made by the prime minister and may have been made for other reasons. 
    Exactly a week before the attacks, Netanyahu was in Moscow discussing Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Few details have emerged regarding what was said in the meeting but Netanyahu said before and after that he made it clear that Israel would not agree to Iranian military presence in Syria, or that of Iran’s proxies, now that the civil war in the country seems to be winding down and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule has been preserved.
    Whether or not this demand was met with a receptive audience, Netanyahu returned to Jerusalem with the impression that Putin takes Israel’s concerns seriously. An attack carried out by Israeli warplanes flying over Syria (and not using standoff missiles from afar as happened in other strikes recently) may be an indication that there is an understanding with Russia over Israeli operations within the area that Russia protects with its own air-defense systems.
    Friday’s strikes resemble closely the pattern of the attack in December 2015 on a Damascus suburb in which nine operatives working for Iran were killed, including Samir Kuntar, the murderer of an Israeli family who had been released by Israel in a prisoner exchange in 2008 and was believed to be planning new cross-border raids. That strike took place just three days after Netanyahu and Putin had spoken by telephone and was the first to be carried out after Russia had placed an air-defense shield over large areas of Syria, including its capital.

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    It was unlikely then, back in December 2015 and on Friday, that Israel would have attacked in Syria, within Russia’s zone of operations, if it thought the Kremlin would react with anger. The fact that it was the Syrian army which launched a missile against Israel’s warplanes, while there are much more advanced Russian air-defense systems deployed nearby, ostensibly to protect the regime, could also indicate that Assad and his Russian protectors are not fully coordinated. Assad is aware that Putin is discussing his country’s future with other world leaders, including Netanyahu. His belated attempt to shoot down Israeli planes could be a sign of frustration at his impotence to control both his destiny and his airspace.

  • With Lebanon no longer hiding Hezbollah’s role, next war must hit civilians where it hurts, Israeli minister says
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.776419

    présenté comme d’habitude, et pour la énième fois, par le propagandiste Amos Harel,

    Lebanese President Michel Aoun paid an official visit to Cairo a month ago, ahead of which he gave a number of interviews to the Egyptian media. Aoun was only elected president after a long power struggle in which Iran and Hezbollah finally held sway, and he spoke about the fact that the Shi’ite organization continues to be the only Lebanese militia that refuses outright to disarm.

    Hezbollah is a significant part of the Lebanese people, Aoun explained. “As long as Israel occupies land and covets the natural resources of Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese military lacks the power to stand up to Israel, [Hezbollah’s] arms are essential, in that they complement the actions of the army and do not contradict them,” he said, adding, “They are a major part of Lebanon’s defense.”

    Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion from the Institute for National Security Studies wrote recently that Aoun’s comments were a “lifting of the official veil and tearing off of the mask of the well-known Lebanese reality – which widely accepted Western diplomacy tends to blur. The Lebanese president abolishes the forced distinction between the ostensibly sovereign state and Hezbollah. Thus, the Lebanese president takes official responsibility for any actions by Hezbollah, including against Israel.”

    Aoun’s declaration also tallies with the facts on the ground. At a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this past week, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the Lebanese army is now “a subsidiary unit of Hezbollah.”

    What does that mean with regard to an Israeli response against Hezbollah in case another war breaks out on the northern front? This column recently discussed the basic difficulty that faces the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon: limited ability to deal with the threat of high-trajectory rockets directed against both the Israeli civilian population and the strategic infrastructure on the rear front. On the southern front, even though the air force lacks a proper offensive response to rockets, the missile intercept systems – chiefly the Iron Dome batteries – are enough to thwart most of the launches.

    In the north, with Hezbollah able to launch more than 1,000 rockets into Israel on a single day of fighting, the offensive solution seems partial and the defensive solution limited.

    The state comptroller’s report on the 2014 war in Gaza disappeared from the headlines within a few days, but the difficulties facing Israel in future conflicts in Gaza – and even more so in Lebanon – remain.

    At this point, it’s interesting to listen to security cabinet member Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), whose opinions the state comptroller accepted with regard to disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Hamas attack tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

    While in the political realm Bennett seems determined to create unilateral facts on the ground (i.e., settlements in the territories) even at the risk of a potential face-off with the Europeans and embarrassing the Trump administration, it seems his positions on military issues are more complex. More than once he has shown healthy skepticism over positions taken by top defense officials, and he refuses to accept their insights as indisputable conclusions.

    Hunting rocket launchers during a war is almost impossible, Bennett told Haaretz this week, adding that he says this “as someone who specialized in hunting rocket launchers.”

    During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when he served as a reserve officer, Bennett commanded an elite unit sent deep into southern Lebanon to find Hezbollah’s rocket-launching squads.

    “When we worked in a particular area, we did reduce the teams of rocket launchers there – but they simply moved a little farther north,” Bennett related. Since then, he said, 11 years have passed and Hezbollah has learned to deploy in a more sophisticated manner. “They moved their launchers from the nature reserves, outposts in open areas, to dense urban areas [ reconnaissance éhontée d’un mensonge passé et nouveau mensonge tout aussi éhonté ]. You can’t fight rockets with tweezers. If you can’t reach the house where the launcher is, you’re not effective, and the number of houses you have to get through is enormous,” he explained.

    “After I was released from reserve duty, I read all of the books you wrote about the war,” Bennett told me. “I understood in retrospect that the fundamental event of the war took place on its first day, in a phone call between [former Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert and Condoleezza Rice.” President George W. Bush’s secretary of state had asked the prime minister not to hit Lebanon’s infrastructure, and was given a positive response. As a result, “there was no way that Israel could win the war,” Bennett said.

    “Lebanon presented itself as a country that wants quiet, that has no influence over Hezbollah,” he continued. “Today, Hezbollah is embedded in sovereign Lebanon. It is part of the government and, according to the president, also part of its security forces. The organization has lost its ability to disguise itself as a rogue group.”

    Bennett believes this should be Israel’s official stance. “The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese Army bases – they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out. That’s what we should already be saying to them and the world now. If Hezbollah fires missiles at the Israeli home front, this will mean sending Lebanon back to the Middle Ages,” he said. “Life in Lebanon today is not bad – certainly compared to what’s going on in Syria. Lebanon’s civilians, including the Shi’ite population, will understand that this is what lies in store for them if Hezbollah is entangling them for its own reasons, or even at the behest of Iran.”

    At the same time, he notes that this is not necessarily the plan for a future war, but instead an attempt to avoid one: “If we declare and market this message aggressively enough now, we might be able to prevent the next war. After all, we have no intention of attacking Lebanon.”

    According to Bennett, if war breaks out anyway, a massive attack on the civilian infrastructure – along with additional air and ground action by the IDF – will speed up international intervention and shorten the campaign. “That will lead them to stop it quickly – and we have an interest in the war being as short as possible,” he said. “I haven’t said these things publicly up until now. But it’s important that we convey the message and prepare to deal with the legal and diplomatic aspects. That is the best way to avoid a war.”

    Bennett’s approach is not entirely new. In 2008, the head of the IDF Northern Command (and today IDF chief of staff), Gadi Eisenkot, presented the “Dahiya doctrine.” He spoke of massive damage to buildings in areas identified with Hezbollah – as was done on a smaller scale in Beirut’s Shi’ite Dahiya quarter during the 2006 war – as a means of deterring the organization and shortening the war.

    That same year, Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland proposed striking at Lebanon’s state infrastructure. To this day, though, the approach has not been adopted as Israeli policy, open or covert. Bennett’s declaration reflects an attempt by a key member of the security cabinet (albeit Netanyahu’s declared political rival) to turn it into such policy.

    The fact that Israel only tied with Hamas in Gaza in 2014 only convinced Bennett that he is right. There, too, Hamas finally agreed to a cease-fire after 50 days of fighting only after the Israel Air Force systematically destroyed the high-rise apartment buildings where senior Hamas officials lived.

    #Liban #Israel #Israel #crimes #criminels #victimes_civiles #impunité #Eiland